Fundamental Changes You'd Like to See for 7.x and onward

Gonna go ahead and toss in my own $0.02, I guess.

• Effectively remove the added delay to animation ICD completion time from ping. This can be done by no longer having the server reset the client's ICD timer with its confirmation check or, at worst case, by attaching to the refreshed ICD a reduction to the resultant ICD based on round-trip. This would make ping irrelevant to actual action speed, even when double-weaving, and would almost always allow lossless double-weaving on as low as a 1.5s GCD and lossless triple-weaving as low as a 2s GCD.
  
  
• Full transparency on the effects of secondary stats within the Character Panel and fix the damn gear-slot alignments.
  
  
• Attach glamours / glamour plates to jobs, not to gear. As such, even when upgrading a given piece, one wouldn't need to return to a sanctuary or mirror nor consume a glamour prism to correct it back to one's target appearance. You just set it and can happily forget about it until next you want to change how you look, with different jobs no longer competing over shared items for their best-fit glamours.
  
  
• Get rid of the existing concept of Materia. Instead, we go the FF7R direction, wherein choice of materia gives a concise (no more than 4 nodes/points/intervals of choice; maybe even as few as one) but potent further degree of customization. It's bound job-by-job, but you can bind the same acquired Materia to multiple jobs simultaneously.
  
  
• Upon acquiring a usable time-locked item for one job (e.g., Savage or weekly tome gear), you can acquire the same slot pieces from that source for all other jobs with non-time-locked currency. Get the Savage Fending chest and you can then buy with uncapped tomes the Savage Healing chest. You'll still generally need the same amount of time to complete your first set unless gutter-looting something for your level-cap alt and then buying up your main's version of it, but that's basically just bad luck mitigation at that point.
  
  
• Raid coffers, parts, and pages consolidated into just a single item type for Normal and a single item type for Savage. Finishing Savage Floor 1 unlocks Accessories and Coat for purchase. Floor 2 unlocks Boots, Gloves, Helm, and Twine. Floor 3 unlocks Chest, Pants, and Solvent. Floor 4 unlocks Savage Weapons. No Pages 1-4; you can save up and buy the Savage weapon as soon as you have 8 Savage clear items and have beaten the 4th floor of the tier. Those and your totems now go in the Currency Tab. Currency Tab and its surrounding tabs get a UI facelift for the better.
  
  
• You can now create up to 5 custom panels which copy over whatever information you want them to, be that by category or even down to the particular item. They resize automatically to fit the content included.
  
  
• Allow us broad --but more than just the current on/off-- transparency and size settings for animations, especially those with broad contingent textures (e.g., the big, screen-filling, no-holes, non-particulate animations), or even conditional transparency such that the boss's own animation would take priority over anything beyond low-level opacity on occluding effects (in turn allowing us to play with the full vim and vigor of complete party spell animations... while still actually being able to usefully see the boss).
  
  
• Allow us emotive sets. That is to say, allow us to package difference choices in terms of poses, stances, variants on run/sprint animation, and expressions under each... into different "moods" or whatnot, such that we can easily manage how our character natively reacts/responds/affects.
  
  
• Treat zone design not just as a basic backdrop for a handful of generic kill/move/pick up/wait at quests that push along the MSQ, but instead as a sort of intricate and involved playground, ideally with things to encourage and pay off personal investment through world response (not just, say, gem rewards). Think "Living World" stuff, though in that greater, more ideal sense, instead of just the GW2 implementation.
  
  
• Better PF filters for finding and signing up for whatever content one wants. Better PF applicant page for those hosting a party/activity, with at-a-glance granular achievement histories for party applicants (showing that they've reached phase 2, phase 3, cleared, cleared multiple times, etc.). Better DF->PF integration (so I can just sign up for whatever spans of content I want, under whatever conditions, and automatically filter into the first of such parties that meet my criteria -- which can also be set such that I fill the last spot only).
  
  
• More granular difficulty selection and party size scaling, ideally with player-chosen additional challenges. (Quite opposite from, say, M+ affixes, one would instead add additional kiss-curse mechanics to the given piece of content to granularly reshape it, with full choice. No keystones. No lockouts. Just pick what content, challenges, and scaling you want, for however many people you want, of whatever roles. Some selections may, while balancing is in the works, be easier than others, but that's fine.)
  
  
• Soften the reductively narrow focuses created by role barriers. Favor the interest of actual tanking (mechanisms, regardless of role) over "brought a tank (who now exists, basically just as a DPS, thus removing tanking as any deep or interactable body/basis of mechanics)." Bring back reasons for focus fire, shared burst, etc., over just whatever nets the greatest long-term accumulation of damage. Bring back more personal responsibility in survival and deepen needs for awareness of one's team and one's environment.
  
  
• Focus on the core elements to each job, even if that means siphoning former abilities into integral passives that now affect the whole kit. Let Paladins cover (Cover) naturally with their blocks. Let Dark Knights tap into their shadow selves. Use the actual movements of Dancers as their dance, in place of the current tacked-on whack-a-mole minigame. Etc., etc.
  
  
• Get rid of gear classes and broaden the versatility of roles to which each job may be applied. In place of Aiming/Striking/Scouting/Casting/Healing/Fending/Maiming, simply create armor classes (similar to Plate, Mail, Leather, Cloth) and with the various forms across each instead providing different balances in primary stats, while allowing every job to benefit from every primary stat, though a bit differently. (Heavier armor takes on a higher Physical Power penalty, countered by Strength. Uncomfortable Armor takes on a higher Magical Power penalty, countered by Mind. In this way, tanks are still led synergetically towards Strength, and more Strength-synergetic classes towards higher physical eHP, while casters are lead more towards robes and shirts and such, though a Paladin could go off-tank/support and just don cloth armor for bigger Clemencies and Aegis Boons, while a Conjurer could don Plate and go front-line Earth Mage, etc.) Mind-heavy Monk to be used as an off-healer? Totally fine. Vitality-heavy Dragoon paired with threat-channelers in order to jump to aerial enemies to make timely escapes from tank-busters? Totally fine. Bare-chested Warrior? Let it rip. Let us play jobs, with all the reach their themes may carry, not just basic role templates. (This also has the added advantage of requiring far, far less gear hording for multi-leveling.)
  
  
• Base rewards off of time typically required. Allow there to be longer and shorter dungeons, for instance, and do not give them the same rewards. Replace Roulette flat rewards with percentile, as not to force homogenized content length across all instances of a given content type.
  
  
• Heck, replace daily Roulettes altogether, say, with daily content-completion Bonuses (for which one can, yes, choose what they want to run) and a more instance-queue-tailored "In Need" system (as to still incentivize completing parties in queue-limbo) for further bonuses. Such would provide more choice, which in turn allows for more content diversity, especially within particular content types.
  
  
• Allow content of any level to be scaled up to max. Figure out a workable formula and go for it (perhaps undertuning rewards slightly at first just while it's in that polishing/double-checks stage), including procedurally generated additional attacks/mechanics (based on other extant ones experienced by the synced-to level), rather than just releasing limited-time rehashes of only one instance at a time. It is far more worth the time to figure out a system that can automate that process such that we can eventually have back that vast trove of content (looking at you, especially, old level-cap instances) instead of just the lonely latest tier.
  
  
• Enough 'hall-boss-hall-boss-hall-boss' / 'just-swap-the-backgrounds' dungeons. Vary them up by increasing amounts, perhaps even to the point of a "dungeon" (meaning just pretty casual 12-35 minute form of handcrafted light party content) including even a more exploratory dive with some randomized components, a few-room many-waves arena or a(n air)ship defense, or practically anything else that's still decently casual and light party. That, or vary up dungeons just a little more but greatly add to the available categories and reshape the Duty Finder so that one needn't look only at one category at a time (instead looking at all the Dungeons, Trials, Assaults, Rescues, Escorts, Scavenge Missions, Forrays, and more available within one's level range).
  
  
• Better UI for the Actions and Traits, Duty Finder, and especially the Recommendations List. Make sure that newly added content, such as a new raid tier or trial or side-content, is very easy to find the unlocks for without having to check the patch notes.
  
  
• Allow us the option to place buff durations on the hotbar skills that generate (or would benefit from) those buffs, and debuff durations (for most recent enemy targeted) on the hotbars skills that generated those debuffs. For instance, if I wanted to have Bootshine, Twin Snakes, and Demolish up front and center to show my current stance, they'd also double in that they'd show me the remaining duration each on Leaden Fist, Twin Snakes, and Demolish. Riddle of Fire would at first show me the remaining duration on Riddle of Fire, showing its cooldown only after that duration has ended, etc.
  
  
• Build a simple and seriously good Relic grind model and stick with it. For instance, take the ARR Light gathering, wherein all content gives a mostly fair amount per minute and effort typically required and bonuses rotate across all level-cap instances. It stimulated community involvement, gathered players towards particular instances over each period to reduce queue times, and was incredibly free in how it allowed progression. Take that, expand on it, and run with it. Don't require a single type of content. Don't allow a single instance to be vastly more efficient. Balance as well as possible, and force rotations for the sake of variety atop that. Allow Roulettes (or, as I've recommended as a replacement, more centrally featured Challenges) to generate that resource so that alt-leveling, even, can contribute. Just open it all up, and similar to the uncapped tomes if they could actually progress one nearer to a BiS item, let players do what they enjoy while gradually progressing what they like. And, heck, start the Relics in like the x.1 patch. And if you want to include Relic armor, too, allow week-tome and Savage acquisitions to speed that along so it can't seem a waste. (Also, make each successive Relic require increasingly less time/material/etc.) It's fine for every Relic grind to just be "do what you want; play the game, and you progress the Relic" so long as there's plenty in the game to enjoy. (And if there's not, that's the real issue.)
  
  
• {Work in progress}

Customizable spell effects.

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Originally Posted by magitekLuna

Let's see
1. Yoshi move out and let some one new and fresh take over.
2.full rework of all classes in game.
3.all dungeons be used for extreme roulette ,scale up the one that need it.
4. Tank s and healers won't be as OP as they now.
That what I can think of for now as big ones.

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So, completely destroy the game at the peak of its popularity just to suit your personal whims? No thanks.

Housing and character creator are my top priorities right now.

Implement instanced housing for the love of Tatarus food. Many of us couldn’t give two about the neighbours we don’t even see around in the first place. People hang out at the aetheryte with friends and randoms all the time, as well as anywhere in the world. The whole neighbourhood excuse is ridiculous. Sure keep those up, but allow all your paying customers to experience everything the game has to experience and that other mmos have done so for years.

Character creation, allow us to change the saturation/intensity of colors more precisely, allow us more in-depth body modifications, its weird as hell that we all look like manufactured mannequins.

Allow a mix of every feature per race instead of per face, example, face two can use lips from face one and so on.
Remove hemp style restrictions. Remove general armour restrictions except artifact.

More content between expansions.

Hm, a sample of my fundamental changes!

- Increase the tomestone holding caps by up to 25% for each tomestone type (Poetics could probably be increased to 3000 or 4000 off the bat).
- Increase the weekly current tier tomestone cap acquisition by 200 after week 4 - 8.
- Speed up the UI ever so slightly. The number minutes of my life dedicated to inventory management is astonishingly high.
- Allow desynthesis to work in a 'checkbox' system or other means that would allow you to desynth non-stackable items in bulk.
- Adjust level syncing for jobs such that certain combos will be in line with their endgame toolset (specifically Ninja's Kassatsu->Chi->Jin combo being able to buff Hyoton before level 72). I'm not asking for abilities to be unlocked, only to adjust class feel to be more in line with the end game.
- I don't expect dungeons to evolve away from hallways (the community would simply use the optimal path if there was more than one) but there has to be some way to make them less sloggy. I just don't buy that casual players struggle with mechs and such to an extreme degree. IMO gamers tend to be lazy, not dumb.
- We need more '3D' layouts. Bosses are 2-dimensional fights that could be (and are) negotiated looking down on the arena from above. I remember seeing that mod where the game was basically given away because players could zoom all the way out and make 14 a weird void ark clone. We have a z-axis, let's use it!
- Fewer long coats please.
- More housing; I think the community would greatly appreciate more plots being added at some regular interval. It even looks like the UI was rigged to accommodate expansion.
- Fewer excuses for why stuff can't technically be done. Take risks! Innovate!
- More options at character creation. Things like new face types and voices and such would be nice.
- A less janky macro system would be nice.
- Combat could benefit from 'feeling' more responsive. As it is, the slight delay in button presses vs. action execution feels outdated and stale.
- World of Mana cross over event. I am not being biased, honest.
- A Smaller MSQ. This is personal taste showing but dang, saving the world/universe is really played out trope in vidya james especially.
- More endgame gearing options. I've seen this argument in recent threads really gain steam and won't push it any further here.

Uh that's all I have for now. I think other people said some of this stuff better. I do think if 14 continues the way it is going it will become a victim of its own success and grow stiff, stale, and profoundly uninteresting.

Character creator update is desperately needed.
and please let us change our eyebrow color separate from our hair color!!

Honestly I just want 3 things
- character creation overhaul
- unrestricted glams
- healer overhaul

There are tons that I still want them to change, but I'm sure people will say it's impossible, ruin the game, etc.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Re: Job Stones

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If it's tied to MSQ level 32, it would be required from Brayflox on. :) That was my post, and I had a post earlier this year that I should really necro at this point about this same issue haha. Haukke is too early since you can ding 30 in there (and it's a 28-31 dungeon iirc), but following MSQ, your next dungeon is Brayflox - a notice popping up with the required info about how the dungeon requires a job stone and where to get it would help new players who may miss the chance while questing, and a pop-up for those who maybe forget to slap their job stone into a preset can get an error saying "Cannot join queue, please equip your job stone" would help with the "oh my god I forgot to equip my job stone" that occasionally happens. They can code quests to be locked until certain requirements are met (lv5 "get actual gear" quests, "ilvl too low" errors, etc.) so they can code a "no job stone" error no issue - it's also already like that in PvP!

If people want the "challenge" or whatever to go through the story as a base class, they can run with a premade and click a ticky box to be a base class for a duty.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

skill trees/loadouts are useless in a game where damage is the only thing that matters. it's an illusion of choice.

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Games with skill trees look exactly the same: if you're not using this loadout for MAXIMUM DAMAGE even if you're casual, you get dropped out of groups. Similarly, games with skill trees are all the same in almost everyone picks the "best" path anyway, why bother with the skill trees in the first place?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Attach glamours / glamour plates to jobs, not to gear. ...

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We kind of have this already!

https://i.imgur.com/0zfaM6q.png?1

I wouldn't mind an expansion on it though since some elements for it need to be changed, such as when you change to a class that shares the gear but you don't want that look, you're just... stuck with it and have to dispel the glamour. Having it dispel automatically would be great. If you already have multiple looks for a job set you can set them individually on each saved gear set and it just overwrites whatever you have depending on your job and glam plate which helps, but the ability to have a few pieces attached to a set that looks good with the base AF or whatever unglammed gear you have and everything else getting dispelled automatically (or letting us attach a dispel prism + dye to a slot) would be a chef's kiss.

Most of this is on point OP.

For me, I think a lot of TLC is needed.

The physics engine needs a massive overhaul, especially regarding the jumping puzzles/hit boxes of objects in the world.
The textures need a lot of work, especially when viewed from the air. Even the newest Thavnair has awful ground texture/tiling problems.

Add more “stuff” to the world. Big maps are not that meaningful if it’s just a lot of empty space. There needs to be like…Breath of the Wild level of stuff/things happening. We are talking moving caravans or NPCs just going about their business. Or general points of interest on the road.

Have the devs sit down and play Guildwars 2. Full on. Just play for like a week, do the starter zones and walk around. See how busy their world looks and feels. See how voiced NPCs feel just talking randomly. Have them notice they’re is a guided tour going through one of the cities (that they can join), experience the general smoothness of the UI. Try a jumping puzzle, then a mini game or two. Maybe the racing game.
Don’t care about the actual story or plot..I’m talking the backend core of the game. If they could incorporate even an ounce of that, we’d be in business.

I know absolutely NONE of the things I want will happen or be liked here anyway, so I'll just say this:

In FFXIV combat, dps is everything. But when it comes to healers they keep this illusion that its not the case...which is frankly absurd.

It's past time they embrace this philosophy they've been pushing, pulling all stops. The way the combat works in XIV, healing pressure has already hit a ceiling. It makes no sense in the slightest that healers have this overabundance of healing actions when they could easily get the job done with like.. Five or less.
They need to apply a serious overhaul. Tanks are already essentially DPS with damage mitigation and high hp. Make healers DPS with tank/group healing capacity. They shouldn't be "focusing on healing then dpsing when there is nothing to do (at least half the time..). They should be about dpsing, making use of HoT or Barrier actions to allow themselves to keep their dps up and using burst heal for situations that require quick restores. Limiting to a DoT, an aoe and a ST with almost a dozen healing actions doesn't suit the battle design of this AT ALL anymore.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

Most of this is on point OP.

For me, I think a lot of TLC is needed.

The physics engine needs a massive overhaul, especially regarding the jumping puzzles/hit boxes of objects in the world.
The textures need a lot of work, especially when viewed from the air. Even the newest Thavnair has awful ground texture/tiling problems.

Add more “stuff” to the world. Big maps are not that meaningful if it’s just a lot of empty space. There needs to be like…Breath of the Wild level of stuff/things happening. We are talking moving caravans or NPCs just going about their business. Or general points of interest on the road.

Have the devs sit down and play Guildwars 2. Full on. Just play for like a week, do the starter zones and walk around. See how busy their world looks and feels. See how voiced NPCs feel just talking randomly. Have them notice they’re is a guided tour going through one of the cities (that they can join), experience the general smoothness of the UI. Try a jumping puzzle, then a mini game or two. Maybe the racing game.
Don’t care about the actual story or plot..I’m talking the backend core of the game. If they could incorporate even an ounce of that, we’d be in business.

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Fully agree on the GW2 thing. XIV has a bad habit of throwing their zones in the trash as soon as you outlevel them, but GW2 has come the closest to solving that problem. Other games have done node systems with PVP focus, but GW2 seems to be the closest to finding the PvE solution.

A lot of what makes GW2 evergreen might not work in XIV, though. I'm not entirely sure what can be done, but it's clear we're missing systems that breathe life into the game past its do once and consume MSQ phase. Level sync helps, but that's only for instanced content.

While It's wildly known devs no longer care what gets posted in EN compared to JP boards Ill go ahead and throw my one in anyway.

Make Bozja Fates a thing in all future areas where theres a chance a mini trial can spawn. That junk is wild fun.

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Originally Posted by UnrealTai

While It's wildly known devs no longer care what gets posted in EN compared to JP boards Ill go ahead and throw my one in anyway.

Make Bozja Fates a thing in all future areas where theres a chance a mini trial can spawn. That junk is wild fun.

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Rift had giant Rift Invasions where tons of Rifts ( basically fates ) pop up simultaneously throughout the zone in which everyone in the area must coordinate a defense and an offense against them. One set must go to the Rifts and finish off any other those mobs to close the Rifts while another group intercepts the roaming mobs heading to the nearest major city. If you succeed in keeping them repelled then a giant General mob will appear. Killing the General gives major gifts, XP, and coin to those that participate.

City of Heroes also did something similar when a group does the Rikti Invasion Task Force...in the middle of their raid the Rikti will respond by triggering an invasion to a random zone so people not even in the Task Force are not just spontaneously in it.

The best part of both Rifts and Rikti Invasions? They have no level. Their damage is percentage based. if a level 1 hits them and a level 50 hits them...they do the same amount of damage. The only difference between them is the higher level person has more attack/defensive options to use so technically they are doing higher damage/taking less damage even though they are statistically speaking the same.

I wish Bozja fates did that honestly.
I find myself wanting to level other things but can't because 70+ required in boz, meanwhile I'm having a blast in there anyway at 90, where the XP is lost out on lol

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Originally Posted by UnrealTai

I wish Bozja fates did that honestly.
I find myself wanting to level other things but can't because 70+ required in boz, meanwhile I'm having a blast in there anyway at 90, where the XP is lost out on lol

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Yeah Bozja definitely has some good ideas I wish they implemented out in the world. I enjoyed the multi tiered boss fights where you split groups up into different areas to complete objectives and the boss you are currently fighting will in ways support the other boss someone else is fighting.

Another thing the Rikti zone did that I enjoyed extremely was joint cooperation of taking out pylons to release the shield around the crashed spaceship that would end up being a massive battleground. Both Heroes and Villains would have to put aside their differences to combat the threat that was killing them both. It was funny to see some groups get heated and trash talking each other in Siren's Call one moment ( a PvP zone ) and then working together to keep each other alive the next day in the RIkti Zone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UnrealTai

While It's wildly known devs no longer care what gets posted in EN compared to JP boards Ill go ahead and throw my one in anyway.

Make Bozja Fates a thing in all future areas where theres a chance a mini trial can spawn. That junk is wild fun.

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Would absolutely love it, the Critical Engagements have been one of the most fun things I have experienced in this game personally

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UnrealTai

While It's wildly known devs no longer care what gets posted in EN compared to JP boards Ill go ahead and throw my one in anyway.

Make Bozja Fates a thing in all future areas where theres a chance a mini trial can spawn. That junk is wild fun.

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If they could make something like Besieged from FFXI work (and not just Hamlet Defense from 1.0) I would be all over that.

The way it worked was one of the various beast tribes would invade part of one a city-state to steal an item that gave the city-state (and the players in the xpac zones) and if it was lost you had reduced rewards. For the encounter itself, the beastmen would rotate in which was invading - the Mamool Ja, the Undead, and Trolls - with their own generals and named enemy NPCs who were bosses. Al Zahbi also had their own generals who would defend specific areas in the zone, and you could fight with them, and NPCs can be kidnapped by the beastmen (think Highbridge FATE). You can get them back by doing a special encounter, of course.

During the event itself, depending on how you did the time before, you get extra items for use during that raise your attributes or your HP/MP, grants Reraise, etc. You get less rewards if you don't have NPCs around and if you lose some Generals. The more you do, the better rewards you get for next time plus what you get for having the Astral Candescence in Al Zahbi.

It was chaos, it was laggy as heck, but god it was fun. Add in something similar with how Bozja had the solo engagement with how well you did and get a fight with one of the generals or one of their right hands, that would be real fun. I really enjoyed what Bozja did so marrying that with something like Besieged... that would be a chef's kiss for me.

Make actions such as pots, sprint, food, etc queue properly when using them.

Update Idyllshire and Mor Dhona so their layout changes as you go through MSQ so new players can enjoy the changes to these areas.

Correcting the curve on substats to allow for a larger variety of builds. If this requires getting rid of substats like direct hit or nerfing crit's growth please do it.

Allow for more control on housing without the use of third party programs or glitches. Things should be able to be put closer to the walls, all items should be able to be placed on lofts.

Remove the changes that made nearly every job have a 2 minute burst window. Adjust fight design accordingly.

Make the damage type (magic, physical, darkness) easily discernible.

Stop adding to the bloated heal kits on healers and give them some variety in the form of buffs or damage abilities.

Allow us to trade in instances and mail people on other servers. Also allow us to mail FC members that are not on our friend's list.

Give Free Companies more activities that allow for player engagement with each other.

Give us toes. (please graphical update)

Expand on race based customization including separating facial types with other racial features (mi'qote markings, au'ra horns, etc) and the use of multiple cosmetics.

Add more ways of getting gear. Add it to criterion or something.

Revisit old primal, savage, and ultimate weapons so that new jobs are able to receive or craft weapons from them.

fix your controller connectivity issues on PC.

Allow for housing items to be flipped on an axis. (Example, L shaped desks flipping to ⅃)

Either remove the limit of 1 unique item being held at a time or allow for job based materia plates so people can have more flexibility with jobs that share the same gear type.

Add beards.

Adjust old content like Crystal Tower Alliance Raids so you actually see mechanics again.

Either add a tackle box for fisher or only have a few baits and treat them like you do spearheads.

Allow Cash shop items into the armoire.

Give FC houses room similar to an Inn Room where members can access the glamour dresser.

Fix custom targeting on controllers to respond better. If I set it to select enemies only, I shouldn't be selecting friendly NPCs and chests before the enemies.

Give Viera (and Hrothgar if they don't have them) bones in their ears so their emotes can be more expressive.

Allow people using hair styles that have ornaments (hairbands, clips, etc) to dye those ornaments.

Make it so we get a set of way marker presents we can use per fight instead of giving us 5 total for everything.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

I know absolutely NONE of the things I want will happen or be liked here anyway, so I'll just say this:

In FFXIV combat, dps is everything. But when it comes to healers they keep this illusion that its not the case...which is frankly absurd.

It's past time they embrace this philosophy they've been pushing, pulling all stops. The way the combat works in XIV, healing pressure has already hit a ceiling. It makes no sense in the slightest that healers have this overabundance of healing actions when they could easily get the job done with like.. Five or less.
They need to apply a serious overhaul. Tanks are already essentially DPS with damage mitigation and high hp. Make healers DPS with tank/group healing capacity. They shouldn't be "focusing on healing then dpsing when there is nothing to do (at least half the time..). They should be about dpsing, making use of HoT or Barrier actions to allow themselves to keep their dps up and using burst heal for situations that require quick restores. Limiting to a DoT, an aoe and a ST with almost a dozen healing actions doesn't suit the battle design of this AT ALL anymore.

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+1;

I think they should really look at how Guildwars works and consider that. Basically there are jobs that can tank or heal better than others, but every job essentially self heals and has some defensive things built in. I get the game design in FFXIV is what it is, but I really think MMOs need to either A) move away from the trinity entirely and just allow groups to go in any arrangement and have fun or B) embrace the trinity and make healing actions either tied to the DPS rotations (more than they are) or interesting/busy they don't have time to DPS.

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Originally Posted by Minthe

Character creator update is desperately needed.
and please let us change our eyebrow color separate from our hair color!!

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I would love if we could colour our eyelashes as well! They’ve done that with male viera face 1 and although its tied to the hair color, it shows that they can easily change that!

My Viera either looks full on night makeup glam or tired as hell if I remove her eyelashes, Id love an in-between simply by coloring her eyelashes brown for example.

Nothing the game its already perfect and they should continue to focus exclusively on the MSQ like always.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

+1;

I think they should really look at how Guildwars works and consider that. Basically there are jobs that can tank or heal better than others, but every job essentially self heals and has some defensive things built in. I get the game design in FFXIV is what it is, but I really think MMOs need to either A) move away from the trinity entirely and just allow groups to go in any arrangement and have fun or B) embrace the trinity and make healing actions either tied to the DPS rotations (more than they are) or interesting/busy they don't have time to DPS.

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I'm definitely a holy trinity enjoyer, but either of the suggestions you put forth would be a lot better than the weird identity crisis that's going on right now. I'd rather they just remove the healer role than keep the current iteration.

Probably won't happen but:

- Fresh start for the new arc, different world/zone. Current main characters take a back seat, become secondary or tertiary. New cast of supporting characters.
- Create a new entry point, so that new players are not stuck forever on ARR.
- Discard "Solo Story Duties" or at least make them playable in a group.
- Create incentives to actually explore zone maps beyond the currents/fates. Give me a reason to summon that chocobo companion.
- Don't go over level 99. Make some kind of alternative progression system.
- Favor "Variant Dungeon" style over linear dungeons from the very beginning.
- At max. level, create activities that reward "intermediate" gear. Kinda like Zadnor/Bozja did.
- Don't neglect pvp again (uh, might be late on that one)
- Decide just what the hell you want Healers to be.
- Headgear for the headgearless

The list is long but I'm as lazy as the devs

Machinst should get its old Turrets back. Rook and Bishop could be summoned with a lower amount of charge gauge compared to Queen. Either that, or make Rook and Bishop stay on the field indefinitely after the Queen upgrade and they can follow you around like Eos/Selene and Carbuncle.

New Job Quests
Even if it's just a "See how things are going" mini quest like Shadowbringers, I like to visit old friends and well... see how they're doing. The little Level 80 Job Quests made the world feel alive, and they shouldn't be dropped.

Viera Hats
Viera Hats

Way More Variant Dungeons
Sil'dih truly is the most fun I've had with XIV dungeon content in a very long time. The massive map, all the alternate paths, all the secrets to find, the stories that we can read in the journal, the interactions with our NPC friend, being able to queue with a smaller party, changing jobs on the fly... it's just great stuff. These shouldn't be reduced to one or two per expansion. These are way better than regular dungeons and since we're only getting one of those per patch now, I'd love if we got more Variant Dungeons as a core feature of the game.

I'll post more later when I remember stuff.

More in-depth Character Creation and Glamour without Role restrictions would just about do it for me, personally...

Variant dungeons rock and I absolutely want more of them. Maybe one based on Gelmorra for Gridania, or one of the hamlets massacred by Sahagins for Limsa?

I did not read all of the responses so I may have some duplicates here. I try not to suggest anything out of the realm of reason.

1. Enough Glamour plates to show case each job. That includes gatherers and crafters too.
   Being omni 90 everything always sparks creativity for every job even though I might not play some as much as others. I generally dislike having to swap out my crafters to glam a combat job. I just got tired of using 1 glam for all of the crafters, and same for gatherers because of this limitation. Its nice to just see what glams to come up with, but its kind of a bummer to erase one for another.
2. When loading into a zone; show the artwork for that location instead of a black screen.
   I think this one has been mentioned a lot in the community already. I am not sure as to why it hasn't been an option to update, but I really think the artwork for the zones are very nice to see. However, I only see them when actually logging into the game, and I usually log off in a few locations only. So I don't actually get to see all of that pretty art often.
3. Make player housing instanced, but leave Free Company houses for the neighborhoods.
   I know this is one of the biggest, and most fussed topic ever on this fourm, but I feel instance housing should be a thing. It also should be as easy as right clicking a player's name and entering into their house like we do with adventure plates. Also to suggest, make it a fun questline to upgrade the house overtime like we did with Island Sanctuary, and have themes available. I think people would be more invested into housing than just using it as a dumping ground for their items. I only suggest Free companies keeping the neighborhoods is because I think single player housing hardly has no body in their neighborhoods. Its a good gathering place for FCs if they want to advertise events. Looking up player names to visit their own personal estates would be harder if you want a lot of people to visit. (And they can't if they are offline, and not on the friend list.)

This won't happen but:

* a clean break from the scripted enemies in favor of AI-driven fights.
* less Dance-Dance Final Fantasy (and/or fix the net code).
* remove 2 healer requirements from 8-person content and roulettes, make it player's choice.
* let us rebuild the Garlean Empire. Not everyone in the empire was bad!

Eh I'm not up to date on what HAS been mentioned as being a thing they are doing in 7.x, except for graphical improvements. I'd like a complete engine overhaul to be honest, the game is starting to look decidedly old now visually. Especially in regards to colouring and textures.

Remove zoning, at least in towns and most smaller maps. It's not required anymore.

Add more life to the world (the areas around starting towns have more life than areas arrived at later)

Stuff that will probably never happen:

Completely rework ARR-SHB to come into line with whatever comes after EW. I know a lot of reworks were done to ARR already, it needs more. If that means changing some story elements then so be it.

Add voice acting to ALL cut scenes from ARR onwards. If possible, voice the WoL (hell we get to pick a voice and it's just used for emote sounds) so that when we have dialogue options we get to see them voiced.

Instance the housing, get rid of the bullshit capitalist market for VIRTUAL housing. For gods sake you have the ability to create INFINITE houses but are still restricting houses based on currency and a lottery. I understand the want to have actual neighbourhoods to visit, but there's gotta be some sort of compromise here.

Expand upon older content that you abandoned because you thought of the next cool gimmick. I'm talking about Grand Companies. Make them more like Guilds or FC's for Solo players, filled with constantly rotating NPC characters that you can recruit for your Squadron runs (maybe one day you see a high ranked NPC that has a unique Job and the next day he's not there etc, make it feel like your own Guild of NPC fighters)

Add more dungeons to Squads and allow the fighters to take jobs and level up to 90 (or whatever level cap we have then)

Or.. blend them in with Duty Support, keep Duty Support as it is, but if you decide to climb the ranks of your GC, you can switch out (or add to in the case of Trials) the Duty Support NPC's with custom fighters from your GC Squadrons. and finally, blend TRUST fully into this system. Atm it feel weird to have Duty Support, Trust, and GC squadrons all allowing you to run dungeons with NPC's but completely seperate.

It seems we hit a bit of a resting point on the thread, so I thought I might take a moment to offer some further questions if anyone wants to take that tangent to the thread's intentions.

These questions will be based off the most popular suggestions thus far.

1. Would you rather the two-minute meta disappear with nothing replacing it (all DPS raid buffs are gone, all DPS are "selfish," and SCH and AST rDPS remain negligible at best), for it to be split back towards set comps (60|90|120|180s CDs), simply be complicated by more encounter design (e.g., having to hold for DPS checks), and/or have additional undermechanics offer it further flexibility (e.g., via being able to "rush" or "overcharge" CDs, that reduce punishment for desync while improving ability to flexibly meet encounter demands that don't coincide perfectly with 2-minute intervals)? Of course, feel free to add possibilities not previewed here.
   
   
2. If housing supply could be... quadrupled, would you prefer the current housing neighborhoods design or an infinite-supply form of instanced housing (that was perhaps even, say, integrated directly into the main cities, such you could any one of several buildings in the city, the appearance and inside physicality of which varies by the exploring player, with the ability to sync to another player's place or save a friend's house to your default game state)?
   
   
3. In what ways might you like the game to be more alt-friendly? Where do you draw your "line in the sand" between alt-friendliness and giving more addicted players something to do? (Alternatively, would you like for alt/omni-leveling grinds not to be central to/required for "something to do," regardless?)
   
   
4. What might the game do to make itself more intuitive and convenient in guiding players towards core or new content, learning the ropes, or even just looking for some means of casual fun previously unknown to them, etc.? What are some things that you wish were better featured, made more obvious, or more incentivized?

First, Shurrikhan, thank you for this thread. It’s rare to see one that’s generally constructive these days.

Regarding your new questions: (warning, brick of text, bolded to give the tl;dr version)

1) I’m not involved in the meta personally to really have a valid opinion on this, but I would say that the mechanics need to be meaningful. More buttons for the sake of having buttons is just not a good feeling, or having positions to just give busy work without really potent gains is just busy work. I would also say things should not feel clunky to play.

It’s not so much I love or hate the 2 minute burn, it’s that the rotation itself needs to be pretty straight forward. I also hate resources that are on timers- Blackmage is an example, if you can just keep juggling forms to keep your power on, why not just let it stay permanently on until used.

I think Samurai is in a perfect sweet spot- the overall rotation is tight- it has a DoT path, a longer DPS path and a special ability burst. Doing those 3 things gives an additional burst, and there is a resource you can burn to weave additional damage. It’s simple, it’s easy.

Reaper is close, but when you go into ReaperMode, the typical 1-2-1-3 suddenly becomes a 3-2-1 which is cumbersome, and it’s easy to accidentally hit something and not use your finisher.

(More detail: )

Normal Mode: Soul Slice -> Gibbet -> Soul Slice -> Gallows (1-2-1-3)

Reaper Mode: Void Reaping -> Cross Reaping -> Lemure’s Slice -> Void Reaping -> Cross Reaping -> Lemure’s Slice -> Communio (3-2-1-3-2-1-4)

This could easily be fixed by making Lemure’s Slice first (1-2-3), or making Lemure’s slice the same button as communio, turning into communio after 2 Lemure’s slice. (3-2-1-3-2-1-1)

Redmage similarly has you dash in as part of the burn which can be bad if there are holes near the enemy (like Suzaku).

More specific to your question, I do think more boss mobs should use visual cues (like certain dragons/Minotaurs/cyclops) that don’t necessarily show the orange threat zone, or that they should do their abilities in random order. Less memorization, more pay attention and react.

2) instanced housing, all the way.

3)I wouldn’t mind a sort of shared account unlockables. Guildwars does this: unlock a mount in character A, all characters can use that mount. For FFXIV, things like glamours, dye. In addition, you should be able to /friend your own accounts, or just straight up a shared account-wide inventory bag, even if it is only accessible via company chest.

4)People might not notice it, but the devs have done a lot of QoL in recent patches. The reworking of Heavansward for example clarified certain boss attack indicators (such as the slime-slinging tRex guy). More of that is welcome.

And I would add that they should consider making a gold saucer mini game that is essentially “dodge the mechanics”, with commonly seen boss mechanics like gather together, thunder donuts etc. what we have with Yojimbo is a good start, but there needs to be more commonly seen mechanics.

I would also say there needs to be a more “live” version of the test dummy thing where you can practice your dps/rotation on moving enemies…like halls of the novice, but against enemies that do negligible damage with infinite hp.

Finally in 4, I really wish they would take time to homogenize systems. Eg. We do not need trusts, and squadrons, and the trusts-but-not-trusts-but-only-for-low-dungeons. Just straight up use the Scions if possible, including the B-squad scions like Hoary and Ocher. Squadrons..I dunno what to do there. Have them be part of the trust system, so you can make crazy teams that are “non-canon”, but also specifically 8 people who you can send on personal errands as we do? I dunno. It’s janky.

New gunner class with more guns for 7.0 example look at Lost Ark

Another cool idea for 7.0 is to introduce a new city of thecnology for a new alliance :D

Some form of ilvl restriction on story trials and 24man content. Stop setting it to the level maximum as this causes the bosses to just melt ruining the entire experience.

Extreme Trial Roulette

Queue as multiple roles when doing roulettes. I don't care what I have to go as if it means a faster queue, just tell me what to swap to before hitting accept.

Stop making dungeons. They are the worst type of battle content known to man.

Dramatically increase the XP gain for fates, and I do mean dramatically. Let's breathe some life into these zones and get people actually popualting the maps. Currently even if they gave 5x the xp it's still not worth it. Needs completely retuned.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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1 - I feel like there's a need to make job skills feel like they matter. Especially when it comes to healers. Half of the kit is repetitive, and some skills are neglected for "the best next thing", when realistically the kit should interact with previously-established mechanics and skills should evolve organically from eachother. Synastry looks cool until you realize you need to waste GCDs on it. Then you look at the two charges of Essential Dignity and you wonder why bother with Synastry to begin with outside of an absolutely terrible situation. And then you realize the rest of your kit is there to help you reduce the uses of other skills, such as Intersection and Exaltation.

2 - Instanced housing. The neighbourhood system is cute... but it's a design that's only beneficial for a handful of people. And when timers, raffles and potential losses are added into the mix, you just create a toxic system that breeds competition unnecessarily.

3 - More account-wide items, particularly in novelty items obtainable only through MogStation. And when it comes to gearing up, rework the limitations on gear drops to allow for alt-class gearing. There are detriments to this, I'm sure, but odds are the gains outweigh the problems, and could even promote people feeling invested enough to keep playing.

4 - Hall of the Novice needs to be made mandatory and explain modern mechanics so people can understand them.
Like kaynide said, older "try-out" systems that eventually evolved into something else need to match that new system. As it stands, the Trusts in earlier dungeons are janky and the Squadron System looks absolutely abandoned. Viera and Hrothgar aren't even members in there, yet equally-rare races like the Raen can be a part of your Squadron.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

1 - I feel like there's a need to make job skills feel like they matter. Especially when it comes to healers. Half of the kit is repetitive, and some skills are neglected for "the best next thing", when realistically the kit should interact with previously-established mechanics and skills should evolve organically from eachother. Synastry looks cool until you realize you need to waste GCDs on it. Then you look at the two charges of Essential Dignity and you wonder why bother with Synastry to begin with outside of an absolutely terrible situation. And then you realize the rest of your kit is there to help you reduce the uses of other skills, such as Intersection and Exaltation.

2 - Instanced housing. The neighbourhood system is cute... but it's a design that's only beneficial for a handful of people. And when timers, raffles and potential losses are added into the mix, you just create a toxic system that breeds competition unnecessarily.

3 - More account-wide items, particularly in novelty items obtainable only through MogStation. And when it comes to gearing up, rework the limitations on gear drops to allow for alt-class gearing. There are detriments to this, I'm sure, but odds are the gains outweigh the problems, and could even promote people feeling invested enough to keep playing.

4 - Hall of the Novice needs to be made mandatory and explain modern mechanics so people can understand them.
Like kaynide said, older "try-out" systems that eventually evolved into something else need to match that new system. As it stands, the Trusts in earlier dungeons are janky and the Squadron System looks absolutely abandoned. Viera and Hrothgar aren't even members in there, yet equally-rare races like the Raen can be a part of your Squadron.

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Pretty much all this.

I'd also add all hats released moving forward be compatible with hrothgar/viera. It's freaking silly that they keep implementing new hats are STILL not usable by them. The fact that some of them are on the mogstation and you can't even use something you pay for is incredibly shameful.

On that note, stop selling mog station costumes as full sets and sell the pieces as individuals! Odds are, they'll actually make more money that way.

Here's a list of things I want added/changed for the future of the game.

General Job design changes.
1. Move away from "2 minutes meta" I feel like raid buffs could be overhauled a bit, Jobs Should generally be still based around "burst" but not every job.
2. New Jobs bring something New to the table, Sage and Reaper felt really lacking to me (Especially sage) with how much they don't really change up the game or offer anything really that would be interesting.
3. Overhaul Healers, I don't think healers need to have "full on dps rotations" but they could do with more DPS and damaging buttons, procs and stuff, Astro should be able to also use both barriers/regens again as it was a unique playstyle that the job offered.
4. Tank Balancing, I'd like firstly tanks such as Dark Knight get good adjustments, to it's rotation and abilities, (I can't comment on PLD until 6.3), warrior could use slightly more complexity, at least to something like SHB degree. GNB is generally fine from my perspective and PLD Idk
5. Universal Tank Stuff, I'd like more of a focus on Utility and support as well as tanks, I think EW did some good changes making their personals stronger and more impactful but they could also give tanks a bit more in general, also slightly tweak abilities to make them more unique and tailored to a tank so defensives/sustain feels different enough without making one tank op or UP defensively, Possibly a "rework" to how tanks work in general.

Other Things
1. More Customizable stuff, just more options in general would be great.
2. Allow players to use glams regardless of job (Maybe excluding AF gear), this would allow a healer to go for a more armoured look, a tank could use robes (if they felt like it), melee gear, even if it "doesn't fit" they already have some glamour's that don't fit tanks or such so I don't see why this would be a issue.
3. Add female Hrothgar, I dont think I'll myself but I know people want them (Adds more custom stuff aswell)
4. More UI Improvements & QOL stuff

Role Action "Choices" (Rough idea of having more choice into the game)
More interactive/selectable role actions, This might need some work to it but having a small selectable choice would bring some interesting things to the table, The idea would be that they are all useful in certain situations but also aren't *required*, We could make such abilities as knock back immunities, Provokes, always a role action that you will have.
Example of this would be: (You could select one of three)
Rampart, 20% Mitigation, Duration: 15 CD: 90 | Guard, 35% Mitigation, Duration: 12 CD: 150 | Prepare 10% Mitigation, Duration 20 CD: 60

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

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I agree with almost all of this, and you've put it better than I could.

I have some follow-up questions, if you'd be willing to go further:

Quote:

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1 - I feel like there's a need to make job skills feel like they matter. Especially when it comes to healers. Half of the kit is repetitive, and some skills are neglected for "the best next thing", when realistically the kit should interact with previously-established mechanics and skills should evolve organically from eachother. Synastry looks cool until you realize you need to waste GCDs on it. Then you look at the two charges of Essential Dignity and you wonder why bother with Synastry to begin with outside of an absolutely terrible situation. And then you realize the rest of your kit is there to help you reduce the uses of other skills, such as Intersection and Exaltation.

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This resonates with me, but it begs a further question: Where do we draw the line between an initial tool for/towards a given capacity and a redundant one?

Let us take healing as example.

The only way for oGCD heals not to make our (the more opportunity-costly) GCD heals not redundant is for damage intake to be high already and then increased accordingly; more specifically/critically, it must so high that one effectively cannot use those fancy new stackable burst healing tools for any purpose other than is newly minted for them in the increased new fights. That is to say, if an oGCD can be spared to fill a purpose GCD heals already met, then they start to border into trades of utility (e.g., using an oGCD heal in order to allow for a timely GCD DoT reapplication in one moment even though that means losing out on something else in another moment), and any further... they become redundant; oGCDs heals are preparatory resources for basic sustain (and, ultimately, damage).

And yet, the fact that a GCD "already did it" doesn't necessarily make every oGCD at least seemingly redundant, even if no new need was created to perfectly eat up that new tool. As such the "meets and already met need" model doesn't quite seem sufficient for what most players would call "redundant".

Given that, what might be reasonably appended to (or, reasonably narrow) that criteria? That it meets a need in a new way?

Since I tend to care almost solely about gameplay (especially the deliberate/decision-based, rather than rhythmic elements, thereof), I usually think of a tool as being redundant only when it provides neither a new capacity nor a new means of optimization, though I hold both to fairly high standards (though they are of course difficult to quantify), but I realize I'm probably in a minority there.

Quote:

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4 - Hall of the Novice needs to be made mandatory and explain modern mechanics so people can understand them.
Like kaynide said, older "try-out" systems that eventually evolved into something else need to match that new system. As it stands, the Trusts in earlier dungeons are janky and the Squadron System looks absolutely abandoned. Viera and Hrothgar aren't even members in there, yet equally-rare races like the Raen can be a part of your Squadron.

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I imagine forcing participation in the Halls of Novice could be done easily enough as part of the MSQ (for one's role) and DF UI (can't matchmake as roles not yet completed), but speaking of abandoned "try-out" systems, I wonder if we might also do something to revamp Halls of Novice and Guildhests alike (some of the later challenges there could actually be quite interesting if [A] they weren't so easily cheesed and [B] if, once thus constrained, they weren't more complex than any actual instance thereafter). Granted, that last bit gets into the ideas of not requiring every dungeon to be a complete face-roll, but... /shrug.

Updated character creator

I'm not talking about just graphics- I'm talking new hairstyles, new faces, more options to make our WoL unique

Elf ears for Hyur's
Garlean 3rd eye for elves & Hyurs

Better face textures

Better color saturation for hair/face paint. Red should look like red. Not brown.

Lipstick without gloss

Eyebrows for Highlander males

Full beards & more facial hair options for male characters

Viera & Hrothgar only hairstyles - Because they need hairstyles that actually fit them & look good

Hilda's ponytail

Gaia's hairstyle

Hairstyles from other FF games

More long, female hairstyles

More long, male hairstyles

Body scars

Body tattoo's

Eyelash type options

Options to wear more than 1 facepaint


That's what I want
The character creator has hardly ever been added to -

(Also, a graphic update doesn't mean there will be any additions to character creator- that's why I'm asking.
I'm making sure it's said out loud - because if it's not said & shared, it will never ever be implemented. )