Originally Posted by
arus2001
It's not a simple answer since I'd argue it'd begin as early as character creation, but that's me envisioning more of a perfect scenario. Stuff like all classes available on one character and sensible cross-classing (basically better than XI and XIV handled theirs).
But in general, I'd lean toward things that would apply to battle content. It means crafting can't be automatically worse than raid loot (and in the perfect world nothing wearable would ever actually drop from anything). Gear needs enough variety so you're not full-timing a singular set for a certain tier, instead adapting to what you expect to face. Open world events need to be constantly cycling, and with enough variety, that a solo player can just up and join with others whenever they please and still walk away with some worthwhile progress and hopefully minimizing boredom. Have some sort of bounty system where certain conditions the player meets would spawn NMs to take down. Make flexible dungeon systems you can run anywhere from solo to the standard party size, but said dungeons should also be randomly generated in both map and monsters with bonuses to find to better reward exploration.
Then envision something like XI's trust system, but we're then given full power to customize their appearance, gear, and move set, too. The economic benefit would basically be multiplying demand based on however many people were willing to manage. Real players would generally be "better" to play with, but the goal would be to help curb people from being unable to really experience content at their preferred pace, even if mix-and-matching group compositions with AIs and fellow players. And where some think the insanity of 1000v1000 PvP would be cool, I feel just as much enjoyment could be derived from mass monster invasions/defenses where the more people invest in the system, the better the likely outcome, which could then influence how the affected zone "is" for a time, like some mobs might not be as numerous, while others get more plentiful. Unique quests could be available, etc..
So, in a way, I guess it's sandbox-ish, but I've never played stuff like Skyrim to fairly compare and haven't really held things like chasing vanity items as the alternative endgame others thing people should be content with if they don't like the raid/pvp scene. I have no real issue with doing harder stuff shortening the grind when successful, but I do believe one should have an alternative means to the same destination, presuming fair play. And the only way that's really possible is if stuff like trading isn't heavily restricted and you don't monopolize sources of ingredients. Looking at it more broadly, I want the sense of role-playing to go beyond simply where you sit in the trinity.