Suggested Improvements for Combat

[Fendred]

Diversify healing abilities: Localized and Ranged Heals

In Final Fantasy Tactics, the monk could heal adjescent party members with his chakra. However, doing so came at the risk of enemies using AoE attacks on him and his nearby allies. Ranged heals allowed a party member to avoid being clumped up, but created a situation where the healer could be flanked. Understanding the abilities of your opponent becomes very important, as well as positioning. I feel the same could help bring more depth to combat in FFXIV.

You might be able to tank the boss, but his minions are another story...

Swarms of regular strength opponents using specialized tactics to take down individual players are far more threatening than a couple of elite dragons. Tanking becomes a task of knocking down and repositioning opponents to prevent them from achieving their ideal tactical positions instead of managing a threat meter. Its these encounters that open up the possibility of traditional tanks doing more interesting things than being meat shields as well as allowing damage dealers the chance to protect their allies (something that is kind of missing in MMORPG combat).

Make aggro a more dynamic mechanic (Don't think I can't see what you're doing there!)

In Final Fantasy XI, different monsters had different forms of detection. Some were sight based, others sound based, and yet others olfactory based. If your healer is standing in plane sight of the dragon while throwing heals at the tank, that should be creating a ton more aggro than if he were behind the dragon. Similarly, if a black mage were standing close to a giant bat demon while casting spells, that demon has a whole lot of incentives to go after the black mage instead of the paladin. It just makes sense.

[Marxam]

Include lvl 50+ mobs in each zone as part of an "Elder" version of low tier mobs.

Imagine a fresh new GLD walking out to central thanalan and seeing a level 53 adamantoise among the ladybugs or a veteran ilvl 110 level bumping into a lvl 69 Gigas roaming near the entrance to ST. These mobs are not marks and are just normal enemies and spawn at the same rate upon defeat. Drops HQ mats at a higher rate.

Varied weapon selections, specifically for Marauder, Lancer and Archer.

Marauders need hammers, Lancers need jousts, Archers need greatbows. It can be identical in base stats to axes, spears, bows (since it easier to balance) or they can adjust it entirely to create a sense of "trade-off" (more for hardcore but probably won't ever happen due to the current system).

EDIT:

Bazaar

Similar to the FFXII or FFT versions where you trade in specific items and quantities of said item to an in-game npc to receive a new item available to purchase. It can go hand in hand with the lvl 50+ mobs dropping specific items at a higher rate but not exclusive to high tier mobs. It will also be available through the lower tier but at a much lower drop rate. I would also include the ability to trade for glamour items for those who have no crafting to 50.

[Alukah]

In Final Fantasy XI, different monsters had different forms of detection. Some were sight based, others sound based, and yet others olfactory based.

Just a small clarification, our open world monsters also have those three different way to detect you, at least initially.

[ispano]

Just a small clarification, our open world monsters also have those three different way to detect you, at least initially.

Not quite actually. We had sight and two types of sound in 1.0.

[HeroSamson]

1. Jobs are fine the way they are, I consider these jobs to be step one, step two will be the new expansion jobs.

2. wouldn't work in this game, would be a bad idea due to the fact that if you couldn't keep hate and whm dies in dungeon you are dead and as much as whm spams heal would kill the whm instantly if you are going by FFXI enmity terms plus no way in hell jobs here can least take some hits before they die like in ffxi also.

3. would be a bad idea because of empty spots in the game nobody really goes to much anymore, they need a quest in that area monsters are too hard and can't get help you will see a decline, remember SOA in FFXI soon as they did that making stronger monsters and couldn't get people to help it was a deserted wasteland.

[Alukah]

Not quite actually. We had sight and two types of sound in 1.0.

Well then, two of the mentioned point is they are still here, they never went away.

[Deusteele]

I Don't really understand the point of these.

#1. Just sounds like normal heals with shorter ranges, enemies already have cleaves and AoE's so standing near others to heal already
has a cost.

#2. So a normal boss fight? Many fights have add spawns that must be picked up before they devour your healers. And tanking properly is far more then being a meat shield. Many strategies are tuned toward reducing the need for this. I.e solo Titan-Ex strat.

#3. Kinda like running behind some mobs can keep them from targeting you? Or just crank it to eleven on existing mobs and prevent speedruns?

#4. And what would they do, other then encourage players to camp them and gather better materials for crafting? There are guides to HQ crafting using NQ materials. So players already have a work around for that idea.

#5. Why? A jousting lance is nothing like a spear used by footmen. WTF is a greatbow? We have huge bows already in game. The Bow of Crags and several late game bows are already near player height. Axes -> Hammers is possible, but what would it do, other then take a weapon that could be used by another Job.

What is the point of making enmity so important?
Guess what? IT"S NOT!

Holding aggro is a completely binary mechanic . Either the tank has it, or they don't.

Even if we combined 2 of your ideas. Which no doubt was your intention. 1 and 3. Would just cause a complete drop of melee classes. Why would you want to run to melee to heal targets, risk dying and wiping? When you can just stand in the back and heal ranged safely and smoothly.

[Musashidon]

eh FFT was all about cheesing end game. only when you couldn't do any of the op tactics did you have to consider things.

[Anapingofness]

I really hope they add lvl50+ mobs to the overworld... It may ease up on the people who SB in dungeons. =\

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I really hope they add lvl50+ mobs to the overworld... It may ease up on the people who SB in dungeons. =\

Until you start getting dungeons that also have mobs over level 50.