I don't know what can honestly be done for Final Fantasy XIV at this point.

[Kaliesto]

I look through the forums and everyday we got players here with some interesting and cool ideas (and not so great ideas) that could help break this game out of its rut.

However

I'm not sure if Naoki Yoshida understands what he is doing to his own MMORPG:

1. The Jobs feeling meaningless, more like copy and paste that reach the same conclusion which some forum goers have stated many times over. I think FFXI was the complete opposite of this if I'm not mistaken?

2. Lack of Custom Building for your jobs, I think the Job Diversity would help if there were passive abilities built into these jobs and other particular substats like elemental alignments (meaning a new materia system that have elemental sockets, so one could make a Fire Warrior or Ice Dark Knight). These are just a few ideas, I'm sure you guys got better ideas than I do (also I'm aware that elemental materia was a thing back then, but I think it can still work in a different way). Also have monsters be weak against certain classes like Avians weak against MCH/BRD.

3. Most of the normal monsters feel really meaningless, and their mechanics don't matter much. Maybe given its a relic from a time when MMOs were in a very different gameplay environment, but at this point most players have evolved, and so should the monsters in every corner of this game. Speeding up the mechanics would fix this problem pretty quick and might actually make dungeon monsters feel a lot more fun rather than something to be dreaded. I know Yoshi thinks these dungeons are fun, but in reality most people find it a chore because none of the monsters pose any real threat in most 4-man and alliance raids. I was so happy that one day when Thunder God Cid proved to be a real challenge and then he got nerfed (I just don't understand why that needed to happen).

4. There was some personal debate between me and a dear old friend who loved crafting if Crafting actually devolved after Stormblood (he left FFXIV when Crafting got very nerfed), I want your all opinions on this as I was not around during his ARR-HW era.

5. The Blue Gear every time its introduced also feels meaningless and its a waste of developer time to design all these clothes and gear only for it to be inferior to the Green Crafted Gear. It should be the other way around since Blue Gear seems like it was suppose to be a bit more special considering all the effort the Devs go into designing these things. Green Gear should be the first step, and then the Blue Gear being the 2nd step, and then finally Purple Gear.

6. Lack of Side Quest Diversity, now don't get me wrong the stories contained are interesting at times, but the gameplay involved in these is incredibly minimal and not very engaging and this seems like its been this way since ARR. I'm kind of surprised it kept continuing like this for so long. There were a few moments though that broke the trend, but then it goes back to what it always did.

7. FATEs, I don't think I need to say much how some people feel about FATEs for years on these forums. I think Bozja FATEs and Duels was incredibly a good step in the right direction and I wished Endwalker had followed through on this, but instead it was more of a copy and paste situation again. This ties in with number 3 above, I feel if the monsters were re-worked then FATEs could be a bit more fun to do and also FATEs need more diversity in terms of gameplay rather than always being the same situation, and these different situations are very few in each expansion.

8) The Remaining Grand Company Ranks that we will never get, I don't know where they're taking this, but it feels like a dead project that maybe someone on their development team gave up on. I think next time if someone gets a chance to ask Yoshi a question about this please do.

9) Empty Zones from a lore perspective, a lot of the landscape feels like it could tell a story, but in the end its just names slapped here and there all over a zone. The Lochs from Stormblood come to mind as it seems like half its zone areas on the map never ended up being used for anything. There is definitely a lack of local lore that maybe players could read or find out about, but instead its just a lot of empty void. Was Yoshi trying to make us come to our conclusions for some of these things?

10) PVP gradually losing its maps, Dead PVP Modes, and lack of PVP variety:

PVP should be one of those things that should be a good filler between major expansions, but all there is left is Frontlines and Crystal Conflict (before that being the Feast). The problem is Rival Wings which in my opinion offered more diverse gameplay, but instead players like myself is getting pigeon holed to play Frontlines for eternity and honestly don't find this fun at all after a certain point because that is all players want to do, I feel the Developers unintentionally dumbed down PVP because of how simple Frontlines is (and thus people want a quicker reward and also because of the achievements, mounts, and gear being more regulated to FL and while RW only has two mounts and a few achievements).

Now long time ago there were other Front Line Maps with different objectives, but these got removed for various reasons. To me this seem like a bad move when players could use more variety, and not having it taken away later. Same case for that one Rival Wings map that has been locked for years all because there was a balancing issue they never fixed for so long. Also removing the Feast Maps doesn't make much sense, why delete variety?

Finally PVP should not be boiling down to CC, FL, and RW. They had years to expand on this, and there is a lot of fun PVP modes they had not tried yet that other MMORPGs do. Better yet make something that is very original that no other MMORPG has yet to try (to our knowledge).
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There is so many things Yoshi's team has excelled at with this MMORPG, but there is just as many glaring weak spots that either he is intentionally ignoring and is aware of or he is not aware of how some players actually feel about this game, the curation of questions seems to be a bit of a major problem from what I understand.

[Adeacia]

Job custom building would be meaningless. People will just figure out the optimal build and everyone will just use that. I'm pretty sure that's literally the reason this kind of thing doesn't exist in the game.

[Kaliesto]

Job custom building would be meaningless. People will just figure out the optimal build and everyone will just use that. I'm pretty sure that's literally the reason this kind of thing doesn't exist in the game.

Not if its done right, there is plenty monster variety in every dungeon that you could make it where anything can be used and not be lopsided to just one way. I've seen and read this point many times, but there a lot of ways to negate that possibility mostly for normal content.

Extreme, savage, and ultimate content on the other hand yes I can see how that would be a issue, either those substats is disabled in those or the bosses have timed weakness windows so for instance lets do Chaos:

Chaos weakness becomes Water if he uses Fire, Chaos weakness becomes lightning during the Water phase and so on and so on.

Chaos weakness against a variety of weaponry depends on what he is doing during that phase to unleash your skill windows for max damage (let you use your imagination on that).

So Having these sub-stats and passive skills would not really be pigeon holed to just one thing so there is no possibility of players being ****s by locking out other jobs.


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I really think we need to stop thinking in a way that players will just try to keep pigeon holing a battle system, and there is so many ways we can stop that from happening if we brainstormed enough on it to come up with something that could work out.

[Sicno]

Job custom building would be meaningless. People will just figure out the optimal build and everyone will just use that. I'm pretty sure that's literally the reason this kind of thing doesn't exist in the game.

This would be true if peak performance was mandatory for clearing all content. The vast majority of the content is incredibly lenient and people already play suboptimally most of the time (just take a quick look at any random page in Tales from the Duty Finder), so I don't see the harm in having options for flavor. Even in "hardcore" content you're gonna find a big enough gap in skill between the absolute top players and the people who can barely clear the content. Many times there's even room to carry people, maybe not on day 1 but eventually with good enough gear. If you're struggling sure, you may want to have any advantage at your disposal including the most optimal build available to you, but anyone above that point should have enough room to sacrifice some efficiency if that allows them to engage in a playstyle they'd enjoy more while still getting the job done.

[Erinellza]

Job custom building would be meaningless. People will just figure out the optimal build and everyone will just use that. I'm pretty sure that's literally the reason this kind of thing doesn't exist in the game.

100% this! I hate custom builds in MMOs because people still force that one best meta build on everyone and if you don't play that meta build, you get kicked out of groups. Sure, you can have a custom build for solo stuff but forget about it if you want to do group content. Source: I also play ESO and GW2 where custom builds and heavily enforced meta builds exist. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that crap in XIV.

[RyuDragnier]

100% this! I hate custom builds in MMOs because people still force that one best meta build on everyone and if you don't play that meta build, you get kicked out of groups. Sure, you can have a custom build for solo stuff but forget about it if you want to do group content. Source: I also play ESO and GW2 where custom builds and heavily enforced meta builds exist. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that crap in XIV.

This is the main reason why custom builds could never work. There are meta builds, and then there's everything else. Want to do Raids or Strikes(Trials)? Too bad, you need that meta build or you're likely not getting in the group. Trying to heal or buff without an optimal build? Get out we can get somebody better.

As much as I love GW2, I won't deny the amount of pigeonholing that the playerbase does for anything that's considered high level content. For a good example of a class that's completely pigeonholed, Druid. You are healing/supporting as a Druid, period. You will not do damage builds, you will not do anything less than optimal, and you WILL do every mechanic because only a few people need to know them and the rest of the group is too lazy to learn how to do A SIMPLE MECHANIC THAT TAKES LESS THAN 5 MINUTES TO LEARN. Sincerely, a player who was stuck in Druid jail for 4 years.

[VeyaAkemi]

This is the main reason why custom builds could never work. There are meta builds, and then there's everything else. Want to do Raids or Strikes(Trials)? Too bad, you need that meta build or you're likely not getting in the group. Trying to heal or buff without an optimal build? Get out we can get somebody better.

As much as I love GW2, I won't deny the amount of pigeonholing that the playerbase does for anything that's considered high level content. For a good example of a class that's completely pigeonholed, Druid. You are healing/supporting as a Druid, period. You will not do damage builds, you will not do anything less than optimal, and you WILL do every mechanic because only a few people need to know them and the rest of the group is too lazy to learn how to do A SIMPLE MECHANIC THAT TAKES LESS THAN 5 MINUTES TO LEARN. Sincerely, a player who was stuck in Druid jail for 4 years.

Me, trying to play Reaper because cool spinny scythe feels good but everyone pushing me to play Scourge.

I took a break on GW2 shortly after EoD because there was this heavy demand for any DPS Necro to be Scourge, but I just didn't find Scourge fun or enjoyable, that, combined with the fact that building Legendary weapons require GoB, and my utter distaste for PvP, meant that the game didn't have much else for me until we got more story.

[RyuDragnier]

Me, trying to play Reaper because cool spinny scythe feels good but everyone pushing me to play Scourge.

I took a break on GW2 shortly after EoD because there was this heavy demand for any DPS Necro to be Scourge, but I just didn't find Scourge fun or enjoyable, that, combined with the fact that building Legendary weapons require GoB, and my utter distaste for PvP, meant that the game didn't have much else for me until we got more story.

Had the same problem with me wanting to play Daredevil but nobody wanted Daredevils in their group (dunno why, we're good DPS), which is what led to me being in Druid jail. I do not wish that hell in this game for anybody. Hell, this game already lived that hell (in a sense) during HW and SB when certain jobs were unwanted, we don't need a repeat.

[Shinkuno]

Me, trying to play Reaper because cool spinny scythe feels good but everyone pushing me to play Scourge.

I took a break on GW2 shortly after EoD because there was this heavy demand for any DPS Necro to be Scourge, but I just didn't find Scourge fun or enjoyable, that, combined with the fact that building Legendary weapons require GoB, and my utter distaste for PvP, meant that the game didn't have much else for me until we got more story.

But would you really be forced to do the same in FF14? In the community that rather drags an afk through the finish line than kick them?

[Sebazy]

Job custom building would be meaningless. People will just figure out the optimal build and everyone will just use that. I'm pretty sure that's literally the reason this kind of thing doesn't exist in the game.

The solution to this is to simply make different content require different things so we don't all sit in the same groove. The flexibility of the job system offers so much but SE really fail to capitalise on it in the same manner that FFXI did.

*edit*

To clarify, I don't mean that X content requires you to queue as one job, whilst Y requires you to be on another.

Rather, raid tiers should be designed with more variation in what they demand from the different jobs within each role as to try and give multiple jobs an advantage over each other within fights of the same tier.

On paper, it's a great way to bust the monotony of people mindlessly following the meta, the downside is of course that the severe homogenisation that we have today makes this kind of difficult.