Quote Originally Posted by Zenion View Post
I was referring to Pokemon, fourth-highest selling video game franchise, the largest intellectual property in the world. And undeniably part of the RPG genre, so like... any discussion of what, in a general sense, makes a good RPG should probably look at that because the money says that's the one to beat.

As far as changing FFXI's gameplay though... I mean, what we have now is good, yeah. I wouldn't want to see a version without skillchains and magic bursts - arguably I'd say they should be made more enticing to players in a remake. Bosses telegraphing their moves more wouldn't make the game easier so much as make it more playable. Gear swapping, which is at the heart of how we play FFXI now, is integral to the player experience but not to the play experience - a good remake would let you map sets of gear to specific weaponskills, job abilities, and actions and just swap in automatically without needing to concentrate on hitting the right macros at the right time (I still remember back in the day when I would hit, no word of a lie, ten macros to use a blood pact - that's not nearly as fun as just building the set and having it ready when you need it.)

Quests and missions... those need a lot of work. I know Mindartia better than I know the county I physically live in, but I'd never figure out what half of the older ones want without a guide. If that's the kind of challenge some old-timers want, that's fine, but for everyone else there should be some kind of help system available without having to rely on our crumbling wiki infrastructure.
I love most aspects of FFXI's combat system. If there was a remake, all I feel it needs is to be made more fluid and responsive. FFXI's movement and pervasive animation lock make things feel clunky compared to almost any game of any sort made today. We are all mostly fine with that because we grew up with it and are used to the jank inherent to it. But this would be a roadblock to almost anyone who isn't already playing FFXI now. Ditch the animation lock on most skills and spells, make things more responsive, and movement smoother. A lot of this is down to the servers only being in Japan. If we had local servers in a remake, that would help quite a lot by itself. Skillchains and bursts are one of the core things that makes combat in FFXI distinct from other games, as it encourages cooperation.

Also FFXI does have some very cryptic quests and missions that are almost impossible for a new user without referring to a guide ( Guide dang it! ). In a remake I'd like to see more information be available within the game itself. Adjust dialogue for quests so that it's easier to figure things out (I'm not asking for obvious quest markers like in FFXIV, but just making certain things a bit less cryptic- For example, some chapters of TVR start in different places from where the last mission ended, but there is ZERO information about where to go in-game. You either had to be around when it was releasd to know from the news, or read a guide).