Colliseum/Solo Instances

[kikix12]

This game really lacks actual solo content. Most is either doable easier with a group (Palace of the Dead, FATE's etc.) or outright group-only (dungeons, if you want experience). There was added the squadron content now, but that is not only very early phase (the squadron cannot even properly, as in, fundamentally, do their job on the lvl50 dungeon), but it also demands other skills than individual progress.

The lack of solo content is part of the problem as to why the players skill level on average is so low. Without anything to challenge, make a player learn their class properly, they are not very likely to learn. Throwing easy content at them will just make them think they are "good". Throwing group content will pair them with good players (making the run smooth and them think it was thanks to them too) or with bad (making the run a tragedy, making them think that the others couldn't keep up).

Hence, why I'd like to see more solo content that would not be made vastly easier with a group, that would put to the test the players individual, actual skills.

The game have some interesting instances. Plenty of duels that require some individual proficiency. Then there is the mock-up battle between Ishgard and the three Grand Companies that was a wonderful mini-game (alas, a joke as a healer). Then there is another "group battle" with that war over the steppes in Stormblood. The latter two would be great content to add (solo with NPC's, as it would take ages to make sure that one could actually complete the bonding in the steppe war, at least).

The former brings to mind...a coliseum. There is already one, in Ul-Dah. But players cannot participate in it (except as part of Paladins job quests). I think it would be a great content to add however. How would I want it to work?

Battles:
Duels: Player would fight against an enemy one on one. The enemy could be selected from a list (with varying classes, difficulties etc.) and depending on the selection, the rewards would differ. Make some really challenging foes that give good rewards (experience, really), and players will really want to get better at their class. However, please...Don't think that "Bigger HP = Bigger challenge". Use mechanics for controlling the difficulty, not the enemies health pool.
A random mode where the duel takes place against a random foe would be nice bonus.
Team Battles: Since there is this coliseum, why not? The more players there are, the more NPC's they fight against, making for the content properly scaling in difficulty with party. If the gladiators will actually focus on one target instead of going through enmity list as normal, that is. Meaning, people will probably die, but their goal is to kill all the opponents before they all get downed first. It's a fair game for either side. Again, opponent selection or random.
Tournament: Well, self-explanatory. Could have either or both of two ways it's calculated. Elimination, where you lose, you're out, or point-based, where you gain point for draw, two for win and naught for loss, and you'd have to fight against every opponent once (so seven/fifteen duels). The further the player goes/the higher position they end up as the higher the reward.
Adding extra player teams could be available, with the teams being as far apart as possible with the amount of people (if in elimination tournament), so that if there are two teams, they can only meet in the finals.
This could also include a way for players to organize tournaments, putting an item as reward and inviting others to participate or making it open for anyone, though NPC's would still fill-in the blanks. What happens with the reward if NPC's win? Well, details...
And yes, duels or team battles are fair game.


The important part is making these duels a challenge. Not a roflstomp that the bottom-skill players can defeat, but something one needs to be at least decent for the weakest NPC, or a "real pro" for the highest-difficulty match-up of highest difficulty NPC. If they are not a challenge, there would be no improvement in individual player skills, and it's just become another good or bad but way to get experience.

[SerLuke]

There's also a level 50 side quest that uses the Coliseum but yeah its always bothered me there's not much we can actually do there I thought they would have added more content for it.

Anyways I agree I would love to see more challenging solo content.

[Enkidoh]

There's also a level 50 side quest that uses the Coliseum but yeah its always bothered me there's not much we can actually do there I thought they would have added more content for it.

The level 60-70 PLD Job quests also feature solo instanced battles in the Ul'dah Colosseum as part of the quests (as the OP noted), as did the old version 1.0 GLA class quests (fittingly, as the Colosseum is part of the GLA's Guild). The reason though why we don't have more content using it (such as PvP) is SE are mindful about how players would tend to idle around there between matches and thus, given how players idling broke Ul'dah in 1.0, they clearly want to avoid a repeat of that happening again.

Personally though, the OP's idea of a solo-orientated battle arena is still something I would love to see, and Gold Saucer would be perfect for it instead of Ul'dah, given the original Gold Saucer in FFVII had something similar there. I disagree about using it for group content though, as there is already plenty of team-based PvP and PvE in the game anyway.

[SerLuke]

The level 60-70 PLD Job quests also feature solo instanced battles in the Ul'dah Colosseum as part of the quests, as did the old version 1.0 GLA class quests (fittingly, as the Colosseum is part of the GLA's Guild). The reason though why we don't have more content using it (such as PvP) is SE are mindful about how players would tend to idle around there between matches and thus, given how players idling broke Ul'dah in 1.0, they clearly want to avoid a repeat of that happening again.

Personally though, the OP's idea of a solo-orientated battle arena is still something I would love to see, and Gold Saucer would be perfect for it instead of Ul'dah, given the original Gold Saucer in FFVII had something similar there. I disagree about using it for group content though, as there is already plenty of team-based PvP and PvE in the game anyway.

That makes sense, I wasn't around for 1.0.

[Soupa]

Tournament sounds a lot like the current PvP features we have currently (Custom matches, feast). The others sound like interesting ideas but its not much different then say a trial roulette at that point. (Min ilv sync, level sync, etc). The main problem I see is this is supposed to be geared toward solo content which is not exactly the first thing you think of when you're playing an MMO. Nice ideas though.

[kikix12]

The others sound like interesting ideas but its not much different then say a trial roulette at that point. (Min ilv sync, level sync, etc).

The difference is massive. Group content does not promote individual performance growth (the more difficult it is the better it is at that, but there's always a limit). How many times have I seen people do everything bad in a trial (like, getting thrown out by Titan the very first time it's possible, of course, at times I was guilty of that myself) and still clear? Just cause the content can be cleared with a handicap of multiple people in the party being sub-par. And they have little in-game reasons to get better, unless they want to do the really difficult content (which most of these players do not).

The main problem I see is this is supposed to be geared toward solo content which is not exactly the first thing you think of when you're playing an MMO. Nice ideas though.

I'm afraid that in order to have one, individual player get better, that one individual player needs to be given a challenge. I'm not a proponent of a challenge in main story, hence why I suggest an optional content that can provide it.

Really, even an MMO cannot make-do without some solo content. I didn't propose anything but experience as reward (there may or may not be anything beyond) so as to not make players feel bad when they just cannot clear it at all. Experience can be gotten in many other places, of varied difficulty. Just look at other MMO's. Any, really. The more difficult solo-content there was (even just actually difficult "world" mobs), the better the average players skills. But FFXIV is so focused on party content, and making what little solo content there is laughably easy, that there is just no way to get better without going out of ones way.

[Soupa]

Really, even an MMO cannot make-do without some solo content. I didn't propose anything but experience as reward (there may or may not be anything beyond) so as to not make players feel bad when they just cannot clear it at all.

If we want someone to get better then there needs to be more gatekeeping content like before things like Steps of Faith, Vault, and Nidhogg before they were nerfed. A recent example is Shinryu which everyone was complaining to be nerfed but they didn't which forced players to "get good". This games battle content is almost entirely group based so I don't see how solo content would help anyone really improve outside of their rotation which can be done at a training dummy. Healers especially would get barely anything out of this because they're supposed to be taking care of a party. Again good ideas(I like the team battles) but not much practical use.

[BillyKaplan]

A recent example is Shinryu which everyone was complaining to be nerfed but they didn't which forced players to "get good".

I wouldn't say everyone got good, but eventually everyone got overgeared which made it easier to carry people.

My biggest concern when it comes to adding more solo content is how badly people will cry for it to be nerfed and simplified even when it's obvious things are supposed to propose a challenge (this doesn't include PotD which seems to be more impossible than just challenging, and more references someone who has Shinryu ex on farm who wanted a nerf for it). Look at everyone who had a hard time passing the 4.1 solo instance and demanded anything from a nerf to letting them bring someone else in. Now, we're likely speaking purely optional content here, which I'd be all for, but when has that ever stopped anyone from complaining about content?

[Soupa]

Look at everyone who had a hard time passing the 4.1 solo instance and demanded anything from a nerf to letting them bring someone else in.

Yeah it was perfect. 10/10 gatekeeping.

[kikix12]

If we want someone to get better then there needs to be more gatekeeping content like before things like Steps of Faith, Vault, and Nidhogg before they were nerfed. A recent example is Shinryu which everyone was complaining to be nerfed but they didn't which forced players to "get good".

No, not really. Those that couldn't do it, didn't, waited for the others to do it and get better gear...and then were carried by them. By now, losing two or so players in Shinryu isn't that much of a hit. Especially if they were DPS.

This games battle content is almost entirely group based so I don't see how solo content would help anyone really improve outside of their rotation which can be done at a training dummy.

Rotation learning can be done on a training dummy...if you either checked the walkthrough for your class to learn it first, use a parser, or spend a lot of time doing the calculations manually. Not to mention, this just trains the basic ability to do that rotation when you are not interrupted, but speaks nothing of your ability to maintain it (or as close to it as possible) when you are in actual combat where there are mechanics and attacks which you need to adapt to.

As for the game being heavily group-content, it'll stay that way unless they'll add some solo content, which is what I suggest.

All in all, a players ability is a derivative of both their individual ability and skill with the class (which only solo content with challenging, active opponents can teach, or a parser to filter out the outside interference) and their ability to adapt and cooperate with a group (this is what group play teaches, and on its own, this is good enough only for the standard content up to expert dungeons). We have plenty of means to train group abilities, but barely any (aka. virtually none) to train individual abilities.

Healers especially would get barely anything out of this because they're supposed to be taking care of a party.

Yes, the educative part of the suggestion would have much less impact on healers. It would teach them to better manage their mana, cooldowns like Largesse and DPS and heal, but it would not help them get better at helping others. However, healers have means of training their main focal point, while DPS must go blindly by trail and error, use parsers which are not supported officially, or have very good instincts for these kinds of things. Most people don't have instincts at that level, many people hate parsers or don't even know they exist (or don't want to risk getting banned) and trial and error is very disheartening when not only can you come across players that will trash-talk at you, but also other players like you that still lack the skills, and can even hold you back, so that you cannot really say whether you've improved or not at all.


That being said, whether it would be practical or not in the long run, it's still content and it's still meant to be fun. And it would be a fine choice for DPS that just have a short time to play and want to do something meaningful, so even for the entertainment factor, it would still be enough.


I didn't know about the 1.0 version and it causing a problem though...Well, either way, details like that can be mixed and matched as necessary. It's more of a story-building thing which is beyond the scope of this thread. It could be solved with a different coliseum, it could be solved with an instance "hub" that is entered from the gladiators guild or its vicinity, too.