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Naming of Content Types Based on Player Counts, and Some Outliers


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I've been thinking about the types of gameplay content we have, and they way they are named or described. Dungeons, Dragon Response Missions, Fractals, Strike Missions, Raids, Convergences... And then there are some of the odd outliers like Battle for Lion's Arch, Twisted Marionette, and Dragonstorm. Related, some of these things are for Parties, while others are for Squads, but a Squad can be either in 10-man Raid mode or standard 50-man mode. And a few of these events can be done privately by a Squad or can have a public instance that goes up to 80 (according to the wiki). 

It feels messy to me. I think there could be at least some benefit to unifying how we describe the nature of the differing content. Perhaps it can be standardized.

First, this is entirely regarding Instances with a focused goal and you leave when you're done. Let's call that a Mission. A story instance, a dungeon, a convergence, each is a Mission.

Second, player count. If it can be done solo (which is primarily story content), even if you can bring in 5 players, we can call it Story. If it expects a group of 5, we can call that a Team. 10 players is a Squad. 50 players is a Company (or maybe a Battalion?). It would also make sense to have Groups named based on this scheme. (If we wanted to get crazy, we could also rename the leader for each of the group sizes (Leader, Captain, Commander?), and give commander tag features to a leader of a 5-man Team.) Based on this scheme, Dungeons are Team Missions, private Twisted Marionette is a Company Mission. As to the few public 80-man instances, maybe just call them Public Missions. 

Third, relative length/number of encounters. It seems the idea behind Strike Missions was "Raids, but just one fight." Though that isn't entirely followed, primarily by Forging Steel and a tiny bit by Cold War. If there is only one encounter, we can call it a Blitz. If it's a longer instance, we can call it an Assault. So a Dungeon is a Team Assault Mission, Temple of Febe is a Squad Blitz Mission, and Convergences is a Company Assault Mission. Maybe there should be a middle tier, for something like a DRM compared to the length of a Raid wing. 

 

Alright, now that's out of my system, I can stop monologuing about it!

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Whilst I get your thinking, in reality your solution is both considerably messier and will confuse players who are used to terms well established in the game. Plus these aren’t great nomenclatures

 Anyway, glad you got it off your chest…

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6 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Whilst I get your thinking, in reality your solution is both considerably messier and will confuse players who are used to terms well established in the game. Plus these aren’t great nomenclatures

 Anyway, glad you got it off your chest…

This.

The entire idea falls appart the moment one realizes that almost all dungeons almost all fractals (aven in T4 or CM) and some strikes (as well as raids) can be soloed. It just takes very long or is difficult or both.

TC, you are talking about sizes of groups in regard to naming both based on player ability (at which number of players can content be technically be completed, how fast does it get completed) as well as instance player cap (because your naming ideas then revert to looking at what maximum amount of players can enter the content). That won't work.

The same goes for length, Temple of Febe for example can be a "short" fight, unless it's CM. Forging steel is a strike escort mission which can have up to 10 players, yet is easily soloed thanks to good scaling.

The proposed naming conventions also completely miss the mark on considering the differences in content. A dungeon plays very differently than a fractal. Most raid encounters play differently to strikes.

The simplest idea to communicate to players what type of instanced content it is would be to introduce categories which tie some of these instances together:

- 5 player instances, no matter if beat-able solo, are party content

- 10 player instances are squad content

- 50 player instances are convergences

and that's where we are at right now.

Edited by Cyninja.2954
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2 hours ago, TexZero.7910 said:

Why do your names feel like they came straight outta FF14 ?

ikr, all sounds like Light party, Full Party, Alliance; Trial, Fate, Criterion

like thosse aren't overly complicated names for things

Edited by Parasite.5389
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