I don’t play at level cap. Once I’ve capped a character I might do some reps if there’s a mount I want, otherwise I start a new toon. That’s why I hate the current state of WoW… they’ve progressively made leveling faster and less relevant with each expansion since CATA.
So I ended up playing some FFXIV over the last few days, only to find the warrior class was utterly gutted to be even simpler than before. No more stance dancing, your “tanking stance” is now just a buff you can toggle on and off for no dps penalty. You literally won’t lose threat against anyone unless you go afk.
Its like they want to be so “anti-wow” that they’re throwing out the baby with the bath water, and eliminating anything that could be interpreted as being similar to wow. Even if wow is doing that particular thing right.
Was great being able to find a dungeon run quickly, and the folks you run with in FFXIV are on average more patient than the average people you run into in pugs here. But to have no real pvp, slow combat, and now an even more boring rotation than before?
Hurry up Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen! Lol.
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It’s not just Warrior, all the tanks had their “tank stance” changed like that.
Paladin no longer has Sword Oath and Shield Oath. They now have, I think, Iron Will that just increases enmity.
Dark Knights no longer have to disable Grit to use Blood Weapon.
Gunbreaker was introduced after all these changes were made, so they never had the stance dancing to begin with.
I think the general idea behind these changes is that FFXIV wants tanks to focus more on what the mobs are doing and their positioning instead of doing the right ability rotation. At least, that’s what it feels like to me after leveling Dark Knight to max.
The one thing I’ll say I like about FFXIV’s class designs over WOW’s is there is very little RNG involved. Off the top of my head, I think Bard is the only class that has an ability proc.
You and I have been hearing different things about that community… normally I would go play FFXIV and see for myself if I were to ever unsub from WoW again, since I can’t have more than one MMO taking up my free time, except for the fact that I won’t give Square-Enix another PENNY of my hard-earned money until they come out with a Chrono Trigger HD Remake on the level of their recent FF7 Remake…
That would be amazing, as long as it doesn’t get the same treatment as secret of mana did.
What I would really love is a full blown sequel to FF tactics. Something MORE in depth and complicated, not dumbed down… er… “streamlined” like the sad gba/ds sequels.
I really, really don’t care at this point if it’s a sequel or a remake… so long as they at Square-Enix – and other game creators – do SOMETHING with their unfinished “dead” IPs that they haven’t TOUCHED for decades… literally part of the story of how MonolithSoft got started was the developers / writers of Xenogears were fed up with Square (this was relatively just before the Enix merger if I recall correctly) and did the equivalent back then of what Mike Morhaime has done nowadays: they left to make their own studio, and continue their ideas… maybe if all of the “dream team” behind the Chrono series would have done the same, we would have an actual spiritual successor or something by now…
I dont care but would like a system like wow had in cata , to reforge useless stats into better more useful stats on new gear obtained. In BFA and now SL it feels so weak and fights are long and drawn out ive lost interest in the game.
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That sounds interesting. I never played Cata, but anything that allows you to customize your gear/stats so you can be different than others of the same class is important i feel. At least the illusion of choice needs to be there for me.
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Reforging will never be back, as much as I liked that.
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I know right, it’s because Ian Hazzikostas happened. 
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I feel kinda mixed and unsure… there’s 2 types of MMO’s I’d love… and one already existed, and it shut down… I think it was the best thing that’s ever happened… and I wish it had lived longer… that game was Lunia. Man, I played it 2008-2013 until it shut down… 12+ hours a day, 10,000+ hours total… I sometimes wish I had played WoW sooner (I started March 2019), but if it wasn’t for Lunia, I guess I wouldn’t be who I am today… Love WoW but it’s not going to die for a long time.
Lunia was an arcade MMORPG, you used arrows to move, A and S were your physical attacks, space bar attack enemy on ground, then you had all your hotkey skills on your numbers etc… Skill points as you leveled up, level cap in very beginning was 65, and characters final skill was at level 60, it was extremely overpowered and bad azz… They eventually raised the level cap to 75… game was still great… and then it was raised to 99… hardly anyone hit max level, it was extremely hard, and I like that, in my perfect MMO I want max level to be almost impossible to achieve unless you grind your life and soul out of the game… They eventually introduced Ultimate Skills, these you had to earn doing a certain stage that was difficult, and you had to collect 5 pages… page 5 being the hardest most expensive one in the market… you put all pages together and got this book that you used to learn your characters ultimate skill. You get your ult skills at 85, they were extremely OP… massive AoE dmg on every single one, very cool fun effects… they were super cool 
here’s a video of all of them + some new 75 skills they came up with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8OmxS4IbyU
I had 3 ultimate skills in that game… they were the most bad azz thing… and they were very limited, you could only used them around 10 or 20 times a week (forgot what # probably 20), one ult was enough to destroy a raid boss if you had good equipment lol. and that’s one thing I loved about Lunia… I loved it in the very beginning when it didn’t have any of that fancy stuff, but it was still great in the end… just wish it had lived longer… if I was a millionaire, i’d fund the company that built it and try to bring it back, cause this MMO pretty much defines the perfect MMO to me… community was great, amazing unique gameplay that wasn’t repetitive, good music, awesome characters, microtransactions were decent (I didn’t even get a chance to spend much cause I was younger), bosses stages enemies and all of that were pretty good… there’s never gonna be another MMO like it… there’s 2 private servers for it now if anyone’s interested… Spirit Lunia and Arcade Lunia… but they’re not even close to as good as the original was… they’re very low populated, Lunia had around 1000-2000 player base online… I could go on and on about this game, but I think I’ve made my point lol.
Ragnarok Online is another MMO I really loved a bunch… it’s still great, but eh, it’s no where near as good… it’s very good but not good enough to be the perfect MMO.
Now… for an MMO that I would make, that I’ve never played, and what features I would give it and stuff… well… let’s see…
VR … I definitely would want my perfect MMO to have VR implemented, preferably exclusive, I don’t think the desktop option would make great use of its systems. The battle system will be incredible, sort of hack n slash where you have to dodge and move, crouch even to avoid projectiles, and go at your enemies slice n dice just take full advantage of all what VR can do… it’ll be amazing.
No dungeon/raid finder… I personally don’t care whether or not a game has dungeon finder, but since you mentioned it, I gotta say I prefer without one… I like when you have to wait in front of the instance and well… a group finder might be okay… I don’t know, group finder is sort of the same thing… it’s kind of controversial to know if it’s better or not lol… well… Lunia had a group finder system so heck why not… maybe sure… it doesn’t matter too much in the end whether it does or doesn’t.
Like I mentioned with Lunia, having a very high level cap… 99-200ish preferably just 99 would be great, have a super bad azz aura as a reward for hitting cap… and having an ultimate skill would be great… except I don’t know how ultimate skills and VR together would work… I’m sure it can work, anything is possible
So yeah… that wraps up my perfect MMO 
WoW is amazing and I love it, but it’s far from perfect… still better than most things that are out there today… but believe me, if Lunia ever came back, I wouldn’t have time to get any of my alts max level doing end-game content in WoW shadowlands to say the least.
- True Sandbox. The world is there to explore, and players are given the tools to discover every nook and cranny. Then once exploration is done, the world is there for them to enjoy.
- Player-driven Everything. The set-pieces are laid out by the developers for the players to discover. Then once they’re discovered, players figure out the ways and methods to tackle their challenges. Players drive the game’s economy. Players drive the game’s conflicts. Creative players can also custom-design their own gear to sell to other players for in-game currency.
- Player-centric Experience. There is a story, a backdrop to the players’ struggles - but in the end, what players do drives the direction of the game’s story for everyone around them. Players decide on how they want to live in this virtual world. Players decide where they’re placed in the grand scheme of things.
- Open-ended and Accessible End-Game. You start out as a novice with very little in the way of skills accessible to you. Would that stop you from joining a raid on some desolate ruins? Hell no. Would you succeed? Not if you’re alone; but the rewards you would reap from doing so, by joining a group to tackle the game’s high-end challenges right from day one, would make it all worth-it. Then there would be new challenges to face.
- An experience not so focused on gear but on skill. Gear affects how you’re perceived by other players. Gear is a way to show off your personality. Gear should not be a barrier stopping you from enjoying the game to its fullest. My ideal MMO would present endless skill trees and character progression opportunities that players would continue to unlock and improve on as they play and master it. All gear might do is improve physical defense, attack power, and so on - but nothing too superficial.
- Content that allows players to jump in & out with each other at will.
(The Battle of Minas Tirith in LOTR lore wasn’t fought in an instance. Weathertop in LOTR lore wasn’t assailed by Nazgul in an instance.)
I actually liked how players could horde up on the world bosses in Icecrown in Death’s Rising without grouping, yet they were, but didn’t appreciate the stupid drop rate.
That’s not to infer this is how things should come about, as the systems would need to be way deeper & more thought out, but I think allowing players to do some scenarios like this would set the genre towards the beginnings of walking a path of freedom.
I think Warhammer was trying to come up with a new way of thinking to begin walking that path, their public quests, but alas they never got to survive to walk the way.
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Lore Reading, Books, found in the Elder Scolls games
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Huge Lands to explore with interesting stuff on it
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Combat of WoW with the ability to interact with each other in combat, Everquest 2’s HO system (but expand it/more in depth players there don’t use it)
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Content Creation possible by players aka Neverwinter Foundry but again expanded upon (Cryptic killed it)
I think if all that was done you could walk a way that would be different from the online games of today. It might encourage players to roleplay with each other again and that might be the greatest attainment of the true way.
- Just a personal thing. More Dwarf Content. Large Dwarf Underground Cities.