[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Sesshomaru]

What a small world, filled with bombs and other machinations. @Granyala

Spoiler: 

[Katchii]

Which is why I laugh whenever I see people complaining we 'only' have three tank and heal jobs, and they 'need' to add more...

I don't necessarily disagree with them though. I prefer DRK over the other two tanks and AST over the other two healers simply because of the aesthetic of the classes. Changing the looks of something can still make it feel fresh..I mean, there's a reason people say Glamour/Transmog is the true end game.

Adding a new tank or healer that looks or feels cool might attract new people to play the class, but historically that's just not true because wanting to tank and/or heal takes a different mentality than people who just want to DPS. The responsibility and pressure is just something some people don't want, don't like, or can't handle and adding new tank or healing classes won't change that mentality.

However, I know some people who just don't tank or heal because they don't like the way the classes that are currently available do it. I know folks who heal in WoW but not in FFXIV because the available classes just don't have the same feel as the healer they like in WoW, usually Resto Druids and Discipline priests. Tanks, same thing, I know folks in FFXIV who won't tank in WoW because the mechanics just feel hollow in WoW in comparison to the amount of things you're doing in FFXIV.

[Granyala]

What a small world, filled with bombs and other machinations. @Granyala

Spoiler: 

*chuckles* hey, there.

[StrawberryZebra]

The game has about what I’d call the ideal amount of keys/binds.

As a quick benchmark, the SCH has 38 abilities at their disposal, not including those that get up/downgraded automatically. When you add in Limit Breaks, Sprint and perhaps even your Mount you're looking at about 40 abilities you'll want to have keybindings for, and a couple of extra if you want to micro your pet in more detail. If you're like me, you're also going to want keybindings to target your group members, one to assist the tank and so on too.

That might be fine if you've got an MMO specific mouse with plenty of buttons, but it's got to be rough if you're playing on a controller. Even playing with a regular Mouse and Keyboard binding real estate is at a premium.

You can make the argument that you don't need to bind everything to be effective, and I'd agree with you on that. But at the same time, if something isn't worth a keybinding, how often is it really worth using?

I honestly do feel like WoW hit the nail on the head with class fantasy and their current class iterations with ability aesthetics, animations, toolset, etc... and they have even pruned their abilities to shit. You don't need buttons for class fantasy, you need a cohesive and well executed theme.

I'd argue that buttons help reinforce that identity. Even now, I expect that WoW Paladins still have Hammer of (in)Justice, their Bubble and Avenging Wrath - They all play very well into the Righteous Warrior theme the Paladin is shooting for. I bet even Consecration is in there too. Just like Mages probably still have Poly and Shamans have Ghost Wolf.

The lack of strong theme is where FF14 falls flat. It's hard to say where, exactly, they went wrong with it. Part of it might have to do with the 1.0 version and having to work with what was already built, it might just be inexperience with this kind of game from the dev team. Whatever the reason, they've basically created what amount to shells of jobs. I can't identifiy which skills I would say define a Monk, or a Paladin or a Samurai because they've got little that tie into a united theme. That makes any pruning difficult because picking out which are the important skills that fit with one specific theme, or that players are attached to, is a daunting task.

I imagine it has something to do with the 3D environment and it being REALLY difficult to manage a half circle forward + attack combo translating well in a 3D environment without your character ending up attack the tree on your left rather than the enemy you wished to attack. I guess you could have a lock on mechanic when targeting an enemy that would lend itself to doing combos like this because it puts you in a pretty 2D type control scheme, but then I see encounters with lots of adds or movement required being a freaking nightmare to deal with.

Fighting in a 3D space has been working just fine for Tekken for a long time now. Admitedly it's a strict 1v1 game, so many of the things that are common to more action orentated titles would require a rethink to the formula to make work.

To be clear though, I wasn't talking about just lifting the control scheme for a fighter and transplanting it into another genre. Mechanics like having to get around an enemies defence to start dealing damage offer interesting gameplay opportunities. So too does having attacks that are "Unsafe" if they miss or are blocked, it creates an interesting risk/reward situation. Even some of the more superficial things like a Super Meter you can spend for powered up attack is something that's rarely seen outside of Fighters. There's an abundance of solid individual mechanics that's ripe for other genres to pillage.

Perhaps it wouldn't be all that great for an MMO, but very few games in general have tried the actual mechanics of a fighter in other genres. I'm sure it's time will come eventually, once the "SoulsBorne" mechanics fad fades and all the MetroidVania indies give way to whatever the new hotness is.

[lawow74]

That is something I've mentioned before I would love to see in PvE, the Adrenaline Gauge, i.e. personal LB. You could still have the group one as well, but having your own to throw would be nice. It could be a way to better personalize a role/job, causing debuffs that sync well with others, stacking vulnerability, a damage/healing buff or somesuch. Even if not, just having something else you feel like you can contribute to damage, not have to watch a LB gauge get ruined cos someone loses conn or whatever, would be worth it.

[Katchii]

I'd argue that buttons help reinforce that identity. Even now, I expect that WoW Paladins still have Hammer of (in)Justice, their Bubble and Avenging Wrath - They all play very well into the Righteous Warrior theme the Paladin is shooting for. I bet even Consecration is in there too. Just like Mages probably still have Poly and Shamans have Ghost Wolf.

The lack of strong theme is where FF14 falls flat. It's hard to say where, exactly, they went wrong with it. Part of it might have to do with the 1.0 version and having to work with what was already built, it might just be inexperience with this kind of game from the dev team. Whatever the reason, they've basically created what amount to shells of jobs. I can't identifiy which skills I would say define a Monk, or a Paladin or a Samurai because they've got little that tie into a united theme. That makes any pruning difficult because picking out which are the important skills that fit with one specific theme, or that players are attached to, is a daunting task.

My point was around the number of buttons, not the types of buttons. you're absolutely correct in having class defining abilities be part of the kit, but that's what I was alluding to in my post.

The issue with FFXIV I think has more to do with so many abilities within the same class just not having any purpose except to be a combo filler, so there's not really an identity to that specific ability it's just "an ability" that's used to fill in this combo, and combos themselves are not that exciting either since there's not really any decision making when executing them, you choose to do the combo, but then once started you need to do it in the order required to finish it otherwise it's just wasted. Monk is slightly more complicated since there are multiple move choices at each stage in the combo. The other classes don't have that same level of choice within the combo.

I think if they took the combos and removed the filler moves and only had the starters and finishers and had each move branch off each other with different effects for each combo string that would help not only reduce the number of abilities but add more choice and decision making to combat as well. Like a hybrid Mudra/combo system where each combo does something a little different but each button press is also an attack by itself, but each attack is augmented in some way based on which move was used before it with each string being 3 moves long. So a set of 3 moves could be result in 6 different combinations, or more depending on whether you'd want to allow combos to be possible off the same move.

Fighting in a 3D space has been working just fine for Tekken for a long time now. Admitedly it's a strict 1v1 game, so many of the things that are common to more action orentated titles would require a rethink to the formula to make work.

To be clear though, I wasn't talking about just lifting the control scheme for a fighter and transplanting it into another genre. Mechanics like having to get around an enemies defence to start dealing damage offer interesting gameplay opportunities. So too does having attacks that are "Unsafe" if they miss or are blocked, it creates an interesting risk/reward situation. Even some of the more superficial things like a Super Meter you can spend for powered up attack is something that's rarely seen outside of Fighters. There's an abundance of solid individual mechanics that's ripe for other genres to pillage.

Perhaps it wouldn't be all that great for an MMO, but very few games in general have tried the actual mechanics of a fighter in other genres. I'm sure it's time will come eventually, once the "SoulsBorne" mechanics fad fades and all the MetroidVania indies give way to whatever the new hotness is.

I think action RPGs have tried to take the risk reward mechanic from fighters in things like blocking where blocking at the exact right time would stagger the attacker and attacking someone while they're staggered or otherwise vulnerable increases damage done or allows a special move to be done. That would be difficult to implement in an MMO, not because of design but because of limitations in hardware/coding. How would a raid function if it were possible for the tank to block and stagger the boss? How would the tank see the attack timing with all the spell effects? how would the boss register that it happened with 10+ people attacking it? How would the difficulty scale if it were possible for people to stagger the boss and cheese their way through phases/ mechanics (or maybe that in itself is the skill check)? I obviously know it's possible because single player games do it already, I'm just wondering how well that kind of mechanic would translate into a massive multiplayer online game with all of the technical challenges that come with it.

- - - Updated - - -

That is something I've mentioned before I would love to see in PvE, the Adrenaline Gauge, i.e. personal LB. You could still have the group one as well, but having your own to throw would be nice. It could be a way to better personalize a role/job, causing debuffs that sync well with others, stacking vulnerability, a damage/healing buff or somesuch. Even if not, just having something else you feel like you can contribute to damage, not have to watch a LB gauge get ruined cos someone loses conn or whatever, would be worth it.

Or having different classes even use it in different ways, where some could activate it and use it as a resource that augments their abilities while others drain it and use some super move, or maybe both. The type of moves would be dependent on the class too, just like with the LB, but be even more iconic to the class.

[lawow74]

Or having different classes even use it in different ways, where some could activate it and use it as a resource that augments their abilities while others drain it and use some super move, or maybe both. The type of moves would be dependent on the class too, just like with the LB, but be even more iconic to the class.

Kinda what I was thinking, like have WHM do Holy Flare: For 10s your HoT ticks build stacks of Holy Power. When Holy Power reaches 10 stacks it detonates dealing x damage and stunning targets for 5s. Or for AST, Royal Flush: All party members gain the benefits of all six cards. These benefits cannot be extended in duration. Or PLD, Selfless Martyr: For 10s all damage dealt to party members is redirected to you. You take 90% less damage during this time. Stuff like that, something cool and in line with the job's abilities.

[Ausr]

I have to assume they have that data already. I however, wouldn't be surprised if this was something they didn't track/analyze. I still think role skills are better left to rot though. Bake the ones with useful effects into abilities and tune the impact/power of each one individually. I.e. Protect is a very prominent FF theme, but from a gameplay perspective wouldn't even pass for good design back in 2004, let alone 2018. Something like Cleric stance doesn't need to be an extra button. It can easily be a built in function inside of all healers kits. Stuff like True North, Arm's Length etc is terrible design IMO, You can bake knockback immunity into a given skill, or you could simply ensure DPS have gap closers to mitigate. True North is a solution to a self created problem IMO, and thus is ripe for fixing.



I agree. Just to add a bit here, I think the combo system really is the weakest part of FF14's combat engine. It's too rigid and bloated and weighs the whole thing down. I actually quite like the oGCD system, and if they simplified the combo system, they could really add some additional depth to oGCDs. Less binary stuff, more decision based/resource management, etc.



Yes, FF14 is a good MMO, even a great one I'd say, but their systems design is some of the worst in the industry IMO. There are a lot of areas where you can see it, especially in the QoL area.



This implementation is basically equivalent to what we just had (mechanically speaking). I'd really hate to see them go this route. I really hope they just scrap the system and take the good/dump the bad. I kinda covered it above with Faroth if you're interested.



While I dislike Street Fighter (it's my least fav fighting game tbh), the point is still valid and I agree.

I've been playing For Honor a lot lately on PC and it's probably my favorite fighting game at the moment. DBFZ might actually still be it, but I'm a sucker for a medieval fantasy fighting game so there's that.

Pretty fucking much. Final Fantasy 14: A Realm (LOADING.... LOADING.... LOADING....) Reborn. Such early 2000 bullshit.

[RohanV]

Here's an interesting counterpoint, or opposing view, from Gevlon. It's in a post about Wildstar closing, but I think it applies to this discussion:

Each genre of gaming focuses on one kind of “skill”. Those who like to hone this skill, find it fun to do so will be attracted to the genre. They are attracted exactly because they want to hone that skill. Everything that distract them from it (besides random, progression-irrelevant flavor stuff) hurt their fun.

For example FPS fans value the skill of quickly moving the mouse to the head pixels of the enemy. It’s a senso-motoric skill. The FPS games are purposefully bend everything for this one skill. The characters can turn back at infinite speed which is completely impossible for soldiers that the games formally simulate. Because the game is not simulating soldiers, the combat setting is just a lore-background, you are not roleplaying a soldier trying to stop terrorist, you are playing a “move cross to pixel faster” game, and if character turn speed was limited, it would put an artificial ceiling to your “skill”. The maps are fixed and few, because the players don’t want to be distracted by having to find their way or map the place when they focus on moving that cross. Any FPS which isn’t about moving the cross for the win will either fail – or like PUBG – the community ignores the other parts and just plays for headshots anyway.

The “skill” in MMORPGs is long-term planning and disciplined execution. Players collect items, reputation points, currencies, quest counters for progression that takes place over thousands of hours. While many games have thousands of hours of play by enthusiasts, those hours take place in thousands of independent short matches. In MMOs, it takes place in the same “round”, today session starts with all the advantages you collected in the previous days. You have more “stuff” than a newbie and players support that. Otherwise, they wouldn’t play.

The core MMO player values discipline (think of raiders with schedules and leaders), planning, “effort” and dependability. This is the setting they want to play in. Everything else distracts them. Putting action combat in an MMO is like putting year-long character progression into an FPS. Imagine that Counterstike would announce that you’ll have a persistent character that will get traits over time and a 2000-hours character will have 10x HP, 5x damage, 2x speed than a new player. The game would die in an hour, because players would be outraged that the combat isn’t won by the “skilled” (the one who moves crosshair to head faster), but the “lowly nolifer” who “grinded” out the upgrades.

...

An MMORPG must be very light on twitch-skill and heavy on planning, disciplined and organized play to succeed.

Original post: https://greedygoblinblog.wordpress.c...ed-to-success/

I think he's got a good point, and I think a lot of what is being thrown around in this thread is moving away from that central "skill" of MMOs.

[Kazgrel]

As a quick benchmark, the SCH has 38 abilities at their disposal, not including those that get up/downgraded automatically. When you add in Limit Breaks, Sprint and perhaps even your Mount you're looking at about 40 abilities you'll want to have keybindings for, and a couple of extra if you want to micro your pet in more detail. If you're like me, you're also going to want keybindings to target your group members, one to assist the tank and so on too.

That might be fine if you've got an MMO specific mouse with plenty of buttons, but it's got to be rough if you're playing on a controller. Even playing with a regular Mouse and Keyboard binding real estate is at a premium.

You can make the argument that you don't need to bind everything to be effective, and I'd agree with you on that. But at the same time, if something isn't worth a keybinding, how often is it really worth using?

I do use a “MMO mouse”, which took me a couple weeks to get used to but has paid off immensely. Should such hardware even be necessary, though? Hard to really say. I’ve no idea how the hell I managed shaman during WotLK without one!

SCH is one of the two jobs that has waaaay too many useful buttons to bind at this point. I don’t even know if I bothered with some of the role actions on it as of this recent patch (which put a huge spotlight on the job’s bloat now). Then there’s thing like mounts, sprint, etc., as you mentioned.

[lawow74]

I think he's got a good point, and I think a lot of what is being thrown around in this thread is moving away from that central "skill" of MMOs.

I disagree. Wildstar died because it failed to take into account the fact people don't WANT a super-hardcore megagrind MMO that requires attunements left and right and 40 people to do endgame anymore. They thought the echoes of a handful of people were legions crying out for it. They were WRONG. It's the point all the salty dippuses who whine and cry about 'cazulz get it all for free' fail to realize. CASUAL PLAYERS ARE THE FOUNDATION UPON WHICH THE MMO IS BUILT NOW. Without their money as a steady influx, all the super-hardcore people won't have a game to play. If you fail to attract and retain enough players, the game WILL flop.

Wildstar also suffered from the First Impression Kiss Of Death. Fail to make that good first impression, and people are not gonna play your game. FF 14 is, I think, the only MMO who ever managed to survive that, and that's largely because SE was determined it wasn't (and as a major company they had the dinero to do so) and because FF is such an iconic game IP.

[Graeham]

Wildstar had a lot of potential. It had one of the best housing systems that I've ever seen in a game to date. It also had a charming art style, great music and a solid amount of intriguing lore.

The only reason I quit was due to the faction disparity. I found the Dominion to be a pretty cool faction, yet the vast majority of MMO players flock to what they perceive as the 'good guy' faction which leads to a major population imbalance.

I'm glad that FFXIV doesn't have a faction system.

[Eleccybubb]

Wildstar had a lot of potential. It had one of the best housing systems that I've ever seen in a game to date. It also had a charming art style, great music and a solid amount of intriguing lore.

The only reason I quit was due to the faction disparity. I found the Dominion to be a pretty cool faction, yet the vast majority of MMO players flock to what they perceive as the 'good guy' faction which leads to a major population imbalance.

I'm glad that FFXIV doesn't have a faction system.

Honestly I wish FF14 would just overhaul the entire housing system for 5.0 or 6.0.

Make it instanced for EVERYONE. Screw this neighborhood crap. Nobody is there half the time anyway and when you see someone they are either afk or just there to craft in peace.

Wildstar and Rift are the 2 games that come to mind that did housing right imo. Just a shame they did everything else wrong or went to shit down the line.

On the note of button condensing. It needs to happen for combos imo. People crying about it have zero reason to. You would still be pressing 3 buttons to do a combo at the end of the day. Just less clutter on the action bars which in turn means they can add more spells down the line.

I'm all for condensing combos like they are in PvP personally.

[lawow74]

I think it would be better to expand on the apartment idea, let people purchase instanced housing if they want it and make that much more plentiful. Those who just want a personal home and don't care about neighbors and suchlike can have it, and those who do can still pursue the current style of houses. Perhaps offer incentives to those who currently have persistent housing to switch to instanced, to free up more space.

[Katchii]

Honestly I wish FF14 would just overhaul the entire housing system for 5.0 or 6.0.

Make it instanced for EVERYONE. Screw this neighborhood crap. Nobody is there half the time anyway and when you see someone they are either afk or just there to craft in peace.

Wildstar and Rift are the 2 games that come to mind that did housing right imo. Just a shame they did everything else wrong or went to shit down the line.

On the note of button condensing. It needs to happen for combos imo. People crying about it have zero reason to. You would still be pressing 3 buttons to do a combo at the end of the day. Just less clutter on the action bars which in turn means they can add more spells down the line.

I'm all for condensing combos like they are in PvP personally.

My only real issues with the housing system in FFXIV are it's limited availability and that it requires an active sub and regular log ons to keep your house. I'm not a huge housing buff, I find it to be a cool side attraction and thing to spend extra cash on to make your house look nice, but I had one and lost it because I didn't log on. I'm more mad that I now have a house full of shit to deal with in my inventory than at the actual loss of my house, but the fact that I could lose something I spent that much time to get the gil to buy and decorate just because I didn't log in seems pretty silly. I don't understand why it needs to be so limited.

[StrawberryZebra]

The issue with FFXIV I think has more to do with so many abilities within the same class just not having any purpose except to be a combo filler, so there's not really an identity to that specific ability it's just "an ability" that's used to fill in this combo, and combos themselves are not that exciting either since there's not really any decision making when executing them, you choose to do the combo, but then once started you need to do it in the order required to finish it otherwise it's just wasted.

Which was the point I was making. There's very little identity in most Jobs toolsets. Picking out the ones that are core to that jobs fantasy is difficult because almost none of them were designed with that in mind. If you had to pick the DRG's top 10 most defining abilities, what would they be? Jump of course, maybe Battle Litany too but what others would really make the cut? They have lots of hard hitting spear attacks, but nothing that's iconic or stand out.

Where Classes in WoW, probably, still have some of the abilities they has back in 1.0 because they're so integral to the theme the class was aiming to be. Their removal would fundamentally change what the class was at it's core.

I think he's got a good point, and I think a lot of what is being thrown around in this thread is moving away from that central "skill" of MMOs.

His idea of "skill" is simply grinding - The complete oposite of skill. Grind rewards those who have played longest, skill rewards those who play best. It's why I can pick up Overwatch on a free weekend and hold my own against players who have invested thousands of hours into it, but will get absolutely thrashed by a player who's 50 levels above me in an MMO, no matter how bad they may be. I have skill at playing Shooters (I played way too much Unreal Tournament back in the day), but no amount of skill is going to overcome a stat defecit that large.

He's not entirely wrong though, there is a skill in planning out an MMO boss. Thing is, that's short term planning. It's you thinking "The boss is going into a phase transition soon, I'll save my cooldowns for then", or "The adds are almost dead, I'll skip casting DoT's and nuke them instead". There is a certain level of stratergy and understanding of the mechanics you need to employ to be successful. That's a skill in itself, you're taking what you know about an encounter and using it to inform your actions.

SCH is one of the two jobs that has waaaay too many useful buttons to bind at this point. I don’t even know if I bothered with some of the role actions on it as of this recent patch (which put a huge spotlight on the job’s bloat now). Then there’s thing like mounts, sprint, etc., as you mentioned.

Well, WHM has 32 too, before LB's, Sprints etc, which is in the same ballpark. BLM has 35, so it's not as if there's a massive amount of variance between jobs. Unless you have specialised peripherals, you're going to rapidly run out of keybinding space for most jobs. Assuming new skills keep being added over time, it's going to be even more of a problem going forwards.

I can't imagine what kind of finger gymnastics you've got to do to play AST on a PS4 controller.

Personally, I think 8-12 keybinds is about the sweet spot for most MMO's. You can have extra procs, abilities that change depending on stance and such in there too, and yes even ones that combo. The important part is not to overload the player with too much to watch at once. Particularly when they're wanting you to also be constantly looking at what's going on around you as well. The more buttons and gagues you're asking the player to keep track of, the less you can expect them to be paying attention to their surroundings. I'd much rather be playing the game rather than playing the UI.

[lawow74]

My only real issues with the housing system in FFXIV are it's limited availability and that it requires an active sub and regular log ons to keep your house. I'm not a huge housing buff, I find it to be a cool side attraction and thing to spend extra cash on to make your house look nice, but I had one and lost it because I didn't log on. I'm more mad that I now have a house full of shit to deal with in my inventory than at the actual loss of my house, but the fact that I could lose something I spent that much time to get the gil to buy and decorate just because I didn't log in seems pretty silly. I don't understand why it needs to be so limited.

Which is why one of the carrots I propose for instanced housing is you don't have to login to keep it, same with apartments. For those who just want it as a toy they might occasionally invite someone else to come see, it'll be the better option. Those who just insist on having a persistent home can work to keep it. Of course, the moment this is suggested they'll all start crying 'muh immurzshunz'. Hopefully SE would tell them to STFU so players can have housing without them sending the server hamsters to an early grave.

[Eleccybubb]

My only real issues with the housing system in FFXIV are it's limited availability and that it requires an active sub and regular log ons to keep your house. I'm not a huge housing buff, I find it to be a cool side attraction and thing to spend extra cash on to make your house look nice, but I had one and lost it because I didn't log on. I'm more mad that I now have a house full of shit to deal with in my inventory than at the actual loss of my house, but the fact that I could lose something I spent that much time to get the gil to buy and decorate just because I didn't log in seems pretty silly. I don't understand why it needs to be so limited.

Exactly. Instanced housing would fix all this. There wouldn't need to be a timer for your own personal instance.

[Katchii]

Which was the point I was making. There's very little identity in most Jobs toolsets. Picking out the ones that are core to that jobs fantasy is difficult because almost none of them were designed with that in mind. If you had to pick the DRG's top 10 most defining abilities, what would they be? Jump of course, maybe Battle Litany too but what others would really make the cut? They have lots of hard hitting spear attacks, but nothing that's iconic or stand out.

Where Classes in WoW, probably, still have some of the abilities they has back in 1.0 because they're so integral to the theme the class was aiming to be. Their removal would fundamentally change what the class was at it's core.

Jump for sure, obviously, but the rest? I'm not sure any of them would necessarily make the cut because they'r so bland. I'd re-design the toolkit to be more Dragoon centric rather than Lancer centric, with jumps being a core part of the kit. Not necessarily a HUGE jump but just make the jumping, landing on spear point and finishing more of a visual thing than any real mechanic except for their "big move." Otherwise them just kind of hoping around and landing on enemies to pirece them with their spear as part of their regular combos/ moves would go a long way towards the feel of the class. Doesn't really affect the mechanics, just the visual flair.

Different classes have different things that could be used to make them distinctive. For some it's the actual class mechanics, like Red Mage, with dual casting, Summoner with pets and Dreadwyrm Trance (which I think needs to be reworked a little, but has a good foundation) and Black Mages fire and ice switching and focus on mana management along with big flashy spell effects. Other classes don't really have a mechanic that identifies them, but visual flair to make them FEEL more iconic could be used instead, like Dragoon and Monk, where simply focusing more on the theme of the class rather than trying to create this iconic toolkit, you can provide visual uniqueness to the class. Focusing more on the spear, jumps and piercing idea you could change the animations of the moves to showcase that's what they're all about and with Monks, rework Greased Lightning and focus more on just stringing the combos together because the animations are already on point IMO. Make the mechanic a more fluid stacking buff that stacks up to 10 or something and gets increased for every successfully chained combo move, with abilities being augmented by which move preceded it and having power moves use different amount of the stacked buff to execute, or just only be available when at max stacks but don't use up the buff and just have a cooldown. Focus more on the fluidity of the combos, the fighting dance, rather than some mechanical stacking buff that you desperately need to keep active. the visuals are already there, it just feels so mechanical right now that it distracts from what I feel the Monk identity is, which is this graceful, powerful hand-to-hand fighter that seamlessly strings together attacks to whittle away at an enemy while exploiting weaknesses or openings in the enemies defense.

I get that mechanically and logistically it would be incredibly difficult to change that much and re-balance the classes like this, but IMO, it's not that difficult from an artistic design perspective to create a tool kit for a class if you can just step back and really identify what makes this specific class special, what thing identifies this class AS this class, and how can we show that? Once you identify that, you can create a core set of moves that make the class feel and look like that class and then add the other stuff around it to round it out from a game play and balance perspective.

His idea of "skill" is simply grinding - The complete oposite of skill. Grind rewards those who have played longest, skill rewards those who play best. It's why I can pick up Overwatch on a free weekend and hold my own against players who have invested thousands of hours into it, but will get absolutely thrashed by a player who's 50 levels above me in an MMO, no matter how bad they may be. I have skill at playing Shooters (I played way too much Unreal Tournament back in the day), but no amount of skill is going to overcome a stat defecit that large.

He's not entirely wrong though, there is a skill in planning out an MMO boss. Thing is, that's short term planning. It's you thinking "The boss is going into a phase transition soon, I'll save my cooldowns for then", or "The adds are almost dead, I'll skip casting DoT's and nuke them instead". There is a certain level of stratergy and understanding of the mechanics you need to employ to be successful. That's a skill in itself, you're taking what you know about an encounter and using it to inform your actions.

To me the skills that MMO's always required was patience, attention, communication and coordination. It doesn't take much to be able to play your class proficiently enough to be competent in the high end content, it just takes the patience/time to get the gear required, being able to pay attention to what the boss is doing while also paying attention to what you're doing, being able to communicate this to others or be willing to listen to others who are telling you, and being able to work as a team.

Well, WHM has 32 too, before LB's, Sprints etc, which is in the same ballpark. BLM has 35, so it's not as if there's a massive amount of variance between jobs. Unless you have specialised peripherals, you're going to rapidly run out of keybinding space for most jobs. Assuming new skills keep being added over time, it's going to be even more of a problem going forwards.

I can't imagine what kind of finger gymnastics you've got to do to play AST on a PS4 controller.

Personally, I think 8-12 keybinds is about the sweet spot for most MMO's. You can have extra procs, abilities that change depending on stance and such in there too, and yes even ones that combo. The important part is not to overload the player with too much to watch at once. Particularly when they're wanting you to also be constantly looking at what's going on around you as well. The more buttons and gagues you're asking the player to keep track of, the less you can expect them to be paying attention to their surroundings. I'd much rather be playing the game rather than playing the UI.

I have a gaming keypad and an MMO mouse, and I think that's the only reason I can enjoy FFXIV as casually as I do otherwise it would be practically impossible for me to play this game. I just can't wrap my head around how people who don't have these peripherals can fully play their class when they need ~40 keybinds to have access to the full kit. I remember playing without them years ago with WoW and other MMOs and I had to set aside keys that weren't used often enough to get hotkey or be in easy reach of my fingers and click them...which means they were relegated to basically never being used because I would either forget they were there or just write it off as unusable because it took too much effort to use it in the heat of battle. Also, I ended up getting ergonomic injuries from the finger gymnastics I had to do to play effectively, putting stresses on my thumbs and wrist to bend and reach the keys I did have bound and used constantly.

FFXIV has WAY too many abilities. Every class doesn't need to have every utility type ability, they don't need to have 3+ abilities that all are used for basically the same thing (tank damage reduction cooldowns are what sprang to mind here), they don't all need a damage buff, a stance toggle, a spammable AoE and a cooldown AoE or multiples of either. They really do just need to pare down everything to bare bones abilities and add one or two flavor abilities to each class and that's it. That's part of how class identity is even a thing, by carving out and having a clear picture of what they're good at and what they're not so good at. Making every class able to do everything doesn't lend itself well to class identity.

Obviously this is just my opinion, so take it as you will.

[Wrecktangle]

I need to load up DBFZ again, if only to see Android 17 soon.

Just bought unist though, so kinda going in on that for a while. Preeeetty fun.

17 is one of my favs in the series. Glad he's playable. I wasn't satisfied with him as an 18 assist.

I do wonder why, in an age where games steal mechanics from each other constantly, that no one has really experimented with fighting mechanics in other genres. Most of the new genres of games tend to combine mechanics from multiple genres to create something different. I'm sure its only a matter of time though.

BNS is an easy example. If you ever PVP'd in that game it quite literally felt like I was playing a fighting game. It's why I consistently rate it as the #1 combat system in MMO's. It was fast, fluid, had skill, was gear normalized, was rewarding (too rewarding).

I've mentioned before For Honor. It's kind of like playing some version of CoD (which is not my schtick), but set in medievil times with semi realistic factions and heroes and movesets. It plays out just like a 3d fighting game. There are feints, parries, mindgames, throws, punishes, pokes, dodges, etc. You blend them all together and it creates a pretty good fighting game, actually a quite good one. Not to mention it has some pretty wild customization.

I'm trying to think of some more mainstream examples. C9 had a pretty fighting game esque playstyle, but really it was just a less structured BNS system.

Xenogears actually had a battle arena reminiscent of fighting game, despite it being pretty awful, but it was neat to see and play nontheless. I'm sure there are other, better examples.

However, I know some people who just don't tank or heal because they don't like the way the classes that are currently available do it. I know folks who heal in WoW but not in FFXIV because the available classes just don't have the same feel as the healer they like in WoW, usually Resto Druids and Discipline priests. Tanks, same thing, I know folks in FFXIV who won't tank in WoW because the mechanics just feel hollow in WoW in comparison to the amount of things you're doing in FFXIV.

I can echo this a bit. I play PLD because I like the aesthetic first and foremost, regardless of its role. I like that it's a tank because tanks don't have positionals (I hate positionals). However, if they ever released a DPS PLD, I'd probably switch to that with minimal hesitation.

I think action RPGs have tried to take the risk reward mechanic from fighters in things like blocking where blocking at the exact right time would stagger the attacker and attacking someone while they're staggered or otherwise vulnerable increases damage done or allows a special move to be done. That would be difficult to implement in an MMO, not because of design but because of limitations in hardware/coding. How would a raid function if it were possible for the tank to block and stagger the boss? How would the tank see the attack timing with all the spell effects? how would the boss register that it happened with 10+ people attacking it? How would the difficulty scale if it were possible for people to stagger the boss and cheese their way through phases/ mechanics (or maybe that in itself is the skill check)? I obviously know it's possible because single player games do it already, I'm just wondering how well that kind of mechanic would translate into a massive multiplayer online game with all of the technical challenges that come with it.

BNS did this quite well I thought. Bosses were only susceptible to CC during specific moments. Not all the time. They also required multiple people or a single person chaining CC to stagger. I.e. Let's say the Monk (a tank in BNS) parries an attack, it triggers his stun move and he uses it on boss. However, boss requires 2 separate CC's to actually be staggered. You could have a teammate help out, or you could use another of your stuns, thus doing it solo. They have varying CDs though so you wouldn't be able to do this approach every time, so you pick and choose when you're most vulnerable or when the boss is most dangerous.

Here's an interesting counterpoint, or opposing view, from Gevlon. It's in a post about Wildstar closing, but I think it applies to this discussion:

I think he's got a good point, and I think a lot of what is being thrown around in this thread is moving away from that central "skill" of MMOs.

I don't agree tbh (all content below strictly IMO). I hate to use BNS again, but it was actually widely successful in NA at launch. PVP was the main draw, and even still the PVE content was surprisingly robust and engaging for most players. The rampant bots in PVP however, turned a lot of people away and the lack of a promised feature (spectating) killed a scene before it ever started.

Then coupled with a distinct P2progress (P2W IMO) soured the playerbase.

It rewarded players who were good by allowing them to increase their challenge by doing PVE content with less players (thus less rewards split). It allowed weaker/less optimal players to use extra lives and bodies to help get through the dungeons, while still being engaging. It was surprisingly good at catering to both niches. I think the combat system is the reason for that.

Regarding Wildstar, ask anyone who actually gave it a fair shot. It was a surprisingly good game, it was just poorly marketed, which killed it early on. It had some rough around the edges area where they had a concept and it didn't work out (attunements, etc.). It lacked some end game content too, which wasn't good, but nearly all the systems in the game were extremely well tuned and tight. I can't say that for most modern MMOs. In the end the game for faltered for me personally because it didn't have a class I wanted to play (I'm not huge on the setting), and the playerbase wasn't big enough to support my time investment.