Endgame Content, Competitive Atmosphere

[Zanfire]

I say yes for atleast 12+ -24 hrs Respawn for NMs, for me atleast, that was the only thing i was enjoying back in 11.
i mean its cool to see things repop faster and get what you need quicker and all, but cmon thats no where near all the challenge and fun we had back in 11 :x

as annoying as it could get, there was quite a thrill from claiming over all those other big groups, and then feeling your heart pound like crazy again hoping you got that epic drop. They really do need more competition in this game, and not just PVP.

[elreed]

+1 to those ideas, i think we need harder stuff to achieve something, as we are now we are trashing content every patch, i would really like having gear and weapons that can stay top notch even after several patches, but harder to get not by drop rate but by diffulty.

[Deltara]

A lot of people are talking about putting in challenging HNM-type open-world NMs. I haven't tried to do it recently, but did they change the "anyone can attack anyone else's claimed mob" thing? Wouldn't this just be abused if they put the uberest gear dropping from free-range mobs?

Seems like it would just be 50 people on one monster, and less of a real challenge.

I'm all for the open world NMs dropping amazing gear.. I think people should have options, but seems like it would take a lot of the fun away if there were five parties all fighting the same mob. Like sorta just standing in line waiting for your meal ticket.

[MeowyWowie]

I support this thread.

What I’m worried about though, is the motivation to go through this much content.

If I break down MeowyWowie’s post and add other current and future content with possible gear rewards:
NM’s
Strongholds
Hamlet Defense
Caravan Security
Quests (artifact armor)
Company Quests
Company Leves
Faction Leves
Treasure Maps
Instanced raids (current x2 + x2 in 1.21)
New dungeons for all disciplines (taken from 2.0 outlines)
Large-scale PvE (Battles againt dragons to defend Ishgard)
Mounted Content
Instanced fights (Ifrit, Moogle, Garuda, Garlean Empire Legatus)
Crystal Tower
Labyrinth
Wandering Odin
Items from achievements
Crafting and Materia

That makes a lot of content to gear 6 slots + weapon + accessories per class/job.

They either need to link multiple content to the same gear reward system, and/or find a way to make multiple gear sets useful since SE, and a good share of the community (as seen in previous threads), doesn’t want gear swap.

That’s even more problematic since everything is set to be achievable by playing casually, making each best in slot gear easy to get, eliminating “second best” gear.

There’s also the fact that leveling up a class to 50 is so quick and easy that mid-level content and gear is almost useless too, eliminating another opportunity for meaningful rewards.

I don’t think SE can afford to create inefficient content. And personally, I’m not really interested to invest my time on gear that will go to waste every 3 months. There’s almost no point in min-maxing with this kind of thinking, which is sad because it’s one of the best part of playing a MMO (for me at least). I’d rather work toward long term rewards that will last.

That’s why I think they have to link multiple content to the same gear systems. Company seals rewards can be an interesting avenue they can continue to develop on (it can be Hamlet Defenses rewards for example).

Make materials drop instead of gear from upper tier of NMs is another interesting concept to make them last, useful and more numerous (which would also bring competitiveness).

Finally, it’s even more complicated to make multiple gear sets useful without gear swapping, so they’ll have to get creative there.

I can understand where you're coming from. But for every problem there is a solution. It all depends on how the content and rewards are implemented. All of this can be solved without the need of a gear swap system.

Let's start with taking into account that level cap raises will only come every ~2 years, as previously stated by SE. By the release of 2.0 I would expect the level cap to be at least 60, maybe even 65, but let's just say 60 for the sake of argument. This will likely remain the cap until the next expansion (1-2 years). This is of course assuming 2.0 will be an expansion itself.

Overall, the majority of the long term content will likely come from the initial release of 2.0 (hopefully), while the patches between expansions will likely just add smaller scale content along with UI, balance and system adjustments. In order to keep all of the current content relevant to the current level cap no content should overshadow another type of content of the same caliber. Instead, they should be made to compliment each other. There are a number of ways to do this, all of which could be done simultaneously.

First, each form of content should contain rewards exclusive to that content alone. These should not be plentiful, a few unique pieces is enough. Certain forms of content may be more beneficial to certain classes instead of offering BiS rewards for all classes. However, the majority of the rewards should have an alternative form of content where they can be acquired if one is not able to participate in one type of content regularly for whatever reason.

Second, each class/job should be open to various gear builds. Some PLDs may prefer enmity and defense sets over Defense and HP sets, while some MRDs/WARs might favor a critical rate/damage+ set over an ATT+ set. Each set should be as equal as possible to each other in overall effectiveness and should be the sole decision of a person's playstyle. It should be balanced so that a player can choose to go for only one type of build and be effective in all circumstances compared to players using a different build. I understand that balancing this can be difficult, but it's not impossible.

Third, different content should be made to compliment each other by offering rewards that enhance the rewards from another type of content. An example of this could be seen in FFXI's AF quests and Limbus's AF-1 items. Doing this can drastically lessen the actual amount of gear available from all of the content as a whole, but still keep all of the content worthwhile.

Overall, their goal should be to allow any type of player to get very good rewards by doing only the content they enjoy. But, if a player wishes to have the best of the best for 1 specific class, they would need to do multiple forms of content to obtain it all. And lastly, if someone wishes to get the best possible rewards for all classes, they would have to do all forms of content.

This works out well for all types of players. Casuals that prefer to use pick up groups to complete content, be it through shouting or using the auto-group feature slated for future release, are free to do only the content they wish and be rewarded for it. Dedicated endgame Linkshells on the other hand will have a reason to do all forms of content to make their Linkshell grow as a whole.

In the end, all forms of content made for a specific level cap should remain worthwhile until that level cap changes. If new content is added before the cap is raised, it is important that it does not completely overshadow another form of content designed for the same level cap. If anything, it should compliment it.

[elreed]

Well both oppinions are good, but i would say that having materials as rewards can link several contents to make a certain piece of gear (weapon or armor) according to your needs, but in order to take out crafters they can make it like they did with faction leves items, but with mats instead of runes, so at the end all the content is for every class, they could include gear for Diciplines of the hand and land in the mix, example: item A, item Z and item P gives paladin sword, itemA, item N and item R gives Monk body, etc.

Well it sounds complex but could be a fun time sink that this game needs, and theres gonna be plenty of ppl looking for party for months to gear all their classes, enough time for casuals to get at least one or two class/job all geared.

[Orophin]

The section about NMs is all fine and well, but something has to be done about the materia system and U/U gear, otherwise one or the other are going to become obsolete.

[Engineer]

Since this post is much more organized I'm going to just quote it in place of my OP:

Originally Posted by MeowyWowie
On topic: This is what I would like to see with the launch of FFXIV 2.0. Anything less and I believe they will botch their last chance to save this game. It's a long read but it reflects the scale of content required to revive this game. TL;DR is at the bottom, though I do hope you read it all.



OPEN WORLD

NOTORIOUS MONSTERS

Instant Spawn NMs
Identical to what we have now. These NMs would basically always be up and have small spawn areas. Respawn times could vary between 1-10 minutes. These may drop entry level gear (possibly meldable), NM triggers, and/or materials.

Trigger Spawn NMs
These NMs would require you to obtain an item (trigger) to spawn them. The triggers may be farmed from normal mobs around the area, dropped off instant-spawn NMs, obtained from leves, or something of that nature. Just like instant-spawn NMs, these will provide content without having to wait for it to become available, just go out and start farming triggers. Drops from these would be equal to or slightly better than the drops from instant spawned NMs, depending on the difficulty of the NM in question and the difficulty required in obtaining the trigger to spawn it.

Lottery Spawn NMs
These would not always be up in the open world. In order to spawn these, a player must defeat similar mobs around the spawn area. Eventually, when defeating an enemy, it will reraise itself as the NM, still claimed by the player that caused it to spawn. It is very important that these NMs have the chance of spawning from ANY of the mobs in the area (same family, of course), there would not be one specific place holder. Spawn times would vary, but to keep them casual-friendly, would never exceed 1-2 hours. Drops from these would be equal to or greater than those from trigger spawn NMs, depending on the difficulty of the NM, placeholders and the maximum spawn time set for it.

Long Spawn NMs
These NMs would be rare spawns. Their respawn times would vary from 8 hours up to 72 hours. However, there would be no repeating mini windows whatsoever. There may be a small 5 minute window in which the NM will spawn, but it will never require players to sit there for hours on end waiting for it. Some of these NMs may be accompanied by visual cues in the vicinity of the spawn area, such as weather changes or having all of the non-aggressive mobs flee the area shortly before the NM spawns. Others would just spawn without warning. All of these would have very large spawn areas, something along the lines of Great Buffalo or perhaps even larger. These would be the most difficult of all open world NMs, likely consisting of iconic Final Fantasy monsters like Wyrms, Tonberry King, Behemoth, etc. Drops from these NMs would be the best available from all open world roaming NMs, however, some drops would be available from other forms of content for those that are unable to partake in this content regularly.

Some of these should reward only the players who successfully claimed the NM, while others should require a massive number of players to defeat giving all participants a chance at rewards. Some may be straight up item drops, while others may reward players with points, tokens, etc.

Since this is a casual game, I would also request another feature for these long spawn NMs. By completing special quests available for each of these NMs, players would be able to view the respawn timers in the menu, just like we have now for all end game events. These quests would be unique for each NM. They would contain the lore behind the NMs, and likely include an instanced fight against the NM of the same difficulty (baring item drops of course).

STRONGHOLDS

Basically the same thing we have now, except larger and more detailed. Puzzles, riddles, secret passages, secret NMs, treasure chests, environmental traps and the like would be scattered throughout the area. Progression would require more than just killing some guards to open a gate. Bosses would require you to meet certain conditions before spawning them. Drops from Strongholds would vary greatly, from entry level to best in slot for a few pieces.

HAMLET DEFENSE

We've been waiting for this for a while now, I'm still not sure when it's coming lol. We don't have much info on this yet, but this is what I would imagine it to be. Tied to Grand Companies or a Nation of Allegiance type of thing, we would be required to defend the Hamlets spread across Eorzea from invading monsters and military forces. NPCs would have to be protected, as well as buildings. Failure to do so would result in losing access to the NPCs (assuming they'll actually have some real use in the game) as well as the resources the buildings provide. Consecutive victories would result in decreased prices in the region or something similar.

There would be a point system and a rank system in place for this content alone. Points can be exchanged for various items ranging from gear to consumables, the value of which increases with your rank. Members of Companies or citizens of Nations, whichever is used, would also be subject to temporary buffs which would remain active for the duration of the Company's/Nation's dominance in the area. Buffs could vary from increased magic resistance, HP+, MP+, increased attack speed, etc, but would not be overpowered to the point where those without the buffs are at a severe disadvantage.

UMBRAL CRATER

This is obviously speculative, assuming that a meteor will soon hit Eorzea. Regardless, even if that doesn't happen the content could still be applicable to a variety of situations. I just chose this one as I think it would be a nice setting for the type of content.

Meteor has fallen and formed a huge crater. It brought with it strange life forms and transformed the environment in abnormal ways. Actions and Magicks do not function normally here and are prone to some adverse and unexpected side effects. For instance, casting cure on a party member, while restoring their hp, may also inflict them with poison or cause them to go temporarily blind. Players may get disoriented, causing them to miss an attack and accidentally hit a party member instead. Something along the lines of that. I think SE can get very creative here.

Overall, the content within would be something similar to Sky and Salvage from FFXI. There wouldn't be tiered bosses per se, however if you wish to succeed in killing the tougher bosses you would need to defeat the lower tier ones first to obtain special items that nullify the adverse affects inflicted upon you in the area. You would only require 1 item per party/alliance. When one person uses it, everyone receives the effect. The effect will last either for a certain amount of time or for the duration of one battle, this would vary by item. Bosses with minions would count as one battle, since they would be in their own party.

All of the mid and upper tier bosses would always be available for you to challenge at any time. They will however be nigh impossible to defeat without the required affects you receive from using these items. Some would require only one item to be used, but also be aided by using other items. Others would require multiple items for you to even have a chance at winning. The lesser NMs would obviously not require any items to be used to defeat them and could follow the instant, trigger, and lottery pop conditions I listed earlier, along with some unique conditions for this area alone.

The amount of bosses and the optimal item requirements for each could consist of the following. Keep in mind, in exchange for increased difficulty, the bosses can be defeated with less items but you would risk wasting all of the items you just used if you fail.

Mega Boss: Requires items from Boss 1, 2, 3 and heavily advised to use some items from Mini Bosses as well
Boss 1: Requires Items from Mini Boss 1, 2 and 6
Boss 2: Requires items from Mini Boss 2, 4 and 5
Boss 3:Requires items from Mini Boss 1 3 and 6
Mini Boss 1-6: Require no items

Equipment and material drops would be available from all of the NMs. Lower tiers would have lower drop rates with average pieces, while upper tier having better drop rates with better drops. Again, some of the better drops may be available through other means for those who do not have the time to invest in content like this.


INSTANCED



INSTANCED BOSS BATTLES

Similar to BC/KSNMs in FFXI and the current Primal battles we have now, these would just consist of a repeatable instanced fight. Some would be the climax of a quest, while others may be triggered by something like Beastmen's Seals. These should be plentiful and offer a large variety of weapons and armor. Difficulty should range from easy to extremely difficult and the drops should reflect this. All of these would be timed fights, but I would rather there be no limits on the minimum number party members required to enter. Time restrictions are not necessarily needed.

LINEAR INSTANCED DUNGEONS

Similar to the Dzemael Darkhold and Toto-Rak, these would be simple dungeons with 1 main boss at the end, though may also contain mini bosses. Time limits should not exceed 1 hour, some may forgo time limits all together. The dungeons themselves can use some of the elements I listed for Strongholds earlier; puzzles, secrets, environmental hazards, etc. Due to the nature of instanced content, though, the creativity used to make each dungeon unique should be a top priority. It is much easier to make unique instanced content than it is for open world. No two dungeons should ever mimic each other to the point where it's difficult to define each one as its own, unique instance. Difficulty can again range from easy to extremely difficult, and again with the drops reflecting the difficulty.

CRYSTAL TOWER

So far we have no information about this other than it being a primary source of content for the more hardcore players. I would imagine it to be a tower climb with unique requirements to clear each floor, filled with bosses and treasure chests throughout. Honestly, I don't really see it being much different than Nyzul Isle, not something I would really consider hardcore but I'll just wait and see what SE comes up with this time around.

TIERED INSTANCED DUNGEONS

This is by far my most desired type of content. Although I do love open world content, I would have to say Limbus was my favorite of all in FFXI. I really wouldn't mind if they just copy pasted it in XIV to be honest, except with XIV storyline of course. For those who don't what what Limbus was, it consisted of 2 main dungeons; Apollyon and Temenos. Each main dungeon had multiple wings that needed to be completed before being able to access the final boss for that dungeon. As an example, to fight Proto-Omega (Apollyon's end boss), you would have to obtain keys from the end bosses in Apollyon North West, North East, South East, and South West. Possesion of all 4 keys would give you access to Central Apollyon, an instanced fight with Proto-Omega. After using the keys they would be discarded and you would have to re-obtain them all over again to fight Omega again.

Each wing had multiple floors with their own mini bosses or other requirements to progress to the next floor. There were also chests on each floor that either rewarded players with items used to upgrade existing armor, time extensions, or ability/hp/mp replenishment, other chests also spawned mimics. Some wings you could open all of the chests, others you had to make a choice of which you wanted to open. There were also optional wings that were most often used to farm Ancient Beastcoins, a form of currency that could be used to purchase a wide variety of items, though these were obtainable from all mobs within Limbus.

The most sought after drops were from the end bosses of the 2 dungeons, obviously, but even just farming the primary wings was a good way to beef up your character with gear enhancement items (used to make Artifact Armor +1) and Beastcoins. The rewards in Limbus were often the best in the game for a very long time and reflected your dedication to this type of content.

There were no limits to how many people could enter, and I must say some of my best times in there was me just soloing coins and AF+1 items. There were time restrictions, however. This would be one thing I would change. Instead of a 72 hour wait time for re-entry, I would prefer to see tokens that you can accumulate, perhaps 1 per day or every 2 days. While this would be considered hardcore content, I feel it's important for SE to make it as accessible to casual players as possible and this would be a good way to accomplish that without shortening the life time of the content.



VARIOUS

QUESTS

Not really end-game content per se, but there should be tons of these for all levels. Not a big quest person myself, so I'm not really going to get into it.

MISSIONS

Storyline missions, with real challenge, is something I feel FFXIV is extremely lacking. With the release of 2.0, SE has the opportunity to give us a rich story line consisting of multiple missions that test us in many ways. These should entail all forms of content; instanced fights, open world fights, quest chains, dungeons, etc. Progressing through these missions should unlock some of the content listed above as well as new areas and unique items and titles. They should get progressively harder and the rewards progressively better. Completing the whole story line should feel like a monumental achievement, not just beating a simple quest chain. Use your imagination SE!

TL;DR

Overall, the game needs multiple forms of content. I can live with small content patches during the time leading to 2.0, but once 2.0 hits I feel it is absolutely necessary for them to release a huge variety of new content all at once if there is any hope of this game succeeding. The game will have been out for 2 years by then, if there's anything less than this I don't think the re-release will be enough to get players back. Some may think it's too much to ask for, but realistically, if SE wants to have a successful re-launch they need to exceed their players' expectations. If they can pull it off I'm sure the game will do fine. If not, then I guess they're screwed.

YOU GO GLEN COCO YOU GO!

[Allistar]

Since this post is much more organized I'm going to just quote it in place of my OP:

Awesome post...we need more people to read this and see where FFXIV should go...of course none of this would be any fun if we didn't have to work towards getting to it...so the journey from begining to end should be just as fun and engaging...
I support this post.

[Chinook]

That's exactly what I mean by being creative MeowyWowie

[Kiara]

In order to keep all of the current content relevant to the current level cap no content should overshadow another type of content of the same caliber. Instead, they should be made to compliment each other. There are a number of ways to do this, all of which could be done simultaneously.

First, each form of content should contain rewards exclusive to that content alone. These should not be plentiful, a few unique pieces is enough. Certain forms of content may be more beneficial to certain classes instead of offering BiS rewards for all classes. However, the majority of the rewards should have an alternative form of content where they can be acquired if one is not able to participate in one type of content regularly for whatever reason.

Second, each class/job should be open to various gear builds. Some PLDs may prefer enmity and defense sets over Defense and HP sets, while some MRDs/WARs might favor a critical rate/damage+ set over an ATT+ set. Each set should be as equal as possible to each other in overall effectiveness and should be the sole decision of a person's playstyle. It should be balanced so that a player can choose to go for only one type of build and be effective in all circumstances compared to players using a different build. I understand that balancing this can be difficult, but it's not impossible.

Third, different content should be made to compliment each other by offering rewards that enhance the rewards from another type of content. An example of this could be seen in FFXI's AF quests and Limbus's AF-1 items. Doing this can drastically lessen the actual amount of gear available from all of the content as a whole, but still keep all of the content worthwhile.

Overall, their goal should be to allow any type of player to get very good rewards by doing only the content they enjoy. But, if a player wishes to have the best of the best for 1 specific class, they would need to do multiple forms of content to obtain it all. And lastly, if someone wishes to get the best possible rewards for all classes, they would have to do all forms of content.

In the end, all forms of content made for a specific level cap should remain worthwhile until that level cap changes. If new content is added before the cap is raised, it is important that it does not completely overshadow another form of content designed for the same level cap. If anything, it should compliment it.

Great thread, and well said Meowy and Chinook.

I'm hoping that the content / items we're seeing from 1.18 - 1.20 so far are aberrations (in terms of gear being quickly outdated or replacing "best in slot" so fast).

Hopefully in the long run, we'll have it so, as you say, 1 HNM or Boss or Dungeon could offer 1 *part* of something that would go to complete the "best in slot" for 1 class / job.

Or that drops a super rare Materia. Or, that offers the best in an Alternate Build for that Class (like a Tanking Marauder Gear Set vs. a Max Damage Marauder Gear Set, etc.).

Looking back on Dzemael Darkhold, it's crazy to think about *how many* Items and Weapons it dropped, all in just *1* Dungeon. It was clearly a temporary measure to make sure all Classes got something useful / helpful. But going forward, hopefully Yoshida-san and team realize they can actually pace themselves and not have every new Dungeon drop something for every Class that "overwrites" and invalidates the previous "Best Item per Slot" from the previous patch.

That would be horrible.

I'm hoping for Long Term Goals and Complementary Gear Sets as well.