On World Raids - Discussion & Ideas

[Tocasiar]

This is a thread intended to serve as a discussion/brainstorm on World Raids: how might they be implemented, what purpose could they serve for the story and community, and what rewards might be collected from them. The hope is that it can serve as both a fun bit of speculation and also help the developers out by offering some community ideas, feedback or worries. After all, we were asked to provide some more specific feedback on content, so may as well start early.

First, here is what we know so far: these "world raids" are supposed to take place in the overworld fields, they will include features from field operation zones like Eureka (and most likely Bozja and Cosmic Exploration), and "the name is most likely going to change".

There are also some relevant pieces of info we can take from the trailer and the zone descriptions we've gotten so far: the arcane giants seem to be attacking the airships, the airships rely on the Arc Crystals, and said Arc Crystals have gameplay and story relevancy.

With that out of the way, I'll start of this discussion with my idea on how they might implement this world raid system for Evercold, and how it could be expanded upon in the future.

What is a world raid?

A world raid is a zone-wide invasion style event. The players will have to push through multiple phases to defend the zone, culminating in a final boss battle. Depending on success/failure the zone will change for a limited time.

How would this raid progress?

Similar to Cosmic Exploration, a zone-wide warning would appear that an attack is imminent. Once the attack commences, the zone enemies will either be replaced or bolstered by additional enemies based on the auto balancing system they're introducing. The players will now have a limited time to kill enough enemies to fill a bar, similar to FATE contribution. Additionally, certain enemy clusters provide a more difficult experience, and defeating them will spawn Duel FATEs, like in Bozja. Defeating those duels will greatly increase the contribution bar.

Finally, once the timer runs out the world boss spawns as a big FATE. This boss can spawn with a variety of buffs and debuffs, based on contributions. Defeating the world boss will end the invasion, as will running out of time on the FATE.

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[Tocasiar]

What are the rewards for succeeding/the punishment for failing?

Successfully defeating the boss will not only reward all participants with whatever progression rewards they're cooking up, but also provide a zone-wide buff to everyone until the next invasion. This could be anything from additional EXP, extra items during gathering, or just a flat currency reward on any activity in the zone. In addition, it would spawn special NPCs which provide unique services (e.g. a vendor selling materials and cosmetics like the bicolor gem ones, someone handing out buffs equivalent to squadron/GC ones, etc).

But what if the players fail to defeat the boss? Well, the obvious punishment is that you won't have access to the rewards. Additionally, it could make the zone more dangerous to transverse, turning once safe questing routes into danger areas. Personally, I'd love if there were some changes that impact side quests, aetherytes, and other such things that directly affect the players negatively. Have the towns look destroyed and plundered, with NPCs hiding in corners.

But to be honest, it is hard to make failure truly punishing. Being punished for something out of your control is not fun, especially if it makes it more annoying for you to play. However, adding a bit of friction to things might just be the thing to provide a reason for people to team up and take these challenges on.

How could this system be expanded?

Since we have multiple airships, with presumably all of them, under attack, the first obvious expansion would be to provide some kind of reward for having succeeded at all of them. This could be a server-wide buff, or the ability to buy special glamours/mounts/actions/etc. at the expansion capital.

We can also expand the scope of the contributions, allowing crafters & gatherers to provide support to areas attacked. This could reward scrips (or whatever equivalent of those we're getting), and of course experience to them.

And finally, once this system is in place, it should be pretty straightforward to tweak things even outside of Evercold. For example, not every zone needs to have a giant boss and an army attacking them. Maybe in the future we could have an Ishgard Restoration kind of event, but in Garlemald.

[Tocasiar]

What problems are there? And is this even feasible?

This is admittedly the big section. Personally, I think most of the systems exist and could be reused for this. The field operations and Cosmic Exploration have created a very solid framework to run a massive zone-wide event like this, and the rest are things that don't appear very hard (spawning/despawning NPCs, weather changes, permanent buffs, etc.). But of course, as a player I do not know the backend, and that is a notorious issue with FFXIV development. Especially the part about actual zone changes (towns ruined, atherytes deactivated, etc) is most likely not going to happen.

Additionally, there is the huge shadow of "What if no one is actually doing these?" In general, I think the team has done a great job of ensuring people do content, even if it's outdated. And ensuring it is doable even for a smaller team of people. I think the potential rewards (and the potential punishments) will be enough to keep the content going, especially if it becomes something like a weekly goal in the season pass.

I think it's a challenge worth taking on, and there is some real potential for something like this, especially if it's given the work it needs to truly shine.

And with that I'll pass the idea ball to the community. What do you think about the idea of World Raids? How would you like to see these implemented? And what problems are there that you can see?

[Wyssahtyn]

not even launching at 8.0 is pretty wild.

[Tocasiar]

not even launching at 8.0 is pretty wild.

Great contribution, have a cookie.

In regards to the issue of people not actively doing these events, I've had the thought that there is the option of involving FATE chains to actually trigger the world raid. That way it's less of an "this is forced upon you", and more a "here's this thing you can do for a reward". Personally not a fan of it, but for the sake of the discussion I figured it's worth bringing up player agency.

[0blivion]

I don't want them, it's a hassle in every way and I am tired of congestion. It's not particularly skillful, either, and I refuse to deal with that many randoms at once. They can make the A ranks meatier though.