8.0 Selling points

As it says on the tin. With 8.0 heading slowly towards us what do you think will be the selling point that will get everyone interested? what are players thoughts on what jobs or how many.

I know there will be no new races so do you think it could be finally a massive character creation remake?

I am unsure on what we will get but I am hoping the story heads towards something better than DT and I am hoping it is cold and snow ( I love snow) I adored Shadow bringer's and EW as being here from the beginning it felt it all wrapped up and I loved the music everything. DT had a lot to live up too and it did nothing for me. It has had some good things added but the MSQ was not one to me at least.

I really hope they do the CC it is so dated.

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Originally Posted by Luluna

As it says on the tin. With 8.0 heading slowly towards us what do you think will be the selling point that will get everyone interested? what are players thoughts on what jobs or how many.

I know there will be no new races so do you think it could be finally a massive character creation remake?

I am unsure on what we will get but I am hoping the story heads towards something better than DT and I am hoping it is cold and snow ( I love snow) I adored Shadow bringer's and EW as being here from the beginning it felt it all wrapped up and I loved the music everything. DT had a lot to live up too and it did nothing for me. It has had some good things added but the MSQ was not one to me at least.

I really hope they do the CC it is so dated.

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It would be the most logical choice. Adding 2 new jobs, raising the level cap and some nebulous story teaser wouldn't exactly get people excited so they do need a big come and check it out feature. But they could just do routine and let the chips fall where they will, the game would keep waning slowly.

Since the company is restructuring they could simply bring it down to a skeleton crew and follow the settled formula. The game would be profitable for years like XI but nothing to write home about anymore.

The template is so formulaic I'm pretty sure AI could spit out new dungeons in 5 minutes with minor tweaks. They could save a lot in manpower.

This isn't what I want, just assessing possibilities.

I am not expecting huge changes in 8.0, but what I would like to see is some player choice again.

When content had say, 2 tanks, one could have tank stance on, the other had dps stance, this was cool to me. Cleric stance was also cool. Instead of that return to old formula, let characters actually "specialize" their character some. Perhaps via a change to how materia functions or an actual "talent tree" system could work. Heck even old school FFXI with the merit system could be an option to look into. The stale "raise the level cap" system doesn't really tickle the synapses like it used to.

I would really like to see less bland use of "mp" tossed into the mix. Jobs that dont even use MP still get the standard 10k mp bar. That looks sloppy to me.

A true "conbat revamp" may not even be possible at this point, because it seems like they target any complexity and erode it away as if that is some root cause of corruption. Sad really.

I always thought glamour freedom would be an expansion selling point, like how dual dye channel was (and literally the most cheered on DT feature lol)... I'm not complaining that we'll get that in a patch out of the blue, but with that out of the way...

The only thing left I feel that's going to carry 8.0's selling hype (pre-expansion) got to be the new job(s) and the rework to the old ones. We can't really count on the story (usually XIV's big fish) to sell the expansion after we had in Dawntrail - not saying it's going to be bad, but I don't feel it's the kind of thing we'd be able to gauge before actually experiencing it, especially when they reveal so little.

What else can sell 8.0? New battle content?... Honestly anything "new" in that regard can only be judged in actual practice, so the best shot we have is at old stuff that is considered problematic today.

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Originally Posted by Rabblerabble

A true "conbat revamp" may not even be possible at this point, because it seems like they target any complexity and erode it away as if that is some root cause of corruption. Sad really.

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The erosion of job complexity was at the request of the battle team as they wanted to make encounters harder but couldn’t due to complex jobs. They wanted to make battles faster so they had cast times nearly removed in favor of instant casts.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they did away with MP all together and switch to spell / ability cool down timers.

Hopefully jobs won’t be revamped so simple that it looks like the mobile version.

aww thanks for the replies some really good points have been made ^O^ I do agree about the glamour unlock being a selling point it is a bit of a surprise a good one though.

I hope it is the CC and the jobs are good and the old ones improved.

I feel most of our problems stems from the battle design team wanting the game to be played in their one specific way rather than it being due to feedback from players like YoshiP likes to claim

It's a good question because I'm really not sure.


They already pretty much said that the "big combat revamp" they announced in the DT LLs will not be a thing.

But this point, it needs to be big. Character creation update, glamour update, housing update, UI update (checkboxes etc) - all of which require them to basically remake 11yo code, which I'm not sure is even possible at this point.

Or a completely new system, like login rewards or something (log in 14 days out of a month and get a mount/glam or something, with extra little rewards daily and weekly).

But more of the same old will NOT get people back.

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Originally Posted by Luluna

With 8.0 heading slowly towards us what do you think will be the selling point that will get everyone interested?

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Great question! My crystal ball says 8 challenging new dungeons, 3 new trials, 2 extremes, new MSQ, new mounts, new minions, new TT cards, 6 new field areas and 2 new city states, 12 new B ranks, 12 new A ranks, 7 new S ranks, 2 new jobs.

The advertising material will include content in the patches such as 2 new treasure maps, 12 new normal raids, 12 new savage raids, new ultimates (which means 2), 5-6 new trials and their extreme versions, 3 new alliance raids, new field operation (which means 2 new areas), a new deep dungeon, new variant/criterion, new exploration content that consists of 4 zones for crafters/gatherers, new pvp series, more blue mage and beastmaster updates, maybe a new limited job, even further unbelievable inconceivably inconceivable extra Hildibrand adventures, misc updates to PvP and the Gold Saucer such as a new GATE, CC map and Frontline map.

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what are players thoughts on what jobs or how many.

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Tank and DPS.
4.0: DPS+DPS
5.0: Tank+DPS
6.0: Healer+DPS
7.0: DPS+DPS
Guess where we're up to next in the formula?
8.0: Tank+DPS

I think Meracydia was de-confirmed, so I'm not really looking forward to the story. Maybe a good thing, I don't trust them with the concept of Meracydia yet after Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Tank and DPS.
4.0: DPS+DPS
5.0: Tank+DPS
6.0: Healer+DPS
7.0: DPS+DPS
Guess where we're up to next in the formula?
8.0: Tank+DPS

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Except, a normal 8man duty has 4 dps, 2 healers and 2 tanks. If we consider the pattern from 5.0 onward repeating. We will get 4 dps each cycle, and only 1 tank and 1 healer. Which realy puts the dps ahead in option count.
But it gets more complicated, since we do need to consider its type. Physrange, caster and melee have a big diffirence in usecases. Where melee is nearly always free. Melees because of that are the most graceful in duties. There is only 20% chance your job is taken already in just the melee slots.
Caster and physrange have more competition, since they normaly only have 1 slot, and some jobs are highly prefered (and some very quickly kicked) in savage content. Lets say these jobs to get a big rework (making them fresh enough so this behaviour isnt justified), that still means 4 casters and 3 physranges are competing with each spot.
If we deem them mixed (which in the case of reworks could be possible), thats 7 jobs competing with 2 slots. But this is unlikely (although, if instead of phys/caster we consider selfdps/buffer, this can change again).

So on that, i do think tanks and healers are both in higher demand. And tanks allowing a slightly more flexible fill, getting healer is definitely a good thing.
But i would say that for dps, we do need a ranged dps that damage wise can compare with a melee, as this does allow more flexible filling and competition with a melee position.

So yeah, heal+dps to me does still sound like a better idea. Then for 9.0 followed by tank+dps again. But in the end, since the pattern can still just repeat, it realy doesnt matter. It only matters that we get enough support options. And on that, if we get 1 healer added, since its either going to be pure or barrier, the other type will instantly go into the demand state with it. So on that, i do now hope for tank+dps, and for 9.0 and 10.0 2x healer+dps (and then a long wait for the next healer). (or in 10.0 tank+healer, although not having a dps while it being most popular might be awkward)

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Great question! My crystal ball says 8 challenging new dungeons, 3 new trials, 2 extremes, new MSQ, new mounts, new minions, new TT cards, 6 new field areas and 2 new city states, 12 new B ranks, 12 new A ranks, 7 new S ranks, 2 new jobs.

The advertising material will include content in the patches such as 2 new treasure maps, 12 new normal raids, 12 new savage raids, new ultimates (which means 2), 5-6 new trials and their extreme versions, 3 new alliance raids, new field operation (which means 2 new areas), a new deep dungeon, new variant/criterion, new exploration content that consists of 4 zones for crafters/gatherers, new pvp series, more blue mage and beastmaster updates, maybe a new limited job, even further unbelievable inconceivably inconceivable extra Hildibrand adventures, misc updates to PvP and the Gold Saucer such as a new GATE, CC map and Frontline map.
Tank and DPS.
4.0: DPS+DPS
5.0: Tank+DPS
6.0: Healer+DPS
7.0: DPS+DPS
Guess where we're up to next in the formula?
8.0: Tank+DPS

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I keep wondering if they'd (claiming resource limitation) would end up doing just one DPS job for 8.0, likely aiming.

I know that jobs are expansion hype points, but I highly doubt they would do zero jobs as a management excuse for reworks.

Glamour catalog as the surprise new feature! (Yes I’m dreaming lol)

Old Sharlayan housing district… we’re due for another. (Or dreaming again, they finally add an instanced housing system!)

New tank… Mystic Knight
New DPS… not even going to hazard a guess (honestly don’t even know what I’d hope for at the moment)

If the whole “Winterer” thing was just a red herring, and we’re not going south (and sadly not to Meracydia… yet), let’s go to Final Fantasy Viking land! lol I’d love to see that kind of aesthetic for gear and especially hairstyles. Or Scotland… let’s see some real Highlanders!

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

Glamour catalog as the surprise new feature! (Yes I’m dreaming lol)

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I hope so! Also, greatly and I mean greatly expanding the character creator options and extending the graphical update to bodies.

I think we're going back to Ilsabard in 8.0. Hammer tank, pirate phys ranged for the new jobs. 'Job stuff' will be happening, so yeah, I think character creator, and overworld update would be worthwhile things to work on in 8.0.

They're just about out of Final Fantasy games to model it after.

Whatever big new thing they're going to do, Field zone or Island Sanctuary or Moon crafting, it needs to be released in 8.1 at the latest.

With DT, we had to wait until 2.1 for something new for crafting and 2.5 for something new for combat. It was around 10 and 11 months from launch.

IMO an expansion needs something big and new to draw in people and also make it feel like this is what the devs have been cooking for this expansion. Just two new jobs and the same formula for fight content when it's added and what it does, is beginning to get very stale.

And they can just look at what FFXI did. ToAU released with besieged and the first round of assault, and then it kept adding new types of content. Then WoTG released with the vastly expanded campaign that was a clear evolution of besieged, but felt entirely different.

People saying glamour unlock would be a selling point, this is what I'm feeling/hoping. I think glamour unlock was the first step to them hopefully implementing the glamour log in 8.0. Time to move on from the restrictive dresser/plate system. Every time they release another patch and add more gear, it becomes more and more unsustainable. We NEED the glamour log.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

If the whole “Winterer” thing was just a red herring, and we’re not going south

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To be a red herring, it would have to be a deliberate misdirection in the first place.

I think people are taking "winterer" far too literally, and one specific literal interpretation (going elsewhere for winter) when other interpretations are possible: sheltering during a metaphorical rather than literal winter, a difficult time that will eventually turn in their favour if they just wait patiently.

Whatever it is, I don't want meracydia. It's goung to be boring dragon focused expansion again but this time set in africa (or australia)

Some great replies very interesting points being made.

I just hope it is cold and I know the Winterer thing does not mean cold but I feel after DT we need something harsh and gritty and a little less tropical. I saw Scotland mentioned and Highlanders that would be so cool and a nice change from all the sun sea sand lol. I am a lover of all things Winter so I am really hoping it is cold.

I have enjoyed the new quests with the beast tribes the Yok Huy and really enjoyed the story it was charming and it has snow and the area is really nice. I hope they do add maybe a Physical ranged and I am thinking maybe another tank or healer if we are lucky.

After Dawntrail, I am not expecting much, to be honest. They need to prove themselves again on a storytelling level to me for the MSQ to be interesting once more.

Reworking and expanding character creation would definitely be a great thing if they did it.

As for new Jobs, SE should only be allowed to add new healers until they can figure out how to make healers into something other than extremely low damage DPS.

7.4's story needs to basically start setting up 8.0 for a scenario where we're whisked far, far away from this boring setting and these stale people that bad writing has poisoned us with for years. Even outside of Tural, the rest of Eorzea just feels stale by virtue of us being in it for so damn long. A change of scenery, with a party that's actually comprised of interesting characters we haven't already gotten to know for a decade+, and a return to the sense of adventure and unknown. Remember the ARR opening video, where it shows the characters emerging from the woods after the Bahamut explosion and they see lush green fields with chocobos running around and this vast horizon? That grand sense of exploration, of adventure, that's what they need to promise people with 8.0's msq. Nobody gives a shit about the new continent because the writing did it so dirty that just being there reminds one of the endless fetch quests and the story slog they had to endure. That's another thing. In the next 8.0 main scenario storyline, cut down on the chores. Holy crap. It was so predictable and bland after a while. Every town has you just talk to 3 guys, pick up 3 objects, etc. And so much of the story was just told to us via exposition, i.e. some character would just tell us what happened instead of us getting to learn about something organically by playing the game, or experience it through gameplay/the echo like we used to. Remember the train? You go around building it by collecting piece of crap off the ground and talking to 3 npcs, but when it's time to finally pilot it, it's a damn cutscene. not even a qte in there, you just watch. that's dt in a nutshell. boring as hell. missed opportunities everywhere. but i digress.

idc about new jobs. they will just play like the old jobs. and i dont think they will change the gameplay loop in pve, because we hoped for that in dt and basically got endwalker 2.0. i fully expect jobs to be made even simpler. bard will probably lose all its dots. ast will probably lose its cards entirely because let's be real, with how "fixed" its buffs rotate rn it might as well have lost them. nin will probably lose the ability to screw up mudras. tanks will enter content unable to turn off their stance. but people will still be able to queue up without their job stone. you know.

the only thing i have faith in their ability to do well is bring back the good writers and tell a compelling story. i don't believe in them for anything else.

A compelling cinematic for a start.

I'm not in the 'Dawntrail was crap' camp. I don't think it was as good as what came before it, but I don't feel it was the catastrophic insult to gaming that some seem to view it as.

But I will say this: the cinematic was..... lacking. I realise it would've been difficult as they were, basically, starting with a clean slate - however, the cinematic, for me, didn't generate the necessary hype or anticipation. And to be fair, the Endwalker trailer didn't exactly lean heavily on what came before and manage to not give very much away in terms of what was to come.

I mean, I can still watch the Shadowbringers and Endwalker cinematics and get chills - hell, I'll admit, the Endwalker one still makes me emotional..... but Dawntrail's just didn't really trigger any strong emotions one way or another.

2 new DPS jobs!

A 150-quest 10-level MSQ bracket!

Another Island Expedition copy!

Housing Mirage is coming! (not this patch, but next patch. trust)

$60 worth of Mog Station outfits!

Hildibrand exists!

More of the same but slightly different, and some promises of major shakeups 12-16 months after launch that will be as noticeable as 7.2's "improved encounter design".

I'll play the game and gauge for myself.

Obviously better writing quality. But if I can request something more detailed, it's to make the characters talk and act like normal human being. And stop padding cutscene time by showing each characters nodding, cleching fist etc.

Recently replayed bg3 and expedition 33, and it really show how different the dialogue are compared to ff14.

8.0 Reveal Live Letter needs to be 100% different from that last 5 expansions. They need to stop releasing an expansion with no new features at the start. The design philosophy is not good to have promised features coming out closer to the release of the next expansion when those "Key features" were sold as part of the expansion, example Beastmaster.

Content design needs to be released throughout the patch cycle rather than dumped into one patch, again I don't think we will even see Beastmaster until after the NA fanfest, to showcase how bad it actually is. So we will know the 8.0 location before we even get all the promised content from 7.0.

So whatever they do have planned, it would be nice if the promised features could come out within the first 6 months of the expansion release while building up on it with each additional patch cycle adding new content to the promised content for that expansion.

What will happen in 8.0 likely? 2 New jobs, New Msq (50/50 on being good or bad sometimes they do make good stories) 8 new dungeons where you grab two packs meet a wall, repeat, boss do that 2 more times, 3 new trials, 2 Extremes, content that comes throughout the expansion similar to 7.0, good music (praise goes to the music theirs usually always good songs)

What happens in my ideal dream land

• All Jobs get heavily overhauled + combat, we focus on actual fun instead of bland watered down jobs that are bassically animation/weapon packs for the same generic job of "tank" "dps" "healer that doesn't actually really heal"

• Either moving away from the bad trinity system that is outdated, or fix it. The current system isn't working especially for tank and healer roles that feel like glorified boring dps who push out a utility button sometimes.

• Story is really good and moves away from the scions and the main cast is interesting, theirs risks involved, we all know the scions, they're also never going to put any of them in danger because they're too well known, they've already faked us out on that a million times.

• Combat that isn't as predictable and bosses can do more then just one set scripted thing (this is really wishful thinking here)

The real goal with 8.0 will be to show up anyone who thought 7.0 was bad. It will be XIV's "you thought that was bad? I'll show you bad." moment.

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Originally Posted by Darkshade

The real goal with 8.0 will be to show up anyone who thought 7.0 was bad. It will be XIV's "you thought that was bad? I'll show you bad." moment.

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I'd really rather not have our own Shadowlands, we already had BfA.

I think it's important to note that adage to lower our expectations so that we may not get disappointed. As much as I have faith with the team that brought Heavensward with the battle team that developed DSR into one of its most iconic ultimate we are reaching to a point where they have a difficulty to bring that bar up again. That aside, I would love to really see them shape things up where they really make it accessible more than the story to where we could experience what the next expansion would be. I dislike borrowing from the other side of the fence but having an incursion event of what the next expansion will hook us, like something profound. Aside from: taken characters, assassination plots, along with some supernatural phenomena, I think we are in need of a meaningful choice of leaving one behind to save the other moment, (scion related maybe or not) we need a good change in the story.

Though if anything they really need to

Change the tome system. Get rid of the cap and increase it to 4k at least (having 21 jobs maybe 23 jobs next expansion with just 900 tomes every week has become atrocious to bear)

Overhaul the inventory management. (Make it like cosmic exploration, instead of saving it in our backpack. Put it in a log of its own like a cloud storage!)

Make it alt friendly (Yes fantasias exist, but having an alt to where we can just be able to play it without a hassle of redoing the entire MSQ to keep the current expansion is unfriendly)

Put the relic weapon at its earliest stage at 8.05 and reallocate the timing of the tome weapon restrictions to be lifted at .05, .25, and .45 of each 8 wing is released, respectively.

As much as I condone it, but if anything else, have AI fix the spaghetti code completely if the team will reference it again as to why they will not forego any kind of new plan.

Get Ishikawa back in that writer's seat, and get Mr. Ozma back on punishing us daily! Or at least make content more puzzling, because in true Final Fantasy sense, we're hitting the level cap - less gloves on is an understandable demand at the very least, if Ishikawa isn't going to grace us with her beautiful and meaningful narrative pacing.



And... technically, this isn't a 8.0 selling point, but the repeated "restructure" of the company makes hopes for 8.0 more bleak than bright. AI keeps breaking Microsoft code, AI is a front for scams, AI makes more problems to solve than actually solving, AI is too indicative of a cheap product - I wish they'd retain beautiful talent onboard and foster promising people who can understand what makes FFXIV appealing. Anything AI touches is purely slop for the sake of fulfilling a goal, and not putting meaning in the journey that was taken.

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Originally Posted by Kanehana

Get Ishikawa back in that writer's seat, and get Mr. Ozma back on punishing us daily! Or at least make content more puzzling, because in true Final Fantasy sense, we're hitting the level cap - less gloves on is an understandable demand at the very least, if Ishikawa isn't going to grace us with her beautiful and meaningful narrative pacing.



And... technically, this isn't a 8.0 selling point, but the repeated "restructure" of the company makes hopes for 8.0 more bleak than bright. AI keeps breaking Microsoft code, AI is a front for scams, AI makes more problems to solve than actually solving, AI is too indicative of a cheap product - I wish they'd retain beautiful talent onboard and foster promising people who can understand what makes FFXIV appealing. Anything AI touches is purely slop for the sake of fulfilling a goal, and not putting meaning in the journey that was taken.

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Amen, could not have said this better methinks.