Lords of Verminion - How to Revitalize

[Duuude007]

How do you kill something that is already dead?


...You don't.

[Airget]

Game plays to slow and giving all minions abilities was a bad idea.

The weakness system is decent, but something that should change is the way abilities work.

So instead of destroying 3 towers or whatever they are called, what if each side has 3 Leaders, and the "Leaders" are the ones with abilities, and upon defeating that Leader you eliminate the ability that the opponent can use.

So now before the match you can set your three leaders and then let's say 6-9 minions around those three leaders.

Leader abilities are accessible by killing opponent with x type, so if your leader is a poppet, killing with Poppets fills the bar for that leader type. When you gain enough power you can use x ability which could be target-able to x range/radius based on ability type but overall by reducing the abilities each side gets to 3, you can then set your strategy around those abilities rather than pretty much having a free for all when it comes to party composition.

Another potential thought is each Leader could have 3 minions that you attach to them, and of course if x leader dies you lose access to summoning those 3 minions. Depending on what you set to your Leader as their minions those minions can gain perks, so if you put Poppet Minions on a Poppet minion it improves their attack power or reduces the amount of ability points to use Leader ability.

Overall I just think the current issue with Verminion is ability bloat. By giving everyone abilities you just create an overwhelming experience that can turn off most players, because they see everything and it's just to much to take in to have fun with the game. Pulling back on how many abilities can be used would help slightly curb one issue with the game and hopefully speed up the gameplay.

[NaliaBrown]

I wanted to like Verminion. I really did. But it's practically impossible as a controller player to win against someone using keyboard/mouse. Controller is so much slower. It's a huge disadvantage. It even makes the Verminion challenges unnecessarily difficult. For no real reward - the one I just completed ended up costing me MGP because I had to try it about 7 times (100 mgp each) for 150 mgp when I finally beat it.

Meanwhile the chocobo challenges pay out 20k + each, and only cost 10 mgp each attempt!

[PotatoTree]

I love Verminion but I have no one to play against nowdays. I like how the skill gap between players can be huge (as is with most RTS style games). However I do agree that there is no way for a controller player to beat a keyboard player if they are both similarly skilled.

Anyway, I want to play Verminion and I used to spend all day queueing when it came out, but nobody queues for it anymore. They need to make it cross server queues, and increase the incentives. Minions and titles are not enough, just look at the statistics:
http://www.xiv-minions.com/statistics.php
Amongst the minion collectors, the two verminon minions are the 2nd and 3rd most rarest, because no one can be bothered to do Verminion.

They need to up the incentives (ie: 450k MGP is what it took to revive Chocobo racing), but keep in mind Verminion is also extremely easy to "game" by just playing your own alt, especially for things like the tourney. So they probably need to make it cross server first before adding more rewards or people would be done with it day one by playing an alt.

[Yukiko]

Do not compare with minion statistics please...
As collector i can tell you: it just open old wounds, dont salt them!
Look at "Slime Puddle", it was a 100% drop in a chest back then and still how few are owning it... same goes for "Bite-sized Pudding"
There was apsolutely NO reason to make them ALL rare drops (i did not say super rare drops, as we have with "Wind-up Echidna")

To make them all that rare just hurts those who like to collect them, nothing more!
Pokemon: Catch them all, but not here in FFXIV...

[deos]

someone i know once had an interesting idea about LoV: make a mobile app for it

an app with which you can play the game from smartphone and/or tablet against NPCs and other players. all players should be in one pool (per server center) and be able to play with each other, from ingame and from the app.

the player would start with a list of basic minions, unlocks more by winning and maybe SE could even add some as micro-payment in-app-purchase minions like the ones we have in the mogry station now and some semi-rare drops like from the 24man raids. add some achievements and stuff and it should become pretty interesting
edit: you should of course also be able to login using your XIV login if you have one so you can play on the app with the pets you have ingame

by doing this there would be tons of more players for the game. the game most likely would need some rebalancing for this (which it needs anyway) and the server barrier could become a problem but the idea would be quite interesting.
i could also add something about tournament wintrading prevention but its not like SE cares about that in the first place (tripple triad anyone?)

[Dustytome]

I was excited for LoV when it first came out, but I just don't have fun with it. Putting more/juicier carrots on a string only provides a temporary boost. They either have to make the game itself fun or there's little point in wasting resources trying to save it. Maybe they can limit it to one of each minion on the field (bigger minions at that) and remove that odd 4x minion of the same kind to use an ability limitation? Maybe morph it into a different type of tower defense game? Possibly change up the field a bit so it's not just a handful of boring crystals in the middle of an arena? Honestly I don't know what to do to make it fun for me, but the prizes aren't it.

[Santherelle]

Being a rabid minion collector I really wanted to love this game. I wanted a use for all of them.

And I still haven't finished the tutorial.

It is just not fun compared to the rest of the other stuff I could be doing.

[Osteichthyes]

From a design perspective the biggest issue is that LoV is just too inaccessible. Having to be in spot without being able to do anything in the meantime while waiting is the antithesis of good design.

I know that this is done because they want to have it make sense, you wouldn't just starting playing cards without being in the same "room" after all, though when these systems reduce the players ability to interact with the systems, that is malicious design. It's trapping the players if they want to participate, but cannot find a match, which brings up the second point that a lot of people have already brought up.

The GS games needs to have a duty finder that spans the data center. These minigames thrive on community and having a lot of people participating is essential. By restricting it so heavily they basically made the system D.O.A.