Monster Arena - FFX
We all know FFXIV is extremely lacking in content, so heres an idea to help change that, looking over the past FF games there are many great ideas in each of them that could be taken out, reworked and put into the world of Eorzea and the MMORPG experience of the game.
The Monster Arena from FFX is one of these ideas me and my linkshell thought of and said "Hey, that'd work great in this game". Monster Arena had alot of fun to it, and a small amount of progression through different varieties of enemies in the world of FFX, which i believe could translate into an enjoyable experience for everybody within FFXIV.
How it would work:
•There would be an NPC in one/or each of the city states, in which you went to talk to, find out the specifics of the system and also tutorials on how the system would work for newer players.
•The NPC would also sell the special Capture Weapons, in which you could capture an enemies essence after defeating it.
•Higher level or more advanced Capture Weapons could be implemented via NM drops within the Monster Arena progression as well as being craftable.
•The Capture Weapons would function much like they did in FFX, landing the killing blow on a Monster with the weapon equipped would Capture the Monster.
Objectives
Now for the fun stuff, in FFX Monster Arena you had many different tiers or areas in which you could unlock new enemy encounters.
Species Creations - were simple enough to unlock, 'Capture XX Monsters of the Seedskin Species' Doing this requirement unlocked a Boss Battle of this Species type, in XIV it would work much the same, just possibly a higher amount of captured monsters required.
After capturing enough species this would unlock a new Boss Battle to attempt within the arena, the Boss of course was of the same species, but was tougher, in XIV obviously there would be a reward, be it gil, gear or materials, or Arena Credits(I will go into this later).
Area Creations - had more of a requirement to unlock. In FFX you had to capture say, at least 10 of every monster type that roams the area, in XIV this would obviously be a huge task to undertake since the regions are so huge, so the requirements could be relaxed or regions could be divided up somehow, possibly by Camp/Monster level range.
As with Species Battles, this unlocks a boss battle, only specific to the monsters within the area, and they were much larger and harder to defeat, rewards would be gil, gear, materials or Arena Credits.
Original Creations - The highest end of the monster arena, these battles would be incredibly tough and specifically for the highest levels, they have large requirements to unlock each specific original creation an example of these requirements from FFX were:
• Capture 5 of each species
• Capture at least 5 monsters from 5 different areas
• Capture 5 of every monster for all areas
FFXIV course would have alot different & more taxing requirements to unlock these super boss battles. The reward would be great, ranging from high level materials, gear, large amounts of gil & medals.
Super Boss - The arena super boss would have the greatest requirements of all, requiring you to have defeated all of the original creations at least once and capture a specific amount of monsters within specific areas. The super bosses rewards would be massive, +3 quality crafting materials, gear sets, accessories & medals to exchange for gear at the arena shop.
Party Size & Difficulty - The boss battles of the arena would have 4,8,16 Person Versions, In larger parties Bosses would have increased HP, Attack, Defence, Minions, access to more abilities regarding its species, they would also drop more medals/currency the more difficult the fight.
Achievement Trophies - For defeating each of the bosses within the arena you would unlock a statuette of the boss to display within your personal house or within the linkshells building(if they are implemented).
Medals - Medals would be an additional currency for defeating the hardest bosses of the arena, these would be spent on higher tier'd gear & materials at the arena shop. This is just so everybody in the party gets a reward for completing the boss battle, so not just the people who get the drops from the boss. (For those of you that played FFXI it would function like Ampoules in Einherjar).
Arena Credits - Arena Credits would be spent at the Arena Shop to buy class specific gear sets, fun costumes turning you into the monsters, enchantments to apply to weapons/gear, different arena environments. The items brought with the Arena Credits would be a lower level than items bought with Medals, just so you cant spam low level arena NM's and buy the highest level gear sets.
Monster Arena Environment - The Boss fights would all be held within an instance, the party should be able to choose from a selection of enviroments to fight the Notorious Monster in, just to make it more fun. These environments would be full of epicness, like fighting before a gigantic castle(Ishgard), a mountain plataeu above the clouds. Just a few examples anyway.
That does it for this idea, me and my linkshell are still conversing and coming up with more additions that would work within Eorzea, alot of the ideas being things the community are already saying they would like to see.