Idea: Party activation abilities

[KorPoni]

That'd be awesome to see a party activation ability for each job. These abilities, when used, give all other players in your party the chance to activate the same ability, or add their own ability to the pool. Either way, recast would be shared no matter what ability you use.

Also, the effectiveness of these abilities are dependent on your party size. The more people you have in your party, the more effective the abilities become. The bonus can increase or decrease as people join and leave your party, and only works for party members within range of you (like Sphere).

Example:

Warrior
King of the Hill - Gain an attack and critical hit chance bonus, and give all other party members the chance to use King of the Hill. (You can't give someone who has King of the Hill a King of the Hill chance.)
Level: 99, Recast: 30 mins. (For all Party abilities) Duration: 5 mins. (King of the Hill becomes usable to your party during duration.)
*note: Attack +2, Critical Hit rate +1% if solo. Then for every party member, you gain an additional +2 Attack, +1% Critical Hit rate.

Black Mage
Black Hole - Gain a magic attack bonus and magic accuracy bonus, and give all other party members the chance to use Black Hole. (You can't give someone who has Black Hole a Black Hole chance.)
Level: 99, Recast: 30 mins. (For all Party abilities) Duration: 5 mins. (Black Hole becomes usable to your party during duration.)
*note: Magic Attack +1, Magic Accuracy +1 if solo. Then, for every party member, you gain an additional +1 Magic Attack, +1 Magic Accuracy.

Puppetmaster
Class Act - Gain an attack speed bonus, and your pet gains an attack speed bonus, and give all other party members a chance to use Class Act. (You can't give someone who has Class Act a Class Act chance.)
Level: 99, Recast: 30 mins. (For all Party abilities) Duration: 5 mins. (Class Act becomes usable to your party during duration.)
*note: Haste+1%, Pet: Haste+1% if solo. Then, for every party member, you gain an additional Haste+1%, Pet: Haste+1%.

Edit:
All of the names should resemble something ultimate about the job's themes, such as WAR's ultimate display of dominance "King of the Hilll" or PUP's best entertainment display "Class Act". Here's my ideas for names for the abilities:
WAR - King of the Hill
MNK - Physical Ascension
WHM - Overflow of Life
BLM - Black Hole
RDM - Crimson Atonement
THF - Gran Theft
PLD - Impenetrable Fortress
DRK - Gates of Chaos
RNG - Call of Gaia
BRD - Concert of Champions
BST - Abandon Civility
SMN - Spill Soul
DRG - Dragon Form
SAM - Soul of the Blade
NIN - Shadow Form
BLU - Unleash the Beasts Within
COR - Sail the Seas
PUP - Class Act
DNC - Performance of a Lifetime
SCH - The Best Strategy (Translated in German, which I don't know.)

[KorPoni]

A second idea is something actually alittle more party friendly. Since obviously if a party has only one nuker, or the nukers are all BLMs, really this whole concept falls apart. So what I was thinking was this:

"Party Share" - Use a special ability and make it available to all nearby party members, or use another party member's recently used "Party Share" ability.
Job: All / Duration: 5 minutes / Recast: 30 minutes.

BLM:
"Party Share - Black Hole" - You gain a bonus to Magic Attack, and a Magic Accuracy bonus. All other party members gain a slight "Haste" effect. (You gain "Magic Attack Bonus" +X and "Magic Accuracy Bonus" +X, where X is the number of members in your party, including yourself. Also, all other party members gain Haste+2%. That way, if anyone else uses Black Hole, a party-shared Haste effect stacks up.)

WAR:
"Party Share - King of the Hill" - You gain a bonus to attacks and critical hit damage. All other party members gain a slight "Critical Hit Rate" effect. (You gain Attack+Y and "Critical Hit Damage" +X, where X is the number of members in your party, and Y is twice the number of members in your party. Also, all other party members gain "Critical Hit Rate" +2%. Same as Black Hole, if anyone else uses King of the Hill, a party-shared Critical Hit Rate stacks up.)

PUP:
"Party Share - Class Act" - You gain a haste effect to you and your pet. All other party members gain a slight "Critical Hit Resistance" effect. (You gain Haste+X and Pet: Haste +X, where X is the number of members in your party. Also, all other members in your party gain a "Critical Hit resistance" +2%, which stacks up with other members using Class Act.)

PLD:
"Party Share - Impenetrable Fortress" - You gain a resistance to damage. All other party members gain a slight "Regen" effect. (You gain damage resistance +X, where X is the number of members in your party. Also, all other members in your party gain a "Regen" +1, or Regen 1 HP/tick, which stacks up with other members using Impenetrable Fortress.)

[Kristal]

SCH - The Best Strategy (Translated in German, which I don't know.)
Blitzkrieg. Not a direct translation, but definitely the best strategy at the beginning of WW2.

[KorPoni]

I gave it alot of thought, and the concept is good, but realistically it's just too much work to implement with those methods, or just simply not worth adding in. So, I thought of a better way to implement these abilities so that it's actually worth having.

Merit Points Category: Group Powers (Requires level 99 and a special quest to unlock this cateogry.) Max per item: 5, Max total: none. Combos are 5/10/15/20/25
1. Party Share - Use an ability related to your job, and allow all nearby party members to use it also. Additional merits raise duration by 30 seconds. (Base duration is 5 minutes.)
2. Selfless Aura - Gain a trait related to your current main job that activates for all nearby party members. Additional merits strengthen the trait's effect.

I'd like to see other people's ideas to add to this. It all focuses on party benefits.

Party Share as the two methods I mentioned above is useless as an actual "Party Share" or is just too complicated. So I came up with a way it works so that it's worth using another job's Party Share ability, even if it has nothing to do with your job. So here's what I came up with.
-Party Share effects stack, regardless of ability and number of that ability used.
-WAR's King of the Hill would do this instead: You and all nearby party members gain a slight bonus to critical hit rate and critical hit damage. While active, any nearby party members have King of the Hill added to their Party Share options. (Effect would hafta give a smaller bonus, such as Critical Hit Rate+1% Critical Hit Damage+1% if solo, or if in party, +0.5% for each for each party member nearby, including yourself. Otherwise, all 6 members using it could get Critical Hit Rate+36% and Critical Hit Damage+36% from all party members using this ability.) These abilities would be aoe like this for every job, so even if you can't benefit as, say, BLM, you could still maybe opt to use it for all surrounding party members.

Also, for the new one I thought of, Selfless Aura, the effects would be shown in your job traits list so that you would know what you have. Any nearby party members would get a symbol while near you similar to Sphere that reads "A nearby party member's aura is giving you a benefit." Could be specific like "A nearby warrior's aura is strengthening you."
An idea effect for WAR could be:
-Aura of the Weapon: Any nearby party members gain a slight "Double Attack" bonus. (Double Attack+1 per upgrade.)
Then BLM could be:
-Aura of the Elements: Any nearby party members gain a slight "Conserve MP" bonus. (Conserve MP+1 per upgrade.)
Then MNK could be:
-Aura of the Fist: Any nearby party members gain a slight "Counter" bonus. (Counter+1 per upgrade.)

Only, to keep these effects from becoming too good, jobs shouldn't be able to gain a bonus from another party member of the same job. The idea is sharing your traits you already have with your party members.

[Kristal]

Isn't this simply a reworking of the recently added Sphere and Afterglow effects?

[KorPoni]

Isn't this simply a reworking of the recently added Sphere and Afterglow effects?

Not sure on Afterglow, but it's definitely an expansion of the sphere effect. It's a good concept SE came up with and could really be expanded upon. All of it focuses on people working together > people soloing everything. aka making FFXI back into an MMO outside abyssea.

Of course, expansions up to WotG focus on 75 cap, so now SE is due to be working on expanding the "Vana d'Iel" world and not adding extra worlds that focus only on alternates of the main continents, aka Abyssea and Shadowreign.

I don't know about you, but I can almost guarantee an expansion releasing new areas, gear, spells, battle content, and maybe jobs would bring their customer base up atleast 15,000 regular players.