Not sure if this is linked yet...LoV Trailer

[Theodric]

That's a little odd. I don't really like the voice used for the trailer - it doesn't really 'fit' the game. As for Lords of Verminion much like the Chocobo Races I saw an immense amount of interest during the first week or so and then after that there's rarely any players investing in them. I play on Balmung, one of the servers with the highest population. I hope that, in time, the situation is resolved so I suppose that could be why they've made this trailer? I would have preferred the time and money spent on making the in-game rewards more appealing though.

[WellFooled]

That's a little odd. I don't really like the voice used for the trailer - it doesn't really 'fit' the game. As for Lords of Verminion much like the Chocobo Races I saw an immense amount of interest during the first week or so and then after that there's rarely any players investing in them.

I think the problem is there aren't enough rewards and goals associated with LoV (or Chocobo Races). It takes a lot of time to get a high pedigree chocobo for example and your reward is a title? A hat? And that's it. I think if these mini-games had more rewards to work toward we would see more of a community with them.

[Nalien]

I think the problem is there aren't enough rewards and goals associated with LoV (or Chocobo Races). It takes a lot of time to get a high pedigree chocobo for example and your reward is a title? A hat? And that's it. I think if these mini-games had more rewards to work toward we would see more of a community with them.

Part of the problem is MGP... They kind of messed it up IMO, you have a few small items to get with it, and that's great, but then you have massive grinds for things like Fenrir... You get the small items very quickly, then you're just left with one or two massive grinds that just kill the fun. Kind of a shame, too, because if you put everything that is in the Cash Shop in as a MGP item, you could fix that fairly easily... MGP should be the primary reward for anything in Gold Saucer, but there is just such a limited pool of prizes to pick from in the end...

Something like Chocobo Racing especially should be far more rewarding than it is, given how much of a grind it is. They either need to kill the grind or boost the rewards, because nobody is going to bother otherwise. Other than that, they just need to sort out tournaments. Tournaments are a great way to keep the content alive, it worked well for Triple Triad though that is much simpler than Verminion, but the rampant match fixing just erodes peoples interest. I do wonder why we never saw Chocobo Race Tournaments, but given Triple Triad is still handled horribly, I'm glad we never have...

[Yukiko]

(..) Tournaments are a great way to keep the content alive, it worked well for Triple Triad though that is much simpler than Verminion, (..)

Wait, what? You seriously on this part? Do you really mean the cheatfest where it only counts how many alts you own on same server?!
Players are playing against NPC, they dont need to wait for matchmaking, which is a lot better than what we have in LoV turnaments!

[Nalien]

Wait, what? You seriously on this part? Do you really mean the cheatfest where it only counts how many alts you own on same server?!

It worked well in the fact that I always see people playing Triple Triad when the Tournament is up, and no, they're not all cheating, I see plenty of people challenging strangers and NPCs. Perhaps that's just Cerberus though.

Like I said, they need to sort out the rampant cheating, but it's still fairly popular content regardless. Quite a nice amount of extra MGP/week from just beating an NPC, after all. It worked at getting people to play Triple Triad each week.

While, like I said, Verminion is more complex (and thus potentially off putting), I was more thinking about Tournaments for Chocobo Racing, though there are some things they could do to improve Verminion Tournaments. I actually think a Verminion Challenge Tournament would be quite interesting, rather than the PvP aspect of it.

[Tsuga]

...because if you put everything that is in the Cash Shop in as a MGP item, you could fix that fairly easily...

This would be really cool.

I think mgp incentives and more exclusive rewards for the bigger games are necessary. Chocobo Racing and Verminion are huge time investments, and there just isn't really anything there to hook people if they don't absolutely love playing the minigame.

I enjoy chocobo racing and verminon, but I don't enjoy grinding them.

Special rules like TT has might keep the games fresh, too. Daily challenges that give unique rewards (10 pots of a rare dye for completing them?), restrictions for player matches, bonuses for completing certain tasks (+100 mgp if you break all 3 of your opponents gates, something like that?), anything to mix it up!

On golden saucer as a whole, can we please get some new GATEs? It's been a year, the current ones are getting a little stale.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

That's a little odd. I don't really like the voice used for the trailer - it doesn't really 'fit' the game. As for Lords of Verminion much like the Chocobo Races I saw an immense amount of interest during the first week or so and then after that there's rarely any players investing in them. I play on Balmung, one of the servers with the highest population. I hope that, in time, the situation is resolved so I suppose that could be why they've made this trailer? I would have preferred the time and money spent on making the in-game rewards more appealing though.

One of the biggest issues is you can't queue outside the Gold Saucer. No one wants to hang around there waiting when they can do something else. The devs need to give up on trying to makethe Gold Saucer another central hud. It's never going to happen.

[Chiramu]

One of the biggest issues is you can't queue outside the Gold Saucer. No one wants to hang around there waiting when they can do something else. The devs need to give up on trying to makethe Gold Saucer another central hud. It's never going to happen.

I would like to do PVP minion battles but when you see no one in the LoVM arena you know you'll have a really long wait ><. Please do something about the matchmaking SE !

[TheGrimace]

I do think that a Pokemon system would have been far more popular with people. The allure to the RTS system of Verminion is that it allows one player to use many different types of minions at once, but that novelty is lost when you consider how soon the difficulty ramps up.

One of the biggest issues is you can't queue outside the Gold Saucer. No one wants to hang around there waiting when they can do something else. The devs need to give up on trying to makethe Gold Saucer another central hud. It's never going to happen.

I agree, but partially. The Gold Saucer does have lots of stuff inside to gather players. Weekly Triple Triad tournaments, weekly and daily cactpots, FATEs, the myriad of video games, and the challenge logs devoted to all of them.

And then we have Lord of Veminion and Chocobo Racing, which are instanced activities, and really have no discernible reason to need the Gold Saucer as a base hub. I think the Gold Saucer stands well on its own, and that limiting these two activities to the zone only acts as a hindrance to everyone involved.