Originally Posted by
arus2001
I'm not fond of the current trends of MMOs, but at the same time, I don't want to go back to olden XI, either. There's a middle ground that can be found, but ultimately you have that unsavory mix of devs not being willing to risk it and players generally being too afraid to embrace change.
Like others, I enjoy and ultimately prefer the XI-style of everything being done on a single character, the only exception to that being crafting--which could be an easy fix. Those who prefer the alt experience could still do it, but no real hopping around and nobody knowing who you were or trying to keep certain characters a secret for whatever reason. If I wanted to nuke things into oblivion one day, I could. If I wanted to stab 'em with a sword. I could. The only real flaws I'd say XI had here were a mix of job imbalances persisting for too long and really making some unique not being embraced enough.
As for other games, I loathe how it's pretty much running instanced dungeons/raids and everything else being inconsequential. To pine back to that fear of change I mentioned, if you even assert people could quest/craft comparable gear as found in those locales, people will flip their shit under the assumption someone doesn't deserve it, they won't know how to play their job(s), nobody would do dungeons/raids anymore, or the ol' tired line of how that's not what the genre is if soloability is an option. In general, I'm pretty "Fuck off..." to allowing games, and the people who play them, to dictate my schedule. If there's something I want to do, I just want to go do it without being guilt tripped because I'm not doing something else. Don't get me wrong, I have no objection to partying with others, but I just prefer that experience to being more organic than rigid. And if that means things like Trust systems to fill in the gaps for players who aren't around, so be it. I'd even take that a step further in letting us fully customize/gear them with options to tweak their AI behavior. A good player would still likely perform better.
But yeah, the open world would need systems like enemies respawning faster if an area is particularly crowded, events like FATEs going on all the time to offer alternatives to straight grinding, crafting/gathering to not play second fiddle to dropped gear, reasonable forced pop options or bounties/conditions specific to making a mob appear when you want to fight it. Things can be lively and sociable without it being forced, and I'd posit a big part of why XIV fails there is because combat pacing is too hectic. Hard to type a joke when you have to get out of the red, after all. Could prattle on about potential world building tactics, but it'd pretty much be a novel of its own.
As for content dying, bluntly, that's okay and should honestly be expected. How fast that happens might be key, but inevitably the longer something exists, the less people "need" to do it increases. And when it stops being about personal loot, it relies more on fun and/or helping others. When that no longer happens, that's it. No need to keep forcing it. I still look to capped CoP missions as a primer of "What not to do..." even though you'll have some who will argue for it with good intentions in mind. Inevitably, things should be more about testing one's skill than patience. Some grind is okay, but not 3+ months for a single item kind or hoping a healer shows up only for the tank to bail when you finally do find one.