Concepts from other MMOs that would be utterly anathema to FFXIV

[Packetdancer]

I would also love instanced housing like Wildstar had - for all its faults it really nailed housing down.

When I managed to get a house in FFXIV, one of the things I liked was that a couple of my neighbors actually came over to welcome me to the neighborhood. One gave me some furnishings as a housewarming gift, and I ended up with new folks on my friends list. But I recognize that while SquareEnix probably hopes for this experience—and it's probably part of the motive for actual housing neighborhoods rather than instanced—I would be willing to bet it's not an experience that everyone has; I suspect I was extremely lucky in the neighborhood I got. (And my neighbors actually being on to see me 'moving in', as it were.)

In contrast, WildStar never got around to doing the 'neighborhoods' feature that the devs had discussed with the closed beta crew early on, so you didn't have neighbors. But everyone had a house, and dang was the housing decor system flexible. It's one of the things I most miss from that game. If the 'neighborhoods' feature had been workable, I think it would've been almost perfect.

(The idea behind "neighborhoods" was that since each house was a chunk of land lifted up into the sky by Protostar's ridiculous marketing department, they would be mobile; you would be able to form a 'neighborhood' with other people and move your individual flying housing plots together, connecting the platforms and lowering the "don't plummet to your death" forcefields between them to form a neighborhood. So once you did that, you would be able to walk around from housing plot to housing plot. But given how elaborate people could make the yards, I imagine once they'd nailed down individual housing later into closed beta the neighborhoods probably proved impractical for reasons of sheer processing efficiency. I mean, at that point your housing neighborhoods are basically Second Life regions with potentially dozens if not hundreds of items instanced with rotations, scaling, etc...)

[Skivvy]

When I managed to get a house in FFXIV, one of the things I liked was that a couple of my neighbors actually came over to welcome me to the neighborhood. One gave me some furnishings as a housewarming gift, and I ended up with new folks on my friends list. But I recognize that while SquareEnix probably hopes for this experience—and it's probably part of the motive for actual housing neighborhoods rather than instanced—I would be willing to bet it's not an experience that everyone has; I suspect I was extremely lucky in the neighborhood I got. (And my neighbors actually being on to see me 'moving in', as it were.)

In contrast, WildStar never got around to doing the 'neighborhoods' feature that the devs had discussed with the closed beta crew early on, so you didn't have neighbors. But everyone had a house, and dang was the housing decor system flexible. It's one of the things I most miss from that game. If the 'neighborhoods' feature had been workable, I think it would've been almost perfect.

(The idea behind "neighborhoods" was that since each house was a chunk of land lifted up into the sky by Protostar's ridiculous marketing department, they would be mobile; you would be able to form a 'neighborhood' with other people and move your individual flying housing plots together, connecting the platforms and lowering the "don't plummet to your death" forcefields between them to form a neighborhood. So once you did that, you would be able to walk around from housing plot to housing plot. But given how elaborate people could make the yards, I imagine once they'd nailed down individual housing later into closed beta the neighborhoods probably proved impractical for reasons of sheer processing efficiency. I mean, at that point your housing neighborhoods are basically Second Life regions with potentially dozens if not hundreds of items instanced with rotations, scaling, etc...)

Not sure when you quit, but they did add a community option to the game. Basically it was an island that had 5 separate plots - so you and your friends would still have your individual (gigantic) plot of land, but they were all together on the same island, no zoning of any sort. You'd just run across and say hi. It was really cool. D:

[Kacho_Nacho]

Concepts from other MMOs that would be utterly anathema to FFXIV

Talent trees and specs have no place FFXIV. In this game, a job has one defined set of abilities and one defined role.

[Packetdancer]

Oh! That's awesome that they finally got a chunk of neighborhoods working in the end, even if not for launch as planned.

I admit I faded away around the F2P launch of WildStar because all my friends had left (and a lot of the devs I knew were getting laid off); it made me sad, because that game community was a huge part of my life for about a year. I'm still friends with a lot of the closed beta crew and the devs, and I nearly got lured back into game development to go join the dev team. WildStar will thus always have a dear place in my heart.

At any rate, as much as I love the tangible feel of housing neighborhoods in FFXIV, I think it's utterly unsustainable in the long run, and they'd do well to rethink things a bit there.

[Frosthaven]

At any rate, as much as I love the tangible feel of housing neighborhoods in FFXIV, I think it's utterly unsustainable in the long run, and they'd do well to rethink things a bit there.

This was what I considered when I mentioned the wildstar variant. I do so love the idea of neighborhoods!

It's the frustration I see from newer players clicking for 24 hours in a row just to get property. Seems a bit too much, even for an MMO. Especially true when you look at the success and growth rate of FFXIV! Maybe they can solve it another way, who knows.

[Edax]

So how about you? Have you ever played another game that did something that made you think "Oh my god this would blow FFXIV's mind in the worst way" and what was it?

Being forced to play alts in order to experience another job class. I do not miss what from WoW, having to mail material to myself because of my different professions. It was so tedious having those limitations.

[Shurrikhan]

Customization beyond character creation and choice of class, lateral progression, substantial coordination, performance metrics, actually healing, and transparency.

[Shurrikhan]

Does it increase my HP? Then, yes. I learn that from my very first RPG.

I also see healing cast bars.

The difference between XIV's and other MMOs' healers is that most MMOs' healers spend the majority of time healing and have specific playflow systems integral to their healing itself while XIV healer's spend the majority of their time casting DPS and have no specific playflow systems integral to their healing nor to their downtime tasks apart from AST Cards.

[linay]

The difference between XIV's and other MMOs' healers is that most MMOs' healers spend the majority of time healing and have specific playflow systems integral to their healing itself while XIV healer's spend the majority of their time casting DPS and have no specific playflow systems integral to their healing nor to their downtime tasks apart from AST Cards.

That's why I said not to exaggerate. FFXIV healers still heal and there is a distinction in the amount of heals they an output as compared to the other roles. "Green DPS having to actually heal" is found in FFXIV.

[van_arn]

There's only one real answer: ignore the entire story and just play.