How would you *fix* battle content?

[Jeeqbit]

I'd like it if B ranks were really fun battles that angrily jump and pounce at you like an actual "elite" mark should. There are a few with good mechanics, but the vast majority of them just auto-attack and do a conal/circle/donut/column AoE.

For the open world another thing that would help is crafting materials you can get from powerful foes or areas that can't be sold on the market board, but you need them to craft things that some people want, which also can't be sold on the market board.

Some form of job "specialization system" to give jobs identity.

The sort of thing you described is theoretically already how it was designed, because White Mage is the specialization of Conjurer. Anyway, I think the defaults should work for casual players but you should be able to add more complicated mechanics that come with pros and cons. Rather than forcing easy classes upon everyone, since clearly players are split on easy vs hard. Whether they do it with Skill Trees, Talents, Cross-Class or like Blue Mage's system, either way it seems a way to solve the divide on this.

Give battle mechanics interactive elements.
I'm not talking about "carry this object to the right spot". What i love about action oriented gameplay is that I can go infront of another player for example and put up my shield and stop them from taking the damage.

For me this just goes back to making the Holy Trinity matter. That is a problem in the game now where the importance of role has diminished. As a tank, I no longer have to accept that I rely on the healer. As a DPS, between Second Wind/Bloodbath/Feint/other defenses, I no longer have to accept that I'll die if the healer does. As a tank/healer, I probably don't have to care if the DPS exit the instance because I'll have enough damage.

Now you might say that some of that matters in High-End duties, but when you have a mechanic that deals 999999999999999 damage to the entire party for making a mistake, it prevents the Holy Trinity from picking up the slack.

Also, let's say a DPS is struggling with their role because it's their first time. A more experienced player should be able to pick up the slack and multi-task both roles if they work really hard. That's players covering for eachother's weaknesses and it makes content more fun and dynamic. This can't happen if the result is just 9999999999 damage.

That also brings us to another problem, that the Holy Trinity is too powerful if it is allowed to happen. Across all 8 jobs in a raid, we can have so much mitigation that we can absorb several soft enrages and they'll tickle ie. PLD+WAR+SGE+SCH+DNC+MCH+RDM+Melee

Which effectively traps them into the 9999999999 damage thing to prevent the content from being a joke. It was so much less of an issue in Heavensward because we had less abilities over all, and we've just grown too powerful.

FATE's are ok, but should be adjusted to always give bicolor gemstones regardless of the zone. But beyond that the game needs additional overworld battle content across all regions.

I've thought about it and it's not that FATEs are necessarily a problem; it's that they lack depth and impact. For example, in ARR there are a lot of mob vs mob fights and you can effectively choose a side. The impact of that could be far greater, such as a massive influence on the sort of enemies that appear in the zone, who is in control of a village area and the items they sell (which happens a tiny bit in ARR), etc.

Another factor is bringing in crafters, gatherers and healers and making them relevant to FATEs. Let's say Player1 kills bandits and Player2 kills the local guards that are fighting the bandits. A healer could choose to either rez bandits or rez guards. A crafter could make supplies for the bandits so they have more powerful weapons, or they could reinforce the defense walls for the guards.

It's a sort of an indirect PvP, since SE probably can't make PvP work outside of the Wolves' Den. It was done in 1.0 with Hamlet defense, but it could be better than Hamlet defense. Different players may be interested in a different side winning due to rewards, achievements, preference or some other factor.

Depending on the amount assisting each side and the effort they put in, one side or the other will win.