Quote Originally Posted by grausekopf View Post
I would love to see a huge part of the auto learning of abilities and spells being removed.

Right now it really feels like the character is evolving without much effort. The need to venture out in order to do quests or fight a NM in order to unlock a skill or spell always was fun to me. It makes you grow more attached to your character as you put more effort into what the character has become at some point. This sure leads to a bigger feeling of achievement as well which the game is lacking right now. This would automatically lead to more game content as well which everyone likes to see.

The current system of guild marks already is a good way of attaining some new abilities I think. While lower level abilities should still be learned automatically to help new players to find their way around in the game, way more mid- and highlevel abilities should require effort to learn. It does not have to be all of them of course. Learning should not be limited to guild marks though. Seperate quests to unlock skills similar to some weapon skill quests in FFXI sure would be a great addition. Regarding magic spells it could be handled in a similar way. Automatically learning beginner spells but then learning through guild marks, additional quests among other possibilities. It does not have to be a scroll dropping of a NM somewhere in the wild even though I also liked that system back in FFXI.
Nice post! I completely agree with your ideas.

It is as you say, it gives a much bigger sense of achievement. You give great idea for balance too to keep all people happy. I vote for that.