Expansion Ideas: Systems, Features, and Content Types - What would you add?

[colorbanditblk]

Also I would really appreciate it if they could update the character creation and make it a lot more diverse options. Instead of us pretty much having the same faces.

[Seraphor]

That actually looks far, far messier then what's already in the game. Half of those jobs seem really out of place or don't look like they have any real identity.

Why are Black Mage, White Mage and Red Mage renamed?

Do you even know Final Fantasy?

Druid? Oh you're a WoWer.

[Enkidoh]

What else are you losing durability on?

FATEs? Overworld hunting?

What in the game outside of dungeons and raids has you killing monsters back to back (losing durability) or dying (losing durability) to such an extent where lowering Dungeon gil rewards -isn't- the obvious solution to losing the gil sink of repairs?

Is it Eureka? Are people just raking in so much game generated gil in Eureka that not having to spend the paltry amount on repairs would just inflate prices so much?

FATEs, Hunts, levequests (if you're still levelling or trying to fill the Challenge Log), Beast Tribe dailies, relic weapon quests... there's plenty of ways for gear to be degraded. And it should go without saying that instanced content accelerates the degradation rate, and especially if your character is KO'd (regardless if they are KO'd in instanced or open content, being KO'd degrades your gear even more, so if you're wiping over and over again, it's very easy to suddennly end up with badly worn gear.).

Marathon running instanced duties over and over again with little break will definetely also wear your gear down to almost nothing rather quickly. Getting into the habit of repairing your gear at a mender regularly can avoid that though.

And the reason for gear degredation is not just for it to be a gilsink (although that is definetely a major part of it). Gear degredation has been a part of the game since 1.0's launch, and it's main purpose was actually to provide a reason for Disciples of the Hand to exist - the idea was that SE expected you to level DotH classes to repair your own gear (and to switch to the required crafter class when you needed to do so), with npc menders being actually few and far between (and in 1.0 an npc mender would never repair it all the way to 100% condition, the best you could get was 99% - this changed in ARR though where npcs now repair all the way to 100%, but as in incentive to still repair your own gear you can double your gear's condition to 200% if you repair it yourself).

It also serves as FFXIV's equivelant 'death penalty' to FFXI's 'lose EXP on death', as a means of increasing challenge (the thinking is that you only really have to be concerned about it if you're dying a lot, if you're not then it's not really a problem, at least theoretically.). Basically, "there's no such thing as a free lunch": the 'free lunch' in this regard is doing content without some cost to the character, whether it be gil, EXP or something else, everything in life has a cost, and whether you are willing to pay it.

[Kabooa]

The majority of the paltry repair cost is either through A) Completing dungeons or B) Wiping in raids.

Sure there -are- ways outside there for gear to degrade, but never to such an extent where it's an active concern. Removing repair would have almost no impact on the game's current economy. You already get gil in excess of the cost just by doing a daily dungeon.

Collectibles from crafting and gathering reward disproportionately more than it takes.

The point being here is that repairing is already so little a cost that you can remove it to no detriment at all, but for the sake of 'inflation' you can just cut it out of the dungeon reward. Literally just there.

If you want more gil sinks, fine, but don't pretend like repair costs are somehow holding the line against inflation in any capacity.

They are so close to being a non-factor that it would legitimately surprise me if they -were- a factor for anyone, and not just something you do on routine after coming out of a dungeon.

[Lambdafish]

Snip

Some of your points are valid, but you completely miss the point. Dungeon gil is an incentive to run dungeons. If you remove repair and reduce dungeon gil, that doesnt feel like balance. That feels like "we are getting less Gil from dungeons. That lowers incentive and accessibility of making gil.

As for crafter's, speaking as someone who levelled crafter's just to repair in instances, I'll say that repairing is a huge incentive for crafting. Your point is moot because there are people out there such as myself that care more about that convenience than collectables and glamour.

The last thing I will say that the repair system is poor you are correct. What in advocating for is to IMPROVE the system, not remove it. Having greater detriments and benefits to how your gear is repaired, make it cost more but allow others to repair gear for you, there are many things you can do to make the feature take front stage more, and have it actually mean something as a Gil sink, and crafting mechanic, rather than allowing it to stagnate and become redundant as you so clearly illustrate

[Caitlyn]

I would like to have blood, dirt and damaged armor after a long fight. At the moment, you can fit Ifrit the whole day, your WoL still looks clean and fresh.

[Shurrikhan]

<example>

If it's not too much trouble, could we please quote, at least in a <snip>, to whom we are responding? Just for future thread-browsers' convenience. This thread apparently gets weird surges of posts that can separate replies from the page of the one being replied to.

FATEs, Hunts, levequests (if you're still levelling or trying to fill the Challenge Log), Beast Tribe dailies, relic weapon quests... there's plenty of ways for gear to be degraded. And it should go without saying that instanced content accelerates the degradation rate, and especially if your character is KO'd (regardless if they are KO'd in instanced or open content, being KO'd degrades your gear even more, so if you're wiping over and over again, it's very easy to suddennly end up with badly worn gear.).

Marathon running instanced duties over and over again with little break will definetely also wear your gear down to almost nothing rather quickly. Getting into the habit of repairing your gear at a mender regularly can avoid that though.

And the reason for gear degredation is not just for it to be a gilsink (although that is definetely a major part of it). Gear degredation has been a part of the game since 1.0's launch, and it's main purpose was actually to provide a reason for Disciples of the Hand to exist - the idea was that SE expected you to level DotH classes to repair your own gear (and to switch to the required crafter class when you needed to do so), with npc menders being actually few and far between (and in 1.0 an npc mender would never repair it all the way to 100% condition, the best you could get was 99% - this changed in ARR though where npcs now repair all the way to 100%, but as in incentive to still repair your own gear you can double your gear's condition to 200% if you repair it yourself).

It also serves as FFXIV's equivelant 'death penalty' to FFXI's 'lose EXP on death', as a means of increasing challenge (the thinking is that you only really have to be concerned about it if you're dying a lot, if you're not then it's not really a problem, at least theoretically.). Basically, "there's no such thing as a free lunch": the 'free lunch' in this regard is doing content without some cost to the character, whether it be gil, EXP or something else, everything in life has a cost, and whether you are willing to pay it.

I think what Kabooa is emphasizing, though, is whether the element, while conventional, is effective or positive in the context of the current game. If not, and its removal would allow other elements of the game to be more effective and positive for the experience -- or just to allow more effective and positive areas of the game to be more often or deeply experienced --then it ought be removed or the context adjusted to improve it, assuming those changes, in turn, are likewise beneficial.

Personally, the only durability system I've found truly purposeful in a gameplay-changing manner is that of temporary (i.e. run-length) armor-break mechanics like that of Vindictus, where you gradually lose defense rating as parts of your body are beaten and battered into their relevant gear's destruction. However, even that tends to delay the average difficulty, which can be counter-intuitive for dungeon progression or the like. When the going is still easy, it's even easier, because (if negligent or reckless, especially) your armor is there and therefore potentially expendable. By the time you really need that armor, however, it's often broken, unless you've armor repair kits with you. While those kits can be capped, this ultimately turns into just the opposite side of potion expenditure / gold-sinking; when you abuse potions to survive, you have to further sink gold on armor repair kits, but with the addition of the time spent repairing. It is therefore just a more cumulative gold sink that helps to devalue its compliment (low-cooldown health potions).

I'd rather see the context for the durability system change than scrap it outright, but I've also long been of the opinion that crafting needs a massive revision to make it less purely vertical in its progression and more immediately accessible at relevant levels and more capable of integration with other areas of the game. I'd also welcome any and all QoL changes that would guarantee more crafter materials space or reduce inventory bloat as it currently stands. Honestly, I would have preferred that crafting materials other than just Dark Matter could be used (i.e. if you have level 56 leather pants in need of repair, you could repair that with dhamel leather), while Dark Matter itself would become more granular, and stored as currency or alike to a crystal rather than as an item, to be used when lacking the particular relevant material. At that point I'd find it appropriate and integral, rather than solely a gil sink mechanic of too little impact to make its reason for existing feel cogent.

[Ramesses]

I would say I'd like Dreadnaught class airships added so we can do epic aerial battles in the skies... like so...

[AdvisorX]

The rotation are always the same for each class. I would love to see a change in the skill tree system.
It would be interesting if SE could add the role actions element into the job skills where player can only pick a certain ultimate skills into battle
so player could customize their rotation and change the play style from time to time.
You could say something like diablo 3 or maybe like Heroes of the storm where player can pick only
one of the 2 ultimate at level 10 and traits are customizable.
For example:
1. SMN: summon/Dots build
2. MCH: turrets/gun build
3. BRD: bow/support build
etc. etc.

[Shurrikhan]

The rotation are always the same for each class. I would love to see a change in the skill tree system.
It would be interesting if SE could add the role actions element into the job skills where player can only pick a certain ultimate skills into battle
so player could customize their rotation and change the play style from time to time.
You could say something like diablo 3 or maybe like Heroes of the storm where player can pick only
one of the 2 ultimate at level 10 and traits are customizable.
For example:
1. SMN: summon/Dots build
2. MCH: turrets/gun build
3. BRD: bow/support build
etc. etc.

Just playing Devil's Advocate here:

But, would you like to be forced to play a particular one of multiple different ways depending entirely on the fight, rather than merely altering your opener and near-jump CDs? Generally, that's what external and fully player-controlled customization comes down to: particular fights quite nearly require particular setups, at least once the community comes to know (or, believe) they are optimal.