Incremental Steps Towards Something New: What Should Be Gradually Prototyped?

[Jeeqbit]

Literally any QoL. There are so, so many things that are definitely not these huge coding, hardware or infrastructure hurdles they portray them as. I've (casually) coded in many languages since I was a child and sometimes it is baffling how things get portrayed as taking years or being impossible. If anyone here hasn't coded, believe me, there are certain things that you just know, no matter what the code structure or "spaghetti", are still not rocket science to do within the confines of those things, or there is even evidence within the game of similar "simple" things being done without issue. (That said, there are some things that people here portray as being easy to implement but would genuinely take years of planning and navigating hardware infrastructure challenges such as cross-DC PF or cross-region DF.)

QoL could be not clicking on other players/objects when clicking the hotbar, better targeting that has a competent priority system (such as closest engaged enemy>engaged enemies>unengaged enemies), rewards for doing content MINE such as Faux Hollows, better ilvl syncs for old content, better default UI arrangement that would make sprouts better at playing overnight, less annoying clipping in ARR areas before you unlock flying, landing more places, bulk split if they are going to have spawn conditions like Salt and Light, just 1 day of time spent on extra accessability options such as applying color blind settings to specific HUD elements and battle elements and adjusting non-player battle effects, abilities being such a problem to weave and register with high ping.

A lot of it is stuff a person could do in just 1 day or close to it. QoL is important because the more "little" annoyances there are, the more they build up to make someone feel a game is riddled with issues, at which point they quit. To be quite honest, what has made this game successful is addressing the major ones, but the smaller ones build up and as I said, many of them could be solved in a day by 1 developer if we're being honest.

Suggest a new, "experimental" content type

My idea for a new piece of content is a better version of guildhests that tries to re-create the traditional final fantasy experience. To give an example of the sort of content I imagine, watch these trailers:

• 1.0 trailer - Just this morbol fight, exactly as it is. We have the morbol fight but it's boring because it just autos the tank instead of pouncing on random players like that.
• 5.0 trailer - My idea is each player would be forcefully switched through their available job's highest ilvl gearset, and swiftly defeated each time, until their last job is a Dark Knight and then their damage is extremely buffed.

Just fun gimmick fights, basically.

In order to recreate the final fantasy experience:

1. Have no tank so that the boss jumps around and does whatever it does in its respective trailer.
2. Make the GCD very long - such as 10-20 seconds. This will force a healer to decide very carefully if their next GCD will be a heal, or an attack, and make their decisions a lot more important. Because if they choose wrong, the party may die. This is largely what made old FF games feel a certain way - if you chose not to heal, all you could do was watch for ages as the party got killed while the bar recharged. It added similar stakes to cleric stance in a way, whereas now the GCD restores fast and we have lots of OGCDs.
3. Disable abilities except certain ones, such as gap closers, rescue, role actions generally, etc.
4. In exchange for the long GCD, make the mechanics extremely intense so you have to move around like crazy and the focus is just to get your 1 attack in.