What would you like to see (differently) in the next Final Fantasy MMO?

[Yencat]

Let's get away from the old MMORPG tropes and have it be something unique. For instance, how many MMORPG rely on the dps, tank, and healer setup? Also, cooldowns in general just make me feel like I'm playing games that are clones of each other.

And before you say, it will never work! Remember, we're talking about making a new game here. It needs some creativity, and don't be someone not willing to think outside of the box due to fear of change.

Games without the holy trinity have been done before, but the combat tends to quickly devolve into chaos without any sort of tanking or healing so sometimes they retrofit those in, in some capacity, later anyway. It can work without it, but usually the content isn't challenging enough to require it then.

[Lauront]

Games without the holy trinity have been done before, but the combat tends to quickly devolve into chaos without any sort of tanking or healing so sometimes they retrofit those in, in some capacity, later anyway. It can work without it, but usually the content isn't challenging enough to require it then.

Yeah, it's really not worth it. Better to have jobs/classes designed with a clearly designated role in mind.

[Shurrikhan]

Games without the holy trinity have been done before, but the combat tends to quickly devolve into chaos without any sort of tanking or healing so sometimes they retrofit those in, in some capacity, later anyway. It can work without it, but usually the content isn't challenging enough to require it then.

By the same token, combat in holy trinity games tends to devolve into one player standing somewhere and looking at tankbuster timers on a 3rd party app and facerolling their rotation between them since their damage doesn't remotely matter, another staring only at raid bars and hanging idle between damage intake, and the others performing dummy combat rotations, none necessarily sure or even affected by whether the players with them are bots are not.

tl;dr: You're giving a few samples as the rule, all without noting that the equally bad samples exist among holy trinity games.

All games need different readinesses to perform tasks, but it matters little if that readiness depends on preemptive decisions (e.g. class, spec, or talent choice), their recent activities, their positioning, or whatever else.

Pure generalization usually fails, not because it precludes diverse tasks but because communities usually have trouble grasping the idea of making and following their own criteria for who should do what.
Pure specialization, on the other hand, necessarily restricts the diversity of tasks any player can engage with at a given time.

Without any sort of shared currency to value their time by varying situational weights and to some tactically (meaning, as a deliberate optimizable choice among multiple such choices) support each other's core tasks or throughput over one's own (e.g. a tank going out of their way to ease another's long-term/uncapped contribution over their own), healers, tanks, and damage-dealers each merely get to experience a third of the game.

Among the non-trinity games you've likely seen, it's not the lack of dedicated tanking and healing that rendered those games shallow, but the lack of control systems and personal and group-minded decisions that you know as "tank" and "heal" tasks, but could in fact by done by anyone. They are merely "tanking" and "healing" tasks; one does not have to remove themselves from all other capacities to perform them, nor does it have to be the same player or set of players who performs those tasks each time.

[Yencat]

Among the non-trinity games you've likely seen, it's not the lack of dedicated tanking and healing that rendered those games shallow, but the lack of control systems and personal and group-minded decisions that you know as "tank" and "heal" tasks, but could in fact by done by anyone. They are merely "tanking" and "healing" tasks; one does not have to remove themselves from all other capacities to perform them, nor does it have to be the same player or set of players who performs those tasks each time.

Sure, but even if it can be done by anyone that still means someone has to do these tasks, no? It's entirely possible I've missed several MMO's that do this because I'm not really looking for a new one to play, but if there is one out there that does what you say I'd love to hear which one.

Unless this was all hypothetical in the sense that just because we haven't seen it done well doesn't mean it's not possible, in which case I'd agree and I'd still love to see it.

[Shurrikhan]

Sure, but even if it can be done by anyone that still means someone has to do these tasks, no?

Yes, but the decision of who will do something can include more factors as to who is in the best position to do that thing than just who picked which "role". Essentially, the more deeply designs preemptively specialize those tasks by means outside of combat (such as by role, class, spec, talents, or gear choice), the less players have to engage in those decisions.

Now, there's a point where there's too much going on at once to feel like you're doing any part of it--let alone the parts most attractive to you, which specialization helps you focus on according to your own choices--as well as you'd like, and preemptive specialization can help to keep that in check. But, going too far in the opposite direction means that there's only one choice, and therefore effectively none. Good design has situational best answers, if often near enough that convention (person with X tends to do the X things), player preference (what you want to do), a specific capacity (what you're specifically good at) can play a part in those decisions, but they should always be multiple.

Unless this was all hypothetical in the sense that just because we haven't seen it done well doesn't mean it's not possible, in which case I'd agree and I'd still love to see it.

Sadly, this is largely hypothetical, at least from my limited experience (since midway through college, several years ago, I've had little time to sample many MMOs in full). I've yet to see any MMO, to either side of the spectrum, really nail what I'm talking about. The closest I've seen, oddly enough, would be something like oddball runs back in WotLK (no tank, no healers... well, I guess we just completely rethink all our assumptions about how combat is supposed to work and own that new world) and undergeared and undermanned runs Blade and Soul (where a single missed task meant we'd all die and there were very real and necessary decisions to be made about those tasks).

[Kalise]

Sadly, this is largely hypothetical, at least from my limited experience (since midway through college, several years ago, I've had little time to sample many MMOs in full). I've yet to see any MMO, to either side of the spectrum, really nail what I'm talking about. The closest I've seen, oddly enough, would be something like oddball runs back in WotLK (no tank, no healers... well, I guess we just completely rethink all our assumptions about how combat is supposed to work and own that new world) and undergeared and undermanned runs Blade and Soul (where a single missed task meant we'd all die and there were very real and necessary decisions to be made about those tasks).

Ironically, I think that a close approximation to this scenario is found in Monster Hunter: World.

"Tanking" is done by, whomever has the aggro of the monster, whomever has the most life or whomever is in a good position to actually do something about it.

"Healing" is done by, whomever has the items available if they have the time and space to do so.

Meanwhile, everyone is doing relevant damage.

In addition, you can tune yourself towards a particular support role outside of combat if you wish, for example, if you want to Tank more often, you can pick a weaponset that has a shield (Sword and Shield, Charged Blade, Lance or Gunlance) and equip armour that helps you stay in the thick of things (Increased health, Stagger protection, improved blocking etc). Meanwhile, if you want to Heal more often, you can pick a Bowgun that can use Healing Bullets and carry more items that provide healing, cleansing or buffing to allies.

To top it off, all these weapon specializations also have benefits for dealing damage to boot. Sword and Shield has a good combo that enables mounting to eventually knock down a monster to enable big damage but slow activation attacks, Charged Blade can turn into a giant electrified axe that smashes giant fissures into the Earth and whatever poor monster is in your way, Lance can be aimed in several directions making it easier to hit weak spots, Gunlance can explode (Like a Gunblade) which can deal damage through armoured areas and Bowguns have a plethora of different ammunition types that can target monster weaknesses, can apply various status effects to disable monsters or can just dish out massive damage if you use them in their optimum range.

So it's not like your gearing towards a support role leaves you in a state where you can ONLY do that thing. Everyone can still do everything, gearing towards a role merely affects how often you'll be in a position to perform that role.

Heck, for the Behemoth fight as part of the FFXIV Crossover event, they even implemented enmity to further define how often someone could "Tank" (Basically, hit the giant angry Behemoth in the face and he'll focus on you)

[Shurrikhan]

Ironically, I think that a close approximation to this scenario is found in Monster Hunter: World.

I only just started playing it back when it had its Steam sale and overall it hasn't been my cup of tea--just due to the simplicity of attack/ability options and so on--but from what gameplay I've seen, you're probably right on the money there.

It just still doesn't appear as great an example as I would like simply due to how little there is going mechanically for each player, even if it does do a good job of letting each player engage with a greater portion of the tasks.

I'd love to see something with BDO/MHW's button efficiency that nonetheless makes use of almost as many buttons in total as XIV does (basically just minus combo bloat and then replacing rarely used keys) atop the kind of strong decisions allowed for by versatility and pacing/positioning/situational priorities therein rather than clear-cut roles that we've hinted at so far.

[Kalise]

I only just started playing it back when it had its Steam sale and overall it hasn't been my cup of tea--just due to the simplicity of attack/ability options and so on--but from what gameplay I've seen, you're probably right on the money there.

It just still doesn't appear as great an example as I would like simply due to how little there is going mechanically for each player, even if it does do a good job of letting each player engage with a greater portion of the tasks.

I'd love to see something with BDO/MHW's button efficiency that nonetheless makes use of almost as many buttons in total as XIV does (basically just minus combo bloat and then replacing rarely used keys) atop the kind of strong decisions allowed for by versatility and pacing/positioning/situational priorities therein rather than clear-cut roles that we've hinted at so far.

True, MHW can feel overly simple at times, due to the lack of anything other than your combos and items (Even more so for certain weapon types like Dual Blades where all your attacks basically do the same thing and your one really cool attack is predicated on monsters being in a specific area with specific terrain so you can spin through them and deal a buttload of damage)

It's where I feel that instead of just copying MH and calling it FF, being merely inspired by MH and putting in FF flavour to it would work really well. I.e. So your basic 123 filler combo is now the various different combos you have available in MH:W and you'd use your skills as and when they're available and appropriate (Based on CD's, resources, time available to perform the action without being smacked in the face by a boss monster etc.). Throw in the Paradigm system to add further flexibility into available skills (Essentially doubling up on usable skills without increasing button bloat) and you then get an engaging and dynamic combat system that has notable decision making even in your filler combos (I.e. Where will this combo strike? What kind of damage will it do? Will it have any other effects such as stun/mounting chance? etc)

Though, before anyone can really get in depth into designing such as system, one would have to look at the discussion prior to this, about Trinity vs non-Trinity based set up. What would be the ideal situation? A Trinity based game that has expanded player agency (I.e. Beyond the bare minimum of Tankguy has a staring contest with the boss. Healguy plays whack-a-mole with HP bars. Damageguy pokes the bosses butt.) or a non-Trinity based game where roles are merely "Suggestions" that players can only lean towards rather than securely occupy.

What are the pros and cons of each situation and thus which one ultimately comes out looking better?

Like, it's probably easier to balance a trinity based system, since you can tune classes alongside others of the same role (N.B. SE if you're reading this, that DOESN'T mean destroying them all like you did with Healers...). As well as you'd be able to limit skills to particular roles so it's less likely that some ridiculous DPS class happens to access a stupidly strong Tank CD and Heal skill and become literally the most OP class in the game.

Meanwhile the latter system would make for easier grouping, as you'd just throw any players together and people would have to make do and form a strategy based on how everyone has geared themselves (Inb4 a bunch of groups of "Heal focused" players spend a year trying to clear a single dungeon)

Just a couple of examples.

Since it's all well and good to break the mold of the Trinity system, but it's only worth it if the system you change to has benefit over a refined Trinity (Since of course, even within Trinity set ups there's been flexibility in adding in a 4th "Support" role to the mix to go alongside the Tank/Healer/DPS archetypes), as there's a TON of design space as yet unexplored within the Trinity system to help cover many of the points that are considered cons.

For example, some people don't like how silly it seems when a boss is focusing on the Tank while a big clump of squishy DPS and Healers are stood a few feet away being totally ignored.
This can be overcome with mechanics where bosses will try and attack DPS players (Such as the oft used random target unavoidable attacks) and then have the Tank actively work to prevent that by standing in their way (Think like in Cinder Drift when a player catches a comet and is standing between it and the floor), pushing them back or even chaining them down to literally prevent the boss from moving over to said DPS player.

As, just because many devs are content with just rehashing the basic Trinity system developed decades ago, doesn't mean there aren't ways to improve on it and evolve it into something more (As noted with my a previous post of mine noting about FFXIII's Paradigm's as a way to expand on the basic system)

[Yencat]

well, I guess we just completely rethink all our assumptions about how combat is supposed to work and own that new world)

Yeah, this is what it would take I think. Sadly MMO's are falling out of favor with developers so I can't see anyone do a complete reimagining of combat and the players' role in that. Blade & Soul had some interesting ideas on this I agree, I haven't played in well over a year but when I quit the need for at least a tank was very real. Even if there were multiple classes that could realistically do it, it mostly came down to Blade Masters and Kung Fu Masters (at the time at least).

TERA was probably my (personal) favorite implementation of the holy trinity because healing and damage mitigation/tanking was very active. You couldn't actually target people normally but both healers had a skill that allowed them to lock on to (X) amount of targets and it would directly heal them, Mystics could drop HP and MP orbs where they stood so people could heal themselves or restore their mana if you dropped them close to them, and the other Priest heals (and cleanses) required you to move within a certain range of players for everyone to be in your 'circle'. Coupled with i-frames like B&S has to dodge the big bads and debuffs on enemies at the right times. Still, that means you're locked into needing a tank & healer but it was a lot more fun than just playing whack-a-mole with health bars. But this was also many years ago so that may have changed by now too.