Ishgard restoration in the long term

[tdb]

Access to the Ishgard restoration FATE seems extremely restricted. It only appeared three times on each server, and by nearly all servers have completed the first stage. An event lasting a week and having only a handful of chances to participate is very limited even by standards of other special events. This extremely limited availability caused the playfield to become overcrowded, preventing some people from participating even if they were online at the appointed time.

There will be more stages in the reconstruction and so more chances to participate, but I doubt it can go on forever. What will happen a year or two from now when the restoration is complete? Will new players be forever unable to experience the event properly, or is there a plan to make it more permanent and repeatable? I already found it rather strange that in the beginning of the questline the NPCs told me they were just starting out and planning things, and then hey presto, the first stage is instantly complete without me doing anything at all.

The items available for skybuilder's scrips are also very expensive compared to what you get from returns. Lv80 items give 50-ish scrips, but most interesting items are in the ballpark of 1000 scrips, with some going for more than 2000. Apparently the FATE gives 500, but it's no longer available until the next stage begins. And then it'll once again be a race to see who gets to participate.

I was hoping for some kind of mixture of the Doman enclave reconstruction and Eureka, but in didn't imagine it could be this restricted. At least the item returns give pretty excellent EXP and seem to be perpetually available, so it's not completely useless.

[Archaell]

The rewards from the fate should be removed and the fate itself should happen multiple times to give players chance to experience it for the sake of experience alone. The turn-ins are good enough for scripts.

If this content survives the player critique, we might get new things to build after the Ishgard is done.

[tdb]

Fair point about possible other construction projects in the future. Still, I think it would improve the experience for future players if the construction phases weren't skipped over entirely. Keeping the FATE around indefinitely may be infeasible, but perhaps after completion of the stage it could be replaced with a quest that asks the player to do similar things?

[Pepsi_Plunge]

Access to the Ishgard restoration FATE seems extremely restricted. It only appeared three times on each server, and by nearly all servers have completed the first stage. An event lasting a week and having only a handful of chances to participate is very limited even by standards of other special events. This extremely limited availability caused the playfield to become overcrowded, preventing some people from participating even if they were online at the appointed time.

Yeah, I was very unhappy with the event. While other players exploited the world travel system to take part in as many as they can, I could only participate in one of them (after SE hotfixed it and banned the travellers), because the FATEs were to crowded or there was an issue with the time table, as the FATEs may pop up in the middle of the night.

I know that I can still craft collectibles, but this involves Gil and much more time and effort then the FATE. So it just doesn't feel fair that some players got their rewards very easily at the expense of others like myself by locking us out of the content. For me, it feels like that the world travellers more or less stole our rewards.

[MistakeNot]

The Ishgard restoration FATEs were not terribly exciting even if you did manage to catch one:
Interact with items at A.
Move to B and interact with another item.
Go to C and interact with yet another item.
Rinse and repeat until the FATE is finished.
Get a few seconds worth of cutscene as another structure is completed - which you can see in its completed state anytime you visit the Firmament.
Profit!

(There almost certainly were minor variations between the different FATEs, but I doubt there were major ones.)

If you want to see how work is progressing you need only visit the Firmament at regular intervals to see how it changes over time. If you want to help restore it, the real work consists of turning in all the collectibles.


Someone starting play a year or two from now will probably not be able to see how the restoration progressed, just as players starting out now won't be able to see how Mor Dhona or Idyllshire changed over time.

[JowyAtreides]

Someone starting play a year or two from now will probably not be able to see how the restoration progressed, just as players starting out now won't be able to see how Mor Dhona or Idyllshire changed over time.

Difference being there wasn't a restoration questline for either Mor Dhona or Idyllshire, it just changed as patches happened.

[Pepsi_Plunge]

The Ishgard restoration FATEs were not terribly exciting even if you did manage to catch one:
Interact with items at A.

Maybe, but that's not the point.
All in all, doing one-time-only-events on a very specific point in time where it is either hit or miss forever AND then letting only a limited amount of players participate in it, even when they are there in time, is just a very bad idea.

At least let them trigger multiple times a week on different times a day, so everybody actually has a chance before you move on to the next event - just make it so that you get your reward only once a week like it is with raiding. Or let the FATE go on the whole day for 24 hours and everybody who shows up at one point and participate in it for like 10 minutes will get the reward at the end of it. That would actually be a fairer system.

[Iscah]

It concerns me a lot that this is one-shot and missable.

Doma was done with so much loving detail, about a place and a group of characters that (with the exception of the returning refugees) I didn't really know or care about.

Now we have Ishgard - a city far closer to my heart - and a project led by a character I've cared about for years... and it's temporary and missable. It's designed by choice to never be experienced as an unfolding narrative by anyone who isn't here to see it, while Doma will be playable through all its stages years later.

[tdb]

Yeah, I was very unhappy with the event. While other players exploited the world travel system to take part in as many as they can, I could only participate in one of them (after SE hotfixed it and banned the travellers), because the FATEs were to crowded or there was an issue with the time table, as the FATEs may pop up in the middle of the night.

Oof. I was late in starting the quest and found the first stage to already be completed on my server, but I was hoping regional datacenters would mean the FATEs would be scheduled at prime time for each region. Apparently not.

I know that I can still craft collectibles, but this involves Gil and much more time and effort then the FATE. So it just doesn't feel fair that some players got their rewards very easily by locking others like myself out of the content. For me, it feels like that the world travellers more or less stole our rewards.

My crafting classes are still Lv75-ish, and the Ishgard turn-ins seem like a great way to get some quick EXP. If you're already Lv80 though, it's just a horrible grind for scrips.

The Ishgard restoration FATEs were not terribly exciting even if you did manage to catch one:
Interact with items at A.
Move to B and interact with another item.
Go to C and interact with yet another item.
Rinse and repeat until the FATE is finished.
Get a few seconds worth of cutscene as another structure is completed - which you can see in its completed state anytime you visit the Firmament.

I'd have liked to see the cutscene though. The FATE does sound boring, so it could easily be replaced with a quest with only a couple of repeats of the tasks.

Someone starting play a year or two from now will probably not be able to see how the restoration progressed, just as players starting out now won't be able to see how Mor Dhona or Idyllshire changed over time.

Would be nice to be able to see those changes as well. Is there any reason why they wouldn't be tied to MSQ progress? Maybe new game+ could be utilized to allow players to revisit such changes.

Just look at how the Doman enclave reconstruction was implemented. Regardless of whether you first entered it on patch day or a year from now, you first find the place in ruins, and can see it being rebuilt through your efforts. That's how I hoped Ishgard would be as well.

I guess if the quests related to Ishgard restoration are removed when it's complete, it at least won't be quite so jarring to have it completed instantly. But that seems like a cop out solution to me.

[Shadygrove]

I just have to say this right up front. The FATE was sucky. The limitations on the number of characters was worse.

After the traveler ban AFKers were the problem.

They either need to make multiple instances or restore the AFK boot timer. Probably both.

How to make an interesting crafting / gathering FATE ... that would be a problem.

Other areas will open up to restore... so how about...

Gatherers gather salvageable materials from the rubble and deposit them in some kind of bin. Fishers could use snagging and bolides to fish in puddles for salvageable materials, it would have to be instabite to make it fair. This is all generic. You would have salvageable materials 1, L20 through salvageable materials 6, L80 with numbered nodes and puddles. There will be targets for each level. This replaces interact with item 1.

Crafters take salvageable materials from the bin and craft restoration supplies. Again this is all generic. You would have restoration supplies 1, L20 through restoration supplies 6, L80. There will be targets for each level. Quality should count but hopefully each synth, even macroed, would be 20 - 30 seconds. This replaces interact with item 2.

I honestly cannot at this time think of a way to replace interact with item 3 with something meaningful to crafters and gatherers. I mean we are talking stuff that doesn't exist in game. House carpentery, stonemasonry, architecture, paving.

If I do I will surely post again.