Concepts from other MMOs that would be utterly anathema to FFXIV

[Shurrikhan]

Skill builds are really a singleplayer thing because at least part of the fun is finding a combination to become overpowered, while in multiplayer games being overpowered is seen as a bad thing. I had a lot of fun building broken characters in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or even Fire Emblem Fates but that just wouldn't fly in a competitive multiplayer.

It being part of the fun doesn't exclude the remainder of said fun, though.

As Strider said, XIV is way too DPS-focused (read: absent of frequent meaningful complicating factors or short-term concerns beyond a couple of "if A, use B" call-and response mechanics per job) at present.

But, that is only at present.

To be clear, though, no amount of making healing or tanking is going to change optimization (following a forum guide precisely and spending time playing menus instead of playing the game) into customization (being able to build your character as you like). Customization always requires both a considerable breadth of content (across which very different things become optimal, allowing for specialization), time-cost (whereby choices have lasting effect, rather than just being swapped between fights), and uncertainty (whereby one cannot choose the precise optimal specialization for each range of content).

At present, XIV does not have the toolkit depth necessary to allow for a large breadth of content as it relates to how one might play, or specialize, a job. And since it doesn't have the toolkits it won't make the content that would use it which means there's no point in building said toolkits... so on and so forth.

But, if in a stroke of freak genius or madness (or both?) the devs decided they suddenly wanted both player choice and varied content and implemented them together with reasonable systems both of expansion (enough to make a difference via spec choices) and constraint (not allowing one to make up for choice with frequent menu-play), customization would technically be feasible.

Would it be worth the development costs? Probably not. Especially not if it was taken from another game rather than feeling a solid fit for XIV and from XIV. But it is possible.

[Skivvy]

BDO's stamina regeneration with forced msq locked behind having enough to just talk to the npcs.

Oh man, too soon. I've been dealing with that this past week. As a whole, I don't really mind their energy/stamina system ,however I went on a questing binge recently, and there were several times where I just had to take a break in order to let my energy regen a bit. The Valencia leg was a special kind of hell since on top of needing a ton of energy for some quests, they also added in a RNG component so you could actually fail the quest objective...several times. OH GAWD WHYYY. I am so happy to be done with that stretch.

On the plus side, thankfully MOST main-story quests didn't require this, and also they don't really lock content behind completing them..so you can take it slower if you like.

[Awful]

I have the best corruption Infinite Star and I can guarantee you that I am not impressed by this corruption system when Infinite Star is already my 2nd highest damage done. WoW failed for a reason, please stop trying to turn FF14 into WoW. We should embrace FF14 by taking WoW as a failure example and learn not to repeat the same mistake

Yep and that's why I hate WoWs corruption system you just take the good corruptions and then every other corruption you get that's not Infinite Stars or Twilight Devastation (which I think got heavily nerfed), there's no reason to get anything else. It was busted seeing DKs and Wars in WoW pull a gigantic room only to AoE it down in 12 seconds because of busted corruptions, I don't want to see anything so RNG and unfun like titanforging and corruptions.

The only thing I'd ever want from WoW is Mythic+ dungeons they have it here in 14 as PotD/HoH but it'd be great if we had rewarding 4 man Savage dungeons that could use pomanders like in deep dungeons to spice it up, other than that though WoW is a textbook example of what not to do in MMO design.

[Shurrikhan]

Food for thought:

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?

The Armory System.

No, really. 1.x is such a different beast that I'm not sure why the faintest pretense of that system is still here, though whenever I think back to how that system might have worked out today if it had the polish and pragmatism the current game has (or, ideally, even more), I can't help but drool a bit.

For those unfamiliar, the original idea of XIV was that one would build their own "job". Your character had levels but your classes had only ranks, from which you'd learn skills, most of which could be used on any class with varying levels of synergy, and improved your proficiency with the weapon type. If you wanted to be a strike leader with good initiation atop close saboteur and tag-team support, then you'd advance your (character) level primarily through Pugilist and Lancer. If you wanted a more in-the-thick of it brawler, you'd probably go for Gladiator and Pugilist. If you wanted a sturdy tank with high but finite utility and were willing to accept lower output and enmity generation, you'd probably go for Gladiator and Conjurer.

Every class used every stat to some degree, and you could almost consider your character as equal parts a path of stats (Mind>Strength>Intelligence might prepare you well to be a Shockadin, supportive Paladin, or a support-heavy Monk, each of your own making) and a set of weapon proficiencies, each with their own ranges, attack speeds, and idiosyncrasies.

Imagine that in today's XIV: every class would be a collection of gameplay-affecting mechanical traits (at least half of which could synergize well with other classes), jobs would be locked into certain essential traits but could diversify via others, and you'd have numerous options by which to diversify play through your range of experiences rather than just starting each job over as a separate and incohesive experience. At present, a level 80 god-slaying Conjurer turns into a level 1 mouse-slain Arcanist the moment he puts away their cane or wand and dares to read a book. In the earlier vision for the game, though, you'd carry the majority of your strengths with you, but start straight into experimenting with use of ley lines, arcane flows, and raw mana manipulation in order to learn new ways of implementing your existing powers, not necessarily for the stronger but certainly for greater total versatility. If you like to play supportive jobs, then gearing would have that covered: the Mind-high gearing of a White Mage or Scholar would fit straight into playing a support-heavy light-chakra Monk, and if one wanted to experiment with a truly hybrid Red Mage one could start into Dexterity over Strength to better serve swift hit-and-run gameplay than works for both but is especially helpful for playing a bursty RDM. Etc., etc.

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

Food for thought:



The Armory System.

No, really. 1.x is such a different beast that I'm not sure why the faintest pretense of that system is still here, though whenever I think back to how that system might have worked out today if it had the polish and pragmatism the current game has (or, ideally, even more), I can't help but drool a bit.

For those unfamiliar, the original idea of XIV was that one would build their own "job". Your character had levels but your classes had only ranks, from which you'd learn skills, most of which could be used on any class with varying levels of synergy, and improved your proficiency with the weapon type. If you wanted to be a strike leader with good initiation atop close saboteur and tag-team support, then you'd advance your (character) level primarily through Pugilist and Lancer. If you wanted a more in-the-thick of it brawler, you'd probably go for Gladiator and Pugilist. If you wanted a sturdy tank with high but finite utility and were willing to accept lower output and enmity generation, you'd probably go for Gladiator and Conjurer.

Every class used every stat to some degree, and you could almost consider your character as equal parts a path of stats (Mind>Strength>Intelligence might prepare you well to be a Shockadin, supportive Paladin, or a support-heavy Monk, each of your own making) and a set of weapon proficiencies, each with their own ranges, attack speeds, and idiosyncrasies.

Imagine that in today's XIV: every class would be a collection of gameplay-affecting mechanical traits (at least half of which could synergize well with other classes), jobs would be locked into certain essential traits but could diversify via others, and you'd have numerous options by which to diversify play through your range of experiences rather than just starting each job over as a separate and incohesive experience. At present, a level 80 god-slaying Conjurer turns into a level 1 mouse-slain Arcanist the moment he puts away their cane or wand and dares to read a book. In the earlier vision for the game, though, you'd carry the majority of your strengths with you, but start straight into experimenting with use of ley lines, arcane flows, and raw mana manipulation in order to learn new ways of implementing your existing powers, not necessarily for the stronger but certainly for greater total versatility. If you like to play supportive jobs, then gearing would have that covered: the Mind-high gearing of a White Mage or Scholar would fit straight into playing a support-heavy light-chakra Monk, and if one wanted to experiment with a truly hybrid Red Mage one could start into Dexterity over Strength to better serve swift hit-and-run gameplay than works for both but is especially helpful for playing a bursty RDM. Etc., etc.

I would so prefer that system over the extremely limited one we have now that makes me feel like I'm on a short leash and not even the good kind of leashing.

[Makeda]

FFXIV outside of those settings is one of the easier MMOs on the market by a fairly wide margin. Even the difficult stuff is typically hard-scripted, so it's just a matter of learning the dance and then dancing.

I wouldn't say that at all...

The entire genre has gotten very easy as time has moved on. I find FFXIV is the only MMO left that isn't pure cheese from top to bottom...


Most of the systems in other MMOs that wouldn't work here wouldn't work here because they already don't work in the MMO they come from... such as all those WoW examples...

Some things that I think would flip people out... for me come from past MMOs.

Wildstar's stealth and ranged tanks for example. With the, again, note that these concepts didn't work exactly as described... The ranged tank had an ability that some who play WoW might recognize from their monk tank. You could put out things that would taunt mobs for you - splitting pulls or keeping the pull at a distance.

Wildstar action combat. You hit the thing(s) that your animation showed your weapon hitting.

Wildstar AoE healing - not AoE like you know it... think of the boss patterns we all dance around. Every heal is some basic ink-splotch pattern (more like shapes on a simple grid). As a healer you have to lay them down on the map so that your shape matches where your team is... since it's a pattern... there are holes, lines, checkered shapes, etc... you could hit one person but miss the ally right next to him... since people were always moving because 'you hit what your animation shows' - you had to be really good at fast aiming those things. Often the more complicated your heal's shape was - the more powerful of a heal it was.

City of Heroes - where a typical dungeon pull could have a mob stack size over 40... including multiple bosses...

City of Heroes has something that would work... 'knocking on door' dungeons... you form a party, you take a mission - a door or cave or manhole cover somewhere in the zone can now be entered. Inside is a fully randomly generated dungeon... the group sets a difficulty rating for it before entering - that scales up both enemy power and rewards. This concept in City of Heroes was too 'easy to farm' due to the combat engine's flaws...

Guild Wars 1 'tank walls' - aggro for mobs was basically hardwired towards the healer, then to highest DPS. But figures could not move through enemies. So players, and sometimes NPC monsters, could form an actual wall of characters to prevent the enemy from reaching the thing they were aggro'd on... and the AI was smart enough in this situation to switch to something it could attack.

Guild Wars 1 adaptive AI - this only lasted a few patches... basically the AI seemed to have the ability to know what worked against you and what failed... and selectively start focusing on your flaws as a gamer... within a few hours your game difficulty would radically ramp up. You couldn't learn fights - because the enemy would not do something that had failed it before.

Guild Wars 2 early raids (because I don't know if this was true for more than the first few weeks) - the best tank is your healer, the best healer is yous healer. Healing works... a bit like it did in Wildstar but with less complex shapes (more of radius from where you put them). Essentially the best tank build was to make a healer with solid toughness... You could just drop your biggest heals in the area around yourself... In a way... this recreated the dynamic of Guild Wars 1... by accident... But it was probably not intended, and raiding in Guild Wars 2 soon got very intricate - after which this early day simple solution probably got out-meta'd. However I had moved on by about the second month of them adding raids so I never saw the later stages of things.

[Shurrikhan]

I would so prefer that system over the extremely limited one we have now that makes me feel like I'm on a short leash and not even the good kind of leashing.

Any particular builds you'd want to go for, if you could have your preference?

What kind of stats would you go for and which jobs would you apply them through, and with which adaptations from other jobs?

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

Any particular builds you'd want to go for, if you could have your preference?

What kind of stats would you go for and which jobs would you apply them through, and with which adaptations from other jobs?

Well most my builds on games have a flavor of Magic barbarin themed so I would Say Id like to have the warrior aspect with a flavor of High int for flame attacks (similar to path of exiles chieften builds)

so Basicly a type of glass canon removing defense for high hp and int/strength kind of a build where you want to be hit to power up if that was ever a possiblity

thats kind of my overall proplem in ffxiv I'm stuck between the raw power of warrior and he high magic of black mage on what I wan't to focus on.

And then I want to duel weild weapons but I have to play another job for duel wielding (nin or dancer) I just honestly want to have a duel weilding str/int build with magic /and high power with little to no defensive abilitys that when I get hit I hit harder.



Either that Or I want to take summoner and put the Elemental attacks on it like Blizzard,Fire,thunder,water and Air. (I always loved that Summoners casting black magic alongside their summons went really good togeather.

[Packetdancer]

Wildstar action combat. You hit the thing(s) that your animation showed your weapon hitting.

I really miss spellslinger play sometimes. I'm fairly sure no other MMO will give me a teleporting gun-mage who can shoot holes in space-time itself (and then leap through them).

The fact that you could literally hop into an entire other dimension outside of the fight very briefly to avoid attacks, reposition yourself and then return to the real world allowed some really creative strategies, especially in combination with the action-based nature of Wildstar's combat. (Of course, the fact that you could not see the battle while doing so—or any other players—meant you had to really fix it in your mind's eye and move precisely so you didn't pop back right into the middle of something Very Unhealthy.)

Of course, spellslinger also let you so terribly cheese the fall mechanic, because the teleporting dash reset the falling distance. So you could leap off of a cliff that would be certain death to fall down... and then once you were within a safe-falling-distance of the ground, rip open spacetime and hurl yourself forward to touch down safely on the other side of the teleport. (And watch your stalker or engineer friend who was blindly following you towards the quest point go 'splat' like a pancake behind you. My apologies to my friends who plunged off many a cliffside... though you'd think after the first dozen or so times you died that way, you all would learn not to follow me when I leapt off things.)

The Armory System.

No, really. 1.x is such a different beast that I'm not sure why the faintest pretense of that system is still here, though whenever I think back to how that system might have worked out today if it had the polish and pragmatism the current game has (or, ideally, even more), I can't help but drool a bit.

I love build-your-own class systems, but if they're not well-explained, they can make it very easy for a new player to blunder into a totally unworkable build and hit a wall.

The original version of The Secret World, for those unaware, had a system where you didn't level classes at all; there weren't even 'classes' in any real sense. You leveled skills with specific weapons, and each weapon had specific abilities associated with it; you earned Skill Points (which you would put into a given weapon to level up your 'rank' with that weapon), and Ability Points, which were used to purchase abilities with a given weapon. You could equip two weapons at a time, and the weapons were locked by rank; you might need to be rank 7 or higher with blades to be able to equip a specific nice katana.

You then had two sets of active abilities: seven active ones, and seven passive ones. The seven active ones were the abilities you actually used in combat—like FFXIV hotbars—and had to be for one of the two weapons you had equipped; the seven passive ones were like FFXIV's 'Traits', and could be drawn from any weapon's passive trait set. And you had to finish buying all the basic abilities under a given weapon to unlock more advanced abilities. This combination of fourteen abilities (along with whatever gear you had associated with it) was referred to as a 'deck'. There were no class names or anything, but there were achievements associated with specific sets of abilities; if you unlocked all of a specific set of pistol and blade abilities as a Templar, for instance, you gained the 'Paladin' title and a Paladin's dress whites uniform to use. (Gear was purely cosmetic, save for weapons and the 'charms' you carried.) And you could store multiple decks and swap between them at-will, akin to FFXIV gear-sets.

Though you only had the seven actions and seven traits at a time, it gave you the ability to build some interesting custom 'classes', some of which could be devastatingly effective if you hit on the right synergy of active/passive abilities.

Unfortunately, this system also made it very easy to build some utterly useless decks which would be impossible to really progress with.

And the game did not provide a lot of guidance on how to build a deck, or know the difference between the two.

I know a lot of people who built unworkable decks, then slammed into a wall when they got to the Blue Mountains area of The Secret World. They found themselves unable to progress the quests—or even survive battles in the area—and thus found themselves unable to really earn XP. With no way to earn more XP while stuck, they had no way to buy different abilities and make a more functional deck. Many of them just gave up at that point.

[Shurrikhan]

I love build-your-own class systems, but if they're not well-explained, they can make it very easy for a new player to blunder into a totally unworkable build and hit a wall.

...

Unfortunately, this system also made it very easy to build some utterly useless decks which would be impossible to really progress with. And the game did not provide a lot of guidance on how to build a deck, or know the difference between the two. I know a lot of people who built unworkable decks, then slammed into a wall when they got to the Blue Mountains area of The Secret World.

This is partly why I was so looking forward to a far more ambitious take on BLU, to give SE some time to practice creating what could eventually make for many diverse decks. To be fair though, even if that had been successful, it would have left all the normal jobs (now highly "limited" compared to the BLU-done-well) feeling rather... lackluster and BLU therefore out of place.

Moreover, it'd pretty well demand increased transparency and convenient practice and analysis--not that those things would ever be bad additions anyways--to allow people to quickly check their builds' feasibility before entering group content, and likely algorithms or AIs to check feasible outputs as to allow or disallow matchmaking at one's skill (based on history and the aforementioned testing) and gear level, or really just actual output. Without that convenience to self-teach towards improvement and the ability to check whether a player could likely do what he's signed up for -- again, not a bad addition regardless -- customization with a high chance of fundamentally (not just situationally) sub-optimal builds quickly falls flat.