Bring in factions.

Look my dudes im tired of being the good guy its lame and cringe is there anyway factions could be introduced?

Your grand company is your faction :D

Jokes aside, what would adding factions even add to the game, to the story? This is a PVE mmo first and foremost and revolves around it’s story. PVP exists without the need for a faction as well, it’s just not open world.

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Originally Posted by Fungaahhh

Look my dudes im tired of being the good guy its lame and cringe is there anyway factions could be introduced?

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Likewise. I would jump at the chance to formally ally myself with Garlemald or Ishgard as opposed to the utterly boring original 3 city states.

Not having factions is literally one of the best parts of this game. Splintering the community pointlessly between factions is beyond dumb. At least WoW finally recognized that and allows both factions to group up and do group content together now.

Tangible factional divides are a pretty terrible inclusion unless the game is built like, from the ground up to be basically entirely about them. And even then, there's a low of ways to blow that; WoW's gone on long enough to have run into most ways to screw it up by itself, including the ways that contradict other ways.

If you just include factions without going through any meaningful effort to differentiate them, be it in gameplay or story, then it just won't really matter. It'd be like the grand companies, like Eclipse said; if all it really changes is where you do faction turnins and what icon appears on your character sheet, then it ceases to be meaningful beyond what color your rewards are, or minor metagaming situations like 'the Flames have the closest HQ to an aetheryte'. We've already got that situation, and you most likely already ignore it, what would adding another, more moustache-twirly faction add if that's all it is?

Now if you want to big it up, that's an angle, but again it's an angle that basically needs to be game-spanning to reach a point where it actually matters. That doesn't necessarily mean every faction needs to have an entirely different story--The Secret World got pretty far out of just crafting a handful of faction-specific cutscenes and quests and having all the mission turnin texts be faction-specific, most of what unfolded was identical--but in FFXIV's case it would kind of have to be, because there isn't really any smaller component you could change out. Swapping out the 'HQ team' sounds largely plausible for A Realm Reborn, then you've landed in the TSW situation where you swap out the Scions for different people, but... well, you don't have to think very hard to notice that idea gets progressively more impossible the further you go in the expansions. For that to function in FFXIV you'd basically be writing two mostly different stories, and there you run into another problem with factionally-divided MMOs: they're always super lopsided. I remember at one point, a City of Heroes developer got asked why the villain side tended to get less content, and he responded that only about 20% of the playerbase actually played villains. Once the numeric divide comes in, it's going to quickly become clear that working on one of those stories gives significantly less return on effort invested than the other, and at that point, you're gonna start writing with that in mind, either by half-assing the minority faction's content (what CoH did), writing overall content that favors the majority side (what WoW did), or just not bothering to do the faction-specific content entirely (what TSW did).

Also, I'm tired of playing MMOs with that factional element. If I wanted to keep playing those games, I would be; I'm here in large part because this game doesn't have that, and I find the community largely better for it. I feel like the factional element does weird and unpleasant things to the playerbase of an MMO with it, particularly the roleplaying side that I tend to get into. Either people take the factions really seriously and start treating people like crap for daring to pick different from them (or the sub-type, 'a portion of the playerbase picks the Obvious Bad Guy Faction and then use it as an excuse to be dicks'), or the playerbase just rejects that side of things at all and often scorns the people who do try to bring in that part of the game, despite it being... y'know, a part of the game.

So yeah. You can't just 'bring in factions', doing so would be a terrible idea on basically every level it's possible for that to be a terrible idea.

Not going to happen beyond "the city state/Grand Company you signed up with is your faction".

This is a FF game first and foremost, you're always the 'good guy' fighting the evil Empire in the FF series (despite some shades of grey in morality of alliegence in some). If you're expecting that to be added, then you're going to be disappointed I'm sorry to say, as it will never happen here.

If factions aren't going to let me jump someone:s face and gank them, I don't see the point.

You can find more info on how to start factions here.

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Originally Posted by Fungaahhh

Look my dudes im tired of being the good guy its lame and cringe is there anyway factions could be introduced?

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join gridanian, they are racist

Join lominsan they are racist

join ul'dah, they are racist AND snobs.

Funny, if this MMO in particular has taught me anything, it's the good guy factions that spawn the "intolerant dicks". And, for all FFXIV cultists love to point the finger at WoW for literally everything wrong with the genre factional warfare is one of the least contributing factors to its recent decline. If you're gonna start throwing shade, at least get your facts straight. ESO does factional combat perfectly fine and has a healthy playerbase. WoW's new dual-faction gameplay remains optional, Horde vs. Alliance warfare RP has hardly magickally vanished due to its inclusion. So, in summary frankly this idea isn't the cataclysmic suggestion some seem to labor under the delusion it would be. And, it's not as if FFXIV doesn't have its fair share of toxicity. Let's as a community stop pretending to be morally superior to all other MMOs, shall we?

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

Funny, if this MMO in particular has taught me anything, it's the good guy factions that spawn the "intolerant dicks". And, for all FFXIV cultists love to point the finger at WoW for literally everything wrong with the genre factional warfare is one of the least contributing factors to its recent decline. If you're gonna start throwing shade, at least get your facts straight. ESO does factional combat perfectly fine and has a healthy playerbase. WoW's new dual-faction gameplay remains optional, Horde vs. Alliance warfare RP has hardly magickally vanished due to its inclusion. So, in summary frankly this idea isn't the cataclysmic suggestion some seem to labor under the delusion it would be. And, it's not as if FFXIV doesn't have its fair share of toxicity. Let's as a community stop pretending to be morally superior to all other MMOs, shall we?

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i'm curious, how ESO does it?

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Originally Posted by AmpelioB

i'm curious, how ESO does it?

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They squish all PvP into a single dedicated province called Cyrodiil, where the Ruby Throne resides. You can participate starting at level 10. If the three realms (your faction is a realm) are unbalanced it can get a tad hopeless. It was an ... interesting concept, much of it apparently brought from Dark Ages of Camelot Online. At least that's the way it was when I last played it, which, admittedly, has been over half a decade.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

They squish all PvP into a single dedicated province called Cyrodiil, where the Ruby Throne resides. You can participate starting at level 10. If the three realms (your faction is a realm) are unbalanced it can get a tad hopeless. It was an ... interesting concept, much of it apparently brought from Dark Ages of Camelot Online. At least that's the way it was when I last played it, which, admittedly, has been over half a decade.

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Ahh, I recognize that PvP system, TSW had it for one of its PvP modes.

It was a flaming garbage fire. If your faction just wasn't very capable in PvP, either at that time of the day or just in general, it was completely pointless, while if your faction was the type to dominate it was basically just free rewards.

So basically, not too far off from when Frontlines didn't just put you on a completely random side, and if you picked the Flames it was inevitable that you were going to lose.

You people speak as if anybody actually does Frontlines normally outside of grueling through it for the Roulette rewards. It's always funny to see people yell on /alliance chat about how much their team is sucking and why they won't all go the same direction. It's FFXIV PvP, bud. What exactly were you expecting, unit cohesion?! ;3

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

You people speak as if anybody actually does Frontlines normally outside of grueling through it for the Roulette rewards. It's always funny to see people yell on /alliance chat about how much their team is sucking and why they won't all go the same direction. It's FFXIV PvP, bud. What exactly were you expecting, unit cohesion?! ;3

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aren't people doing it for the Garo Mounts too?

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

You people speak as if anybody actually does Frontlines normally outside of grueling through it for the Roulette rewards. It's always funny to see people yell on /alliance chat about how much their team is sucking and why they won't all go the same direction. It's FFXIV PvP, bud. What exactly were you expecting, unit cohesion?! ;3

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I actually enjoyed 24 man frontlines, and the fact SE ripped it out is still a sore point for more. More to the point of this thread, I personally disagree. WoW's factions became a story blackhole that the seeming majority who still play the game, (myself included) loathe. That, and splitting the player base is by default factually dumb.

Forget factions. Let’s talk official Blue Mage soccer league.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUfZg4Ir3gM

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

Funny, if this MMO in particular has taught me anything, it's the good guy factions that spawn the "intolerant dicks". And, for all FFXIV cultists love to point the finger at WoW for literally everything wrong with the genre factional warfare is one of the least contributing factors to its recent decline. If you're gonna start throwing shade, at least get your facts straight. ESO does factional combat perfectly fine and has a healthy playerbase. WoW's new dual-faction gameplay remains optional, Horde vs. Alliance warfare RP has hardly magickally vanished due to its inclusion. So, in summary frankly this idea isn't the cataclysmic suggestion some seem to labor under the delusion it would be. And, it's not as if FFXIV doesn't have its fair share of toxicity. Let's as a community stop pretending to be morally superior to all other MMOs, shall we?

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Where in the world did you get any of this? The issue is that FFXIV isn't designed to have factions. To suddenly introduce them would upend the entire core of the game's model, which is highly unlikely to do anything good and most likely to be an absolute disaster. And while factions themselves didn't end WoW (nobody claimed it did), it also can't be denied that there has been a huge imbalance between them for years and the devs themselves have even acknowledged that more is invested in the more populous faction (Horde).

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Where in the world did you get any of this? The issue is that FFXIV isn't designed to have factions. To suddenly introduce them would upend the entire core of the game's model, which is highly unlikely to do anything good and most likely to be an absolute disaster. And while factions themselves didn't end WoW (nobody claimed it did), it also can't be denied that there has been a huge imbalance between them for years and the devs themselves have even acknowledged that more is invested in the more populous faction (Horde).

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it is not impossible though, a way that I see possible would be the New World which we don't know how much inhabited is, we could have our current factions (Limsa Thanalan Gridania Ala mhigo Doma and Garlemald) trying to explore it since it's rich on ceruleum and other vegetables good and we could choose to ally to any of the nations exploring it, this could also lead to a very interactive story where you could help certain nations to conquer some specific areas of the New World.

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Originally Posted by AmpelioB

i this could also lead to a very interactive story where you could help certain nations to conquer some specific areas of the New World.

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Just great. The Warrior of Light, savior of two worlds, becomes the Butcher of the New World.

I can't see this happening in this game.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Just great. The Warrior of Light, savior of two worlds, becomes the Butcher of the New World.

I can't see this happening in this game.

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There are many ways to do it, it doesn't have to be through raid nor pillage, I understand the hesitation but even the expedition from limsa they are said to have trade those good with Eorezea material to the Mamool Ja of the New World.

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Originally Posted by AmpelioB

it is not impossible though, a way that I see possible would be the New World which we don't know how much inhabited is, we could have our current factions (Limsa Thanalan Gridania Ala mhigo Doma and Garlemald) trying to explore it since it's rich on ceruleum and other vegetables good and we could choose to ally to any of the nations exploring it, this could also lead to a very interactive story where you could help certain nations to conquer some specific areas of the New World.

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Your 'solution' is purely narrative justification (and a bad one at that), while ignoring the myriad other forks of the problem. In fact, I'd argue that narrative justification is the only thing it doesn't need help with.

FFXIV just straight-up is not a game designed for factions more involved than the grand companies, on any level. Your pitch just doesn't function for the way FFXIV structures story or content, you're requesting an entirely different game. ...or possibly just a Frontlines map with extra preamble, which I'd dislike for other reasons, all of Frontlines' maps are terrible designs for a terrible game mode.

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Originally Posted by AmpelioB

This could also lead to a very interactive story where you could help certain nations to conquer some specific areas of the New World.

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You need to work on your media literacy. FFXIV literally starts as a game with a profoundly anti-colonialist message and maintains it, to introduce a narrative like this would genuinely go against everything the game has tried to say up to and through Endwalker.

Also, read up on Britain colonizing the Americas. I'm sure it'll be elucidating.

Factions work best when the game is designed around the concept from the outset. Warcraft had about a 10 year history of Horde vs. Alliance going into World of Warcraft, and its greatest strengths revolved around PvP. The downsides are that you splinter the playerbase, and most servers end up becoming completely skewed to one faction or the other in the long run. In addition, you see a gradual trend towards having less and less unique 'faction' content and more cases of here are your starting zones, now head off into the exact same expansion as the other team. It's a waste of resources to create completely different games for each faction each time.

Various games have tried to employ a similar concept when their associated franchises have an intrinsic faction split (Warhammer, Star Wars, etc.) but it generally plays out the same. And Warcraft itself has ultimately opted for a collaborative approach to allow more players to play with each other regardless of faction. Which makes sense, as MMOs live or die based off of community.

The problem with introducing in post hoc factions is that they unfortunately end up being more cosmetic than anything else, because MMOs don't allow much room for diverging plotlines. The aptly titled Guild Wars Factions was a good example of this.

If you're looking for a diplomacy/kingdom management mini-game, I'm sure they could create one around the ragtag bunch of voidsent hanging out in Zero's domain. Broker deals with more powerful voidsent and build the power of your domain. But even in cases like that there's bound to be an optimal strategy, and there's a risk that everyone's optimized domain is going to turn out the same.

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Originally Posted by Videra

You need to work on your media literacy. FFXIV literally starts as a game with a profoundly anti-colonialist message and maintains it, to introduce a narrative like this would genuinely go against everything the game has tried to say up to and through Endwalker.

Also, read up on Britain colonizing the Americas. I'm sure it'll be elucidating.

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It's not as if the game hasn't completely thrown its themes out the window before, Endwalker itself being a prime example of that. If nothing, else his idea would help bring something interesting to the New World which as of now doesn't have many compelling things going on for it.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

It's not as if the game hasn't completely thrown its themes out the window before, Endwalker itself being a prime example of that. If nothing, else his idea would help bring something interesting to the New World which as of now doesn't have many compelling things going on for it.

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The most jarring moment of the game clashing with it's own theme for me was in Stormblood.
The MSQ is all about ending the tyranny of unfair governments by helping revolutionary armies. And then there's the lvl 60 to 70 samurai questline where we help the police fight against a man wanting to start a revolution against the clearly corrupt Hingashi government.

Of course there's some differences between the MSQ and the job quests, like the oppressors being the actual government instead of invading forces. Or Ugetsu killing around lords and people getting in his way like the police.

But the thing is, he was justified, the lords killed his family and oppressed the people. Things the garleans did in the MSQ that warranted a revolution.
But instead we work with the police to protect this clearly corrupted government.

It felt so at odds with freeing Doma and Ala Mhigo from their oppressors and then denying the same to Hingashi.
I would rather not have help the government in the first place.

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Originally Posted by RukoBoshi

The most jarring moment of the game clashing with it's own theme for me was in Stormblood.
The MSQ is all about ending the tyranny of unfair governments by helping revolutionary armies. And then there's the lvl 60 to 70 samurai questline where we help the police fight against a man wanting to start a revolution against the clearly corrupt Hingashi government.

Of course there's some differences between the MSQ and the job quests, like the oppressors being the actual government instead of invading forces. Or Ugetsu killing around lords and people getting in his way like the police.

But the thing is, he was justified, the lords killed his family and oppressed the people. Things the garleans did in the MSQ that warranted a revolution.
But instead we work with the police to protect this clearly corrupted government.

It felt so at odds with freeing Doma and Ala Mhigo from their oppressors and then denying the same to Hingashi.
I would rather not have help the government in the first place.

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I feel as though that was part of the point of those quests. To make you wonder who's in the right. Neither side is good. It's also a huge nod to what was happening and how people felt and acted around the beginning of the Meji Era of Japan. Where yes there's corrupt officials and there should be a way to deal with said officials, but you also can't have people going around trying to kill or killing people. As that just causes a different set of problems.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Your 'solution' is purely narrative justification (and a bad one at that), while ignoring the myriad other forks of the problem. In fact, I'd argue that narrative justification is the only thing it doesn't need help with.

FFXIV just straight-up is not a game designed for factions more involved than the grand companies, on any level. Your pitch just doesn't function for the way FFXIV structures story or content, you're requesting an entirely different game. ...or possibly just a Frontlines map with extra preamble, which I'd dislike for other reasons, all of Frontlines' maps are terrible designs for a terrible game mode.

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Originally Posted by Videra

You need to work on your media literacy. FFXIV literally starts as a game with a profoundly anti-colonialist message and maintains it, to introduce a narrative like this would genuinely go against everything the game has tried to say up to and through Endwalker.

Also, read up on Britain colonizing the Americas. I'm sure it'll be elucidating.

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Hey, I live in a colonized country (Brazil), I know A LOT, about the horrors of colonialism but hey, this is just a game. these are fake worlds into fake factions.

People pretend like Doma isn't a Feudalism just because Hien is pretty (and I love him but doesn't change the fact he is nobility) or that all three base nations are stupidly xenophobic by nature. but feel free to bat an eye to that just because I made an suggestion into this fake lore.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

I feel as though that was part of the point of those quests. To make you wonder who's in the right. Neither side is good. It's also a huge nod to what was happening and how people felt and acted around the beginning of the Meji Era of Japan. Where yes there's corrupt officials and there should be a way to deal with said officials, but you also can't have people going around trying to kill or killing people. As that just causes a different set of problems.

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Pretty sure Hingashi is pre Meji era so Ugetsu is trying to kick that off and we end up on the side basically saying "We don't need a revloution we can fix it without that." They can't but that's a whole other issue.

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

Pretty sure Hingashi is pre Meji era so Ugetsu is trying to kick that off and we end up on the side basically saying "We don't need a revloution we can fix it without that." They can't but that's a whole other issue.

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I'm not so sure as Hingashi at least with the history we do have about it seems to have had its Tokugawa period. That and at the start of the Meiji there was a lot of corruption and oppression still left over. That and it is hard to ignore the guns the few times we see them in the surrounding area. Either way trying to kill and or killing officials even if they're corrupt isn't the way to go about it.

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Originally Posted by RukoBoshi

The most jarring moment of the game clashing with it's own theme for me was in Stormblood.
The MSQ is all about ending the tyranny of unfair governments by helping revolutionary armies. And then there's the lvl 60 to 70 samurai questline where we help the police fight against a man wanting to start a revolution against the clearly corrupt Hingashi government.

Of course there's some differences between the MSQ and the job quests, like the oppressors being the actual government instead of invading forces. Or Ugetsu killing around lords and people getting in his way like the police.

But the thing is, he was justified, the lords killed his family and oppressed the people. Things the garleans did in the MSQ that warranted a revolution.
But instead we work with the police to protect this clearly corrupted government.

It felt so at odds with freeing Doma and Ala Mhigo from their oppressors and then denying the same to Hingashi.
I would rather not have help the government in the first place.

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A quiet undercurrent of FFXIV's general anti-authoritarianism and pro revolution context is the important underlining of 'while overthrowing a terrible regime is good, you can't do it without a good plan and alternative'. Perhaps most famously, Nanamo's plan to restructure Ul'Dah goes extremely poorly, but it's something that comes up several other times.

• Ishgard didn't exactly pass between governments peacefully, and while it lucked out in circumstances and by having someone like Aymeric to take the helm, it still needed to do complex compromises to get through it all, and multiple side storylines show that even afterwards it still had people who disagreed with it and people who were unjustly screwed over by it.
• Ala Mhigo both has the backstory of their revolution being agitated for by the Garleans solely so they could invade after, and the 4.x story of them trying to find a more equitable government form because all their previous ones sucked.
• While Doma did have the strength of a desired form to return to since nobody disliked Kaien's rule, there is definite understanding that even that still needed to improve.
• The Bozjan resistance didn't just need to legitimize their cause through Gunnhildr's Blades, it also had to grapple with the fact that the IVth Legion was actually better than their previous government for a lot of people.
• And Ugetsu in the Samurai questline is trying to bring back the Age of Blood that Hingans know was a terrible part of their history, and only wants to do that because he himself would benefit from that. He's essentially a bad-faith revolutionary. (By the way, Hingashi's social policies suggest they're actually in a slightly sanitized Tokugawa period, and the Age of Blood is Japan's Warring States period, so Ugetsu's plan is basically 'let's go from bad to worse'.)

Yeah, FFXIV agrees that overthrowing terrible regimes is good, and that's pretty much most of the story both around the Garlean Empire, and of Garlemald itself, as well as plenty of other examples around the place. But it's also aware that overthrowing the terrible regime is just one step of the process; not only can you not just skip to that step, you also can't just call it a day after overthrowing the government... both of which Ugetsu wanted to do.

Basically, the problem with Ugetsu was that he was a selfish bastard with a bad plan. He's an even worse version of Ilberd; at least Ilberd genuinely thought his plan would help people outside himself.

EDIT: Also, while the game never brings it up, Ala Mhigo's probably a cautionary tale for Hingashi as well; at the time they were right next to Garlean territories, who had already taken advantage of neighboring revolutions before. And you can't tell me that Zenos of all people wouldn't have relished conquering Samurai Central.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

I'm not so sure as Hingashi at least with the history we do have about it seems to have had its Tokugawa period. That and at the start of the Meiji there was a lot of corruption and oppression still left over. That and it is hard to ignore the guns the few times we see them in the surrounding area. Either way trying to kill and or killing officials even if they're corrupt isn't the way to go about it.

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The age of blood seems more Sengoku period and Kugane is based on the singular port that japan was forced to open and that's pre Meiji as well. The sekeisigumi are a stand in for the Shinsengumi as well.

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Originally Posted by AmpelioB

Hey, I live in a colonized country (Brazil), I know A LOT, about the horrors of colonialism but hey, this is just a game. these are fake worlds into fake factions.

People pretend like Doma isn't a Feudalism just because Hien is pretty (and I love him but doesn't change the fact he is nobility) or that all three base nations are stupidly xenophobic by nature. but feel free to bat an eye to that just because I made an suggestion into this fake lore.

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You know what, I'll hold this L. Was a pretty assholish move bringing real-life colonialism (a genuine problem) into silly video game discussion. Hadn't eaten my wheaties at that point in the morning.

I don't know exactly what OP had in mind regarding bringing factions into ffxiv, but if for the sake of shaking things up and forcing the devs to innovate, I'm all for it. Maybe they can copy ESO system by having one region that allow pvp. As for branching storyline, perhaps it can be done by making player choose between two areas that contain it's set of quest. For example, if you choose to go to area B, when you go to area A you can't do the quests there, therefore you can only progress msq by doing your area B quests.

Also seconded the conqueror route idea. It'll be way more interesting than what we got until now.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

I don't know exactly what OP had in mind regarding bringing factions into ffxiv, but if for the sake of shaking things up and forcing the devs to innovate, I'm all for it. Maybe they can copy ESO system by having one region that allow pvp.

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How is this different from the Grand Companies and Carteneau Flats? Three factions, one region for contest. I suppose they could make it open PvP, but to what end? Does anyone truly believe PvP players enjoy getting ganked continuously while they level up?

Even ESO's PvP had PvE elements. The area was totally dominated by the most populous faction on any given server. Loads of fun. Not.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

How is this different from the Grand Companies and Carteneau Flats? Three factions, one region for contest. I suppose they could make it open PvP, but to what end? Does anyone truly believe PvP players enjoy getting ganked continuously while they level up?

Even ESO's PvP had PvE elements. The area was totally dominated by the most populous faction on any given server. Loads of fun. Not.

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Before i quit i tried esos pvp. Didn't like it at all since my faction sucked.

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Originally Posted by Videra

You know what, I'll hold this L. Was a pretty assholish move bringing real-life colonialism (a genuine problem) into silly video game discussion. Hadn't eaten my wheaties at that point in the morning.

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it's okay, I understand, I only cited resource exploration because it's the only recorded thing we have from the New world and the only things I can remember are from the Blue Questline and i'm not very fond of blue mage at all. But I would gladly take better takes into the subject.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

like this

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cleretic has a good view on the subject so I'd gladly take what approach you would take this.

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Originally Posted by sidurgu-12

Before i quit i tried esos pvp. Didn't like it at all since my faction sucked.

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Yeah, that's not even a problem you had to leave FFXIV to see: three-sided PvP is terrible when it's actually tied to player-selected faction, because there is literally no chance of all three factions being of equal strength. In my experience you'll usually have one with the raw population win, one with less people but more of them being really into PvP, and one being the victim of a curbstomp because they had neither.

Before they mandated freelancing in Frontlines that was also true there; every match boiled down to Adder Vs. Maelstrom, with the Flames having no chance bar extreme luck on the later-night 8v8v8s. I'm not even entirely sure why that started, but once that population dynamic gets realized, it becomes self-fulfilling: the Flames never won, so people serious about winning never joined the Flames, so the Flames never had the people to win.

Even two-side PvP often has that problem, but at least fixing that is a much simpler prospect.

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Originally Posted by AmpelioB

it's okay, I understand, I only cited resource exploration because it's the only recorded thing we have from the New world and the only things I can remember are from the Blue Questline and I'm not very fond of blue mage at all. But I would gladly take better takes into the subject.

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To be honest, I think an exploration of the parts of The New World we don't know about would be pleasant. Namely, the Mamool-Ja kingdoms that we only have loose descriptions of, and more lore on the Whalaqee. And, if there had to be a form of conflict to drive the story, I'd be really interested in seeing tension between the Mamool-Ja and Whalaqee in particular. You could spin that in a lot of ways, and maybe some bullheaded dickery from outsider nations trying to butt into problems that aren't their own. Just to spitball a few ideas.

This is something of a crack desire, but I'd really like to see SE do something 'different' with one of the left-over ascians. Namely, Deudalaphon, Halmarut, and Altima. While I understand many players would like to see them conceptually gone from the story, they are loose ends. And I think exploring what they're now doing with their freedom to self-govern could make for some genuinely great storylines. Especially seeing as we have had no baseline interactions with those ascians in particular.

GW2 managed a Grand Company-esque kind of faction split in their story, but took it to the same level as city-state choice and had your faction choice influence which NPCs you met and diverge a chunk of your storyline, before it rerouted back to the shared storyline. Factions being used for that is a neat concept. And, with new game plus, we could theoretically still experience the other storylines if they did that. Though we'd have to be able to mark what your canon choice is somehow for any references going forward...? It'd be potentially complicated (and those complications are probably also why we can't experience the other city-states in NG+ right now). Still, could be fun.

Factions that actually divide the playerbase into seriously opposing sides is not a good idea imo. Especially if it kept the sides from communicating and cooperating for some reason. But they'd never do that anyway, so that's a moot point.