Timeworn Maps Adjustments

[Alestorm]

whats the point of having rare items if they're easily obtainable? =p

Rare items would be one thing, but locking 90% of the new crafted glamour reagents behind a massive RNG wall is not cool. It harms the crafters who want to make the items and the players who would buy it and don't have over 100 million Gil to obtain it.

I could see things like PotD where you can get minions, mounts and special housing items. Not a single piece of cloth for a blouse... that you need 4 of to make...

[Tridus]

whats the point of having rare items if they're easily obtainable? =p

There's a substantial difference between difficulty and annoyance. This is squarely on the annoyance end because it's a lottery. Got bad luck one night? Too bad, you're wasting your time.

We did maps last night on Cactaur (took a while to get a group, it's not terribly popular) and had good luck getting portals. We never got past the third door and never got a thiefs map, so loot wise it wasn't really worth it. That's why maps aren't worth hardly anything.

The RNG slot machine is nice when it goes your way, but when it doesn't it's pretty discouraging.

[QueenSophie]

Dragonskin and Gazelleskin maps are the best thing to ever happen to XIV. Most enjoyable parties since FFXI. The RNG is fine, and like Dr Who said, thats kind of what makes them exciting. They are absolutely worth it in the long run. Yes some nights are better than others. My dad has estimated that he has made 200 million since Thanksgiving just on 60 and 70 maps.

[silverlunarfox]

Our FC makes nights of it. We love maps. Never felt it was partially dead on arrival however. Square just loves their RNG. And I'm ok with that. It makes the parties interesting XP

[Tint]

Dragonskin and Gazelleskin maps are the best thing to ever happen to XIV. Most enjoyable parties since FFXI. The RNG is fine, and like Dr Who said, thats kind of what makes them exciting. They are absolutely worth it in the long run.

no they are not worth in the long run. i mean i could see an activity for months / years until i get my stuff for the new rare glamour gear. but since we know everything will get dumbed down after a while i don't see any point in investing so much time. at the point i have all pieces together for the craft we can get the items through deep dungeon 2 or retainer ventures or whatever... >.>

[Vidu]

whats the point of having rare items if they're easily obtainable? =p

Whats the point of those items, that are rare right now (mainly the two new wools) being this rare to begin with?The devs put all the work into designing new items (something that seems to take a lot of time/development for them) and now no one can wear them because the mats are to rare. And by "to rare" I mean: Me and my friends did well over 60 maps and got 2 thavnair wools in total.


For me the real point of rare items would be to be able to "show off" - but that would require those items to be rare and include some difficult way of obtaining them, aka the current Ex-primal mounts for example or the unique PvP-tournament-rewards.
Nothing to "show off" about when its only RNG, RNG, RNG and the mercy of your friends who know that you'd really, really like to have that dress so they'll let you have the wool...

I've said it before in a different thread and I'll say it again here: Currently maps arent fun - the gameplay behind them isnt much fun, so the whole excitment comes from the rewards and there simply arent enough to make it worth your while...

Even though chances are slim that the devs see this or even consider it, I'd like to share some ideas I had during my FCs map sessions. I'll split it in two sections - gameplay and rewards, because both can be improved to make mapy more fun!

Gameplay

Right now the main gameplay aspect of maps, or rather: The Canals is to kill trash mobs. Isnt that fun?!
...no, it isnt.
The Hidden Canals had a good idea by adding something else - The madrakes and Abrahamus cardgame. By a stretch you can also count the miniboss in the 4th room and the mainboss in the last room of each map aswell as Abrahamu und the Namazu. Bottomline: Anything that breaks away from killing one pack of trash after the next one is good!

So, here are a few ideas of mine how to achieve that:
- add O3's animal farm: Once the chest is being touched, some curious smoke turns everyone into a frog/pig/imp and three circles appear. If every circle has a matching player in it, the cages stay closed and you dont have to fight the trash. If you dont make it, you have to fight. You have a 10 second time limit to match the circles.
- add one friendly mob that you dont have to kill - the reverse Namazu, if you want. It doesnt has to drop from the ceciling but could rather hide among the normal mobs
- add an optional "killchain" - most often mobs come at least in pairs, but I'm thinking mainly about those groups of 4 elementals - manage to kill all 3 wind, then all 3 fire, then 3 earth, then 3 water without breaking the chain will award you an extra chest or a guranteed rainbow-door
- adapt the "collect things and turn them in"-FATE-mechanic - add an NPC/monster that wants you to collect the gems on the ground. Either as replacment for the trash mob fight (then with a time limit) or rather while fighting the trash. The reward would be an extra treasure or a rainbow-door.
- make the treasure a "heal-mimic": The chest turns into a monster upon touching but you get a time-limit to heal it to full HP. If you do, you dont have to fight the trash - if you dont, the chest calls for help (aka the cages open up)

Rewards

I understand that items for this content have to be put into the game and that thats work and so on - so here are a few simple ideas on how to increase the amount of rewards because, lets be honest: maps would be a lot more fun if you had at least something to show for at the end of it.
For me the worst thing that happens in the Canals is: Opening a treasure and the only thing that happens is some rubycotton yarn dropping into someones inventory and... nothing else. Thats okay-ish in the first room and frustrating in the third - and it happens far to often. Give me some loot to roll on!

- add the Aquapolis-loot, specially the songs and housing items
- increase the droprate for the rare glamour-drop-items - it doesnt has to be an extremly common drop or anything but the current amount of RNG makes it really, really unfun for no good reason.
- take some of the cute, small monster-models and turn them into extra-minions! Those fluff-things (Halgais?)! A different sheep-minion (maybe a recolour or add a little bow)! A Red Bird! A Green Bird! A Yellow Bird! A Purple Bird! All the birds! Cant be to difficult to change the colour of that bird and you regnerate a bunch of minions easly (also: everyone could have the bird in their favorite colour! Make it a full 7-colours-of-the-rainbow-thing and have the birds interact with each other if all 7 are together!)
- add more songs. There is still a lot of music in the game thats not for the Orchestrion yet and I honestly cant stand to see one of the twon-themes drop again... hey, add some "fun" ambient-sound like "Coins" or so!

[silverlunarfox]

snip

With the Gameplay you could also argue none of this game is actually fun......None of it is particularly new or ground breaking.

MAKE IT FUN.

and no mimics of any kind...go home youre drunk...

In regards to rewards, adding aquapolis rewards would defeat the purpose of the dragonskins which we do alot since they have the biggest gil turnaround in gil simply earned. Keep the canals seperate, but add in a new reward or two. I have lost count how many Uldah orchestration rolls have dropped...Other than that, I love the maps. I think they are decently rewarding, not just in money/items, but time spent with friends/FC.

Content is what you make of it sometimes. If its that much of a drag for you, don't do them... (I know people will probably find this inflammatory but it's really not. Every game is what you make of it. )

[QueenSophie]

no they are not worth in the long run.

? I feel sorry for your map experiences, or your server's economy, because yes, without a doubt on my server, they are more than worth it. 4 hannish wools, 18 Matanga Lamps, 30+ Nax Silks, 4 Crimson Sunrise scrolls, 2 thanvarian wools, for 70's ; 3 dwarf rabbits, 8 wool tops, numerous million gil scrolls , for 60's.....all within last 2-3 weeks. ( just to scratch the surface) But idk, I guess it just depends what you think is " worth alot ". But in my experiences, it's by far the most lucrative way to make gil.

[QueenSophie]

I have lost count how many Uldah orchestration rolls have dropped...Other than that, I love the maps. I think they are decently rewarding, not just in money/items, but time spent with friends/FC.

Content is what you make of it sometimes. If its that much of a drag for you, don't do them... (I know people will probably find this inflammatory but it's really not. Every game is what you make of it. )

This post is really well said. The best things about map, even better than all the rewards, is the fellowship and time spent with friends. It truly is community based and makes for some fun etertainment. The best friends are made through map parties If you don't like them, do some content you enjoy, cause everyone I have talked to about them loves the heck out of them. And yes, way too many 5k Uldah and Gridania scrolls dropping lately hahaha.

[Vidu]

With the Gameplay you could also argue none of this game is actually fun......None of it is particularly new or ground breaking.

MAKE IT FUN.

and no mimics of any kind...go home youre drunk...

In regards to rewards, adding aquapolis rewards would defeat the purpose of the dragonskins which we do alot since they have the biggest gil turnaround in gil simply earned. Keep the canals seperate, but add in a new reward or two. I have lost count how many Uldah orchestration rolls have dropped...Other than that, I love the maps. I think they are decently rewarding, not just in money/items, but time spent with friends/FC.

Content is what you make of it sometimes. If its that much of a drag for you, don't do them... (I know people will probably find this inflammatory but it's really not. Every game is what you make of it. )

Oh, I'm well aware that nothing is new or ground breaking - it wasnt supposed to be. It was rather supposed to be something to be easly implemented because everything needed for it is already there.

I enjoy doing maps with my FC/friends aswell - oh, no, wait... we dont enjoy doing maps exactly because they're mainly dull and boring and not rewarding. All the fun we have with this content comes from our conversations on discord during it - coming up with new ways to "trigger" an open door (for a while we tried sacrificing lalafell - no insult intended, its just what we did... made one lala a tank and let him die the last second... or not, depeding on the mood of our healers)
And thats the problem here: we dont have that much fun with the content itself, because fighting one room filled with trash after the other one isnt fun. Specially not with how bad the rewards are...

Aquapolis has the better rewards, but going back there is annoying because of the level synch - removing that could help Aquapolis to be fun (again).

Right now I have to "work" to make this content somehow fun to me - and while I can often agree with the sentiment "dont like it, dont do it" I'm not sure if I can here. If the fun from this content comes mainly from spending time with your friends and not from doing the content itself, something isnt right. If you're saying yourself that your main reward is time spend with your FC/friends and not the content itself... when the content just becomes a stage, you might aswell ask "cant we do something to make the fun 50% content, 50% company?" A lot of fun I'm having with this game comes from the people I'm playing it with, no denying that - but if we do content just to spend time together, we might aswell all ask if we cant spend this time with something more fun. And the sad thing is: we all liked maps at somepoint, but with how dull they are and how bad the rewards are, we basically have to drag some people into them and distract everyone with conversations on discord so they wont notice that yes, we're fighting 16 sheeps again and are being rewarded with two ruby cotton yarns.

So... why cant we have both? Good content and time well spend with friends?