Repetitive grind parties should NOT be the main source of leveling

[Ventus]

Well, I have a some ideas, but none of them seem to be within the scope of FFXIV's potential.

Here's a defense scenario.

Invasions within the main cities. Mobs don't "spawn" but literally storm the entrances of the cities. They destroy buildings, kill npcs, set things on fire, the whole 9 yards.

We protect the city, obviously. There would be a limit as to how far outside the city gates we can stand and be able to participate in events like this. We try our best to halt their advance into the city, usually unsuccessful, but still work to force the invaders to retreat with their tails between their legs.

Throughout the event, anyone and everyone can be a target. You would form parties to help ensure your survival. Mobs can drop rare loot, and that rare loot can drop in multiple persons' parties at once (though very rarely, of course.) All mobs reward experience as we defeat them in relation to the amount of actions, damage, enmity you generate per mob (good use of the new enmity algorithms here.) The better we fare at the end of the invasion, the more bonus exp we get for completing it.

After all is said and done, we change to our crafting classes and begin to rebuild the broken walls and burned homes, and heal the injured NPCs. We can also change to our gathering classes and, just outside the city, gather materials to help rebuild our city that is now in shambles. Again, throughout this, we will also have a chance of receiving rare items, the chance of which depends on how well we did with defending the city.

So there you go. One way to progress, that doesn't feel like a grind, and includes EVERY CLASS IN THE GAME.

But ask yourself this. Do any of you really think that this could be possible in FFXIV? I don't know.. but I have my doubts.

That's an awesome idea =D! I got really excited just reading it!

I understand your worries about how difficult it would be to implement, but I really think that's a great blueprint for a really fun idea. You know, you really reminded me of Warhammer Online how they have those scenarios that queue up every so often that anyone near could join up.

Perhaps make it something you can enter an instance for and queue up on O.o? All in all though great idea!

[Dragonlord]

Well, I have a some ideas, but none of them seem to be within the scope of FFXIV's potential.

Here's a defense scenario.

Invasions within the main cities. Mobs don't "spawn" but literally storm the entrances of the cities. They destroy buildings, kill npcs, set things on fire, the whole 9 yards.

We protect the city, obviously. There would be a limit as to how far outside the city gates we can stand and be able to participate in events like this. We try our best to halt their advance into the city, usually unsuccessful, but still work to force the invaders to retreat with their tails between their legs.

Throughout the event, anyone and everyone can be a target. You would form parties to help ensure your survival. Mobs can drop rare loot, and that rare loot can drop in multiple persons' parties at once (though very rarely, of course.) All mobs reward experience as we defeat them in relation to the amount of actions, damage, enmity you generate per mob (good use of the new enmity algorithms here.) The better we fare at the end of the invasion, the more bonus exp we get for completing it.

After all is said and done, we change to our crafting classes and begin to rebuild the broken walls and burned homes, and heal the injured NPCs. We can also change to our gathering classes and, just outside the city, gather materials to help rebuild our city that is now in shambles. Again, throughout this, we will also have a chance of receiving rare items, the chance of which depends on how well we did with defending the city.

So there you go. One way to progress, that doesn't feel like a grind, and includes EVERY CLASS IN THE GAME.

But ask yourself this. Do any of you really think that this could be possible in FFXIV? I don't know.. but I have my doubts.

I am totally impressed with this idea Meowy! This should be forwarded to the devolpement team for consideration. Brilliant idea.

[RemnantWolf]

Well, I have a some ideas, but none of them seem to be within the scope of FFXIV's potential.

Here's a defense scenario.

Invasions within the main cities. Mobs don't "spawn" but literally storm the entrances of the cities. They destroy buildings, kill npcs, set things on fire, the whole 9 yards.

We protect the city, obviously. There would be a limit as to how far outside the city gates we can stand and be able to participate in events like this. We try our best to halt their advance into the city, usually unsuccessful, but still work to force the invaders to retreat with their tails between their legs.

Throughout the event, anyone and everyone can be a target. You would form parties to help ensure your survival. Mobs can drop rare loot, and that rare loot can drop in multiple persons' parties at once (though very rarely, of course.) All mobs reward experience as we defeat them in relation to the amount of actions, damage, enmity you generate per mob (good use of the new enmity algorithms here.) The better we fare at the end of the invasion, the more bonus exp we get for completing it.

After all is said and done, we change to our crafting classes and begin to rebuild the broken walls and burned homes, and heal the injured NPCs. We can also change to our gathering classes and, just outside the city, gather materials to help rebuild our city that is now in shambles. Again, throughout this, we will also have a chance of receiving rare items, the chance of which depends on how well we did with defending the city.

So there you go. One way to progress, that doesn't feel like a grind, and includes EVERY CLASS IN THE GAME.

But ask yourself this. Do any of you really think that this could be possible in FFXIV? I don't know.. but I have my doubts.

I have to agree that this would be a great addition to FFXIV, but I also know it would be quite difficult to implement. BUT not impossible. Especially with the "World Reconstruction" they are working on.

Basically to make the entire city destructible would probably be impossible. but it would be quite possible to make a lot of new buildings (and turn some old ones) into what I am going to call "key structures".

Key structures are buildings set to be blown up, smashed, torn apart, or otherwise dismantled by our enemies. This is done by making multiple models of the buildings in different states of disrepair and animations (or just let parts come off and let the physics engine take over) to be played once a building goes from one state to another. Each key structure is then given an HP so that they can be destroyed. They then set the building to show different models at a certain amount of HP.

This could also promote other forms of grinding. Mob killing parties have a new purpose as killing mobs can reduce the intensity of their raids of cities. Getting together with other crafters can help strengthen city defenses, making NCP guards stronger and more affective in battle. And gathers can bring in money before the battle to help with repairs after the raid is over.

[MeowyWowie]

I have to agree that this would be a great addition to FFXIV, but I also know it would be quite difficult to implement. BUT not impossible. Especially with the "World Reconstruction" they are working on.

Basically to make the entire city destructible would probably be impossible. but it would be quite possible to make a lot of new buildings (and turn some old ones) into what I am going to call "key structures".

Key structures are buildings set to be blown up, smashed, torn apart, or otherwise dismantled by our enemies. This is done by making multiple models of the buildings in different states of disrepair and animations (or just let parts come off and let the physics engine take over) to be played once a building goes from one state to another. Each key structure is then given an HP so that they can be destroyed. They then set the building to show different models at a certain amount of HP.

This could also promote other forms of grinding. Mob killing parties have a new purpose as killing mobs can reduce the intensity of their raids of cities. Getting together with other crafters can help strengthen city defenses, making NCP guards stronger and more affective in battle. And gathers can bring in money before the battle to help with repairs after the raid is over.

I agree that it's definitely possible to make content like this in FFXIV. My doubt stems from SE's unlikely decision to do so.

I think most of us, even Yoshi-P and the Dev team, would agree with your explanation of how it would work behind the scenes. The problem is that it would take hundreds of development hours to complete something like this, something SE might not view as worthwhile, at least for the time being. It's definitely possible though, perhaps probable in the game's future. But for now, I wouldn't hold my breath.

I have other ideas as well, but they're pointless to post since most of them are on about the same level as far as development time goes. Ideas too soon for their time, maybe I'll share in a year or two when SE has time to take suggestions like these seriously.

No offense to SE or the Dev team of course. I'm positive they're capable of designing content like this. But right now, fixing the game is at the top of their list, and rightly so.

[RemnantWolf]

Well that is true. I didn't think that me posting the explanation would make it happen. I just wanted to have a bit of hope, a little fun brainstorming how it would work, and I knew that I wouldn't lose anything for doing so. That plus there may be a chance (though as likely to happen as finding one specific grain of sand in the desert -scale of exaggeration may vary-) that they may decide to do it and seeing how I said to to it may save them a meeting or two (sometimes deciding on the mechanics of something like this is half the battle).

[Ventus]

I had an idea recently:

What if we had it so that certain beast tribes would attack gates and nodes around the map every so often and we had to defend against them like a sort of mini war. It would give a more random and spontaneous feel to the game.

Each camp would have a status icon like:
-Untouched (perfect condition)
-Unsettled (slightly upset by beast tribe forces)
-Unstable (supplies almost exhausted and near destruction)
-demolished (beast tribe has pillaged the camp)

And depending on the status the camp could give different xp bonuses on leves so if you had untouched condition you could have like a 15% xp bonus or if you ward of beast tribes you get a good sp prize alongside sp you get from killing monsters. Also you could perhaps gain marks for your grand company (farmable marks) if you successfully ward off one of the occasional beast tribe waves that comes along.

Also discounts on stores there or other camp facilities could be available the better the condition. If the camp is in bad condition it will heal over time once tribes leave them alone.

Just feels like a cool randomized, interactive environment thing to add for gaining sp and other neat stuff =).

[Ventus]

There is nothing wrong with grinding, it is an RPG that is what you do in an RPG.

I agree, it is necessary to a certain extent.

There are other things to do as well, and they can continue adding those in for people who want to change it up but grinding mobs in a group should in my opinion remain the primary form of efficient leveling.

Okay well I see what you're saying and you know where I stand on the matter. Now I just wanna know why grinding mobs in a group feels most fitting as the primary means of leveling. There are plenty of other RPGs, offline and online, I feel I could do this exact same task so it's hard for me to see where you're coming from.

[Hayze]

Personally I am in favor of grind parties being the main source of leveling in this game. As Meowy rightly said it requires alot more effort to put together and the subsequent reward should always reflect that. Greater time effort spent = greater reward. I enjoyed the leveling process in FFXI and I did not find it neither boring or repetitive. I found party play dynamic and fun in FFXI. Depending on the party setups the leveling experience could change alot from group to group. However, what makes it less than enjoyable in FFXIV presently is the lack of variety provided by the class system. No real defined classes and roles. Though 1.18 took great strides towards changing that.

I do believe that there should be more viable alternative methods to leveling, both for solo and party play. While FFXI offered other methods to gain small amounts of additonal EXP thats all they were, small amounts. Several hours in Campaign or a level 8 Besieged would not yeild more than 2k exp so I always felt that was not a great representation of the effort put in. So I would like to see in this game offer better rewards for events outside of "old school" grinds.

[Hubert]

Personally I am in favor of grind parties being the main source of leveling in this game. As Meowy rightly said it requires alot more effort to put together and the subsequent reward should always reflect that. Greater time effort spent = greater reward. I enjoyed the leveling process in FFXI and I did not find it neither boring or repetitive. I found party play dynamic and fun in FFXI. Depending on the party setups the leveling experience could change alot from group to group. However, what makes it less than enjoyable in FFXIV presently is the lack of variety provided by the class system. No real defined classes and roles. Though 1.18 took great strides towards changing that.

I do believe that there should be more viable alternative methods to leveling, both for solo and party play. While FFXI offered other methods to gain small amounts of additonal EXP thats all they were, small amounts. Several hours in Campaign or a level 8 Besieged would not yeild more than 2k exp so I always felt that was not a great representation of the effort put in. So I would like to see in this game offer better rewards for events outside of "old school" grinds.

This is a good summary of what I think as well. Personally, I thought the grind parties in FFXI were a lot of fun. Yes, I was an FFXI player many years ago but I was also a WoW player, a Rift player, an Aion player, Warhammer, Ragnarok, Age of Conan, web-based, free to play, etc. In short I've pretty much seen it all, and I still think that grind parties should be one of the main methods to gain ranks.

So far, FFXIV has been very good about not making grind parties the only way to level. You have leves, behest, quests, and dungeons with possibly hamlet-defense/beseiged type events in the future and maybe even PvP. As long as SE keeps a good balance there should not be any problems with grind parties being a good, if not the best, method for leveling.

[SHJcules]

good thread, some nice ideas floating around in here. I definitely agree with a lot of the themes of having content where it is highly randomized and enemies hunt you kind of deals

World Grinding should always be an option, but it shouldn't be so focused on that people feel they have to do it to progress. I kind of feel world grinding as it is now should be for short term solo content. If I have a half hour to burn and am hungry for a fight, I can go rage on some sheep for a bit, leave with some SPs and maybe a few items I was looking for, then get on with my day.

If I get some strong balanced party together, I do not want to fight that same sheep just ten ranks higher, I would prefer we spend our time and use our talents for something more interesting. Clearing Dungeons could be repeatable quests that reset once in a while and give bonus sp as a reward. Or systems like Assault/Nyzule, but with SP rewards tacked on to the end of it to reward your effort. Just something so that you are working towards a clear goal, and SP it tacked onto it, not working towards a clear goal of getting SP. "1.5k tnl guys! oh the PLD has to go to work ohh.."

But my real suggestion for group party sp dynamics;

Random Battles! Roaming the terrain near enemy encampment is risky business. Entering these areas with a large group might seem only mildly threatening, but you will soon find that you are the ones being truly hunted. Depending on monster influence in the area, as you are grinding on the local scrag your group will randomly be thrown into instances where any number of the corresponding beast-men will try to take you down. Their numbers and strength, though somewhat randomized, will be dependent on how large of a threat they see you as. A full party of strong adventurers could find themselves pitted against some very unique and powerful fiends! Of course this wont be offered much to solo adventurers, since the enemies will hardly see them as a real threat (but small 2-3 enemy random battles could be fun for soloers). You would be granted some nice SP per each encounter you survive. As for monster influence, it could be something set in stone in the geography of the land, or even something ever changing and updating, like Xi's conquest system. If tons of people are falling in the area, the enemies and random battles will get much stronger, but the rewards would be worth it! to motivate people to get out there and try to reclaim some bit of territory (this idea could also tie into companies but I am getting too deep into it and rambling )

of course, screen crashing would be optional, as well as victory dance