Granblue Fantasy: Relink Suggestion Compilation, With New Foreword and Afterword

Disclaimer: No, I didn't steal this. Max Depravity is another alias I use. I even took the rare step of posting the Google Doc on Reddit under my usual username.

 

Foreword

 

As I mentioned in my last article, I'm reposting my Granblue Fantasy: Relink suggestion compilation to this blog to better preserve it and I wanted to do it before the upcoming expansion, Endless Ragnarok, releases. I had to paste the content of the entire Google Doc without formatting, then re-add the formatting to properly work with this blog. I fixed some mistakes such as bad grammar and missing words, but the actual suggestions themselves have not been changed. Also, I had the misfortune of learning most header formats don't work properly due to my blog theme, so I'm only using Major Header and resizing text for section and subsection titles like I used to do.

 

As for the suggestions themselves, I think they as a whole are still solid even a couple of years later. However, I should have acknowledged the influence of more games on my suggestions. For example, the Boss Rush suggestion was definitely influenced by Hades and similar roguelite games. Meanwhile, Rogue Mode Exploration and Expeditions also drew inspiration from games such as Risk of Rain 2.

 

What follows is the original contents of my suggestion compilation with the fixes I mentioned. Also, for those who are curious, Cygames was accepting feedback on Relink and I did send them the entire Google Doc as my feedback shortly after posting it on Reddit.

 

Intro

 

Disclaimer: I’m literally one guy suggesting a bunch of stuff for a game I enjoy and want more longevity out of it. None of this should be interpreted as official or anything more than a bunch of fairly detailed suggestions from a fan. These suggestions are devised using highly non-Expert armchair game design “skills”.

Relink has had a lot of discussion about what will even happen after 1.3, so many ideas have been thrown around as a result. Some of the suggestions below are based on that discussion, but unless I state otherwise, I personally devised the more detailed elements. This doc, again, is not an official roadmap or anything official from Cygames for that matter.

To start, I understand that in general, there’s no obligation to continue delivering content updates for a typical game after it’s released. In fact, I personally find it annoying when other players rudely demand that developers treat every typical game like Terraria / Minecraft / Stardew Valley when it comes to content updates.

With that said, Granblue Fantasy: Relink has been very enjoyable and in many ways, it’s what I wish Monster Hunter, Tales, and other action RPGs were. The combat system feels very rewarding to learn and there’s already plenty of variety for playstyle options. The party AI is also surprisingly competent (it’s fine that it’s not perfect), which I highly appreciate as a solo player. 

Because of these reasons and more, I think that Relink has the potential to serve as a backbone for delivering years of entertainment using the Granblue Fantasy name. This can be accomplished through continuous content updates, and there’s plenty of potential content to work with. Many things from the browser game would fit wonderfully with this game’s action RPG gameplay, for instance. 

Ultimately, I think it would be a mistake to squander the sudden popularity of this game by not doing more with it. That is where the following suggestions come in, if only for the sake of showing what could be done in future updates.

(Note that the names for suggested features and concepts are placeholders to make them easier to reference. There are almost certainly names that better fit the Granblue Fantasy theme.)

Extremely Abridged Version

I highly recommend reading this entire doc, but for those who don’t want to, here’s a very rough summary of what it contains.

QoL fixes:

• Improve Sigil Transmutation further:
• Higher Knickknack Voucher limit, allow Sigil and Wrightstone locking during mass transmutation, and more.
• Add a specific hotkey/button for AI hold/auto SBA usage.
• Improve the AI by letting them Link Attack better and not die for having Stout Heart buff.
• Improve Gold and Silver Dahlia Badge acquisition rates, especially from online Quick Quests.
• Allow players to receive one Terminus Weapon of their choice every 25 Proto Bahamut kills.
• Make part damage scale partially with actual damage, and also remove secondary part break drops like Mirage Munitions.
• Allow players to reroll one Overmastery line at a time for 5000 MSP each reroll. Also, allow players to save Overmastery presets.

High Priority Additions:

• Add Tier 4++ Sigils as a “sidegrade” reward to encourage more trait variety in builds.
• Add Sigil Fusions to improve the endgame grind and reduce randomness-related frustration. Sigil Synthesis in 1.3 kind of does what I suggested here. It’s not ideal, but close enough.
• Lets players make rare Sigils like Supplementary Damage 5+.
• Makes excess Tier 4 and 5 Sigils way more useful.
• Serves as a Rupie sink.
• Is forward compatible with higher tier Sigil additions.
• Add Wrightstone Refinement and Enhancement so optimal Wrightstones are reasonable to get.
• Wrightstone Refinement lets players fuse traits from 3 different Wrightstones together.
• Wrightstone Enhancement lets players consume Wrightstones to increase trait levels on another Wrightstone up to the maximums of 10/7/5 (or higher if stronger Wrightstones are introduced).
• Rework a number of existing traits so that they’re a little more useful.
• For example, Attack Up would slightly increase Attack by a percentage and the EXP/Rupie/Mastery Point boost Sigils are all stronger.
• Add Historiath, Maglielle, Gallanza, and Rolan as playable characters. They should not have paid early unlocks.
• Add Id Nihilla, Angra Mainyu, and Lilith as Proud mode bosses.
• Add a Boss Rush feature that lets players fight a series of bosses for points that can be traded for loot at the end.
• There would be three courses of increasing difficulty and length.
• This game mode should have multiplayer matchmaking support, making it an alternative to Quick Quest.
• Players choose Blessings to empower themselves after every fight.
• Players could activate Toils for Rupies to make the Boss Rush harder in exchange for increased point gain.
• There would be an Endless Mode with some tweaks for players who want an endurance challenge.
• Points could be used to buy T4 Curios, among other useful items.
• Add a Rogue Mode Exploration feature that (initially) uses the Ruined City Vallion map to create a new single player game mode.
• Similar to the Gauntlet from Old School Runescape or level 1 dungeons in Chunsoft’s various Mystery Dungeon games. Also similar to battle royale games, but without the PvP.
• Players start with only their character at level 1, no Masteries, no Sigils, and a level 1 generic weapon.
• Players have a specific amount of time to explore the area for party members, loot, and enemies to increase their strength.
• After the time limit expires, the player must fight a powerful final boss.
• This game mode would be a good source of Damascus Ingots and Azurite’s Splendor - drop rate is based on the chosen time limit.
• Future large, open area maps could be used for this game mode too.

Long-term Additions:

• Paid expansions would be awesome to have.
• Main feature that players pay for would be the story content. New stories could be added or existing stories from the mobile game could be adapted.
• New areas should be made with a focus on exploration to accommodate specific content.
• Expeditions would be a new type of exploration content similar to MMORPG overworld content and the Guiding Lands from MHW:IB that takes place in the aforementioned areas.
• Updates after the expansion release should still be available to all players, not just to buyers of the expansion.
• New bosses and characters should also be available to all players.
• Add a personal space called the Captain’s Quarters that could be decorated with new cosmetic rewards.
• Said rewards could come from various sources such as achievements, treasure trade, and existing content.
• The Expeditions suggested above would be one major source of these cosmetics.
• Add a party AI development system that allows players to fine-tune how their AI party members behave.
• AI characters could be developed towards specific tendencies that relate to aggression, self-preservation, and support. Increased development unlocks and reinforces new behavior.
• AI settings could be tweaked further once a character is fully developed based on how they were developed.
• Mastery Points could be spent to develop the AI faster.

Monetization:

• Ongoing development needs to be funded somehow.
• Cosmetics and expansions are good, but please don’t make them overpriced.
• Please continue the practice of offering early character unlocks with an option to unlock them for free.
• Don’t sell items that increase power like rare Sigils.

 

Quality of Life Fixes

This section suggests some quality of life fixes I would like to see. None of these suggestions add content, but they would serve to make the game more enjoyable overall and should be quick to implement.

More Sigil Transmutation Improvements and Wrightstone Stuff

While Sigil Transmutation was improved in the 1.2 patch by allowing 30 to be created at a time, I think more improvements could be made. Specifically, I’d like to see the following implemented:

• Increase the Knickknack Voucher limit to 10,000 so that more treasures and sigils can be traded in at once.
• Allow 50 Sigils to be transmuted at once, allowing the player to use 1,000 vouchers at a time.
• Add a feature that allows players to highlight transmuted Sigils based on rarity. For example, a player could opt to highlight tier 5+ Sigils this way.
• Allow players to lock Sigils and Wrightstones in the Transmutation Results interface.
• This and the above would also be useful for Curio Appraisal.
• This feature was added in 1.3 and also allows locking of Sigils awarded from quests!
• Add a batch trade-in feature for Wrightstones like with Sigils. Currently, only 30 Wrightstones can be traded in at a time, so this would help a lot.
• For that matter, batch selling of Wrightstones should also be possible.
• In addition, add a filter for Wrightstones based on the first, second, and third trait’s levels to make batch trading and selling of Wrightstones easier.

 

Add a proper hotkey/button for AI SBA usage

 

There are technically two ways to toggle whether AI hold or automatically use Skybound Arts. On PC, Tab can be held to access the radial menu, or it can be pressed to bring up the chat menu, from which 3 can be pressed to toggle SBA usage mode. Both of these methods are quite unwieldy, so I suggest the addition of a specific hotkey/button assignment to toggle how AI use SBA. For PC, this could be F1 and for console, the player could press R3 (for PS4/5 Controllers) and RS Press (for XBox Controllers).
 

Slight AI Improvements

While the AI in Relink is pretty good, there are a couple quirks that I personally find contradictory and detrimental. They should be addressed in the following ways as soon as possible:

• The AI no longer randomly tanks damage while affected by Stout Heart.
• There is no reason that a beneficial buff like Stout Heart (which reduces damage taken) should cause the AI to behave so differently that they take damage and die more often.
• This issue is mentioned in an AI guide, but I also personally confirmed just how bad this problem can get when grinding Lucilius.
• The AI always successfully uses Link Attacks to enter Link Time.
• The AI automatically fires off follow-up Skybound Arts even if they’re really far away, which allows for consistent Full Bursts. Considering that missing Link Time in particular can be even more devastating, they should be able to always use Link Attacks to enter Link Time too.
• Apparently the AI can be too far away to automatically use SBA, but it’s only a problem on a few fights like Bahamut Versa. This behavior could potentially be tweaked as well to remove that range limit, but it’s not as big of a deal.

 

Quick Quest Improvements

While I do Quick Quest a fair amount, the rewards for doing so are grossly lacking. Frankly, Dahlia Badges in their current state feel like an afterthought. This could be improved by doing the following:

• All quests now have a 50% chance to award up to 1-3 Silver Dahlia Badges and have a 10% chance to award 1 Gold Dahlia Badge.
• Quick Quests are guaranteed to award 4-8 Silver Dahlia Badges and have a 50% chance to award 1-2 Gold Dahlia Badges.
• Online Quick Quests increase the Gold Dahlia Badge drop chance to 100%.
• Using 1/2/3 Gold Badge Ticket doubles/triples/quadruples Silver Dahlia Badge and Gold Dahlia Badge awards.
• 1 Gold Dahlia Badge can now be traded in for 25 Knickknack Vouchers.
• It’s genuinely insulting that the trade ratio for this is 1:1. Currently, it’s significantly better to trade for treasures, then trade those in for vouchers instead.

Add A Pity System For Terminus Weapons

While Terminus Weapons have a 20% chance to drop from Proto Bahamut, it might take a while to get for a character in one’s party. To address this, I believe there should be a pity system in the form of a repeatable side quest. Specifically, the quest would award one weapon of the player’s choice every 25 Proto Bahamut kills.

Improve Part Breaking

Breaking enemy parts in this game is frankly quite frustrating to deal with. While some parts broken off of enemies can be bought from Sierokarte, others cannot be. What’s even worse is that breaking specific enemy parts in many cases doesn’t even guarantee the part drop. Enemies can also end up dying too fast to break parts even when Stun Power is stacked. Therefore, I suggest the following:

• Remove all secondary part break drops. No more random Mirage Munitions from breaking Pyet-A’s tail or the like.
• Part damage now scales better with actual damage. I can’t really specify numbers since my knowledge of part breaking in this game is limited, but my idea here is that overgeared players who stack Stun Power should be able to break parts more consistently before a boss dies.

Improve Overmastery Rerolling

After discussing ideas with catboy_feet on Reddit, I agree that rerolling each specific Overmastery line makes more sense than my original suggestion. I personally believe that rerolling individual Overmastery lines should require level 100 and cost 5,000 Mastery Points per reroll. It would behave as if Overmastery Level 3 were used, but only one specified bonus of the four bonuses is rerolled.

In addition, I suggest adding three saveable Overmastery presets to switch from for each character. This would allow players to try different Overmastery builds without constantly rerolling.

In any case, this suggestion would make Overmasteries less annoying to reroll while still serving the purpose of being a significant Mastery Point sink.

High Priority Additions

This section contains content and feature additions that I want for the game as soon as possible to improve the longevity of the current endgame. This would provide more breathing room for extremely ambitious updates that would take a lot of time and effort. While content recycling is being utilized to a degree to reduce the development workload, some of these suggestions would still take significant effort to develop (easily multiple months at least).

Tier 4++ Sigils

First, I want to start off with some semi-horizontal progression in the form of tier 4++ Sigils. These Sigils have 3 traits from different categories that can each reach up to level 10, which is somewhat comparable to a tier 5+ Sigil (both have a total trait level of 30). This new type of Sigil could serve as a reward for some existing quests and could also be created with Transmarvel, which should encourage players to use that feature more. However, their main purpose is to give the commonly transmuted tier 4 Sigils more of a purpose using the following feature:

Sigil Fusion

This part is now obsolete due to the addition of Sigil Synthesis, but I am keeping it for posterity. Maybe some elements of this idea could be used to improve Sigil Synthesis later on, but I’m okay with the current iteration of it.

Sigil Fusion has been suggested by other players in some form and this is my take on it. The idea is that players can merge two sets of Sigils of the same tier into a + Sigil with traits from both sets. Personally, I think this should be accessible even in the early endgame stages to support the creation of tier 3+ Sigils. This feature could also be used to create the previously suggested tier 4++ Sigils using three sets of Sigils. Sigil Fusion as I envision it would be available at the blacksmith and work as follows:

• To create a new Sigil through Sigil Fusion, the player needs 3 Sigils of the same tier with each of the desired traits.
• The player also has to spend Rupies based on the Sigil being created:
• A tier 3+ Sigil costs 10,000 Rupies to create.
• A tier 4+ Sigil costs 100,000 Rupies to create.
• A tier 4++ Sigil or tier 5+ Sigil costs 1,000,000 Rupies to create.
• Only the primary trait of +/++ Sigils is used in Sigil Fusion.
• The +/++ Sigil that is created must be valid. War Elemental+ Sigils can’t be created… yet.
• Example creation: A tier 4++ Damage Cap/Stamina/Tyranny Sigil would require 3 tier 4/4+/4++ Damage Cap Sigils, 3 tier 4/4+/4++ Stamina Sigils, 3 tier 4/4+/4++ Tyranny Sigils, and 1,000,000 Rupies.

This feature serves two purposes. It allows players to address bad luck by creating useful +/++ Sigils from the many Sigils they farmed and created with Sigil Transmutation. This feature also serves as one of a few Rupie sinks that I plan to suggest, which gives that currency more of a purpose.

Wrightstone Refinement and Enhancement

I personally believe that Wrightstones are in a bit of a sorry state because it’s easy to amass a ton of them with little way to use them. While Rupie sink suggestions would make them a little more useful as vendor fodder, I think they could stand to be improved more directly through this suggestion. Also, this suggestion serves as another Rupie sink.

Wrightstone Refinement would become available after first acquiring a Wrightstone with 3 traits. It would serve as a way to create new Wrightstones from existing ones at the blacksmith by doing the following:

• 3 Wrightstones are consumed to create a new one with traits from all 3.
• The first trait would come from the first chosen Wrightstone.
• The second trait would come from the second chosen Wrightstone, which must have at least two traits to be chosen.
• The third trait would come from the last chosen Wrightstone, which must have three traits to be chosen.
• In addition, there is a 50,000 Rupie cost to create the new Wrightstone.

This feature effectively allows players to create useful Wrightstones with 3 traits at a bit of a cost. This could be further improved with Wrightstone Enhancement, which would be unlocked alongside Transmarvel. It would works as follows:

• Wrightstones can now have their traits improved by using other Wrightstones to enhance it.
• A Wrightstone with 3 traits can be sacrificed to level all the traits of another Wrightstone with 3 traits by 1, up to a maximum of 10, 7, and 5 for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd traits respectively.
• The enhancement would cost 25,000 Rupies per Wrightstone used in the enhancement.

Note that this suggestion alone won’t fix the fact that players may be sitting on thousands of Wrightstones that are generally too impractical to dispose of. However, these features could at least be used to condense some Wrightstones into more useful ones.

Trait Reworks

Some traits are frankly quite weak or unusable. While players have differing opinions on which traits are weak and how they should be reworked, I consider the following traits weak and believe they should be reworked in the way described with explanations as to why:

• Attack Up: Now gives additional bonus attack %, increasing by 2% every 5th level and maxing at +20% attack at level 50.
• The flat attack bonus from this trait only becomes decent at very high levels. However, by the time a player can achieve that, there are far better options. This tweak would not make Attack Up a superior option, but it should at least make Attack Up weapons more useful.
• Lucky Charge: If the crit chance of the charged attack exceeds 100% due to this trait, increase the charged attack’s stun damage by half the exceeding amount (up to 30%).
• It’s pretty easy to reach 100% critical strike chance even early on in the endgame due to the Critical Chance boosting weapons. This trait becomes dead weight as a direct result of that, so I basically tried to make this trait increase charged attack stun damage, which is somewhat useful.
• Break Assassin: Break now lasts up to 30% longer at level 30. Stacks with Break Assassin from other party members, but maximizes at +60% Break duration.
• The damage bonus from Break Assassin is simply not relevant enough due to damage caps. Making the Break effect last a little longer, on the other hand, could be quite useful, though it’s worth noting that Break does not last long so up to doubling the duration only does so much.
• Combo Finisher: Now also enhances stun damage on combo finishers by 1% per level.
• While this trait can help damage cap some combo finishers, its benefits are still lacking. That’s why I’m giving it a similar treatment as Lucky Charge, but in this case the trait increases the stun damage of combo finishers.
• Improved Healing: Renamed to Medic. Now also increases ally revival speed by up to 150%.
• This probably still won’t make the trait strong enough, but it might be helpful to have a few levels of it in multiplayer now.
• Fast Learner: Max level is now 30. Boosts EXP gain by 2.5% per level. Stacks additively with Fast Learner from other party members.
• The current iteration of this trait is far too weak. This change should make leveling speed noticeably faster, especially since trait levels are quite low during the main story and early endgame when this trait helps the most.
• Rupie Tycoon: Max level is now 30. Boosts Rupie gain by 5% per level. Only increases own Rupie gain.
• Same idea as above, but for players who want to farm Slimepede less.
• It would probably be okay to have this trait stack if other party members have it, but for some reason the current version doesn’t work with online party members and there might be a reason for that.
• Path to Mastery: Max level is now 30. Boosts MSP gain by 2.5% per level. Stacks additively with Path to Mastery from other party members.
• Same ideas as above, but for players who are either serially unlucky with Overmastery or obsessed with getting perfect Overmasteries… for every character.

There are other traits I consider weak, but I couldn’t think of good ways to change them.

More Playable Relink-Exclusive Characters

Granblue Fantasy has a huge cast of characters that could all potentially be added to Relink someday (Vikala and Yuel when?). However, some would be easier to add than others and it’s hard to beat characters that already exist in the game. Some players already appear to want the following characters playable and I’m going to add my voice to that demand with an outline on how they could be unlocked. Note that there will be some story spoilers for Relink here.

Also, unlike other new character unlocks, I strongly advise that there should be no early unlock microtransaction for these characters because they are meant to be unlocked after the main story.

 

Historiath

 

This character shows up around the middle of the story to help deal with one of the Primals. Due to her friendship with Rolan, she then helps the crew up until the end of the main story. Afterward, she hangs out around town for some reason despite being the leader of a monastery. Since she seems to have a lot of free time and there is some demand for her as a playable character, it might make sense to have her join the crew.

I personally think Historiath should join the crew immediately after the main story without any other unlock conditions. Instead, she could have an alternate costume that shows her face as an unlock that requires Managarmr Nihilla materials. This would make for a nice departure from what will likely be the norm for unlocking characters (farming certain materials or paying to unlock them early). It would also serve as a good experiment for determining how character cosmetics are unlocked through normal gameplay.

Gallanza and Maglielle

The two generals of Avia show up frequently throughout the story and eventually join the player’s side… as NPCs. While they might not be as easily swayed as Id, it would definitely make sense for them to follow in the footsteps of their comrade. Furthermore, there are endgame quests featuring these two characters that could award materials to trade in for their Crewmate Cards. It’s almost like this pair were meant to be playable characters.

Specifically, like with Tweyen and Seofon’s unlocks, there could be a common and rare tier of material, the latter of which can be traded in for Gallanza and Maglielle’s Crewmate Cards. The common material, which I’ll call Avia Medals, would be guaranteed from Gallanza or Maglielle on Extreme difficulty (100% for 1x drop) and Maniac difficulty (100% for 3x drop, plus a small chance to earn more). The Proud version of the Gallanza and Maglielle fight would also be guaranteed to drop this material (100% for 5x plus multiple chances to earn even more), but could also drop the rare material, which I’ll call the Avia Insignia, at a low drop rate.

Much like with Revenant Medallions and Supreme Weapon Essences, 30 Avia Medals could be traded in for an Avia Insignia, and 3 Avia Insignias are required to buy a Crewmate Card. Avia Insignias could also be used to buy Gallanza and Maglielle’s exclusive Sigils at the very least (maybe Historiath’s and Rolan’s as well).

Rolan

While Rolan is unavailable in later parts of the game for story reasons, he is around after Maniac difficulty is unlocked. I personally think his Crewmate Card unlock should be much simpler, but more challenging. Specifically, Rolan’s Crewmate Card would be unlocked from completing a side quest that involves defeating Angra Mainyu on Maniac difficulty or higher and Lilith on Proud difficulty, which is a new fight I would like to see added to the game. I believe completing both of these bosses is a worthy achievement that would secure his loyalty. This would also serve as another experiment for determining good ways to unlock new characters.

Proud Versions of Existing Bosses

While more new bosses would be ideal to have, adding Proud difficulty versions of the following bosses would serve as a quick way to provide challenging fights with rewards that fill niches. Also, there is no full Lilith boss fight, so that would technically be a new boss, I guess.

Id Nihilla

This boss is currently called ??? but it would probably make sense to call it Id Nihilla to match the naming scheme of the Primal Nihilla boss fights. It would unlock after the Primal Nihilla fights. This fight could have more mechanical changes to suit the Proud difficulty - I would at least like to see the following:

• The boss now enters Dragonform during the first Overdrive and uses Sentenced: Terminus.
• The final attack sequence of Sentenced: Terminus now leaves Blight pools that last for 60 seconds, locking out huge parts of the arena for a while.
• Dash attacks during Final Mortality are significantly faster and the final attack now has 3 different patterns, one of which is chosen randomly.
• The boss now enters Godmight form at 25%, causing all attacks to leave permanent Blight pools and putting a soft enrage timer on the remainder of the fight.

Id Nihilla would be guaranteed to drop Destrudo and other Id materials along with a unique Id Nihilla Core material. Id Nihilla Cores could be traded in for any other Nihilla boss material and could serve other purposes as well. These rewards would make Id Nihilla a good boss for farming all other Nihilla boss materials.

Angra Mainyu

While this boss is fought multiple times at lower difficulties, I still think it would be a nice fight to have a Proud version of. The encounter features plenty of fairly unique mechanics that could pose a challenge especially with some tweaks, such as by making the various adds significantly harder to kill. In terms of Proud progression, I would have this boss also unlock after the Primal Nihilla bosses are defeated.

In addition, I want this boss to be a consistent source of Silver Centrum since it’s an item that ends up in high demand around this point in the endgame. Specifically, I believe this boss should always drop one Silver Centrum with a 25% chance to drop another at S++ rank. The boss could also be fought to earn achievements related to the Maniac version, I guess.

Finally, I want this boss scaled up to Proud difficulty due to suggestions made below.
 

Lilith

This fight sort of exists in the main story, but it only features a few mechanics before the player suffers a scripted defeat. As the main antagonist, I believe that Lilith deserves a proper endgame-worthy boss encounter. To that end, the fight should be a little more difficult than Behemoth and Proto Bahamut, but easier than Lucilius.

When it comes to mechanics, I leave it up to the development team to get creative, but I do think having some similarities to Angra Mainyu would be neat.

I also want this boss fight to exist at the aforementioned difficulty so that having Rolan join the crew (see previous suggestion) feels especially rewarding.

Boss Rush

This suggestion and the following one would be quite demanding to implement compared to other suggestions in this section. I am including them as high priority additions because they heavily rely on content recycling, which makes developing them more feasible, and I believe it is very beneficial to implement highly replayable content that’s at least similar to what I’m suggesting. I’d go as far as to say that if Cygames were to add content that’s similar to what I suggest below to Relink before the year ends, many players would be significantly more satisfied with the state of the game and be less demanding about adding more content to extend the endgame. Anyway…

While I think a Monster Hunter-style game (which Relink certainly feels like) should have more content beyond the boss fights, there’s no denying that there will be a focus on that type of content. Because of this, I think it’s sensible to introduce a boss rush mode that allows players to fight a randomized boss gauntlet to help vary up the boss fighting experience. This game mode should also feature roguelike elements and elaborate difficulty options to spice up the experience further.

How Boss Rush Works

The player fights their way through a series of 3-7 encounters. After each encounter, they earn points based on their performance and can choose Blessings to increase their power for the rest of the run. Toils can also be purchased before a run to increase overall mechanical difficulty in exchange for higher point gain. For various reasons such as not blindsiding the player with bosses they haven’t fought before, only bosses that a player has already defeated can show up. Once a run ends, the player can use the points to buy various rewards such as drops from any enemy they defeated in the Boss Rush.

About Courses and Difficulty

 

The Boss Rush game mode features three courses with varying lengths and difficulties:

• The Fledgling course has 3 fights and scales to Hard difficulty. It’s available immediately after finishing the main story.
• The Veteran course has 5 fights and scales to Extreme difficulty. It’s available after unlocking the Extreme difficulty.
• The Legend course has 7 fights and scales to Proud difficulty. It’s available after unlocking the Proud difficulty.

Boss fights in each course have a specific rank value assigned to them that determines the total tier amount of boss(es) that can spawn in the fight. This can vary from 1 to 4. Specifically, the rank value for each encounter in every course is as follows:

• Fledgling
• The 1st encounter is rank 1.
• The 2nd encounter is rank 2.
• The 3rd encounter is rank 4. Only a tier 4 boss may spawn.
• Veteran
• The 1st encounter is rank 1.
• The 2nd and 3rd encounters are rank 2.
• The 4th encounter is rank 3.
• The 5th fencounter is rank 4. Only a tier 4 boss may spawn.
• Legend
• The 1st and 2nd encounters are rank 2.
• The 3rd and 4th encounters are rank 3.
• The 5th and 6th encounters are rank 4. Tier 4 bosses cannot spawn in these fights and tier 3 bosses can only feature enemy waves as a tier 1 spawn.
• The 7th encounter is rank 4. Only a tier 4 boss may spawn.

Note that encounters with a rank value higher than 1 can spawn multiple bosses. For example, a rank 3 fight can spawn three tier 1 bosses or a tier 2 and tier 1 boss. However, tier 3 and 4 bosses cannot spawn alongside any other boss (for now, anyway).

In order to make failure reasonably possible, the state of the Critical Gauge and potion stock carry over between encounters. If the Critical Gauge is depleted, the run ends.

Since the Veteran and Legend courses in particular can get quite long, it should also be possible to suspend an ongoing solo run. The player would be allowed to quit after finishing any encounter and come back later - they could even do other quests. However, their build and party setup would be saved and the player must finish the run with that build.

About Boss Tiers

Boss tiers vary from 1 to 4 and are assigned based on how they show up in current existing quests. Specifically, I determined boss tiers based on criteria such as whether they show up in 2-3 boss quests and their difficulty level in story and endgame content.

Tier 1 are bosses that have shown up in quests with 3 bosses, such as:

• Quakadile
• Goblin Warrior
• Scarmiglione
• Nazarbonju
• Rock Golem
• Gerasene
• Griffon
• Infernadile
• Blizzadile
• Ancient Dragon

In addition, 3 waves of 15 non-boss enemies each can replace a Tier 1 boss spawn to add even more encounter variety to the boss rush. Non-boss enemies spawned by a boss, such as by the Goblin Warrior, do not count as enemy waves.

Tier 2 are bosses that have shown up in quests with 2 bosses, but not 3. Other bosses that aren’t particularly feasible to classify as Tier 1 or 3 are also included here:

• Tayu’itar (both variants)
• Vrazarek Firewyrm
• Wilinus Icewyrm
• Corvell Earthwyrm
• Elusious Wyndwyrm
• Radis Whitewyrm
• Evyl Blackwyrm

Tier 3 are Primals and noteworthy story bosses that may feature a special stage, such as:

• Furycane (+Nihilla)
• Managarmr (+Nihilla)
• Excavallion
• Vulkan Bolla (+Nihilla)
• Gallanza and Maglielle
• The solo version of these two bosses would not be available in Boss Rush.
• Id (+Nihilla)

Tier 4 are final boss-like story encounters or high difficulty bosses featured in deep endgame content. These traits make these bosses suitable as final bosses in the boss rush. They are as follows, with many bosses only available in the Legend course:

• Angra Mainyu
• Bahamut Versa
• Pyet-A (Legend only)
• Proto Bahamut (Legend only)
• Behemoth (Legend only)
• Lilith (Legend only)
• Lucilius (Legend only)

Since the Boss Rush includes every boss, some would need to be rescaled to other difficulty levels. This is part of why so many tier 4 bosses only show up in the Legend course. Harder versions of certain bosses (such as Lucilius in the Zero quest) cannot show up in this course.

Multiplayer

This game mode could support multiplayer and I envision that it would serve as an alternative to Quick Quest for players interested in longer online play sessions. When players use matchmaking for Boss Rush, a course would be chosen based on the eligibility and preferences of everyone in the party. For example, if everyone has Proud difficulty unlocked and has preferences set to enter the Legend course, the party would enter the Legend course. Parties in an Online Session can choose which course to play as long as everyone in the party is eligible. It is also important to once again note that only bosses a player has defeated can spawn in Boss Rush, so a Boss Rush in multiplayer can only feature bosses that every player in the party has defeated before.

Point System

Points are earned as battles are finished in the boss rush. Bonus points are based on execution, such as by breaking parts, not taking damage, and not using potions. However, a faster clear time doesn’t directly award more points. This is because defeating bosses quickly would allow players to finish more fights and earn more points anyway. In addition, awarding points based on other criteria may encourage players to try more defensive and utility-oriented builds that could teach them the benefits of such builds. In multiplayer, points are awarded individually and some criteria are based on personal performance.

Specifically, points are awarded as follows:

• 100 points per rank of the encounter cleared.
• For example, a rank 3 fight gives 300 points.
• +10 points per boss part broken up to a maximum of 50 points per encounter.
• When the party overkills a boss, +25 points per tier of the boss.
• +300 points when clearing the final encounter.

In addition, there are bonus objectives that apply multiplier bonuses to the total point gain from an encounter when the conditions are met. In multiplayer, these objectives are individually tracked. In solo play, the entire party must meet the conditions of an objective to benefit from the multiplier. These multipliers are additive and only one multiplier from each category can apply:

• Potion usage:
• +0.1x for not using green, blue, or mega potions.
• +0.25x for not using revival potions
• +0.5x for not using any potions at all. Allied blue potion usage does not invalidate this.
• Damage avoidance:
• +0.25x for not entering critical condition more than once.
• +0.5x for not entering critical condition (even with Autorevive).
• +1.0x for not taking any direct damage.
• Special attacks:
• +0.15x for not using Skybound Art.
• +0.3x for not using either Skybound Art or Link Attack.

 

Blessings

To better differentiate Boss Rush from defeating bosses normally, players can choose Blessings that make them more powerful over the course of a run. Like the roguelite games that this concept is inspired from, players would have many opportunities to choose between 3 random Blessings after completing boss fights.

While I tried to make example Blessings that are more interesting than generic stat boosts, I did separate them into two tiers of power: Common and Legendary. Common Blessings are weaker and can be taken up to 3 times each, increasing its power each time after the 1st. Legendary Blessings are quite powerful with some changing fundamental mechanics significantly, so only one can be taken during a run. In solo play, both types of Blessings affect the entire party. However, in multiplayer, each player chooses their own Common Blessings that only affect them while Legendary Blessings still apply to the entire party.

After the first encounter, the player (in multiplayer, this would be the leader, which in online matchmaking runs is defined as what the game considers the first player in the party) chooses from one of three Legendary Blessings. After each other encounter but the final one, players choose from one of three Common Blessings once for each rank of the encounter that was completed. For example, completing a rank 3 encounter would allow players to choose a Common Blessing 3 times. Players would have 30 seconds to choose their Blessings after each encounter (mostly to accommodate multiplayer).

Some example ideas for Common Blessings are as follows:

• Skillful Momentum: After using a skill, normal attack damage is enhanced by 10% for 4/6/8 seconds.
• Quicker Cooldown: Cooldown of skills decreased by 10/20/30%. Stacks multiplicatively with Quick Cooldown. Reduces the starting cooldown of applicable skills.
• Fatal Cascade: Skill CD reduced on normal attack critical strike (stacks with Cascade. CD reduction is 0%/50%/100% stronger than Cascade)
• Link Extension: Increases Link Time gauge restoration from attacks by 33%/66%/100%.
• Buff Booster: The duration of buffs applied to self are increased by 33%/66%/100%.
• Debuff Booster: Normal attacks have a 8%/16%/25% chance to increase debuff duration by 5%, up to a limit of 50% bonus duration.
• Bubble of Life: Overhealing received now shields the player for up to 10%/20%/30% of max HP. Stacks with other shields.
• Break Slayer: Deal 20%/35%/50% enhanced damage to enemies that are Broken.
• Rageproof Avoidance: When an enemy is in Bloodthirst, dodge count +1/+2/+3
• Rageproof Guardian: When an enemy is in Bloodthirst, perfect guard window is increased by 16/33/50 milliseconds.
• Shake It Off: When dodging, the remaining duration of all debuffs is reduced by 20%/30%/40%.
• Secondary Protection: When guard is broken, receive 25% Damage Cut for 5/7/10 seconds. Cannot occur more often than once every 30 seconds.
• Replicating Potion Satchel: Increase the max capacity of all potions by 1/2/3. Replenish 1/2/3 potions after every fight.

Some example ideas for Legendary Blessings are as follows:

• Lyria’s Assistance: Lyria joins and provides support as a guest party member. She can:
• AoE heal (30 second CD)
• AoE revive (180 second CD)
• AoE debuff cleanse (60 second CD)
• Follow up a Full Burst with Proto Bahamut’s Skyfall, empowering the party’s attack into an Overburst. This attack is stronger if the Captain is in the party. Does not activate during Lucilius 12th Labor or for other scripted Overburst sequences.
• Lyria’s skill cooldowns are affected by the Quicker Cooldown Blessing.
• Critical Affliction: All critical strikes have a 25% chance to apply a random debuff that isn’t active (except any status that prevents actions, such as Paralyze or Dizzy). Cannot apply debuffs this way more often than once per 15 seconds.
• Overdrive Adaptation: Ignore Overdrive damage cut effects.
• Extra Perfect Guard: Perfect Guard now also provides 3 seconds of invulnerability.
• Fallback Plan: The Critical Gauge now slowly restores over time. When Critical Gauge is full, gain a 10% Supplementary Damage buff (stacks with all other types of Supplementary Damage).
• Part Destroyer: Increase damage dealt to parts by 100%. If all bosses have no parts remaining, increase Stun Power by 50.
• Link Overcharge: Link Level gain increased by 100%. Link Time has a 50% chance to not consume Link Level.

 

Toils

While increasing power with Blessings is fun, it can easily make runs way too easy. In addition, some players may want more challenging content. Toils address both issues by allowing players to spend Rupies to customize the difficulty of Boss Rush while also increasing point gain as a reward.

Each Toil increases point gain by a percentage based on how much harder it supposedly makes the Boss Rush. The Rupie cost of most Toils is based on this point gain percentage with each percentage of point gain costing 1,000 Rupies. For example, a Toil that gives 50% bonus points would cost 50,000 Rupies. Bonus point gain from Toils is additive, so the total bonus point gain from activating all the example Toils below is +425%, or over 5 times the normal point gain.

Toils can only be used during Boss Rush runs done solo or in an Online Session. To compensate for the inability to activate Toils, Boss Rush runs done with a matchmade group gain 50% bonus points.

What follows are some examples of Toil effects:

The following Toils have no modifiers:

• Cannot Perfect Dodge: +100% bonus points. This Toil is free.
• Cannot Perfect Guard: +50% bonus points. This Toil is free.
• Dodge range halved: +25% bonus points
• Jump height halved: +25% bonus points
• Periodically afflicted with Poison, Burn, or Blight randomly every 30 seconds: +15% bonus points
• Can be resisted and cleansed.
• Does not invalidate damage avoidance point bonuses.

 

These Toils are categorical effects. Only one effect from each Toil category can be activated.

• Blessing restrictions:
• Forced to choose the first Blessing out of the choice of three: +15% bonus points
• Common Blessings are disabled: 50% bonus points
• Enemy attacks have a bonus chance to afflict Dizzy:
• 25% chance: +10% bonus points
• 50% chance: +25% bonus points
• 100% chance: +50% bonus points
• Critical gauge depletes faster:
• 100% faster: +10% bonus points
• 250% faster: +25% bonus points
• 500% faster: +50% bonus points

These Toils have sub-effects. They have a primary effect that must be active to activate optional sub-effects, which increase the strength of the primary effect in some way.

• Enemy gains 25% Damage Cut every 30 seconds: +10% bonus points
• Stack count decreases by 1 every time the enemy is damaged. The buff can be dispelled.
• Buff cannot be dispelled: +5% bonus points
• Damage Cut increased to 50%: +15% bonus points
• Enemy gains Supplementary Damage every 30 seconds that lasts for 3 attacks: +10% bonus points
• This buff can be dispelled.
• Cannot be dispelled: +5% bonus points
• Buff remains after 3 attacks: +15% bonus points

 

Rewards

Once a run ends, all the points gained are tallied into a final score. These points can then be exchanged for rewards. Treasures, including parts, dropped by every boss fought in the boss rush can be bought for points. Useful treasures that are universally earned from quests such as Silver Centrum and Curios can also be bought. For players who don’t care about buying specific treasures with their points, they can opt to multiply their final score by 1.5 and receive random rewards based on the new final score instead.

The general purpose of the reward system for Boss Rush is to allow players to buy specific treasures, such as certain boss drops (especially drops from part breaks). Players can also buy Curios using points for a chance at Curio-specific Sigils.

The general exchange rate for treasures is based on rarity and an example of possible exchange rates are as follows:

• Common treasures: 10 Points
• Uncommon treasures: 25 Points
• Rare treasures: 100 Points
• Epic treasures: 250 Points
• Legendary treasures: 500 Points

The following treasures have specific costs. Curios and Silver Centrum can always be bought:

• Tier 4 Curio: 2,500 Points
• Tier 3 Curio, Silver Centrum, Tears of the Apocalypse, Supreme Weapon Essence, Avia Insignia: 1,000 Points
• Tier 2 Curio: 250 Points
• Tier 1 Curio: 100 Points

All unspent points are automatically converted to Knickknack Vouchers at a 10 points to 1 voucher exchange rate.

In addition, players would gain one Gold Badge Ticket for every encounter cleared, which encourages them to try some Quick Quest later and keep that feature active. Players would also gain experience from defeating enemies in Boss Rush, making it a modest source of Mastery Points.

Endless Mode

While I think Blessings and Toils add a lot of replayability to this mode, an endless mode could also be added for players who want a brutal endurance challenge that the courses can’t provide. This would be unlocked after finishing the Legend Course. The differences in Endless Mode are as follows:

• The player starts with a Legendary Blessing before the first encounter.
• When an encounter is completed, the player chooses one Common Blessing, up to a maximum of 15.
• Toils cannot be activated at the start.
• Bosses that the player (or party) hasn’t defeated can show up in Endless Mode.
• Every 5th encounter is a tier 4 boss. After they are defeated, enemy health increases by 25% and one Toil is randomly activated. If all Toils are activated, increase enemy damage by 25% instead. Enemy health and damage bonuses stack additively.
• This allows Endless Mode to scale infinitely to account for potential new difficulty levels.
• If a player has access to a higher difficulty than Proud, an option to skip some Endless Mode progression could be added. For example, one difficulty level higher than Proud would allow a player to start Endless Mode as if they completed 25 fights (with 1 Legendary Blessing, all 15 Common Blessings, 5 Toils active, and +125% enemy health). This does not award points in itself and is just for players who want to start at a higher difficulty immediately.
• A harder version of certain Proud bosses (currently just Lucilius and Bahamut Versa) is guaranteed to spawn every 25 encounters.
• Other encounters have their rank randomized between 1-4. They cannot spawn tier 4 bosses. 
• Since there is no final encounter point bonus, players gain 100 bonus points after clearing every 5th encounter. This increases by 100 points for every 5th encounter cleared (for example, the 20th encounter gives 400 bonus points). All other point gain is normal.
• The run ends if the Critical Gauge depletes or if a quest is otherwise failed. However, it also ends if the entire party is simultaneously in a critical state.
• Endless Mode runs can be suspended and has its own “save” slot so that players can still play Boss Rush courses.
• Like with the Legend course, Endless Mode can only be done solo or in an Online Session, though solo is recommended so that it’s possible to suspend the run.

 

Rogue Mode Exploration

When I first entered the desert areas of Dahli Island in Chapter 6, I was impressed by the area I was given to explore considering how linear areas were up until then. I ended up spending a couple hours looking around before being forced back on rails once again. While this area is featured in a number of quests, the vast area of the Ruined City Vallion is poorly utilized and its entirety is only used for one arguably annoying quest: Collector’s Digest (the coin collecting one).

Personally, I think this area deserves so much better and believe the Ruined City Vallion area could be used to deliver a new type of content to Relink in the form of another game mode with roguelike elements that focuses on exploration. This would bring more much needed, highly replayable content to the game.
 

How Rogue Mode Exploration Works

The player would start with almost nothing and be given a time limit to explore the area for loot and monsters. Once the time limit expires or the player enters the middle of the area, they face a challenging final boss. To give players a reasonable chance of completing a run while also making this content more unique, some limits are relaxed such as party size limits. This suggestion should be somewhat familiar to those who have played battle royale games or experienced content like the Gauntlet in Old School Runescape.

Since players effectively start with nothing, the barrier to entry is quite low and this content should be accessible after finishing the main story.

Detailed Gameplay Summary

The specific details of the game mode are as follows:

• The player enters the area with their primary character at level 1. They would also have no Masteries, no Sigils, and a level 1 weapon with no traits.
• The weapon’s stats are based on the character’s Defender weapon.
• There would be a 10/15/20 minute time limit to explore the Ruined City Vallion. 
• The area would be littered with random chests, gathering spots, and enemies for the player to exploit and increase their power. Non-boss enemies and gathering spots would randomly continue to spawn over time.
• Many of the chest and gather spot locations could just be identical to the ones in Chapter 6, but more possible spawn locations should be added too.
• Enemy spawns could basically be wherever as long as they’re in small groups at the very least.
• There are two tier 1 bosses at level 75 wandering around (one to the east and one to the west).
• There are three tier 2 bosses at level 100 (east and west) or 150 (north) in the three areas that needed to be unsealed in Chapter 6.
• Once the aforementioned time limit expires or the player opts to battle the final boss early, the player is warped to the final boss, which is level 200 and is a tier 3 or 4 boss that could feasibly be fought in the central arena. 
• The final boss must be a boss that the player has defeated before.
• If the time limit was set to 10 minutes, the final boss is guaranteed to be tier 4 and should use their specific boss arena instead.
• For the time being, this game mode is solo only.

 

About Exploration, Loot, Etc

To take on this challenge, the following can be found during exploration:

• The player can find up to 5 Crewmate Cards from chests or bosses, which instantly recruit new party members when found.
• The first chest opened is guaranteed to have a Crewmate Card.
• Each boss is guaranteed to drop a Crewmate Card if the party isn’t full yet.
• Party member unlocks are randomized and can be characters who haven’t been unlocked by the player.
• Party members have random skills set that cannot be changed, but they are guaranteed to have two damaging skills set.
• Party members share the same level, weapon level, and traits as the player’s character. These benefits are retroactively applied to new party members.
• The party member total is 6 in this game mode to compensate for sub-optimal party members and encourage players to hunt for Crewmate Cards. The game can support this many due to the guest party member system.
• The player can find a variety of loot that immediately enhances the party. These become actual rewards at the end of the run, so none of the following are consumed or otherwise lost.
• Tier 3, 4, and 5 Sigils, which immediately provide the max level version of their traits to the party without needing to equip them. +/++ variants can also be uncommonly looted. Specific traits can be disabled in the menu if they’re undesired.
• Tier 4+ Sigils can only be looted from any of the bosses.
• Tier 4++, 5, and 5+ Sigils (and higher tier Sigils, if they are added) can only be looted from the tier 2 bosses.
• Damage Cap Sigils and character-specific Sigils cannot be looted. Character specific Sigil traits are given by leveling the weapon instead.
• Sigils earned from Curio appraisal such as Supplementary Damage can be looted, but are twice as rare as normal Sigils.
• Wrightstones, which also immediately grant their traits to the party like Sigils.
• Fortitude Crystals, which immediately grant weapon EXP to the party’s weapons equal to 5x the EXP they normally grant.
• When the weapon reaches level 100, it grants character-specific Awakening Sigil traits.
• When the weapon reaches level 150, it grants character-specific Warpath Sigil traits. All future character-specific traits would also be earned at this weapon level.
• Weapon level cap in this game mode is 150. When a weapon gains enough EXP to reach level 150 from 149 again, it gains a +1 Plus Mark as if a Mirage Munition was applied to it (+10 HP, +2 ATK). The Mirage Munition bonus can go above +99 in this game mode.
• Spellbooks, which grant EXP equal to their normal EXP value to the entire party. Note that these are rare and the normal way to gain EXP for the party is to defeat enemies.
• Players can also “loot” new Masteries. Specifically, whenever players loot a treasure chest, they automatically unlock up to 5 Mastery nodes at random. Looting gathering spots and leveling up unlocks one Mastery node.
• When the party reaches level 80, they automatically gain 10% Critical Strike chance from Overmastery. At level 100, this increases to 20%.
• Groups of normal enemies are important to defeat because they award EXP at 5x the normal rate, making them vital for leveling. They also have a small chance of dropping some of the loot listed above.
• Bosses, which are guaranteed to award significant amounts of loot and EXP. Defeating at least one is important for completing the run.
• Also, damage caps would be disabled in this game mode, so overpreparing is strongly encouraged.

 

Rewards

Items (Sigils, Wrightstones, Fortitude Crystals, and Spellbooks) looted during the run are the player’s to keep regardless of whether they succeed or fail on the final boss. The player also earns Rupies equal to the amount that all defeated enemies would’ve dropped. If the final boss is defeated, that boss would drop their normal loot based on the highest difficulty they are available. In addition, they have a bonus 30%/60%/100% chance to drop either an Azurite’s Splendor or Damascus Ingot for completing the 20, 15, and 10 minute runs respectively. The player could also specify which of the two items drops before starting the run if they wish to.

In other words, Rogue Mode Exploration is a consistent way to earn Azurite’s Splendor and Damascus Ingots. Being able to surpass limitations or earn other loot from the game mode is a bonus.

Finally, while I don’t tend to discuss intangible rewards much, it is worth pointing out that this game mode serves as something of a demo that tempts newer players into trying endgame content. This is because they get to try playing alongside characters they might not have against bosses that can scale up to Proud difficulty while wielding enormous power seen only in the deep endgame. This is already potentially appealing to any player, but such an experience should leave a stronger impression on players who just entered the post-game and are unaccustomed to these benefits.

…Or the players might get addicted to the game mode and exclusively play it, but I guess that’s a win too.
 

Long-Term Additions

This section contains content and feature suggestions that I would like to see for Relink that would likely take over a year to materialize. Alternatively, suggestions made here are things I would like to see but wouldn’t mind if they took a long time to implement.

Expansion DLC

This is a suggestion I’ve seen fairly often in threads discussing Relink’s future and it makes a lot of sense as to why. While free content updates are nice, paid expansions are a good way to extend the endgame or redefine it by delivering a lot of content at once. It also ensures that game developers don’t starve. Thanks to how much content the mobile game has, some of the lengthier stories and other content could be adapted into expansion content for Relink. Original stories in Zegagrande or entirely new Skydoms are also a possibility.

However, while expansions generally seem to be considered an ideal form of monetization, it’s possible to do it wrong. Furthermore, it’s nice to ask for an expansion, but it’s even better to provide examples of what expansion content could be like. This suggestion will seek to address both of these points in the upcoming parts.

What Players Pay For (and don’t)

While I plan to discuss monetization and design philosophy in more detail later, hashing out the details for how I believe paid expansions should work in Relink is relevant and important for understanding later parts of the expansion suggestion.

In the case of Relink, the key design philosophy I would like to see is that expansions feature a large amount of paid content, but players don’t feel forced to buy the expansion. I believe this can be accomplished by only paywalling certain content while other content related to the expansion is available for free. In addition, I want to stress that post-expansion content updates should not be exclusive to paid expansions when possible.

For my generic expansion example, here’s a brief summary of what I think players should and should not have to pay for:

• Story content should be paid. I consider this the main feature of expansion content. It’s possible to disconnect story content from other content including what the story itself features, so story completion doesn’t lock players out of access to content and features.
• Expeditions should be semi-paid. Expeditions are a form of area exploration content that I plan to suggest below that is strongly related to expansions. While at least one area would be available for free since it uses an existing main story area, expeditions would primarily use expansion areas due to upcoming suggestions regarding level design. Expeditions to areas associated with a specific expansion would require that expansion, but players in the same Online Session could freely join without needing the expansion.
• Bosses that show up in story content should be available to battle for free in quests. It would be a waste if new bosses were added with an expansion and they didn’t have quests anyway.
• Expansions may add new characters. They should be available for free in the same way new characters currently are. They could be easily unlocked as part of the story content, but there should be an alternative method for players to unlock them (through the aforementioned quests, for example).
• New features, feature expansions, and other miscellaneous changes, such as level cap increases, new traits, and new Sigil tiers should all be available for free.
• Content updates after an expansion’s release should also be free. There could be some exceptions, such as if new story content related to an expansion was added later, in which it makes sense that only buyers of the expansion would have access.

Story Content

To reiterate what I said above, the expansion would need to be bought to experience this content. What the story consists of is entirely up to Cygames since I don’t know much about Granblue Fantasy’s story or whether they have any further ideas for Zegagrande-related plot. 

However, I do want to discuss the value proposition of a paid expansion. Since story content is primarily what players would be paying for, it’s important to ensure there’s enough story content to make it worth the price of entry (which I assume would be around 20-30 USD). This means that the overall story content should be at least half as long as Relink’s main story, but ideally much longer since Relink’s main story is kind of short.

At the same time, I don’t want to limit the creativity of Cygames too much by demanding that expansions only consist of a single longer story while relegating shorter stories to free content updates. Therefore, I believe it’s reasonable to bundle multiple (ideally related) shorter stories together and market that content as an expansion if desired. Alternatively, smaller, cheaper expansions could occasionally be sold. Other exceptions to my personally recommended length of an expansion’s story content are possible too, but the production quality and player engagement would need to be otherworldly levels of good.

Expeditions and Level Design

Despite the (blatantly placeholder) name, Expeditions would be a form of exploration content that is vaguely modeled after overworld content in MMORPGs and the Guiding Lands from Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. This would involve an area or areas large enough and, more importantly, geographically interesting enough to explore. As players complete activities during the Expedition, they are given more challenging content and richer rewards until an area boss shows up to fight. All of this would take a lot of work to implement, which is Expeditions are a long-term addition that’s intended to be developed alongside Expansion DLC.

However, while Expedition content would be developed alongside an expansion and leech off the expansion’s level design development, it should be partially accessible to all players. As mentioned above, when Expeditions are done in multiplayer, only the host of the Online Session needs to have the expansion. This would allow groups to still play with each other and could encourage Expedition hosting in the community. More players could also be encouraged to buy the expansion after experiencing its areas through Expeditions too.

Level Design Musings

To start, I want to make it clear that I’m not asking Cygames to turn Relink into an open world game. That would be better done with a new game instead (Also, I think Princess Connect would be a more ideal setting for such a game). However, the content featured in Expeditions would thrive in large, open areas. Adding hidden nooks, elevation, and general liveliness would also make the map more interesting to explore. As a bonus, such maps would work nicely for the Rogue Mode Exploration suggestion above.

In the case of the “free” Expedition area I mentioned before, I personally believe a reworked version of the Hills map from Chapter 2 is highly suitable due to the usage of elevation and existence of settlements that could be populated to breathe life into the map.

For additional Expedition areas, for each expansion, I would suggest adding at least one map that is a fairly large, open area, which meets the recommendations above. Using multiple smaller, interconnected areas is also acceptable. To that end, I would ask that fewer maps consist of long, narrow sections, though adding some is perfectly fine for narrative reasons. For example, I personally think the linearity got out of hand in the main story and areas like Phondam could’ve used more love.

Finally, a map system for navigation would be great.

How Expeditions Work

Like with some MMORPGs, Expeditions would involve running around an area completing Tasks, which would be somewhat similar to content like this. Players could either wander around trying to find Tasks to complete or take some from Task Boards in settlements littered throughout the area. The actual objectives of Tasks should vary from more familiar concepts like hunting down enemies to less familiar ones like completing obstacle courses (thematically appropriate objectives are a bonus). For players who would prefer to make their own busy work, they could aimlessly hunt for enemies and search for loot around the area instead.

Players would also periodically receive Treasure Hunting opportunities as they complete Tasks and find loot. One location out of many specific locations in the area would be highlighted and players would have to reach that spot and complete a simple objective (solving a puzzle, defeating a group of enemies, etc) to find the treasure. Completing a Treasure Hunt provides richer rewards and serves as a periodic bonus for continuing the Expedition. Optionally, some treasures could potentially take multiple steps to find, making them somewhat similar to concepts like clue scrolls.

As players complete Tasks, defeat enemies, find treasure, and otherwise engage in activities during their Expedition, the Area Tier would increase (denoted by a bar on the HUD), from 1 up to a maximum of Area Tier 5. Higher Area Tiers would cause new Tasks, stronger enemies, rarer enemies (Prismatic Slimes could spawn at Area Tier 4 and 5, for example), and richer treasures to spawn while also increasing the amount of rewards earned. Area Tiers could also provide interesting opportunities like a Task “quest chain” that requires players to complete a series of specific Tasks at specific tiers, ultimately culminating in a final, very challenging Task.

After Area Tier 5 is reached, an area boss spawns and must be defeated to continue Expedition activities. This boss would be at least Tier 3 and should always be thematically appropriate for the area (no random Lucilius spawning in The Hills). If there’s no suitable area to fight them, a special arena could be used. Alternatively, a new boss could be specifically designed to serve as an area boss. After the area boss is defeated, players earn a significant amount of rewards and would be given at least 5 minutes to complete other activities at Area Tier 5 for more rewards. The Area Tier would then reset to 1.

It is possible to fail Expeditions by depleting the Critical Gauge as usual. However, the Critical Gauge would be replenished by completing Tasks and increasing Area Tier.

Finally, I want to note that in the interest of keeping Expedition session times reasonable, Area Tier progression should be reasonably fast but not excessively so. I personally believe it should be possible to reach Area Tier 5 within 15-20 minutes, which makes a full “Expedition cycle” (progressing Area Tier to 5, defeating the area boss, and then doing Area Tier 5 activities) about 25-30 minutes.

Rewards

Due to the activities available in Expeditions, there would be a number of different rewards. They would be as follows, but could include more:

• Enemies would drop their usual loot, such as Rupies and various treasures.
• Gather spots would yield anything they normally do such as Fortitude Crystals and Curios.
• Task rewards would have EXP, Mastery Point, and Rupie rewards. They would also randomly award treasure appropriate to the area.
• Treasure chests from Treasure Hunting would award normal chest loot such as certain treasures (like elemental orbs). They would also frequently award Curios and, at higher Area Tiers, would uncommonly award rare consumables such as Ambrosia.
• Pure Azurite Fragment would be a new item that upgrades any Sigil level by 1, including special Sigils such as Alpha, but each Sigil can only be upgraded by this item once. The area boss would always drop this item and additional Pure Azurite Fragments could be rarely awarded from any Area Tier 5 activities.
• On a related note, Azurite’s Splendor could optionally be nerfed to only upgrade Sigils that are up to Tier 5 so this new reward is more relevant (frankly, Azurite’s Splendor is too good and destroys the entire Sigil leveling grind, which in itself arguably may need to be rebalanced to require fewer materials).
• If Azurite’s Splendor is nerfed, Rogue Mode Exploration should also reward Pure Azurite Fragments and Prismatic Slimes should drop Pure Azurite Fragments..

Finally, all activities would award a new currency called Expedition Tokens. These would be used to buy various items including Dahlia Badges and cosmetics (such as cosmetic furniture for a later suggestion). They would also be used to buy consumable items intended for use during Expeditions (any player could use them in multiplayer Expeditions but everyone is subject to the same usage restrictions). Examples of consumable items are as follows:

• Monster Pheromones: Increases Area Tier by 1. 15 minute cooldown.
• Warding Crystal: Locks the current Area Tier for 5 minutes. Cannot be used again until the Area Tier changes.
• Skyfarer’s Veto: Replaces all current Tasks in the Expedition areas with new ones. In multiplayers, all players must agree to use this item before it takes effect (to prevent griefing).
• Treasure Map: Increases the chance of Treasure Hunts appearing by 50% for 10 minutes.
• Challenger’s Gauntlet: Only usable when the area boss is active. Increases area boss level by 50 and increases all non-Expedition Ticket rewards awarded from it by 25%. This effect can be stacked twice. In multiplayer, all players must agree to use this item before it takes effect.
• Signal Flare: The player who uses this item is returned to the starting position by the Grandcypher. If a map feature exists, players could instead travel to any Task Board.
• Blessing of Fleet Feet: Increases movement speed of the party by 25% for 10 minutes.
• Blessing of Fair Skies: The party gains +1 dodge count while mid-air for 10 minutes.
• Blessing of Keen Eyes: Additional gathering spots can be seen for 10 minutes.

 

New Bosses and Characters

A new expansion would inevitably introduce new bosses and possibly new characters. While the story content would serve to better flesh new bosses and characters out, they should still be accessible to all players for free in some form.

Specifically, every new boss added with an expansion should have a quest associated with it. They should also be capable of showing up in Boss Rush and other content if the conditions are met. This allows players to experience the encounters and earn rewards from them even if they miss out on the related narrative.

The boss rewards would be especially important to farm if new characters are added. While expansion owners would either unlock the character immediately or unlock them through the expansion’s story content, an ideal alternative method should involve trading in expansion-related boss material for a new character’s crewmate card.

Feature Expansions and Other Changes

Expansions for many games typically come with new features, expand upon existing features, and introduce other changes. While I think these should be available for free to all players, they could still be released alongside Expansion DLC to complement it. Actual new features will be discussed in their own suggestions, but I wanted to briefly highlight feature expansions and other changes that could complement an expansion release (they could also happen outside of an expansion release cycle too if desired):

Some possible feature expansions and other changes include but are not limited to:

• Level cap increase: In my opinion, a level cap increase only really makes sense if health, damage, and healing caps are tied to character level (if they aren’t already). Otherwise, increasing the level cap is pretty optional.
• That said, there are ways to make level cap important without tying it to a massive performance boost though, such as by locking new Masteries or skills behind higher levels.
• New Overmasteries are a possibility.
• New masteries: While having Mastery Point sinks is important, adding more Masteries to unlock that feature new, unique mechanics for each character would be nice at some point.
• New skills could be added too.
• New weapons: Having other options besides Terminus Weapon (for most characters) would be nice, as long as the unlock condition doesn’t involve RNG hell.
• Weapon level cap: For if character power needs to be increased a little more. Also useful for adding more material sinks.
• Tier 6+ Sigils or higher: This is blatant power creep, but it would allow players to be able to try using more different traits in their build. Higher tier Sigils would also be an appropriate reward for content added by or alongside Expansion DLC.
• Tier 6 Sigil traits should cap out at level 20 to prevent too much Trait level inflation.
• Tier 5++ Sigils could be introduced later. To make them on par with tier 6+, the third trait would only cap out at level 10, but would start at level 10. However, 9 tier 5 Sigils would still be required to make tier 5++ Sigils with Sigil Fusion.
• To cover really long-term possibilities, tier 7 Sigils should cap out at level 25. The third trait on tier 6++ Sigils would also only have a level cap of 10.
• Trait level cap: While I suggest some new traits below, it would also be sensible to raise the level cap on existing traits as higher tier Sigils release.

 

The Captain’s Quarters

A number of games provide a space that the player is able to personalize. This can be a player-owned house, a room, or something similar. In Relink, since the player is the captain of the Grandcypher, it only makes sense that they would have their own quarters that they could freely decorate. This provides an opportunity to add a cosmetic reward system that makes both existing and new content more worthwhile to do.

Specifically, players could earn furniture and other cosmetic items to decorate their quarters in the following ways from gameplay and more:

• Certain prestigious achievements could award a placeable trophy or other memento.
• Furniture based on enemy designs could be traded for at Siero’s, requiring treasures related to the enemy to buy.
• As new enemies are added, new furniture based on their designs could also be added.
• Certain furniture could be bought for points in Boss Rush.
• The same furniture from Boss Rush could also be earned as random boss loot from Rogue Mode Exploration.
• A primary usage of Expedition Tickets would be to buy many kinds of furniture and decorations.

It should also be possible to take, customize, and share pictures of the captain’s quarters.

Party AI Development System

As I mentioned early on, I think the AI in Relink is pretty good. However, while they are generally good, a feature that allows players to fine-tune AI behavior would give them more precise control over what they want their party members to do. I personally think this feature would be a good idea to add in later stages of the game’s development to rejuvenate AI party member functionality through player expression.

Also, while this suggestion in particular needs to be fleshed out a lot more (as opposed to other suggestions, where some parts are generic on purpose to allow for more creative expression on the developer’s part), even the fairly minimalistic benefits from this feature would be a godsend to have.

General Overview

The general idea of the Party AI Development System is that it makes AI characters more player-like. This feature would not give the AI arbitrary buffs and stat boosts. Instead, it would be achieved by allowing each AI character to develop “Tendencies” towards Offense, Defense, and Utility. Offense relates to AI aggressiveness and part breaking, Defense relates to self-preservation, and Utility relates to providing support and other miscellaneous optimizations.

This feature would be available right from the start of the game. The player would set which type of Tendency their AI characters develop before development can happen. AI character Tendencies would be developed by having them level up or complete quests. Player-controlled characters also gain development towards a Tendency if it’s been specified. Mastery Points could also be spent to develop Tendencies.

After an AI character’s development is complete, the player gains access to fine-tuning settings for that character based on how they were developed. This provides further general optimizations and also some gambit system-like functionality (in my opinion, Relink doesn’t need a true gambit system, however). It would also be possible to reset an AI character’s development.

Tendency Development

All characters start with 0 development points and can gain a total of 100. Each of the 3 Tendencies could have 50 development points invested into it, meaning two Tendencies could be completely maxed out. When an AI character is completely undeveloped, their behavior would be identical to that of the current AI.

When selecting which Tendency to develop, the player would have the option to choose a primary Tendency and secondary Tendency. The primary Tendency and secondary Tendency can be changed at any time in town. If the primary Tendency is maximized, the secondary Tendency would develop instead. AI characters would behave as if they have +10 developments in their primary Tendency and +5 development points in their secondary Tendency. This continues to apply even when development is completed, so this effectively gives players 115 development points to invest into Tendencies.

When an AI character levels up, they gain 2 development points. When an AI character is involved in a successful quest, they gain 5 development points. Development points could also be bought for an AI character at a rate of 100 Mastery Points per 1 development point. Development points in a specific Tendency could also be completely reset for free at any time (including during a quest).

Example benefits from developing each specific Tendency are as follows:

Offense:

• By default, the AI is moderately aggressive and will occasionally idle.
• The AI idles for 2% less time for each development point in this Tendency, meaning they constantly attack at 50 development points.
• I personally consider this a very strong benefit on its own. Because of this, the Offense Tendency has access to fewer action priority features.
• At 25 development points, the AI focuses on unbroken enemy parts.
• At 50 development points, the AI doesn’t leash back to the player.

Defense: 

• By default, the AI attempts to use perfect dodge and also guards randomly.
• The AI tries  to perfect guard non-debuffing attacks 2% of the time for each development point in this Tendency, up to 100%.
• If the AI doesn’t perfect guard, they perform their usual action, which will often be a perfect dodge.
• At 25 development points, the AI uses green potions to heal themselves when at 50% health or below.
• At 50 development points, the AI guards while attacking.

Utility:

• By default, the AI always attempts to use support skills when necessary, such as to heal, revive, and dispel allies.
• The AI tries to optimally dodge cancel their skill usage 2% of the time for each development point in this Tendency, maxing at 100%.
• This would probably be the most difficult part to implement, especially as more characters are added, but that’s why this suggestion is in the Long-Term Additions section.
• The dodge canceling doesn’t need to be frame perfect, but it should be faster than not dodge canceling.
• Dodge canceling doesn’t occur if doing so isn’t faster.
• At 25, the AI uses blue potions to heal the player when they are 50% health or below. 
• At 50, the AI uses revival potions.

Fine-Tuning Options and Action Priority

Once an AI character is completely developed, fine-tuning options and action priority are both unlocked. Some of these options and action priority configurations are globally available, but many require the AI character to have enough development in a specific Tendency to unlock. Note that certain hard-coded behavior such as boss mechanics would override fine-tuning options and action priority.

Global AI fine-tuning options are as follows, with bullet points laid out like actual menu options - the default setting is the first option:

• AI targets your locked target:
• Yes
• No
• AI delays SBA usage during SBA chain (when enabled, the AI always waits to use SBA during a SBA chain even if the player used their SBA):
• Yes
• No
• AI saves all offensive skills when stun bar is inactive (this overrides all action priority configuration):
• No
• Yes

Tendency-specific AI fine-tuning options are as follows - the default setting is the first option where applicable:

• Focus on unbroken enemy parts (25 Offense required):
• Focus
• Don’t Focus
• Average delay between attacks (30 Offense required):
• Can be set from 0%-100% as long as the Offense Tendency requirement is met. For example, at 35 Offense Tendency, this can be set from 30% to 100%.
• AI leashes to the player (50 Offense required):
• No
• Yes
• Use green potions to heal (25 Defense required):
• Yes
• No
• Use Perfect Guard (30 Defense required):
• Only against non-debuff attacks
• Always
• No
• Guard while attacking (50 Defense required):
• Yes
• No
• Use blue potions to heal (25 Utility required):
• Yes
• No
• Dodge cancel abilities (30 Utility required):
• Yes
• No
• Use revival potions (50 Utility required):
• Yes
• No

In addition to the fine-tuning options, players can set a list of action priorities for the AI to follow. When a specified condition is met, the AI would perform the specified action. Conditions would be checked from top to bottom on the action priority list. 10 condition-action entries can be set on the action priority at a time.

The conditions are as follows. Some conditions (specifically, Health check conditions) can be configured further to a degree. All of them require some level of Tendency development:

• Enemy is in Overdrive (20 Offense required)
• Self Health is at 10-100% HP or below (20 Defense required)
• Enemy has the Bloodthirst buff (20 Defense required)
• Player Health is at 10-100% HP or below (20 Utility required)
• Player has a debuff (20 Utility required)
• Enemy has a dispellable buff (20 Utility required)

Actions that can be performed are as follows. Potion usage can only be chosen as an action if the Tendency requirement is met:

• Use a specific skill.
• Use a potion (only available at 25 Defensive/25 Utility).
• Perform a normal attack string.
• Perform a strong attack.
• Perform a launch attack.
• Hold guard for 1-5 seconds.

In addition, an action priority entry can be given a cooldown ranging from 1 second to 60 seconds to prevent the AI from performing an action repeatedly. If no condition is met, the specified actions cannot be performed, and/or an action priority entry is on cooldown, AI behavior defaults to normal behavior and Tendency-based behavior.

New Traits

Relink is already getting new traits, including character-exclusive ones, during regular updates. However, bigger updates such as expansion releases would benefit greatly from the addition of many new traits, so it’s important to think of new ones. In truth, I just wanted to invent some new trait ideas - here are some that could be implemented later on or not:

• Mobile Protection (Level 20):  Reduces movement penalty while guarding by up to 75%.
• Rapid Fortification (Level 20): Guard strength fully restores up to 100% faster.
• Verdant Alchemy (Level 20): Green potions automatically replenish by 1 every 30 seconds when below max stock.
• Azure Alchemy (Level 20): Blue potions automatically replenish by 1 every 60 seconds when below max stock.
• Part Breaker (Level 30): Enemy parts take up to an additional 50% damage from your attacks. Stacks multiplicatively with Stun Power.
• Vengeance (Level 30): After reviving, gain up to 15% enhanced damage for 15 seconds.
• Desperation (Level 30): When the Critical Gauge is at 25% or below, gain up to 60 bonus Stun Power and 30% bonus SBA generation.
• Last Stand (Level 30): When the Critical Gauge is at 25% or below, gain up to 30% Damage Cut and +2 dodge count (+1 at level 15, +2 at level 30).
• Fleet-footed (Level 30): While dashing, gradually increase movement speed by up to 60% over 10 seconds. Effect ends upon dealing or receiving damage.
• Elemental Malady (Level 45): Damaging skills have up to a 75% chance on the first damaging hit to afflict a status effect of varying duration based on the skill’s element. The chance scales with base skill cooldown and status effect, with longer cooldowns and less crippling statuses increasing the chance.
• Fire: Burn and 15% DEF Down
• Water: Frostbite
• Earth: Sandtomb
• Wind: Bound
• Light: Paralysis
• Dark: Slow
• Elemental Boon (Level 45): Damaging skills have up to a 75% chance to grant a buff based on the skill’s element for 15 seconds. The chance scales with base skill cooldown and buff’s strength, with longer cooldowns and weaker buffs increasing the chance. 
• Fire: 20% ATK Up
• Water: Drain
• Earth: 15% Damage Cut
• Wind: Debuff Immunity
• Light: Regen
• Dark: Mirror Image
• Swift Strikes (Level 50): Reduces the animation time of normal attacks by up to 25%.
• Auto-Guard (No Level): Automatically attempts to guard when attacked, but cannot Perfect Guard.

 

About Monetization and Design Philosophy

This section doesn’t feature suggestions for what to add to Relink, but I wanted to discuss two important topics regarding the game: how I think it should be monetized and game design philosophies worth considering. I’ll try to keep the rambling here brief, but I can’t promise civility since I feel strongly about both monetization and design philosophy.

Monetization

While this game isn’t live service and doesn’t need to be, it is one that I think would benefit from ongoing development - that’s why all the suggestions above exist. However, despite how they’re treated otherwise by some members of the gaming community and sometimes by their own superiors, game developers are people too and need to be properly compensated for their efforts. This means that there needs to be some form of monetization, which Relink is already offering.

While I’m certain that a lot of the profits are going to be funneled to the people who arguably least deserve it within Cygames, here are the ways I think ongoing development should and should not be funded:

Cosmetic microtransactions are a good way to go.

Despite what some, including gaming journalists who should know better, may say about cosmetic microtransactions, they are generally one of the least offensive ways to monetize a game. This is because they usually don’t affect gameplay balance or progression and otherwise don’t affect the primary objectives that the game sets before a player. The production of cosmetics is also less likely to detract from the development process, specifically since game artists have downtime during certain periods of the development process (such as during the testing or pre-launch stages of a game, which should also apply to some degree for updates and expansions) (1)(2).

Currently, Relink is selling recolors and emotes as cosmetic microtransactions. This could be expanded upon to add character skins, weapon skins, decorations (if the Captain’s Quarters feature ever becomes a thing), and more. I would only ask to consider the following:

• The pricing is favorable to the consumer
• For example, I personally think the Color Pack DLC are a few USD more, if not twice as expensive, as they should be. I’d buy them if they were cheaper.
• That some cosmetics of every type are unlockable through gameplay.
• There are bundle deals for cosmetic sets when appropriate.
• There is no limited-time stuff.

Expansion DLC is the best way to go as long as the value is good.

I’ve already said what I think players should unlock with Expansion DLC, such as new story content. I also stated that players shouldn’t be required to buy an expansion to have access to updates after its release. I would only add (or rather, emphasize) that expansions, if there are any, are good value purchases. For example, if I’m getting double digit amounts of hours of genuine enjoyment from expansion story content and Expeditions in the expansion’s areas (since I tend to play solo) for ~25-30 USD, I’d say the value is pretty good.

The strategy of unlocking new characters through either real money or gameplay is good. Please keep doing it.

I can’t imagine new characters are simple to add to Relink due to reasons ranging from making sure they’re unique compared to existing characters to having them voice acted. Because of these reasons, I understand why there’s a microtransaction to unlock them early. Hopefully Cygames doesn’t change the current dynamic where players can either pay to unlock a new character early or unlock the character through gameplay. They can force paid character unlocks onto their fighting game, I guess.

Do not sell rare Sigils, materials, and so on for real money. It encourages bad practices like gimping item drop rates.

Unfortunately, Cygames has already been doing this by selling the War Elemental Sigil in particular (they’re also selling other items). The main reason I’m not too offended by this is because the Sigil in question was made farmable from Behemoth in 1.2. 

I would still ask that useful items such as Sigils aren’t sold for real money. In my opinion, it isn’t as bad to sell power in what is basically a single player/co-op game due to a reduced need to be competitive (compared to PvP games). However, there are still problems with doing so since rare items may be sold in the future, but the drop rate might never be increased to encourage players to buy them for real money.

Seriously though, please don’t sell useful items like the War Elemental Sigil for real money again.

Design Philosophy

This part is basically me preaching some of my ideas about how I believe games should be designed. This is why I excluded details from this section from the abridged version of my suggestions. However, this part may be of interest to those who want context on why the suggestions above are the way they are.

Achieve better longevity through replayability.

Sometimes single player games are just fun to replay on a periodic basis. Other times, a game continues to receive content updates that make it fun to come back to. There are also some games that are built for many, many hours of play by trying to make the experience fresh, usually through procedural generation or the like. The latter concept is ideal for extending longevity through replayability by actively alleviating the boredom that can arise from repetition.

While extending the endgame is the more straightforward approach, it’s generally quite demanding to do since it often involves the production of new content. Because of this, I think it’s very important to consider making a game entertaining by improving the replayability of at least some of its content. Doing so is good for players, especially those who only buy a few games and try to make them last. It’s also good for developers since it gives them more time to work on the next great thing, whether it’s an ambitious update to extend the endgame or a new game.

Relink so far has partially accomplished longevity with its difficulty levels and new bosses at higher difficulties. However, replayability is poor since fighting the same bosses without variation becomes a very repetitive task. This is why I suggested content focused more on replayability such as the Boss Rush for high-priority additions. 

If random chance is involved, consider adding a consistent alternative method of acquisition.

After many years of dealing with Skinner box design, I tried to find a way to capture the excitement of randomness without it being evil or frustrating. This philosophy is the result, and the general idea is that I want players to have options. With this philosophy in place, players can still be happy about getting something rare through random chance, but they can also grind for the rare item if they desire.

This philosophy is similar to the fairly popular practice of pity timers in many gacha games and is why I approve of that concept existing. However, I prefer a more gameplay-oriented approach with a high level of player agency (like farming items with guaranteed drop rates that can be traded in) instead of just rolling enough times at the gacha.

In Relink, there are currently a few important items with poor drop rates such as Terminus weapons, but Cygames appears to be listening to feedback on random chance woes. Tears of the Apocalypse is now guaranteed to drop when it wasn’t guaranteed before and Curio Sigils are farmable from Behemoth (albeit at a fairly low drop rate). These changes don’t exactly match the above design philosophy, but they’re close enough that I approve of such changes. Also, the existence of Curio Sigils is why I suggested features like Sigil Fusion and Wrightstone Refinement.

Have little to no emphasis on a “daily grind”, login rewards, or similar features.

I don’t mind having a bit of a daily grind in games… if they are live service. I understand that for these games there needs to be some incentive to play on a regular basis. Even then, I have become increasingly favorable to the idea of refreshing tasks over longer time spans such as every 3 days or every week. This still encourages players to play regularly (which is good for retention), but also better respects a player’s time and schedule.

In any case, I don’t think Relink needs daily/weekly tasks or time-gated reward systems. It’s not a live service game and is strongly single player-oriented, meaning that player retention through daily engagement is not as important since there’s no server that needs upkeep. Instead, I believe that regular updates and expansions would be the ideal for retaining players and keeping them engaged with Relink.

One Gold Ticket every day is enough and I don’t like the idea of pushing players to play every day just to get rich rewards. Grinding for rewards is fine enough as it is.

Fixing technical issues is priority 1.

Technical issues can be quite detrimental to the playing experience for all sorts of reasons. While not every problem can be fully resolved, it’s important to try to ensure the game is in as playable a state as possible, if only to not earn the reputation of being yet another company that has half-baked products.

For Relink, Cygames needs to improve when it comes to handling technical issues. They did eventually release some fix patches for the 1.1 patch series (to try to fix matchmaking on PC, for example), but some problems were introduced in 1.2 that still haven’t been fixed (like the interaction between Eugen and Tweyen). While I’m not asking for aggressive hotfixing, fix patches every 2 weeks or so would be nice.

Closing Thoughts

Even though I doubt development for Granblue Fantasy: Relink will abruptly stop after 1.3 and I’d be disappointed if it did, I want to make it clear that I’ve enjoyed the game a ton anyway. This game has a very high amount of potential that could be utilized with a dedicated development team and solid goals, the latter of which this doc might help to provide. While I don’t expect Cygames to literally implement everything suggested here, I do at least hope they consider the idea of implementing highly replayable content first in case later, more ambitious plans fail to materialize.

Also, I don’t mind if they make a game series out of this at some point, but please add more to Relink after 1.3. (A PC/console Princess Connect game would also be nice to have.)

Afterword

As my original introduction and closing thoughts stated, I didn't expect Cygames to do much with Relink but thought it would be great if they did do more after 1.3. Unfortunately, no further major base game updates came. I reasoned that the extremely long development cycle of the game (it was about 7-8 years based on the initial announcement made in 2016) was too much for Cygames despite the fact the company itself was and is massive (over 3000 employees based on their site and their parent company CyberAgent has a ton of revenue to work with) and they wanted to move on. Therefore, I also chose to move on to other games, slightly disappointed but also slightly hopeful they might decide to work on an expansion or sequel at some point.

 

Near the start of this year, the Endless Ragnarok expansion for Relink was announced with a release date set for the middle of the year. I felt mixed about this announcement because while I was happy that Cygames wanted to do more with Granblue Fantasy on consoles and PC, I also wished they announced that the expansion was in development earlier. The last announcement on Steam regarding Relink before the Endless Ragnarok expansion was in mid-2025, stating Relink sold 2 million copies. Surely they could've announced the expansion at that point at least.

 

While the expansion's content (Conflux seems remarkably similar to my Boss Rush suggestion), features, and the design philosophy driving its development all seem promising, I don't feel particularly excited for this expansion. To be fair, it's difficult for me to feel hyped about much of anything, but the fact there was radio silence on the future of Relink and to a degree Granblue Fantasy as a franchise, both of which I became a lot more interested in, until recently does make me feel a bit upset and, more importantly, somewhat concerned about the quality of the expansion (the demo and beta can only show so much).

 

In addition, I've amassed a long backlog of other games because I didn't think Relink would get an expansion, especially without an announcement well in advance. I'll almost certainly give it a try once it receives a deep discount, but I may be willing to buy it sooner if there are signs that the expansion is both high quality and goes above and beyond to address major complaints from players regarding the base game's balance and content design.

For example, it would be nice to see them address the following:

• Damage Cap existing in its current form or really existing at all.
• Relink's Damage Cap is frankly whack for various reasons. It applies arbitrary, differing caps on damage dealt by specific attacks and skills for specific characters. This ultimately made some characters far weaker than they should have been despite multiple rebalancing attempts.
• In the broader sense, the player only needed to stack a few offensive traits. If a player tried to stack more, those traits would basically be useless and that fact wasn't conveyed well to the player until they noticed the visual indicating they hit the limit (and this is assuming they even do).
• If players dealing too much damage is a problem, then why not just balance the scaling with various stats instead like almost every other RPG?
• Damage cap as a general mechanic is usually a countermeasure to prevent players from dealing extreme damage under high specific circumstances or if a player cheats. Granblue Fantasy's Damage Cap is far lower by comparison and it as a mechanic suggests the developers have no faith in their ability to balance offensive stats.
• There's a reason my Rogue Mode Exploration suggestion in particular disables Damage Cap. Imagine if certain sigils were outright useless to loot because Damage Cap existed.
• Certain defensive options like dodge being too powerful
• This nerf can be accomplished by reducing the effectiveness of Improved Dodge and reducing the effectiveness of Guard while a character is attacking. 
• While it feels good to abuse Dodge and Guard, it ultimately led to pushing more mechanics that basically dealt lethal damage turning the Critical Gauge into the real "health bar".
• Catastrophe existing doesn't help, because it limits other defensive options like stacking Health and it's basically mandatory to run Catastrophe due to how Damage Cap works.
• Nerfing Dodge and Guard in the aforementioned way would also making stacking damage stats more punishing since they relying on these options would at least require more skillful play.
• Content design being too focused on farming the same boss fights for RNG drops when it could definitely be made more entertaining.
•  A lot of my suggestions allude to addressing this problem, but I want to explicitly make it clear that I don't like the idea of pushing players to farm the same fights excessively with little-to-no variation.
• This design is boring and outdated, and developers have come up with better ways to use randomness to disguise grinds while actually keeping players entertained.
• Conflux seems to address this to a degree, but who knows what content will be like above Proud difficulty.

Anyway, I hope the Endless Ragnarok expansion sells well. The continued success of Relink may make Cygames more willing to develop other single player games based on their other franchises and I'd certainly like to see more of that.