Opinions and Suggestions

[Airget]

I haven't noticed any topics on the forum about companies as a whole but I figure a topic here would be a good place for input on it since this is where it should go lol.

As a whole I find companies to be interesting, I like that it's tied into dungeons, it reminds me of those games where you are part of a group and you need to be with them in order to take part in an investigation of a cavern/dungeon.

On terms of companies I am wondering if there are more ways to obtain their currency of if we have to wait for a VU to get repeatable quest.

Story wise, while I understand the time constraints and such I was slightly discouraged with how copy and paste it felt. By that I mean each Company was basically "Hi talk to person at this town, find dude here, kill his familar, talk to person in town again, come back to me" Then quest two "Defeat empire troops, find something on them, bring back to company, company sends you off to a far away place, get it investigated, head back to company" Then the dungeon for "Imperial Devices" I imagine are all the same quest but I guess that could be understandable.

While the context of what each NPC said was interesting I would've been more intrigued had there be more differences in the destination and battles. I think the Devs were concerned about making one company quest easier then the other in the sense that they didn't want to have LL company go to a place within the same region so with all companies they made sure the second quest where you get the item investigated happened in a different region.

I guess what bothers me is how each company has the same main villian at the start. It would've been cool had each villian been different but it was the same guy. While I guess you are trying to show that the companies have the same foe to worry about perhaps three underlings would've been better to introduce that have been ordered to disrupt x company would've worked better then introducing the main baddie early on. Like the person you did introduce could've waited til later on in that sense it did seem a tad rushed.

In terms of when the familiar was summoned you could've changed it to where the underling says something like "While I may not be as strong as "him" he gave me this little pet to deal with anyone who refused to follow our ideals" Then you are attacked by the familar and the underling escapes.

But as a whole I do find companies as a good start for them another thing I'm hoping for since I'm sure everyone thought this but as we rank up higher will we be able to have our own company and guild hall? When companies were first mentioned before Tanaka and his dev group stepped down, Companies sounded like a means of allowing for guild abilities and a place where guild members could hang out.

In context I can understand why you wouldn't just implement a guild like concept until the company deems you are worthy of leading a group but I would like so reassurance that within an update or two we will be ranked high enough to actually start our own company within the company group.

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As for dungeons as I noted I did like how you tied companies into the concept it does bring more like into the dungeons though one thing I feel lacking, is while I like the concept of puzzles within the dungeons and different paths to take, there's a lack of actual quest within the dungeon. Correct me if I'm wrong but techincally as it stands now each dungeon only has one quest for them. For future content and as a suggestion to increase the longevity of dungeons, you could easily expand on the concept of dungeons by adding in secret passages that unlock new quest such as.

-You find a slab that open up a hidden passage however do to the laws of the company you are not permitted to investigate said area until you talk with the company about it.
-Basically you go back to the company and you see they have a ! on their head now. Upon talking to them a new quest pops up such as "Deeper into Toto"
-The NPC mentions how upon the report you gave permitting to the hidden area you have learned that experiments or whatver you would like to say are going on here and that they've determined the danger to be higher then the 1st floor of this dungeon.
-They have setup a device by the hidden passage so you can start right at that point but they have blocked off access to the top floor to prevent you from investigating the wrong area.

I believe something as simple as this would add a lot of depth and mystery to dungeons, I'm hoping that you do have plans to expand the dungeons we already have rather then just create new ones. I do have hope that you will though since you have already proven to add puzzle like concepts in the dungeon. I definitely can't wait to see more on dungeons though I was impressed with how it turned out and I really enjoyed seeing everyone in the same cutscene.

Overall keep up the good work the game really is shaping into something nice. I just hope that in the end when all is tweaked people will be willing to give the game another chance. As it stands now I dare say that a few tweaks permitting the game itself is a lot better off then when it was first released. Had the game been released in the stat it's in now I'm certain it would receive better praise then the shell of a game it was at release.

[Betelgeuzah]

You're supposed to pledge allegiance to one company, not all of them.

While you can enlist yourself in all three, you won't get past recruit rank in more than one.

And in that case it hardly matters whether they're different or not. In fact, it would be a bad thing to not be able to experience the different stories.