A Proposal to change shake/change things up

[ShadowyZero]

i know some people are dissatisfied with the direction the game has take as of late while others are completely content with it as it stands now not here to say either side is right or wrong but i do believe we can achieve a middle ground but providing amicable and agreeable solutions and thats what i want to empathize with this post

-i do not think there should be glamour restrictions i do not understand what lead them to the decision it would be fine to lock aesthetics and cosmetics behind things like gender or class/job when this wasn't the case for ARR and HW where we could wear alot of sets with the only restrictions being needing to be at max level on one class/job whether it was a DoW/DoM or DoH/DoL

-i think they've almost hit the sweet spot for content difficulty but just barely hit the mark on it and i think it would be better to differentiate the styles of content for this to work like they should ask themselves questions like: "is this something meant to consume alot of time?" "is it something meant for level progression or for story progression?" "can this be soloable?" "and would this be fun to do as a group?"
and of course some actives whether categorized on difficulty or not can still be fun to do alone or with a party of like minds or friends i think perfect examples of this are thing like the restoration projects they are easy going not stressful or too long activities that bring people together whether alone or not and then there are places like eureka and bozja which introduce some challenge for the more skilled players and is a perfect middle ground for those looking for thrill or excitement in combat.

-player housing or land ownership has been a major point of contension for the many groups of players within the game i can understand the developers had a vision for their ideal plan for communities to form an be built up by sharing estate as a one big group an there is nothing wrong with that mindset at all this is an mmorpg afterall an should retain multiplayer aspects but at the same time their systems were unbalanced and unequel and didn't allow for players to truly feel like they were living in their own unique space but rather just living with room/house mates with one "landlord" to dictate and manage it all so thats why they asked for individual housing an the developers opened up smalls to private home seekers an eventually extended it too medium and large house plots later on down the line which unfortunately just lead to more drama and chaos
apartments are ok and i see the idea behind to try and fix some of the scarcity and other issues but its just way to insufficient as is but if these new "mirage" system is anything to go by i would hope they can apply the idea to apartments as that would most definately solve alot of people's gripes with the tiny studio sized room we are provided with.
but i also feel like the island sanctuary was a good concept of ideas on what they good potentially do as well with solo spaces with how much freedom it gives you to build up and customize the area i think it would be perfect to combine it with our current player housing system into a new single owner player instance system then people will no longer feel left out of owning a house with a yard to decorate an show off to others within their circle or to invite strangers to come glance at.

-lastly is player retention, i know people believe in this idea of "its fine to take breaks every now and then why play something non-stop?" and sure its healthy to go out and try new things but this is a business still and they still need the money to be able to keep providing the service if people just heeded this advice haphazardly it could lead to a massive decline in quality as well as quantity.
people often complain about the reward structure an what they really want out of doing an activity even if it takes an extended time to work towards but i am confused on this as i am sure the developers are because the rewards the provide amount too usually: glamour equipment, mounts, hairstyles, minions, orchestrion, furniture, and gil all things most if not all players see as sought after and yet we seem to him this idea thats not good enough of a reward??? like what do you want then? an i have heard people pitch the idea of tieing achievements or relic grinds to content but thats exactly what they have been doing but its still complained about lol so this issue has me lost to be honest, i dont think is any real solution to it but rather i think people are just tired or exhausted of doing the same thing ad nasuem and want to see something brand new an to that sentiment i would agree with but i think the developers are on restraints that they haven't been fully transparent with us on what that might be we can only guess or speculate but maybe they will look at harder or maybe they wont either way its still a discussion worth having for those tired of the "same old same old.."

[NegativeS]

[Jeeqbit]

i do not think there should be glamour restrictions i do not understand what lead them to the decision

The decision was made because they want each role to look like it's supposed to ie. casters wear robes, tanks look tanky with heavy armor, melee DPS are somewhere inbetween those two things, and support jobs (ranged physical) just wear casual attire. Obviously you can find ways to work around this to wear armor regardless due to there being a small number of exceptions or ways to dye it to look metallic, but that has been their thinking. They have over time got a lot of new developers who used to be players of the game and they want this restriction lifted too, so they are torn on it, but so far it remains. Regardless, this isn't going to "shake things up" in my opinion.

"is this something meant to consume alot of time?"

Clearly not. The job description (which I've read btw) is literally to design dungeons that last about 20 minutes.

"is it something meant for level progression or for story progression?"

I mean it can be both and often is. Gives it dual purpose that way.

"can this be soloable?"

Of course they ask that question. Things generally become unsyncable eventually. They also know Blue Mages will be able to solo things (for example, they can solo lots of dungeons synced). And they designed variant dungeons with solo as an option. This is obviously something they think about.

"and would this be fun to do as a group?"

THIS is what they don't seem to think about. They have been so preoccupied with making things easy and intuitive and obvious for new and returning players, that it led to it not being very exciting. This is what they are trying to fix in Dawntrail.

apartments are ok and i see the idea behind to try and fix some of the scarcity and other issues but its just way to insufficient as is but if these new "mirage" system is anything to go by i would hope they can apply the idea to apartments as that would most definately solve alot of people's gripes with the tiny studio sized room we are provided with.

Yes I think that is something they are thinking of. I would ideally like to see them try to merge the wards of different worlds such as by making it hop worlds depending on the ward, or by moving a lot of features over to a cloud server so visiting other worlds doesn't impact chatter so much (such as /tells), so that the wards are more scalable and demand doesn't shift depending on the world.

island sanctuary was a good concept of ideas on what they good potentially do as well with solo spaces with how much freedom it gives you to build up and customize the area i think it would be perfect to combine it with our current player housing system

I thought this too. It's crazy that they came within an inch of instanced housing for everyone and then just left it as instanced islands without a house. Like they came this close to instanced housing that they may as well go through with it...

glamour equipment, mounts, hairstyles, minions, orchestrion, furniture, and gil all things most if not all players see as sought after and yet we seem to him this idea thats not good enough of a reward??? like what do you want then?

I agree with you. Almost everything has a mount grind associated with it! The people complaining there are no rewards just don't see mounts or glamour as "valid" and want actual player power as a reward (BiS, materia, changes to their attacks) because that's what they get in other games such as WoW. They just aren't motivated by the things the developers want them to be, I suppose.

i have heard people pitch the idea of tieing achievements or relic grinds to content but thats exactly what they have been doing but its still complained about lol

You're right; when they make a relic grind involving new content, people complain that they can't farm Crystal Tower for it and are forced to do the "new" content. So they let people do Crystal Tower as an OPTION, and people complained they were being "forced" to do Crystal Tower. So they just said "ok get it with tomestones, do whatever content you want for those tomestones" and people didn't like that either.

No matter what they do, someone won't like it. In my opinion, they should just make the relics require the new field operation content and that content be the most efficient way to get it. Then the more inefficient method can be via farming ARR FATEs and Crystal Tower because some people like this, for reasons I do not understand.

[ShadowyZero]

Regardless, this isn't going to "shake things up" in my opinion.

i am going to have to disagree on this take, as you know the casual fandom of any jrpg or mmo is usually the largest group an removing these locks on character expression would be phenomenal too this group of players we can already see this being the case with how widely praised and accepted the addition of the two dye channel option was received and now the expansion of glamour plates as well is another thing that was highly asked for and now they've done just that and it being praised as a success by the broader casual audience.

and if you give them the ability to dress up however they want with anything you can obtain ingame that will just further boost reception of casual gameplay going forward.

[Nero-Voidstails]

honestly none of those are really a big problem compared to the healer role that is almost useless since endwalker they should balance that over anything else not gonna lie

[ShadowyZero]

honestly none of those are really a big problem compared to the healer role that is almost useless since endwalker they should balance that over anything else not gonna lie

i give you all of my hugs :c heals do need more attention an more stuff to do both in and out of combat.

[Kes13a]

how about they "shake things up" by not adding more broken jobs and FIX WHAT THEY HAVE.

that would go a lot further than what they are trying to placate the players with now.