How would you improve ARR

[Dannythm]

After seeing many arguments in many threads, I've decided to create this one.

I don't care if you liked or disliked WoW, 1.0, XI or whatever, what is clear is that we all on a certain degree like the game and want to see it become better, so, I ask for everyone who feels some kind of passion towards this game, given the foundation that we have now, what would you do to improve ARR?

And for a start, here are some of my ideas:

Two of the most powerful concepts in ARR are the Armory System and the game's Accessibility, but ultimately it feels that even with the great job the game does to teach players it's mechanics, then down the road it does little so the player has to think and sole problems with that knowledge, so with this I think the following changes would keep he game accessible, but add some depth to it:

• Make the lvl15+ open world more dangerous. This change could even be explained with the in game lore "After Dalamud fell Eorzea suffered and it's inhabitants were still weak, but as time passes they regain their former strength". And by dangerous I mean stronger mobs, but not so much players can't solo them, just enough that you have to actually use your class or job to defeat them, so you'd die if you don't focus a little. Gatherers shouldn't be affected by this change because they already die if they are spotted by mobs, and part of their class fun is using invis. This change should also make farming world mobs a viable option for leveling, so people could level doing FATE, doing instances or farming mobs. Having options should never be bad.
• Add some open world dungeons or elite areas. This concept was one of the things I liked the most in SWToR, and it would make sense in ARR too, in the castrums or the beastmen strongholds. This would also give good places to go with our chocobo buddies to level them up and feel they have an actual use in the game, and are not just a gimmick.
• Add the option to make the chocobos carry some of our load. Add some crafts for weaver or leather worker to make bags that we could equip in our chocobos as barding, but make it so it cannot fight or be used as mount while in this state. Also the load should be transferred manually from their inventory by the player having their chocobo summoned. Could even make different kinds of bags, some that can only carry weapon or gear, others only crafting materials.
• Give some content for max level classes. Having the world more dangerous, it would mean that more survivability and flexibility would be needed to accomplish things when going in the open world, and that is exactly what classes give, in this way everything presented by the game should be used by the players, meaning jobs would be best fit for instances and raids, and classes for the open world.
  • In addition to this, classes would need their high level gear, and this could be an edge to boost crafters, so the jobs gear would be the drops in the instances and raids, but the equal level gear for classes with stats more suited for classes could be done by crafting.
• Increase player synergies. This would work similarly to how skill chains or battle regime did, but far easier. For example, if a Marauder/Warrior inflicted a mob with Storm's Eye and withing the first 3 seconds of the debuff a Lancer/Dragoon delivered a Disembowel hit, they could skillchain and create a greater debuff like "Armor break" or something which enhanced both effects but 5%. This would work with the actual systems giving an edge and extra tool for the coordinated groups to work with, but won't make it mandatory to be used to finish any encounters.
• Add interesting materias. It could really spice the game and metagame if we could get some interesting materias like 1% of performing a dobule hit, or 5% chance that regen will lat 15% more but cost 25% more mana, and so on. The dropped gear should be made meldable for this to work though.
• Improve FATEs. Add some more depth to certain fates, so players have more reasons to do them as high level and not just for atma or seals, like the ones where you end up controlling an outpost and then having to defend it, could be done to certain area sin the game, but with the inclusion that if players seize control of that area of the map they gain access to some crafting materials that are needed for the high level class gear and not obtainable otherwise (just an example).
• Bring back Hamlet defense. Nothing to add here.

These are some of the ideas, those are not some radical changes, but additions that won't change the game fundamentally but I think it will add some of the depth and sense of adventure some of us miss so much. I would also bring back the separate physical lavel and class/jobs levels (because it makes sense not to be suddenly weaker when I change to conjurer if I'm already a level 50 warrior) and gaining experience while you fight, and not just at the end of the fight, then again, because it makes more sense to actually improve while you fight and not just after you are done, and you'd still get exp even if you die and not kill the mob.

Also, expanding on increasing the sense of danger and the addition of elite areas int eh open would I think this would work very well to help us relate with the characters in the story, because so far we are told the realm is in danger (the garleans, the beast tribes, the primals, the ascisians, the old allagans) but I don't think anyone playing felt fear or any actual danger, or even that the enemies where dangerous at all. Increasing the strength of the game would actually improve the story telling because you would not only know that the realm is in danger because you are old it is, you would feel it, if you need to watch out when you see a lvl 49 Ixali in the forest and you take a sweat and a chocobo to kill it you would think "these guys mean business, I know why the other characters are worried" and you would feel the threat yourself. Also then the sense of accomplishment when you complete the story and do certain content will certainly improve if you had the sense that the threat was real, and not had only been told that there was a threat.

Please try to keep the thread civil and not make an argument of XI vs WoW vs EQ vs ARR vs whatever, just bring ideas that you think they could improve the game, regardless of their origin or source of inspiration.

Let's give the devs some ideas to work with (not that they don't have them already, but they can see in this thread some of what the players want).

[Surian]

Remove "zones", make the game one big open world again.

I'm fine with instanced dungeons, there's no way around it, but there's so little exploring that can be done in what is essentially a tiny world now. Most "zones" are only one path going from A to B with some landmass on each side so it doesnt just feel like a single road. There's no exploring, very very little hidden paths and routes one can take. I see things in the distance and i want to go there, but i cannot due to rediculous invisible walls. I want to swim around all of La Noscea, i want to climb the vulcano, i want the sense of adventure back i got in 1.0 traveling through zones just to see the beauty of some of the places.

At the very very least make the cities ONE zone again. It's absolutely rediculous having to zone over and over in Limsa, missing out on large pieces of the map you can no longer travel to because it instantly warps you from the start of a bridge to the other side. You did it in 1.0, it was no problem back then. Yet all of a sudden it is now and a lot of nice relaxing places for people to hang out are gone. I liked the climb from the plaza to The Bismarck...

[Shurrikhan]

Remove "zones", make the game one big open world again.

I'm fine with instanced dungeons, there's no way around it, but there's so little exploring that can be done in what is essentially a tiny world now. Most "zones" are only one path going from A to B with some landmass on each side so it doesnt just feel like a single road. There's no exploring, very very little hidden paths and routes one can take. I see things in the distance and i want to go there, but i cannot due to rediculous invisible walls. I want to swim around all of La Noscea, i want to climb the vulcano, i want the sense of adventure back i got in 1.0 traveling through zones just to see the beauty of some of the places.

At the very very least make the cities ONE zone again. It's absolutely rediculous having to zone over and over in Limsa, missing out on large pieces of the map you can no longer travel to because it instantly warps you from the start of a bridge to the other side. You did it in 1.0, it was no problem back then. Yet all of a sudden it is now and a lot of nice relaxing places for people to hang out are gone. I liked the climb from the plaza to The Bismarck...

I'm going to guess both these issues are unavoidable given PS3 support... That or I just can't think of another reason why they'd bother splitting the cities like that... Probably the latter.

[*]Increase player synergies. This would work similarly to how skill chains or battle regime did, but far easier. For example, if a Marauder/Warrior inflicted a mob with Storm's Eye and withing the first 3 seconds of the debuff a Lancer/Dragoon delivered a Disembowel hit, they could skillchain and create a greater debuff like "Armor break" or something which enhanced both effects but 5%. This would work with the actual systems giving an edge and extra tool for the coordinated groups to work with, but won't make it mandatory to be used to finish any encounters.

There should be quite a player-suggested system designs like this archived if you're interested in reading them. That said, I'm not really sure what the best way to find them would be... Check another veteran player who tends to like a mixture of suggestions and theorycrafting and look for old and lengthy posts? Just going off the top of my head, there have been magic-system redesigns, link systems, modified skill-chain systems, slightly FFXIII-reminiscent Battle Regimen reworks, systems that put more emphasis on weapon and (simultaneously) attack types, and abilities-in-detachable-parts-systems. They usually go for added synergy, tactics, and/or versatility (esp. in allowing for melee swap-tanking and skill-based tanking).

[AmyNeudaiz]

Increase Atma droprate to 10%
Triple Hunt mob HP and remove only getting "partial credit"
Bring back Faction Leves and give them Allied Seals
Halt further and curb current vertical progression

[Ruri]

Adventure mode like in Rift where it would randomly group you up for a set of quest in a random area. Could have rewards like in the roulette's.

[Garlyle]

My personal one would be "More variable instance experiences".

I get that for the highest tier content they need to be careful about randomized aspects. HOWEVER, I feel like that's also causing them to be relatively 'dry' on the experiences in lower level dungeons, trials, etc. I'd like to see rare monsters or even variant bosses that spawn to liven up the challenges, randomization of dungeon mob groups, etc. I think they're starting to look into it though, with Kraken proving a relative success, but I want to see it taken a lot farther.

There's probably a lot more I could come up with - from little things like "getting rid of presently useless materia" upwards, but that's the chief among them. I want more experiences in the game that force me and my party to adapt, or surprise us. Heavily scripted experiences can be amazing, and they make excellent "challenge-tier" fights, but right now that's the only type XIV really offers. For more relaxed content and play with friends, I believe spontaneity is extremely valuable.

[Nana_Balthazar]

Separate the game in two : "Final Fantasy XIV" and "Final Fantasy : Virtual theme park", instead of shoving both in one game like now.

"Final Fantasy XIV" would be a true RPG with interesting game systems, and a true lore that is good on its own instead of being "good" because "ascian's names are a reference from FF12, cristal tower comes from FF3, etc."
Some rewind in the story would be needed, because the "pure eorzea lore" has been wasted to allow the "fan-service lore" to take the foreground faster.

"Final Fantasy : Virtual theme park" would be 100% fan service, realised by Naoki Yoshida.
Locations, dungeons and characters copied from all others FF games.
No need for wannabe-rpg features like classes, stats allocation, equipment, etc.
No stats on equipments ; just glamour. SE could earn millions by selling virtual FF clothes in microtransaction.
No need to band-aid the lore to add new stuff like races, locations, etc. (no need for a lore at all, actually)

It's a win-win solution.

[ruinedmirage]

"Final Fantasy : Virtual theme park" would be 100% fan service, realised by Naoki Yoshida.

lol sounds like purchasable DLC for FF: All The Bravest

[Richiealvian]

1. Remove highest gear from coil. The people who needs a power boost are the ones who haven't cleared. However, have last turn of coil drop the weathered version of a weapon 10 levels above, which can be straightly unweathered come next coil. Because THAT is when raiders need their highest gear. The weathered is usable, just with on-par weapon damage but different build as it follows suit with the highest ilevel of the current patch.

2. Lessen waiting content. Grinds are acceptable, but waits aren't. Waiting for FATES to pop on animus books must be nerfed.

3. I believe at the moment the grind is perfect, it's not impossibly long yet it's not very easy to get. If you really put your heart into it, 2 months for a Novus I believe on a 1h/day play time average is very reasonable. However, it would help to alleviate the atma a little bit, by doing Soul Fragments. Soul Fragments simply mean, that every fate you do in an area gives you a soul fragment. The drop chance will stay at 1 %, but every time you win a fate, you get a guaranteed 1/75 soul fragment. If you do have an atma drop, it will just fill your Soul Fragment to 75/75, generating an atma.

I believe the relic weapon chain should be interesting enough that you can do ANY battle content and get a chink of progression to it. For example, dungeons(this wouldn't be fair, as people will find the fastest one, so perhaps just roulette?) will give you 1/75 soul fragments as well as a chance to get 75/75 soul fragment (note if you get one, even at 70/75 it will just make it 75/75, not 145/75.)

4. Increase tome limit to 600, and have it stay there for awhile. This way, hardcore players get more pleased and casual players can either worry or not about the cap. The cap is there, but not very limiting.

5. Primal Focus II. Shiva/Ramuh/Leviathan. However, it wouldn't have a limit. But you can trade massive amounts of token for a .. mount, for example. Or sands. Like, 90 tokens for sand and 300 for mount? But you can keep doing it over and over and get 3 tokens each time you clear.

6. Make hunts spawn more frequently, and include a mechanic that would require S ranks to be defeated by a minimum of 48 people and make S rank drop more rewards. (i.e make S harder, make A and B spawn often.) The tradeable rewards I find are just fine as it is.

7. More quests like the delivery moogle. It really makes me bond with the world, its people, its scenery. I feel like the NPC are family, instead of lifeless pointless characters.

8. The binding coil of bahamut: Turn 14 would be on the duty finder, with mechanics as difficult, if not harder than the current turn 9, with the size of 24 players. It should require coordination from 24 players. It will drop a Bahamut's Weapon, with very powerful sub-stats, a unique trait for every class, but will have same ilevel, upgradeable once after expansion for the new raid. Yes I said it, 24 man perfect jump rope. It should be the perfect ending for an era, it's not meant to be easy. The moment it goes down, a server, or even world wide announcement will be made. Still weekly lockout though.

[Windseraph]

An overhaul of the vanity system comes to mind, how something that was supposed to be so simple and purely for looks turned into what we have now, I just don't know....guess they needed to shove crafts in there somewhere, but it's still a horrible mess in my eyes. Still iffed at the augmented AF thing I suppose...