Missing Gameplay Infused Roleplay (& Comparing FFXIV Gameplay Roleplay to Other MMOs)

[Kalaam]

That kind of little things is what makes me want to try other mmos.

[boopadoop]

holy heck this is way too much for my tiny brain to read entirely atm but i skimmed and get somewhat of a gist in in parts at least, and i like it

i also looked at wtf warband is going to be and i'm so upset ffxiv doesn't let us have things like this. i've been asking for years for them to catch up to this QoL with collectables. our pets, titles, mounts, seasonal event rewards, achievements, REPUTATION i'm so exhausted my old main char has maxed ARR rep but i am playing a new char these days and i'm working on the newer tribes but please have mercy ughdsfs, aetheryte unlocks even, gLAMOUR DRESSER esp with mog station/seasonal event bs, NEEEEEEEEEEEDs to be account-wide i'm so

also other fun things yes

idk i feel our game is super dated and everything we want is "our coding doesn't allow it"
so can we nuke arr again so that it stops being limited by coding??

[Shougun]

Just thought of a few for other jobs I've not listed yet.


Particularly on Dark Knight I like the suggested blood hp mechanic, as it is an example of an HP mechanic that might be used for a /tank/ job. Where it takes your hp and turns it into a shield (temporary HP, that you will lose if you didn't consume tanking).

Dark Knight:

• Blood Unto the Void - When hp is above 50% mp consuming attacks will also consume hp (at a %) and deal additional damage, consumed HP is changed into a temporary shield (meaning this idea does not create as many issues with tanking). This passive can be put on the hotbar to be toggled off (if you /really/ wanted to).
• Blood Unto the Void, From the Void Onto You (upgrade) - A portion of all damage turns into a degenerating shield instead (say if you take 1000 damage, 200 of it instead of purely vanishing turns into a shield with a timer - Darkest Urge plays into this).
• Darkest Urge - Attacks against enemies that have either less than 20% hp or more than 80% hp receive 15% more magic damage. Dark Knight will also heals 1% of their max hp on any shield created from the void passives (recuperating some of the shields back into HP).
  
• Shade Knight - Dark aspected magic deals 5% less damage to you at all times. After casting a magical ability that has an enemy target you temporarily reduce the effectiveness of CC debuffs on you (CC tick 40% faster and a maximum reduction of 70% movement speed). At night: increases resource generation and the range of all ranged abilities (including leap). Certain biomes also count like any that happen on the 13th.
  
• Rejected at the Gates - Immune to doom mechanics that can be cleansed (remember about the in echo content mentioned in OP)
  
• Corruption target / Rift Content - idea could be shared with reaper as a sort of leve like content where in the world there are rifts that need to be closed, might just be some corrupted variants of A ranks that you can solo (to reduce resource cost to make), but you can close these for good exp and glamour opportunities. Corruption might be more like a bounty board, like dark brotherhood (Bethesda game), situation but for bad.. people.. and not so much "mean flan is attacking my crops". Glamour not having to be exclusive to this idea, but could include the original Dark Knight smokey effect showed off in the heavensward trailer (instead of the fractal red that we got), and other spell effect changes (like perhaps if you wanted a more physical shackle and chain appearance to your aoe spell). Not just bounty board simply but for example you might come across an NPC that has a shadowy effect coming from them (when Dark Knight or Reaper) and if you talk to them you can find out they are possessed, glamoured fiend, or an exceptionally bad person - and then you can.. do your thing.. lol.

Monk:

Thunderclap can be held down to turn into a directional dash (tapping the skills keeps it as a target enemy dash, just as it was). When the monk has bonus movement speed the dash can cross gaps (use the same rules that Ninja and Dragoon, whether it requires aether currents or not).

• Instant Transmission (copyright? lol) - Double return cooldown, 7 second cast, teleports monk to a selected party member (works cross zones, planets, etc). Cannot be used if return is on cooldown. Will either check if you have aether currents unlocked in the zone (easy way to ensure no issues with MSQ / navigation), or check based if you have an aetheryte unlocked already (this, imo, is better, as players can already give you a car ride- but it does mean a player might teleport to a place they'll have to teleport out of too lol).
  
• Unending Will - If an attack would be fatal and the monk has chakra, consume all chakra, block chakra for the next 7 seconds, monk loses all enmity, health is set to 50% and their defense is multiplied by seven, hp continues to regenerate for an additional 50% max hp, and defense bonus degenerates each second (over 7 seconds). (1 hour cooldown)
  
• Rolling Thunder - Critical attacks have a 25% chance to reduce Dash / Thunderclap by 7 seconds. Thunderclap also grant monk a 50% movement speed boost that degenerates over 2 seconds.
  
• Lighting Sprint - Sprint out of combat is 25% faster.
  
• Speedlight Dash - (upgrade) While in open world zones casting sprint and remaining stationary charges up sprint, up to 7 seconds. Each second adds 1 second of sprint and 25% faster sprint (up to 175% /bonus/). Sprint is now indefinite in towns (until canceled, doesn't apply the insane movement speed boost though). Kind of Godbert like dash.
  
• Mind, Body, and Soul challenges - The monk will gain a series of challenges throughout the world on different concepts. Like body might use the monk's dashes and sprints to avoid obstacles, or soul where you you have to endure an ever growing onslaught of enemies (using earth reply, second wind, blood for blood, and even unending will very effectively). Mind might be more calm and almost Samurai Zen like (Ghost of Tsushima haiku poems lol). Rewards will be different qi themes, these themes can also have tiers. For example you might get +1 to earth Qi from titan, which gives you a sort of classic Super Sayian rocks losing gravity, yellow like energy, type effects. +1 meaning a level 1 earth Qi aesthetic is fairly calm and a level 7 would be full super sayian 3 lol. These Qi levels are aesthetic choices that just remix some sfx and colors (but could go beyond, especially at a max rank). You can pick a specific tier of what you unlocked (say you want tier 5 of the 7 you unlocked). Additionally mechanical differences could come from this (regardless of which visual you choose), like a Mind and body of tier 4 removes the double cooldown on Instant Transmission (so it's just regular cooldown).
  
• Feather Step - Monk can walk and run across water (using the key strokes that submerge you will cause you to sink into the water, holding or pressing them again will cause you to dive underwater where applicable).
  
• Meditate - Greatly increases out of combat hp/mp regeneration, out of instances will also reduce cooldowns (could upgrade into anataman).

Pictomancer:
(wot?! Yeah.. this was just one I suggested early on after the first reveal)

• Painter's Corner: Pictomancer through specific quests and challenges unlocks a variety of painter tools, like sparkly paint, vibrant colors, themes like ink painting (for example Byakko / classical Asian ink art), through these options the painter can customize to some extent the visuals of their painting style. Like you might complete moogle beast tribe quests to unlock different art that pops above your head on those special actions, or someone else goes and gets an image of Cloud of Darkness.. w.e lol. In that way if you want a bright a happy pictomancer, you got it- add some sparkles too mate. Yet if you wanted something a bit serious, totally do-able.
  
  This could be a physical location, which might be fun- to see the wall slots fill up with paints you've unlocked. Little bob ross space with your easel and stuff. Send that back to Bard with their musical instruments too, given a music hall where they can set up some music boxes with music they made, their best scored locations (read bard in OP / previous post if like ..? lol), and view all the instruments they've collected.

[Shougun]

Seasonal Events

Seasonal Events in FFXIV tend to be quick one and dones. Now on one hand this is handy as it does allow players to start even 3 hours before it ends and actually get the items, but on the other hand... It's paper thin content and that means you hardly 'feel' the event existing. Like someone sneezed a bunch of decorations but forgot to invite your heart to the party.

So here are some general thoughts:

1- ALL seasonal rewards return each season; however, returning items will be timed life IF you haven't achieved the achievement associated to them. Timed life meaning they last until the season is over, and then the items self delete. Perhaps to make them easier for the system, and players, these timed items are not equipment but are items that apply a BUFF to the character that glamours over your glamour (until the buff is gone). So if you use the pumpkin head item, you get the pumpkin head graphic until you cancel / lose the buff. Those who already have the achievement can buy the items from the vendors in both formats (permanent, can glamour whenever you want, and castable buff item).

If you want the castable item can have charges too, like 5 charges (infinite charges for achievement earned players, please create a Toy Box like WoW and toss this into there- which you also earn when purchasing the item from the cash shop). All seasonal items naturally cost seasonal tokens to purchase. Please don't noob trap a new player into spending all their tokens on temporary items when you secretly put in the current season's items in there that they missed (so ensure the "current" season is rewarded via the quest OR is simply reaching certain thresholds of tokens, so you can't noob trap yourself).

Reason: This allows SE to continue to cash shop the items (I'm not in love with it, but I know money is money lol), while also allowing players to get a much fuller list of cool things to grab and dress up as. Also the BUFF based glamour may be more convenient for players (ensure the buff doesn't get removed on zone transitions, combat, and logging in and out, only if you manually cancel it or the holiday is over). Particularly it will cause a bit more players interacting with events too, because someone might come back around to get a different costume or recharge their witch brooms.

May do housing and mount items too.

2- Add mini-games and other content, never remove this (build on it each year).

3- Convert excess tokens into poetics and or perhaps moogle tomes if that is active at the same time (can set a conversion rate limit, so each day you can change 5 seasonal into 5 moogle).

Right so here are some more event specific ideas (I'd like to hit at least Halloween and Valentines, but will do them later):

Winter ('Christmas') Holidays:
Snowpiles - are in towns and housing areas. Players may interact with the snow pile to start a basic game of dodgeball with other players, and NPCs (especially if there are less players), in specific regions around the piles. Playing the game will reward a Joyous buff that increases movement speed and exp by like 5% for 24 hours, this can stack to 10%. Repeatable quest to participate for additional award (like /additional/ token). Perhaps rewards bicolor and or /rested/ exp as well. Thought that many travel fast but are projectiles, so you can dodge them to an extent (balanced with some special snowballs that fast cast, others you need to hard cast, etc). Just a few buttons 4 - 8 but enough to give a little bit of tactic and 'play'. The mechanics here can also be parsed into one off items (as exampled down below). Larger games can be held in cities on timers, so players can gather together, and might have a bit more controlled chaos (like smaller games are really just chaotic goofiness, but every so often you'll get best of three CTF in a city or something).

Caroling - A daily quest (and FATE) that has you go to a random housing ward (picked based on player activity, will try to avoid dead ones) and play the musical mini-game that is in the game at a few players houses. You may choose to do this in the Ishgard NPC ward, if you hate players lol. Grants the player house a present at their house sign (pile grows at set intervals, so like you might login and have a huge pile). Opening them has random items, thinking of seasonal based toys. This is one of the ways to earn seasonal tokens, for the singing player. Once you reach a certain skill of caroling, which will be remembered each year, you will also get random missions to sing to custom delivery and other noteable npcs. Custom delivery npcs grant progression, other npcs will have their own specific rewards.

Moogle NPC Mail - ALL players may 'randomly' (some sort of range with lower and upper maximums) receive mail from NPCs in the game, this list will range based on your MSQ and side quest story. You can copy these letters into item format, if you want to store them as memories (maybe you're a crazy Tataru lover, and getting a holiday greeting from here meant a lot). There will be a note, in the style of that character, and similar presents like the above. Daily quest to help the moogle post will also grant you some of these presents (delivering to NPCs), which you can trade, mail, or open yourself (due to this some interesting rewards can be placed in there without it feeling like "if you don't have a house, you're SoL").

Last Minute Moogle Drops - Angled down view, players have houses they fly by that they have to toss the correct presents down to (few options), while also using the move keys to strafe into different lanes to collect bonuses and dodge hazards (like a temple run or other run type mobile game has lanes). Chance to get NPC mail forwarded by moogles from those whose cheer you brought (which can contain little goodies themselves).

Lighting / kindling ceremonies - Daily quest to travel around town to bring power and set up lights (use phasing, like beast tribes) and other decorations. After the items have been set up (all players move to MAX decoration phase after a certain day), you can continue to do the quest as a rekindle / maintenance type angle. Maybe for the decoration part, there is a personal phasing system but relies on the entire server's progress. So for example the first 5 days is decorating, and as a player I've done no decorating quests, but the server has done a bunch so the server is on tier 2 (lights and trees in many locations); this means as soon as I do the quest twice, I am also on tier 2. Make sure the max phase is peaked at the core of the holiday and lasts long enough that people can enjoy it visually. Each region will get a buff based on their status. For example at tier 2 all rare / exclusive items drop rates for the associated zone is increased by 5% and movement speed by 5%. Tier 3, all FATEs count as double completion and have a chance to drop seasonal items (up to 10 fates a day).

To add to this buff ideas, as I think it would be fun. Each region will get a skeleton buff system through the decoration / server teamwork, but additional details of the buff will be added by players doing seasonal content. For example if you're ice skating in a region, after 30 seconds you contribute a little to the joy of that region. So the buff might go from 5% movement speed to 5% movement speed, and if wearing seasonal items also double beast tribe progression, 10% faster movement speed, and 10% faster GP regeneration. Or like for ARR relics, you get double light.

Ice Skating areas - slidy mechanic spaces, mostly for goofs in the cities and in some contextually logical locations in the wild.

Use the drift / slide mechanic in the open world as well, where it visually makes sense (like A SLIGHT, VERY SLIGHT version lol, effects on all ice in the game, so players catch up a bit of speed (25% increasing over duration of movement, feeling like momentum) and very lightly slide (180 might slide you the opposite direction for a second, but turning wouldn't be an issue, movement skills will maintain momentum and can turn you on a dime). Such that it's really a neat benefit / neat thing and wont turn into accidentally sliding across the whole zone while afk.

Chocobo racing will get seasonally impacted visually - and bonus progression for the first few runs each day. There should be some sort of chocobo content on a rotational as well (like Chocobo day / week or something).


With all mini-game ideas, these systems could / probably should be written so the systems can be reused for other mini-games (like in the saucer). So a snowball system, upgrade / changes to chocobo driving system, might turn into a tank game (world of tanks or whatever that game is called), or you might get bomber man like stuff... Attempting to make the systems reuse-able can help them be useful.

Some seasonal items:
Presents - akin to the bozja, and other lootboxes, except with seasonal based items.
like:
One time snowballs (with variants (see Grumpus item below), these can use ideas from the general snowball mini-game above but can be used outside of the mini-game, and in general these items will shortly UI identify the player that threw it so you can get them back!)
Variants: hard packed one might create a dazed effect on the target for a second.. maybe a 1 or 2 second mild slow, enormous which will roll and move players (rare), trick-shot which identifies a spot near where it could be (fuzzy marked), etc
One time flurries and fireworks that have a winter vibe
One time blasts of cold wind that lightly move players (will not move them in fall damage zones)
Temporary Snow drifts and paths - will apply a SLIGHTLY slidy effect and movement speed buff, if you slid over the drift you catch a little air (doesn't immediately drop you to the ground). Sled and skates will take much larger impact from these. Players can place them, they last for a little while.
Coal, can be used to apply a dirty effect to self, if placed in a present or mail will automatically apply on open (will only work to friends)
Rocket Skates - below skate mechanic, on steroids. One time
Rocket Sled - same deal
Assortment of different theme'd candy - all coming with minor buffs that last 30 or so minutes, from 5% movement speed, 5% rested bonus, free teleport, etc.
Chance for toy variants of certain items (like pocket snowballs, which grants you 5 snowball buff and you can then with a button that appears throw 5 snowballs in sequence)
Interactable Drinks and food, in Inns / taverns. Add seasonal drinks to the shops. (Like in OP, make the drunk effect when drinking 'goof' alcohol items). Buffs ranging from the classic EXP buffs to cuter goofs like Uplifting Bubling Cider that raises your character off the ground slightly and reduces non-target based damage by 10% for an hour (does not work in non-echo-able content). Make the player placed items have double duration (so if your FC goes full holiday, that's awesome).
Frosty Snowman 'type' - one off item that transforms you into 'insert' type of snowman. As many different styles as SE feels, could just be one, could be size based, could be race, etc. Just.. transform into a snow man. Increases Ice damage resistance by 50% and decreases fire resistances by 75%, increases slide acceleration and control (resistance buff works outside of non-echo-able content, that's assuming they still track that resistance data.. they might have stopped since removing it generally from the player sheet lol).

Holiday mounts - all of them travel faster based on the seasonal joy of the region
Special Someone Gifts - Once per day you can give a custom delivery NPC a gift to get a free high quality 'turn in'. If you're partnered/married you can also get one for that (increases healing and duration on buffs casted on each other outside of non-echo-able content).
Stockings - Like by the fireplace, not Soken Knee High . housing version of the present box system. Can set rules to FC, friends, or party only. Can only open public stockings every so many hours (friend is unlimited).
Permanent Drifts, Paths, and Skating Rinks - Housing items.
Sled - toy / mount with slidy mechanics, where going down hills will speed up, up hills slows down, and there is some cap on turn rate. Will launch you off cliffs and edges. For maximum chaos, remember where people launched off edges and if they land on something unpathable (like an area you can't land on but can fly to) give them a magical sphere of snow under their bottoms and the ability to teleport back to where they last touched pathable ground (and they can also cast /return / teleports).
Ice Skates - Different colors / types, with a special magical one allows you to do it 'off ice' (might generate ice underneath, this effect once made can be used for other stuff-- like sand skating as part of some other item idea). This will use a system similar to the sled but with different characteristics (ability to pick up pace, like a chocobo carrot / stamina system almost) and better turn radius (slower than a sled down a hill though)
Grumpus - prevents any holiday effect working on you, toy. Never exclusive to the cash shop. (Applies Time Out buff that has no visible timer and expires at the end of the event, may be canceled, doesn't remove from changing zones, logging out, dying, etc- can still do the daily quests, just can't be the target of random player fun).
Perpetual Snow Cloud - produces a snowpile at the target location after 5 seconds (snowing), uses the snowpile mini-game. Some many hour cooldown (10? 24?).
Obnoxiously Life Size Snow Globle - puts your character into a snow globe, with the visual effects you might expect. A small circular space you cannot escape from (you can cancel the buff to leave). Jumping and moving will increase the snow effect, which will slowly settle if you stop (not 'physics' per say, just watches if you move or not and increases or decreases the effect).
Wind-up Flurries - gives your character some wind effect (the physics on gear), cold breath, and some visual sfx for wind and snow.
Spacious Box - may put an item inside it and have a player open it. Charges. When used you carry the present in your hands until you get rid of it (trade, mail, etc). You may set it down, if you do so it'll ask if it's open to everyone, party, or only friends list (and lasts 15 minutes). You can pick up your own box, getting the item back but not the box. May only put down a box every so often, and may only pick up so many PUBLIC ones as well (represented by buffs). Box costs seasonal tokens. Lalafells fit inside.
Magically Returning Box - toy, generates a timed life box. Long cooldown. Can be used outside of the season.