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

[Kalise]

I completely agree. Actually I believe they should do this in FFXIV right now, adding a solo option for all older MSQ instances. I feel like it could quite easily be done by just messing with the numbers. It won't have instance gameplay as originally intended, but it will be better than waiting ages for a queue and it would also satisfy all if it's just a voluntary option. They'll perhaps get obliged to do something like this because it will get harder and harder to keep older content relevant with each expansion.

Yeah, though there are additional benefits for purely solo designed duties for MSQ relevancy, beyond what I mentioned above.

1) The ability to use cutscenes during said duty. SE learned their lesson about with with Praetorium and Castrum Meridianum what happens when they combine cutscenes and Duties. I.e. First timers want to watch the cutscenes, but people whom are just here for the roulette bonus want to skip everything and nuke all the enemies and get out asap. With purely solo designed duties from the outset, they have all the freedom in the world to put cutscenes into the MSQ required duty because there will be no people rushing ahead while you're sat watching the cutscenes. Meaning that when people are doing the group version, no-one has any cutscenes left to watch, so everyone can just get on with the thing.

2) Increased ability to put in books to read. Since, in a solo duty you can go at your own pace, you can stop and read the books. I know that some of the newer dungeons have some books in that I'd like to read, unfortunately, PuG's want to just blast through at 3000 MPH.

3) More room to put in optional paths. One of the main points against optional paths is that no-one uses them, because in DF content, people just want to rush to the end to get their Exp/Tomes. But with solo content, people are more able to partake in optional side paths and little puzzles (Such as the Lost Temple of Qarn, before it got nerfed to better facilitate DF zergs)

4) Potential for additional objectives. Instead of just having "Hallway of Trash" > "Boss" > "Hallway of Trash" > "Boss" > "Hallway of Trash" > "Boss" copied and pasted for literally every. Single. Duty. They could put in additional things to do. "Go disable the security of this Garlean base". "Optional: Destroy the armoury to prevent reinforcements". "Hidden: Find the top secret lab > Optional: Find the research notes > Defeat the head Researcher!". Since again, they don't need to create content that has to only facilitate zerging through because 99.99% of people are only playing it because Roulette rewards...

Like, we go visit so many places in the course of MSQ duties, but then most of the time we're just trying to keep up with the PuG we're with who've already done it 50 times despite it only being released 5 minutes prior...

Trusts/Squadrons help somewhat, but there's still that particular issue with regards to immersion, when we're referenced or shown to be alone. I.e. A fairly recent but notable example is Mt Gulg and the trial at the end. We head off to the Trial, alone. Then *Poof* 7 people turn up to help us smack down the boss and then *Poof* they're all gone and we're alone in the cutscene where everyone else catches up to us.

Maybe I'm delusional but I clearly remember filling out a survey from SE with one of the questions asking about this very thing.

There's been a few if I recall correctly.

I believe there was one way back in 1.0/2.0 and is the reason that there's a 2.5s GCD (As opposed to the industry "Standard" 2.0s or most modern MMO's 1.5-1.0s).

There have since been others, though I can't date them exactly.

[Lauront]

I wouldn't be opposed to a more action focused game so long as it didn't lose sight of the fact that most people play RPG's for the sake of experiencing a decent story.

Yup, lack of a good story, as well as immersion/authenticity, is a real dealbreaker for me when it comes to just about any RPG, and MMORPGs are no exception to that.

[linay]

Assuming one will be made.

What should be done differently? What should remain the same? How should the game function? What kind of (new) features do you want? What are your expectations? ......?

(Forgive me if this thread has been made before, but I couldn't find anything with advanced search.)

Story should remain front and center and not an optional thing you can do if you want.

Keep the same classes/jobs/races at the start, no need to add new ones down the line. But if you insist on having a new one, make sure the new races/jobs don't have limitations and make sure they can be played from the start. In other words, make the starting experience allow for new races/jobs if you want to add new jobs/races. Oh, and stick to one, either class or job, no need for both. And make sure the raid sizes are big enough to make use of all the classes/jobs.

Keep the same great gamepad support, fitting whatever control is chosen, preferably tab targeting, not too impressed with action mmorpg. If multiplatform is desired, keep the same crossplay functionality, no segregation between platforms.

Keep duty finder.

Keep the ability to play in any region, no region lock unless the local laws demand it.

If possible, just have one data center per region, maybe even one world.

I prefer no gun/machine/alien/etc, more sword and magic and stay within the world, no alternate universe no space/other planets.

I prefer no reference to other Final Fantasy/SE/third party games/media/etc beyond probably the basics that are seen in multiple FF games, but I don't believe a FF game has to be referencing the franchise. I would be ok with a Final Fantasy game with no moogle/chocobo/cid/gilgamesh, for example.

A glamour collection system, doesn't have to be account wide (although I wouldn't mind account wide), just give me a reason to want to collect the gear for glamour without having to worry about inventory space.

Either no flying at all forever or flying from the start with the same quick and easy way to unlock as in FFXIV, if not quicker/easier. None of this base game has no flying and only expansion zones have flight.

Instanced housing if player housing is desired, but could do without housing myself (I say that as I own a house in FFXIV >.>).

No different starting areas/factions/gc/etc.

----

Might be more controversial than the above:

No player economy, no player trading, every transaction deals with NPCs with fixed pricing.
No crafting/gathering, hire NPC services for those.
No pvp.
No addons, but provide features that are needed/desired (with some reason), especially QoL features.

[Shurrikhan]

In a nutshell:

• A true take on the 'build your own hero' concept originally promised, instead of just multiple entirely independent progressions each with only a single playstyle.
• A living world and plenty of reasons to be out in it.
• A responsive, button-efficient, and highly nuance-capable combat system with plenty of intelligently crafted undermechanics that can make even basic overworld fights interesting.
• Far more customization -- not necessarily in terms of count so much as impact and breadth/depth of attraction.
• Better graphics (especially in terms of texturing and antistrophic filtering -- please no more flickering textures in the distance).
• More active use of camera, phasing, and so forth for quest progression and story-telling. No more mere purple circles or "Destination" markers.
• Greater capacity for personalization, especially in how we react to said story. Think: mannerism sets, which we can change on the fly to both preemptively and reactively set how our characters will seemingly feel about or react to things around them.

[SinSilverwing]

Here is my one thing i would like to see different for the next MMO. Not sure if someone else said the same thing. I am not bothering to read all the comments.

Quests
When partied up with other players, let us please have the option to see what quests your Party Members are working on and actually be able to assist them with it.

"Solo" Instances
When in a party with someone, let us go into a so called "Solo" instance with them so we can help/experience it with them. Possibly knocking out two separate quests at once if both players need it. This would also lower the number of individual instances that need to be maintained for that.

Cut-scenes/Dialog
This goes hand in hand with the above. This is an MMO, allow the story to account for more than one "Chosen One" or "Hero". Allow us to go into the same cut-scenes together. I would love to have been able to see my friends character in a lot of cut-scenes with mine. Even if they are just silent the entire time, or if they have the ability to influence the cut-scene based on their responses in dialogue prompts.

[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.

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

Either make it final fantasy 7 combat system where you equip your magc /skills into your equipment or the License board system in the game were we have a build your own job/class system and remove exp and replace it with Lp Growth so you don't have a level you have total Lp points placed so 1 level would be about 20-30 Lps

Add in the Trail system similar to ff10 for the summoning where you must travel and earn the right to summon the creatures through either combat or a test depending on the summon and then they could upgreaded to dark aeons for the ex trail/test they put you through.

The best system honestly for character design and honestly for real effort = ability that isn't false is the license board system where the more time you put into it you can end up doing extremely great with no help system you must use your damn brain for once and learn the hard way no simple minded game play just grind get and learn what you place. If you make a mistake you should suffer for it and have to start over or pay 100k gil+1milgil+10mil gill to reset your LP board and try again.

or final fantasy's 10's system of the sphere grid.

or even make a binding contract system similar to ff8 where when you make your character you get 1 free summon you can pick from a select few and that will determine you growth at the start then you go out to get stronger make more contracts with other summons for whatever ability set you want. Where you start the game you pick the weapon that you desire a basic theme for character out of 4 options the Warrior, The theif, The mage, or The archer. (From this you will be given 5 stat points that you can spend or spells/skills and your weapon will be with you for life so choice wisely of what you want.

[ElciaDeiLinus]

Keep- great outfits inspired by the long FF history.

Change- hair clipping with many of those outfits. I know it's a hard thing to manage so much customization between hair and clothing variety, so hopefully the next generation of artistic design fixes this problem. Lets face it, our characters in an mmo are the most important thing to most of us in a game we play this long.

Perhaps a midterm solution would be having a secondary hairstyle, like having long hair up in a pony tail or something with far fewer clipping issues when some outfits are worn.

Keep- overarching MSQ that carries on from through xpacs over the years, the ability to continue things even now that were introduced back in ARR and even before is one of my favourite parts of the storytelling. Many MMOs I've played either utterly ignoring other xpacs (like WoD basically be forgotten entirely) or retconning huge chunks of lore regularly which created a disjointed and nonsensical storyline.

Change- minimalist storytelling within dungeons/raids. I'm not saying to go back to the Praetorium formula; but more flavour text while running along, and more bosses that are big parts of the story. Generally dungeons/raids tend to consist of running down a hall, and only the final boss generally feels linked to the story.

Keep- mechanics intensive rather than grind/gear intensive content. Most MMOs put you on a ruthless, grindy treadmill you can never escape, where the formula is to force a hundred hours of dull grind on the player for every hour of enjoyable content they can do once they've maxed out all their stats. Not having that loom over both the players and the developers lets both parties focus on everything in the game rather than just the endgame raid, and I think it makes a better overall game by far.

Change- the formulaic nature of dungeons/raids. As before, the way all the group content and even to a degree a fair chunk of the story and other content is designed has a predictable structure. It's ok to deviate from a formula in places. I get that 6 zones per xpac makes for a clean looking aether compass UI, and having every dungeon/raid/etc... structured the same way makes them all relatively similar in length unlike Praetorium vs Castrum for the MSQ roulette.

That's a minor gripe though, and maybe it is better this way. I do like the idea that rather than 'trash' fights between bosses you have encounters between bosses in raids that act like their own form of mini boss.

[ElciaDeiLinus]

Keep- multiple story arcs and a mix of heroism and consequences. I never really liked the amount of busywork MMOs force on you, with fetch and gather x or kill y quests from one end of the zone to the other that never have anything to do with you. But, when those quests are related to the MSQ, when my heroism or failures have consequences or benefits to those common folk their otherwise pointless side quests suddenly are given meaning because it is related to something I've done, or spurs me to do something in the future.

I like that I get to see the villain's side of the story as well.

Change- perhaps controversial and most difficult, but consequences have more oomph when you're making the decision yourself. Considering how vast the MSQ and major side questlines already are, it can become a major tangle if there's multiple choices all with their own little cumulative changes.

Either you end up with what is basically a series of choices with consequences limited in scope (only pertain to a character, like conversation choices with followers in a Bioware game- or the zone/planet you're in, or that specific story branch)- or choices that really don't change anything at all.

Still, even if in order to keep the story from becoming unwieldy or messy the choices are fairly shallow- if we were to get a big budget, next gen new MMO in the FF universe I think it could be more engaging.

Keep- crossovers. Whether it's references to other FF games or stuff with Monster Hunter and Nier, I love that they can be woven into the game fluidly. Also, keep up the comic parts- Hildibrand's stories are a great respite from an often dire main story.

[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.