Nalaeia wrote:
I was excited to read this thread because it sounded cool; not sure how it got derailed, but RIP.
Some simple ideas:
I definitely wish WHM was more useful. I'm not knowledgeable on all things current retail, so I might be missing something, but RDM steals all the thunder usually. Maybe alter RDM enhancing/healing skill? Not sure.
Stale loot pools. Incentive to switch farming spots, mostly.
The game itself looks fine to me. I've heard many people say it looks old, but I disagree; I think the game has unique graphics that stand relatively well if you take into account the time period. We also have a few HD mods to choose from as of recent. The best graphics in this game for me are the character models; I would love to see them with "modern" feature updates to give more in-depth character creation. Not an overhaul, just additions.
Music remasters? At least Rolanberry Fields. That shit's my jam.
Better color palette for text. Might be nitpicky.
Item durability might be cool, but not "hey, fix this, trader" durability. Farm mats specific to that piece. We're masochists, why not?
More emphasis on weather/days. I don't know if they truthfully effect drops and mob strengths and weaknesses as a whole, but it'd be cool if they did quite dramatically. "Crawler's Nest party on Watersday? No way, man! Flies have Double Attack trait on that day."
The mob population idea is really dope as well.
I think that's it. Honestly, FFXI is my favorite game, and it wouldn't be my favorite if it wasn't perfect in my eyes. These are things that might be interesting, but the game certainly doesn't need them.
Not too sure on the item durability thing, but in regards to retails changes to whm, they did get some main job exclusive job abilities. That much being said, job balance is something that is easily fixed with natural normal updates. But retail never bothered to make the content already existing in the game more viable.
We all lived in dunes and similar places because it was just the best places to be, so many zones were barren and it never got addressed. Then expansions came out and the same things repeated themselves. The game didn't really cater friendly to the players that just like to explore the world, which was one of it's major faults. We weren't really rewarded for exploring the landscape unless we were exclusively hunting a notorious monster, every other split up mob was just an obstacle in the way.
Weather effects sound cool, but players gotta have some incentive to actually even fight those things on that very same day. So flies have double attack trait, but they also drop some extra treasure. It's things like that which make things more appealing.
High risk and high reward is one of the major appeals to this game, fighting tougher mobs gives a risk of dying and losing exp, but doing successfully and quickly and you get rewarded with alot of experience. So more content that offers challenge with the promise of greater rewards is what draws people in.
In terms of how the game visually looks and sounds, this is actually a fucking beautiful game even in this day and age. Playstation 2 graphics age very well. I still come to this game just to listen to the soundtrack and play the game as an extra excuse. And watching the animations of certain mobs, weaponskills, and skillchains makes me keep coming back. If the game gets remade with more up to date graphics I would love it, but even just having what we have is easy on the eyes.