A Guildleve Revision Idea

[Sandpark]

http://guildleveideas.webs.com/
I came up with some interesting wishes I would like to see in FFXIV. Please have a look and give me some of your own ideas or thoughts.

Thanks

[Wintersandman]

The ideas are interesting but way too complex and too much depth for ffxiv.

Why would one want to do something so detailed over doing dungeons, trials, diadem?

Look at Diadem, you can go in with DoL and explore caves.

What would be he rewards?

[Sandpark]

I can't speak for everyone. But for some it would be a dynamic, a lull in the everyday grind. It's like music, the subtleties come through even in some heavy metal.

[Sandpark]

bumpity bump in the night

[Shurrikhan]

I doubt anyone would dislike the content you're suggesting here, but just consider how those developed assets would be best introduced or showcased? Even were "leves" to be divorced from the idea of the banal repeatable content they are presently, it is worth taking the idea of a "Siege" and putting it instead into an "Ambition leve"? Which do you think would stand out more at a glance in a development road-map? What would be the context for these developments? Into what expansion would they fit, with what surrounding themes?

Many of these leve ideas seem better fit for world events, Courage, Ambition, and Charity especially, or just open world content in general or by slight revisions to original DoW/DoL leves or other hub events (especially Benevolence and Contentment). Others feel like they ought to be mini-games brought in during future MSQ (see Equity). Leves like Prudence sound both too involved and haphazard, without any grounding and oddly devoid of choice before ultimately turning into just another killing field. And finally, your journey and open battle leves do seem wholly overambitious for the near future (meaning, until at least 5.0, as well as I can guess); as much as I would love to play them, we've seen no appreciable output from map auto-generation so far and parading huge armies (by the sounds of it larger than Secure) over destructible/construct-able open battlefields is going to take some serious modifications (I hope to the rendering, not to the player count, but the latter is an issue in itself).

Others though I think are great. I would LOVE to see leves no longer quite so distinguished only by type (DoW/M, DoL, DoH), but instead work together for certain leves distinguished more by type, or hopefully best known outright by their actual names. I'd also like them to primarily be group content, even if that might end up requiring DF at most hours. Tenacity leves remind me of the old 8-man Missions in 1.x., while I also like the idea of a Valor's party-personal hunt, as long as that process itself is interesting. But this probably best represented by the Hability escort leve (though this title seems off, as that's basically just a silent h before "ability", together meaning "expertness" or... "capability") and especially the Industry leves. The Benevolence and Contentment leves are similarly good examples, but I'd recommend some slight adjustments, then—make them multi-objective, making use of all three Disciple types, such as DoHs repairing both from safety and out in the field, DoLs salvaging raw materials from otherwise unusable bits, and DoW/M salvaging the restorable bits and covering the others in Benevolence, and DoW/M, DoL, and DoH all competing individually and by type to essentially gather or refine as much food as possible within the time limit in Contentment. To some extent, that advice can be similarly applied to all of the above leve types.

Others seem of no real note. Justice (mediocre title), Temperance (poorly named, imo), Wisdom, and Munificence (well named) leves are standard the kill and collection leves that make up most of what we already have by way of leves. Piety is simply a fishing leve, while Sympathy is likewise far too general a title to be rightly limited to fish. Promptitude, like Charity, has no real interaction with the Disciple in use, and therefore sounds more like a daily faction quest. The Service leve smacks of more MSQ courier work. And finally, I feel that Truth leves' trivia components would default simply to one's browser for answers, and has no real place in a reward system. The Wit leve, if anything, should just be an alternate control system used for certain quests, or with companion NPCs.

That's about the whole of my thoughts, be them of any use to you. A lot of work clearly went in to this, so I'd hate to let it just fade out with no feedback.

If I might append an afternote, my chief advice would be to focus on the archetypal stories behind the leves, rather than their gameplay types. The gameplay behind each should be fun, and ultimately you may want additional text that acknowledges, tongue in cheek or in all seriousness, the repetition of its content, but try to make each named ("greater") leve feel like its own thing. Repeat types as needed, but be focused more on the leves themselves. They don't all have to be spammable content when released in quality. It's probably not something development would be willing to fund, but with the perfect excuse, it may become a logical choice — for instance, an expansion with a focus on paradox, or expounding on or broadening the primal concept, so that archetypes and bits of folklore everywhere are starting to incarnate themselves, myth as reality, story as fact, what have you.

[Sandpark]

I suggested these as instances because:
1.This game tends to instance alot due to worries of server loads.
2.The framework is already there.
3.It is supposed to function as quick access to different short variations of content.

(Ambition)Siege is a form of Hamlet or XI Besieged System.
1.For reasons unknown they removed hamlet from XIV and never brought it back.
2.Besieged was an instance allowing X amount of players, the development team already has experience with this.

Quite frankly, many of these would stand out.
Ambition for people who want content different from standard content.
Benevolence for people who want singular dynamic quest.
Candor for people who like to roleplay.
Charity for people who like to fly and have a purpose for doing so.
Concord for people who like to adventure with realism.
Confidence for people who like jumping and traversal puzzles like a thief.

Rather than list what type of gamer each of these applies to. Let's just say it is a fast, easy to group, system for people to access the kind of content they want super fast.

The context of the developments would be XIV wanting to go back and reinvigorate base game systems. In addition to this, I would ask them to also fully voice the main story because it is jarring to hear some voiced then muted.

Prudence is supposed to be random, mysterious, and visceral. Think of the wise men as the doors in Aquapolis. Your journey plays differently depending on the path taken.


Tenacity is more similar to DragonStar arena in ESO however in this game it would scale depending on if you are solo or grouped up.

There is probably some stuff I am not conveying properly. But that is due to this forums structure. I can get very detailed and add depth to every leve I am suggesting here. But the structure prevents me from being highly efficient with pictures, videos, and post layout.

[Shurrikhan]

Snip

I understand the intentions and have seen and, in reading the leve descriptions, personally used the same analogs you're mentioning here. I'm asking why you're grouping all these different content points/types under the umbrella of "leves". The Nest Besieged (Courage), Pagalath Parade (Ambition, siege on the Garlean base between Thanalan and Ala Mhigo alongside Y&P), the Cutter's Gamble (Tenacity), Curtain Call (Candor), The Open Sands (Concord), the Kestrel Run (Confidence), or whatever their names could just as easily be instances in their own rights.

Every leve you've listed beneath "many of these would stand out," I have agreed would do so. What I questioned was their deployment as leves and/or SE's ability to develop what you're asking.

[Sandpark]

Because I believe they should be leves. They can be separate instances I suppose. But I wanted Guildleves to actually mean something in the game besides experience points and materials.

Your names do stand out more than the names SE came up with. I was trying to keep it in line with virtues which was their original intention.

[Shurrikhan]

Because I believe they should be leves. They can be separate instances I suppose. But I wanted Guildleves to actually mean something in the game besides experience points and materials.

Your names do stand out more than the names SE came up with. I was trying to keep it in line with virtues which was their original intention.

Believe me, I absolutely want that too. I want leves to be awesome and meaningful and iconic and adding to the flavor and color of what it means for XIV to be XIV. But that shouldn't just come from its individual parts. It should come from the whole, which should be a greater than the mere sum of individual elements, and each of those elements should somehow feel necessarily leve-like, as opposed to whatever other option (namely the simplest—each their own thing).

Perhaps that sense of leve-ness would come from the kind of thing you're trying to get out of it – say, a bit of casual fun that can nonetheless be perfected, optomizedly, so-serious-I-can't-take-it-seriously competitive, but still always has this image of a group of 4 to 8 friends hopping into an iconic duty almost purely because it is unadulterated fun situated in a unique a living world. You'd be barfing rainbows at that point if you managed to pull that off, but that would be a collective feeling.

You yourself mentioned an idea of what a leve means when you mentioned the rewards these leves would entail, i.e. "a dynamic, a lull in the everyday grind. It's like music, the subtleties come through even in some heavy metal."

On top of that, you have to deal with what leves mean to the player-base. Luckily, you may be replacing a lot of that image, perhaps even shattering it, but as it stands the idea of a leve varies from all of 'boring exp-grindable recharging-opportunity content' to outright 'vague tasks made collective only because they haven't been assigned any other function cool enough to be otherwise memorable.' And there are certain ranges and expectations for that. I can't speak for others, but for me, a wholesale siege is not a leve (and a small-scale siege rarely, albeit sometimes, worth having). For me, if it doesn't make use of your class or disciple skills in any way (being instead purely vehicular, etc.), it's probably not a leve. At the same time though, there are illogical exceptions. If a leve featured three Magitek Armors trudging through the snow to a particular memorable melody that somehow passed itself as a repeatable archetype and had fun gameplay in all other ways, I'd be leve-y enough for me.

As you said, maybe some things aren't being conveyed, but I don't think those are the parts you're most thinking of. I feel like I get what they're individually trying to do, and what the addition of them all would mean, but I don't understand the exclusive reasons for their packaging, and you've given no context for how or when they'd be introduced to the game. What would the surrounding major patch or expansion be like? How would it play into this idea?

Until I know that, I can't help but feel that individually named events, felt more as story components with the content system individually crafted for each, feels more in the spirit of leves (as I see them) than these various leve types do.

[LalafellDown]

Your first one reminds me of the first new zone in Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns. Where the enemies assault strongholds and players would have to defend/escort/build up in the zone while other mini events pop off on the map. Mini bosses would attack caravans and under ground holes would appear after defending a fort. Deep underground 2 bosses await the players as they have to kill/avoid the bosses while getting air from the plants or they suffocate. The whole map is a huge battle zone and hundreds of players participate while earning loot as the battle rages on. All coming to a final assault on the world boss castle where we have to defend the catapults on 3 different places of the map while they destroy the walls so we can get in a kill the boss. It rains random loot all day long with the possibility of legendary weapons dropping. If the boss is killed the assault ends, people get tons of loot, the world resets and the timer counts down again for the next assault. If boss lives people get some loot, forts get enemies patrolling the area and a poison barrier in each fort until the next reset.

I don't think it (the GW2 rant) would work with FF14 because FF14 is a dungeon crawler, the combat is stiff compared to other MMO's like its tied down. The release of deep dungeon though proves that they can make every class a tank/DPS. Now they just need to step away from the bad fates and implement something like GW2 has with their events/fates.

Yes to your ideas, would be nice if it was done in the world map and not an instance. The Zones in FF14 are lifeless.