With SoA, What Direction Should FFXI Take?

[Spira]

i agree with the idea of using player nerfing as a mechanic being bad. if there is one thing that people hate, its not being able to play the job they put effort into making good. Salvage was basically that on its first floor - not fun. and back in the 75 days it really was as if you stepped back into lv1 again and had to just hit mobs to death.

On the flipside, people are almost always willing to take a free buff. If we look at the success of atma/abyssite/atmacite/periapt.. people like being able to enhance their characters be it generically (abyssite for hp for eg) or specifically (atma). These have been rather delicately balanced in the old world. Signet areas would rely on FoVs, Sanction and Sigil had buffs tied directly to them, but I could see them being a bit more adventurous in SoA.
I believe this is in line with the thing they mentioned about discovering "shrines" that will give you buffs as you explore Ulbuka. Hopefully they're significant and last long enough to make a difference.

[erdoge]

I remember that one of the moments I had the most fun in FFXI was while doing CoP Missions, weather it was from all the fights you had to go through: Promys, I remember Valhz being quite a challenging fight, group of mobs that "woke up" at different stages of the fight, NMs absorbing your buffs, the shikaree fight bcnm where they SCed with each other making it quite devastating if they actually managed to do it, fights that actually required another job distribution other than a bunch of DDs, or just the dungeon climbing...

But there's another factor that, in my opinion, was key in making those fights more challenging and it's lvl cap, I know it's something that's probably out of the ecuation completely nowdays but it gave the fights that aditional difficulty that actually made them quite rewarding when completed or just totally frustating...

Like many people have stated before, zone acces rewards gave those missions a bonus, you'll probably end up getting acces just to get a couple items that actually are a sidegrade to 1 off your current sets, but it's a way to encourage the playerbase to actually make it through the storyline.

What happened to the terror moves/add effect on attacks? I think it can be a good way to try to prevent embrava PD zergs, combining it with the target switch TP moves it could actually make you consider bringing an actual tank/ back up tank to the fight.

The multiple objectives is a good idea, you could categorize them in maybe 3-4 types:

-Offensive: just means to take over some area. Accomplishing it faster means reducing the number of enemies/adds you will face in the main fight, doing it too slow doesn't change anything in the main fight.
-Defensive: hold up your ground while waves of mobs are thrown at you. You actually have to defend a group of NPCs that of course have a wild/random behavior. If all are alive at the end of the last wave, you get acces to temp items or something like that, if only your party is left alive you get nothing.
-Tactical/sneaking/crowd controlling: collect a given number of items spread over the map. The less enemies you defeat the more susceptible the main fight NM is to debbufs or atributes are lowered. Defeating every enemy raises the resist rate and/or atributes. (true sight/sounds stuff, sleep inmunity based on day/hour of day, making it necesary to fight without fighting, if that makes any sense)
-Random objective: yes, let it be random. Achieving the objective will boost a job related trait or give you a specific buff, failing would reduce the time left on the dungeon.

You would actually need to accomplish first 3 objectives to even get acces to the fight, the random one could be optional. They will of course need to scale the rewards from the objectives to actually make it worth to fully achieve each one.

Anyway, that's something I thought I could point out, excuse my english!

[Michelob]

I remember that one of the moments I had the most fun in FFXI was while doing CoP Missions, weather it was from all the fights you had to go through: Promys, I remember Valhz being quite a challenging fight, group of mobs that "woke up" at different stages of the fight, NMs absorbing your buffs, the shikaree fight bcnm where they SCed with each other making it quite devastating if they actually managed to do it, fights that actually required another job distribution other than a bunch of DDs, or just the dungeon climbing...

But there's another factor that, in my opinion, was key in making those fights more challenging and it's lvl cap, I know it's something that's probably out of the ecuation completely nowdays but it gave the fights that aditional difficulty that actually made them quite rewarding when completed or just totally frustating...

This was by far my favorite part of CoP back when it came out. I loved those capped fights.

[Celebrindor]

I have stated before that I believe one help to traditional tanking would be a way to encourage classic skillchain/magic burst tactics. This makes the battles less of a gangbang. How though? Mobs where the skillchain damage would dwarf the TP phase and WS damage put together, and allowing nukes to only hit for full damage during a magic burst, while all the rest see 1/8 damage rate.

Team this up with conal WSs that would encourage focusing hate on a tank with tools already in game (Decoy Shot, for one example, is such a waste, SA/TA having usage again for more than just added damage, jumps, they go on and on), and would return fights to a pace that allows for a Tank to take control of the fight along with true party play.

The game now reminds me of the old (old!) console FF games where you'd sit in a forest and overlevel your characters so much you could just have all your characters melee on bosses without the need for support spells or special abilities, dumbing that game down to sheer button mashing. That's what the zerg is now- 2 minutes of party prep buffs/organization, 30 seconds of autoattack/WS macro mashing and curebombs.

[Churchill]

If you think Skillchains/MB would fix tanking then you don't understand what's wrong with the enmity system.

[NynJa]

This was by far my favorite part of CoP back when it came out. I loved those capped fights.

They were so much fun that SE had to offer xp to them to get people to do them.

I did enjoy them personally the first time through, but I wasnt doing that lvl capped shit twice, not to mention the vast deep cutscene storyline the first time through, but the whole mashing enter on my second and third go around...was annoying.

[Celebrindor]

If you think Skillchains/MB would fix tanking then you don't understand what's wrong with the enmity system.

As I stated, it is but one aspect of a severely flawed system. Never said it was gonna be some magic panacea.

What I am trying to imply is a more controlled environment for the fight to be in. I didn't mean to imply that the system works as is and "we're just doing it wrong" in famous SE style, but simply stated that by encouraging different fight mechanics through mob behavior you may make headway into the playstyle actually wanting a tank (merely step 1).

But of course a lot has to change- and if I didn't express my agreement/understanding in that regard, I do now.

[neuroticelite]

I'm hoping it make's Charm relevent again because if it does I'll be in the top .1% of BST.

[Damane]

If you think Skillchains/MB would fix tanking then you don't understand what's wrong with the enmity system.

funny thing is SC and MBs were considered core mechanics back in the old days. SE missed the train to add HUGE bonuses to them so they get attractive again. SC and MB could get attractive again if you add huge bonuses to them that outweigh zerging and spammign WS (dmg wise and maybe also buff/enmity/whatever wise). I think tough SE will never do that.

[NynJa]

funny thing is SC and MBs were considered core mechanics back in the old days. SE missed the train to add HUGE bonuses to them so they get attractive again. SC and MB could get attractive again if you add huge bonuses to them that outweigh zerging and spammign WS (dmg wise and maybe also buff/enmity/whatever wise). I think tough SE will never do that.

What are you talking about?!? They lowered the resist rate of lv1 sc's!

[dasva]

Well really just raising the emnity cap (by alot) would do wonders for the emnity system. It's not the only thing that needs fixing but it would allow some real tanking like back in the old days.

[Taim Meich]

funny thing is SC and MBs were considered core mechanics back in the old days. SE missed the train to add HUGE bonuses to them so they get attractive again. SC and MB could get attractive again if you add huge bonuses to them that outweigh zerging and spammign WS (dmg wise and maybe also buff/enmity/whatever wise). I think tough SE will never do that.

Since SC/MB became so insignificant for party/alliance play, they started adding huge bonuses for SAM on SC. Now SAM is a skillchain generation machine. If they just buffed SC a lot (which is what would be needed to put it back on the spotlight) SAMs would reign supreme. SE got too SC happy with SAMs, that's something they will have to address if they want to make SC/MB relevant again.

[Septimus]

Since SC/MB became so insignificant for party/alliance play, they started adding huge bonuses for SAM on SC. Now SAM is a skillchain generation machine. If they just buffed SC a lot (which is what would be needed to put it back on the spotlight) SAMs would reign supreme. SE got too SC happy with SAMs, that's something they will have to address if they want to make SC/MB relevant again.

They could always make skillchains more important for other reasons. Like add debuffs to skillchains so they are more appealing outside of SAM and BLU. Like the mob gets 5% additional damage taken for 30 seconds after light and darkness. Suddenly a whole lot of people would give a fuck.

[Mrbeansman]

Wouldnt that just make SAMs dedicated SC bitches before they go full dd?

[arus2001]

Wouldn't mind SE taking a page from Rift and basically implementing Campaign on crack.

Better design zones for monster invasions with various bases and objectives for defense/offense. You can then take it a step further and have bigger events every couple hours or so where the mobs just go full throttle with other objectives. If players lose, they'll just need to reclaim the pertinent points later. They win? Keep their resources and get a nice chunk of non-tradeable currency as a reward. Play enough, then you can buy decent gear. Something should always be going on in these zones, though, to keep people from twiddling their thumbs in boredom.

They can even get creative with the above and allow non-combative tasks. Wanna build a catapult for invading that enemy base? Slap on the HELM gear and go log a bit. Or if you have woodworking skill, partake in some mini-game to refine collected resources. So on and so forth. And shit needs to be real-time, not time-delayed like Conquest/Campaign results.

And if their Play As A Monster thing kicks off, people could even take on the enemy role from time to time.

Obsessing over the perfect BC fight, locking zones behind quests, cheap difficulty quirks like pathos, or demanding content only a select few can do really isn't the way to go, I think. People should want to come together randomly to accomplish a given task for a greater good, not get all snobby and exclusive with just a clique or a linkshell, worrying about who deserves to lot what in absence of point systems.

[Mayville]

I like the earlier suggestions of including the charm ability to new areas, and also SC-proc, both suggestions by the same poster are very good suggestions imo.
I also agree that plot-unlocked areas were excellant in ffxi and were also based on the plot-progression nature of earlier ff games, and hope this is brought back for SoA era.
I disliked the traverser stones / time remaining system, I hope that the SoA areas will have no time-restrictions at all, one of the things I liked about ffxi originally is you can wander around exploring, and just log your character out in 'interesting' places, log back in later and farm or explore with friends without checking the clock all the time.
I agree with what other posters have mentioned, SoA should have less emphasis on the recent compulsory alliances for everything trend, solo and low-man should always be an option in ffxi's main game. Imo low-man is more fun and more inclusive, and more skill / ingenuity based, and less 'blunt-instrument' than the recent game was.
I would like to see more repeatable 'mini-game' quests and puzzle-type quests, instead of just zone-and-repeat quests which are an insult to logic.
Would like to see more FOV type battles, 75+ lvl gear, for trading items to get augments. I like the gambling aspect of random FOV augments, as well as the battles themselves. I think SE should improve this system and add more super-rare augments that stand out from the normal results range.

[Ophannus]

SE adds objectives to hard fights that make them considerably easier i.e the 2hr thing on AV, it's just that they were super vague about it kind of like the /fume thing with VW, we'd never know about it unless by accident but at least with /fume there's a message that accompanies it. I'm still holding my breath that there's something like AV's 2hr lock or /fume for PW because nobody has killed it with 18 people at 75 without PD and SE said it was technically possible.

[Belkin]

To go with the 7 Warlords theme. It would be neat if each of them had a unique wrinkle to their fights (assuming they will be bosses). It would also be pretty sweet if defeating one of them granted something completely unique. I'm talking you get to choose between 3 different buffs that are permanent to your character. Or maybe something like the charm system in Diablo 2 -- there could be a separate inventory that can hold a total of 7 or 8 (an extra for finishing the expansion) charms that each grant one buff. This system would make it fun to progress through the story and with each step you take, you can also feel like you are advancing your character.

As for the 7 Warlord fights, I would like to see at least one of the fights be a one on one; you can't rely on anybody but yourself to win. If you lose, it's because you didn't do well enough.

I'd also like to see a Warlord whose fight has multiple tiers to it. I'm thinking reminiscent of the final bosses in God of War games. Or what would be really nutty, is getting a Warlord to 66% with a full party, then having him freeze 5 random party members (or lock them up or something to incapacitate them) and force the one remaining member to get him to 33%. Doing this would unfreeze the others to continue as normal. Of course this would throw WHM under the bus, but you could also add a Maat-style countdown where you only need to survive 60 seconds or something. Or WHM's would just be forced to man the fuck up and club that bitch. Maybe a true test of how much you've cared for your jobs. "Oh, you leveled WHM in abyssea in less than 8 hours and have shit for club skill? Sorry bro, not in my house." It would also be a pretty cool feeling having the other five cheer you on. It's a great kind of stress to know that others are depending on YOU and YOU alone to pull through in those clutch minutes. Or it could lead to some comical moments between friends. "Welp, Belkin is soloing, we're definitely dead."

Of course, this idea seems very intricate, but SE has shown flashes of brilliance and complexity. Motsognir comes to mind as a cool, but not too gimmicky fight. Although that still came down to zerging the demons. Something to force a change a pace in the fight would ease the need for zerging. Making the boss disappear or hide and talk trash for 30 seconds while Perfect Defense wears off. Also make bosses not have "everybody is dead in one AoE" moves would alleviate some the mindset of "we have to kill it before it kills us."

One last thing, I love the idea of the Warlords being humanoid for one reason: the human aspect. As a writer of fiction, personalities astound me. Promethus did nothing for me, I had no motivation to kill him. Keeper of the Apocalypse was the same way. Alexander meh. Everybody knew Eald'nache and Kam'laut were evil from the first time you saw them. As characters, they were flat as hell. You know what the coolest final boss was in any expansion? THAT FUCKING MOOGLE. He was dynamic. He was a moogle, something everyone of us had associated with good and cuddliness. Then he was bad, but you still couldn't help but think he had a soft side or that he would eventually come around or something. And on top of that, he was bullying our moogle. The same moogle who has lived in your mog house for ten years. The only NPC that I've ever felt any connection to. No way, Jose, I'm not letting you push around my buddy.

I've rambled. The point is, give me well-crafted characters who get me emotionally invested in what is happening. Then let me beat the shit out of the ones that end up backstabbing me.

This post has gone on far too long without suggesting any real direction, I fear.

[Tarage]

AMK taught me one thing and one thing only: My moogle is a goober.

I would love to see more systems like Abyssea's AF3. Being able to either form small groups to farm what I need OR have other options like quests really made playing the game a matter of preferences rather than endless farming of one type or another. Variety is the spice of life.

[SephYuyX]

I'm hoping it make's Charm relevent again because if it does I'll be in the top .1% of BST.

Please.
I still have a full CHR and Charm+ set waiting just for this.


Also.
More.Solo.Content. And something thats actually worthwhile.