Request: please add unexpected occurrences/surprises

[Wilford111]

As a person who's been playing this game for a while now, I've noticed that the game doesn't really have any "shiny Pokemon" moments. You know, things that only happen once in a blue moon, and cause players to freak out and get excited.

I think adding small things to add some spice to the game will go a long way. Things that will make players go, "what! is that supposed to happen?" And be so rare that it'll get the rumor mill going. I think something like that could go a long way to add some mystery and charm to the world and the game as a whole.

I'll add some of my own personal ideas, and if you're on board, feel free to share some of your own.

- In trial roulette, have a 1/10,000 chance that you will encounter a recoloured version of the boss you'd normally get, and let it have slightly higher stats and do more damage. Or, perhaps make the stats the same, but switch the fight with the strats from the ex version. Give more rewards to compensate for the unexpectedness.

- In a leveling or 50/60 dungeon, switch one of the regular bosses with another one from another dungeon. How cool would it be to fight Zenos von Galvus in Sastasha with your limited moveset? Now it might not be practical to go that extreme, but I think it would be a great idea if implemented properly.

Let me know if you like this idea, and hopefully something like this can be implemented to freshen up the experience now and then. Feel free to add some of your own ideas if you have any.

Oh, and if SE does decide to do something like this, please don't let us know in patch notes or trailers. Let us be surprised!

[Wilford111]

(BIG OL' EDIT)

So now that I'm finally at home, in front of my PC, and not in a hurry, I feel I can properly explain my idea in full detail and clarity. My above post was probably pretty vague and didn't convey my idea really well, so that's what this edit is for. And before I actually get into it, I'm sorry I argued with some of you in the thread and got a little toxic. I guess I need to learn to take criticism a little better. Anyways, on with it.

So I said I noticed the game doesn't have any "shiny pokemon" moments and didn't really go into detail about what I meant. So first I'll briefly explain what a shiny pokemon is and how it relates.
Basically a shiny pokemon is a recoloured version of a regular pokemon (I won't go into IV's/stats and all that mumbo jumbo), and no other real differences. However they are SUPER rare, coming in at about 1/8192 encounter rate. It's very possible to go though multiple playthroughs of various Pokemon games and never encounter a shiny. Indeed many players have never seen one in their lifetime. But see, that's what makes a shiny pokemon so special. If you ever happen to actually encounter one, a typical player that knows what one is will get super excited and try to catch it. Some people even spend days/weeks shiny hunting to recapture that moment of excitement.

What I would like to do is capture that same kind of excitement in ffxiv, but how would we do this? I would like to have something that is similar to what Pokemon has, but not exactly the same. I don't think encountering a recoloured enemy or boss would be enough to really get someone excited. So maybe do something a little extra, or just think outside the box a little. Now, I think it's evident that my ideas aren't the best. But in the hands of the ffxiv devs, I'm confident that we could get something truly special. Yes, not every player will encounter something like this, but again, that's what makes it so special. If everyone experiences it, then it loses some of that excitement, and people aren't as inclined to think about it as something worth talking about.

So yes, I know the devs are constantly working on new things in the game and have very little time to work on side projects and things like that. But I don't think what I'm proposing will take that much time or effort. I'd only want stuff made from existing assets so it doesn't take up too much of the devs time. I'd imagine something like this to maybe take the same amount of time it'd take to do a QoL improvement or two. I'm not a programmer or designer though, so I wouldn't know. But still, I do think adding something like this would be worth it. If it does end up taking too much time away from them making their normal content, then I don't think they should do it. This is obviously not a change that needs to happen in ff, lol. I just think it's a neat little thing to have happen every once in a while that will liven up people's play sessions every now and then. if it's too much trouble, then it's no big deal.

So hopefully that clears the air on whatever it was I was talking about. Thank you for reading XD And thank you for your consideration, if a GM reads it.

[Fawkes]

More ghosts!

[Destati]

As interesting this idea is, it would be extremely awkward for newbies going into a roulette and having bosses/mechanics suddenly switch out on them.
Not to mention spoilers in the case of your "Zenos in Sastasha" example.

[Vstarstruck]

I want the "This shall be a mercy" guy to appear in any dungon, scaled to fit the place of course, making sure he says all his meme statements.

Oh the sloppy guy too, need a random chance anywhere to have the sloppy guy

[Wilford111]

As interesting this idea is, it would be extremely awkward for newbies going into a roulette and having bosses/mechanics suddenly switch out on them.
Not to mention spoilers in the case of your "Zenos in Sastasha" example.

Just have the game do a check before the dungeon starts to see that every player has cleared the dungeon beforehand, and the boss in question.

[MsQi]

As long as there are not any achievements connected to it.

[Vahlnir]

There were certain things that happened in XI, like walking through Lufaise Meadows and seeing Bahamut skim over a lake. Was a pretty rare thing. I wouldn't mind more things like this, kinda like what they did with the Void Ark. Seeing it appear in the Sea of Clouds and Churning Mists was really neat. I'd love more little "events" like that around the world. Some randomized enemies in dungeons would be neat, too.

[RitsukoSonoda]

At the odds rate of finding a shiny pokemon normal monster respawns in the open world areas can randomly be a mutation that looks different and is lv 100 >.>

[Iscah]

The thing with dungeons is that they're fixed events in the storyline of the game. You replay them but your character hasn't actually gone back to the place, they're just reliving memories of what happened the one time they went there. You fight and kill the same unique enemies. (When you *do* really go back in the hard mode dungeons, events are different.)

Zenos shouldn't randomly appear in Sastasha, because he was never in that place at that time - and what would he do anyway? Either wipe your party in two seconds, or refuse to fight. And then it would mess with the timeline because now you may or may not have already encountered him when you "first" meet him in Stormblood.

So you're left with things happening in the overworld - FATEs are kind of sort of that effect. Any time you see NPC characters moving around in field areas, follow them! 'Listen' to their speech bubbles, talk to them directly if you can, track their little stories as they unfold to set up the monster encounter. There are a number of story-chain FATEs I still haven't got to follow properly, like the attack on Highbridge, and in the Azim Steppe there's a whole side story following a minor tribe through different events. (I got a few bits of it but then I - and they - got defeated in an encounter with an enemy tribe, and I need to pick up that storyline again sometime.) I suspect you may need more people with you to actually succeed in the battles.