From Scratch: 6.0 Progression Systems

What would you like to see from 5.0 Progression Systems?

1. What current issues do you perceive, generally or in the technicals alone, with current progression?
   
   
2. Pretend for a moment that literally everything about progression, except perhaps that clearing encounters can drop loot, is gone. What comes to mind as a cohesive and satisfying way to fill the void and reformat progression as a whole?

...seriously, why can't we edit titles?

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Originally Posted by Kalise

What would I like to see? Or what would I expect to see?

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What you would like. We're not trying to just depress ourselves here.

What would I like to see? Or what would I expect to see?

Since those would be 2 massively different things.

As, personally, I'd like to see Materia as a concept expanded on. So it's a little more than just "Oh, this gear can be melded, so just whack on as much of the best stat for you as can fit onto the item without overcapping" and "This stuff can't be melded at all, therefore its worse than lower item level gear because penta-meld is too good"

Really, I'd love to see some interesting materia, that can be slotted into all equipment and will provide an extra layer of progression and character customization. With stuff like proc effects or alternate/powerful stat effects.

Examples would be something like a Tank focused materia for an armour item which gives you a chance when you deal damage to increase the damage of skills with bonus enmity for a set period of time.

Or maybe a DPS might look for a weapon based materia that increases the duration and damage of their DoT effects. Or alternatively, look for a materia that gives their skills a chance to deal bonus damage (Of varying damage type, Magical, Piercing, Slashing, Blunt etc). They might look for an armour based materia that increases the damage of positional bonuses, or maybe one that stacks up bonus damage if they remain standing still for a duration.

Maybe a Healer might look for a weapon focused materia that gives their heals a chance to proc an effect that reduces the reuse time generated from their damaging skills for a set number of casts during a duration (Essentially, Rapid Fire, but only for their offensive skills IF they're using healing skills to proc it)

Stuff like that. With of course, a selection of options for each item and role and the ability to upgrade these materia from rank I up via some means. Be it having some drops in dungeons/raids/trials to let you infuse and upgrade directly, or other means such as Mendacity/Genesis tomestones being usable to let people upgrade eventually without RNG. Not to mention, allowing higher rank materia to drop from higher tier content so people can sell them on the MB and the like.

Outside of this, I've mentioned previously, that I'd kind of like Tanks and Healers to be rebalanced in a way where their goal for progression isn't just focusing purely on getting DPS stats by making their role specific stats more desirable in a way that doesn't make DPS stats and effects useless, nor makes them not still contribute to a parties overall DPS. With potential scaling issues addressed so that spamming DPS isn't 99% of the gameplay for well geared Tanks/Healers and is more of a smaller, but more rewarding, part of their overall playstyle that is achieved through getting better gear and playing well.

As far as getting items... I feel that it's not too far from ideal as is.

It's cool to be able to get good gear from multiple sources, such as Tomestones, Eureka (It being kind of horrible gameplay not withstanding), Raids.

I feel they could go further on this though. Such as allowing Elite Hunts to get a special currency to be used for good gear (So doing weekly B Ranks as well as grouping up for A's and S's can be a method of gearing up in of itself, while the current catch-up gear would still use the standard currency from the normal Hunts and Elite Hunts), allowing crafters to obtain recipe books that contain current tier worthy equipment but would require you to be a really well geared crafter in order to make (I'd imagine something like it being a single book that gives you all the recipes for all the tradeskills to make the stuff for that particular tier, given that each class would only have a small number of recipes each).

Essentially, meaning that no matter where your preference for content is, you can still progress your character in getting better gear, or if you regularly play multiple classes, you can gear multiple classes up at the same time. With of course, current catch-up mechanisms still remaining, so easily afforded lower ilevel stuff and new dungeons with new stuff in and the like.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

...seriously, why can't we edit titles?

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You're talking about a forum that has a 3000 character limit. Which can be bypassed by simply editing a post. How is something like this a surprise?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

What would you like to see from 5.0 Progression Systems?
[*]Pretend for a moment that literally everything about progression, except perhaps that clearing encounters can drop loot, is gone. What comes to mind as a cohesive and satisfying way to fill the void and reformat progression as a whole?[/LIST]

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We are consistently leaving lower end content in this confused, empty, myriad state, where nothing has relevance, unless something specifically has relevance.

Material bloat and checklist crafting is partially why the world itself loses relevance patch by patch without specifically catering to it.

FATES will never be useful outside leveling, which gives them a defined lifespan and puts them in direct contest with Dungeons, which are better simply because they are more convenient.

Leveling Syncing and Ability bloat culling consistently leaves jobs that aren't 'level capped' for that expansion set (ARR, HW, SB) not only incomplete, but in some cases, intolerably so (Dark Knight, Machinist).

New characters / Alt characters are forced to play though the MSQ, which isn't a terrible thing in itself, but it is a source of frustration. The MSQ gating everything turns New/Alt characters into this long session of just trying to rush through it so you can actually access things.

Solutions for the problems above.

1. Material trimming. We do not need 80 different types of Iron. We need only "Iron" and "Current Expansion Iron". Centralizing materials in this manner means new players not only have a way into the market, but also heavily reduces needless item bloat. This concept can be expanded to Materia, where Materia bonus potency is based on an Item's socket level. A Storm Bringer crafted Chest, for example, would have 2 +40 slots, 1 +40 overmeld, and 2 +12s.

This reduces materia and again, provides new players with a way into the market.

2. Fates become an alternative method to achieve Gil. Want to level, but need gil? Do Fates. Not only does it provide an alternative to Dungeons (Your "Dungeon" reward has a portion of it dedicated to repairs), having more ways to generate "New" gil is sorely needed in FF14. Perhaps even relegate it to the Challenge Log primarily, if botting is a concern.

3. Stop culling abilities and upgrade them instead. Remember when Warriors lost Brutal Swing, then got Upheaval? Warrior could have kept Brutal Swing, and that be traited into Upheaval. It still maintains the purpose of being a gauge spender / moderator, which in turn means a little more thought goes into using it, but now your pre-62 warrior doesn't feel like it's missing a button.

For Paladin, Flash traits into Holy Explosion, increasing its MP cost, but dealing high magic damage. It gains extra threat while in Shield Oath, and reduced Casting Time while in Sword Oath. It is a natural progression for Flash, but done in a way that doesn't require it to be removed until level 72.

4. Cut the MSQ up into segmented quest chains without requiring the previous to be completed. These can organically be based around unlocking main dungeons, or features, so that a singular quest itself feels much more weighted without feeling like it's just running you around for an hour. (Remember unlocking Leviathan?)

You then greatly increase the XP rewarded, while providing a significant reward of Gil. The MSQ is required, but chopping it up like this and providing a more substantial reward encourages players to do it, and rather than blindly completing fetch quest after fetch quest, the point of this particular MSQ segment is made readily known from the get go. A big ole reward, and an unlocked feature.

This also allows someone to focus entirely on X.0 MSQ quests when leveling up Alts, or for end game driven new players. The X.1-5s are not required for the most important roulettes (Leveling and Expert), so if one were inclined and didn't need an xp or gil boost, one could simply complete X.0 to move on to the next X.0 quest chains.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

We are consistently leaving lower end content in this confused, empty, myriad state, where nothing has relevance, unless something specifically has relevance.

FATES will never be useful outside leveling, which gives them a defined lifespan and puts them in direct contest with Dungeons, which are better simply because they are more convenient.

2. Fates become an alternative method to achieve Gil. Want to level, but need gil? Do Fates. Not only does it provide an alternative to Dungeons (Your "Dungeon" reward has a portion of it dedicated to repairs), having more ways to generate "New" gil is sorely needed in FF14. Perhaps even relegate it to the Challenge Log primarily, if botting is a concern.

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I feel that the overworld as a whole could do with an overhaul (Hah, puns!). Currently, much of the overworld is pointless, enemies barely give experience and are only relevant for Hunts. FATES aren't worth the time invested into them, unless you're in a sizable party and smashing them out in a couple of minutes each (But even then, you'd probably only be matching the experience gain of a dungeon, to say nothing of tomestones, gil and even company seals (If you actually care about them) that you get more of from dungeons) - This is even with the Twist of Fate double experience bonus and the Forlorn ToF buffs...

Like, in the current iteration, the overworld will only actually be relevant if they keep adding Limited Jobs like BLU that have to rely on it. But even then, as people showed, they'd rather just cheese past it by getting a buddy to powerlevel them (Made more tolerable by BLU's overinflated experience gains from overworld enemies, which, also happened to still make FATES worthless because it didn't extend to them...)

They really could do with rebalancing things a little. Increasing experience from normal overworld enemies so it's meaningful, not to the ridiculous extent of BLU, but enough where someone might actually care to kill something ever.

Increase the rewards from FATES, experience, gil, company seals. Heck, throw some Poetics in there too, let people farm fates for poetics instead of just dungeon spamming for all of these things. Maybe you could even put some Mendacity in current content FATES to increase their relevance past the initial leveling surge. Adding in Allied/Centurio (Also, any future Hunt currencies that may be added in future expansions) would also be a viable option.

Maybe even add in a chain bonus for FATES, so, much like with killing enemies for chain bonus, you can do a bunch of FATES in a zone for a chain bonus (Of course, don't put a timer on it, just have it reset if you leave the zone for whatever reason). If you put like a daily reward upon getting a specific level of FATE chaining within a specific zone (Randomly selected each day and the same across all players) you can also entice people to going back to older content and smashing out FATES like back in the old days when they actually were worth anything...

Even more so, if you add daily bonuses for completing a randomly selected Raid FATE too. So many of these, going to complete waste because they're just not worth it to do. Let them give Genesis upon completion with some nifty daily bonus for the first time completion too. Let people actually care about grouping up for Raid FATES in the same way people travel between zones announcing when S rank hunts have been spotted.

Low level content always dies in games like this, and unless there is a new wave of players, or released jobs, its never/rarely visited.

IN general i know i keep comparing to ffxi with this stuff (it was the first and only MMO i played) but there are some good aspects of it. This game is simplified, so there isn't a need for much of what XI had, and that's where XI shined in my opinion.

You have 1 weapon per job, whatever is the highest/most powerful that you can equip, and that's it. Aside from Glamour, there is no point to have an alt weapon. Don't get me wrong, i don't want to go back to 8 elemental staves and such, but that was a good source of "lower" content. NM drops.

Make elements mean something! Would require extensive revamping however.
Consumables that were actually sought after. Shihei anyone? We have none of this. I personally always use food, but i know a lot of players that don't. I keep some meds, elixers and such on hand for emergencies, i know most players don't. Could add something to the challenge log, like use 5 "medicine" items in instances.

Also allow for some choices in Challenge log. Gold/tomestones/seals/mgp etc, Some make sense to be limited, but some an option would be nice.

I'd like to see some kind of repair quest also, where you could do a repeatable quest, maybe available once a week, where you could repair all gear for free, or a reduced fee.

Add an NPC somewhere that tells you what an item is for. I have so much random crap and no idea what is for what. Want to know what uses a chocobo feather has, trade the item to them, or select if from your items and they display all possible uses for said item.

Also expand the challenge log. More things in lower areas. "Coupons" or some kind of item, that you could trade to ??? points in lower zones to spawn monsters for items/gold/tomes. Similar to Treasure maps, but more predictable. Could be purchased through Poetics/seals etc. Or that same concept where you would be a chance of augmenting an item with a materia. Same rate as normal melding, but not needing the materia, the quest would take its place. Some kind of cap would be needed for balancing.

I like the idea of expanding on Materia, Combo materia, Mnd + Piety on one, Vit + str on another. Int + Spell speed. The only problem is that tends to make the single materias obsolete if they are more powerful in any way, but make them too weak, and there is no point.

Simplified crafting would be Great. There are already a ton of items in the game, tho its better than 1.0 where you needed a tunic front, tunic back, arms, cuffs and string to make a tunic... Maybe alternate versions of the craft, where if you don't have the exact component, like if you have all yarn, and need a cloth, you can use 4 yarn, instead of 1 yarn and a cloth, but would be slightly more difficult to craft.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

What current issues do you perceive, generally or in the technicals alone, with current progression?

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Regarding items, Vertical Progression is over emphasized, which leads to a number of sub-problems:
- Stat creep (You can feel the gap between each item tier growing even if we're resetting to a reasonable level from expansion to expansion. We're getting to a point where a stat squish is going to be necessary sooner or later, lest SE's oneshot mechanics force their damage calculator to add over a dozen trailing zeroes)
- Item Bloat (materia I-VI, X/Draconic/Max Potions of Stat Grade Y, and recipes to nowhere, with even more useless materials, and all the beast tribe currencies that are going nowhere)
- Limited Shelf Life Endgame Content (Normal Raids, Trials, most catch-up content like 24-mans/Relic that are mostly glamour at this point)
- Limited Endgame Alt Progression (Weekly Lockouts literally prevent you from maxing out more than two character classes per tier unless they all happen to share armor)

That said, there isn't much reason to get gear other than for alts, because Secondary Stat optimization doesn't vary much per class. And in the few cases that it does, it's rare that it offers any meaningful benefit. In the case of skill/spell speed in particular, it almost always hurts the class instead of helps, due to specific issues within each kit.

I'm mostly fine with the levelling progression. It needs a second pass to ensure there's enough to do at the lower levels to carry players through ARR for sure, and I think we're going to need to see at least two traits per class instead of one if possible. Stormblood did some good (if reductive) things with trimming but ultimately we need more of it going forward.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Pretend for a moment that literally everything about progression, except perhaps that clearing encounters can drop loot, is gone. What comes to mind as a cohesive and satisfying way to fill the void and reformat progression as a whole?

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1. Add a third form of gear progression catered towards the casual player as an alternative to savage. Make it focus on the overworld.
Implement this a combination of Beast Tribe Dailies, FATEs, and/or Leves.
To this end, we will need to see some FATEs that only spawn in certain conditions, such as doing a level 80 Leve specific to the relic quest, or a beast tribe daily that increases the spawn rate of that fate significantly. I'd like to use Relic as the questline for this and work it into the world. Preferably drawing on what Eureka brought with it and enabling some logogram slots in the overworld within these fates.

It's probably akin to world quests but we could use a reason to be in the overworld far more than in another instance, honestly.

2. For content that drops role/class-specific gear, exclude gear for any classes/roles that are not present within the party, or that all players of that role/class already have.

This speeds up Savage gear progression significantly, and requires people to actually play their alts if they want that gear to show up. This benefits non-standard parties more than standard ones, but they have to contend with the LB generation penalty in a lot of cases, which can matter a bit.

3. Make Secondary Stats more Nuanced and less frustrating via systemic combat changes:

- Implement WoW's clipping mitigation. Whenever you refresh a buff or debuff, add any remaining duration onto the new iteration of it, up to a cap of 150% of their normal duration for the most part. This minimizes the skill speed penalty from using these abilities. Apply this to role action debuffs even if they're used by different players. This interaction already exists in the form of Armor Crush and Huton, so it is absolutely possible within the bounds of XIV's engine. It doesn't need to be applied to all buffs, as there are certainly melee classes that don't need it (Samurai) or that would be actively hurt by it (Monk), but all Damage Over Time effects should have it, bare minimum.

- Allow specific oGCD Abilities to be treated as weaponskills or spells with an independent 'global' cooldown on a few classes that could be improved by doing so (RDM/MNK, Potentially MCH depending on the rework) or are at least harmless (Mutilate/Mug on NIN, melee/tank gapclosers in general).

- Rework Piety as part of the MP/TP consolidation changes into a pure healing stat, and allow all DPS classes to provide some form of sustain via role actions, each with their own niches. Melee keep 'goad' as a resource over time. Casters get an instant ally resource restore with no cost unlike Mana Shift, Ranged get a significantly weakened version of Refresh that sustains the whole party but for less than the caster or melee would do. Add more self-sustain into each class along the way.

4. Make Materia part of your progression, not a gil sink.
Remove Overmelding. Remove Main Stat materia.

Instead of adding Materia VII, add a new form of materia that outright lets you override a secondary stat with one that you wanted. Tie this to the new form of relic progression and let the player earn the stats that are applied to the materia in a secondary log similar to how Light farming worked, just applied only in the overworld.

5. Consolidate Currencies
Allied Seals and Centurio Seals should be combined by now
Same goes for all the old expansion specific beast tribe currencies. Treat it like poetics, it needs to shrink.

6. Relax the item progression a bit.
We should be able to reasonably gear two different roles each tier, with three requiring more investment but still being attainable.

What I would love to see as Progression of Gameplay and Character Progression in general is the following:

* Complete Rework of the totally dumbed down pbsolete Materia System and make it work like the good FF7 Materia System, where materias are MEANINGFUL and are actually part of your character progression, not some kind of pointless low Stat Boosts, which could easily just get removed and no one would basically ever miss them.

* Implementation of Equipment Upgrades to give Equipment (Weapons/Armory) individual Effects to increase this way more build diversity, equipment should't have pregiven prefixes and suffixes, they should gain these, based upon what Equipment Upgrades you add to your Weapon/Armory

* As mentioned today in an other thread, Class Role Expansion for all Classes via implemention Job Specializations, so that all classes can switch to the different Roles, once you unlocked for your Class the other Role Specializations

* Remove Risky Actions and make increasing Materia Slots of Equipment part of the Quality/Rarity System of FF14 and make it possible also to upgrade the quality/rarity rank of items (G-Level Increase as well) via the Crafting Jobs, this will make craftign Jobs alot more useful and valuable to have at high level, if you become able to turn even the weakest items via Quality/Rarity upgrades into same as powerful gear, than what you can get currently from say Dungeons and Raids. Its neccessary that this frustrating antisocial risky actions gets remove, it should be a clear straight forward progression (with gil sink) to upgrade equipment so long, until it can be same as powerful as the latest loot gear and via upgradign its quality factor, we should be able to unlock simply just new materia slots, without that there is a chance to destroy the precious weapon, which is something super antisocial, if you happen to destroy your super rare powerful item X, only because you wanted it to have some materia slots more

* Remove the silly numbers from items and skills, and give these things proper different names, these permanent Item I, II, III, IV ect and Skill I, II ,III and so on, look so extremely UGLY and totally uncreative, as if the responsible devs have lost their creativity to come up with good names..seriously, or they are lazy just to add on everything all the time roman numbers only, than to think for 1 minute over a better sounding item/skill name, that needs no numbers to let the player see, that a skill or item has upgraded versions... youi now, languages have superlatives, words ,with that you can easily describe, that somethign is better than X, more developed, stronger, longer lasting whatever ect. make usage of language, not numbers

* Can agree only above with the Currencies.. completely rework them, the completely system is totally outdated, as much as the whole reward system of this game should get actualized more oftenly in regard of the currencies, so that the various currencies stay also interestign for players, due to always new rewards getting added for the currencies, also the older ones, so that oyu have as player always a reason to use the currencies up, ..and for gods sake, remove those stupid low currency limits and turn the limits to unlimited, so that you aren#t permanently every few weeks forced basically to use the currency up for something, just so that you don't waste new received currencies that you waste then, becsause you lose any gained currencies, while receiving it when you have full limit reached with a currency... and if unlimited is impossible, then at least raise thel imits significantly from rediculous 2000/1000 to 99999... 5 digit is possible for you, cause the pvp currency has a limit of 20000, so 99999 should be possible at least

* Companion Chocobos shouldnt only receive Exp from Training Sessions and Monster Kills, they should receive always partial exp from everything, whenever they are summoned up..so if you do successful a fate, the companion should also receive exp from the done fate to a certain percentage of it.. if you do a leve quest, so should they receive exp too, do you do a quest for any of the wild races, like Sylphs , they should partially get exp from that too, if you have them up whiile you receive the reward.

* Aside of this should every Companion Chocobo level increase the time limit of how long you can have them up by 30 Minutes, so a level 10 Chocobo should have a bonus of additional 300 Minutes of maximum uptinme, if you feed them basically 12 times to have then a maximum uptime of 360 Minutes = 6 hours, to make the maximum uptime.
Long enough, that you dont have to permanently feed them every hour, unless they die. They are no silly tamagotchis, that we should look after every hour >.>
Lvl 20 would mean, you coudl have them even up for maximum 660 minutes, then 11 hours, so nearly the half day long.
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second part

* Make Inventory Improvements part of our Progressiion, this game offers way too less inventory space for all the trash that we receive all the time, and it becomes even more difficult, so more classes you play.. if you play absolutely all classes including all craftign jobs ect. it becomes such a huge hassle to keep your inventory not permanently full and clean... this tiny inventory is massively outdate,d the way it works, was maybe ok at times, when only ARR existed, but not now anymore..
The companion bag shoudl receive ways to upgrade its maximum inventory space from laughable 70 slots to say at least 200 Slots. our own characters inventory needs to get completely reworked, weapons and tools should have their completely own inventory/arsenal menu, same as gear from combat and crafsaman classes shoudl be seperated from each other.
Toons of items, like the massive amount of fishing lures, should be put into 1 big openable container item, a lurebox so to say, from where you can take them, so that not every single stupid lure takes up an inventory slot, but just only your lure box 1 single slot, which contains every single lure you own. a huge quality of life improvement would that be for FF14

* The attribute System has to be reworked and I absolutely hope for this game, that this will happen with Shadowbringers, due to SE removing TP and having to completely rebalance the whole combat system, and classes alone due to this change... with the removal of Willpower basically neccessary for all classes, but under the current system do make only Magic Classes usage of this Attribute.. so you need to count only 1+1 together to quickly realize, that a complete designs of this trashy attribute system is absolutely overdue. FF14 needs now a reworked Attribute System, where every Attribute is somehow useful for all classes, no Attribute should get excluded, only because the devs thought, back at ARR times, it was neccessary to totally dumb down the game, due to the fail with 1.0.
Certain game mechanics need to be more complex, so that they can make sense!! Attributes belong to this rule of thumb.

FF14 should provide these simple, but still complex enough attributes, and they should work also for Crafting/Collector Jobs too, these need no own seperate attributes, a good Attribute System has 1 set of Attributes, which works for everythimg and everybody, regardless of what you play.

- Might > Increases Attack Power of Skills and the Duration of Effect over Time Skills.
- Toughness > Decreases received Damage and reduces the Duration of suffered negative Conditions, Affects also Enemy Aggressivity, so higher this value, so better do you keep Agressivity
- Precision > Increases the Chance of Critical Hits and increases the Damage of Auto Attacks. Increases High Quality Chance for Crafters/Collectors
- Agility > Increases Attack Speed of Auto Attacks and Increasses Chance to Auto Dodge Enemy Attacks
- Intelligence > Increases Spell Castime Reduction for Mages and Skill Recharge Time Reduction for Warriors
- Wisdom > Reduces received Magic Damage and increases Maximum MP, Raises HQ Chances for Crafters/Collectors
- Courage > Increases Critical Damage Bonus and affects based upon your Role your Role Skills with improved effects so higher your Courage.

Stats shouldnt be linked anymore to the Gear you use, Gear should be just 100% fashion and no permanent gear treadmill. Attributes should only raise with your Characters Level and with Talent Points, which players could earn as rewards from the Story or Class Quests ect. or for doing x amount of Fates and so on, with that players can boost up their Attributes then permanently to a certain current Max Value that SE sets up from Patch to Patch/Expansion just like the G-Level...

That concept would make even more sense, if the materia System would get reworked and these useless Stat Materias getting removed as well to replace them with useful and interesting new Materia that provide effects, instead of low absolute irrelevant stat boosts

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Originally Posted by Kaiserdrache

* Remove the silly numbers from items and skills, and give these things proper different names, these permanent Item I, II, III, IV ect and Skill I, II ,III and so on, look so extremely UGLY and totally uncreative, as if the responsible devs have lost their creativity to come up with good names..seriously, or they are lazy just to add on everything all the time roman numbers only, than to think for 1 minute over a better sounding item/skill name, that needs no numbers to let the player see, that a skill or item has upgraded versions... youi now, languages have superlatives, words ,with that you can easily describe, that somethign is better than X, more developed, stronger, longer lasting whatever ect. make usage of language, not numbers

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Technically, there's actually in-game lore around the numbering system.

In the Great Gubal Library there's a book that details a group of mages running into an issue with previous naming conventions. As I recall, it was due to someone discovering a spell more potent than Curaga and they were trying to figure out how to name it. Before finally deciding that the most logical thing to do was to instead name spells with a base name depending on what form they take and then a number to designate its relative power.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Technically, there's actually in-game lore around the numbering system.

In the Great Gubal Library there's a book that details a group of mages running into an issue with previous naming conventions. As I recall, it was due to someone discovering a spell more potent than Curaga and they were trying to figure out how to name it. Before finally deciding that the most logical thing to do was to instead name spells with a base name depending on what form they take and then a number to designate its relative power.

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Console FFs of the later generations also didn't use anymore the silly numbers, but changed the higher forms of skills/spells by changing the spelling of the skill/spell, and thats something, that can be done theoretically unendlessly. Example: Out if Thunder 1,2,3 became Thunder, Thundara, Thundaga and as tier 4 Thundaja
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Thundara_(ability) it are the old FF games mainly, which began with numbers, but so older the game series became, they changed with time the names, removed the numbers, changed just the spelling,
I don't understand, why those silly numbers needed to return here xD, when changed magic spell spelling is just so much more original and creative of the FF-Series for what the game is basically by now known for, as you see this kind of spell naming practically nowhere else in RPGs, they made it for themself unique.

Tier 1 = Cure
Tier 2 = Cura
Tier 3 = Curaga
Tier 4 = Curegas
and so on

based on how many upgraded skill/spell forms you want to have in the game, and in the end, this all looks and sounds alot more creative and FF-original and not as lazy, than Cure 1, Cure 2 ,Cure 3 Cure 4 and so on.
It isn't even so, as if the game is flooded by tons of skill tiers... the highest skill tiers we have so far end at tier 4, there exist in game no skills or spells currently that are of a higher tier, than 4, unless you want to count Flare for example as tier 5 for a fire spell for the Blackmage as example, that should come after, but its learned already before Fire 4 (Firaka how it is be basically backwards-localized from German to English, as here we have not these silly numbers, here we have exacly what I propose, that the spelling of the spell changes, so more powerful it is) (Fire > Fira > Firaga > Firaka/ Feuer > Feura > Feuga > Feuka)

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Originally Posted by Kaiserdrache

Console FFs of the later generations also didn't use anymore the silly numbers, but changed the higher forms of skills/spells by changing the spelling of the skill/spell, and thats something, that can be done theoretically unendlessly. Example: Out if Thunder 1,2,3 became Thunder, Thundara, Thundaga and as tier 4 Thundaja

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Yeah, but like I said, in the game, there exists documentation that talks about how the mage council decided to do away with the awkward suffixes that they would have to completely make up a new precedent for each time a new, more powerful spell was added.

Instead favouring the more logical and straightforward naming convention involving just using numbers to denote power level of the spell in question.

I mean, talking about how currently there are only rank 4 skills as the highest tier... But what about in Shadowbringers? What about the expansion after it? The expansion after that?

What does it add to the game to run around casting "Cureuraz" as opposed to Cure X?

Personally, I did find it jarring to go to a numbered system from the iconic suffix system. But in the long run, it makes more sense. With there also being actual lore backing up the change.

I doubt, that there will be added with Shadowbringers many more skill tiers, we get to Level 80 with it, we reach soon the traditional max cap of 99 (100) in say around 4+ years eventually or a bit longer until then.
In the end are completely new skills that don't need any number tiers being added anyway for me alot more interesting and there are even many skils, that haven't had any upgrades yet, that I doubt, that those, which are already on tier 4, will receive on the long run much more tiers at all, because so more tiers you add, so more complex become they to implement them into your combat routine of your skill setting, unless you make them always simple minded traited replacements of earlier weaker versions, so direct upgrades.
Its nice, that SE thinks on backing up changes and such stuff always with some kind of lore, but also lore isn't safe from being changed maybe over time, if neccessary, especially when this lore makes only sense in 1 language for the game, when in other localized languages it doesn't work perhaps in this the same way, because there are no numbers everywhere in German, like described before, making the lore from language to language in that case inconsistent.
I think it would be internationally seen better and easier for the game localization, if the naming style of spells would be in all languages the same, using the spelling change-style, that SE kept using from FF8 onwards and try to reduce as much as possible in return the usage of skill tier numbers at all.

They could have done it allso by just namign the skilsl actuall by what they are doing, then we wouldnt need any numbers, nor any spelling changes.
From Fire, Fire2, Fire 3, Fire 4 to actually somethign like traditionally Fire Burst > Fire Pillar > Explosion > Inferno.

By that naming scheme you know by just reading the skill name logically, that a little Fire Burst naturally must be weaker, than an Explosion or a massive Inferno.

It's even not that the combat classes are the worst contenders with that problem I have with this numberic naming scheme - the craftign/collctors in fact are much worser, with their shear endless tiered numbered skills and traits , it just looks so silly ^^ and partwise also confusing and then are some of them role skills, some of them then again not. Definetely something, that needs an overwork in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Yeah, but like I said, in the game, there exists documentation that talks about how the mage council decided to do away with the awkward suffixes that they would have to completely make up a new precedent for each time a new, more powerful spell was added.

Instead favouring the more logical and straightforward naming convention involving just using numbers to denote power level of the spell in question.

I mean, talking about how currently there are only rank 4 skills as the highest tier... But what about in Shadowbringers? What about the expansion after it? The expansion after that?

What does it add to the game to run around casting "Cureuraz" as opposed to Cure X?

Personally, I did find it jarring to go to a numbered system from the iconic suffix system. But in the long run, it makes more sense. With there also being actual lore backing up the change.

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Let's not forget that that bit of lore was mentioned to have been added in literally as a joke in response to the complaints regarding the naming changes over the course of ARR. Personally, I prefer the word suffixes when they have consistent meaning. -Ra Area of Effect/Expensive form. -Ga Enhanced/Function+ form. -Ja Alternate/Ultimate form. And, as we're not XI, and use potency rather than spell-ranks with less influenced damage beyond base values, we don't really need anything further than those 4 ranks. The only real advantage to the numeric suffixes is planned obsolescence by which you gradually lose access to or performance from the tools you already had, only to replace them with something that provides absolutely identical gameplay. Water I. Water II. Water III. Water IV. Water V. Water VI. Water VII. In each case: "Single target. Does [X+<10% Spell Power>] damage. No additional effects." If the plan of advancement for the next 3 xpacs is to simply offer Bio 4 through 9, then yes, numbers are good. If we're capable of a modicum of creativity, or even realize that the same spell can be silently retagged or retraited without having to offer it a new name each time, however, the benefits are nil.

Nonetheless, it has nothing to do with any Progression System, unlike...

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Originally Posted by Kaiserdrache

* Complete Rework of the totally dumbed down pbsolete Materia System and make it work like the good FF7 Materia System, where materias are MEANINGFUL and are actually part of your character progression, not some kind of pointless low Stat Boosts, which could easily just get removed and no one would basically ever miss them.

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I'd love to hear more about this, Kaiser, if you're willing!

And...

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Originally Posted by Kalise

I feel that the overworld as a whole could do with an overhaul (Hah, puns!).

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I'm liking the FATE improvement ideas, but I was just wondering if there were other options outside that scope that you'd also like to see. Anything else worth throwing out there?

Sure Shurri.

Quick explanation of how Materia /Substances in FF7 worked for anybody here who might have not played 7, but plays 14...
In 7, Materia wasn't gained by just destroying equipment you used, you were able to simply buy it either, or found it as loot, or from killed enemies as reward at the end of the fight.
Then you putted the Materia into a Slot of your gear and from then on the Materia gained with every killed creature also its own Experience and gained higher tiers so more you leveled up the Materia. At Max Level the Materia reproduced itself and you obtained a fresh new version at Start Level, so that you could theoretically get this way over tiem the same materia multiple times, if you wanted to give it more than one character of your party, like for example Summons..

Materia in FF7 came with several different types of Materias, each having a different color to visually differentiate the Materia Types.
Red was for Summons, like Summon Ifrit, Shiva ect. to deal massive Damage
Green for Magic Spells, like Cure, Fire, Bolt ect.
Yellow for Combat Commands/Skills, stuff like Steal, Bluemage SKills, Quadrupple Strike to hit with attacks multiple times
Blue for Support Effects, stuff like All, to turn Single Target Spells into Multi Target Spells
Purple for Independent Effects, these were the classical Stat boosters for example, basically what we have now here in a super dumbed down way, biut also other interestign stuff like Exp Plus, to gain more experience, making leveling less of a grind, Gil plus to increase more gil with kills, protect, to be more of a tank, getting attacked more, than other characters that dont have this materia on or Speed, to increase the efficiency of the Limit Gauge filling up with your attacks faster
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With this explanation, Id like to describe now, what Id like to have for FF14 with such a system.

Materia in FF14 should be also obtained by either finding it from killed enemis (we do that already in Dungeons, so why not everyhwhere in the game), or buying them from NPCs as some kind of Gil or MGP sinks.
Same as in FF17 we should be able to improve our obtained Materia when we use them in our gear, this way these tons of useless higher tiered versions can be removed, players don't have then anymore to constantly remove and put in Materias into their equipment to replace low tier versions with high tier version.
Every Materia you use with your character, should consistently be used always with any gear you use, unless you manually remove the Materia from your Materia Slot List, so that it doesn't receive Exp then anymore.
By making a Materia Max Level, it should also reproduce itself, but Max level Materia can't be sold, only Materias at their lowest Tier, this way would everyone have to work for their Materia Progression, and nut just have to be rich ingame to just buy you everythign in an blink of an eye ...
The Reproduction should be just the little reward for maxing a Materia out, so that you don't have to buy a new Materia, if you wanted to use more of the same Materias within your character(s).
Just like in 7, should have Materias based on their effects here also own different categories.

Red for Summons - Putting a Red Summon Materia into the Materia Slot, would allow the player to use specific Summon Spells as alternative Limit Breakers, so that the LB Feature becomes a bit more interesting ancfun and more FF original by making it possible to call iconic summons for aid (after you beat them first), these Materias would drop from Primae Fights for example only) and based on at which LB Tier you use them, the summon performs different LB skills.

Green for Spell/Skill Traits - Putting Green Materias into your List, will add Effects to your Spells/Skills, like turning your Dot from a Bio into Toxin, letting the DoT be stronger, by letting your Bio stack now with that Materia up to x times, making your lots on long lastign fights alot more effective, or it increases the duration

Yellow for Abilities - Ability Materias allow you to perform actions in combat, when you either active a Skill, or when you automatically attack an enemy, or improve for example Basic Features, like increasing your Run Speed, or increasign your Maximum Jump Height, or, or let you swim/dive faster or to places, that you wouldnt be able to reach without them

Blue for Spell/Skill Modifications, that affect the target number, the skill range, the radius of an aoe, add elemental resistances, or effetcs to your attack for additional elemental damage that could hurt alot, if the enemy is weak to that element (Eureka System), Absorb Effects for negative effects, or skill/spell cost reduction/ reload/cast tiem reductions for specific skilsl/spells

Purple is for Character Based Effects, like Exp Buffs, MGP buffs, Gil Buffs, Currency Buffs, Potion/Food Duration/Efficiency Buffs.

Maximum Number of Materia Slots a player should have is limited to 5 Slots per Gear Item type. Sword/Shield is separated into 3/2 as max, so that they have also max only 5 Slots like all others.
Now comes the point where its different out of balance reason, cause in FF7 all this works, because its a single player rpg.
Here in FF14, the Matera Slot List would have a limitation - called Materia Rank Limit.

The MRL is a number, which defines, how much Materia you can have maximum with you. Each Materia has a Rank from 1 to 5.
If you have a Materia, that you want to stop gaining exp, so that its rank doesn't ris,e you have to "seal" it, and if you want to raise its exp again, to "unseal" its powers.
This is basically as gil sink replacement, for not having to remove and put back in materias anymore, and to balance the amount of Materia naturally players can have with them.

The MRL does increase automatically every 10 Levels of your Character by +5.
So at Level 70, we woudl be able to have maximum either 70 Rank 1 Materias with us, or up to maximum 14 Rank 5 ones.
Players will naturally most likely habe rather as many maxed out materias with then, than tons of lower ranked ones, but the uption to split up your materias into many weaker ones, enables to to finetune eventually your characters into ways, that wouldnt be possible, if you just put only maxed out materias into your Slot List and limitate yourself with this to only maximum 14 effects you coudl have with you within the various categories.

Not every materia effect do you want to use maybe forever, some will become less useful eventually also over time and you will want to replace them perhaps, with some other materias of lower ranks, that provide still maybe more useful effects for you at the moment. So max at Level 80 with shadowbrigners woudl be to have then up to 16 maxed out Materias in your list.
And the amount of useable Materias with variosu effects could get constantly increas,e so that players always have somethign to exchange out, to differentiate their "Materia Builds" to their personal likings/needs.

Thats kind of the basic concept, how id liek to see the FF7-version getting reused for FF14

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'm liking the FATE improvement ideas, but I was just wondering if there were other options outside that scope that you'd also like to see. Anything else worth throwing out there?

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Well, outside of FATEs... They could also do more impromptu Primal raids such as how Odin occasionally comes wandering around the Shroud areas. Of course, there would be some limitations (Such as how Titan would be a cakewalk when he doesn't have a 2 ft wide platform to knock everyone off... So he would likely need some change in mechanics. Or perhaps instead of "Falling to your death" rings, he stomps and puts up spikes that impale you if you get knocked back into them...)

There could also be other events happening. Such as the Beast Tribes having to combat their kin attacking them and requesting adventurers aid, but only when people have their reputation high enough. Something to give becoming BFF's with them meaning rather than the current "Well, now I've maxed my reputation. Goodbye forever!". I was thinking something maybe like how in Rift, you'd get areas and towns changed if a nearby Rift was left unchecked and so if you wanted to go do some side quests in the town, you'd need to beat back the invasion first.

They could expand on Hunts too. I was actually thinking about what if they had like Custom Deliveries but for combat classes. That came in the form of Hunts. Where each week specific people would ask you to hunt for various things, culling a population, gathering pelts/bones/teeth etc. But in large enough quantities where you'd be spending some time to do so but get appropriate rewards.

It would also be possible for them to add random NPC into zones. That are stuff like merchants and civilians travelling between zones that occasionally get attacked by the mobs and if you save them, they give you a small reward. Like, not quite a FATE, but just a little bonus thing. (As well as putting a bit more life into the zones with all those NPC's that are implied travelling but you never see outside a FATE to escort them/protect them)

They could even mix together various types of content.

For example, doing a particular Leve has a chance to cause a specific FATE to spawn. The FATE is one of those series where completing it causes a new FATE, with the final FATE having a chance to spawn a raid Primal.

Like, perhaps you do a Leve in La Noscea somewhere. It then creates a FATE where Sahagin attack. Beating the Sahagin makes big boss Sahagin come out. You beat big boss Sahagin and he goes and gets his pet Kraken to come and take you on. After beating the Kraken the Sahagin then summon Leviathan to protect them.