Concepts from other MMOs that would be utterly anathema to FFXIV

[Omedon]

Through some... heated discussions and some friendly ones I've come to get a feel for the particular attitude of the community FFXIv attracts, and I don't say that to be snarky, I actually like you people.

That said, I maintain at least one "foot" in WoW at all times, and I went back this past weekend to hang out with some friends. While doing so I explained WoW's most recent patch's core feature, gear corruption, to one of said friends, and in doing so I realized "oh my god, this would get universally dumped on in FFXIV!"

Gear corruption is a random possibility every time you loot gear that the gear will have dark void corruption on it, a stat that is tracked on your character that the higher it gets, the more messed up things happen to you, but in trade you also get extra power and damage. There is a counter-stat called corruption resistance that you can build up slowly, that cancels out all the bad happening to you while letting you keep the extra power... but the possibility is there for players to go beyond their resistance, by a lot, and be constantly dodging extra personally-relevant mechanics that are (I believe) invisible to everyone else.

Basically, any member of your party at any time could have 2-3 more mechanics to dodge/manage that can potentially damage/debilitate them above and beyond what's already in whatever fight you're in.

When I consider how mechanically and culturally hard FFXIV leans into making sure everyone in your party is "vetted to be here," adding an optional layer of difficulty that individual players can opt into for the sake of extra damage, problems heaped on the healer and the rest of the party that they have no say in nor can they screen or detect it... I can't think of anything more anti-FFXIV than that haha!

So how about you? Have you ever played another game that did something that made you think "Oh my god this would blow FFXIV's mind in the worst way" and what was it?

[Videra]

Corruption (and Titan-forging, the very thing it was made to replace) are absolutely god-awful systems that have no place in World of Warcraft, nor FFXIV. It's a concept that is anathema to good game design, not just FFXIV.

As to the question, a pet-class like the old creature handler in Star Wars Galaxies would probably be absolutely non-functional in this game. Which is sad, systems that have depth like that are *grand*.

[Frosthaven]

So a couple of my own thoughts:

Gear corruption is a random possibility every time you loot gear that the gear will have dark void corruption on it, a stat that is tracked on your character that the higher it gets, the more messed up things happen to you, but in trade you also get extra power and damage.

WoW's gear corruption is waaaaaaay too rng to be what it is. It makes up a great portion of any individual's contribution but feels entirely unearned and random. I absolutely hate it as-is in the game and it messes up any feeling of earning/progression over time. Keep this to AARPGs, not MMOs.

When I consider how mechanically and culturally hard FFXIV leans into making sure everyone in your party is "vetted to be here,"

This is only true in some very specific end-game scenarios (such as Ultimate). FFXIV outside of those settings is one of the easier MMOs on the market by a fairly wide margin. Even the difficult stuff is typically hard-scripted, so it's just a matter of learning the dance and then dancing.

So how about you? Have you ever played another game that did something that made you think "Oh my god this would blow FFXIV's mind" and what was it?

Oh for sure! I'd love tab targeting and macro targeting from the older WoW expansions to be copy and pasted in. I would also love instanced housing like Wildstar had - for all its faults it really nailed housing down.

[Omedon]

This is only true in some very end-game settings (such as Ultimate). FFXIV outside of those settings is one of the easier MMOs on the market by a fairly wide margin. Every encounter is hard scripted, so it's just a matter of learning the dance and then dancing.

Well, as I learned in another... spirited thread, this actually permeates all levels of the game, which is fine, but it's not the norm on a game-mechanical level in the general MMOniverse. Case in point: role quests. You'd never get those in WoW, where you're actually skill-gated to go any further in the core of the game's individual storytelling questing. The playerbase of FFXIV has, understandably, come to rely on this trust that everyone who makes it to 80 has been gated and tested by the story and its content that they have a barebones understanding of their class. WoW does not do this, not so formally.

[Frosthaven]

The playerbaase of FFXIV has, understandably, come to rely on this trust that everyone who makes it to 80 has been gated and tested by the story and its content that they have a barebones understanding of their class. WoW does not do this, not so formally.

I disagree with this assessment. I feel that there isn't enough skill gating/stepping stones (specifically for the harder content, not casual stuff you can and should be able to face roll through). Most content in this game you could mess up and be fine with eating the damage.

* Healers and incoming damage are tuned in such a way that they spend minimal time actually needing to heal and instead contribute to the dps numbers.

* Tanking is done in such a way that if you have your stance on and hit a thing once or twice it'll stick to you, so you just focus on dps numbers.

* Dungeons amount to just pulling every mob in the dungeon at once and skipping half the boss mechanics because they don't really matter.

It is very straight forward and incredibly forgiving, so when players get into the actual hard content they get backhanded by mechanics that were more punishing than they'd face anywhere else or even be prepared for.

Edit: As for WoW, I played the most back during the burning crusade. You had heroic dungeons you had to cc for every pull (sometimes multiple cc) and very unforgiving bosses. You had to grind them out just to step foot into the kara raid (my favorite place in that game), so there was this built level of trust acquired since you know what everyone went through just to get in. The game has changed quite a lot since I last cared about it, but that is what I recall as a good progressive difficulty preparation. Doubt that would fly in any MMO anymore, though. As for inherited/earned trust in FFXIV, just browse through the duty finder thread.

I'll leave it at that, though, because I don't want to derail your thread and I quite like the concept of things people love from other places

[Veliena]

Well, as I learned in another... spirited thread, this actually permeates all levels of the game, which is fine, but it's not the norm on a game-mechanical level in the general MMOniverse. Case in point: role quests. You'd never get those in WoW, where you're actually skill-gated to go any further in the core of the game's individual storytelling questing. The playerbase of FFXIV has, understandably, come to rely on this trust that everyone who makes it to 80 has been gated and tested by the story and its content that they have a barebones understanding of their class. WoW does not do this, not so formally.

Since you specifically mention role quest I figured I'd chime in. In vanilla wow, there were role quest, where you had to do the quest to unlock abilities. Anyone who played a shaman back then can tell you the pain of the level 20 totem quest that made you run all over on foot to unlock the totem.

[Kalise]

Since you specifically mention role quest I figured I'd chime in. In vanilla wow, there were role quest, where you had to do the quest to unlock abilities. Anyone who played a shaman back then can tell you the pain of the level 20 totem quest that made you run all over on foot to unlock the totem.

In a similar vein, I remember in Pandaria and Warlords of Boredom they gated Heroic Dungeons in the LFD tool behind achieving Silver in the Proving Grounds for your role.

To which a ton of (Mostly DPS mains) cried about how it was too hard...

Meanwhile, I was able to get Gold in the Tank and Healer with Silver in the DPS as a Healer. I got Gold in the Tank, DPS and Healer ones as a Tank. While as a DPS I got gold in the DPS and Healer ones with Silver in Tank.

Due to how incredibly easy the Proving Grounds actually were... Which is a show in just how garbage your average PuG group was... (I also remember one person in my guild complaining it was impossible for her class to beat Silver... Then another of my, guild mates leveled up a character of the same class and found that you could complete the entire 10 stages with a single skill usage...)

[Veliena]

In a similar vein, I remember in Pandaria and Warlords of Boredom they gated Heroic Dungeons in the LFD tool behind achieving Silver in the Proving Grounds for your role.

To which a ton of (Mostly DPS mains) cried about how it was too hard...

Meanwhile, I was able to get Gold in the Tank and Healer with Silver in the DPS as a Healer. I got Gold in the Tank, DPS and Healer ones as a Tank. While as a DPS I got gold in the DPS and Healer ones with Silver in Tank.

Due to how incredibly easy the Proving Grounds actually were... Which is a show in just how garbage your average PuG group was... (I also remember one person in my guild complaining it was impossible for her class to beat Silver... Then another of my, guild mates leveled up a character of the same class and found that you could complete the entire 10 stages with a single skill usage...)

God yes I remember this lol. I found it quite easy on all 3 roles but my god the forums went nuts because over half the playerbase couldn't complete it. I quit wow shortly after this.

[Makeda]

FFXIV outside of those settings is one of the easier MMOs on the market by a fairly wide margin. Even the difficult stuff is typically hard-scripted, so it's just a matter of learning the dance and then dancing.

I wouldn't say that at all...

The entire genre has gotten very easy as time has moved on. I find FFXIV is the only MMO left that isn't pure cheese from top to bottom...


Most of the systems in other MMOs that wouldn't work here wouldn't work here because they already don't work in the MMO they come from... such as all those WoW examples...

Some things that I think would flip people out... for me come from past MMOs.

Wildstar's stealth and ranged tanks for example. With the, again, note that these concepts didn't work exactly as described... The ranged tank had an ability that some who play WoW might recognize from their monk tank. You could put out things that would taunt mobs for you - splitting pulls or keeping the pull at a distance.

Wildstar action combat. You hit the thing(s) that your animation showed your weapon hitting.

Wildstar AoE healing - not AoE like you know it... think of the boss patterns we all dance around. Every heal is some basic ink-splotch pattern (more like shapes on a simple grid). As a healer you have to lay them down on the map so that your shape matches where your team is... since it's a pattern... there are holes, lines, checkered shapes, etc... you could hit one person but miss the ally right next to him... since people were always moving because 'you hit what your animation shows' - you had to be really good at fast aiming those things. Often the more complicated your heal's shape was - the more powerful of a heal it was.

City of Heroes - where a typical dungeon pull could have a mob stack size over 40... including multiple bosses...

City of Heroes has something that would work... 'knocking on door' dungeons... you form a party, you take a mission - a door or cave or manhole cover somewhere in the zone can now be entered. Inside is a fully randomly generated dungeon... the group sets a difficulty rating for it before entering - that scales up both enemy power and rewards. This concept in City of Heroes was too 'easy to farm' due to the combat engine's flaws...

Guild Wars 1 'tank walls' - aggro for mobs was basically hardwired towards the healer, then to highest DPS. But figures could not move through enemies. So players, and sometimes NPC monsters, could form an actual wall of characters to prevent the enemy from reaching the thing they were aggro'd on... and the AI was smart enough in this situation to switch to something it could attack.

Guild Wars 1 adaptive AI - this only lasted a few patches... basically the AI seemed to have the ability to know what worked against you and what failed... and selectively start focusing on your flaws as a gamer... within a few hours your game difficulty would radically ramp up. You couldn't learn fights - because the enemy would not do something that had failed it before.

Guild Wars 2 early raids (because I don't know if this was true for more than the first few weeks) - the best tank is your healer, the best healer is yous healer. Healing works... a bit like it did in Wildstar but with less complex shapes (more of radius from where you put them). Essentially the best tank build was to make a healer with solid toughness... You could just drop your biggest heals in the area around yourself... In a way... this recreated the dynamic of Guild Wars 1... by accident... But it was probably not intended, and raiding in Guild Wars 2 soon got very intricate - after which this early day simple solution probably got out-meta'd. However I had moved on by about the second month of them adding raids so I never saw the later stages of things.

[Packetdancer]

Wildstar action combat. You hit the thing(s) that your animation showed your weapon hitting.

I really miss spellslinger play sometimes. I'm fairly sure no other MMO will give me a teleporting gun-mage who can shoot holes in space-time itself (and then leap through them).

The fact that you could literally hop into an entire other dimension outside of the fight very briefly to avoid attacks, reposition yourself and then return to the real world allowed some really creative strategies, especially in combination with the action-based nature of Wildstar's combat. (Of course, the fact that you could not see the battle while doing so—or any other players—meant you had to really fix it in your mind's eye and move precisely so you didn't pop back right into the middle of something Very Unhealthy.)

Of course, spellslinger also let you so terribly cheese the fall mechanic, because the teleporting dash reset the falling distance. So you could leap off of a cliff that would be certain death to fall down... and then once you were within a safe-falling-distance of the ground, rip open spacetime and hurl yourself forward to touch down safely on the other side of the teleport. (And watch your stalker or engineer friend who was blindly following you towards the quest point go 'splat' like a pancake behind you. My apologies to my friends who plunged off many a cliffside... though you'd think after the first dozen or so times you died that way, you all would learn not to follow me when I leapt off things.)

The Armory System.

No, really. 1.x is such a different beast that I'm not sure why the faintest pretense of that system is still here, though whenever I think back to how that system might have worked out today if it had the polish and pragmatism the current game has (or, ideally, even more), I can't help but drool a bit.

I love build-your-own class systems, but if they're not well-explained, they can make it very easy for a new player to blunder into a totally unworkable build and hit a wall.

The original version of The Secret World, for those unaware, had a system where you didn't level classes at all; there weren't even 'classes' in any real sense. You leveled skills with specific weapons, and each weapon had specific abilities associated with it; you earned Skill Points (which you would put into a given weapon to level up your 'rank' with that weapon), and Ability Points, which were used to purchase abilities with a given weapon. You could equip two weapons at a time, and the weapons were locked by rank; you might need to be rank 7 or higher with blades to be able to equip a specific nice katana.

You then had two sets of active abilities: seven active ones, and seven passive ones. The seven active ones were the abilities you actually used in combat—like FFXIV hotbars—and had to be for one of the two weapons you had equipped; the seven passive ones were like FFXIV's 'Traits', and could be drawn from any weapon's passive trait set. And you had to finish buying all the basic abilities under a given weapon to unlock more advanced abilities. This combination of fourteen abilities (along with whatever gear you had associated with it) was referred to as a 'deck'. There were no class names or anything, but there were achievements associated with specific sets of abilities; if you unlocked all of a specific set of pistol and blade abilities as a Templar, for instance, you gained the 'Paladin' title and a Paladin's dress whites uniform to use. (Gear was purely cosmetic, save for weapons and the 'charms' you carried.) And you could store multiple decks and swap between them at-will, akin to FFXIV gear-sets.

Though you only had the seven actions and seven traits at a time, it gave you the ability to build some interesting custom 'classes', some of which could be devastatingly effective if you hit on the right synergy of active/passive abilities.

Unfortunately, this system also made it very easy to build some utterly useless decks which would be impossible to really progress with.

And the game did not provide a lot of guidance on how to build a deck, or know the difference between the two.

I know a lot of people who built unworkable decks, then slammed into a wall when they got to the Blue Mountains area of The Secret World. They found themselves unable to progress the quests—or even survive battles in the area—and thus found themselves unable to really earn XP. With no way to earn more XP while stuck, they had no way to buy different abilities and make a more functional deck. Many of them just gave up at that point.