We need a battle square?

[Gallus]

Make a solo, 2 party and 4 party mode. Lots of fights with lots of random mechanics and fast enrage timers the longer you progress.

Could this be viable somehow?

[Cutie_McSnuggles]

Yes, please!

[Shake0615]

And the status roulette! Just don't break my materia ;_;

[Duuude007]

Solo 2 and 3 please. choco can be in a spot. No light parties plox, appeal to the smaller groups.

[Kharhaz]

I don't think SE would forget about Battle Square, it seems like it has always been everyone's favorite attraction from FF7.

[Welsper59]

Honestly, if we want to see this in the near future (within the year), it'd probably end up having to be Solo and/or Light/Full party. As much as I'd love for duo/trio groups, the adjustment of difficulty would be rather hard since current battle content is not designed around this. I don't think SE has a firm grasp of balance between small groups like that. The most prominent problem would be party composition. Whether or not 2 dps would be able to survive incoming damage, whether or not healers/tanks would be able to do enough damage within a time limit, one job might be considered mandatory, etc. There's an almost immeasurable number of problems that can come up, and if you're not familiar with most of them, there's going to be a lot of issues with development and planning.

Personally, I'd rather they just keep to what most of us are aware of and go with the solo approach for starters. Heck, it can basically be FFXIV's equivalent of a "Training Grounds" instance. Get people familiar with their jobs strengths and weaknesses due to handicaps. That is, if they want to keep with Gold Saucer tradition. They could always change it up and make the battle arena into a sort of "open" raid, in that role is irrelevant. Maybe not PvP related though, since we have PvP that is almost fitting to be Gold Saucer content already. But rather instanced combat that people queue for (up to a high cap per instance) to take down the enemy. NPCs will fill slots during off times or when needed, like they do for Chocobo Racing, FATEs, and job quests, to keep queue times low. Perhaps a gauntlet style game with 1-3 sides trying to reach a boss, and result points are distributed based on various criteria (perhaps puzzle solving, mechanic avoidance by the player, etc). I'm sure there are lots of problems with that, but it's just a random thought that popped up when I thought about it.

[Dillia]

The Manderville Golden Saucer, in association with the Dragons Neck coliseum, presents:

The Golden Crystal Challenge!

Raise your staff and sharpen your sword adventurers of Eorzia, fame and glory await the victors.

Begin to prove your mastery of war or magic by slaying some of the most dangerous beasts in the realm, then further your claim on the prize by besting champions of the four Grand Companies. If you can manage to best your brothers and sisters in arms, then our mages have prepared a special guest to guard the trophy. Best this prince among voidkin and become king of the arena.

Event for 1, 4, or 8 players.
First event is 5 waves of animal type monsters with the fifth wave being on difficulty akin to a B-rank hunt mob for solo players, or an A rank hunt for a full party. Reward for clearing the first event is a handful of MGP.

Second event is another 5 waves. The first four waves involve a squad of soldiers from each grand company (IE. Wave 1 4 Maelstrom fighters, wave 2, 5 Twin Adder fighters, wave 3, 6 Flames fighters, wave 6, 7 Crystal Braves fighters). The final wave will be a named Character (That you may find in the GC HQ) from one of the Companies at random with a squad from their respective company. Reward for clearing the second event is a handful of MGP, a healthy chunk of company seals and a handful of Allied Seals.

The final event is an endurance match. The mages prepare to summon a voidkin to do battle with the hero/heroes and ends up summoning Doomtrain who will fly above the arena and drop monsters onto the arena floor. The party must stay alive while the mages work to banish Doomtrain back to the void. Survive the battle and be crowned King of the Arena. Rewards include an achievement (Which rewards yet another crown), and a Mini-Golden Crystal Trophy. The Mini-Golden Crystal Trophy is a housing item that can be placed by itself or several MGCTs can be crafted together to make a Much Larger Golden Crystal Trophy. The MGCTs can also be turned in at the Gold Saucer for a moderate sum of MGP.

[Cutie_McSnuggles]

snip

Sign me up!! /excited

[Duuude007]

I don't know about MGP being the reward. I really like how they made rewards exclusive to Battle square participation in FFVII, by rewarding BP (battle points)

Even more, the points should zero out if you leave the zone (logout/DF is fine to ignore this mechanic)

And of course special events like GATE could occur once in awhile...

[Dillia]

Nah, having an arena style event tied to the Golden Saucer would make more sense in this case than having yet another currency. Lets play "what if" for a moment.

What if the arena rewarded items that were BiS or at least on par with current content, then people would feel the arena would be mandatory and SE has taken a stance that everything outside of the Main Scenario quests are not mandatory.

We have enough ways to get high level gear so adding another set of gear would either be specific to the arena (like the PVP gear for Wolfs Den) or purely for glamour. Since we already have glamour weapons for sale with MGP, what would the point of adding yet another currency be? We already have Gil (buy crafted gear from other players), Tomestones (weathered/ironworks), Raid drops (Coil and CT), Wolf Marks (for PVP), and now we have MGP for the monster weapons. Do we really need another currency for yet another set of glamours? I am going to vote no.

There are a fair number of people begging for other ways to earn MGP, or changes to how MGP is earned currently. This would be a way to address several requests at once. Increase the way MGP can be earned, add arena style battle content, add more weapon/gear options for glamours (perhaps even outfits from previous/future FF games).