Ironman Mode

[gllt]

Would be fun. FFXIV is actually well suited towards it because it's easy to create and play multiple characters unlike RuneScape, where ironman mode is very popular nonetheless.

If you don't know what it is, it's just no reliance on other players when possible. So in the context of FFXIV, no trading or market board.

Think of it like purposefully opting into free trial restrictions on a character.

The idea is to create a more engaging playthrough where you have to rely on gathering, crafting, and NPC drops and vendors more to progress through the game.

Group ironman is the same thing but you opt into it with multiple people and you're specifically allowed to trade with each other but not anyone else.

As a result of market board restrictions, I would give out free retainers to ironman players for extra storage space. They need it because it's kind of important to hoard resources in ironman.

[NegativeS]

A mode like this would be cool, but people have been doing this already. They even have a way to prove that you've actually done all the content ironman, though the Active Help system.

[gllt]

People were already doing it in RuneScape too that's why it was made into a system

That's also why I won't be heartbroken if of course they don't add this

[DiaDeem]

People are way ahead of you, friend.

[ReynTime]

It wouldn't be anywhere near as challenging as in games like Runescape...

You don't actually need to buy, craft or gather a single thing to get all your DoW and DoM at lv100 and geared. And if you count tomestones as 'buying' then you're still gucci without anything but dungeon gear and quest rewards until the endgame...

[DiaDeem]

It wouldn't be anywhere near as challenging as in games like Runescape...

If you seriously thing that, go watch the link I posted.

[Vyrerus]

If you seriously thing that, go watch the link I posted.

That's Rath Games and he's a cinnamon roll of great justice.

But he placed arbitrary restrictions on himself that are mostly just for the challenge he wants.

He is purposely throwing away quest rewards. Had to make several allowances already. Needed streamer privilege to get enough folks to do Crystal Tower raid series. Even then, he opted into making it so that if he dies, then they wipe. At least until World of Darkness.

Notably, he doesn't actually ban tomestone gear, but does try to not use it, if it gives him too much iLvl for what he's doing. All in all, though, he's also refusing to use Epic Echo and other things instituted into the game that are there to account for the stat squish on older content. Unless absolutely necessary, whenever he deems it so.

I'm not trying to knock him. His streams and vids are phenomenal, and he is my second most favorite FFXIV content channel right behind Cider Spider (though admittedly, I'm more of a parasocial one way friendo in relation to Spider, cause Spider is just so damn cool).

As it stands, Crystal Tower is the only place you have to make a natural exception for, or go out of your way to gather other Ironmen or Ironmen-adjacent players for. Other than that, you can grind to your heart's content and slowly but surely get up to max level without leaving ARR. No idea how long that'd take with reduced Fate EXP, but you'd have the challenge log for weekly spurts.

I myself started a character where the purpose of the character was to try and jail break the dungeon order, and sure enough, the 5 side dungeons that don't require any MSQ completion are Sunken Temple of Qarn, Cutter's Cry, Dzemael Darkhold, Aurum Vale, and Wanderer's Palace.

It's actually fully possible to level up and beat Wanderer's Palace with Red Mage or Samurai with their i115 quest reward sets in the mid 50s, solo, without any good accessories, before even unlocking Sastasha. There were some veteran or CE reward feathers for buying tomestone i130 gear too, so you could get those as well. Rath makes use of those at some point to get himself Shire gear as I recall.

It's really not that hard of a challenge, unless you impose exactly what Rath does on himself.

[gllt]

Yeah I already watch Rath. I just want an official game mode.

[DiaDeem]

But he placed arbitrary restrictions on himself that are mostly just for the challenge he wants

So.. we use these restrictions for the to-be-official mode proposed in this thread?

I feel there's a good portion of the player-base that would get a legit kick out of such a challenge. Maybe even auto-skip all cutscene content to focus on the challenge itself of clearing the content with no distractions or something.

[gllt]

I wouldn't mind it being a list of self imposed restrictions you can choose at character creation but it would probably be better if it was just one mode or a few tiers of one mode (normal, hardcore, etc)

Because I don't think modes like these have to be hard to be fun

In OSRS I play a permadeath (hardcore) Ironman and a regular Ironman, of course the hardcore one is much more tense but I intentionally play very safe so it's not hard, just time consuming, but I enjoy it

Regular Ironman, I take a little more risks and I've even died shortly into my run, I don't find it especially hard, I just find it satisfying because I can't immediately run to the grand exchange (marketboard)

I know I get all the dungeon handouts in 14 etc I'm okay with that, I realize just no trading no mb wouldn't be very compelling, but it would be just interesting enough for me to spend time crafting a bunch of my own crafters gear or actually getting a house and working for all my furniture instead of buying it, things like that

But I definitely condone like a no bank difficulty or no dungeon drops, etc other kinds of difficult to make it even more about self sustain with little help