There is a lot to love about Final Fantasy XIV, and having given the latest expansion some thought, I figured I'd like to share some ideas that would add to the overall replayability of the game as a whole.*I'm not here to say these are what the devs need to do, but to offer my own ideas, and hear from you and yours.
While I have a lot of ideas that I want to share, this post is focused on the idea of the current state of progression with respect to how add value, restore XP, while maintain the current system to allow for players to take breaks and return without the impact of being too far behind to catch up to anyone else.
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The Current Problem
One issue that we have in the game right now, is that XP loses all value once you are at the current level cap, the spirit bonding system was in place back in the day to allow for it to go somewhere and let players generate matria in it's place, but that system hasn't had any updates or impact with how matria is dolled out now. Furthermore, the main crux of progression falls into the same gear progression we've seen since 2.0. Plus, while we've seen new progression systems added in Deep Dungeon Content, and Eureka, there isn't any real conversion to those types of systems outside the fact that both feed into the main gear progression tomb collection game.
The Challenge
If you add in more progression systems you run the risk of making players feel like they can't take breaks, and since housing is already that type of system currently in the game, having more systems like this could end up hurting the community in the long run. So any type of system put into action would need to respect a players time, while not making it mandatory to do content to keep up with everyone and add an extra level of stress.
Possible Solutions
Like I said before, I'm not here to say these are what the devs need to do, but to offer my own ideas. Personally, I think any system they introduce should be cosmetic or quality of life in nature. Thus all these ideas would not make any player better at running content in the game.
1. So first up, give a treasure coffer of random rewards for getting a level's worth of XP on any job at level cap. Destiny 2 does this quite well and is a good example of how to keep XP worth it at level cap.
2. Give us a Merit Point System, for those of you who aren't aware, a merit point comes from FFXI, where you'd level up and earn merit points that could be applied to your job, or other values. For FFXIV these points wouldn't be applied to stats or traits, but to different quality of life, or cosmetic items to choose from, things like:
a. Reducing teleport costs to a specific Aetheryte by 1% for each point spent (up to a cap)
b. Reduce the cooldown time of sprint outside of battle
c. Increase the duration of sprint outside of instance content
d. Increase the amount of any currency with a cap by 10 per merit point spent
e. Increase movements speed (outside of battle) per zone by 1% up to a cap
f. Increase Mount Speed per zone up to a cap
g. Increase magic find by 1% up to a level cap of some value (wouldn't impact rolls on loot, just how things could drop in the open world)
h. Use Merit points to buy unique mounts/minions/glamour gear (all tradeable too)
This list could go on and on with different levels or features that could be tied into this type of system, plus as the game expands, there would be lots of opportunities for players to always start fresh on different zones and more. Players would earn merit points by playing the game, earning XP, and leveling up, and since this wouldn't impact battle it would be a nice reward that players could use those points to pick what is more interesting to them while at the same time keeping XP worthwhile in a passive content type of way.
3. Upgrade our static gear progression system with different types of gear that are infused with traits, and allow that gear to level up by feeding it tombs or XP, or both… Glamour is a nice system for styling said gear, but and while controversial to the concept of balance, it would be fun to see gear introduced that has an impact on how the jobs acted. This has been talked about and the objections to this system which I agree with are rooted that if a player doesn't have X trait or skill then they are suboptimal. And I share those concerns, so my hope here is to continue to encourage thinking outside the box so that the progression system we have now isn't so cookie cutter, and that gear doesn't become useless every three to six months. I go back and forward on this all the time, so I'd love to know your thoughts here.
And finally
4. Allow for different progression systems to work together, while I'd like to see Eureka content be content that exists in all zones right from the start, it would be nice to be able to utilize the wonderous tails to tap into Eureka level rewards thus keeping all content relative to all other content in the game. The risk here is that you cut the legs out from under the content that you want people to do, and thus this and everything above needs to be looked at and balanced as needed.
Anyway, thanks for your time, consideration, and feedback.![]()