Fundamental Changes You'd Like to See for 7.x and onward

[Shurrikhan]

So, given the 10-year plan, the game doesn't seem likely to spiral off (intentionally, at least) any time soon.

What sort of big changes or new long-term investments/directions would you like to see going forward?


Note that improvements are already in the works for lighting, texture resolution and shaders (especially for characters), and foliage and object density.

[Shurrikhan]

I'll be making a shortlist based on most liked posts, separated by category. These are not mine (my own are at the top of page 5 and included here only if echoed elsewhere), though I may adjust the posts' original language somewhat to better fit within shared categories.

Note: Feel free to edit your posts to keep all your suggestions neatly together even if more thoughts arise later. I'd just ask that you put "Edit (<date>)" so that I know to check what was added and can add it to the list.


OTHER TECHNICAL IMPROVEMENTS

• Ability to verify files w/o reinstalling the whole thing. Downloading patch files should not depend on having an active subscription (so that slower connections need not waste days of sub time downloading). (Post #101)
• Remove the double-ping cost from servers refreshing action ICDs upon receipt of server confirmation, either by removing that refresh or by including within it a command to reduce the ICD's duration by one's estimated round-trip ping. (Many posts)
• Don't kick people from the game client upon lobby error (yes, this can be avoided even now, but only via 3rd party mods), and have the error provide the disconnected player a ticket by which to tacitly/automatically put them as near as feasible to the front of queue, if any.
• Let everything queue properly. Sprint, ground-targeted AoEs, pots, food, poisons -- all of it. (Post #58)
• Let us have toes instead of just barely sculpted bricks with lines painted on them. (Perhaps also let us actually go barefoot and have higher-poly fingers.)

GEARING (including alt-friendliness, bad luck protection, speed getting from max ilvl to actual BiS, itemization freedom and/or parity, etc.)

• No more Luminous Tools. (Post #5)

GLAMOUR

• Expand it! / Rehaul it! (Details TBD) (Many posts)
• Make "Dispel"/Natural appearance an available Glamour Plate assignment, as to be able to dispel freely. Also, let us dispel glamours freely.
• Bind glamours to jobs, not to the actual items (such that equipping a new item doesn't even temporarily break your glamour and jobs using the same pieces needn't fight over them).

HOUSING

• Expand it, especially in regards to expanding the instanced side of housing (additional apartment sizes, further feature additions, etc.). (Many posts)

CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION

• Butt slider. (And possibly other sliders, like for shoulder width, width --or height not just being an overall scalar-- etc.) (Post #8, 26)
• More clans. (Post #5)
• Increase what can be changed at/via the Aesthetician. (Post #23)
• More options for existing races (especially, more faces). (Many posts)

CONTENT VARIETIES

• More replayability and rescalability of non-time-gated content. (Post #26)
• Just take advantage of cheap additions where possible. Give us more frequent interactions with, say, vendors over certain times of day, selling to or trading with them; it only costs some dialogue and incredibly simple system addition for something that makes the world seem a lot more real and lively. Let grinding some particular type of mob or doing certain FATEs potentially lead to some other stuff. Build up off of FATEs into various interactions. (Various)
• "Rewards for doing Minimum Item Level / Silence Echo content, similar to Wondrous Tails, Faux Hollows or the Blue Mage Log." (14)

COMBAT DEPTH / (UNDER)MECHANICS

JOB DESIGN

• Move away from the 2-minute meta. (Post #11, 12)

  :: While this works well as a quickly thrown-together banner, there are very distinct directions from which this could be approached. May require encounter adjustments to not simply devolve into the very same state but with more jobs excluded or forced into set compositions. [MPW / Monkey's Paw Warning]

• Completely rehaul the healer role and/or its content interactions. (Many posts)

  :: At minimum, trade a good third of the healing oGCDs for more offensive and utility-based actions?

• Allow most shortish-CD oGCDs to scale with GCD speed (and therefore SkS/SpS) as not to waste partly SkS/SpS GCD benefits by having them clip into the earliest window of CD activation (wherein they would otherwise therefore delay CD use over the GCD animation time and potentially reduce CD frequency despite their Haste). (Post #3)

POWERS CUSTOMIZATION (benefits for multi-classing, further job customization, etc.)

STORY INTERACTION / DIRECTION

• "No more revolving door of MSQ writers. Pick one, and stick with them." (Post #13)
• "More of a focus on high/dark fantasy storytelling and locations." (Post #13)

WORLD INTERACTION / DESIGN

• Let story-progressed/developed towns develop over their storylines, allowing new players to see them grow.

OTHER BIG QUALITY-OF-LIFE CHANGES

• Job crystals, once acquired for the given weapon type, are equipped automatically; jobs required for all dungeons with a minimum level of 30 or higher. (Post #5)
• Either allow the option of retaining skills despite syncing down gear and stats in down-leveled content (even if that means working harder for nearly the same performance as those using fewer skills) or seriously rework the acquisition of skills (reaching a satisfying kit at a far sooner level). (Post #23)
• FC Finder (and perhaps similar tools) available in-game. (Post #7)

[SylvAlternate]

First of all, being able to choose your unsheathed cpose like you can the sheathed ones instead of it being based on gender, I hate that some people (not me, definitely not me) have to use third party software just to have a cool idle pose for jobs like DRG while playing a female character and even then other people without that software (me, definitely me) can't even see that pose and just see the lame one

in terms of job design, I'd like to see them incentivise using your healing smartly to optimize damage instead of being able to just spam them out whenever (of course you should still have free healing abilities, but they shouldn't be as common as they are now on every job but SCH), as of now I don't see much of a point to spells like Pneuma in casual content, since you can just press Kerachole then Ixochole on every raidwide and get a BETTER result since you gain Mana.
This may be a hot take but Lillies should be in the territory of "slight DPS loss, DPS gain if you play around raidbuffs" and let you charge up 2 Blood Lillies at once so you can drop both into 2m buffs, maybe also give WHM a 2m personal buff so it still functions while playing with selfish DPS

this is probably also a hot take and most likely a stupid one considering I don't play Caster or Ranged, but I think having a "Taxes" for Casters and Ranged is totally fair as long as they keep the bosses hitbox small in the next tier, especially the tax for Ranged since they have completely free movement, one tax I would remove would be "Rez Tax" but not by just ignoring Rez while balancing but by giving SMN and RDM an ability on a 60s cooldown that deals a large amount of damage but puts Rez on a 40s cooldown, so you still have a rez for prog but it's far more limited when you're going for a clear or reclear (BLM should still deal more damage than them)

I think gearing can be improved by making more oGCDs scale with skill/spell speed so SS/SkS tiers aren't as important and adding more damage to GCDs, so more jobs can have actual "builds" like BLM instead of just choosing which damage stat you wanna go with

that's all I can think of for now

[TheGrimace]

Lemme be a goblin. I don't even care if I can't customize my look or anything, just lemme be a goblin. And none of that costume crap- I wanna do dungeons and trials and junk in goblin state too.

[rainichan]

Character creation expanded, with new clans added - we're not getting any other races after this, so might as well expand CC.

Mandatory job crystals equipped for MSQ dungeons from Brayflox on (toggled off if you're in a premade group via the queue options like unsyncing and the like for those who want the "challenge" or whatever.)

Expansion of the glamour system.

Expansion of the housing system.

NO MORE LUMINOUS TOOLS, please.

I know with the calls for like, talent trees or multiclassing, they likely won't go that route - the devs have discussed it before with it being more a "we want EVERYONE to be included in party comps for all challenges, not just whatever is meta because of their builds" and they're unfortunately right. The minute there's a minmaxed build on something, if you're not following that or you're trying to join a static that's not with friends, you're just not considered because you're not the meta. Happens in WoW, happens in FFXI where if you don't have the "correct" subjob with the "correct" loadout, you just don't get parties. It's not really fun to play that way.

I'm sure I'll think of more things later.

[DrWho2010]

This whole "bad luck protection" thing.

It's dumb.

You can't protect against the nature of randomness without (imo) greatly upsetting the balance of things somehow.

I mean sure I'd like to punish people that are on the floor for most of a fight and yet still be the one to win the weapon/mount/shiny thing etc.

I'd like to purchase bad luck protection for real life lottery plz. I never win the 40 million dollar prize after all the years of playing lottery so i should get it now right? it's "MY TURN" lol

[Solarra]

Log in Screen - The ability to change the order your characters

Housing - Enough houses to satisfy demand on all servers (or at least come a lot closer to it)
Instanced houses offered as an option alongside the wards without demolition for people who'd like a house, like to take breaks and who don't care for the neighbourhood
Accountbound houses allowing us to share them with out alts
Settings allowing us to toggle off food use in FC houses
Settings allowing FC members to interact with items in FC Rooms (food, vendors, crafting stations, bells etc)
Upgraded Apartments, larger sizes at least and space to place some outdoor furnishings ideally

Free Companies - A proper heirarchy for FC ranks so people cannot promote to or above their own rank
Less cumbersome method of crafting buffs (it takes a ridiculous amount of clicks)
A chance of getting a higher grade of buff if you make Excellent Progress when crafting (that means introducing something above Grade III)
Or a chance to get all your materials back (anything to make the tedium of all that clicking and sitting through the cutscenes worth it!)
More perks for ranking up your FC
Content that is FC exclusive that all members can participate in
More items that can be bought with FC seals
FC Finder in-game

[MagiusNecros]

Butt slider

[magitekLuna]

Let's see
1. Yoshi move out and let some one new and fresh take over.
2.full rework of all classes in game.
3.all dungeons be used for extreme roulette ,scale up the one that need it.
4. Tank s and healers won't be as OP as they now.
That what I can think of for now as big ones.

[Tigerlilley]

Glamour system overhaul.