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

[LogicHatesMe]

Eh I'm not up to date on what HAS been mentioned as being a thing they are doing in 7.x, except for graphical improvements. I'd like a complete engine overhaul to be honest, the game is starting to look decidedly old now visually. Especially in regards to colouring and textures.

Remove zoning, at least in towns and most smaller maps. It's not required anymore.

Add more life to the world (the areas around starting towns have more life than areas arrived at later)

Stuff that will probably never happen:

Completely rework ARR-SHB to come into line with whatever comes after EW. I know a lot of reworks were done to ARR already, it needs more. If that means changing some story elements then so be it.

Add voice acting to ALL cut scenes from ARR onwards. If possible, voice the WoL (hell we get to pick a voice and it's just used for emote sounds) so that when we have dialogue options we get to see them voiced.

Instance the housing, get rid of the bullshit capitalist market for VIRTUAL housing. For gods sake you have the ability to create INFINITE houses but are still restricting houses based on currency and a lottery. I understand the want to have actual neighbourhoods to visit, but there's gotta be some sort of compromise here.

Expand upon older content that you abandoned because you thought of the next cool gimmick. I'm talking about Grand Companies. Make them more like Guilds or FC's for Solo players, filled with constantly rotating NPC characters that you can recruit for your Squadron runs (maybe one day you see a high ranked NPC that has a unique Job and the next day he's not there etc, make it feel like your own Guild of NPC fighters)

Add more dungeons to Squads and allow the fighters to take jobs and level up to 90 (or whatever level cap we have then)

Or.. blend them in with Duty Support, keep Duty Support as it is, but if you decide to climb the ranks of your GC, you can switch out (or add to in the case of Trials) the Duty Support NPC's with custom fighters from your GC Squadrons. and finally, blend TRUST fully into this system. Atm it feel weird to have Duty Support, Trust, and GC squadrons all allowing you to run dungeons with NPC's but completely seperate.

[Shurrikhan]

It seems we hit a bit of a resting point on the thread, so I thought I might take a moment to offer some further questions if anyone wants to take that tangent to the thread's intentions.

These questions will be based off the most popular suggestions thus far.

1. Would you rather the two-minute meta disappear with nothing replacing it (all DPS raid buffs are gone, all DPS are "selfish," and SCH and AST rDPS remain negligible at best), for it to be split back towards set comps (60|90|120|180s CDs), simply be complicated by more encounter design (e.g., having to hold for DPS checks), and/or have additional undermechanics offer it further flexibility (e.g., via being able to "rush" or "overcharge" CDs, that reduce punishment for desync while improving ability to flexibly meet encounter demands that don't coincide perfectly with 2-minute intervals)? Of course, feel free to add possibilities not previewed here.
   
   
2. If housing supply could be... quadrupled, would you prefer the current housing neighborhoods design or an infinite-supply form of instanced housing (that was perhaps even, say, integrated directly into the main cities, such you could any one of several buildings in the city, the appearance and inside physicality of which varies by the exploring player, with the ability to sync to another player's place or save a friend's house to your default game state)?
   
   
3. In what ways might you like the game to be more alt-friendly? Where do you draw your "line in the sand" between alt-friendliness and giving more addicted players something to do? (Alternatively, would you like for alt/omni-leveling grinds not to be central to/required for "something to do," regardless?)
   
   
4. What might the game do to make itself more intuitive and convenient in guiding players towards core or new content, learning the ropes, or even just looking for some means of casual fun previously unknown to them, etc.? What are some things that you wish were better featured, made more obvious, or more incentivized?

[kaynide]

First, Shurrikhan, thank you for this thread. It’s rare to see one that’s generally constructive these days.

Regarding your new questions: (warning, brick of text, bolded to give the tl;dr version)

1) I’m not involved in the meta personally to really have a valid opinion on this, but I would say that the mechanics need to be meaningful. More buttons for the sake of having buttons is just not a good feeling, or having positions to just give busy work without really potent gains is just busy work. I would also say things should not feel clunky to play.

It’s not so much I love or hate the 2 minute burn, it’s that the rotation itself needs to be pretty straight forward. I also hate resources that are on timers- Blackmage is an example, if you can just keep juggling forms to keep your power on, why not just let it stay permanently on until used.

I think Samurai is in a perfect sweet spot- the overall rotation is tight- it has a DoT path, a longer DPS path and a special ability burst. Doing those 3 things gives an additional burst, and there is a resource you can burn to weave additional damage. It’s simple, it’s easy.

Reaper is close, but when you go into ReaperMode, the typical 1-2-1-3 suddenly becomes a 3-2-1 which is cumbersome, and it’s easy to accidentally hit something and not use your finisher.

(More detail: )

Normal Mode: Soul Slice -> Gibbet -> Soul Slice -> Gallows (1-2-1-3)

Reaper Mode: Void Reaping -> Cross Reaping -> Lemure’s Slice -> Void Reaping -> Cross Reaping -> Lemure’s Slice -> Communio (3-2-1-3-2-1-4)

This could easily be fixed by making Lemure’s Slice first (1-2-3), or making Lemure’s slice the same button as communio, turning into communio after 2 Lemure’s slice. (3-2-1-3-2-1-1)

Redmage similarly has you dash in as part of the burn which can be bad if there are holes near the enemy (like Suzaku).

More specific to your question, I do think more boss mobs should use visual cues (like certain dragons/Minotaurs/cyclops) that don’t necessarily show the orange threat zone, or that they should do their abilities in random order. Less memorization, more pay attention and react.

2) instanced housing, all the way.

3)I wouldn’t mind a sort of shared account unlockables. Guildwars does this: unlock a mount in character A, all characters can use that mount. For FFXIV, things like glamours, dye. In addition, you should be able to /friend your own accounts, or just straight up a shared account-wide inventory bag, even if it is only accessible via company chest.

4)People might not notice it, but the devs have done a lot of QoL in recent patches. The reworking of Heavansward for example clarified certain boss attack indicators (such as the slime-slinging tRex guy). More of that is welcome.

And I would add that they should consider making a gold saucer mini game that is essentially “dodge the mechanics”, with commonly seen boss mechanics like gather together, thunder donuts etc. what we have with Yojimbo is a good start, but there needs to be more commonly seen mechanics.

I would also say there needs to be a more “live” version of the test dummy thing where you can practice your dps/rotation on moving enemies…like halls of the novice, but against enemies that do negligible damage with infinite hp.

Finally in 4, I really wish they would take time to homogenize systems. Eg. We do not need trusts, and squadrons, and the trusts-but-not-trusts-but-only-for-low-dungeons. Just straight up use the Scions if possible, including the B-squad scions like Hoary and Ocher. Squadrons..I dunno what to do there. Have them be part of the trust system, so you can make crazy teams that are “non-canon”, but also specifically 8 people who you can send on personal errands as we do? I dunno. It’s janky.

[LordMetal7]

New gunner class with more guns for 7.0 example look at Lost Ark

Another cool idea for 7.0 is to introduce a new city of thecnology for a new alliance

[Asako]

Some form of ilvl restriction on story trials and 24man content. Stop setting it to the level maximum as this causes the bosses to just melt ruining the entire experience.

Extreme Trial Roulette

Queue as multiple roles when doing roulettes. I don't care what I have to go as if it means a faster queue, just tell me what to swap to before hitting accept.

Stop making dungeons. They are the worst type of battle content known to man.

Dramatically increase the XP gain for fates, and I do mean dramatically. Let's breathe some life into these zones and get people actually popualting the maps. Currently even if they gave 5x the xp it's still not worth it. Needs completely retuned.

[Midareyukki]

Snip

1 - I feel like there's a need to make job skills feel like they matter. Especially when it comes to healers. Half of the kit is repetitive, and some skills are neglected for "the best next thing", when realistically the kit should interact with previously-established mechanics and skills should evolve organically from eachother. Synastry looks cool until you realize you need to waste GCDs on it. Then you look at the two charges of Essential Dignity and you wonder why bother with Synastry to begin with outside of an absolutely terrible situation. And then you realize the rest of your kit is there to help you reduce the uses of other skills, such as Intersection and Exaltation.

2 - Instanced housing. The neighbourhood system is cute... but it's a design that's only beneficial for a handful of people. And when timers, raffles and potential losses are added into the mix, you just create a toxic system that breeds competition unnecessarily.

3 - More account-wide items, particularly in novelty items obtainable only through MogStation. And when it comes to gearing up, rework the limitations on gear drops to allow for alt-class gearing. There are detriments to this, I'm sure, but odds are the gains outweigh the problems, and could even promote people feeling invested enough to keep playing.

4 - Hall of the Novice needs to be made mandatory and explain modern mechanics so people can understand them.
Like kaynide said, older "try-out" systems that eventually evolved into something else need to match that new system. As it stands, the Trusts in earlier dungeons are janky and the Squadron System looks absolutely abandoned. Viera and Hrothgar aren't even members in there, yet equally-rare races like the Raen can be a part of your Squadron.

[Zebraoracle]

1 - I feel like there's a need to make job skills feel like they matter. Especially when it comes to healers. Half of the kit is repetitive, and some skills are neglected for "the best next thing", when realistically the kit should interact with previously-established mechanics and skills should evolve organically from eachother. Synastry looks cool until you realize you need to waste GCDs on it. Then you look at the two charges of Essential Dignity and you wonder why bother with Synastry to begin with outside of an absolutely terrible situation. And then you realize the rest of your kit is there to help you reduce the uses of other skills, such as Intersection and Exaltation.

2 - Instanced housing. The neighbourhood system is cute... but it's a design that's only beneficial for a handful of people. And when timers, raffles and potential losses are added into the mix, you just create a toxic system that breeds competition unnecessarily.

3 - More account-wide items, particularly in novelty items obtainable only through MogStation. And when it comes to gearing up, rework the limitations on gear drops to allow for alt-class gearing. There are detriments to this, I'm sure, but odds are the gains outweigh the problems, and could even promote people feeling invested enough to keep playing.

4 - Hall of the Novice needs to be made mandatory and explain modern mechanics so people can understand them.
Like kaynide said, older "try-out" systems that eventually evolved into something else need to match that new system. As it stands, the Trusts in earlier dungeons are janky and the Squadron System looks absolutely abandoned. Viera and Hrothgar aren't even members in there, yet equally-rare races like the Raen can be a part of your Squadron.

Pretty much all this.

I'd also add all hats released moving forward be compatible with hrothgar/viera. It's freaking silly that they keep implementing new hats are STILL not usable by them. The fact that some of them are on the mogstation and you can't even use something you pay for is incredibly shameful.

On that note, stop selling mog station costumes as full sets and sell the pieces as individuals! Odds are, they'll actually make more money that way.

[Rithy255]

Here's a list of things I want added/changed for the future of the game.

General Job design changes.
1. Move away from "2 minutes meta" I feel like raid buffs could be overhauled a bit, Jobs Should generally be still based around "burst" but not every job.
2. New Jobs bring something New to the table, Sage and Reaper felt really lacking to me (Especially sage) with how much they don't really change up the game or offer anything really that would be interesting.
3. Overhaul Healers, I don't think healers need to have "full on dps rotations" but they could do with more DPS and damaging buttons, procs and stuff, Astro should be able to also use both barriers/regens again as it was a unique playstyle that the job offered.
4. Tank Balancing, I'd like firstly tanks such as Dark Knight get good adjustments, to it's rotation and abilities, (I can't comment on PLD until 6.3), warrior could use slightly more complexity, at least to something like SHB degree. GNB is generally fine from my perspective and PLD Idk
5. Universal Tank Stuff, I'd like more of a focus on Utility and support as well as tanks, I think EW did some good changes making their personals stronger and more impactful but they could also give tanks a bit more in general, also slightly tweak abilities to make them more unique and tailored to a tank so defensives/sustain feels different enough without making one tank op or UP defensively, Possibly a "rework" to how tanks work in general.

Other Things
1. More Customizable stuff, just more options in general would be great.
2. Allow players to use glams regardless of job (Maybe excluding AF gear), this would allow a healer to go for a more armoured look, a tank could use robes (if they felt like it), melee gear, even if it "doesn't fit" they already have some glamour's that don't fit tanks or such so I don't see why this would be a issue.
3. Add female Hrothgar, I dont think I'll myself but I know people want them (Adds more custom stuff aswell)
4. More UI Improvements & QOL stuff

Role Action "Choices" (Rough idea of having more choice into the game)
More interactive/selectable role actions, This might need some work to it but having a small selectable choice would bring some interesting things to the table, The idea would be that they are all useful in certain situations but also aren't *required*, We could make such abilities as knock back immunities, Provokes, always a role action that you will have.
Example of this would be: (You could select one of three)
Rampart, 20% Mitigation, Duration: 15 CD: 90 | Guard, 35% Mitigation, Duration: 12 CD: 150 | Prepare 10% Mitigation, Duration 20 CD: 60

[Shurrikhan]

...

I agree with almost all of this, and you've put it better than I could.

I have some follow-up questions, if you'd be willing to go further:

1 - I feel like there's a need to make job skills feel like they matter. Especially when it comes to healers. Half of the kit is repetitive, and some skills are neglected for "the best next thing", when realistically the kit should interact with previously-established mechanics and skills should evolve organically from eachother. Synastry looks cool until you realize you need to waste GCDs on it. Then you look at the two charges of Essential Dignity and you wonder why bother with Synastry to begin with outside of an absolutely terrible situation. And then you realize the rest of your kit is there to help you reduce the uses of other skills, such as Intersection and Exaltation.

This resonates with me, but it begs a further question: Where do we draw the line between an initial tool for/towards a given capacity and a redundant one?

Let us take healing as example.

The only way for oGCD heals not to make our (the more opportunity-costly) GCD heals not redundant is for damage intake to be high already and then increased accordingly; more specifically/critically, it must so high that one effectively cannot use those fancy new stackable burst healing tools for any purpose other than is newly minted for them in the increased new fights. That is to say, if an oGCD can be spared to fill a purpose GCD heals already met, then they start to border into trades of utility (e.g., using an oGCD heal in order to allow for a timely GCD DoT reapplication in one moment even though that means losing out on something else in another moment), and any further... they become redundant; oGCDs heals are preparatory resources for basic sustain (and, ultimately, damage).

And yet, the fact that a GCD "already did it" doesn't necessarily make every oGCD at least seemingly redundant, even if no new need was created to perfectly eat up that new tool. As such the "meets and already met need" model doesn't quite seem sufficient for what most players would call "redundant".

Given that, what might be reasonably appended to (or, reasonably narrow) that criteria? That it meets a need in a new way?

Since I tend to care almost solely about gameplay (especially the deliberate/decision-based, rather than rhythmic elements, thereof), I usually think of a tool as being redundant only when it provides neither a new capacity nor a new means of optimization, though I hold both to fairly high standards (though they are of course difficult to quantify), but I realize I'm probably in a minority there.

4 - Hall of the Novice needs to be made mandatory and explain modern mechanics so people can understand them.
Like kaynide said, older "try-out" systems that eventually evolved into something else need to match that new system. As it stands, the Trusts in earlier dungeons are janky and the Squadron System looks absolutely abandoned. Viera and Hrothgar aren't even members in there, yet equally-rare races like the Raen can be a part of your Squadron.

I imagine forcing participation in the Halls of Novice could be done easily enough as part of the MSQ (for one's role) and DF UI (can't matchmake as roles not yet completed), but speaking of abandoned "try-out" systems, I wonder if we might also do something to revamp Halls of Novice and Guildhests alike (some of the later challenges there could actually be quite interesting if [A] they weren't so easily cheesed and [B] if, once thus constrained, they weren't more complex than any actual instance thereafter). Granted, that last bit gets into the ideas of not requiring every dungeon to be a complete face-roll, but... /shrug.

[HeyMcFly]

Updated character creator

I'm not talking about just graphics- I'm talking new hairstyles, new faces, more options to make our WoL unique

Elf ears for Hyur's
Garlean 3rd eye for elves & Hyurs

Better face textures

Better color saturation for hair/face paint. Red should look like red. Not brown.

Lipstick without gloss

Eyebrows for Highlander males

Full beards & more facial hair options for male characters

Viera & Hrothgar only hairstyles - Because they need hairstyles that actually fit them & look good

Hilda's ponytail

Gaia's hairstyle

Hairstyles from other FF games

More long, female hairstyles

More long, male hairstyles

Body scars

Body tattoo's

Eyelash type options

Options to wear more than 1 facepaint


That's what I want
The character creator has hardly ever been added to -

(Also, a graphic update doesn't mean there will be any additions to character creator- that's why I'm asking.
I'm making sure it's said out loud - because if it's not said & shared, it will never ever be implemented. )