Should we consider combat QOL improvements/changes ?

[Yellow]

Just a heads up, this is just about having a discussion. It's not anyone's job to have solutions and it's not necessary for anyone try shutdown discussion or get defensive. The forums are here to trade ideas and discuss them!

As a game that started to help ease new players into the MMO genre, I think that this MMO need to grow with its players. We've seen the introduction of new skills and mechanics in 3.0 to add some further complexity into the game, but there's only so much more you can add before it gets too difficult or complicated. Since combat plays a significant part of this game, it's important to keep it interesting. The combat isn't necessarily bad - it still plays better than basically every other MMO in the market, but there is still something lacklustre about it. We don't have options to change our experiences, each class has the same way of playing (there are no points to improve certain spells or change the way they are used besides a handful of cases - e.g Astrologian).

I think we should consider elemental strengths/weaknesses somewhere in the future to enhance the combat in this game. Obviously that would require redesigning how some of the classes play, and it is definitely something that occurs (this game wouldn't exist without the intention of reimagining/redesigning aspects of the game).

Black Mage would obviously need to be redesigned, but I think that would be for the better. I actually applause SE for the current Black Mage, because they managed to subtly and somewhat incorporate the original design of Thaumaturge (being an umbral/astral caster) and the Final Fantasy Black Mage archetype we all love and know. The current rotational system for Black Mage works for now, but how many more layers can we add before it's not player friendly? I think SE has the creativity to redesign the class to fit a combat system with elemental strengths/weaknesses. What this would require is less vertical spell progression (e.g tier 1: Astral/umbral, tier 2: Enochian, tier 3: ???) but more horizontal progression (more situation spells and 'spell trees'). While the combat in 1.23 was very simplistic, I think it did a better job at encapsulating what a Black Mage is, especially when we look at what Black Mage has been in Final Fantasy. Perhaps if Black Mage gets redesigned, we can take the umbral/astral identity and create a new class/job from it (there is plenty of information on it with the original Thaumaturge pre-version 1.20).

I understand that in 2.0 Yoshi-P wanted to move away from the old system of building up your power over the course of a fight, so maybe that needs to be taken into account. I'm sure there are still ways something like this could be done without going against that principle, though.

I think elemental attributes also grants the opportunity to improve other classes and diversify the experience. If we take Monk for example - which originally was an elemental focused melee dps, it's now (as in, since 2.0) kind of similar to Dragoon with it's huge reliance on positionals. Perhaps the need for positionals can be changed/removed/traded for situational elemental rotations to bring back the old Monk identity that we once had, and give them more situational roles.

Elemental attributes also means new summon opportunities, and new ways in which unaspected/non-elemental abilities (as seen with Lancer, Arcanist, and Archer) can be utilised.

Reintroducing elemental attributes may only be one part of the changes this game may need. We may need other changes that the community feels is important. Maybe something that needs to be reevaluated is the notion of DPS/Tank/Healer, since the classes/jobs we have are much more than that niche role. There is a lot of room for expansion, maybe we need to reconsider what constitutes a party? Should it be 5 members to include an optional 'Support/Utility/Dps' slot?

This game still has so much potential. We've seen the uniqueness and creativity this game has once had and still has in many other aspects, so I have no doubt we can expect some interesting changes in the future.

[WinterLuna]

Messing with elemental resistances etc etc would pretty much require Square to redesign the entire game, not just a few classes. They would have to implement this into every mob, every boss, and then completely redesign every class to enable them to fight with the resistances and strengths.

I don't mean to shoot down the idea, but it's just something I don't see happening, although of course there are many other QoL changes we could hope for.

[WellFooled]

We don't have options to change our experiences

I agree, I would like something in the game that allowed us to customize our gameplay. If you stand two Paladins next to each other in FFXIV you can be sure they have the same abilities, the same traits, the same armor, the same gameplay. I would like some system in the game that differentiates us from each other. Some MMO accomplish this with skill trees, sub jobs, merit points, or something else, but I think a great start would be to make the stats on gear more interesting and complex. If gear had bonus effects like "Increase movement speed by 5%", "Deals x amount of fire damage with every blocked attack", "Adds damage over time with x potency to Shield Swipe", and other such bonuses, we would very quickly distinguish our gameplay from one another just in our choice of gear.

[Zojha]

I agree, I would like something in the game that allowed us to customize our gameplay.

We already have that: You can ditch your soul crystal in favor of more cross class skills.

Why don't you do it? Note: That's a rhetorical question. We all know it's because it's less efficient than going with your soul crystal.

Customization of stats and gameplay doesn't work out too well in MMOs, because people enforce optimization. You "can" customize your playstyle quite a bit, you can cross-class melee skills as ACN, equip STR accessories and melded gear and pummel people to death with your book. And chances are, people won't even care as long as you do that alone. As soon as you step into group content like that however...oh boy.

This is the core issue of customization in team based online games. The best you can do is to make the whole stat system so extremely convoluted, confusing, unclear and complex that even the smartest math-whiz just cannot possibly comprehend which choices are good and which are bad, so they can't judge others over it. Either that, or perfectly balance all the choices you can make. Good luck with that.

[Saccharin]

I think we should consider elemental strengths/weaknesses somewhere in the future to enhance the combat in this game. Obviously that would require redesigning how some of the classes play, and it is definitely something that occurs (this game wouldn't exist without the intention of reimagining/redesigning aspects of the game).

Elemental or resists is just plan bad game play. It creates false depth. For bosses it leads to x class can't come because the boss is immune or takes less damage; in you example you used a BLM. For raid damage it means resist gear. Now some people see this as the nirvana of 'horizontal progression' but its just a long winded way to stretch out content for no legitimate reason. Resists is an archaic game design that ight work well in a single player RPG but not an MMO with group based fights.

I do feel that melée in particular feel very 'samey', it's down to the combo moves. It's not so bad at high level but I dont feel they get unique enough until you hit the level where you get the jobs.

BLM I think is fairly unique in this game, I dont care about any other FF games. As a caster it is unique, thankfully. Now you just said the 'h-word' an frankly having a spell for every occasion is just bad game design.

We already have that: You can ditch your soul crystal in favor of more cross class skills.

I think that was the original intention of the class job system but the class system hampers creativity of jobs. A level 60 class is just woefully incapable of serious participation with the emphasis on job skill at 30 plus. If you use arcanist as an example. During 2.x, the difference of a summoner and scholar were the few abilities that you got at level 30-50. Now we have additional jobs skills at 60 it feels more unique but it's telling that they didn't add anything at the class level. If it wasn't for arcanist I'm sure they would scrap the classes completely.

[Ashkendor]

I don't think anything that would require that massive of an overhaul can be called a QoL change.

QoL is minor interface changes, like allowing us to purchase 99 items at a time from the GC.

[dejavutwo]

A good QoL change would be something like having all your cooldowns reset after wiping in a raid.

I am also against an elemental resist system. It always ends up being a system that only a few classes can participate in, and ends up being more of an annoyance than added depth. The few classes that can participate in it end up being either completely overpowered because the boss is weak to their abilities, or underpowered when the boss resists all their abilities. That sort of power swing is terrible for the person behind the class. This community is not above excluding people based on class for certain fights - Just look at all the "Ranged Only" Garuda Extreme fights when that was a new fight.

The alternative is having elemental damage on gear, at which point it just becomes a collection and inventory management nightmare.

[Ashkendor]

A good QoL change would be something like having all your cooldowns reset after wiping in a raid.

Yes please. This would be gorgeous all-around.

Also, your sig makes me giggle. :3

[Yellow]

Messing with elemental resistances etc etc would pretty much require Square to redesign the entire game, not just a few classes. They would have to implement this into every mob, every boss, and then completely redesign every class to enable them to fight with the resistances and strengths.

I don't mean to shoot down the idea, but it's just something I don't see happening, although of course there are many other QoL changes we could hope for.

Would they need to redesign every class? I don't think they would (since not every class utilises elemental attributes). I've actually had some very interesting discussions about changes for future patches.

The only reason I bring this up is because at some point they are going to have to make some pretty big changes to our classes. There's only so many spells we can incorporate into our rotations (without taking into account that we need to move around in every fight - that makes it very difficult for some classes that rely on hefty cast times). Are we more open to the idea of our classes not gaining new abilities after level 70? Or the amount being reduced to one or two situational buffs?

If we look at games like World of Warcraft, classes have been redesigned almost every expansion. It's definitely not something that is too difficult to do, especially in the case of FFXIV (the entire game was redesigned).

Edit: Is any of this possible or is SE going to consider any of this? Probably not, but it can be nice to see where the community sits on this particular topic. It's interesting to work out what people think and why they think the way they do!

[DragonSlayer45]

Admittedly, I find it funny how we even have elemental resistances if they do jack all. Why are they even taking up space in the character screen?

I don't see changes to how the elemental wheel (or lack of) works in this game because it would require a complete overhaul of Black Mage and most likely the other Disciples of Magic jobs. They would also have to redesign fights both old and new to take on such a change. As Winter said, its a lot of work for a system a lot of people might not even like and I too am not shutting down the idea, but just looking at it from a realistic standpoint.

Maybe in the far future if they ever decide to do a big redesign of the game like they did with 2.0, but not in 4.0 or any time soon.