Are there going to be incentives to run Missions/Instances more then just once?

fistorm

     I think the biggest beef that I have with FFXI and do not want to see in IXV would be the lack of incentives for people to group up and run things more then just once.

People would run Missions like CoP till sea and then not want to ever ever run them again.

People would do the add-ons and never ever ever run them again.

People would get so far into all the expansion content and then never ever want to help someone new run it again.

I know the devs said they want this game to be heavily group based and offer incrimental rewards for small amounts of time also,  so what I ask is this, are there going to be and will there be any incentive for people to help join an instance for maybe a small incremental token of some sort toward something they want.

Like in instances in Mines of moria on lotro,  You can run an instance now, and get "medallions",  at easy bosses and on hard bosses, and use them to purchase cool stuff at the barter vendors, even get good gear with it.    Someone wants to always help you run an instance even if they ran it a million times, just so they can get these "medallions". 

Or on lotro's missions, someones always willing to help you on the storyline most times for a "mark of victory" that they can use at barter vendors for cool stuff.

Alot of FFXI problems with me were sitting there wanting to do end bosses of addons or start doing nyzul Isle or eihnigjar, however it was pronounced, or go to sky, or get to sea.   But no one wanted to do end bosses because they already had done it and had thier gear and dint want to do it again,  or no one wanted to do nyzul isle floor 1 with me because they all were on higher floors and only had one entrance credit a day to use on it,  or couldnt get to sky because no one would help you on missions past the shadowlord, and for sea, All I needed was one diablos fight to get there and not a single person in a whiole dynamais shell that did sea all the time would even think about helping me to kill diablos, but always said if I made it, I was more then welcome to join them.

These fails in FFXI to address the need and incentive for people to help was the main reason I'm playing lotro right now, because I gave up on trying all day every day to get someone to help on those things, It became a full time job not fun.

I want to see FFXIV address these issues and assure us that this will not be the case, because after all they said they want to see us group up and that its the most fun you can get in an online game. Lets see if they can make this happen in XIV for us, because I love to group and have fun with other people, I just need FFXIV's devs to understand there needs to be that incentive to give that other player a reason to help.  Thanks for reading.

Xzen

You hit the nail on the head with this one. Hopefully they learned from their past mistakes.

ArmaniDemon

Making sure this doesn't happen in XIV will go a long way to achieving that sense of community they're pushing.  Helping another less experienced member through older content should not be a total chore.

Very much agree with the OP.

Khrymson

I'm definitely hoping for the same changes, as I've always loved replaying older content and helping new and returning veteran players, but with FFXI it was always extremely difficult.  Now I don't want to see easy-mode everywhere <like those other MMOs>, just make it more accessible and scale depending on how many players are available, which the Guildleves already promote, however I see them as a short and sweet yet heavily enhanced version of the Fields of Valor, primarily as a daily side event.

We have yet to understand how the actual main story missions will play out and their difficulty levels, and overall the bulk of the content, but I trust SE to once again deliver a solid gaming experience as they did with XI, even though it was frustrating to find help for and complete much of the content...

Disdena

At the risk of sounding like someone who is really willing to defend every last thing about FFXI... I... I prefer seeing content that is hard to get a group for. A while back, a friend of mine complained that he really disliked that about XI, the fact that if you wanted to get a mission done or open a coffer for AF, you needed to get a bunch of people together who were risking death and xp loss and getting nothing in return. He said he wished that more of the content worked like the Summon fights, where everybody who doesn't need the Summon gets something else, like a little gil prize or a ring.

But to me, that would not be a big improvement. I don't remember people trampling over each other to get into an Ifrit group. The rewards sucked! The Rare/EX equipment you could get from it usually wasn't anything you'd actually wear, and the gil reward wasn't even enough for a stack of Shihei. Attaching a reward to the fight but making it a paltry reward puts people in the mindset that they should be getting something for the time they're investing, and then they ignore the call if there's something else they could do for less risk and more reward. It lessens the idea that you're doing someone a favor and makes you feel like you're just bad at making efficient use of your time in-game.

On the other hand, if you do put in a reward that is worth the time and the effort, the result is just as bad if not actually worse—but subtly so. If the vital missions and quests can be run again and again for an actually decent reward, then people will do so. They'll become less about an epic fight and more about a routine way of gaining exp or treasure. Just one more acronym in the "TRG TOP LF1M DPS NO NOOBS NO BLM" alphabet soup. What's worse, you actually run the risk of having groups who are reluctant to accept players who haven't done it before, for fear that they'll mess up or slow the group down.

As painful as it was to shout "(Red Mage) AF3 (alliance) 1/18 (Please help me.) ;_;" in Jeuno until you lost your voice, that first tell (from a tank, even) saying "Send an invite, I'd be happy to help" was the sweetest thing in the world. That guy was immediately your best friend for life. It was true generosity. And when you're actually there clearing away adds before starting the fight and you're deathly afraid that a wipe or even a partial wipe will lead to a couple people leaving and cascading into total alliance failure, it's such blessed relief to have it go right.

It's not the easiest thing in the world to push brutal punishing game mechanics based on the Bad Consequences = Greater Satisfaction = Good Game formula, but for FFXI I think it worked. I would not necessarily want FFXIV to be radically different in that regard.

Hyanmen

Originally posted by Disdena

At the risk of sounding like someone who is really willing to defend every last thing about FFXI... I... I prefer seeing content that is hard to get a group for. 

Yeah, not going to go through that again. 

It doesn't actually help when out of pure generosity you help this poor fellow, and in the end you don't even get a thank you from him, or worse, he'll blame you if something goes wrong. In that case it would be nice to get at least something for your efforts. 

I did not care about helping others anymore after certain point, simply because the people looking for help acted like I was expected to help them while they would afk at the entrance.

SE should make the efforts to help others worth their while, especially if the one being helped is a jerk.

I liked how they handled it in the mini expansions, and hope they will keep doing the same thing in XIV.

Doomedfox

I dont think FF11 was that different from other games it just had another package for it content in the other games u did instances while lvling up and once u were high enough in lvl u didn't do them again anymore.

If u weren't able to get a group going to do instances with u were looking for a higher lvl one to help u out its the same u did in FF11.

I do agree from time to time it could have been annoying to get help for certain things but if u r in a good ls that's np at all.

it may have been harder to rush through the content to reach the end than it was in other games but that ws the charm of FF11 (at least for me)

Illyssia

It's part of the FF game style SE love putting in a zillion missions that you might only play once for actual enjoyment. On the positive side can anyone think of anything more boring than WoW Epic gear farming on done content?

fistorm

Originally posted by Disdena

At the risk of sounding like someone who is really willing to defend every last thing about FFXI... I... I prefer seeing content that is hard to get a group for. A while back, a friend of mine complained that he really disliked that about XI, the fact that if you wanted to get a mission done or open a coffer for AF, you needed to get a bunch of people together who were risking death and xp loss and getting nothing in return. He said he wished that more of the content worked like the Summon fights, where everybody who doesn't need the Summon gets something else, like a little gil prize or a ring.

But to me, that would not be a big improvement. I don't remember people trampling over each other to get into an Ifrit group. The rewards sucked! The Rare/EX equipment you could get from it usually wasn't anything you'd actually wear, and the gil reward wasn't even enough for a stack of Shihei. Attaching a reward to the fight but making it a paltry reward puts people in the mindset that they should be getting something for the time they're investing, and then they ignore the call if there's something else they could do for less risk and more reward. It lessens the idea that you're doing someone a favor and makes you feel like you're just bad at making efficient use of your time in-game.

 I think the rewards for summoner fights were on the right track but definatly was not the way to go.    They tried to give you instant reward, but if they had just added some kind of incremental reward such as 20 currency or 10 alexandrite to some of these things, you probably would have gotten alot of people to help you np.   Incremental rewards added to something can go a long way on weather someone helps you on something or not.