Particularly "RPG-ish" side-content

[Shurrikhan]

1. Would you like to see more RPG-ish content?
2. If side content could provide such in an enjoyable experience, would that side content be worth its development time, in your opinion?
3. How do you imagine that side-content might look? What might it include? What would you want from it in terms of feel, content, progression, or other mechanics?

Let us, for sake of convenience, define "RPG content" as any content which allows players to act on particular roles or character elements, especially within the context of a party, where not limited solely to combat or the game's normal optimizations therein, generally for the purposes of forming what could make an interesting story from the feats and tasks involved.

This could take myriad forms:

• Entirely new content types such as long-term exploratory missions with a premade party that allows for unique advantages from each job outside of content as well.

  A Bard, for instance, might be able to perform for gold at a town along the way, or as a distraction, or to set the mood for an act of persuasion, etc., while a Dragoon might be able to communicate further with dragonkin or leap up cliffs that would otherwise be difficult to scout and set up grappling points at their crests.

• Scenarios, whereby job choice allows very distinct ways to handle the puzzles and encounters involved.

  These "puzzles" could be almost anything, from conversational checks, to perception mini-games, to a heist, to VIP protection, to simple platforming where added movement speed and gap-closers could make a huge difference.

• Anything you can think of that would likewise allow someone to play a role, rather than just optimizing another source of damage, be it through direct or indirect means.

:: Note that existing Jobs do not have the be-all-end-all of these "Roles". Only that RPG (Role-Playing Game) elements ought to include playing roles in an enjoyable way, and as the word "particularly" has been used here, it would be sane to assume I mean 'more so, or in more ways, than is currently possible'.

[Tlamila]

I'm not sure what you mean.

[Gula]

Yes, how do you mean? Because if it is in regards to having fully fleshed out stories and journeys like Hildibrand then heck yes I would like more.

I loved the Aetheryte following stories for 5.0, especially with how many dialog choices we got. My flirtatious sociopath WoL got to grow in more ways I couldn't have anticipated with just the MSQ.

[Archwizard]

I'm not sure what you mean.

Well, just to take a brief examination,

Let us, for sake of convenience, define "RPG content" as any content which allows players to act on particular roles or character elements, especially within the context of a party, where not limited solely to combat or the game's normal optimizations therein, generally for the purposes of forming what could make an interesting story from the feats and tasks involved.

So what I'm getting from this definition is things like, for instance, jobs having abilities that add, for lack of a better term, flavor; ones that don't have any particular effect on game balance, like Rogue's mugging, Bard's instruments, and so on. In other RPGs this might include things like Feather Fall and Portal spells (though the Aetheryte system and inability to die to fall damage make those moot here), or several "impractical" skills we attribute to BLU here, like Transfusion.

That's just my interpretation of one broad element, as Shurri has elaborated on several other options like job-specific scenarios, or instances where the above-mentioned "social" skills have a beneficial effect on the outcome. To use an example from WoW, the Court of Stars instance allows characters to impact the course of the instance based on their race, class, and professions -- a Mage or Elf would be able to drain the magic from a lantern to enhance the party, an Engineer or Goblin/Gnome could hack and decommission robot guards, a Rogue or Alchemist could poison a flask one of the bosses drinks, and so on.
Things that play on the lore elements of each job. Maybe your Astrologian can divine the locations of hidden chests, or your Scholar could open dialogue options with their specialist knowledge, or your Machinist could repair a piece of machinery to assist the party, or your Warrior or Samurai or Black Mage could break down some doors or activate portals to open shortcuts through an instance.

Personally I think there's some neat potential, but with so many jobs it can be a bit tricky to diversify, especially when half the point of Disciples of War/Magic is the combat focus of their disciplines compared to the Disciples of the Hand/Land. For instance, someone like the Red Mage would have particular difficulty gaining a specific position as a job based on a lack of mastery, and several of these jobs are largely "wandering guard" positions, where the glim and glamour comes from your particular skill at it.

[Tlamila]

Well, just to take a brief examination,



So what I'm getting from this definition is things like, for instance, jobs having abilities that add, for lack of a better term, flavor; ones that don't have any particular effect on game balance, like Rogue's mugging, Bard's instruments, and so on. In other RPGs this might include things like Feather Fall and Portal spells (though the Aetheryte system and inability to die to fall damage make those moot here), or several "impractical" skills we attribute to BLU here, like Transfusion.

That's just my interpretation of one broad element, as Shurri has elaborated on several other options like job-specific scenarios, or instances where the above-mentioned "social" skills have a beneficial effect on the outcome. To use an example from WoW, the Court of Stars instance allows characters to impact the course of the instance based on their race, class, and professions -- a Mage or Elf would be able to drain the magic from a lantern to enhance the party, an Engineer or Goblin/Gnome could hack and decommission robot guards, a Rogue or Alchemist could poison a flask one of the bosses drinks, and so on.
Things that play on the lore elements of each job. Maybe your Astrologian can divine the locations of hidden chests, or your Scholar could open dialogue options with their specialist knowledge, or your Machinist could repair a piece of machinery to assist the party, or your Warrior or Samurai or Black Mage could break down some doors or activate portals to open shortcuts through an instance.

Personally I think there's some neat potential, but with so many jobs it can be a bit tricky to diversify, especially when half the point of Disciples of War/Magic is the combat focus of their disciplines compared to the Disciples of the Hand/Land. For instance, someone like the Red Mage would have particular difficulty gaining a specific position as a job based on a lack of mastery, and several of these jobs are largely "wandering guard" positions, where the glim and glamour comes from your particular skill at it.

If you notice, it was only edited and expanded after my (our) question, at first there was no explaination.
And yeah, once clarified I agree with the idea.

[DRKoftheAzure]

My impressions of this post are "tabletop RPG stuff in an MMO JRPG" which is fun in it's own right... assuming the Game Master isn't out for your character's blood because you somehow got on his/her/their bad side...


But this mostly requesting "I want player created content like Skyrim mods but for FF14" which I am slightly interested in just to see what everyone else can make...

[Shurrikhan]

But this mostly requesting "I want player created content like Skyrim mods but for FF14"

Is it? ...I've... never played Skyrim, let alone made use of its mod community.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Is it? ...I've... never played Skyrim, let alone made use of its mod community.

If not for youtube, I would never have known what Skyrim was, nor know what mods were...

[Karshan]

Very digging this idea of having "tabletop version" of skills. Could also, to accompany it, be having a 3 hour instanced exploratory mission but with a story that you can live with 7 people. Not just solo scenario or just goofing around grinding mobs a la Diadem or Eureka. My biggest deception with them is that they're just "mechanical focused", not sure if I'm clear.

Heck, they could make "limited job" versions of the current classic jobs that you can use in that instance, so we can invite blue mage (and likely next limited jobs).

That for sure would require tremendous work (the instances, the limited versions - or not cause balance wouldn't be a big deal) and since the money is already flowing they don't need to do it. But as a veteran, keeping the same formula as always has made the excitement for new patches go stale : aside from MSQ, it's always the same thing...

Now THAT would be a game changer on "what to do with my night" besides dying in Ultimate.

[Shurrikhan]

...

The way I tend to think of it is "delimiting" jobs.

Think of all BLU might be if it could both retain its unique skill acquisition and be a balanced, competitive choice in endgame content. That's kind of the far end of this stuff, except that by then endgame content probably wouldn't be limited to perfect squares and circles with an automatically moving boss in the middle, since such streamlined and repetitive environments would give the jobs fewer ways to uniquely show off.