Quote Originally Posted by Sandpark View Post
I know it's lifeless. The older sister of this game did some of the best challenging open content in the genre. But this game rarely takes things from it. They had such a deep open world system.

Notorious Monsters, HNM, Skillchains(on the fly limit breaks), an aggressive enemy ai, xp chains, it goes on and on.
Agreed. (And a shameless bump.) But allow me a ranting extrapolation.

XP-Chains.
We still have xp-chains actually. We just no longer pace our CDs or (especially) pool our (1.x-style) TP in order to maximize them because the individual mob exp is relatively poor, AoE options are a bit too clear-cut, and kill order not focused on as much in ARR (by which I mean all things past 1.x until such time as there are significant enough changes to require a separate term for the game's framework). Were trying to kill off a specific enemy at an exact amount of time despite gradual suppression on it a bigger thing (actually, I can't remember any time past T5-7 where avoiding a pad push was a real concern), and were there just a bit more synergy between pure AoE and single-target choices, and mob exp made viable, this would probably return to a real concern in FATEs. If mob camps were ever returned, then doubtless exp-chains would be a thing there too.

But that's a lot of conditions to get it off the ground; the framework does nothing without surrounding changes.

NMs.
We still have NMs. They're our hunts. They're just bland as hell, because apparently there's this assumption that players can't handle more than two abilities per open world mob, let alone without a clear and immediate telegraph. Is that SE actively trying to hold themselves back, or is it an excuse for shallow work? I don't know. But consider also the issues we have with complaints of "early pulls". In XI, only one group could claim credit for an NM kill. Here, anyone who attacks can. And still we take issue.

Skill-chains.
A concept like skill-chains have, in my opinion, a tremendous amount of potential in XIV. However, anything that works in the same framework, rather than merely the concept, of skill-chains is pretty well doomed to fail. Latency frequently limited skill-chains to open-combo, end-combo. With the Quebec-only XIV servers, that issue hasn't really abated. But, the ability frequency has easily tripled. Do you really want to be trying to time, within a fraction of a GCD, someone else's whatever skill (chain opens) to your highest per-execute filler/DoT skill (chain closes/progresses)? At best, that's going to be worth about 1.5 GCDs, but even the faintest delay can make a trainwreck of our GCD-locked rotations. Without a tremendous bonus, it won't be worth it. With a tremendous bonus, you're most likely to have numerous skills that just don't line up, making your rotation feel disjointed, unnatural, and—not surprisingly—unintended.

Now, there are ways to recreate what a skill-chain provides, be that a collective energy/force, or skill-blending, but these elements need to be made for the new, faster-paced, GCD-locked framework of the game, or the framework itself will need to be adjusted for something more flexible. Given how "same-y" a lot of jobs allegedly feel to people coming from other MMOs, where resource or priority systems might prevent GCD-locked gameplay, the latter may seem the place to start. If you so choose, I'd recommend looking at other systems that seem lackluster or ill-utilized, such as TP, which has no real consequence on rotations (partly because there's just no internal way to vary most DPS rotations themselves, such as hastening a Monk rotation to skip Fracture but further extend the use of a single Twin Snakes or Dragon Kick to another cycle without an Arrow and/or Fey Wind, and partly because there's just nothing interesting baked into TP itself, which may or may not then have interesting rotational effects).
(Arguably, even MP can seem underwhelming when you consider that a healer can cast every GCD, for some 8 minutes on end, without running out of mana; that might require full maintenance of HoTs, the occasional lesser, more mana-efficient heal, or even an Energy Drain, but short of having to rez or AoE spam there's certainly no reason to revert to lower-tier DPS fillers such as Ruin, Stone II, or Malefic. Some will love this. Some will complain that it moves healers from emergency-only DPS to a GCD-locked hybrid role.)
Consider also what strange but seemingly fun battle concept ideas you might excuse through the revision or implementation of XIV skill-chains. Perhaps you have an expansion that's largely focused around elementals, or the harnessing of elemental power. Well, now you have license to create a system in which elemental force projected (produced by players), received (taken by players), and environmental (field effects or lingering from projected or received) can be harnessed and reused. Let's say you have a Garuda... Savage fight that begins in a larger canyon, where you fight fragments of Garuda (e.g. Suparna and Chirada) of the original Garuda size, while the actual Garuda is typically at greater distance (and about the size of her spirit release from Ultima) and must be warded against by bending the winds within the canyon to starve or overpower (and thereby re-aim) Garuda's wind attacks, all through your combat and positioning when fighting the fragments. Spit-ball idea, meant to represent spit-ball ideas, but would it potentially, after whatever number of revisions, connect to our make sense to introduce with the XIV skill-chains. ...Same question for literally every other attractive but vague combat idea that comes through your mind.

AI.
As for aggressive AI, that's just such a massive and obvious opportunity that I don't know why it isn't on the roadmap. And I mean this both in the open world and in instances. Everything obeys the exact same laws of enmity. That may be convenient, but it makes zero sense; these are supposed to be different mob types, with different natures, conditions, procedurals, etc., etc. We've lost the curious cobblyns, the clacking crabs, blood-smelling wolves, vibration-sensitive ghosts, what have you. Granted, that may not mean much when 80+% of the world cannot respond to a max level character anyways, but perhaps that's all the more reason to consider universal level-syncing or whatever else. But the in combat effects, for the time being, are even more noticeably lacking. The most aggressive AI-ish characteristic we have right now is a threat reset. And it's not even AI. There is no typal AI. Arguably, there is no AI of any sort, only a table, a pointer, and a queue. That's a crying shame.