17 Suggestions from an MMO vet

[nmekiller]

I compiled a list of things that I found to be cumbersome, redundant, unnecessary, unhelpful, redundant, lacking, cryptic, redundant....you get the idea......I hope this is the most appropriate board to post something like this.

1) get rid of the “play screen”. it’s the one after the log in screen. Move the “square-enix account management system” button to the log in screen.

2) get rid of the start screen. This isn’t a single player FF and we’ve already gone through two screens indicating that yes, we want to freaking play. You can move “credits” and “opening movie” to the log in screen. “quit” can be moved to the character selection screen.

3) add an AH. Use retainers and the market wards for players who wish to sell their goods outside of the AH system.

4) add an in game mail system.

5) Would be nice to be able to link items to other players, and to ourselves from the chat window.

6) add all of the FF XIV config options in game. It’s insane that players should have to close out of the game, just to adjust their video or gamepad settings.

7) add a description when you hover over your stats of how those stats affect your character. This would affect the attributes and point allotment windows.

8) it would be nice if you guys added a “drag and drop” function to the Actions and Traits menu.

9) add a manual sort function to the inventory.

10) add waypoints and personalized marker options to the map.

11) macros are an important function to the game, please move them from deep
within the config window and give it it’s own tab in the menu.

12) I haven’t seen a macro tutorial.

13) add a crafting panel so we don’t have to scribble every single recipe down or look to 3rd party sources on the internet.

14) I see what you're doing with the mail, AH, and chat systems to fight RMT but it's ruining the fun for the 99% of players who aren't real money traders. You can implement these systems in much the same manner that you did with the airship pass in FFXI. Introduce epic quest lines for each of the three systems that a vast majority of the players are asking for. Let us unlock them at high levels, that way only true players are using the system, instead of the real money traders. This not only adds the much needed convenience that all other MMOs have, and you predecessor did, but it also adds some content to the game.

15) My toon is just standing there like a T-1000. Not even a damn Legend of Zelda like kicking the dirt off his boots, fidgeting, or stretching out and yawning.

16) to go back to crafting, it just takes too long to craft or gather even the simplest of items and materials. How about varying crafting time based on the difficulty or simplicity of the item you’re making?

17) give us some sort of chat channel functionality. Level restrict it if you have to, even if it’s just for high or max level players.

Some of these problems stem from the fact that the developers are doing everything they can to prevent RMT from happening in the game (3,4,17). But it seems to me that what they're doing is over kill and creating a police state where we have no freedoms, like a chat system, mail system, or AH.

The other problems come from a total lack of information and features or the horrible placement of the information and features we are given (5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,).

Then there's completely unnecessary redundancies (1,2)



And now for 3 things that You've done better then any other MMO in history.

1) your graphics are of such a high quality, it would make a lesser man weep in the presence of it’s beauty.
2) Your soundtrack is second to none. Truly astounding. Nobuo Uematsu has proved himself to be a brilliant composer, yet again.
3) I love the very customizable UI. Great work, seriously.

[zaviermhigo]

Why don't you auto run while typing? My character is not a freaking toon, seriously hate that freaking term. Zoom up close, our character breaths. I don't need to fidget all the time when standing lol. I don't know if I particularly want an AH at this point.

Stuff I agree with now: 1,2,5,8,10

[nmekiller]

Why don't you auto run while typing? My character is not a freaking toon, seriously hate that freaking term. Zoom up close, our character breaths. I don't need to fidget all the time when standing lol. I don't know if I particularly want an AH at this point.

Stuff I agree with now: 1,2,5,8,10

I use a game pad, I don't have any problems with typing. But the problem is there regardless.

[Martyr]

I've heard a lot of these before. Someone even went through the trouble of making a .pdf for it. Thread's a little old, now. Half thinking about necro-bumping it, if only to go over things that were in the file that are now fixed.

Here's the thread.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...estive-Changes

I agree with quite a few of these points, though. Think it would be nice to have some sort of idle animation. I mean, not constantly fidgeting, but if you stand still for awhile, would be nice to do something. Kind of creepy running by Ul'dah's steps and just seeing a bunch of motionless Miqo'tes, all sitting in the exact same position, doing nothing at all.

Of course, would be a pain for RPers if you were doing a scene and your character started kicking dirt off their boot or humming something, so a simple /idle on and /idle off would be welcome for that.

However, I'm a little confused about:

14) you’ve got to change the fact that you can’t move with WSAD and type at the same time. Other MMOs do it, you figure it out.

I can't think of an MMO where you can type and run with WSAD without either putting on auto-run or using the mouse. I mean, honestly, I would be rather annoyed trying to type a sentence and have my character flail around in random directions whenever I happened to type one of those characters. I do remember someone recommending they add the ability to move by clicking down both the right and left mouse buttons. Is that kind of what you mean? So you can be in the middle of typing, use the mouse to move out of the way of something, then continue typing?

[nmekiller]

I can't think of an MMO where you can type and run with WSAD without either putting on auto-run or using the mouse. I mean, honestly, I would be rather annoyed trying to type a sentence and have my character flail around in random directions whenever I happened to type one of those characters. I do remember someone recommending they add the ability to move by clicking down both the right and left mouse buttons. Is that kind of what you mean? So you can be in the middle of typing, use the mouse to move out of the way of something, then continue typing?

To use WoW as a popular example, as long as you didn't let go of whatever WSAD key you were using when you started typing, you could keep moving without switching on auto run. The only problem with that was if you needed "W""S""A" or "D" in what you were typing. It's not really important though and 14 can easily be forgotten.


I would like to take this opportunity to reemphasize my points about adding chat channels, a mail system, and an AH.

If those systems were level restricted so that only high level players could use them, it would serve as a reward for playing through the game to that point, and be an answer to the demands for these systems in game. You could compare it to the airship pass in FFXI as a benchmark for character progression and reward.

Actually, now that i think of it, why not build epic quest lines around opening up these 3 systems to players?

[zaviermhigo]

I'd like an airship pass. I haven't been sold on the fact that an AH will create an economy in this game. If they add that whole "crafters enter economy at r20" thing, I think that's when I'll be convinced if the AH is going to really improve the economy of the game. Right now an AH would limit the amount of things I can sell at one time, limiting the amount of money I can potentially make. A mailbox system, this I need, I really can't stand trading people all the time, I'M NOT RMTING if I just wanna send my friend some food he needs for the next time he freaking logs on.

[nmekiller]

I changed number 14 to a more interesting and compelling suggestion. Check it out.

[nmekiller]

do these things or your game will be shut down with in the next 1-2 years. Your PS3 launch will fail with the game as it is now.

[Leowilde]

I don't think I've read a single lenghty post on this forum that I agreed with more. Thumbs up for all your points and suggestions, except AH (let's not go to that discussion again) and character movement when standing still (though /idle on and /idle off would serve as a good solution).

If the dev team reads this, I hope they take what they can from it, because it would solve so many of the game's problems.
Thanks for the post!

[nmekiller]

I don't think I've read a single lenghty post on this forum that I agreed with more. Thumbs up for all your points and suggestions, except AH (let's not go to that discussion again) and character movement when standing still (though /idle on and /idle off would serve as a good solution).

If the dev team reads this, I hope they take what they can from it, because it would solve so many of the game's problems.
Thanks for the post!

thank you