I am a new player and have some ideas for the next FF MMO and it's job system

[Maverick_Evergreen]

Hopefully in the next FF MMO they make the job system in where you can choose to stay in your starting job/class even after level 30. Where you can take on master versions of those and get even more skills. Without having to change your entire aesthetics and theme of those starting jobs/classes.You would just become a more bad ass version of your starting class.I really like the traditional classes we start off with and wish we could keep them and still level up in them. I would Imagine they would have to find ways to differentiate between Master Lancer/stavesman vs Dragoon or Master gladiator vs Paladin or Master Archer/Sniper vs Bard or Master Rouge/Assassin/thief vs Ninja. I feel the magic ones would be a bit more difficult. Thaumaturge vs Black Mage, Conjurer vs White mage, Arcanist vs summoner and scholar. It would be nice if the similar jobs would share weapons as well. I think it would give the guild masters a more prolonged purpose and story. Musketeer would a really cool one to add. Imagine like a pirate themed Rifle job! They can keep machinists separate for those who like that better.

I want Square Enix to implement more traditional fantasy or industrial age like jobs. Like assassin, Ranger/Sniper, Musketeers, beast master, fencer, stavesman, a job that uses a club or ball and chain, bomber job (uses bombs as projectiles) lol, Mystic( uses water magic), or puppet masters! . I know they have classes/jobs representing some of
these already. However, I dislike how they are themed. They seem to preoccupied with being unique or different. Like machinist for example with the fricken AI Robot! Some jobs feel so out of place. I really don't like avatars in a jobs move sets. Like in Machinist, Dark Knight, and Reaper have. Your supposed to do combat not an avatar! If you want avatars in fine but I prefer them only showing up for a few seconds here and there when you select a skill. However, It makes sense for summoners "avatars" to stay out longer though. Since that's the shtick of that particular job. I also don't like how archers have to become bards?! Why did they not split that up into to separate jobs. Sniper and Bard. Same with Rouge and Ninja! Like why not assassin too? Not every rogue wants to be a ninja!? Not every archer has a knack for playing songs and all that!? Reaper is not interesting to me because they are way to flashy and have an avatar. I like sage though. But for a lot of jobs there is way to much special affects/avatars and flashy stuff on the screen! Sometimes simple and traditional with some shine or flash is just better in my opinion! I know you can turn off the affects but they remove way to much for my taste lol. I think there is a healthy medium of special affects and flashiness. And they are a bit over that healthy medium the more new jobs get revealed.

[Jeeqbit]

I don't think we need to talk about another MMO for a good 10 years yet. This game started being developed in 2005, just 3 years after the release of FF11, but a population decline or need for better technology must have been identified at that time. This game was designed so that it can be improved graphically as technology grows and things like AI have been used to increase the resolution of old textures, so it may not be necessary to make a new game so quickly.

Once there is an established and happy community like there is here, it takes a lot for it to even begin to decline - 5 years of unhappiness at least and then the decline takes time and that's why there is little chance we will be discussing a new one for at least 10 years.

They already know that classes are redundant and they do not exist for any new jobs. I would expect that if another MMO happened it would try to learn from this depending on the team working on it.

You would just become a more bad ass version of your starting class.I really like the traditional classes we start off with and wish we could keep them and still level up in them.

In effect that is what they are, just with a different name. Lancers are pretty boring and just poke things, but when you add jumps and more fancy-looking dragoon spears to it, it's so much more appealing. Bards just feel like really good Archers and the music doesn't get in the way.

I agree with Rogue though. I like rogues, their aesthetic and the rotation. Being a ninja isn't quite the same to me.

I think that an assassin would be a ninja, a ranger/sniper/musketeer would be a machinist, a fencer would be a samurai, gladiators have some club-looking swords, mystic would be blue mage because the first attack is water and it can use a lot of other water attacks.

Jobs like Machinist didn't used to have a robot but it was not played very much so it had an overhaul to make it more fun. They are trying to be unique and different because you don't want people to say they are all the same.

[Maverick_Evergreen]

Thanks, for the honest and respectful reply.

Yeah, I have heard about how when realm reborn came out they created the game in that specific way. I think its because they knew the PS3 was at the end of its lifespan. They knew most would want play on the new PS4 eventually. However, i have to disagree. I have high hopes that maybe Final Fantasy 17 or 18 will be our next MMO in around 4 to 7 years or so. Maybe they have already been working on it for a while. Even though they made the game so they can upscale, the PS3 has really held the game back on what it can do. Imagine with the PS5 as a base for this new MMO and no more load screens and a full open world Final Fantasy MMO. With way better than upscaled PS3 graphics and physics. The next FF MMO is going to be glorious. I think it would be what FF14 1.0 wanted to be!

Well I hope they do learn from it. I really think they have what it takes. Yoshi P is a great leader for the current team. I would imagine he would be appointed as head of development again.

Lancers may seem boring in FF14 because they do not continue to level up. Like all the starting classes or jobs.( BTW i love lances and pole arm weapons). Dragoons are cool and all but some people just don't like dragoons armor or the aesthetics. Lancers can have a more leather based attire rather than metal armor. Similar to the wood wailers in Gridania! They can have more power than jump. Maybe they can do more damage and have slightly better defense and are less mobil(still DPS). They can have more skills that show powerful thrusts (Similar to disembowel) instead of all the dragoon jumps. They would still have some jumping skills but not as high as Dragoon that combo with powerful thrusts. Imagine Warrior but in Lance form!(still DPS) I have confidence that they can make them interesting enough and different enough after level 30, than the other similar jobs. And some archers just don't like the whole music thing though lol. Its a bit subjective wether the music gets in the way or not.

Yeah! Right! I think its cool to have ninja but not everyone wants to be a ninja. Some folk want to be stealthy but with out the Japanese letters and jutsus!

Yeah exactly , if they were themed in a more traditional fantasy theme. I thought sniper would be cool like a stealthy looking robin hood/forest ranger type that is good with bow.

They didn't really? I did not know that. And right i understand that sentiment. Although i think there is a way to make them different enough. Square Enix has very talented developers. Im sure they could pull it off!

[Enkidoh]

To be really really honest, I don't think SE will ever do another MMO, as they're now running two FF MMOs simultaneously, and both are still making lots of money for SE (three if you count DQX).

MMORPGs' day in the sun is now well and truely over, and in a world still buckling under the ongoing pandemic, developers like SE are more reluctant to invest heavily in a game genre that has an enormous development cost and ongoing upkeep expense, with little promise of a return within any reasonable timeframe - it's why many are moving over instead to 'social' mobile phone games at least or to 'battle royale' type games at most, all of which pay for themselves by having less overheads and are easy to promote microtransactions within them, more than a MMO like FFXIV can.

As for your hypothetical MMO idea of 'character customizing themselves with different abilities', that sounds like what FFXIV had originally at version 1.0's launch - 'class' was basically just a term given to the use of a weapon type, as you had a base level which is what EXP raised - your class instead had a class 'rank' that levelled up independently of your base level via 'SP', and you were free to equip pretty much any ability to any other class, but this did not work as well as it sounded.

Replacing this system was one of the first things Yoshi did upon taking over from Tanaka as producer and so class rank became 'class level' and base level/EXP was scrapped, EXP instead being rolled into SP that raises your class's level, like in FFXI.

As SE regarded that original concept as a horrible failure, I do not see them ever returning to it I'm afraid.