How would you *fix* battle content?

[Kirutsuki]

Just give a simple list of like 5 things. Try to explain them in a single paragraph.
I'll start:

1. Some form of job "specialization system" to give jobs identity.
   
   White Mage could specialize into Green Mage or Illusionist OR stay as White Mage.
   choosing either one would give you 2 abilities that are highly specific to situations, but do not add damage,or more heals or mitigation.
   
   
2. Give battle mechanics interactive elements.
   
   I'm not talking about "carry this object to the right spot". What i love about action oriented gameplay is that I can go infront of another player for example and put up my shield and stop them from taking the damage.
   
   
3. Bring the entire overworld new battle content beyond FATE's.
   
   FATE's are ok, but should be adjusted to always give bicolor gemstones regardless of the zone. But beyond that the game needs additional overworld battle content across all regions.
   
   
4. Remove survivabilty (self-heals & maybe some mitigation) from Tanks.
   
   For one it ALWAYS feels bad when the healer dies in a dungeon and the Tank keeps going.
   Not only to waste time, but also to showoff how healers are not a necessity at all.
   
   
5. Make gear progression more meaningful.
   
   Not directly battle content, but I think for those who enjoy the overworld exploration, raiding or dungeon farming, there should be gear that corresponds to each battle type content. Maybe by giving raid gear, raid specific armor skills, overworld gear, overworld specific armorskills etc. nothing crazy, but like "run faster in overworld".
   

[Mawlzy]

Get the PvP team to design PvE jobs.

[Jeeqbit]

I'd like it if B ranks were really fun battles that angrily jump and pounce at you like an actual "elite" mark should. There are a few with good mechanics, but the vast majority of them just auto-attack and do a conal/circle/donut/column AoE.

For the open world another thing that would help is crafting materials you can get from powerful foes or areas that can't be sold on the market board, but you need them to craft things that some people want, which also can't be sold on the market board.

Some form of job "specialization system" to give jobs identity.

The sort of thing you described is theoretically already how it was designed, because White Mage is the specialization of Conjurer. Anyway, I think the defaults should work for casual players but you should be able to add more complicated mechanics that come with pros and cons. Rather than forcing easy classes upon everyone, since clearly players are split on easy vs hard. Whether they do it with Skill Trees, Talents, Cross-Class or like Blue Mage's system, either way it seems a way to solve the divide on this.

Give battle mechanics interactive elements.
I'm not talking about "carry this object to the right spot". What i love about action oriented gameplay is that I can go infront of another player for example and put up my shield and stop them from taking the damage.

For me this just goes back to making the Holy Trinity matter. That is a problem in the game now where the importance of role has diminished. As a tank, I no longer have to accept that I rely on the healer. As a DPS, between Second Wind/Bloodbath/Feint/other defenses, I no longer have to accept that I'll die if the healer does. As a tank/healer, I probably don't have to care if the DPS exit the instance because I'll have enough damage.

Now you might say that some of that matters in High-End duties, but when you have a mechanic that deals 999999999999999 damage to the entire party for making a mistake, it prevents the Holy Trinity from picking up the slack.

Also, let's say a DPS is struggling with their role because it's their first time. A more experienced player should be able to pick up the slack and multi-task both roles if they work really hard. That's players covering for eachother's weaknesses and it makes content more fun and dynamic. This can't happen if the result is just 9999999999 damage.

That also brings us to another problem, that the Holy Trinity is too powerful if it is allowed to happen. Across all 8 jobs in a raid, we can have so much mitigation that we can absorb several soft enrages and they'll tickle ie. PLD+WAR+SGE+SCH+DNC+MCH+RDM+Melee

Which effectively traps them into the 9999999999 damage thing to prevent the content from being a joke. It was so much less of an issue in Heavensward because we had less abilities over all, and we've just grown too powerful.

FATE's are ok, but should be adjusted to always give bicolor gemstones regardless of the zone. But beyond that the game needs additional overworld battle content across all regions.

I've thought about it and it's not that FATEs are necessarily a problem; it's that they lack depth and impact. For example, in ARR there are a lot of mob vs mob fights and you can effectively choose a side. The impact of that could be far greater, such as a massive influence on the sort of enemies that appear in the zone, who is in control of a village area and the items they sell (which happens a tiny bit in ARR), etc.

Another factor is bringing in crafters, gatherers and healers and making them relevant to FATEs. Let's say Player1 kills bandits and Player2 kills the local guards that are fighting the bandits. A healer could choose to either rez bandits or rez guards. A crafter could make supplies for the bandits so they have more powerful weapons, or they could reinforce the defense walls for the guards.

It's a sort of an indirect PvP, since SE probably can't make PvP work outside of the Wolves' Den. It was done in 1.0 with Hamlet defense, but it could be better than Hamlet defense. Different players may be interested in a different side winning due to rewards, achievements, preference or some other factor.

Depending on the amount assisting each side and the effort they put in, one side or the other will win.

[Gwenkatsu]

Make fights require skill instead of perfect memorization.

[MetaBoi]

I guess I would be approaching it with the idea that players should choose their difficulty. Let's say you completed the new dungeon. You unlock "shifting" version of it. In there you get options such as:
"Bosses are more complex"
"Bosses have a time limit to defeat them"
"Mob pulls are more complex"
"There is a constant DoT effect happening"
"Tanks take more damage"
"Occasional clouds that seal weaponskills and spells appear"
"Everything has more HP"
and so on. Nothing too hard on it's own but when all is chosen it can be as hard as Criterion Savage. Players can choose the difficulty they want to have while playing with friends or PF. Or randomly put into an easy preset (such as "DoT + Clouds") when using DF. For rewards it can give coins that can be traded for Augmentation materials, Materia, or even gear. Same can also be applied to extremes and savages should raiders want to challenge themselves or train for Ultimates or whatever.

Secondly I would change how the syncing system works, such that your stats and your abilities can be synced independently while you're in a group. Want to do an old dungeon with level 100 skills but that dungeon's item level? Now you can. This change will help Unreal content I think. They can just put content from older expansions randomly each week to rotate.

For the content design itself I would include moments like Mountain Fire from the DT EX1, even in normal modes. A tank buster that creates a safe zone around the tank. A tower that splits the arena so that ranged players can still attack while dealing with stuff there. And so on. It should feel good that you are the one whose interacting with that mechanic because of your job choice. Players should feel "I'm glad I was the [Insert Role Here]." when doing those. There are some mechanics in DT that feels like that (look at Mountain Fire from DT EX1) and I think there should be more of that.

For job design.... I don't know there is a balance to be struck between making each job unique and making sure each job can clear every content. PvP designs oozes with personality, so they can take some clues from there.

[Uzephi]

Instead of developing for hardcore first and dialing back or removing mechanics, maybe try a midcore approach and increase/decrease as needed. The reason midcore and casual is so boring is because the fight wasn't designed for that slower pace and forgiving play style.

Edit: instead of adding 9 billion damage as a 'mechanic' that must be followed, adding any of the plethora of debuffs you have in the game could work. When was the last time the debuff Misery was used in the game, or Disease in a raid/AR? You have the tech right there to give us more engaging content than 'avoid bad.'

[XtremePrime]

Make fights require skill instead of perfect memorization.

I agree with that but I don't know how they could pull off skill checks in a tab-targeting MMO.

[Kirutsuki]

I guess I would be approaching it with the idea that players should choose their difficulty. Let's say you completed the new dungeon. You unlock "shifting" version of it. In there you get options such as:
"Bosses are more complex"
"Bosses have a time limit to defeat them"
"Mob pulls are more complex"
"There is a constant DoT effect happening"
"Tanks take more damage"
"Occasional clouds that seal weaponskills and spells appear"
"Everything has more HP"
and so on. Nothing too hard on it's own but when all is chosen it can be as hard as Criterion Savage. Players can choose the difficulty they want to have while playing with friends or PF. Or randomly put into an easy preset (such as "DoT + Clouds") when using DF. For rewards it can give coins that can be traded for Augmentation materials, Materia, or even gear. Same can also be applied to extremes and savages should raiders want to challenge themselves or train for Ultimates or whatever.

I think this would gamify the content abit too much. And people would still just choose the most optimal "shift" and only use that 99% of the time anyway.

[Kirutsuki]

For me this just goes back to making the Holy Trinity matter. That is a problem in the game now where the importance of role has diminished. As a tank, I no longer have to accept that I rely on the healer. As a DPS, between Second Wind/Bloodbath/Feint/other defenses, I no longer have to accept that I'll die if the healer does. As a tank/healer, I probably don't have to care if the DPS exit the instance because I'll have enough damage.

Now you might say that some of that matters in High-End duties, but when you have a mechanic that deals 999999999999999 damage to the entire party for making a mistake, it prevents the Holy Trinity from picking up the slack.

Also, let's say a DPS is struggling with their role because it's their first time. A more experienced player should be able to pick up the slack and multi-task both roles if they work really hard. That's players covering for eachother's weaknesses and it makes content more fun and dynamic. This can't happen if the result is just 9999999999 damage.

That also brings us to another problem, that the Holy Trinity is too powerful if it is allowed to happen. Across all 8 jobs in a raid, we can have so much mitigation that we can absorb several soft enrages and they'll tickle ie. PLD+WAR+SGE+SCH+DNC+MCH+RDM+Melee

Which effectively traps them into the 9999999999 damage thing to prevent the content from being a joke. It was so much less of an issue in Heavensward because we had less abilities over all, and we've just grown too powerful.

As it stands I think 14 has moved too far away from the traditional holy trinity to even become a thing anymore unless they really start hammering on abilities.
The only other option they have is to bring about a new system on top of the existing jobs don't you think? Atleast for me it's hard to think they would really start adjusting things so drastically after they've tried so hard to make every job behave the same.

[Kirutsuki]

Make fights require skill instead of perfect memorization.

Sadly even games that do require skill ultimately boil down to perfect memorization.
But randomness in enemy AI does allow skill expression, or atleast expression of experience.

I would wish more trials and raids would include a bit of randomness to what mechanic they are going to use on each cycle.
that alone would help a bit even on a tab targeting game.