Change, Remove, Add.

You can change, remove and add a feature/event/anything. But you do need to justify your answer to some extent. Go.

Change: Raids into a single instance. At the moment it does not feel like we're 'raiding' a place, more just.....being warped into a dislocated zone.

Remove: Diadem. It's horrible. A prime example as to why SE needs to have test servers, nothing about this worked. It was an interesting idea but lacked.....everything? Yoshi already demonstrated he could create a balanced synergy between DoWM/DoH in battle with Hamlet 1.0, so not sure what happened here.

Add: Dynamis. Borrowed from from XI. It'd be neat having an event set during the 1.0 invasion of the cities (Those that were not present: Ul'dah was a hot mess. And it was fun AF.). XI was interesting because you need sleep certain mobs, focus others etc etc. It'd bring CC into XIV in a meaningful way, and it's kinda fun beating up everything ever. Also would be a nice throwback to have Dynamis currency.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pence

You can change, remove and add a feature/event/anything. But you do need to justify your answer to some extent. Go.

---

Change: I'd make the "split" zones (East Shroud, Central Shroud, etc.) whole again.

Remove: Flight. I've long been an opponent of flight in fantasy MMOs, and while FFXIV does a better job with implementation of it compared to the most immediate comparison (WoW), I liked the Heavensward zones best when I couldn't fly, as they now feel no larger than the ARR zones in practice despite being massively bigger.

Add: More gearsets at the highest item level for each raid tier (so, to use current item levels, I'd add at least two more i210 sets for stat variety and also glamour potential).

I think they should change diadem to work like abyssea, where you work on pop items to pop larger NM's which allow you to pop the next tier and tier has its own drop table. Add the !! Triggers would be great also, I would also add the buffs you that you could buy but make it where you use GC seals to buy them. I'll even go as far as adding a way where if your GC control the area your cost of buffs is lower. But don't remove it revamp it the potential is there but SE is playing the safety first game.

I agree with everything else you wrote

Change: Almost all of the jobs to remove useless complexities for the sake of complexity (enochian, positionals, minuet) and replace with more complex encounter mechanics

Remove: The line in ToS that says we cannot talk about parsers - first rule of Fight Club n all

Add: More engaging raids that are more than just boss fights

Change: Odd number patches to no longer be catch-up patches. More intriguing content.

Remove: SE's desire to make everything irrelevant 3-6 months (sometimes the day of release; see Bismark Ex) after release. Longer lasting content

Add: More staff to SE's development team. Rid the excuse of understaffed. Also add more bosses/floor to raids, more raids in general that are not /faceroll, and/or more open raids that also drop recipes/useful resources/useable items/etc something more than just gear.

Change: The glamour system to be a glamour book system.

Remove: Alexander because the boring story, ugly as hell equipment, uninteresting fights and utterly mediocre level design should be forgotten until the day the dev's figure out how to make it the opposite of what I just listed.

Add: The Warring Triad as the raid instead, because three raid stages (if they set it like that again) with one of the Triad for each stage, already interesting story, beings of utter mystery and unfathomable (to us) power sounds like something that should have been the HW raid instead.

Add more shaved Mohawk hairstyles.
Add a cooler looking stance for Dark Knight.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ereskigal

I think they should change diadem to work like abyssea, where you work on pop items to pop larger NM's which allow you to pop the next tier and tier has its own drop table.

---

I really like this idea!

Change

Diadem. Party set up changed to 1 Tank, 2 Healers, 4 DPS, 1 Gatherer. Notorious Monsters would now be force popped, and would be for the single party to defeat, no more Hunt style zergs. Pop items would come from various chests, as well as gathering. Stealth to work again. Gathering would now be in fixed locations, rather than flying around the whole zone. Gathering itself would create "noise" which will attract stronger enemies, meaning having a gatherer is a boon to your group. The treasure chests gatherer's can find will also now produce Temporary Items. Powerful potions/etc. that exist only for Diadem, you cannot take them out with you. These would help speed up combat and make gathering somewhat of a support role. With force pops, the caves in Diadem would now have more importance, with stronger Notorious Monsters being located there. The caves would be blocked however, with rocks/roots. You can engage these blockages in combat, but they have strong defense so that would take a while. Gatherer's, however, can harvest from these blockages, and successfully doing so will deal damage to them. Gathering is thus the most efficient means to remove the blockages and explore the caves.

Remove

Vertical progression being the central pillar of this game. Wiping the slate clean every 6 months is not only a determent to this game, but it is a gross waste of development resources. Developing around this idea means they constantly need to make new stuff to replace the old, and IMO the slip in quality is started to become quite apparent (compare Alexander to Coil). Content should have a much longer shelf life, getting two new dungeons to replace the two old dungeons just gives us four shit dungeons. I'd rather they invest time in content that lasts. See: Diadem changes.

Add

Final Fantasy IXs AP system for special stats on gear. As suggested here.

Screw the rules, I want to change two things

Trials... Stop giving us static circles to fight in... I'm sick of it... Give us battlefields with something else to them... Take Leviathan; That was just Titan at Sea World. Same falling off mechanic. Snore. Lets slap Leviathan in an underwater grotto instead; You fight his head by a pool, with some other pools for his tail to poke out of (similar to Sasatash Hards Kraken fight). Phase one has you doing that. Then you get the the "heart phase" (sticking with Titan), during this phase the cave starts to flood, and you need to escape by running through what amounts to a mini-dungeon. During this phase, Leviathan will attempt to trap you, and you have to DPS his belly to get him out the way (DPS check, same as Titans Heart really). Can also be some adds and gates and so on. Finally you get out of the cave, and you're on the shore of a small island, and the real fight begins, phase 2s music kicks in and you've got the real fight ahead of you. Trials like that would be far more memorable and fun than the "Fight in this circle" instances we've been constantly getting...

Screw the rules, I want to remove two things

Cross-class skills. They're dumb. How silly is it, that my Lv60 Ninja can enter a Lv30 instance and not do Death Blossom, but some Lancer can set it and have access to it? Very silly, that's how silly. Death Blossom isn't even good.

Screw the rules, I want to add two things

5 new Job skills to replace the loss of cross-class skills. Lets face it, there is no real choice involved in what you set. Keep the same general idea of learning from a different class, but slap it in the quest. So my Ninja wants a self heal? Well I'll need to have finished the Pugilist questline to access a quest in which, with the help of the Pugilists, I learn my own form of Second Wind. And so on.

I really hate casting Blizzard II on Summoner, what can I say.

Change: Character customization. Unlock features such as scars, tattoos, hairstyles for all races and genders.

Remove: Diadem. I don't really want to AoE down regular mobs for an hour and a half in hopes of grown up Littlefoot eventually showing up to cast an ironic meteor onto our faces.

Add: Self-parser on console so the DPS in my static quit asking how much they're doing all the time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alahra

Remove: Flight. I've long been an opponent of flight in fantasy MMOs, and while FFXIV does a better job with implementation of it compared to the most immediate comparison (WoW), I liked the Heavensward zones best when I couldn't fly, as they now feel no larger than the ARR zones in practice despite being massively bigger.

---

I haven't reached this point in the game yet, but I can speak from experience with WoW and say that (more often than not) flight is an option that you can decline if you don't enjoy it, and only use it when it's mandatory.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FritoBandito

flight is an option that you can decline if you don't enjoy it

---

It's not that I don't like flying in and of itself. Getting to one's destination faster is nice (and often necessary), especially for things like Hunts and whatnot. However, I feel that overall the game would foster a richer, more immersive experience were the option not available, period. If the option's there and you don't take it, you're not being efficient (which can be very important to one's enjoyment), but if it's not there at all, you're not missing out on anything.

I am, honestly, against most forms of fast travel (including the over abundance of Aetheryte's for teleporting—I would much prefer a system more like FFXI's with a few central teleports and nothing more), and also against "queue anywhere" systems (like FFXIV's Duty Finder or WoW's Dungeon Finder) for similar reasons, as they make the best ways to play not involve actually really ever being in the world.

Change: Diadem, Flight, FATEs, Hunts, button redundancies (FC/IB, SC/Decimate, WT/F&C), macros, certain redundancies in ability design (Power Surge - merely a oGCD you have to hit before either other oGCD, with only one ideal use), roughly half of general raid designs (more to do and much more spectacle than just boss-thrashing +/- adds within a circular space), more mechanics-inclusive core class/job traits, Armory system, leveling system.

• Button Redundancies

  Abilities that each require (different) conditions for use may be attached to the same binding. The one currently available will be shown. Option included to show the shown ability's opposite/pairing in whatever corner or half of the hotbar slot.

• Macros

  Macro queuing supported. Conditional ability swapping/binding. Can now create universal/"script" macros and easily apply them to multiple abilities (for instance, you can create a targeting scheme where, if an ability cannot be used on your target--e.g. a heal on an enemy or a damaging ability on an ally--then it will automatically target the target of target, and easily apply this to all or any number of skills or bindings.

• FATEs

  Should feel more like an actual component of the worlds. Random events are fine and dandy, but there also needs to be something that makes players feel like they need to work together not just to put down a single FATE, but to deal with certain areas. It should be more about augmenting what people would already be doing or enhancing the feel of the zone, rather than just throwing out exp-bonus zerg tasks. Some Land/Hand related psuedo-FATEs added.

• Hunts

  Somewhat an extension of above, Hunts should not simply be random spawns at all times, but should function first as signs of activity by the respective mark in the zone, which can be used to find the mark (where there is actually enough terrain to really hide a large monster, rather than being detectable on a cursory jog through the zone) or to spawn it. Occasional interplay with the FATEs themselves, blurring the distinction between them.

• Diadem

  Not certain yet, but essentially more ways to better synergize gathering and combat, so that the whole thing feels a bit more exploratory, a bit more chill, and far less of a grind-fest. At the very minimum, the required percent of mob health reduced by party to loot a chest needs to be reduced or its reward systems revised while also encouraging more raid splitting (typically no more than 2 parties fighting together unless against an NM).

• Flight

  Some actual flight physics. Flying mount stamina. Allow differences between mounts, but limit the best to certain situations. ['Mounts as glamour' fans would kill me for this.]

• Core Class Traits (w/ mechanics)

  Increased job identity through mechanics-inclusive class traits, such as Sword and Board, Tactician, and Turned Tables for Gladiator, Rampage and Steadfast for Marauder, Trained Aim, Hunter's Chance, and Hail of Arrows for Archer, Momentum and Trammel for Lancer, etc. Some of these may be cross-classed. Each class starts with approximately 5 traits, and, by 60, room for 4 more (cross-class). Their respective jobs hold only 4 core class, 1 more core or cross-class, and 3 job traits (8 total, down from 9). Much of the identity previously granted solely by abilities is now more smoothly shared with passives, triggers, resources, and conditionals given by traits.

• Armory System / Leveling System

  Weapons and skills are no longer quite so directly attached to a single class or job. Experience gains are now shared among multiple weapon types, and therefore classes, according to relevance/similarity. More of a "learn according to what you do" system, where your character is composed of multiple classes as it levels, then simply "get all classes (as if each separate characters) to level cap".

Possibly change: (More) gearing choices, more relevant stats, the way we tank, enemy AI, Progressive AoEs, mob camps, combo systems, glamour system (using it instead as a sort of reforging system), mounts, XP splitting, crafting, accuracy system, tank defensive stats.

• All Stats Relevant

  Nearly all jobs may, to some extent, use almost every stat, allowing more character customization. There may be traditional or generally-optimal stat compositions, especially when being in a more fixed role, but each is situationally viable.

• Gearing Choices

  Basically just an extension of above. More gear in general, with more diverse stats, and far, far fewer restrictions. More cloth armor practical for wear by physical combatants. Some wizard-y looking light mail. More interesting secondary stats (more akin to traits or effects) have been added to the game and may be found on pieces of gear. Weapon speed now has a larger effect on certain classes.

• Glamours

  Revised to Mirage Prism, allowing you to swap 33 to 67% of another gear-piece's stat composition (percentile) (and armor/weapon type/speed) to another piece of gear. This slightly limits ideal glamour opportunities, but people now are more what they look like. Certain glamours ignore the stat superimposition.

• Mob AI

  Not all mobs have the same reaction to enmity, or may somewhat ignore enmity tables to seek out priority targets. Capable of backing off or kiting. Many mobs are now essentially invested with an arsenal of abilities, much like any player, and now use them as best they can, rather than only triggering effects and skills conditionally or periodically.

• Progressive AoEs

  Almost all AoEs now go off when they would appear to, rather than frequently causing people jump into explosions (rather, their animations, after the damage calculation) for maximum safety. Moreover, they now all progress from a source end to destination end (e.g. inside to outside). In most cases, mitigation done by anyone hit by the attack will now reduce the damage dealt to those behind, progressively reducing the damage dealt. In this sense, interception is possible for nearly every enemy skill. Some, however, ignore this calculation. Others ignore all but a few sources of it (e.g. blocks done under Bulwark, absorption via Dark Mind or Shadow Wall, etc.).

• Tanking

  As a result of the above interception and mob AI changes, tanking is much less a meat shield who keeps an enemy facing in a certain direction, and much more often the key thwarter of enemy offensive attempts, stunning, blocking, distracting, intercepting, and holding back enemy attacks from the party when he cannot completely focus them on himself.

• Mob Camp Structure and Mechanics

  Mob camps are more elaborate, more dangerous, and more rewarding to raid. They now hear nearby sounds of combat and may notice when their guards go missing.

• Comboing

  Certain "combo" moves are still situationally effective without their combos. Many of the combos have been revised to give more intrinsic synergy between the combo tiers. Less alike to ability lock-outs / forced delays, and more an actual choice.

• XP splitting when in party

  You no longer receive full exp on mobs just for being in a party. The xp-split still favors party play, but is no longer without penalty when, say, a single player tags and kills mobs for 7 others, for a total of 8x exp for the same effort.

• Accuracy System

  "Hits" and "misses" may now occur by percentile, rather than being 0 or 100% damage. Accuracy now determines the standard deviation and offset of a particular attack's %damage. Excess accuracy turns into critical strike, though at a lower rate than the pure Critical Strike stat. It also reduces the chance to be blocked or parried. High accuracy may now be useful against more than just giant raid bosses; certain mob types may be far more evasive. Weaponskills now have a slightly higher accuracy than auto-attacks, allowing for a lower "soft" accuracy cap. Accuracy is still the most worthwhile secondary stat by which to improve damage, up to a point, but lacking it is much less likely to destroy one's rotation.

• Tank Defensive Secondary Stats

  Blocks, dodges, and parries have been revised. Their chance is now somewhat improved by accuracy, relative to enemy accuracy. Blocks reduce base damage based on attack power by a flat amount (Guard) and may further reduce the accuracy of incoming damage based on attack power relative to the attack's (Deflection). Parry does the same but prioritizes Deflection, rather than Guard. Dodges now function by reducing enemy accuracy.

• Crafting

  Way too many changes to put them all here... /sigh

Remove: Achievements given for facerolling unsynced content.

Add: More ways to force/train players to master their jobs. More ways to check that players have gained proficiency in their respective jobs and as a player in general, before allowing them into certain content levels (similar to the ilvl restriction option, sort of a Proving Grounds restriction). More no-tank / no-heal / undermanned gameplay options in certain contents, with some additions meant to make these choices just barely viable where they would otherwise be impossible. More reasons to revisit old content. Real stealth options and usage in open world.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alahra

I am, honestly, against most forms of fast travel (including the over abundance of Aetheryte's for teleporting—I would much prefer a system more like FFXI's with a few central teleports and nothing more), and also against "queue anywhere" systems (like FFXIV's Duty Finder or WoW's Dungeon Finder) for similar reasons, as they make the best ways to play not involve actually really ever being in the world.

---

I get that, to an extent. When I'm off doing my own thing, sometimes I prefer to take the more-scenic (and less-efficient) route just to take in the sights and atmosphere. Sometimes on WoW I'd travel on ground instead of air just to see things from a different perspective for a change.

But then when it's time to do group activities, I'm glad to have the option for faster travel. I certainly would NOT want to go back to the days of FFXI where you had to pay a WHM to teleport you someplace, a BLM to warp you home, or take a VERY long boat or chocobo ride, possibly miss the airship and wait at the dock for the next one, etc. No thanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FritoBandito

I certainly would NOT want to go back to the days of FFXI where you had to pay a WHM to teleport you someplace, a BLM to warp you home, or take a VERY long boat or chocobo ride, possibly miss the airship and wait at the dock for the next one, etc. No thanks.

---

I honestly miss the old boats, but I think having Teleport/Warp open to everyone makes much more sense. I'd prefer something in between the two. Honestly, pre-flight, I felt like WoW had a fairly good balance, when flight paths were more limited (and it's honestly rare that I think WoW's implementation of something was better at any point than FFXIV's implementation). WoW actually had actual boats as well, rather than just "click yes to teleport across the water" stuff like we have here. They just came a lot more often than their equivalents in FFXI did.

Change: All combat instances to a Tri-Ace / Star Ocean action battle system

Remove: Player character in cutscenes doing absolutely nothing but nodding to everything and overreacting to actually really weak crap. <_<+

Add: Crafting/synthesis system from Star Ocean 3.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FritoBandito

But then when it's time to do group activities, I'm glad to have the option for faster travel. I certainly would NOT want to go back to the days of FFXI where you had to pay a WHM to teleport you someplace, a BLM to warp you home, or take a VERY long boat or chocobo ride, possibly miss the airship and wait at the dock for the next one, etc. No thanks.

---

That's actually something I think really should be reintroduced... I mean... What is the harm in it? If you want to instantly travel from Ul'dah to Gridania, you have Teleport for that. Why not have a physical airship ride? When was the last time anyone even used the boat from Limsa to Thanalan...

Arguably it's wasted resources, but I don't think so... It adds a touch of immersion to the world as you sail past various landmarks, and Final Fantasy XI did a fairly good job of having unique events happen during them (Sea Horror, Pirate attacks, fun times) and even if you ignore that (given the size of Eorzean Airships, I don't know how anything could happen on them...) there is one tiny little thing they can still do; Fishing. Airships in XI didn't really have anything (I think there was a match the passenger quest? Meh), but here in XIV we have Skyfishing. All we really got for Fishing in XIV is that boat off the shore from Costa de Sol, but it just sits there... I want to fish on a boat that's going somewhere, that maybe has odd little things going on in the background (Apkallu jumping up on deck, damn I miss ToAU).

I could easily come up with multiple answers for each of these, but I'll pick the biggest one from each category.

Change: Diadem. It has a ton of potential, but the implementation is sub-par.

1. Make the objectives be the driving force behind player activity. Award chests/gear/spoils for the completion of objectives. Let the list repopulate when you clear some or all of them.
2. Scatter around a decent number of randomly occurring events, similar to goal-oriented FATEs (rather than "kill a bunch of stuff" type FATEs), some of which include gatherers in their objectives. Make these also award chests/gear/spoils.
3. Give battle classes and gathering classes more reasons to interact, in addition to the events above.

Remove: Specialist-specific recipes. If you have to restrict access to something to force people to use a system they'd otherwise ignore, that suggests that there's a problem with the system, and your efforts should probably go into making the system interesting and worth using on its own merits, rather than handcuffing it to something else.

Add: Some sort of alliance-based, tiered, popped, claimed-by-the-group-that-popped-it NM system. Something along the lines of the ZNM system from FFXI, minus the ridiculous camera mini-game nonsense that was necessary to purchase the pop items.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nalien

Trials... Stop giving us static circles to fight in... I'm sick of it... Give us battlefields with something else to them... Take Leviathan; That was just Titan at Sea World. Same falling off mechanic. Snore. Lets slap Leviathan in an underwater grotto instead; You fight his head by a pool, with some other pools for his tail to poke out of (similar to Sasatash Hards Kraken fight). Phase one has you doing that. Then you get the the "heart phase" (sticking with Titan), during this phase the cave starts to flood, and you need to escape by running through what amounts to a mini-dungeon. During this phase, Leviathan will attempt to trap you, and you have to DPS his belly to get him out the way (DPS check, same as Titans Heart really). Can also be some adds and gates and so on. Finally you get out of the cave, and you're on the shore of a small island, and the real fight begins, phase 2s music kicks in and you've got the real fight ahead of you. Trials like that would be far more memorable and fun than the "Fight in this circle" instances we've been constantly getting...

---

This really made me think back to some of my old MMO days and the fights I really enjoyed... Your ideas remind me a lot of the Draigoch raid in LotRO, really fun fight and the arena only added to it... LOTRO - Draigoch 12-man Raid Hardmode ~ 26min

Change - The Hunt and Diadem. I want them to be less of a zergfest

Remove - The gender/race restrictions on glamours/emotes!!

Add - Alternate job paths for each class just like ACN with SCH/SMN!

Change: WM on Bard to be something that doesn't make the entire class play different after it gets it to how the class played for the 50+ levels before it.

Remove: Crafting being nearly required to do so many things, especially given that to be even slightly proficient at crafting you have to level multiple disciplines far beyond what you might ever want to.

Add: A full and proper cosmetic system akin to what can be found in Lord of the Rings online with an always accessible cosmetic wardrobe that stores glamour versions of items. (Or, in a really big stretch, find some way to replace the current gear system with something akin to the one in Secret World where cosmetic appearance gear and stat providing gear are completely separate). The current glamour system is far too reliant on crafting, is clunky in execution and can be a real inventory space hog.

Change: Make the entire world open with no loading screens, excludes cross continent travel and instances. Making use of airships/boats and the like for traveling over over or flying to the skies (think on the level of this. Obviously never going to happen as it's incredibly demanding and the game is on consoles and needs to be to maintain a sizeable player base, but hey I can dream.

Remove: Specialist recipes.

Add: Ingame parser only available in Extreme Primals and Savage raids.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pence

...Change, Remove, Add...

---

I think Diadem was made for you definitely! ^^;
Please try to associate Diadem with Dynamis.
If a Diadem Hard mode only can entered by 3air-ships exclusively, and add weekly lockout, then it will be Dynamis in ARR?

Change: Lords of Verminion to be data-center wide.

Remove: Only being able to have 3 specialists. By buying another crafter soul with red scrips you can get a 4th and 5th and so on.

Add: A "Exclude armory Items" tab or checkbox when turning in Diadem gear.

Change: Monster strength/mechanics to pose more of a challenge.

Both inside and outside dungeons there is very little danger. In dungeons this results in many tanks pulling huge groups of monsters while dps/healers AoE them down pressing a single button. That is not an adventure.

Remove: The Goblet's "Housing Enthusiast" npc

That weirdo stands by the market board all day fanning himself while fawning over our houses. I've reported him to the Immortal Flames, but apparently being a creeper "isn't a crime".

Bah.

Add: More interesting Stats.

The stats we have now are amazingly boring, to the point where I rarely even think about them and the problem is compounded by the fact we have no other means of customizing our gameplay :( The addition of more interesting stats would allow for meaningful choices that differentiate our gameplay from other players, it would be a great starting point for more horizontal gear progression, and give gear meaning again outside of glamour.