Idea... Battle Challenges

[Rufalus]

Can't think of a good name for these right now but here's the idea..

Similar to Guildhests in that these take place in existing field zones with some area boundaries so the cost of development is low, but these will be advanced challenges for endgame play with appropriate rewards.

Types of challenges may include seeing how long you can defend a settlement or cargo from increasingly difficult waves of enemies, or an arena type battle seeing how many enemies you can defeat in a fixed amount of time. Your score is displayed at the end, encouraging repeat plays, and rewards could be scalable based on performance, like bronze, silver and gold tiers.

These would take less time than doing a dungeon but reward some of the weekly capped allagan tomestones as an alternative to Lv60 dungeons and PvP since people want more variety to reaching their weekly caps.

[Jynx]

I kind of like the idea this presents.

Let's spin it a bit further though.

Give each class a unique challenge objective.

Tanks: focus on agro control and timing of defensive skills to mitigate damage while npc assistants dole most the damage.

Healers: focus on healing said npcs while maintaining damage and keeping your npcs alive.

Dps: Focus on dealing damage to avoid npc tanks from falling in battle and avoiding damage themselves.

Make these easy to access and offer unique rewards per role or job such as titles. I'm sure if it was engaging and not face roll-able it could go a long way to being a good stepping stone for players to challenge and better themselves.

[Kaisha]

They already design their dungeon assets to be modular and LEGO'able together to create new layouts. I can't see why they could just make a ton of offshoot battle content with a variety of objectives, similar to Assault from FFXI which did just that.

[Kassiekane]

I would definitely like survival-type content in this game.

[Nalien]

I was thinking something similar to existing dungeons... Not survival/wave based, but an optional challenge to undertake in a dungeon for additional rewards... Optional bosses (which, come to think of it, could work with a survival/wave mechanic, perhaps if you fail the boss is then locked off, since it's optional...) would be great for something like that, though they'd require adjustments to layout/etc., but take something like Pharos Sirus, you could have an optional challenge along the lines of "Don't get Charmed", which would reward focusing on mechanics (something the average player seems deathly afraid of doing...). On an individual level, successfully completing that challenge could result in greater Tomestone yield, but if the entire party successfully avoids Charm? Have a bonus Treasure Chest. Right off the bat I can see an issue with something like that though, since Charm in Pharos Sirus was entirely dependent on the Healer being on the ball, and a DPS failing that challenge would instantly blame the Healer, and I'm not fond of that kind of drama... Perhaps limit it to premades, like Undersized Parties and Loot Rules... Still going to get drama, but at least it wouldn't be adding to the cesspool that is the Duty Finder... I'd certainly like them to do something with dungeons though... They've effectively recycled the same thing since 2.0 and I'd say dungeons are right down there with Hunts in terms of this games weakest (and I don't mean that in terms of difficulty, I simply mean they're crap) content. Having challenges within dungeons could spice things up and emphasize a focus on mechanics, win-win.

I can't see why they could just make a ton of offshoot battle content with a variety of objectives, similar to Assault from FFXI which did just that.

You know, I really hope this is what they have planned for that Grand Company content they've mentioned a few times... Assault style instances would be a great addition, and it would fit fairly nicely with that whole "taking a Grand Company squad through a dungeon" concept they mentioned... Would be the perfect content to introduce alongside new Ranks, since they mentioned wanting new Ranks to be more than just Seal grinding... Effectively the exact same as Assault come to think of it, that was there to raise your Mercenary Rank in ToAU lol...