Game Design Ideas for 8.x+

Hi there, my names Gawain, I am a long time 2.x closed beta player for FFXIV whose been subbed almost non stop for 12 years now.

I'm an omni-tank whose been raiding since second coil was fresh, I've also participated in every stretch of content this game offers from the Gold Saucer/treasure maps to Ultimate's and PvP. My experience is varied and in depth, and over time with how much I interact with this game, some idea's have popped into my head.

I would like to start off saying I love FFXIV, it is the only MMO that has hooked me and kept me around for more than a month, it helped me break out of my social bubble and tackle higher challenges, literally changed my life. Since the reception of DT it's popular to dunk on the game at the moment and that is not my goal, but I do have some valid criticism's I would like to address with potential solution's or new game idea's that fit into the mesh of FFXIV.


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Relic's and patch lull- What Relics should be is pretty debated, some people want to turn in tomes by running old content and not engaging with anything new, some want new content to feed them the relic. I am in the middle, and in fact something I have said since EW's relics release has been implemented into DT, you work for your step of the relic but can buy relics for any job with tome's, so you still work for it but you can gear multiple jobs now which was the selling point of this game at one point. I have nothing but praise for this system- my issue is getting it halfway through an expansion.

I think your job artifact weapon they've been handing out like candy as soon as you hit max level should be considered the first step of the relic like ARR, being that strength of that gear, and to address the content lull between x.0-x.05 or even x.1 of not having a lot to do, give ARR book' level tasks(just not 9 books worth of them please) that involve the new extreme trials, dungeons, normal raid's and opening expansion content to keep people active, have more people participate in that content and give the relic worker's a weapon as strong as the primal weapon, but a little extra sub-stat's and let it be dyable from that point on. Then, every major patch where they add a exploration zone or deep dungeon, tie a new form change for the relic to it, with the in between patched that have a criterion or this new crafting content, maybe alliance raids give it it's glow upgrade, alternating between primal and upgraded tome strength (which ever period of time it's release), growing with you throughout the expansion. Of course, with you needing to pay 1500 non-weekly capped tomes to get so you can get multiple relics.

One idea I had was to have a spirit bond mechanic to it, but instead of giving materia, its charged by doing certain thing's over time and grows the weapons strength to a certain point having it capped as a reasonable power level like making the trial strength upgrade get to up-upgraded tome strength and the upgraded tome be as strong as the savage weapon, maybe having a single book that has 1 ARR books level of content check-box's, involving treasure maps and hunts, expert dungeons, extreme primals etc, to upgrade your favorite relic so you can still feel like this is a unique job weapon, your main jobs weapon.

I just want to be more involved with this game with purpose like I used to, with a fun obtainable goal. ARR and HW relic were a bit to much, StB was perfect, Bozja was great but EW was terrible and i still feel it's a little to uninvolved this expansion so far.

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Combat System Ideas- There is a lot to unpack with this one, so I will break it up into categories.
1.) New way's to rotate- I'm talking about the GCD and oGCD.
a.) Charged inputs- Delayed or charged inputs are so fun and add so much to dynamic combat. In FFXIV, it's very doable, instead of mashing your skill form one to the next, keeping the wheel movin, why not have some inputs that require a held press? Instead of of the wheel turning, or standing there for a cast bar you could hold the button and as long as you are holding it for that particular skill or cast, you can move slowly and fill it up to whatever your GCD speed is and release! It could be great when add's spawn and there boss down time with the slight delay waiting for them to be targetable, or you could add a small skill floor where lets say it's a 3 second cast, every 1 second of held input is 1 level f charge going up to lvl3 and if you hold it for to long like a second or two, it downgrades a level making you loose some damage on the hit.
b.) Chained inputs- I don't really care for the current combo system (which I will get to shortly) or the "fit as much as you can by mashing your buttons to queue your next action". I think it would be more fun if we had a Chain Combo-animation cancel that if we queue up the next skill right, it cuts the animation and gives a little prompt that said you did it right with a small potency boost and meter build, something visual and in game that doesn't require a damage reader to gauge how well you're doing.

c.) 1-button Combo's, more combo's- Back in HW i was a huge advocate for un button combo's, then we got them eventually I think in ShB. I don't want it now, because then classes were so complex with so many buttons it felt necessary. We have the opposite issue where there's not a lot to do now, not a lot of player expression or a lot of ways to play. If they had more combo's though, that either gave more gauge, damage or some kind of utility and put every combo action onto one button that's another story. Reduce button bloat, gives us more to do. Some have told me it would be to wonky because of multiple combo pathing like Samurai, but there's a simple solution, have the skill you want to finish with be the button you hit and it'll auto path you to that skill from the first hit of the combo. Example; Warrior has 2 combo's that are widly the same, one ens with giving more gauge, the other gives them a damage buff while starting with heavy swing and comboing into main first. it the button for Storms eye and itll use those two and end with eye, and hit storms path vise versa.
d.) Bring tank counters back!- One of my favorite things about pre-ShB Paladin and HW DRK was the ability to counter after a parry or block with Shield Swipe or old Reprisal. We need it back, on all tanks. I know what you're thinking, "but the off-tank would get their damaged gimped by not getting hit by auto's!" which is why reprisal was changed to a role action to reduce raidwide damage, shield swipe was removed and DRK got the ever so underwhelming, under powered The Blackest Knight. Cool on paper! Doesn't add anything in practice, and make them have the worst unique/30sec mitigation (also why is paladins on two seperate buttons, one for self and one to pass when it does the same exact thing?). Well there lie's the solution in TBN, tie the counter's to the unique/30sec mitigation and make it so when that is used, it always proc's whatever the effect would be, be it letting Paladin retaliate witha shield swipe once within the cooldown for holy shelltron, DRK getting their free bloodspiller when it pops AND when it falls off, popping just letting it proc faster, warrior free fell cleave or the uppercut every time their weapons skill absorbs health, or when Gunbreakers Corundum pops they get rough divide but more inline with the animation in FF8, a little uppercut slash explosion, or even just a golf swing with the blasting zone beam. This would make it another skill to press on cooldown, and gave more inventive to pass it to the main tank when they're going to take hit if the counter proc's faster when used on an aggro'd or taking damage target.
e.) En Avant for everyone- This game is going for a more mobile faster pace, more jobs are getting gap closer's and movement abilities so I do believe this is already what they're moving to, but I think everyone having a dash ability that's not target dependent, and a gap closer that is if there melee would be ideal.

f.) Healer no heals, only damage- For a long time, SE has had trouble balancing healers, giving them a true healer role with how this game has shifted and with how much damage is valued, and how little healing is inside endgame content. To ease healers of their responsibilities, and to force a more healer-centrist role to them, they have limited their damage rotation and added more overall healing. I believe that healing and damage should be combined as one similar to sage, and for most abilities, healing being dependent on damage in some way. We have this in a small complexity with the giant star fro astro's, affestus(lol) for white mages, sage for its obvious skills. This would give them some identity, and depth with the only pure healing they have being a HoT, a shield for mitigation, maybe an oh shit button like they all have, with al their other abilities contributing to damage. That, or forgoing the healer role entirely and letting every job heal themselves since healing is rarely needed, specially outside of endgame content (I 3DPS, 1 WAR dungeon runs all the time).

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Exploration Content, crafting- This is my favorite content, exploration. I still think Eureka was the best in terms of exploration but Bozja and Zadnor have the best in combat, specially with the duels. This time around, the Crescent Islands are pretty bare bones as is he Space Exploration content. Now it is to early to count them out entirely right now, but i feel they're both lacking and are a bit of a missed opportunity. I had a thought though, why aren't they combined? One very large map that is filled with battle content, CE, Duels, a qeueable dungeon/raid, but with the crafting and gathering fates seen in Space exploration, and the structure building done in the hub of the area and have the 2 synergize? They could release the content with the crafter portion released first, let them build the hub area and gather basic things and doing the dily crafts the way they are now, then release the battle portion, having the area specific armor be crafted by other players in a recipe requiring battle only items?

Let the crafted make the unique pot and other such used items specialized for this zone and let those tasks help build their own crafter relic as they're doing now in space exploration, whie we craft ours. I don't now if having the relic weapon be dependent on crafting like the end steps of ARR's relic would be the best idea, but they could reintroduce that idea with this content and i'd be all for it. Have it so there is an NC who can make it or you AKA Gerolt again.... again, but it takes way more mats maybe be way more rare HQ items OR you can get someone to expert craft for LQ and HQ items for a fraction of the grind, or do it yourself!I think seeing gatherers running around battlefields (out of the combat zone ofc) while we are fighting horse of enemies and then coming together to build stuff together would be really awesome synergy between the two different styles of gameplay while keeping them separate as they are now.

Those are my big idea's I wanted to get out, I know some people will instantly reject some of them because they're new or it doesn't coincide with their personal wants for the game, but i think these are healthy natural evolutionary steps to make the game a healthier exciting environment that respects old players while allowing newcomers into the fold and growing the game on the whole.

What are some of your guy's ideas? I would love to hear them and maybe refine some of mine or yours into even better ideas! The dev's are great but it's always good to hear fresh ideas form outside and inside a project to make a better product or piece of art.