(Repost) New innovative Guildleve design [Dev1001] [Dev1011]

[Rydin]

(This is a repost from the quests section since I am slow and just realized there is a guildleve section)

Camp Arcs
Also known as [Dev1001] [ Dev1002] [Dev1004] [Dev1010] [Dev1011]

2 big issues in this game are the lack of content and the repetitive nature of guildleves...
So here is my proposed solution...
Append existing guildleves with Camp Story Arcs

As it stands now, Each R40 camp has 9 possible leves

Now... Create a story arc centering around that camp that ties into the camps number one threat, the location of the camp, the history of the camp....
Now use a chain of 4 quests to tell the story....
then create 3 mini-stories that are each comprised of 2 quests
So you end up with 4 guildleves for the main story + 3 different 2 guildleve mini-arcs for a total of 10 leves at each camp
To handle assigning the leves, when you go to Totonawa at the leve counter, you are given 3 leve choices per camp.... the starter for the main camp arc, and 2 of the mini-arc starters
So you could conceivably do all 8 of your leves on any given reset at the same camp....
Which 2 of the 3 mini-arcs you would be offered should rotate or possibly be completely random... doesn't matter either way...
Completing the first tier unlocks the second tier of each arc... but instead of going back to the guildleve counter to get tier 2, you just talk to the camp Warden (Not to be mistaken with the behest battle warden) which further reveals more story, and more chance for content...
So you would ideally grab the camp arc and 2 mini arcs... and that would give you 8 leves to do at that one camp without having to port back to the adventurers guild every 2 seconds...
Also, make the tiers get progressively harder but yield more SP.. . So tier 4 in each Camp Arc would be epic in every possible way...

[Rydin]

That, in and of itself, is epicly awesome... but it gets better
Let the mini arcs yield items, gil and the occasional trade item that, when returned to the correct NPC would net you a special item or even unlock a sidequest for that NPC to give you...
The Actual Camp arcs have a chance to yield Sacred items.... Sacred items unlock a bigger sidequest chain, "Hamlet Arcs" at the different Hamlets across Eorzea...

Here is the Scenario... I grab the Camp Arc and 2 mini arcs for Broken Water
For 1 mini arc I get something normal like those R45 spiked gauntlets
For the second mini arc I get a trade item. I take that item to Milgogo in Ul'dah and get Mythril Wristlet
For the main arc, I luck up on the sacred item for Aleport... I take it to the right NPC in Aleport and it starts a 4 part sidequest chain ending in an NM. Once defeated, the NPC in aleport rewards me with the main material for the conjurer R50 weapon

All camp arcs reset when the leves reset, so you need to do the whole Camp Arc in one reset or else start over next reset
But if you complete the camp arc and get a sacred item, you keep the item in your key items until you find the NPC and start the Hamlet Arc.... You keep the item, even if leves reset

If you balance it so each main camp arc gives the same amount of SP for each camp...
And make it so each camp has different probablities for giving different sacred items....
Then people will stop doing the same camp leves over and over... people would circulate to different camps

[Rydin]

As an added twist, depending on how tough SE wants to make it....
You just adjust what the camp warden says to you when you get a trade or sacred item...
If you want an easy time, make the Camp warden just come out and tell you where to take the item...
If you want it tough.. the warden can give a hint as to the identity of the person who to go to... or point you to an NPC that can give you a clue on where to take the trade or sacred item...

if you make the Sacred item drops random (maybe even rare)... and make the Hamlet arcs really tough, then people will end up going through a lot to get the epic gear and items... but you know what, we'll have a ton of fun doing it...

For lower level camps you can just tone it down... say for R20 camps you could have 4 different 2 part mini arcs...... and they end in less gil, low rank items or trade items that result in lower rank gear

Sorry this was so long.. I just think it could be a really awesome idea.
This, in and of itself would satisfy a lot of the desire for content...
And of course you'd still be able to leve link for more SP from kills... I can just see how much fun this system would be

All of this easily fits within the 2 structures for guildleves and sidequests... AND SE can continue with their implementation of sidequests that originate from NPC's in towns, as this would not interfere with that at all

[Ciden]

My humble suggestion is that there should be some leves designed to see how many mobs you can kill, in say 10 to 15 minutes. Maybe larger groups can do 30 min to rack up chains (FF12 had a lot of great ideas!) and therefore altering the quality of the reward depending if you could break your own record killing x # of mobs in the set time. ( I think back of when I was addicted to Katamari Damacy I was obsessed with trying to break my own size records by making bigger clumps and then learning what areas were best to collect junk quicker in. Made for fun repeatable content ^_^ but the King's exclamations were hardly the incentive to do well). That just gave me the idea that leves should be more of a competitive experience when in free-for-all mode as well as co-op. Hopefully that will get people playing them together making the possibility for rewards open to all players partaking in the leve in a scaling fashion like 1st place reward 2nd place reward 3rd... ect. This will facilitate in fun carefree group griding with a healthy competitive edge.

[Rydin]

Yea... thats a good idea... the actual leves themselves definitely need to be more diverse and involved...
How is this for a Scenario....
(Remember, this is just an example of what I'm talking about... I know SE's writers can definitely write something better and make it fall in line with their vision for the game and story)

Step 1
3 friends and I pick up Tier 1 for the Treespeak Camp arc from Gontrant in the adventurer's Guild in Gridania.
Tier one is called "Logger Woes"

Step 2
We go to Treespeak and start Tier One "Loggers Woes" on 3 stars. We all link. In this leve we protect 3 Botanist from incoming wild mandragora (that's right... new MOBs). Its tough because they have a scream that cause several status effects and they pop right out of the ground. The Mandragora's are extremely organized. Their color denotes their battle characteristics. Green are the healers, red are the warriors, blue ones seem to cast magic on us... but we prevail using battle regimen and weaponskills. The SP was good... really good.... I got about 9k in SP off of that one. Also my reward was 15k gil, and received a bundle of 20 red corral arrows as a bonus since none of the Botanist HP went below 50%.

Step 3
Upon defeating all of the Mandragora, the main botanist thanks us, and in turn offers all of us tier 2 of the Camp Arc "Botanist Business"
We return to the Treespeak Aetheryte and immediately start Tier 2, again on 3 stars with 3 links. It seems as though the Botanist weren't just out logging for their health, they were farming wood to make special bows and special arrows tailor made for fighting off Ixali warriors... The search for wood took us deeper into the north Shroud. On the way there we encountered a party of Poachers led by a huge Roegyden known as "The Lalafell Paocher." Dispatching them wasn't easy... but the SP was awesome so it was very worth it. When we get to the place where the "Special wood" is harvested, we are ambushed by a tough group of Ixali accompanied by their pets... wild rabid Bandersnatch...
Bandersnatch are much more solid than the wolves we were used to seeing and have the HP to match. The Ixali were so fast that fighting them proved extremely difficult. The main Ixali Thrasher had a move called one-on-one where he'd create an impenetrable whirlwind around himself and 1 player and for 60 seconds that player was on his own going head up against the leader. When one-on-one was cast, it was the thaumaturge that was caught inside. Fortunately she was able to weather the storm and in the end, we prevailed... I got 12k in SP off of this one... Plus the Ixali drop Beast Feather, A key ingredient in the arrows so the Botanists gave us a 2k gil bonus for each feather we acquired.
We were really starting to impress these botanist. They even offered us Tier 3 of the camp Arc... "No ordinary Defense"

Step 4
Back to the Treespeak node, we all start and link "No Ordinary Defense" on 3 stars. From the start, we could tell this was no regular guildleve... Foes start coming from every direction towards the Aetheryte.... Every manner of Ixali were here. Warriors with axes, Fencers, Multiple types of mages. 6 Ixali and 2 Bandersnatch. Whats worse, when one of us died, and returned, that person would be trapped inside the Aetherial node until weakness wore off, no doubt the work of the Ixali mages...
Wave after Wave came at us, each one different from the last.. tougher... meaner... for the entire 30 minutes of the leve.
We had no way of knowing this at the time, but for our purposes I'll fill you in on a little secret. All you needed to do was defeat 2 waves to be successful, but after 4 waves you'd get an upgraded reward: A pretty decent piece of gear.... and quite a few faction credits.
We were pretty prepared at the time, so we found the best surprise of them all... After 5 waves a boss appears... a tough boss.... One that is not easily taken down... Taking down the boss gave us quite a surprise. He dropped the Treespeak Tier 4 Camp Arc "Ixali Ad Infinitum"
A tier 4 plus 30k worth of SP... All in a days work

Step 5
This was it... tier 4... "Ixali Ad Infinitm." We decided to 4 star this one and go all out... mainly because we'd heard the higher the stars, the higher the chance the Ixali Primicerius would drop the sacred item....
The sacred item is a relic that, when shown to the correct NPC, will start a Hamlet Arc culminating in a Hamlet Defense quest....
There were several different Sacred items that this boss had a chance to drop... I was personally hoping for the Stone Ledger that unlocks the Hamlet Arc at the Golden Bazaar. I've heard the Hamlet defense battle there is the only way to get the blade that makes the Templar's Longsword, a sword that not only does immense damage, but also fortifies your magic defense...

And that is it, that is 1 example of the Camp Arc I was referring to.... thats just good content right there...
Dont laugh at the actual writing though... I'm not a game script writer so dont judge me, but you get the general idea

Imagine each R40 camp having one of these, plus smaller arcs that only consist of 2 tiers....
Lots of room for content and fun being had by all.... What do you guys think?

[Rydin]

AND PLEASE OH PLEASE give us cut scenes in Tier 4 and maybe even tier 3 camp arcs

[weeble]

i like the idea of story arcs for the camps and i love how u can do all the tiers at the camp without having to go back to adv. guild. but like everything doing them once reading them would be all anyone would do then all we really got is the same thing if not misunderstanding.

it's then just leves just in sets of them. though i love this idea in witch making us do all the leves not just the best ones. i would like to see them remove the need to count u'r leves, pick the right ones and i'd like the idea of NOT having to abandon leves as well.

on top that i think they could and should remove adv guild, let us get our leves at the crystal this will let us do them crystal to crystal. in a full server that just means we can do them with full links all the time((idea of no anima loss with this works really great lol) rather then shouting in town we can just gather up at crystals and hop from crystal to crystal (with or without a group)or depart if done from the group and theres another handful to join. also then we can do them even if wasn't really planning on doing them. hey i'm by this crystal for this but heck lets jump on a crystal and do a leve. the games strategies seem to only be in the pre battle not the battles and that is just bullshit.

also like to see significant amounts more sp per star, that makes doing them with more stars worth doing, right now 2star rank 40's give same as 3-4star and u do them in minutes.

all this though don't fix the fact that they are boring right now no matter how me do them, the acual leves just feel boring as sin and all these changes i don't think will make them any more entertaining. (outside of maybe the strategy of doing 5star)

[Rydin]

No matter what they do, they will get repetitive in time... but you have to look at it like this way would give you 6 different camp stories arcs plus a ton of different mini-arcs.....
And seeing how they would unlock Hamlet content, honestly you wont have done each arc too many times before you hit 50.... twice per story at the most and you'll be at 50 if you've been linking.
Also, having a boss at the end that has a chance to drop one of several different sacred items would increase the replay value of each camp arc, seeing how thats the only way to unlock the Hamlet quests

And would take a week and a half of doing all your leves every reset to see every story...

Now, my people and I do the same camp every reset doing the exact same leves...
As long as SP was balanced so each story arc at each camp gave roughly the same SP then you'd circulate the camps
So at the very least You'd have six different spots that would all give relatively the same SP so you wouldn't grow to hate Dunesfolk for Dinner at Broken Water and have to fail it every reset to get maximum SP gain

I know I'd replay them for the Sacred item drops, extra faction credits and such

[weeble]

also if they done for story but also a grind thing, people will be like weeble wtf where u at, erm i'm reading the story? lol ...bah get u'r ass over here lol ...this happened in ffxi on real main story missions let alone just grind used stuff.

but yes doing all these same ones over and over and having to abandon to do them the best way is just rediculous, i don't get it this hole lifetime of mmo's that have come out and they still make games where some stuff is always better then the others. i get the feel of adventure and trying to find the best things in world to kill, but not many people acually do these things, so really trying not to make each leve worth the same amount is for the few not the crowd. and will all the arguments on casual or hardcore, wow or ffxi, who makes them money and who don't , you would think this type of stuff isn't even a question, just make it all work equally so we have a majillion diff ways to level,a majillion places to level, a majillion diff leves that are worth doing and correctly. maybe it's just not as easy as i think it could be. lol

[Rydin]

also if they done for story but also a grind thing, people will be like weeble wtf where u at, erm i'm reading the story? lol ...bah get u'r ass over here lol ...this happened in ffxi on real main story missions let alone just grind used stuff.

but yes doing all these same ones over and over and having to abandon to do them the best way is just rediculous, i don't get it this hole lifetime of mmo's that have come out and they still make games where some stuff is always better then the others. i get the feel of adventure and trying to find the best things in world to kill, but not many people acually do these things, so really trying not to make each leve worth the same amount is for the few not the crowd. and will all the arguments on casual or hardcore, wow or ffxi, who makes them money and who don't , you would think this type of stuff isn't even a question, just make it all work equally so we have a majillion diff ways to level,a majillion places to level, a majillion diff leves that are worth doing and correctly. maybe it's just not as easy as i think it could be. lol

No... I think you're exactly right....

I know from doing Halatali and Broken water exactly how many mobs are in about 90% of the leves (Hard to figure out how many MOBs in Ranine Reveries) so they could most definitely balance it so they all give similar SP overall....