Battlepass feedback

[Kirutsuki]

The more I look at the new battlepass system the more concerned I get. Essentially the system seems to largely focus on item level increase, but it seemingly does nothing towards regular daily play to help people out to alleviate some of the hurdle.

The whole system seems to be;

The more missions you do, the more points you get (max 3000 per week),
use those points to unlock gear that boosts your item level. You still have tomestones etc on the side, but this is just an additional way of gaining some gear.

But when you look at the season progress bar, things start to look a bit troublesome.

In my mind the entire season would be the 5 levels we see on screen, and the arrow to the right would just take us to the next season which would be largely locked.

The bottom of the bar rewards include:

• Treasuremap
• Coffer
• Orchestrion
• Emote
• Mount

This seems like a solid variety of things to get throughout the season. And follows the PvP reward stucture, but I would hope a bit more.

But on top of the bar the rewards include:

• Totems
• Some form of a trophy crystals

And I think here is where this system could use large improvements, if the intent is to have people do the entire season, then rewarding the player even from small steps should be considered that isn't just a bump in ilvl with the gear unlocks.

So adding in rewards for things people might not be doing all the time could be one avenue of improving this.

So the entire top of the bar should include rewards like:

• Alliance Raid coin
• PvP Trophy Crystals/Wolf Marks
• Chaotic Rewards
• 500 tomes (if they intend to keep them as is)
• Allied Seals
• Centurio Seals
• Sacks of Nuts
• Bicolor Gemstones
• Crafter & Gatherer Scripts

You could also increase the reward pool with consumable items such as, but not limited to;

• 30x Current Raid potion
• 50x Current CP potion
• 50x Ultra Hi-Cordials

Heck, some of the rewards could just be plain and simple XP buffs like;

• 20% XP buff for a week (stacks)
• 5-10% buff to CP/GP
• Spiritbond buff of +7 (stacks)

This would make the adventure activity more than just about ilevel increase and truly change the way we approach daily content in the game like hunts, crafting & gathering, in some instances even make us go gather or craft because there was a decent buff to spiritbonding or something.

Now, the one issue I could see with rewarding the player like this would be the incentive to go do hunts, raids, pvp etc. And in some sense this also affects the item level situation, whereby; if I can get all this stuff from the seasonal adventure activity, what incentive do I have to actually go get the gear from the raid or get the additions I mentioned from other daily tasks instead?

Well, for raid gear the incentive is obvious and that is getting higher item level faster if you do the seasonal progress through its missions on top of the actual normal or savage raid.

But what if there was a % or an integer buff for any rewards for doing any of the content that week?

What I mean by this is that if you want to get the gear, then doing normal raids or savage raids would give you a buff towards the points you gain from any mission you do, so after clearing a raid you would go do "craft 5 collectables" and it would have a 15% increase towards the points you get. In this fashion even people who clear ultimates could be rewarded towards the seasonal progress.

So if you cleared an ultimate then you would gain a bit larger buff towards a specific weekly missions. And all it really does is make you progress the seasonal stuff slightly faster, but only if you also do all the other content.

So how would this system then affect my suggested rewards like let's say Sacks of nuts?
Well, the reward could have a small text saying something like;

"+10% from clearing an S-rank before accepting".

So you would still go out of you way to go do an S-rank just to get a bit more.

Similarly for something like PvP Trophy Crystals the associated texts would be:
"+200 Trophy Crystals for completing a Rival Wings"

In essence people would dynamically keep changing what they are doing at any given time while also increasing their item level, but also getting rewarded with other things in the game that isn't item level.

Additionally, if a mission happens to be something like "complete 1 Rival Wing"
it would fit perfectly with a reward from PvP if it also included this subtext buff.
So in a sense you would be doing PvP while also increasing your season, but be rewarded more for the pvp in tandem.

Since at it's current state, the missions only reward points which you seemingly use to unlock the gear and increase your season progress, but that to me feels awfully superficial.

And a system labeled "adventure activity" should 100% consider rewarding with more than just item level increase.

[Kirutsuki]

I know that what we saw was largely a placeholder and just a concept of what they are trying to achieve.

TLDR: I wish the system is used for more things that purely item level increase. With it's current state all it does is make us go craft collectables for item level.

[Jeeqbit]

The more missions you do, the more points you get (max 3000 per week)

Another way of putting this is, if you thought capping weekly was fast, it's gonna be even faster now. Just doing a little bit of gathering and custom deliveries is gonna contribute for example.

You still have tomestones etc on the side, but this is just an additional way of gaining some gear.

I don't recall them clarifying this point, but the old tomestone rewards will have to be available somehow, regardless of what currency we use for them.

In my mind the entire season would be the 5 levels we see on screen, and the arrow to the right would just take us to the next season which would be largely locked.

Season is just a way to explain raid tiers to casual players. It's always been the case that 7.0 and 7.1 are a raid tier, that 7.2 and 7.3 are a raid tier, and 7.4 and 7.5 are a raid tier. They are simply calling these raid tiers "seasons" to help casuals understand.

And I think here is where this system could use large improvements, if the intent is to have people do the entire season, then rewarding the player even from small steps should be considered that isn't just a bump in ilvl with the gear unlocks.

Yoshi-P mentioned allowing people to buy mounts and things with tomestones as something he was thinking about. So most likely, since we can sync ilvl across our jobs, we'll quickly run out of usage for these weekly activity points and be able to spend them on rewards like mounts instead.

I don't think you should just get, say, hunt currencies from not fighting hunts, because then it takes away the need to fight them, and there was a time when hunts were not as popular as they are now. With the focus on open world content in 8.0, I'd like for it to feel uniquely rewarding otherwise, why would anyone do it?

[Kirutsuki]

Season is just a way to explain raid tiers to casual players. It's always been the case that 7.0 and 7.1 are a raid tier, that 7.2 and 7.3 are a raid tier, and 7.4 and 7.5 are a raid tier. They are simply calling these raid tiers "seasons" to help casuals understand.

Yes, but the meter is there also to represent the season and it holds all the rewards, so the 5 levels you have to complete within 7.0-7.1, just like PvP, I doubt they will be changing the rewards during a season.

Yoshi-P mentioned allowing people to buy mounts and things with tomestones as something he was thinking about. So most likely, since we can sync ilvl across our jobs, we'll quickly run out of usage for these weekly activity points and be able to spend them on rewards like mounts instead.

I don't think you should just get, say, hunt currencies from not fighting hunts, because then it takes away the need to fight them, and there was a time when hunts were not as popular as they are now. With the focus on open world content in 8.0, I'd like for it to feel uniquely rewarding otherwise, why would anyone do it?

For sure, if eventually we start to not have anything to do with the points there should be something to use them on, and that's what it seems like the rewards tab is for, maybe.

As for other currencies, I think it should be totally ok to do that since it's a season going from 7.0to7.1 and so forth, getting and extra 200Allied Seals for example that season isn't going to destroy the economy.
I don't mean that all my suggested currencies should be there in that specific season, ofcourse you should spread them out and add something like raid food or potions in there to pad it in.

But if there's one thing I dislike about battlepass systems like this is that youre not rewarded as often as you would like even with small things for participating in it.
It's sort of how I feel about PvP series as well, the first few rewards are fine in terms of pacing, but the longer you go it starts to feel so jarring only getting some trophy crystals after spending 5hours doing pvp just to get to the next step.
So there really needs to be incentives to keep people interested in doing daily objectives like "craft 5 collectables" that isn't just "meter go up".

[Nadda]

I'm more curious as to what this will do for hunt trains.
That's how I usually got tomestones capped when I needed to for raiding. But without tomestones what's the reward for killing hunts in the world.
I think they said this will be overhauled too.

Anyways I think in terms of reward structure more will be done, this graphic they showed seems to be the most in the developement thing, so they'll probably be considering a lot of factors.

[Jeeqbit]

I'm more curious as to what this will do for hunt trains.
That's how I usually got tomestones capped when I needed to for raiding. But without tomestones what's the reward for killing hunts in the world.

I'm guessing they will probably still give activity points. Or at least something - materia currency, nuts, etc.

I just hope they give B ranks actual mechanics. It's content for no one. Even a person that's never played a video game would find most B rank mechanics boring, with only a few exceptions on release like the ones in Amh Araeng.

Like, every single player beats dungeon bosses with more engaging mechanics than these.

[Kirutsuki]

I'm more curious as to what this will do for hunt trains.
That's how I usually got tomestones capped when I needed to for raiding. But without tomestones what's the reward for killing hunts in the world.
I think they said this will be overhauled too.

Anyways I think in terms of reward structure more will be done, this graphic they showed seems to be the most in the developement thing, so they'll probably be considering a lot of factors.

As far as I understood it, tomestones are not entirely gone. And it would be weird of them to remove the duty finder as well and all it's reward structures and replace it with this new system.
I don't think they're doing that. Largely tomestones will stay, but in addition to that we will get this new system that is based on player activity. So even if you don't do your dailys, youre still rewarded item level for doing other things in game.

But the thing is, for many item level is not the be all end all thing to chase, and with the item level synch to alt jobs it makes item level chasing even less of a priority don't you think?

So my mind heavily leans on the aspect that this Adventurer Activity has to provide something beyond item level for participating in it that isn't just those larger cosmetic rewards.

[AlliciaCapulet]

You’re assuming a lot based on an incomplete picture.

They already said this system is still a work in progress. Also, the fact that there are “>>>>” after level 5, along with an “All >>” button at the bottom, suggests that there are likely far more than just five levels—you’re probably only seeing a portion of the battle pass at a time.

As for people capping quickly: that’s nothing new. It was already the case with tomestones. If you did something like a treasure map session, a hunt train, a few extreme runs, and a dungeon in one evening, you could already hit your weekly cap on day one. So even if it’s faster now, I don’t really see that as an issue. It doesn’t take anything away from midcore or hardcore players, while giving casual players a better chance to keep up.

I also don’t think focusing on gear progression is a bad thing. Honestly, I’d say we should wait and see how it plays out. The current system hasn’t been great for a while, so it’s hard to make it significantly worse.

I used to raid a lot in Heavensward, and a bit in Stormblood before shifting more toward midcore play. Even when I was more hardcore, I never really saw the point of the current gear progression system. If you can already clear Savage with lower gear, then getting better gear doesn’t really unlock anything—it just makes the same fights easier.

Sure, glamour rewards are nice as a way to show you cleared the content, but the gear progression itself feels a bit hollow. Increasing item level doesn’t add new goals, it just smooths out something you’ve already beaten.

Tomestones at least made sense in one way: they allowed players who couldn’t clear at minimum item level to eventually catch up and succeed. There’s a big difference between tackling Savage at i770 versus i780 or i790. But once you’ve already cleared it at the lower item level, additional gear doesn’t really change anything.

So going back to the battle pass idea: giving more ways to increase item level isn’t a bad thing, especially for players who can’t clear Savage. It might not be perfect at launch, but I think it’s a good thing that they’re exploring new ways to improve this part of the game.

[Kirutsuki]

You’re assuming a lot based on an incomplete picture. Also, the fact that there are “>>>>”

100%, it's what was shown so ofc I will assume what they show is atleast a sort of a direction they are trying to take it.

For me the "All >>" just looks like it's a statement of all the rewards this season and the ">>>>" would just take us to the next season which would be locked largely, but youre right it could be either one really.

I also don’t think focusing on gear progression is a bad thing.

Neither do I, the battlepass system is good, but I hope it tries to activate the player to do more things beyond trying to get higher item level faster.
As a concept it sounds great, but the way it's presented leaves alot to desire and I hope they take feedback on that seriously.

It would just feel a bit hollow as an alternative way to +1 gear.

[Turtledeluxe]

I am not sure why so many people on this forum are posting feedback in such a patronizing way. Is it an American thing? It feels like devs are children or we are in a human resources meeting.

Please stop treating them like they made a mistake over a mockup they told you explicitly was made 24 hours ago. We have a menu now that shows us tomestone limits. This is a big step. Can we at least wait until fan fest is done before we become UI experts.