Content geared towards FCs

[Vidu]

Fluff content doesn't move all players...if i was asking about fluff, adding a hairstyle, or something glamour related I'm 90% sure the responses would all be supportive. General consensus seems to be we dont want it locked behind fc meanwhile if implemented correctly it could be a invigorating change to spark more life into the deadness that is absolutely felt by many FCs across all data centers. When did our community get so afraid of innovation? Its always no dont touch anything the game is perfect as is for many things that are suggested.

Because there are a few thoughts I cant get out of my head, I figured I might as well write them down - you mention content being implemented correctly and while one could argue that its not the players job to figure out what that would look like, I think its interesting to think about what "content implemented correctly" could even be.


The first question one has to ask here is: What even is "content" in this context?
Broadly speaking I could see two different general categories this "content" could fall into: One would be content that requiers the FC to actively play together, similar to a dungeon-type of content where everyone needs to be online at the same time and work together in clearing the content in question.
The other one would be a shared goal that everyone can work towards by themself - along the lines of earning FC-credits, increasing the FC-rank, building something in the workshop or saving up for a house together. Some of these things are even passive to a degree - you earn credits and build up rank by just doing stuff you'd do if you werent in the FC, but the FC profits from that aswell.
(A third option I could imagine would be something where just being in an FC grants you access to something like a vendor or a special area)

While saying "Obviously, we want all types of content" is a valid answer, I think thinking about what type of content one even means is worthwhile - a connected question would be: What do you hope this content achieves? Bringing people together in the same place, at the same moment, interacting with each other? Or something everyone can contribute towards at their own pace?

The second big question I want to raise however is: For how many people is this content designed?
If the content is designed for FCs, I think every legitimate FC should be able to participate in it - meaning that we dont need to worry about shell- or solo-FCs. The game requiers 4 people to found an FC (if memory servers right), so the smallst FC we need to consider is a group of 4 people. The maximum amount of people is 512.
So thats our range - we need content that can support 4 to 512 people. In reality most FCs are going to be somewhere in between of course, but thats not relevant when thinking about content thats supposed to be for FC because it should be for all FCs.

So, looking at these numbers and knowing that zones/instances cant support 512 at once (I think Eureka and Bozja had a maximum amount of 128 people or something along those lines?) we would need to rule out any content that has everyone play together at once if we want to be really fair.
We dont have to be, of course, and can just say that not everyone in the FC can participate in the content at the same time, even if everyone is online at the same time - and that it would be up to the FC-leaders to decide who gets to do the content and who doesnt.
At the same time we need to think of small FCs, so the content would need to be designed in such a way that even 4 people could clear it - or it would need to allow for non-FC-members to fill in and help out (thats how the original diadem was btw - you needed to take an airship and only a member of the FC could do that but you were able to take non-FC-members with you). But wouldnt that defeat the purpose of gating the content behind FCs in the first place...?

Then the question of jobs and levels - would everyone be able to participate, starting at level 1? Would you need level 50, 60, 70, 90...? An ilvl? Progress to a specific part of the story? Do you need specific jobs? Or could you have 4 level 1 archers do the content? We could have a whole seperate skill-system, like in PvP, that puts everyone on equal footing, of course. Maybe paired with special actions like in Eureka, Bozja and Criterion to allow for parties to go in without a tank or healers, but that still leaves the question if the difficulty should be geared towards someone at endgame or someone just starting out.

...and when I'm just looking at these few points, I'm wondering again: What would be the true benefit of this in the end? Or rather: What would be the benefit of desiging FC-only content when it requires so many hoops to jump through - maybe except for just adding another type of FC-credits that everyone gets to grind together. What would be the benefit to lock Eureka-like content behind FCs? Supplying us with FC-only content would still require the FC to work together, to organise the when and how and who. It would potentially exclude indivuals within the FC (Sorry buddy, we're already 24 people - maybe next time!) or it would exclude whole FCs (dont have 24 people? Better leave that FC!).

I dare say that one of the most challenging parts of raiding with a static is the organisation, not the fight. The more people you can draw from the tackle content together, the better in my book - I want to play the game, not spent most of my time trying to find people to play with. By limiting content to your FC, you're limting the amount of people you can draw from - for no good reason.
Each time a new 24 man raid comes out my FCs tries to organise a full blind run - everyone from the FC is invited, but if we dont get 24 people together its not an issue, we can just invite friends from other FCs or use PF (heck, even DF for the last few). If that wasnt an option, it would mean that the 19 of us who did show up and wanted to play together are now locked out of the content - you can scale those numbers however you want btw, I'm just using this as an example. How would that be better than what we currently have?