What do you hope will be announced at FanFest?

[WellFooled]

What I expect is pretty bare bones, but what I'd like/love to hear is an overhaul of the game's tired formula. 3 points in particular.

1: Some system for customizing gameplay. The simplest solution is more interesting stats on gear, but a talent tree, sub jobs, etc would also fit the bill.
2: More interesting and varied battle content. Instead of predictable dungeons/trials/raids in a format so unchanging I could tell you what's going to be in patch 7.3, I would like to see new formats for battle content. Even things as simple as "Defend this outpost from waves of enemy attacks" or "Deliver this bomb to its destination" would be a welcome relief from the linear, predictable content we have now.
3: Ease up on the freakishly steep vertical progression. Nothing we accomplish in the game has any long lasting meaning as it is. I can slave and slave for a new set of gear (that is already super boring because of the lack of interesting stats) and in a couple months time that gear with be both worthless and incredibly easy to get.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

What I expect is pretty bare bones, but what I'd like/love to hear is an overhaul of the game's tired formula. 3 points in particular.

1: Some system for customizing gameplay. The simplest solution is more interesting stats on gear, but a talent tree, sub jobs, etc would also fit the bill.
2: More interesting and varied battle content. Instead of predictable dungeons/trials/raids in a format so unchanging I could tell you what's going to be in patch 7.3, I would like to see new formats for battle content. Even things as simple as "Defend this outpost from waves of enemy attacks" or "Deliver this bomb to its destination" would be a welcome relief from the linear, predictable content we have now.
3: Ease up on the freakishly steep vertical progression. Nothing we accomplish in the game has any long lasting meaning as it is. I can slave and slave for a new set of gear (that is already super boring because of the lack of interesting stats) and in a couple months time that gear with be both worthless and incredibly easy to get.

Hope you're ready for 6+ months of maintenance downtime then.

Oh, not refundable though they might suspend further subs during that period.

[Voltyblast]

Hope you're ready for 6+ months of maintenance downtime then.

Oh, not refundable though they might suspend further subs during that period.

If content lasts more than the usual 24-48 hours, 6 months won't be a big issue.

I mean i'd rather wait 6, 9, even a year if this means getting better content that lasts a little more than the current content we have...at least I'll have something to look for.

[WellFooled]

Hope you're ready for 6+ months of maintenance downtime then.

Oh, not refundable though they might suspend further subs during that period.

For the items on my wish list? Wouldn't be remotely necessary. If they wanted to overhaul the game's engine or code to shed some of the handicaps left over from 1.0, sure I'd be willing to deal with some downtime. I'm not convinced that's on the table though or be a reasonable expectation.

[kikix12]

For the items on my wish list? Wouldn't be remotely necessary. If they wanted to overhaul the game's engine or code to shed some of the handicaps left over from 1.0, sure I'd be willing to deal with some downtime. I'm not convinced that's on the table though or be a reasonable expectation.

Several months of downtime would cost them more than doing the upgrades in the background and spending just a few days at most for the final push.

We're talking about servers, computers, here. You don't have to take down a server to copy files from it to another one. It's done repeatedly for backup already. So company would set up another server with the "new stuff", syphon transferable data to it from backups (to avoid overworking the live servers) over a longer while, then when they would be nearly caught up issue a few-days-long maintenance at most to stop generation of new data and update the new servers with what was not in the backups.

Seriously, people. Months of downtime won't happen if the original is still giving money. Downtime costs more than avoiding it.

[Melichoir]

What I expect is pretty bare bones, but what I'd like/love to hear is an overhaul of the game's tired formula. 3 points in particular.

1: Some system for customizing gameplay. The simplest solution is more interesting stats on gear, but a talent tree, sub jobs, etc would also fit the bill.
2: More interesting and varied battle content. Instead of predictable dungeons/trials/raids in a format so unchanging I could tell you what's going to be in patch 7.3, I would like to see new formats for battle content. Even things as simple as "Defend this outpost from waves of enemy attacks" or "Deliver this bomb to its destination" would be a welcome relief from the linear, predictable content we have now.
3: Ease up on the freakishly steep vertical progression. Nothing we accomplish in the game has any long lasting meaning as it is. I can slave and slave for a new set of gear (that is already super boring because of the lack of interesting stats) and in a couple months time that gear with be both worthless and incredibly easy to get.

This pretty much would actually make me fairly happy. I do wish to see dungeon designs that push the envelope, where were not just doing "Kill some mobs, move to a boss fight, Kill some mobs, move to a boss fight." and a bit more interactivity. Older final fantasy games did actually have puzzles and junk. There is room for some more interesting things if people are willing to try it out.

As much as people like to complain about how 'static' and 'formulaic' SB is, what people do not give enough credit to is that they are pushing the envelope. Raid fights have been more complex and interesting than those in HW. Even though some mechanics are copy/pasted, there were new and interesting ones introduced. I hope that trend does continue and more interesting mechanics are added to spice it up.

[WellFooled]

As much as people like to complain about how 'static' and 'formulaic' SB is, what people do not give enough credit to is that they are pushing the envelope. Raid fights have been more complex and interesting than those in HW. Even though some mechanics are copy/pasted, there were new and interesting ones introduced. I hope that trend does continue and more interesting mechanics are added to spice it up.

I agree with you, we have been getting very well designed and well polished dungeons. My complaint though is no matter how finely crafted they are, they are still all linear hallways with circle or square arenas for bosses. I'd like to see that formula change. I'd like to see a dungeon where you're fighting the final boss the entire way through, or where you defend a set location from attack, or a dungeon where you have a choice of how to proceed down it with different bosses and different loot depending on your choice, or a dungeon where you're actually queued with 8 people and the two groups of 4 race to the end for bonus rewards, or a dungeon that's a heist where the idea is to sneak in and stun enemy's calls for help, while avoiding certain pathing enemies, etc etc. There are a million different ways to spice things up, but right now the only thing that changes is what order we dodge AoE in for the boss.