[Konda]

I’ve recently had an idea as to how to improve ballista, and attract more players to it and keep them coming back to ballista. I hope to explain it here, I think that I’ve worked out all the kinks in the idea, but I’ve missed anything, please point it out. In other words: constructive criticism only. (Fat chance, I know, but whatever)

I want to start this by saying that I know there have been these threads around before, but I just want to put my idea forward.



Ok, so here it is; I propose 2 changes to ballista, 1 improvement and 1 completely new aspect.


1) The first thing I propose is to increase the experience points reward for participating. Lets face it, 500xp reward is very poor. It’s better than nothing, but not exactly something to shout about.

The new amount should be something that competes with campaign and besieged, but nothing that would make the xp from them two pale into comparison.
I have come up with the numbers of 3,000xp reward for the winning side, and 2,000 reward for the losing side.

The xp difference for winning and losing side would entice players to play a lot more seriously. Instead of just showing up, and going afk for 1hr and getting the same xp as if you worked for it. Granted, you might still lose, but you never know until you try.



2) The second thing that I propose is the addition to the game of a reward. Currently, ballista has no real benefit to the average player. They might have some fun, earn 500xp, maybe a cool title and that’s about it. This is where the problem lies.
The reward that I am suggesting would be benefiting to all jobs, while not game breaking.

The reward would be purchasable by a one off payment of ballista points, say 10,000 points(obviously have to raise the current cap)

I propose a piece of armour with the following stats:


Latent effect: +2~5
Lv 30


The skills on each piece would be the primary skill of a job, and as such, be different from job to job so the armour would be job specific. For example:


Latent effect: Dagger skill +2~5
Lv30 THF


The latent effect is the important bit, which will keep players coming back. The latent effect is only active when a player has a temporary key item in their possession. The said key item can be purchased with 500 ballista points, and would last 1 week earth time until it ran out and would need refreshed.





A few things I need to point out:

1) The amount of skill would increase in the same way as the CoP rings do, so as to not overpower them.


2) I’m not sure as to which slot this would be of most benefit. Neck slot is out because of the Sea torques and the magic skill torques, so it would probably be earring or ring slot, most likely earring.


3) Jobs with more than one primary skill, RNG, DRK etc, could choose between a selection of earrings for the one which most benefits them. Only one of these could be in your possession at any one time; so if a RNG obtained an archery one, but later wanted to swap to a marksmanship, the player would need drop the archery item and purchase the marksmanship one for another 10,000 ballista points.


4) An item for each job would be allowed, so players aren’t forced to choose between their favourite jobs.


5) You must participate in a ballista on the Job the item is for in order to purchase it. Either this, or have obtained the job specific chevron on the said job, in order to purchase the item. So a monk would need to have an orange ballista chevron in his chevron collection.

However, this last idea might be too much, and make the item every hard to attain. This would especially be true if a lv30 monk would be competing against a lv75 monk for the title of best monk (in 30cap and uncapped respectively) the availability of merits and the faster pace of uncapped would lean this in favour of the lv75 monk.


6) Maybe 500 ballista points for the key item is a little high, a number more like 200-300 would not require players to do 4 or 5 matches a week, and not “lock” lots of people into doing ballista when they might not have the time, or not want to participate in ballista much.

What this will achieve
These changes would likely see the increase of players participating in all the level caps of ballista. Players levelling a job wanting extra experience points will be playing with and against higher level people doing lower caps, wanting to attain the reward item or ballista points to “refresh” their key item.

This will provide perhaps a welcome break to the endgame camping that a lot of players spend the majority of their time doing. PvP is constantly different, and as such, provides an element to the game which is “fresh” and not the same old stuff, but on a different day.


Anyway, that’s the main idea. I still think one or two things on it might need to be tweaked, but that’s why I’m posting it here, to get some second opinions.

Oh, and one more thing. Is there a website or an email address where you can contact SE and put foreword ideas like this? I’ve been told that there is by friends ingame, but I can’t seem to find it!

Looking forward to your thoughts on this, because it took long enough to write up!

[Blevien]

xp reward is calculated by participation in the match and the lvl of your job without the cap, there's no reason they should change it from that.

i do think the item reward is a good idea, but it would only be a temporary fix. people would go until they get the item they want and then stop coming again.

i think the only real way to make it more appealing would be to bring back the old power of multi-hit WS and to get rid of the RNG nerf they added way back. while people complained about getting 1shot by WS, i never saw as many people doing ballista as i did then. in fact, i know people who leveled jobs just to be able to 1shot kill in ballista. the main problem i see with ballista is, they keep nerfing every damn thing. maybe if they gave jobs that were lacking a little boost, it could prove more beneficial to everyone.

[Ricki]

I think rather than having it as 'Latent effect: Dagger skill +2~5'
have it as 'Ballista: Dagger skill +2~5'.
Items like this already exist in besieged so why not ballista?
I don't like the idea of having to keep paying for the temp. key item. I'd
rather just pay a high amount of BP to permanently have working equipment.

Maybe they could add in stats on the equipment like WS or Magic ACC/ATTK+
so the nerfs put on the jobs doesn't affect the person's performance in ballista.
People will have new cool equipment, would be able to do those one shot-WS kills
again and could bring back players who left ballista or make participation more
consistent.

I like the idea of getting 2000exp, cause 500exp just sucks for me. I'm lazy when
it comes to meriting so the 2000exp would help me heaps. Just one major problem in
getting this to happen is getting SE to care about ballista again. I know there's
somewhere to send them your suggestions, cause we tried doing it to bring back Ballista
Royale, but I don't remember where it is.

[TheGriever]

I had a similar thought, actually it was pretty much the same thing you came up with, only I thought that the rewards would be a little harder to get, job specific, lvl specific and very similar to the way Salvage and Assault works i.e ballista points = assault points. However my main goal is to make people play and attend all level caps reguarly, for this, the requirements for getting certain equipment requires you to attend various caps. BUT! Here is the thing, you cant have idiots running around getting killed on purpose or having them go afk right after signing up, I think it's pretty clear why. I know currectly if u do nothing in ballista u dont get exp points big deal, but you want to prevent morons achieving things just by attending, doing something quick and then going afk or simply not giving a damn what happens in the match to the point that they play like shit, people already do that in besiege. So I'm not gonna go through all the details but I stopped and thought about ways to make people play ballista, not exploit it, truly earn their rewards. Here is a summary of what I thought up, and this came to mind a couple of months ago when I was really dissapointed with ballista when I came back to the game. :


* Ballista points should be raised as they will be used like conquest points, assualt, etc.
* The armor and items must truly be worth it, but not easy to get, at least not the best ones
* Requirements such as having to attend all lvl caps, in order to commence a CS by the herald after each match, this will let you know youre doing the quest right to be able to get certain rewards.
* Cheaper rare/exlcusive items and only available through ballista with lower requirements available to balance the variety of things you can get in a short or long time, such as rare/ex body boosts purchased with ballista points and usable outisde of it, things that will have less effect on the economy, after all rare/ex tag on it limits this already, maybe bar-stuff, smelling salts, or new crap.
* The harder more vaulable equipment as opposed to the lesser, will have specific requirements that vary, such as having earned at least 1 gold chevron, silver, mythril, or all, and a minimum of 20 bronze, and job specific ones, I know a lot dont think chevrons define your skill, probably because they preffer to have fun killin than quarrying for half an hour, I used to do that before I became a score whore, but the ability to win a match because you help your team is a must, and this will prevent some idiots from going afk or letting them get killed cause they just wasting time.
* At least a cutscene you can achieve through attending a diorama with at least 6 people in it as a requirement for another reward.
* Job specific gear will require job-specific chevron won after being 1st place of that certain job in a match, this is of course in addition to the other chevron requirements.
* Higher EXP points gain, winners get even more almost as good as besieged. ( at least double of what we get now).
*Higher gil rewards, playing for one hour after having to pay for it just to lose, or winning the match just to get some pathetic amount you couldve made 30 times of in that hour is really pointless, the gil reward for winners should be 5 times what is now, and losers double.
*Weapons and armor for all level caps


Ok maybe that wasnt as brief as I said it was going to be, but I thought of this thoroughly even the equipment certain jobs can wear and lvl etc (I know I must have a lot of time on my hands right? actually I do nothing at work but answer phone calls and go on the net so )
SO I know I missed something but you get the idea.

[Temadian]

yes yes, all ideas we've all heard before, except one thing you people keep forgetting, SE gives exactly 2 S's about our little ballista community

[Ricki]

I didn't forget. >.>

[Konda]

Ricki :
I think rather than having it as 'Latent effect: Dagger skill +2~5'
have it as 'Ballista: Dagger skill +2~5'.
Items like this already exist in besieged so why not ballista?
I don't like the idea of having to keep paying for the temp. key item. I'd
rather just pay a high amount of BP to permanently have working equipment.

Maybe they could add in stats on the equipment like WS or Magic ACC/ATTK+
so the nerfs put on the jobs doesn't affect the person's performance in ballista.
People will have new cool equipment, would be able to do those one shot-WS kills
again and could bring back players who left ballista or make participation more
consistent.

The whole point in having it working outside of ballista is the incentive to come to ballista. If they add it, and its only effective during ballista, it changes nothing. People who dont do ballista aren't going to suddenly start coming because they can get a nice earring that only works during ballista.
I dont do beseiged, so as such, I couldnt care less what items there was that give nice stats during beseiged. This would be different if I could do some besieged, and walk away with a good reward that I can use anywhere.

The key items are also an important tool as it requires people to keep coming back to refresh it. If it is effective all the time, sure there will be a massive increase in people coming for a while, but after everyone has their earring, they will stop coming as there isnt a point anymore and we will be back to square 1. I think that the 500 I posted was probably a bit high. 250 or 300 is a more easilly attainable number, an amount you can get in 2-3 matches.


A note on the multihit WS: I never played ballista before the multihit Nerf, so I cant comment on direct experience; however, I think that this would have the opposite effect of what we want. If people start coming alot, but mage classes, and lesser DD classes are getting one shotted left, right and centre, people arent going to enjoy it much and it will turn into a mnk vs mnk game.
At the minute, Defence means something in ballista, and you can immediatly see the difference of defender, or a similar ability. One shotting is still possible as it is, but it is very dificult because nobody with any experince runs around with snipers rings and turbans and berserk.


The increase of the xp reward is the minimum that needs changed, because as it stands, the xp reward sucks. Having the 2k xp reward in all the caps will encourage people to attend the lower caps. Anyone levelling a job must have noticed the lack of people wanting to party at lower levels, this helps solve this too.

[Shykin]

Sorry guys, but we pessimists have a very good point. SE doesn't care anymore. Any thing they have ever done to help the PvP crowd has ended in either outrage(Multi-hit nerf and brenner) or anger(RNG nerf). Also PvP isn't balanced, and you can't balance it unless the matches are huge but even then if 3 people on one team decide to switch to rdm it becomes unbalanced.

[Temadian]

I still love ballista, its fun, or else we wouldnt do it. However in order for it to be popular people need a reason, well the average person. Which is why wow pvp is actually popular, and the game is based around it anyways. What SE needs to do is actually listen to US, and not make their own decision on what needs to be done. Because we did throw back brenner in their face, which Im sure they were proud of when they made it. Not saying brenner sucks, I enjoy it, but its not anything close to ballista.

Ive talked and thought about the item rewards many times. Im pretty sure the only way they would even consider it, is if its ballista only. Because people like to complain, and we all know they will complain if its not ballista only. Especially if its designed somewhat for ballista, more resists while giving extra def and what not, extended sprint or chance to quarry medicine increase.

I love my ballista, and Ill be here a while still, talked to some rl friends and decided when the wow expansion comes out, in like 6ish months, Im going to focus more on wow. Im sure in 6ish months, ballista and ff11 will still be what it is today, and there will be no changes to ballista at all, except it maybe actually being dead on all servers instead of just half of them.


Oh yeah! I was on hades on a mule last night, and someone had the nerve to say that sam/rng was NOT the easist job combo to play. I mean come on! I know half the sam/rng I talk to can at least admit it, and Ive played it too, I know its a dam easy combo, get head out of rear people.

[Ru-fi-ooo]

yeah, those r all good ideas, specially raising the exp reward >.> i mean cmon 500??

i'd also like to see other pvp events held by SE. like i'd love to see a sort of 1 on 1 tornament thingy. in like a stadium with a crowd >.> would fucking rock. but knowing SE they would make it 60 cap and no subs

[Shykin]

Brenner was fun when dele managed to pull all of DoB (This was when DoB had like 20+ members) into brenner. That was so much fun to play. Brenner is really just more fun with some friends and you need more teamwork in the sense of people attacking or doing the same things not just trying not to die, killing and scoring.

[Temadian]

I always thought brenner took less teamwork, I mean for 1, on hades nobody ever was in a pt, and it just took more common sense. Dont kill the brenner unless someone with full hp that can make it back to your brenner with the flamme is close. But still, amazingly fun

[Shykin]

My point was that you needed teamwork in another sense then ballista required. People wanted to play brenner like ballista. And you simply can't do that. Well that and postens were evil beyond reason.

[rambus]

A note on the multihit WS: I never played ballista before the multihit Nerf, so I cant comment on direct experience; however, I think that this would have the opposite effect of what we want. If people start coming alot, but mage classes, and lesser DD classes are getting one shotted left, right and centre, people arent going to enjoy it much and it will turn into a mnk vs mnk game.

for the most part this already true

[Caesus]

boy do i miss my 8-900 unbuffed rampages ; ;

[Konda]

Ru-fi-ooo :
yeah, those r all good ideas, specially raising the exp reward >.> i mean cmon 500??

i'd also like to see other pvp events held by SE. like i'd love to see a sort of 1 on 1 tornament thingy. in like a stadium with a crowd >.> would fucking rock. but knowing SE they would make it 60 cap and no subs

while a few jobs like mnk, blu, pld, rdm would like this, different jobs fighting each other is generally unballanced.
the only way i see this working is same job vs same job, and even then, the novelty will wear off pretty quick imo

[Lucavi]

Nice ideas (aren't they always nice?) but unless you guys continue to make these threads just to have each other pat one another on the back and sigh at SE, you're really wasting your time. Theres about as much of a chance that SE would bother to touch ballista as there is of SE touching any part of 3 kings, and they've been around for eons.

You like ballista, so you play it and enjoy it. When its run its course with you, then you leave it. If you ever get the urge to come back, you go back to it, because it'll always be there, and more importantly, it'll always be the same as it was when you left. Every little nuance is still there, and so too is every little frustration.

[Temadian]

lmao @ gelwain....because its all true, Ive left ballista once I got bored and go to wow, then come back to find it all exactly how I left it......then go back to wow to see what changes they did, cause they do change stuff

on that note, patch 2.4 was hot !

[azagarth1]

The only way i really can see Ballista making a come back is if they put in a gear set like assaults did.

If they made these sets job specific though (basically all new JSE) for everyone then i bet people would want to come. I mean they have a storage npc by each ballista guy, why not put in gear lol?

basically it would go like this, the gears come in sets, for each lv there is a full new set and it costs no storage fee for the gear storage guy to take it. that way gear wouldent become a inv issue.

here is my example: we will take mnk since i like mnk most ;D

lv 30 gear set

Body: 20 def hp+30
Hands: 12 def enhance "dodge"
Legs: 16 def counter +2
Feet: 8 def +3 str
Head: 12 def +8 eva


see now if you did this type of thing for each cap then people would want to come, and it would take forever to collect each set. lv 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 each would have a set for each job. making it 5x 19 sets of gear! if you had each piece costs 5k, then 1k more for each 10 lvs up it would really take awhile for each person to acquire just one jobs full set.

But you would have to be able to use these outside just ballista, so SE would need to tweak them to where they are good, but not overpowered.

something like this IMO is only way to get ballista back rolling, heck if this happened there be no reason for 30 40 and 50 caps not to happen since you would always have gear for it.

Also along with gear, you could have weapons too. nothing amazing but maybe these could be nice for soloing of something, like give Thfs a dagger with 12 eva on it or something thats lv70, or a smn some staff that has -1 av costs and -25% dmg since they suc so bad at ballista anyhow this might even it out? idk but really these types of ideas would spark more people to come.

oh ya and up the xp to 500/10 lvs, that be easiest way to get people that might not like to gear to come but really i dont see flat xp increase brigning people.

and we have so many zone that never have ppl in them nowadays, why not make more areas have ballista and have a certain cap always on. gove people an option. i dont see why SE cant have 4 areas in game ratating each lv capp. and then add places into it. beastmen strong holds come to mind, none are ever in them much.

but lets be real SE will never fix ballista... and yes the multi hit ws nerf is what cut the player base down by half, doing a 1400 AF was sic, and having that drg come back and 1600 penta you was awesome too. Blu and sam are only ones with that power now, thats why it died. I rememver in 04 ballistas would be 30+ easy no matter cap, as soon as the nerf came most of my friend quiet. then blu came and my non friends quit, sam came back and a few restarted, then nerf seigan and bam all gone again. now i havent played for 8 months+ and really dont mind since its such a waste of time. i cant come fun jobs and do good, unless i come sam/rng rdm pld/rdm or blu i just cant do much.

[Cidel]

azagarth1 :
but lets be real SE will never fix ballista... and yes the multi hit ws nerf is what cut the player base down by half, doing a 1400 AF was sic, and having that drg come back and 1600 penta you was awesome too. Blu and sam are only ones with that power now, thats why it died.

I find it sad that people only came to do that kind of numbers if that's the case. The nerf may have been unappreciated, but refusing to try and play through it is rather stuborn. I feel that after that nerf, it becomes necessary for teamwork even more, now that one person with 100%+TP (on several jobs) isn't a garunteed gatebreech. And appearantly that doesn't sit well with a lot of people.

i cant come fun jobs and do good, unless i come sam/rng rdm pld/rdm or blu i just cant do much.

I see where you're coming from on this, some jobs are laughable in ballista OMs due to vulnerabilty and lack of utility. Pet jobs stand out in this category. ALthough I don't necessarily aggree with the 4 jobs choices you've listed, I can think of more. Or did you mean those are all you have available?