Fundamental Game Play Issues

[Byrth]

The Lock/unlock thread (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/15094-lock-unlock-after-equipment-change) got me thinking about parts of FFXI's gameplay that we just accept and don't even think about anymore, but are actually really pretty horrible and affect almost everything we do.

Here is a brief list. Feel free to make more suggestions:
* Blinking/losing target after target gear swaps - The person you're targeting and their position are independent of the clothes they're wearing, so why is it programmed to break focus when someone gear swaps? This is annoying.
** Blinking on your own and losing "locked on" status - If you blink while locked on to a monster, you lose the locked on status and have to re-lock it before you can do things like strafe around the monster. Seems like an outgrowth of the above problem. Why was this designed this way?
* Items being lost from the treasure pool due to inventory issues (One person lots more items than they have space for, everyone else passes, the extra items are lost) - It wouldn't be hard to have it stay in the pool, would it?
* Cure lock - Regardless of the "fix" all those years ago, this still exists. Why should I be frozen if I'm not doing anything?
* Animation locks - Job Abilities are "instant," so why can't we move during them? After the spell casting interruption period, why can't we run immediately? This is just clumsy. I can run around while hitting the monster, why can't I run around while Violent Flourishing the monster? The animation is basically just a hit either way.
** Raise Delay - This makes it hard to get up and out of AoE range after being raised. Could you eliminate it somehow?
* Post-Job Ability/Magic delays (the period of time after you use an ability or spell until you can act again). - They make the game feel clunky and seriously impede JA-heavy jobs. Why not shorten or eliminate them? Server to client latency isn't what it used to be. Being interrupted and unable to cast again is especially frustrating.
* Engage delay (the period following disengaging when you cannot re-engage). - This is a hold-over from an old glitch that let people attack faster by spamming engage/disengage with a high delay weapon. You appear to force people to wait their full weapon delay upon engaging now anyway, so why not eliminate it?
* Losing Items while Paralyzed - It is unclear why this was ever the case, and just makes Paralyze *that* much more annoying. I can understand if you want to cancel item usage upon Paralysis, but does it also have to cost us gil?
* Ranged Auto-Attack - Not having one decreases the value of Snapshot gear and hurts Ranged DDs relative to melee DDs. Why do we have to hit "Ranged Attack" every time we want to shoot instead of just engaging and firing away?
* Event Skipped - Some menus stop your buffs from counting down, so you don't want us to be able to hold monsters indefinitely while locked in CS. (Think Invincible w/Aegis -> Box) That said, there are some menus that do not stop buffs from counting down. Would you mind switching things like Abyssea Treasure Caskets to these?
* Losing Reraise Status upon DC - It's common to die if you are fighting something when you disconnect. Reraise is lost upon disconnecting, which means that this is an event-ender for things like Dynamis. Would it be possible to let reraise be preserved?
** Losing Cruor buffs upon DC - It is still unclear to me why you can store the exact Atma I'm using (out of a list of >100), but not the Cruor buffs I have active (out of a list of 5, when the answer is almost always "all of them"). Why hasn't this been added/changed in the last year?
* Unable to Search when dead, but ability to send tells and use your linkshell - I understand that you don't want people to be able to talk and shout when they're dead, but you caved to practicality when it came to tells. Mind also caving to practicality in letting us find someone to send a tell to?
** Unable to use UI controls while charmed - It makes sense that you can't say/shout, but could we at least look up in our chat log to see if anyone said something? I always have 1 minute pauses in conversations with people when I'm hit with Long-Armed Chariot's charm.
* Collision Detection - Okay, it makes the game more "realistic," but can't it be optional or something? Some zones get very crowded, or many monsters may be attacking you at once, and it's just difficult to forge your way through the crowd. Could we eliminate this or make it optional?
* Tractor re-zoning us - I know this was brought up in another thread and received and official "it would take us too much time to re-make it" response, but that doesn't mean it isn't a gameplay issue. This spell would be much more useful if it did not force you to zone because it could be used in things like Voidwatch and Abyssea without being subject to some of the above problems. Fix it please?

Again, please feel free to suggest more. If SE put off the 99 patch and just fixed this stuff in the next update, I would be entirely satisfied (but a little bitter that they didn't fix it almost a decade ago).

I realize that I've ignored all issues with the in-game macro system. Lets continue to ignore them, because the necessary changes are so painfully obvious that SE doesn't need us to tell them about it.

[Shiyo]

Never experienced any of these things.

[Greatguardian]

Then you have never used a Job Ability, or engaged a monster before. Kay.

I fully support this thread and would like to add that Post-Ability or Post-Interruption delay is also especially annoying. Having Utsusemi: Ichi interrupted generally means waiting another additional attack round because the game blocks you from attempting to cast any spells again for another 60-120 delay.

[Zatias]

The item lost issue is one of the points of great paranoia and anxiety to me. When I lot something or am going to, I check my inventory 4 or 5 times before I am sure I have enough space. Derp.

I always worry about my friends losing stuff like this as well; it's happened before. Herp.

Animation delay has killed some SCHs while trying to run and Manifestation sleep a group of mobs. Equip changes can sometimes remedy this but it's still annoying.

Engage delay wastes my DRK's aftermath, it's really an inconvenience.

Running late so can't type more. >;P

[Rearden]

* Blinking after gear swaps - The person you're targeting and their position are independent of the clothes they're wearing, so why is it programmed to break focus when someone gear swaps? This is annoying.

k, gonna help you out here bro. See, probromo number 1 is you are swapping gear and it has been pretty readily proven that gear swapping = childish = not skilled = abyssea burned (lol)

If you had skill your job the right way in a PARTY maybe you would know this but you don't so you don't.

[Crocker]

Losing Items While Paralyzed, I think that should be fixed as well.

[Camiie]

Losing Items While Paralyzed, I think that should be fixed as well.

Yeah exactly. If I'm "paralyzed" how am I even able to pull the item from my inventory to use it? It should stay right where it is I would think.

[Puck]

k, gonna help you out here bro. See, probromo number 1 is you are swapping gear and it has been pretty readily proven that gear swapping = childish = not skilled = abyssea burned (lol)

If you had skill your job the right way in a PARTY maybe you would know this but you don't so you don't.
Spot on. You sound just like the genuine article. Let's not invoke its name though, or it will appear.

[Meyi]

* Blinking after gear swaps - The person you're targeting and their position are independent of the clothes they're wearing, so why is it programmed to break focus when someone gear swaps? This is annoying.

<stal>


* Items being lost from the treasure pool due to inventory issues (One person lots more items than they have space for, everyone else passes, the extra items are lost) - It wouldn't be hard to have it stay in the pool, would it? That's what happens when we're solo, so why not when we're in a party?

In case you haven't noticed, when you solo the items in the treasure pool only stay in the treasure pool for five minutes, just as if you had been in a party. That's five minutes to clean your inventory and make room for the item, or else it falls. There is no special extra time just because you're soloing.

They fixed the party treasure pool awhile ago actually. Before it would be if someone was full on inventory it would just fall to the ground. Now if someone is full on inventory, the item will find a different party member to fall to. There are only two reasons anything from party pool should fall to the ground: 1. Everyone except a specific person passed and said person who didn't pass was full, or 2. Everyone in the party is completely full when the item falls from pool.

You have five whole minutes to figure it all out.


* Cure lock - Regardless of the "fix" all those years ago, this still exists. Why should I be frozen if I'm not doing anything?

Yeah I think they made it worse actually. Cure lock sucks.


* Animation locks - Job Abilities are "instant," so why can't we move during them? After the spell casting interruption period, why can't we run immediately? This is just clumsy. I can run around while hitting the monster, why can't I run around while Violent Flourishing the monster? The animation is basically just a hit either way.

Coolest thing about DNC is that you can actually do multiple JA at once without waiting for the animation to finish. I always wished I could do this as other jobs or as mages with spells. Would be nice if the delay here was gone but it could be a programming issue.


* Post-Job Ability/Magic delays (the period of time after you use an ability or spell until you can act again). - They make the game feel clunky and seriously impede JA-heavy jobs. Why not shorten or eliminate them? Server to client latency isn't what it used to be. Being interrupted and unable to cast again is especially frustrating.
* Engage delay (the period following disengaging when you cannot re-engage). - This is a hold-over from an old glitch that let people attack faster by spamming engage/disengage with a high delay weapon. You appear to force people to wait their full weapon delay upon engaging now anyway, so why not eliminate it?

Yeah, see point I made above. -nod-


* Losing Items while Paralyzed - It is unclear why this was ever the case, and just makes Paralyze *that* much more annoying. I can understand if you want to cancel item usage upon Paralysis, but does it also have to cost us gil?

Yeah, I don't know why we have to lose the item. I can understand it not proccing, but losing it does indeed suck.

[Byrth]

<stal>


In case you haven't noticed, when you solo the items in the treasure pool only stay in the treasure pool for five minutes, just as if you had been in a party. That's five minutes to clean your inventory and make room for the item, or else it falls. There is no special extra time just because you're soloing.

They fixed the party treasure pool awhile ago actually. Before it would be if someone was full on inventory it would just fall to the ground. Now if someone is full on inventory, the item will find a different party member to fall to. There are only two reasons anything from party pool should fall to the ground: 1. Everyone except a specific person passed and said person who didn't pass was full, or 2. Everyone in the party is completely full when the item falls from pool.

You have five whole minutes to figure it all out.

The fact that we've generally accepted half-measures and behavioral adaptations to get around the bad gameplay issues is irrelevant when asking for them to be fixed. You could also say, "The solution to Paralyze eating your Remedies is to spam a stack of Remedies."

<stal> doesn't do anything for /follow, and drops aren't in the pool for 5 minutes if one guy lots and everyone else passes (they only fall to ground in that situation if they can't be held by the lotter).

Also, JA delay exists on all jobs. There's one second of "hard" delay (you can't use any other JA or spell) followed by one "soft" second of auto-attack block (you can use other JAs or spells, but you can't auto-attack). Using another JA during the soft second resets it back to the hard second, but is much more efficient than doing JA -> attack round -> JA (you stand to gain up to a second).

[SpankWustler]

If SE put off the 99 patch and just fixed this stuff in the next update, I would be entirely satisfied (but a little bitter that they didn't fix it almost a decade ago).

My feelers are exactly the same. I'd be just as happy, if not happier, to see some basic fixes to basic mechanics as I would be to see some new content. After all, leveling Dancer or playing Corsair more often because they no longer feel clunky to me would be new content for me.

The one difference is that I'm too bitter about being a total failure in all aspects of my life to be bitter about anything else, but that's not really relevant.

[Leonlionheart]

I've been waiting for a post thread like this so I can +1 like it.

but

PS2

[Economizer]

Feel free to make more suggestions

When you die with a weapon drawn, the first thing you do when raising is get stuck in place putting it away. This makes it incredibly hard to run to safety immediately after a raise.

[Arcon]

<stal>

Unrelated to the topic. Just because you can work around it doesn't make a problem that shouldn't occur in the first place go away. And <stal> isn't a godsend cure-all, there's still issues even with that.


In case you haven't noticed, when you solo the items in the treasure pool only stay in the treasure pool for five minutes, just as if you had been in a party. That's five minutes to clean your inventory and make room for the item, or else it falls. There is no special extra time just because you're soloing.

They fixed the party treasure pool awhile ago actually. Before it would be if someone was full on inventory it would just fall to the ground. Now if someone is full on inventory, the item will find a different party member to fall to. There are only two reasons anything from party pool should fall to the ground: 1. Everyone except a specific person passed and said person who didn't pass was full, or 2. Everyone in the party is completely full when the item falls from pool.

You have five whole minutes to figure it all out.

Unfortunately that's incorrect. You don't. Sometimes you don't even have five seconds to figure it all out, due to drop priorities. Just one more aspect of the treasure system that's annoying.

A suggestion of mine:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/6033-Inventory-and-Treasure-distribution-issues


Yeah I think they made it worse actually. Cure lock sucks.

And it's not just cure, it's generally when an animation is placed on the character (not a character animation, but an effect animation, like from cures, buffs, getting hit by the enemy, etc.). I have massive trouble engaging the group of 30 mobs I just pulled in Abyssea, I always have to engage while I'm still running ahead of them and then move into position.


When you die with a weapon drawn, the first thing you do when raising is get stuck in place putting it away. This makes it incredibly hard to run to safety immediately after a raise.

That's part of the animation lock that Byrth mentioned. What's even worse is the cure lock.. the animation lock is at least by (stupid) design, the cure lock is a bug that gets so many people killed.

And concerning the engage delay.. it's not just an annoyance, it can be extremely harmful, especially in the situation that was just mentioned. Try engaging a mob on WAR/SAM with a 504 delay weapon after you raise. The other day I did just that (or, well, tried), and after the mob hit me 4 times, I was lying flat on the ground again without even pulling my weapon.


PS2

Actually, many (if not all) of these things could be done without any restrictions to the current technical specifications, and some of them would, in fact, make the game run smoother as well, so the PS2 would profit from that too.

Please SE, if you just fix these issues mentioned here I can die happily. This is more valueable to me than any level increase updates or any JA/WS/Spell/Item adjustments I can think of. It's these things that annoy the shit out of people more than anything. They impact our gameplay experience in an extremely negative way and is the main reason why people rage about stuff all the time.

[Tsuneo]

When you die with a weapon drawn, the first thing you do when raising is get stuck in place putting it away. This makes it incredibly hard to run to safety immediately after a raise.
It's also fun when people cure lock you after you get up. I love not being able to run away from AoEs.

[Arcon]

Another thing... skipping events with cures/buffs, or even some debuffs for that matter... why should you stop open a chests if you get caught in a Slowga spell? Combined with the horrible menus in some areas, which take years to load and another few years to navigate, it's nearly impossible to get through the entire thing without being interrupted. The only reason you can get campaign buffs these days is because no one does campaign anymore.

[Meyi]

The fact that we've generally accepted half-measures and behavioral adaptations to get around the bad gameplay issues is irrelevant when asking for them to be fixed. You could also say, "The solution to Paralyze eating your Remedies is to spam a stack of Remedies."

Okay? I said paralyze does indeed suck when it consumes items and that I don't think paralyze should do that.


<stal> doesn't do anything for /follow, and drops aren't in the pool for 5 minutes if one guy lots and everyone else passes (they only fall to ground in that situation if they can't be held by the lotter).

I understand that for /follow gear swapping can cause issues. But the person who is being followed should be informed that they are being followed and should hopefully avoid changing gear until the person following has returned or the two have arrived to their destination. If Square Enix changed it so that we don't blink and/or we don't lose target when someone blinks, I wouldn't complain.

For the treasure pool, if everyone but one person passed, it would still remain in the pool for five minutes then fall to the person who didn't pass. If they're full they cannot lot until they make inventory, but if somehow they fill up between lotting and the item dropping then yes, it can be lost.

There are many ways around treasure pools and losing items. Whether or not we should have to practice these safety measures I won't argue; I couldn't care less if Square Enix left it or fixed it. I merely wanted to point out to you that solo treasure pool delay and party treasure pool delay are the same.


Also, JA delay exists on all jobs. There's one second of "hard" delay (you can't use any other JA or spell) followed by one "soft" second of auto-attack block (you can use other JAs or spells, but you can't auto-attack). Using another JA during the soft second resets it back to the hard second, but is much more efficient than doing JA -> attack round -> JA (you stand to gain up to a second).

I know. I really hate the delay after abilities and especially spells. Or even more annoyingly when you get interrupted and have to wait an entire round again. I'd like to see all delays in the game reduced.

Edit: wanted to add some~


Unrelated to the topic. Just because you can work around it doesn't make a problem that shouldn't occur in the first place go away. And <stal> isn't a godsend cure-all, there's still issues even with that.

Not sure how it's unrelated. I agree it still a hassle sometimes (I don't like having to scroll through all the alliance members to reach the main tank in the third party each time I want to cure them), but it at least helps.

For /follow no, it does nothing to help.



Sometimes you don't even have five seconds to figure it all out, due to drop priorities. Just one more aspect of the treasure system that's annoying.

Hm, this is true. This happens when a group is killing fast enough to load the treasure pool within the five minutes.



And it's not just cure, it's generally when an animation is placed on the character (not a character animation, but an effect animation, like from cures, buffs, getting hit by the enemy, etc.). I have massive trouble engaging the group of 30 mobs I just pulled in Abyssea, I always have to engage while I'm still running ahead of them and then move into position.

Yeah I can't stand this either. Like I said I'd like to see all of the delays removed.

[Economizer]

Okay? I said paralyze does indeed suck when it consumes items and that I don't think paralyze should do that.

Promanthia hath no fury like a Ninja who just lost a toolbag to paralyze.

[Arcon]

Promanthia hath no fury like a Ninja who just lost a toolbag to paralyze.

Try a brew.

[Byrth]

I merely wanted to point out to you that solo treasure pool delay and party treasure pool delay are the same.

Well, yeah, but that's kinda unrelated to the suggestion. I will try to word it more clearly in the OP.

If I'm solo, 79/80, and two things drop, the second one stays in the treasure pool for 5 minutes even if I try to lot it. If I'm 79/80 in a party and two things drops, I can lot them, other people can pass, and within seconds the second item will fall to the ground if my inventory is full. What I'm saying is, "If there's no room in my inventory, why doesn't it stay in the pool for the full 5 minutes as it would if I were solo?" This is mostly an issue for things like BCNMs (where the popper wants to back to the start), and Salvage (where a lot of cells drop at once). Both require rapid lotting/passing, and it would be a lot less stressful if you knew you wouldn't lose drops/cells.

And yeah, I've never lost an important drop to this. That doesn't mean I wasn't on edge every time I was lotting the Ranged/Rings cells in Zhayolm or expensive BC drops. It would be nice for peace of mind if they'd just eliminate the problem. If I lot something, I want it. I don't want it to go to the ground because other people passed too quickly/I didn't make space beforehand. The fact that I've successfully avoided losing drops to it doesn't mean it isn't a prevalent problem.

Edit: Done! Sometimes less is more <_<;

[Zirael]

Funny how many people are against changes that make sense + playing experience easier. Sure, you can get anywhere in New York by walking (and some would argue it's good workout for your health), but me personally, not being masochistic if only possible, would use metro to get from 1 end to the other. Dear SE, cater for sane people, not masochists, please.

I think I wrote somewhere sometime on these forums my issues with game's GUI already (pretty much similar to Byrth's), but to reiterate and expand:

Losing lock on monster after gear swap JA/magic (try playing THF and running around monster in circles for SA/TA/WS for several minutes, it hurts THF's DPS alot)
Collision lock with other players/monsters - every time you bump on a player/monster you are stopped in your tracks for ~1s. What's the point if then you are allowed to pass through them anyway? To say your greetings to each others? Makes no sense. And it's a real hindrance when you're in Port Jeuno, it's Saturday JP time and you're trying to get in your Mog House, or when you're kiting something (let's say King Behemoth back in the days, I know that area is huge, but as an example, if you had 200 people against you, they could MPK you with collision lock) and people get in your way (on purpose or even not on purpose).
Losing Reraise status when DC and you are subsequently killed by whatever you were fighting - not a major issue, but still. My friend was soloing Dynamis yesterday (he missed our scheduled run, so had to solo) and his game crashed; he logged back and was dead without Reraise. Having all your friends unable to come and raise and having everyone in zone too busy with their timed event's tasks (or unwilling to help competition), your only option is Home Point.
Unable to /search when dead - why is it that when you are dead you are not even alowed to search around for people who could raise you? You are unable to /shout for your own raise either. But you are still able to send /tell Anyone sees inconsistency and bad game design in this logic?

Also, in before PS2 limitations / spaghetti code / we-are-too-busy-adding-new-job-emotes-to-fix-this-for-you-so-U-mad?

[Arcon]

Unable to /search when dead - why is it that when you are dead you are not even alowed to search around for people who could raise you? You are unable to /shout for your own raise either. But you are still able to send /tell Anyone sees inconsistency and bad game design in this logic?

Reminds me of something else.... enable UI controls when dead/charmed. Also... while I get that you can't /say or /shout while charmed/dead for logical reasons, it makes no sense gameplay wise and just frustrates people, especially since you can still /tell or /p or /l. Why does it make sense for some things, but not for others? And not being able to control even the game UI when charmed is completely senseless.

[Insaniac]

I know they said they were looking into it but it seems like they forgot so:

Losing cruor buffs when you DC: DCing in the middle of a fight and coming back with half the hp/mp/stats you had when you DCed is stupid. It results in lost cruor, time, and sometimes lost fights. I assume the reason they drop on DC is because they share buff IDs with all other forms of stat boosts like DRK absorb spells and fenrir buffs which is also an issue because it causes these types of spells and abilities to have no effect.

Tractor zoning: Why in the world? Wouldn't it be less trouble to have this simply work like a monsters draw in effect? This problem is compounded in abyssea by the fact that "tractor zoning" causes you to lose visitant status.

[Tamoa]

I'd "like" the OP here a thousand times over if I could.

[Urteil]

Never experienced any of these things.


Welcome to FFXI, enjoy your bought character.

[Alhanelem]

OP covered the most longstanding problems in the game pretty well. :D

Just one thing-


* Blinking after gear swaps - The person you're targeting and their position are independent of the clothes they're wearing, so why is it programmed to break focus when someone gear swaps? This is annoying.I doubt that it is "specifically programmed" to break your target lock. How it is, is that your character model momentarily disappears while the game loads the new model. The game uses the height/size of the model to determine where to put the targeting cursor, so when the model disappears, it has no place to put the target.

It's still something stupid that shouldn't be there, but I'm pretty sure the losing target is just a side effect rather than a conscious decision.

Then again, the solution is the same regardless- program it so it doesn't do that. ;p What happens when you think out loud.

[Greatguardian]

A model being visible or not has absolutely nothing to do with the game knowing where and how large an object is. The game will always have that information available, whether the target is drawn or not.

It's more likely that the game's lockon function simply terminates whenever the target or player is rendered invisible, as a way to avoid errors before they happen. It is a lot simpler from a programming standpoint to make overbearing, catch-all rules than to add complex, individual functionality (lockon loss during deaths but not during blinks, etc), and the latter is much more likely to break or glitch.

Assuming that the software engineers who wrote the initial code are still working on the FFXI team, it would be an hour long fix at best. Given the fact that they obviously don't, it may take anywhere from hours to weeks to sort through the spaghetti code, depending on how badly it was commented, formatted, and designed. It's still worth the time to ask, though.

[Alhanelem]

A model being visible or not has absolutely nothing to do with the game knowing where and how large an object is. The game will always have that information available, whether the target is drawn or not. It clearly doesn't, because you can often see and target players just as they're loading in (generally when there's lots of people in an area and it's deciding who to load and who to unload)and the targeting cursor points to the ground at their feet, then jumps up to over their head when the model appears. If it knew the size and position of the model before loading it, the cursor would be in the same place the whole time.


it would be an hour long fix at best.You can't really decide how long it would take something to be coded when you don't know exactly how it's written. It (like everything else in the game is probably written in a needlessly complicated manner, and it's likely the whole reason some of these things don't get changed, outside of ps2 limitations, is because most of the original staff (who would better understand what they've written and how to change it) is likely NOT working on the game now, as you've said.

After all, why isn't a change in stack sizes (outside of analzying the impact of the change) a 30 second fix? One would expect it's simply changing a single number in a database and in the client data.

[Greatguardian]

It clearly doesn't, because you can often see and target players just as they're loading in (generally when there's lots of people in an area and it's deciding who to load and who to unload)and the targeting cursor points to the ground at their feet, then jumps up to over their head when the model appears. If it knew the size and position of the model before loading it, the cursor would be in the same place the whole time.

You can't really decide how long it would take something to be coded when you don't know exactly how it's written. It (like everything else in the game is probably written in a needlessly complicated manner, and it's likely the whole reason some of these things don't get changed, outside of ps2 limitations, is because most of the original staff (who would better understand what they've written and how to change it) is likely NOT working on the game now, as you've said.

After all, why isn't a change in stack sizes (outside of analzying the impact of the change) a 30 second fix? One would expect it's simply changing a single number in a database and in the client data.

You're trying to apply common sense to programming when you clearly just don't know what you're talking about. I'm sorry, but it just does not work that way. Centering a cursor at a fixed position on the ground before loading a model is likely a preventative measure of some sort, similar to target loss itself.

Displaying a model on the screen is the last thing any program will do, and any functions associated with an in-game object are completely independent of the model's actual display. They affect the object itself, a sequence of 0s and 1s and all that fun jazz in memory. Whether or not an object is visible on the screen, the game itself will have height, width, x coordinates, y coordinates, z coordinates, and all other data pertinent to the monster available at all times.

[Alhanelem]

You're trying to apply common sense to programming when you clearly just don't know what you're talking about.Actually, I have a BA with a major in computer science, so I do have some idea what I'm talking about. I really find it questionable that they would specifically code the game to remove the target lock on blink out, and that it's simply the target lock's codes dependance on having the model present causing the target lock code to decide it shouldn't be there anymore, and the targeting cursor's location being based on the height and scale of the target's model.

In short, because that would most likely mean these two things were coded by two different people who never communicated with eachother at all and the end result wasn't disruptive enough to get the team lead to tell them they need to redo it.



Displaying a model on the screen is the last thing any program will doI learned from computer graphics class (which is a programming course, not an art course) that this really isn't always the case. Certainly not the manner in which we were taught, to be sure.

[Greatguardian]

Actually, I have a BA with a major in computer science, so I do have some idea what I'm talking about. I really find it questionable that they would specifically code the game to remove the target lock on blink out, and that it's simply the target lock's codes dependance on having the model present causing the target lock code to decide it shouldn't be there anymore, and the targeting cursor's location being based on the height and scale of the target's model.

In short, because that would most likely mean these two things were coded by two different people who never communicated with eachother at all and the end result wasn't disruptive enough to get the team lead to tell them they need to redo it.

I learned from computer graphics class (which is a programming course, not an art course) that this really isn't always the case. Certainly not the manner in which we were taught, to be sure.

Good, then we should be on level ground then. Everything I've bolded in the first paragraph, I agree with. The thing is, the game does not need the model to be present on the screen in order to know the height or scale of the target model. Likewise, I find it unlikely that the game is targeting a model at all, but rather an object which is represented by the model and thus is not dependent on the visibility of the model itself.

I believe it is significantly more likely that this was an error avoidance method rather than a necessity by design. We lose targets on blink, not because the model disappears, but because it is safer and easier to say "Lose all targets when a model is set to invisible" than it is to say "Lose a monster/NPC type target when it despawns or dies, but not when the player blinks, and also do not lose target on players when they blink, etc etc etc". The latter can be done with some work, of course. The first is just easier. When the functionality that the players want requires the latter, however, I think it becomes something worth looking into at least.

[Arcon]

The x,y,z position of a character is always known. The arrow points at the top of the character model. While there is no model (while it's still loading), it's just drawn at the default offset, which is (0,0,0) from the target. However, targeting already works even without the model. So it definitely is possible to have something targeted without having the model data. So if they need to make the character disappear while loading new equipment graphics (which is understandable), they could still keep the target, as those two are different things.

[Economizer]

However, targeting already works even without the model. So it definitely is possible to have something targeted without having the model data. So if they need to make the character disappear while loading new equipment graphics (which is understandable), they could still keep the target, as those two are different things.

Even if for some arcane programing reason this is BS, this sounds very logical and reasonable for anyone who has played the game for an extended period of time. That said, I doubt it is BS, considering that people who use third party programs have ways to avoid losing targets over gear swap.

I really hope we aren't going to fight over this though. Considering the amount of attention that the OP has gotten with likes, the last thing we need to do is give the mods a reason to lock this thread. If we can get the OP to a large amount of likes and someone like Camate is able to show it to the dev team, we might actually get some form of in-game response to these problems.

[Byrth]

I think I agree with both sides of the argument in this case. The fact that we lose target is obviously an outgrowth of how they programmed the follow command, which probably is limited by some deeper structural problem with the program. If you notice, your own camera doesn't even follow you when you blink. Try gear swapping while riding a chocobo and you'll see what I mean. It's dumb and should be changed regardless of why it exists, though.

Good ideas guys! I'll try to update the OP with them shortly!

[Gallus]

Annoyance: When your movement speed is increased, it doesn't take affect until you turn off autorun. Yet, when your movement speed is decreased, it does.

[Kaisha]

The x,y,z position of a character is always known. The arrow points at the top of the character model. While there is no model (while it's still loading), it's just drawn at the default offset, which is (0,0,0) from the target. However, targeting already works even without the model. So it definitely is possible to have something targeted without having the model data. So if they need to make the character disappear while loading new equipment graphics (which is understandable), they could still keep the target, as those two are different things.
Hell, they can make the target cursor/name jump down to the no-model pivot point and then back above the model when it reloads in after gear-swap for all I care, as long as I keep the focus.



Also, another vote for Tractor being useless. I've had 50+ occasions in Voidwatch where it would have been immensely helpful (since the current T4 batch spams AoE like nothing else in the game), but it wipes your status since it zones you, rendering it unusable.




Also for a minority problem: Accidentally disconnecting your gamepad during play requires you to reload all of FFXI for it to redetect it.

[TybudX]

When you open your map you always need to go through several tabs before you can find your party or the pins you've stuck on the map. I hate that.

[Kaisha]

When you open your map you always need to go through several tabs before you can find your party or the pins you've stuck on the map. I hate that.
There's only the three tab categories.

Markers - NPC/Quest markers - Player Positions

Only reason you think it's several is because the map doesn't query the server for party/ally member positions until after you swap away from the markers tab, and it takes it a second or two to get that data before it lets you switch to the Player positions list.

[Sparthos]

It's been said before but i'll say it again just for kicks:

Ditch the stupid raise animation already.

Nothing like watching yourself get raised, eat an aoe and swap back to being dead on the ground. Just make raise switch you to the idle stance and allow instant running already.

[Kaisha]

It's been said before but i'll say it again just for kicks:

Ditch the stupid raise animation already.

Nothing like watching yourself get raised, eat an aoe and swap back to being dead on the ground. Just make raise switch you to the idle stance and allow instant running already.
If they fixed Tractor, the Raise animation would become much less of a problem.

[Feynman]

Nothing like watching yourself get raised, eat an aoe and swap back to being dead on the ground. Just make raise switch you to the idle stance and allow instant running already.

I agree with this in terms of functionality. But in terms of aesthetics it probably wouldn't go over well. It would look...bad is the best word I have right now, to go from dead to standing instantly. And aesthetics are a big motivator. If the game just looked bad there would probably be fewer players.

[Sparthos]

I agree with this in terms of functionality. But in terms of aesthetics it probably wouldn't go over well. It would look...bad is the best word I have right now, to go from dead to standing instantly. And aesthetics are a big motivator. If the game just looked bad there would probably be fewer players.

If they want to keep the aesthetics then make the whirly raise animation a moment of invincibility until you've disengaged or allow people to toggle it on or off.

[Feynman]

That would work. Or treat the character kind of reverse from the way a mob that just respawned is. You know when a mob respawns and it doesn't aggro or link for a few seconds. Just make the raised character "invisible" to the mobs for a few seconds. In effect the same thing you said really.

[Kaisha]

.....or just fix Tractor so you can be nowhere near AoE when you get up.


Also, after having 2box'd for four months, I've had a new pet peeve: /follow not working on invisible targets

Why? I can lock camera and auto-run into the target which is exactly how /follow essentially works (without the camera lock), so I don't see why the command equivelant is locked off in that situation.

[Coldbrand]

How about the fact that you're discouraged to attack monsters now as you're much too busy staring at their heads for a little exclamation mark set before you're allowed to fight them. Doesn't THAT make for great gameplay?

[Alhanelem]

It's been said before but i'll say it again just for kicks:

Ditch the stupid raise animation already.

Nothing like watching yourself get raised, eat an aoe and swap back to being dead on the ground. Just make raise switch you to the idle stance and allow instant running already.
No need to ditch the animation, just need to make it (and all other animaitons for that matter) not lock your movement.

[Modoru]

.....or just fix Tractor so you can be nowhere near AoE when you get up.


Also, after having 2box'd for four months, I've had a new pet peeve: /follow not working on invisible targets

Why? I can lock camera and auto-run into the target which is exactly how /follow essentially works (without the camera lock), so I don't see why the command equivelant is locked off in that situation.

Because you can't see invisible people [ideally].

[Sekundes]

Just want to say that I agree with Byrth on this. I'd be okay with delaying new stuff if the old stuff was just fixed.

I understand how much time and resources programming takes but honestly it's worth it. If these issues were fixed I'd say it'd be worth more than the last year of updates. A culmination of horrible game mechanics can make an interesting game a chore to play. It's difficult to like a game that drives you up the wall half the time. These changes are long over due.

[Modoru]

While we're at it, I wanna point out that I hate how you can't drop 10 feet between ledges on the way to Ordelle's Caves [and many other examples], but you drop down a frickin' cliff and onto imps in Uleguerand Range [A].

[Quetzacoatl]

Have Absorb-Stat Spells stack with Cruor Buffs already.

Not that they get used anymore except in the backline when weakened, but jesus, a year having neglected this is worrysome.

[Solonuke]

I think buffing yourself up with buffs from a NPC takes a long time. Everytime you get a buff you exit the menu and have to target the npc again and go through the menu again if you want another buff. While playing with 1080p resolution, only having 3 options viewable at the same time really gets crammed.

If you were like me, you never bothered with getting buffs from campaign because of the menu is a nightmare to navigate plus constant "Event skipped" messages.

[Arcon]

That's a good point... would work for Atma menus as well, or Dom Ops menus... increase the menu size, or make it customizable. Would help a lot to navigate them faster.

[Kaisha]

That's a good point... would work for Atma menus as well, or Dom Ops menus... increase the menu size, or make it customizable. Would help a lot to navigate them faster.
I could go with an FFXI config tool option where we can scale the size of the interface. I usually have FFXI set at half of my monitor's native resolution just so I can actually read the text without leaning forward, but it comes at the cost of the game visuals not looking as crisp.

[Glamdring]

There's a very simple reason /stal is unrelated to the topic, this thread is about a request to fix a stupid game mechanic, not how to work around it. We know how to work around it already; the question is why we should need to work around it at all.

the para item loss? yeah, that's just sloppy programing. If para prevents you from taking an action that would include using an item.

the JA lock? ok, here I would like this modified, not eliminated. speaking as a thief, i want the initiation of SATA to lock the other player and the target in place until it's completed. It's a core job ability that is almost completely useless without some type of lock. It doesn't seem to matter if you announce it or go stealthy, whoever is being SATA'd almost invariably moves before it goes off.

the reengage lock... major problem for all my non-pet jobs. My pet jobs I can Switch Target and let my pet finish off the current one, all other jobs i have to leave auto-attack on and just hope my party autos to the same mob, especially when we have sleepers on crowd control. At least i'm courteous enough to the sleepers not to get off the mob I just woke until they say they are ready to resleep it (I'm a 90 bard, when people stop bothering with target control I stop bothering with crowd control, hate for the same to happen to me).

Many of the delay calculations seem to just defy all logic. Some are downright maddening. The raise followed by the 3-5 second stun effect while you are still vulnerable to damage. Simple answer if you can't get rid of the delay... add a 7 second Invincible effect to raise. The inability to engage anything that is using a JA or spell on you until it completes (except stun, sleep or para, then it actually makes sense). What makes these even more unfair is that mobs don't suffer from the same limitations, so clearly they don't HAVE to be in the game.

A treasure issue that's always driven me nuts is if I am TRYING to pass or lot an item, but 1 above it drops out of the pool, unless I'm on the bottom item in the pool I'm suddenly passing the wrong thing. I lost my 1st bard relic body this way, as I was raised with about 17 seconds left on the counter while I was passing the war item just above it in pool as the 100 piece dropped to a leader. For fast kill areas like dynamis quartermaster simply isn't a viable alternative, not that I've ever even seen it tried.

That's all I can think of right now...

[Meyi]

I would like to see the campaign menu fixed. It is rather irritating trying to navigate through with NPCs, monsters, and lag all bombarding the player at once.

[Helel]

I love signing up for a union while getting bombarded with shell and protect from the npcs, causing an event skip. I've stopped signing up for unions just because of this issue.

[Shadowsong]

10/10 Would read again

[Kaisha]

Here's one I think we could all agree on that isn't exactly battle-engine related......


* Auction House is a pain in the Dhalmel to buy/sell on.
- No quick and easy means of looking up an item on the Auction House within the game
- No efficient means of checking the price history of an item without either going through the menus to look it up (slow), or place the item on AH and check history from there (risky)

Solution? Add a search option and have a price history button when you go to sell something.

I even whipped up a quick picture to show a no-frills example of an implementation.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/Genexi2/FFXI/ffxiwhatweshouldhave.jpg




I shouldn't have to go to a FFXI fansite to figure out what portion of the AH some obscure items are listed under. :(

I would never sell my lovely Carapacho Cuffs, was the only sellable I had handy on the test server >.>

[Juri_Licious]

Oh my goodness I couldn't agree with the OP even more.
We need an official to look at this thread.

[Solonuke]

The delivery box system has 8 slots, only being able to send/receive 8 items at a time is the biggest reason why I don't have a mule. Not to mention the "Please wait a little longer" message that pops up if you exit the Delivery Box by mistake or have to take out more than 8 items. I think the delivery box size should be expanded and the time it takes to send / receive items should be greatly reduced.

[cidbahamut]

JA-lock is a huge frustration. I really shouldn't have to build in gearswaps just to blink my character when I use JAs. I enjoy all the animations that came with subbing Scholar, but I absolutely hated getting locked in place. It's the kind of thing that can get you killed, so now I just blink every time I use those JAs and I don't get to see what they look like anymore. This is poor design and fixing it should be pretty high on the to do list.

I'm probably going to have to do the same thing for Corsair and I'm not looking forward to that since the animations tell me what I've rolled well before it shows up in my chat log.

[Gallus]

Never experienced any of these things.

I think this is, without a doubt, the dumbest or most oblivious post ever made on these forums.

[Aver]

Wonderful post by Byrth, as usual :)

Thank you. Rated.

[Rearden]

Have Absorb-Stat Spells stack with Cruor Buffs already.

Not that they get used anymore except in the backline when weakened, but jesus, a year having neglected this is worrysome.

I think this is a larger gameplay mechanic than something specific to asborb spells. For example, TP moves that typically have an HP Down/max HP down type effect don't proc in abyssea

[Kaych]

Never experienced any of these things.

I have experienced ALL of these things. I have even mentioned it in my own threads.
I call it the "sigh-factor" ^_-

[Vivik]

I agree with the OP. I think that these issues should be looked into.

[Falseliberty]

BUMP 4 GREAT JUSTICE

know wut i hate when u have auto target on and instead of it auto selecting the closest target in a group of mobs i swear it will pick the one furthest away, seconds tend to count in situations like that.

[Madawc]

Auto-Target does not work for me if any of the mobs are out of view. I gotta position myself such that my next target is ahead of me.

Fortunatly, SE has coded such that most people will Auto-Target the same mob.

[Arcon]

BUMP 4 GREAT JUSTICE

know wut i hate when u have auto target on and instead of it auto selecting the closest target in a group of mobs i swear it will pick the one furthest away, seconds tend to count in situations like that.

Wow, I completely forgot about that. The auto-targeting in these cases is extremely retarded. Ten mobs right in front of you and it is bound to pick the one far out of range. That should really be looked into.

[Rearden]

At least its consistent and will pick the same mob for everyone granted they are looking at it

Edit: but this could be updated to where "x" player is set as the assist and no matter what the game autotargets that players monster regardless of when he changes target, etc.

[Byrth]

I think Autotarget targets the lowest HP red mob in sight, or in the event that there is only one red mob in sight, it targets that. I don't know how they could really make that better, except to remove the sight requirement.

[Arcon]

I think Autotarget targets the lowest HP red mob in sight, or in the event that there is only one red mob in sight, it targets that. I don't know how they could really make that better, except to remove the sight requirement.

Behave like the normal default-target system, I guess. Like, if you hit the Tab key while not targeting anything.

To be fair, I didn't know there was any system to it, I never noticed anything before, other than it's never the one you wanted.

[Rubicant82]

@ The people who think that gear swapping is uncouth or outdated let me just say from a BLM with capped EVERYTHING point of view that even though I have full AF3+2 I still gear swap A LOT why? because not only do my STAFFS help out DIFFERENT spells but also because I like to squeeze out ever extra dmg I can. I do the same on my Melee jobs also. Gear swapping is knowing what piece of gear to use with what ja/ws/ma. I know that with the now cookie cutter gear and zerg everything mentality that abyssea has brought upon the game, that only veteran players that were around before understand these types of concepts so I wont say that you're 100% wrong. Everyone has their own play style. I am old school and therefore spend hours formulating and testing different gear to see what works best, because I like to see big numbers. Prior to abyssea it took gear swapping and knowing your job to make those numbers push the limits.

[Arcon]

@ The people who think that gear swapping is uncouth or outdated let me just say from a BLM with capped EVERYTHING point of view that even though I have full AF3+2 I still gear swap A LOT why? because not only do my STAFFS help out DIFFERENT spells but also because I like to squeeze out ever extra dmg I can. I do the same on my Melee jobs also. Gear swapping is knowing what piece of gear to use with what ja/ws/ma. I know that with the now cookie cutter gear and zerg everything mentality that abyssea has brought upon the game, that only veteran players that were around before understand these types of concepts so I wont say that you're 100% wrong. Everyone has their own play style. I am old school and therefore spend hours formulating and testing different gear to see what works best, because I like to see big numbers. Prior to abyssea it took gear swapping and knowing your job to make those numbers push the limits.

Wrong thread? I don't see anyone here complaining about gear swapping.

[Vortex]

Wrong thread? I don't see anyone here complaining about gear swapping.

He may have been refering to the OPs sight on gear swaps which was quickly shot down seeing as none-retarded people have no issues with gear swaping and have fully understood it is NEEDED in this game to be anywhere near good.

[Arcon]

He may have been refering to the OPs sight on gear swaps which was quickly shot down seeing as none-retarded people have no issues with gear swaping and have fully understood it is NEEDED in this game to be anywhere near good.

You may be referring to a different OP then, because this one neither complained about gearswaps, nor was he shot down, on the contrary, rated up about 62 times.

[Byrth]

Naw, he's referring to this (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/15121-Fundamental-Game-Play-Issues?p=199835&viewfull=1#post199835). I never said anything against gear swaps.

[SpankWustler]

* Blinking/losing target after target gear swaps - The person you're targeting and their position are independent of the clothes they're wearing, so why is it programmed to break focus when someone gear swaps? This is annoying.
** Blinking on your own and losing "locked on" status - If you blink while locked on to a monster, you lose the locked on status and have to re-lock it before you can do things like strafe around the monster. Seems like an outgrowth of the above problem. Why was this designed this way?

Since a half-dozen people have strove to misunderstand this bit, I'll try to expound on it:

Changing equipment is vital to not being horrible at FFXI, the purpose of macros, something I and many others enjoy, etc. so why do we get punished for changing trousers by losing our lock on whatever monster we're hitting?

It's as if someone installed a hole to let the heat and steam out of a coffee cup...on the very bottom of the cup. We have plenty of ways to get around this "feature" (<stal> and <stpt> work in some cases, third party programs work in all cases), but that doesn't mean the "feature" is intelligently made.

If the development team can change this without two weeks of work and sending a virginal intern into the server room as a sacrifice, maybe they should.

[Soranika]

I understand the need for gear swapping but it kills me being on WHM trying to cure some one who's changing equipment every time they WS with HP in yellow/red. It's the worst when I'm locked on or even just targeting to the main tank with usually two other DD on a NM.
More unfortunate being some one who plays on a console and not PC so I'm without things such as a windower for aid.

[Vortex]

I understand the need for gear swapping but it kills me being on WHM trying to cure some one who's changing equipment every time they WS with HP in yellow/red. It's the worst when I'm locked on or even just targeting to the main tank with usually two other DD on a NM.
More unfortunate being some one who plays on a console and not PC so I'm without things such as a windower for aid.

You serious? that is what <stal> is for -_- it does not lose the target, no matter what they do.

[Byrth]

Personally, I target myself when I'm curing people and position myself so that I know how many up/down or left/right d-pad arrows I need to hit to slide onto them. Then it just comes down to timing.

[Soranika]

Aside from the way you have to put your post responding to me, thank you. I've been using <stpc> for all my macros. I didn't know about that one.

[Vortex]

<stal> let's you target everyone in an ally, including your own party, so it's like an upgrade of <stpc>

[hiko]

I love signing up for a union while getting bombarded with shell and protect from the npcs, causing an event skip. I've stopped signing up for unions just because of this issue.

ever tried "/blockaid on" or are npc imune to this?

[Arcon]

ever tried "/blockaid on" or are npc imune to this?

Doesn't help in campaign, since campaign sort of counts as one big party.

[Legomike]

Auto target does not work if a pet has hate. - i believe it broke around the time abys came out
Bst pets that just stop fighting. Something links it fights both but then stops when ones dies.
Delay when buying from guilds and crafting.

[Jerbob]

It is unbearably frustrating seeing people retort to white mage blinking issues with "USE <stal> NOOB" or similar rudeness. <stal> has its uses and benefits, but being good for reacting quickly is not one of them - and as a white mage in any situation worth discussing will know, fast reactions are paramount. Quicker targetting has saved a party member's life for me on many occasions, and the obvious inability to target out of party is a rarer problem but still hugely important. I am certain that there are some white mages who swear by <stal> exclusively, but I suspect the majority of the rude <stal>-as-a-bugfix proponents have not played a day of white mage in their lives, no offense intended.

Don't get me wrong - I have <stal> macros available for curing across parties or bad blinkers and they are extremely valuable; They are NOT, however, a solution to blinking. If mobs blinked every time they used a TP move then people would be outraged, even if there was a hacky and awkward targetting "solution".

Back on topic, I've not seen a list of the bugs that plague pet jobs here yet (or may have missed such a list), so my contributions are as follows. I am a summoner so apologies for this being summoner-centric.

1. Pets using an ability when a mob dies don't ever complete that action. As a SMN, if I use a Ward pact and the mob dies during the charging animation, I get no Ward effect and my timer is reset. Other pet jobs have the same issue with their abilites.
2. Avatars that are defeated by a DoT effect cannot be immediately resummoned - the infamous "pet already out" bug. Not just annoying but potentially fatal.
3. "Assault", "Fight" etc do not work if the pet is a certain distance away from the target - the pet will either ignore it or just saunter up to you and stand still. VERY irritating and all too common considering how poor pet pathfinding can be.
4. Dismissing Avatars (and presumably BST, PUP and DRG pets, though I don't have first hand experience) will cause linked mobs to attack the Summoner, regardless of who or what they are linked to or by. The Scorpion KSNM is notorious for this and it happens to me all the time.
5. It's probably intentional, but given the ridiculously long charging times for bloodpacts, disabling effects like Sleep, Stun, Break etc really shouldn't reset bloodpact timers.

I like this thread a lot, and like many others here would welcome a comprehensive bugfix overhaul update in the place of what passes for a content-rich one these days (:P). Here's hoping for some developer attention!

[Hashmalum]

Have Absorb-Stat Spells stack with Cruor Buffs already.

Not that they get used anymore except in the backline when weakened, but jesus, a year having neglected this is worrysome.The flip side of this is that most stat down effects don't stack with Cruor buffs either. I'm happy to not be able to use Absorb-stats if it means I don't get nailed with crap like Riddle.


Annoyance: When your movement speed is increased, it doesn't take affect until you turn off autorun. Yet, when your movement speed is decreased, it does.Seconding this one.

But there's one fundamental game play annoyance that I'm shocked to not see anywhere in this thread that cries out for a fix: the way that you miss communications via /tell, /party, and /linkshell when you change areas. For a fix for this, I would kill. A kitten. A mithra kitten!

[Glamdring]

another idiot expounds about /stal in a thread about stupid game mechanics, sigh... let me put this in terms that hopefully all of you can understand.

WE ALL KNOW ABOUT THE /stal WORKAROUND!!! WE ARE ASKING TO NOT NEED A WORKAROUND!!! PLEASE STOP TRYING TO SABOTAGE EFFORTS AT REPAIRS BY SAYING TO JUST USE A WORKAROUND!!!

there, short, simple, to the point.

[Arcon]

But there's one fundamental game play annoyance that I'm shocked to not see anywhere in this thread that cries out for a fix: the way that you miss communications via /tell, /party, and /linkshell when you change areas. For a fix for this, I would kill. A kitten. A mithra kitten!

So very true. Although I'm not sure this can be fixed easily, as it seems to be part of the zoning mechanism.. but I'd still absolutely love to see that fixed. Another thing that bothers me about /tells in particular... when people receive a /tell while zoning, the person who sent it will usually see an error notice, that the /tell was not received, and know they need to resend it again. But if they send it at just the right time before someone zones, they don't get that error notice at all, and the other person still doesn't receive the /tell. I don't think it would be too hard to work around it... the server obviously still sends that information, the client could just store it in a short buffer until the zoning process ends.

However, the "perfect" solution would be for the chatlog (and all of the UI, for that matter) to simply stay while zoning, don't make it go away in the first place. Let people even still chat and navigate menus while zoning, these two things should be different processes altogether. I know that some things are reloaded on zone (items and FL/BL for example), but you could just gray those options out while zoning (having them reload is bad design as well, although I'm guessing it's necessary for the PS2's sake).

[Kaida]

IIRC the engage delay was to stop the disenage reengage attacking glitch.

(Also sorry if someone has already pointed it out.)

[Ladycandygem]

Zoning itself is a major annoyance that most people just accept. The ten seconds or so of black screen, not being able to see any messages in chat, the time after zoning when you can't see items because they are still loading, the 5 seconds of being frozen every time you zone on Xbox, etc. If you add up all the time spend zoning since first playing the game, each player may have spent hundreds of hours looking at a black screen.

And to make it worse there are zones where you have to watch an annoying cutscene every time you zone, such as Ru'Lude Gardens into Mog House, Tav Safehold into Sea, every time you use a Runic Portal, etc.

I'm guessing zoning is such an integral part of the game it is something SE would be unable to fix, but they could definitely get rid of some of the zoning cut scenes.

[Quetzacoatl]

It makes me wonder on the whole "blinking" issue- is it just for aesthetics? or does it have to blink in order to load up the certain pieces in-game? When playing with Model Viewers, the pieces just change. No blinking or anything. I wonder if SE could just adjust it so that you don't have to deal with the blinking during a graphical swap?

If SE added a configuration option like "Character Graphic Changes" with the selection to turn it on or off, I think that would be a great idea if it isn't outside their power (even though I'm pretty sure 80% of players would love to turn it off, lol).

[Arcon]

IIRC the engage delay was to stop the disenage reengage attacking glitch.

(Also sorry if someone has already pointed it out.)

Pointed out in the OP itself, but as was also said, that has since been fixed, so really no need for the reengage delay.


And to make it worse there are zones where you have to watch an annoying cutscene every time you zone, such as Ru'Lude Gardens into Mog House, Tav Safehold into Sea, every time you use a Runic Portal, etc.

The zoning cutscenes are also horribly annoying.. it's funny how many things you just forget about after having to endure them for almost a decade. Just two days ago I zoned to sea at least five times from Tav, but if you didn't mention it just now, I wouldn't have thought of it.


It makes me wonder on the whole "blinking" issue- is it just for aesthetics? or does it have to blink in order to load up the certain pieces in-game? When playing with Model Viewers, the pieces just change. No blinking or anything. I wonder if SE could just adjust it so that you don't have to deal with the blinking during a graphical swap?

This was a PS2 thing. Textures are what costs most memory space. So to load new models, others had to be unloaded first. However, blinking itself doesn't bother anyone, it's the associated loss of target that annoys people. And there's no possible memory or resource related reason to lose the target on blinking. That's just poor coding.

[Solonuke]

I always annoy myself over that the video and joypad config are outside the game. The shortest time it takes me to log back into the game is 3 minutes if I crash the client. There are SO MANY clicks and windows until you get to the play button which again shows an important notice and tells you that this game is evil and makes you forget your family, friends, school and work etc. If you're using the security token, that's even more clicks and windows you have to click yourself through. I never use the virtual keyboard, but it always seems to break the focus on the input field where I have to put the focus back to it. Receiving no messages seems to take forever in some cases where I've resorted to crash the launcher to retry to log in. If you're using a NA client, you're always greeted with a HUGE T. Doesn't seem to help that I download a 100 MB update for a bit less than an hour when I can download any other file with the same size in seconds.

I wish they scrap POL so I can jump right into FFXI.

[Alhanelem]

another idiot expounds about /stal in a thread about stupid game mechanics, sigh... let me put this in terms that hopefully all of you can understand.

WE ALL KNOW ABOUT THE /stal WORKAROUND!!! WE ARE ASKING TO NOT NEED A WORKAROUND!!! PLEASE STOP TRYING TO SABOTAGE EFFORTS AT REPAIRS BY SAYING TO JUST USE A WORKAROUND!!!

there, short, simple, to the point.
I don't consider it a workaround. I consider it a reasonable valid solution. What exactly is wrong with <stal> ? They added that because it was much simpler than totally reworking an existing system to fix a small problem when an easier solution was available. When the dev team is small and their time is limited, it makes sense to go the route that takes less time. Unless you want less content in your updates, of course.

//devil's advocate, it would be nice for a targeting revamp, just not optimistic about it happening

[cidbahamut]

<stal> is more of a stop-gap measure than an actual fix. I'm certain it is indeed more cost effective for SE, but the actual problem remains.

[Meyi]

I don't consider it a workaround. I consider it a reasonable valid solution. What exactly is wrong with <stal> ? They added that because it was much simpler than totally reworking an existing system to fix a small problem when an easier solution was available. When the dev team is small and their time is limited, it makes sense to go the route that takes less time. Unless you want less content in your updates, of course.

//devil's advocate, it would be nice for a targeting revamp, just not optimistic about it happening

It would be nice indeed. But if it's impossible, perhaps they could make <stal> retarget the last previous target? I mean, the only annoyance I find with <stal> is having to constantly shift through names in an alliance to get to the person I'm trying to reach (especially with lag). If the blue arrow appeared on the previous person it had been on, I'd be a lot happier and a lot faster.

[autobot]

a few things i have to add are

1.) When trying to attack a mob that is moving you get the "too far away" message even if you are on follow with it (those times where u run up to it and right before you swing it starts to move). Yet if you are running from a mob it can hit you with no problem and at a pretty far distance.

2.) Mobs can fall down and climb up big cliffs (like in the canyon) but we can't.

3.) After summoning an avatar you get errors when trying to give it a command and when you go into the menu nothing is there until you go back into the menu and the commands reappear.

4.) There is no volume adjustment for the sound at the log in screen. You can turn off and adjust the volume for POL but not for the FF screen. This music is quite loud and after 10+ years of hearing it the mute button becomes your only friend.

5.) Gear should be equip-able from the satchel. It's accessible from any location so what's the problem?

6.) Mob can nuke us much further than we can nuke them and they can do it without being able to see us. Why cant we nuke a mob without being able to see them? I'm not swinging my spells I'm casting them. It's not like I'm throwing a ranged weapon where in reality it would obviously hit the wall the mob is behind. You should be able to cast on any mob if it's in range and target-able.

[Greatguardian]

1) That's lag, if you remove lock-on and run "ahead" of the monster, you can hit it. Your character always appears further ahead of where the server thinks it is.

5) I'm pretty sure that's a PS2 RAM problem that they'll never be able to fix unless they drop support for the console. Even if it wasn't, it would require a lot of reorganizing of code to work, to the point where it may actually not even be possible.

[autobot]

1) That's lag, if you remove lock-on and run "ahead" of the monster, you can hit it. Your character always appears further ahead of where the server thinks it is.

5) I'm pretty sure that's a PS2 RAM problem that they'll never be able to fix unless they drop support for the console. Even if it wasn't, it would require a lot of reorganizing of code to work, to the point where it may actually not even be possible.

Lag? that's a pretty poor excuse especially when a mob is standing still on a slight hill and i get the "too far away" message and i'm standing next to it but a mob that gets itself stuck in a tree sure doesn't have a problem hitting me

and that PS2 ram thing is a horrible excuse to apply to everything. sure adding new content will take up space but changing a variable (like changing an item to stack 12 or 99) should be nothing but a variable.

[Alhanelem]

and that PS2 ram thing is a horrible excuse to apply to everything. sure adding new content will take up space but changing a variable (like changing an item to stack 12 or 99) should be nothing but a variable. Memory and disk space are not horrible excuses, they are valid. You can't blame stack sizes (your specific example) on that, though apparently it's more involved than just changing a number (even though it shouldn't be)

Not being able to hit things that are running absolutely is a lag issue. You can see pets get around this problem because pet's positions are controlled by the server software (which has the AI), unlike the player character who is controlled by the input on your machine (Movement would be horrendously delayed if the client had to check with the server in order to move in different directions).

[Greatguardian]

Lag? that's a pretty poor excuse especially when a mob is standing still on a slight hill and i get the "too far away" message and i'm standing next to it but a mob that gets itself stuck in a tree sure doesn't have a problem hitting me

and that PS2 ram thing is a horrible excuse to apply to everything. sure adding new content will take up space but changing a variable (like changing an item to stack 12 or 99) should be nothing but a variable.

1) The situation you mentioned (Chasing vs being chased) is lag. Plain and simple. The character on your screen always appears further ahead than it actually is. You are not right behind the monster you're chasing, you are way behind it. You are not way ahead of the monster chasing you, you are right in front of it. When you run "Ahead" of the monster, you can hit it because you are actually behind it.

2) It's not a catch-all, it's the reason why this won't work. The game can only switch between two active sets of items at a time, and can only hold 160 items in memory at a time (this is why all storage will always cap at 80, 80+80=160). The game cannot hold 3 active sets of 176 items (80+80+16) at a time ever. Not only is 176>160, but 3 active sets is > 2 active sets. The game is not designed to be able to pull from multiple storage areas at a time, period. It is not just magic, or something the Devs can do if they feel like it.

[scaevola]

I even whipped up a quick picture to show a no-frills example of an implementation.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/Genexi2/FFXI/ffxiwhatweshouldhave.jpg



Oh god please do this.

If there's any one way other than basic controls in which FFXI is dramatically less playable than its competition, it's this.

[Raksha]

I don't consider it a workaround. I consider it a reasonable valid solution. What exactly is wrong with <stal> ?

When you hit your <stal> macro the blue arrow starts on whoever you currently have targeted (or on you if you have nothing targeted). you then have to scroll up/down to wherever the target is and hit the confirm button to cast the spell. If you're curing the same person every time (the tank) it gets super annoying having to scroll down to him every time you hit the cure macro. If he/she is in a different party in the alliance it's even worse.

[Kaisha]

I'd be less against <stal> if it complied with the F-key targetting so I didn't have to make a separate stpc cure macro.

Also, the blue arrow for stal is TINY, and harder to see at higher resolutions, especially if you use one of the blue window graphics.


Oddly enough the mouse will function with stal for targeting people in your current party, but not anyone else in the alliance parties.

[Alhanelem]

When you hit your <stal> macro the blue arrow starts on whoever you currently have targeted (or on you if you have nothing targeted). you then have to scroll up/down to wherever the target is and hit the confirm button to cast the spell. If you're curing the same person every time (the tank) it gets super annoying having to scroll down to him every time you hit the cure macro. If he/she is in a different party in the alliance it's even worse.
If I'm curing the same person every time, I'm probably going to have them targeted already, so it's not really an issue to me.

[cidbahamut]

If I'm curing the same person every time, I'm probably going to have them targeted already, so it's not really an issue to me.

Except you can't really do that since every time they switch gear your cursor gets bumped to someone else. That's sort of the issue isn't it? That you can't keep the cursor pinned on someone because every time someone swaps gear the blinking shifts the cursor to target something else instead.

[Raksha]

If I'm curing the same person every time, I'm probably going to have them targeted already, so it's not really an issue to me.

Except when they blink and you lose target.

We come full circle!

[Divinius]

OK, in addition to most all of the things in the OP's list, I have two things that cause almost as much frustration-induced rage as any of them, at least for me...

These are stupid little simple things, and you can all laugh at me for bringing them up, but I have to.

1) Tiny steps in the terrain that your character can get stuck on. The ones in Ordelle's Caves are a prime example, but far from the only ones in the game (even the bottom ridge of the stairs to the pedestals at the teleport crags can do this). I can't freakin' stand getting stuck on little tiny ledges like that. What's the point of this? What possible reason is there for making one passageway infinitely more annoying to traverse that anywhere else?

2) Cutscenes at boat/airship/etc docks when transitioning past the guard that take half a minute. I think the damned Galka in Whitegate at the dock for the boat to Nashmau is the largest of the culprits here. I've just barely missed that boat because it took me so fargin long to watch that damn CS. You know the one... after you pay the 100 gil to board, you slowly mosey up to the galka, then you watch him slowly mosey out of your way, while you have to stand there waiting, then watch as you slowly mosey past him, then, just to REALLY PISS YOU OFF, be forced to stand there again while he slowly moseys back to his post!.

Just typing that last one up made that vein in my forehead start to throb.

[Alhanelem]

Except when they blink and you lose target.

We come full circle!
zing. Still you have to be pretty darn lazy for a couple taps of the arrow key to be a big deal.

[Divinius]

zing. Still you have to be pretty darn lazy for a couple taps of the arrow key to be a big deal.
It's not a matter of being "lazy".

I've been playing WHM as my main job since NA launch. I have been keeping people alive and healthy for 8 years. And I've had the discussion multiple times in the past with people of why <stal> isn't that stellar. It's not nearly as good as if the game simply didn't blink in the first place. Yes, it is a functional work around, but it is only that -- a workaround... a bandage to the bigger problem. As the game is now, you will indeed perform significantly better using <stal> than you would if you didn't, but you will never be as fast or responsive using it as you could be if you never had to worry about people blinking at all.

[Rya]

there's one fundamental game play annoyance that I'm shocked to not see anywhere in this thread that cries out for a fix: the way that you miss communications via /tell, /party, and /linkshell when you change areas. For a fix for this, I would kill. A kitten. A mithra kitten!

Tells vs Other Chat
So happy to see it mentioned! I was gonna add this~
What strikes me about this issue is that the chat system can tell if a person is changing areas!! ...but only for /tell.

Observations
-- When you send a tell to someone who is zoning, you get a "changing areas" message or something like that.

-- It doesn't always work. Sometimes if you send someone a tell just as the "zoning process" is beginning or ending, it will fail, but you get no system message. I have tested this with my mule. :(

Theory
All I can think is that would be too taxing to perform this check for all other types of communication (say, shout, party, etc) because of the sheer volume of chat. But if system resources weren't an issue, it seems they could use the "tell routine" to check if other types of chat are headed for "zoning recipients"

Solutions
--Less taxing version: Use aforementioned check on all chat types, only send the system message to the intended recipient rather than the sender -- so I can go "Missed party chat?!?! WHO'S TALKING ABOUT ME?!?!"
.....== Port Jeuno ==
.....<System Message> You missed 1 party message.
.....<System Message> You missed 2 linkshell messages.

--More taxing version: Use the check to buffer/record what was sent, and dump it out as a system message when zoning is done:
.....== Port Jeuno ==
.....<System Message> The following messages happened while zoning:
.....<Tank> who wants my stuff, quitting today
.....<Bard> dibs!
.....Rya sighs dejectedly.

[Raksha]

It's not a matter of being "lazy".

I've been playing WHM as my main job since NA launch. I have been keeping people alive and healthy for 8 years. And I've had the discussion multiple times in the past with people of why <stal> isn't that stellar. It's not nearly as good as if the game simply didn't blink in the first place. Yes, it is a functional work around, but it is only that -- a workaround... a bandage to the bigger problem. As the game is now, you will indeed perform significantly better using <stal> than you would if you didn't, but you will never be as fast or responsive using it as you could be if you never had to worry about people blinking at all.

I agree with this.

[Kaisha]

If I'm curing the same person every time, I'm probably going to have them targeted already, so it's not really an issue to me.
I just use a separate Cure macro for the <lastst> tag.

No need to re-target the last guy I cured with my stal/stpc macro.

[Twille]

* Collision Detection - Okay, it makes the game more "realistic," but can't it be optional or something? Some zones get very crowded, or many monsters may be attacking you at once, and it's just difficult to forge your way through the crowd. Could we eliminate this or make it optional?


I hate bumping into crap, it's annoying as sin.
I heard they were removing collision from 14, remove it from 11 too please.

[Sevvy]

Gonna break apart some of your concerns. Not trying to be rude, just things that you can do yourself to remedy them:

* Blinking/losing target after target gear swaps - Gear swaps are actually an improvement in this game compared to others such as the W word. No other game allows you to change gear in the middle of battle to take advantage of many stats. Of course youre going to lose target because the different gear looks different.

** Blinking on your own and losing "locked on" status - Tell me all the monsters that actually blink and do this. I bet its less than 10.

* Items being lost from the treasure pool due to inventory issues (One person lots more items than they have space for, everyone else passes, the extra items are lost) - This I can see is an issue, but its the players responsibility to keep their inventory in check.

* Cure lock - Rather annoying yes, but good healers will always preheal and the lock shouldn't take place too often

* Animation locks - I agree with you here. Instant is instant.

** Raise Delay - Again, you have to be a smart player, if you know a mob is due to TP then dont get up. If a mob is casting a ga or ja, dont get up.

* Post-Job Ability/Magic delays Cooldowns are imperative or you would have BLMs destorying everything with the same spell over and over, it would make the game much more boring.

* Engage delay Tough one to argue, I agree with you.

* Losing Items while Paralyzed - I highly disagree with you here. Being paralyzed is simply annoying but you need to have a way to take it off before you do anything. It only makes sense. S-E threw us a bone not allowing us to waste two hour abilities but you have to be smart with your items and money, just like irl.

* Ranged Auto-Attack - Agreed.

* Losing Reraise Status upon DC - I'm sure its a coding issue. Best bet is trying to have a buddy with you so they can raise as well

** Losing Cruor buffs upon DC - Agree

* Unable to Search when dead, but ability to send tells and use your linkshell - Look at every other MMO out there, its all the same. You cant do it when youre dead in any of them. Your actions are supposed to be limited when youre dead. I think this is good.

** Unable to use UI controls while charmed - How often are you charmed? I agree this is annoying and is probably atrtibuted to a design flaw, but I mean, there arent many that charm anymore outside of Dynamis.

* Tractor re-zoning us - Moving from one map to the other without you actually contolling the character actually counts as a zone. I know /follow kinda kills that, but youre character is alive and well and moving in accordance of what you want it to do.

I

[Kaisha]

Breaking apart your reply to his concerns....

Gonna break apart some of your concerns. Not trying to be rude, just things that you can do yourself to remedy them:

* Blinking/losing target after target gear swaps - Gear swaps are actually an improvement in this game compared to others such as the W word. No other game allows you to change gear in the middle of battle to take advantage of many stats. Of course youre going to lose target because the different gear looks different.
His complaint about blinking has nothing to do with the benefits of gear swapping but losing the target focus.


** Blinking on your own and losing "locked on" status - Tell me all the monsters that actually blink and do this. I bet its less than 10.
You misunderstood him. He's referring to your camera view unlocking from the mob when YOU gearswap.


** Raise Delay - Again, you have to be a smart player, if you know a mob is due to TP then dont get up. If a mob is casting a ga or ja, dont get up.
You've clearly not done later VW. They're almost non-stop AoE in all of their attacks. Granted I chalk this up to being a problem with Tractor rather than Raise. The AoE spam continues to be a trend in the new VW content also, fun times to have.....


* Post-Job Ability/Magic delays Cooldowns are imperative or you would have BLMs destorying everything with the same spell over and over, it would make the game much more boring.
He's referring to the delay of being able to not issue any actions for a short moment after every JA/Spell. The delay is the bane of every SCH's existance given their heavy reliance on stratagems. Granted the delay feels like they're part of the animation rather than an imposed limitation though.



* Unable to Search when dead, but ability to send tells and use your linkshell - Look at every other MMO out there, its all the same. You cant do it when youre dead in any of them. Your actions are supposed to be limited when youre dead. I think this is good.
You've not played many MMOs then if you really think that.



* Tractor re-zoning us - Moving from one map to the other without you actually contolling the character actually counts as a zone. I know /follow kinda kills that, but youre character is alive and well and moving in accordance of what you want it to do. I
Are you even aware of how Tractor operates? The problem with it is that it has you physically zone out and back into the same zone, but only a few feet away from your previous position. The problem is that it wipes a lot of status/buffs depending on the event/location, rendering it nigh-on useless where it would actually be used otherwise.



* Losing Reraise Status upon DC - I'm sure its a coding issue. Best bet is trying to have a buddy with you so they can raise as well
On this general subject, if they ever make RR survive a D/C, I would hope they would do the same for sneak/invis also. Fun times always had when you're trying to get around a zone without aggroing anything of a higher-lvl, just to D/C and wind up in a pack of mobs that'll just pound the living daylights out of you.

Granted that's less of a problem nowadays due to higher survivability at lvl95, but a nuisance none the less.

[Camate]

Hi everyone! Thanks for writing up this list containing a TON of feedback.

A few of these issues have already been brought up in separate threads (from a while back) and have received responses from the development team:

Blinking:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/4338-Solution-to-blinking?p=64481&viewfull=1#post64481

Cruor Buffs:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/8132-Whats-the-logic-behind-losing-curor-buff-when-you-DC-and-you-dont-lose-atma-buffs?p=103746&viewfull=1#post103746

Tractor:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/9377-Why-does-Tractor-still-zone-us?p=119814&viewfull=1#post119814

We will continue to submit your feedback on these and the other issues you have commented on and try to get a follow up response.

[Xellith]

Hi everyone! Thanks for writing up this list containing a TON of feedback.

A few of these issues have already been brought up in separate threads (from a while back) and have received responses from the development team:

Blinking:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/4338-Solution-to-blinking?p=64481&viewfull=1#post64481

Cruor Buffs:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/8132-Whats-the-logic-behind-losing-curor-buff-when-you-DC-and-you-dont-lose-atma-buffs?p=103746&viewfull=1#post103746

Tractor:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/9377-Why-does-Tractor-still-zone-us?p=119814&viewfull=1#post119814

We will continue to submit your feedback on these and the other issues you have commented on and try to get a follow up response.

Blinking: You said its not possible to have it so ppl dont blink. If a few people living at home in their moms basement can figure out this stuff then maybe you should hire them.

Cruor buffs: Good stuff

Tractor: lame excuse.

Overall Camate I am disappoint.

[SpankWustler]

I feel as though I have just shaken a magic 8-ball with only "My sources say no." printed on the die 20 times.

[Juilan]

Blinking: You said its not possible to have it so ppl dont blink. If a few people living at home in their moms basement can figure out this stuff then maybe you should hire them.
People have also found away to bypass the JA and spell lock while living in their home, SE with paid programs should be able to figure it out in 2hrs, even quicker if they look at the code on those "bots".

Tractor: lame excuse.

It'd be a quicker fix to make it so they treat tractor as a conflux rather than zoning, change the position to a predefined position (the caster that has to be in an ideal spot in order to cast) rather than recompiling a zone, again free lance bot makers have found away to bypass this issue, SE could do the same thing ...
*not saying i use or condone bots just pointing out that you can find this with a google search like "ffxi position hacking bot" or "ffxi no wait ja bot", i've been in endgame shells with people who swear by them on the third party chat server but you go by a code where you dont stab people in the back :p

leads me to wonder, if the only reason why they ban people from doing this is because they can't do it themselves, if they bypass the pol and use, of say, a lua based thing (oh my getting a dev team of 5 people) like wow they could add these themselves!

ALSO too far away from mob when you ws = 0 tp... this is pointless, you dont loose ammo if you're too far away to shoot and you dont loose mp when you're too far away to cast :p

[Kaisha]

There's a difference between a ToS-voiding hack that breaks every other update on a platform not bound by limitations, and getting this stuff to work on PS2/360 also which already has memory-leak issues.

[Juilan]

There's a difference between a ToS-voiding hack that breaks every other update on a platform not bound by limitations, and getting this stuff to work on PS2/360 also which already has memory-leak issues.

PS2/360 have memory leak issues?

Too bad there isnt a way to add ram to the systems via the expansion bays, though you could change the PS2 works via a different post boot OS on the platforms so it would accept more ram/larger image sizes. The only thing that would be done is altering a dead system to play a constantly updating game... though it would be cheaper to get a computer with more ram and a monitor at that point also to get a 0.01$ control adaptor from ebay(With 3$ shipping) to make the game practically the same... but god forbid you make the players pay for content...

[Leonlionheart]

Ok those I don't care so much about.

SPELL LOCK FIX IT

[Greatguardian]

There's a difference between a ToS-voiding hack that breaks every other update on a platform not bound by limitations, and getting this stuff to work on PS2/360 also which already has memory-leak issues.

Parsers break every update too. That's not because they're unreliable, but simply because memlocs change when the game is updated. Considering SE would be the one making the updates, there wouldn't be a memloc sorting issue.

That said, I don't think memory leak is the word you are looking for =/ but it's a fair point that the inferior console race can't be expected to keep up with the advancements of the PC master race.

[Randwolf]

I agree with everything the OP said. Those issues show both the age of the game and, worse, the horrible attitude the original team had towards players when the population seemed like it would never stop growing. Now, the current team is stuck with all the lazy and the "If you don't like it, quit" things the previous team did. Buff/Cure lock is a particular pet peeve along with the paralysis item loss issue.

[Byrth]

Tractor:
Your client fundamentally does two things:
1) Displays information from the server
2) Tells the server your updated position/what you did.
You can (and bots do) simply change your position in the zone. It's not, "Oh man, this would be really hard to implement on PS2." It's, "I changed it and now it's done." Changing the POS variable is one of the only functions the client has. It's entirely capable of doing it. The client also knows the place that tractors is being cast from, because it's necessarily within 20 yalms (casting range), so just have the client set its new position to the caster's position. It only works while dead and without reraise up, so it isn't like people could exploit it to undetectably POS hack. You don't believe me? Think about how Draw-in works. If Tractor was just Draw-in for dead people, it would be perfect.

The only reason to leave it this way is if SE fears people will somehow abuse it from a balance standpoint to move really quickly through a daisy-chain of tractor casters. I'm not sure exactly what the benefit of that would be (maybe actually getting to the top of Tor before your stone grows dark?), but this is the only real reason I could see.



As far as TOS-breaking to circumvent the issues that, until now, we've pretty much agreed plague the game... I don't know, it's like doing a slow roll through a stop sign past midnight in a sleepy neighborhood while you're driving back to your house. Technically against the law, but your life is slightly improved and no one is any the wiser.

[Arcon]

Theory
All I can think is that would be too taxing to perform this check for all other types of communication (say, shout, party, etc) because of the sheer volume of chat. But if system resources weren't an issue, it seems they could use the "tell routine" to check if other types of chat are headed for "zoning recipients"

There would be ways around it, but I think it's a design choice that it currently doesn't work. It was probably one price they were willing to pay for not having to deal with a solution for it.


Gonna break apart some of your concerns. Not trying to be rude, just things that you can do yourself to remedy them:

You're not breaking apart anything. Every single thing you criticized was either misunderstood from the OP, ignorant of the actual problem or just plain wrong. Except for two things, which were just your opinion, but those were still disagreeing with the majority (and common sense).


Overall Camate I am disappoint.

This sums up FFXI as of late.


The only reason to leave it this way is if SE fears people will somehow abuse it from a balance standpoint to move really quickly through a daisy-chain of tractor casters. I'm not sure exactly what the benefit of that would be (maybe actually getting to the top of Tor before your stone grows dark?), but this is the only real reason I could see.

That's true, however, there's plenty of quests in the game, where key items break or get lost upon death, so changing it to that shouldn't be an issue.

To people saying these problems have existed for years, why are we only complaining now? Well, several reasons. For once, no. People have been complaining for years, just without an official forum, there was no decent way to get the word out. All of these things have been annoying the shit out of me (and everyone) since day one.

Secondly, this isn't the same game anymore. It's not the same time anymore. FFXI faces distinction. There is a lot more competition out these days, and SE is losing serious amounts of customers. They need to go with the times and look at what players want. SE needs to consider what will keep more players or get more new players playing: More pointless "content" (I use that term loosely), which offers little to no reward, or making the game actually playable. Even if they fixed it now it would be very late and they will have lost tons of customers to an unplayable game, but if they wait longer it will just get worse (for them).

And lastly, we complain because we have to. Screaming loud enough is the only thing that seems to have any kind of effect on them. And it will not, never, ever, get better until SE actually gets of their lazy asses and does what the playerbase wants them to.

It's shocking how long this game has survived with the company's current motto of "Fuck the players, we know best". Because it's wrong, they don't know best. SE doesn't know their own game at all and they've proven that, time and again. They know nothing of MMORPGs, nothing of coding (apparently) and nothing of business strategies.

This, on the other hand, proves what tremendous potential FFXI has. Despite so many sinister acts of the company, it was largely successful and still is to some degree. I still call it the best MMORPG I know, because it is, because these elements that piss us off aren't all what there is to the game. However, this underlying strength of FFXI will not keep it afloat forever. These unnecessary flaws have cost the game (and the company) dearly, both in players/revenue as in image. They don't realize how important a good image is in the MMORPG market especially. That's the reason why FFXIV will never be successful, because it had a very troubled start. It does not matter how good they will make it, this first impression pretty much killed any future prospects the game had.

And finally, SE really needs to drop the "Holier than thou" act they have going. Don't pretend to be smart, you're not. Don't pretend you're fooling anyone, you're not. What we want, more than anything else, is honesty. Don't feed us lies about why you can't implement something when we know for a fact that you can. Don't tell us you'll fix something, then you don't (like losing TP on "too far away" messages, which you said you're looking into over two updates ago (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/6030-WS-distance-or-where-did-my-TP-go/page2#post_103802) (and which should also be added to OP)). Respect your players enough not to lie to them, then we can start improving the game together, in everyone's benefit.

[Kraggy]

*not saying i use or condone bots just pointing out that you can find this with a google search like "ffxi position hacking bot" or "ffxi no wait ja bot", i've been in endgame shells with people who swear by them on the third party chat server but you go by a code where you dont stab people in the back :p
I guess if you had a friend who you knew was a criminal you'd look the other way too, as well.

You don't condone them yet you come here and quote two precise search strings to make it easier for people to find them.

/clap

[Juilan]

I guess if you had a friend who you knew was a criminal you'd look the other way too, as well.

You don't condone them yet you come here and quote two precise search strings to make it easier for people to find them.

/clapim just saying fixes are out there for their issues

[Arcon]

I guess if you had a friend who you knew was a criminal you'd look the other way too, as well.

If they smoke pot, sure. If they're a serial killer, no. Generalizations never work.


You don't condone them yet you come here and quote two precise search strings to make it easier for people to find them.

He was pointing out how easy it is for any retard to get these without any kind of effort. It's not like he gave them a secret code with which to get that stuff.

[Sylvr]

How about when you're inventory is full and a stackable item drops of which you already have several (Thinking mostly of Beastmen/Kindred Seals etc and Crystals and whatnot), but instead of dropping directly to your stack, it requires an extra inventory space.

Never made sense to me.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

SPELL LOCK FIX ITYou mean remove it? As it did not exist in the past. It was added as a counter measure.

[MDenham]

How about when you're inventory is full and a stackable item drops of which you already have several (Thinking mostly of Beastmen/Kindred Seals etc and Crystals and whatnot), but instead of dropping directly to your stack, it requires an extra inventory space.

Never made sense to me.This is probably not fixable under the current state of the codebase. (Yes, I'm aware of what that says about the state the code is in. I stand by it anyway.)

[Puck]

Hi everyone! Thanks for writing up this list containing a TON of feedback.

A few of these issues have already been brought up in separate threads (from a while back) and have received responses from the development team:

Blinking:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/4338-Solution-to-blinking?p=64481&viewfull=1#post64481
We all know that the blinking issue has been fixed with very widespread 3rd party software. It can be fixed. There are many options for doing so.

Camate please pass along the /gearlock idea posted previously in the "Vanity slots" thread to the devs in regards to fixing the blinking problem.

It's very simple and a breeze to implement. It would just be a simple command that, when turned on, locks a character's visible gear to whatever they're wearing when the command was used. The /gearlock'ed player can then switch gear all they want and would never "blink," so targets wouldn't be unlocked, people targeting the gear-swapper wouldn't lose them, and it would fix other things like BLU self-skillchains not appearing when triggered immediately after a swap.

It carries the added bonus of allowing a player to lock in a fashionable set of gear in which to do battle (thereby giving new purpose to the game's many, many unusable pieces of gear). To prevent any potential issues, /gearlock can simply deactivate upon zoning or changing jobs.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

It would just be a simple command that, when turned on, locks a character's visible gear to whatever they're wearing when the command was used.Dose this mean I can run around on whm and look like a blm? After all, I wouldn't blink when I changed jobs. Also, and I think this is an important part to note. What would this do when examined?

[Arcon]

Dose this mean I can run around on whm and look like a blm? After all, I wouldn't blink when I changed jobs. Also, and I think this is an important part to note. What would this do when examined?

Character data is flushed and reloaded on zoning, so after job change should see what they have on now (unless you change at a Nomad Moogle in a visible zone). /check can just show the gear they're actually wearing.

However, there's workarounds for that too. Simple let the character "blink" and reload new gear as soon as the target on it is removed. So while I target someone, let them appear in the same gear, but when target is off, allow them to blink as much as they want.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

So realy it should be more of a "hold feature" on bahalf of the targeter and not the blinker in question.

[Puck]

Dose this mean I can run around on whm and look like a blm? After all, I wouldn't blink when I changed jobs. Also, and I think this is an important part to note. What would this do when examined?
You didn't read the whole post, did you? Like the last sentence, for example.

[Insaniac]

The plugin you are talking about and the feature you are suggesting are different. The plugin prevents gear swaps client side the feature you are suggesting would require the server not sending gear swap info to other clients based on your preference. I can see how that might be a little annoying to code. The easiest thing for them to do would be to take a page from the plugins book and allow for a setting that prevented blinking while a character was targeted. It could all be done client side and it is clearly possible because it's been done already. It would be a little wonky if for instance you were targeting a NIN using a GK and he switched back to DWing resulting in him swinging his GK about 100 times a second until you were no longer targeting him. Honestly though... who freaking cares. Losing target on blink is just as wonky.

[Feynman]

How about the Auction House? It drives me crazy that all the equipment is listed in no particular order at all. Couldn't it be listed alphabetically? Or by level for things that can be equipped would be better. It seems so haphazard and you just have to scroll through everything to find the item you're looking for.

[Kaisha]

How about the Auction House? It drives me crazy that all the equipment is listed in no particular order at all. Couldn't it be listed alphabetically? Or by level for things that can be equipped would be better. It seems so haphazard and you just have to scroll through everything to find the item you're looking for.
You know there's a Sort option on every single section of the AH right?

[Leonlionheart]

You mean remove it? As it did not exist in the past. It was added as a counter measure.

FIX IT NOW

[Phafi]

when executing commands using <t> while just typing, i hit <T> a lot and have to type the command twice, couldn't both be a viable option?

[Leonlionheart]

when executing commands using <t> while just typing, i hit <T> a lot and have to type the command twice, couldn't both be a viable option?

I'm cursed with this too, along with ,T> ,t> <t. <T. and <JTIUOHJI:LK>

[Kaisha]

when executing commands using <t> while just typing, i hit <T> a lot and have to type the command twice, couldn't both be a viable option?
I miss the days when we didn't even need the <t> at all, but SE patched it so you had to explicitly state <t> due to something involving stopping botters, but lord knows that did diddly squat to help, and made legit users' life hell in the process.

[Feynman]

You know there's a Sort option on every single section of the AH right?

Well this is awkward! I've been playing this game since it released on ps2 and never noticed that...I apparently need to check that out. :/

[Yinnyth]

Getting a little more job specific, there's a glitch with bard songs where if you put 2 songs up, then replay one of those 2 songs before the original has less than 2 minutes of duration left, your song will have no effect. Kinda sucked when I hit level 95 and wanted to use marcato for the first time, I had just finished giving marches, realized I now have marcato, used night/troub/marcato >> victory march >> no effect. Marcato was wasted, nightingale and troubadour were wasted because I didn't have time to put a different song on the DDs and then redo marches.

Also, I second the fact that the game UI is too picky about upper case letters. I can't imagine a case where you would want seperate commands for <t> and <T>. Hell, I miss back in the day when <t> was assumed if you didn't specify a target because I type <T> so frequently.

[Molech]

How about having to zone for certain repeatable quests, why do some repeatable quests need you to re-zone to complete while others do not? Doing quests in some abyssea zones which require you to re-zone is frustrating beyond belief.

[Kaisha]

How about having to zone for certain repeatable quests, why do some repeatable quests need you to re-zone to complete while others do not? Doing quests in some abyssea zones which require you to re-zone is frustrating beyond belief.
They said in the past they were going to address the need for zoning for repeatable Abyssea quests................but then nothing came of it.

Is low on their giant list of things to do I guess.

[Rambus]

One thing not on the list that really drives me nuts is the delay you have after a failed spell or some items. Example, if you are timing ichi, a lot of times you have to let the mob get a free round because the game does not let you recast it right away.

About lost loot: Is there a reason why I need 4 free spots when 4 items from one monster that all stack? I even had LS mates auto lost jewels even after having an insane amount of room like 70/80.

The rest I agree with. I think it is sloppy programing or the ps2 limtation excuse.

The only one I disagree with is the Collision Detection one. It is annoying at times but I think it is silly to be ghosts at the same time.


Blinking: You said its not possible to have it so ppl dont blink. If a few people living at home in their moms basement can figure out this stuff then maybe you should hire them.

Cruor buffs: Good stuff

Tractor: lame excuse.

Overall Camate I am disappoint.

agree^

I have an idea to fix Tractor and I am sure it is cheap too.

Remove stones and time for abyssea,(no visitant status) there is NO NEED for it!

[Juri_Licious]

Ranged auto attack would be the best damn thing ever.

[Kaisha]

Ranged auto attack would be the best damn thing ever.


What's wrong with an /ra <t> <wait x> (repeat x6) macro?

Would be no different from an auto-attack for ranged since you'd have to sit still the entire time otherwise you'll interupt your aim.

[SpankWustler]

What's wrong with an /ra <t> <wait x> (repeat x6) macro?

Would be no different from an auto-attack for ranged since you'd have to sit still the entire time otherwise you'll interupt your aim.

If your goal is to shoot as fast as possible rather than just shoot without hitting a button a lot, you run into a couple of issues with this type of macro:

Rapid Shot.

Difficulty of getting the delay between shots exactly right.

[Kaisha]

So we're to assume an auto-attack range would just completely ignore the cooldown/delay before initiating any form of action right after/during an attack like it is with melee weapons?

[cidbahamut]

Because integer wait values always match the delay exactly 100% of the time. Always.
</sarcasm>

[Catsby]

being able to move and shoot would be good too.

[Byrth]

I'm pretty sure all the animation locks are just to keep us from sliding around. They prioritized graphics over gameplay.

Newsflash guys: It's 2011 and the game looks like ass because it's approaching a decade old. Let us slide around.

[Hashmalum]

More irritating issues:

1) The way that in certain situations, the camera will go into some sort of spasm, rapidly switching back and forth between two positions multiple times per second. Apparently, it's trying to get further away from a solid surface and failing amazingly at it.

2) The way that, if you are pressing up or down to change target between party or alliance members, if the player you are trying to move the cursor to is at a certain distance, the cursor will "whiff" back to where it started. (If they are close, you can target them fine, if they are far away, the cursor skips over them entirely, but there's a strange middle range where they become a sort of bizarre cursor-obstacle.)

3) Why can't we just enter numbers for our AH bid/selling price directly with the number keys?

4) Along the same lines as "Why do we need free inventory space to accept items we have partial stacks of?", I ask, "Why do we need a free inventory space to accept gil when gil never goes into our inventory to begin with?"

5) Spurious spell/ranged attack interrupts! You know, when you run up to casting range, stop, start casting a spell... then lose it for no apparent reason. The actual reason is that the packet telling the server about your character's movement was delayed slightly and received by the server after the packet telling it to start casting. However, if each packet were numbered sequentially, and the server code was changed such that a movement packet with a number lower than the packet that initiated the spellcasting/ranged attack were simply silently ignored, this problem would be solved.

Oh, and about the annoying and ridiculous way that we can chase a mob, and not hit it, while the reverse is not true... All that's required to fix that is get rid of the collision detection, which causes other annoyances anyway! You see, when you are chasing a mob, you can't attack it because you can't catch it, and you can't catch it because you keep bumping into it, but you are really bumping into where the client thinks the mob is, which is actually where it was several hundred milliseconds ago.

[Arcon]

3) Why can't we just enter numbers for our AH bid/selling price directly with the number keys?

A personal quirk of mine that's bothered me for ages. I've made a thread for that, but no acknowledgement so far.


4) Along the same lines as "Why do we need free inventory space to accept items we have partial stacks of?", I ask, "Why do we need a free inventory space to accept gil when gil never goes into our inventory to begin with?"

Also mentioned it before, it's completely stupid. I'm guessing they wanted the icon to appear in the trade slot, which is unnecessary, because you see the money traded in the number box anyway. And even if, they should check for the number of items that are being traded, not for the fields in the trade menu.


5) Spurious spell/ranged attack interrupts! You know, when you run up to casting range, stop, start casting a spell... then lose it for no apparent reason. The actual reason is that the packet telling the server about your character's movement was delayed slightly and received by the server after the packet telling it to start casting. However, if each packet were numbered sequentially, and the server code was changed such that a movement packet with a number lower than the packet that initiated the spellcasting/ranged attack were simply silently ignored, this problem would be solved.

Actually, "movement" itself isn't transmitted at all, only the position is updated. The problem is, that only happens in certain intervals, not after certain events (such as movement stopping). That is the reason why people get stuck on objects and terrain when they're on /follow, while the target they're following seems to go up cliffs. It's also the reason why casting isn't interrupted by moving, only if at the end of the cast you're in a different position than when you started, which means you can run around all you want, as long as at the end of the cast you stand in approximately the spot where you started.

So if you stop and cast immediately, chances are the new position hasn't been transmitted yet. In which case, the solution would be even simpler; just force send an update as soon as movement stops client-side.


Oh, and about the annoying and ridiculous way that we can chase a mob, and not hit it, while the reverse is not true... All that's required to fix that is get rid of the collision detection, which causes other annoyances anyway! You see, when you are chasing a mob, you can't attack it because you can't catch it, and you can't catch it because you keep bumping into it, but you are really bumping into where the client thinks the mob is, which is actually where it was several hundred milliseconds ago.

Very nicely put, shows just how stupid the system is. Unfortunately, this lag is an inherent problem to online games. Many games rely on heuristics to predict short-term movements, others perform a back-check to see if an action would have had an effect. The latter would be a decent solution for our problem. It would take an extra second to hit a mob when running behind it, but not 30 seconds of following it around, pointlessly. However, it would be quite some work to implement this, and given how lazy the dev team is, I doubt it would happen.

I don't know how I feel about removing object collision detection altogether, it would feel a bit ghosty I guess. However, something I could live with would be reducing the bounding radius around an object by half, or more. So there's still a collision detected when running straight into an object, but it wouldn't happen when just running close by it, or close into it. Also, it would allow us to get a bit closer to the mob when chasing it, which is all it would take to be able to hit it

[Hashmalum]

Ok, here are even more enduring annoyances.

1) Items in the treasure pool should not shift out from beneath the cursor when I am trying to lot/pass. The cursor should shift appropriately when this happens.

2) Inventory handling can only do one thing at a time apparently. This manifests itself in the following ways:
a) Moving items from storage (including safe, satchel, etc) to or from inventory is slower than it should be--it takes longer than it should to switch out gear sets when changing jobs. Worse, commands to move items do not queue or stack, but if you are too fast in trying to move items, your attempt is simply ignored.
b) Inventory sorts, both manually initiated and automatic, will fail to happen if there is other item movement at the same time. For example, an item dropping into your inventory when you are trying to do an autosort will cause the autosort attempt to fail. Or if you are moving an item from inventory to your mog sack, and an item drops to inventory at the same time, the inventory will fail to sort.

3) Why can't we throw away items that are in mog satchel/sack/etc?

4) Why is there no loot all command for FoV/GoV area treasure caskets? Why can't we add their contents to the pool, or destroy them outright, like Abyssea caskets?

[Camiie]

Sorry if it's been mentioned, but it'd be nice to be able to activate my magian spectacles while I have my NPC summoned.

[Juilan]

I am noticing an issue that I don't think SE thought about. Getting stuff from Grounds of Valor caskets, I noticed in some zones, including Zeruhn Mines that the 3 high level pages each require killing 5 bats... now if the bats had more spawns id see no issue, but it gets cut throat in there some times... Maybe change around some pages are make it so the caskets don't give us jug pets or potions 90% of the time?

[Seriha]

An issue I've chanced upon while WoEing: Garuda's Hastega will overwrite a Composured Haste, possibly knocking off roughly 6 minutes of Haste depending on how recently I cast. Ifrit's Enfire ability will also overwrite Enspells. In general, I'd like some kind of check here to either let the longest lasting buff remain or whatever was cast with highest Enhancing or Summoning skill.

[Greatguardian]

Anyone's Haste will overwrite a Composured Haste. It's actually fairly annoying. You just don't run into it often because mages don't usually Haste one another.

[Frost]

I got a new one to add to the pile:

Can we please get the delays removed/reduced for when you check your delivery box, and/or the delivery NPC?
In addition, can we get the delay removed/reduced for checking your Auction House "Sold" history?

[Hashmalum]

When you lose connection, it's treated as an error. When the game aborts due to an error, changes to macros and map markers are not saved. This has caused me annoyance dozens of times over the years. Please fix it.

[Catsby]

Remove every cutscene that triggers when you want to get through a doorway. It's a tiny gripe but add it the dozens and dozens people keep adding here and you can see why it sucks.

[Limecat]

Piggybacking on zoning cutscenes and the annoyance of the Galka boat bouncers, for the love of whatever you consider holy let us buy ticket books to use at all the ferries too. Or failing even that, just auto-deduct the 100 gil from our total when the boat leaves and we're on it, and boot us off if we don't have enough.

Remove the minimum level required for using chocobo services. We already had to be Lv20 to do the license quest, it's not like we'll be getting over on the system if we suddenly aren't forced to walk to camp when we decide to start leveling our 12th job.

Those warp Tarus in each quarter of Windurst? Don't link them in pairs, please let us choose which one we get sent to.

[Crocker]

Found another mess up that should be fixed if you make a mess of new macros and have a connection loss they do not save. When you log back in the are gone! The only way to save them is to log out properly or to zone.

[Dallas]

Remove every cutscene that triggers when you want to get through a doorway. It's a tiny gripe but add it the dozens and dozens people keep adding here and you can see why it sucks.

LOL, I announce every door opening CS to my LS. My personal favorite is the ladder climbing CS in the sewers.

[Ladycandygem]

If you are playing and then log in to the same account from another machine you can get straight onto the game. But if the game crashes and you try to log back on, the game tells you that character is already logged on and you have to wait a few minutes.

I was hoping the move to SE accounts would remove the need for PoL, but sadly not. I would love an option to go straight from choosing your PoL account to the character select screen.

[Yinnyth]

Found another mess up that should be fixed if you make a mess of new macros and have a connection loss they do not save. When you log back in the are gone! The only way to save them is to log out properly or to zone.

I wanted to make a sarcastic remark about how the game doesn't save your macros and inventory postions once every half a second. However, considering that these save rates were made back when the game was new and computers have come along way since then, there's no excuse for the PC and xbox versions not saving more frequently than they do. As much as I am loathe to do so since you don't seem to recognize how long this "problem" has been around, I must give you a "Like!" since this problem should be fixed for PC and xbox.

[Lotto]

I didn't read the whole thread so i'm not sure this has been mentioned but I always wanted to know why a mob can hit (physical attack) you while you run but a player can't.
When a mob is running it is impossible to hit it from behind (sometimes I had to chase a mob during 30s before he would finally stop and I was able to attack it).

[Arcon]

I didn't read the whole thread so i'm not sure this has been mentioned but I always wanted to know why a mob can hit (physical attack) you while you run but a player can't.
When a mob is running it is impossible to hit it from behind (sometimes I had to chase a mob during 30s before he would finally stop and I was able to attack it).

Was mentioned and not just in this thread. It's a lag-issue. If you chase a mob, you see the mob delayed, so it's not right in front of you, as it appears on your screen, but further ahead of you on the server. And to make things worse, your position is also transmitted with some delay, which means on the server you're even further behind than on your screen. There won't be a perfect fix for that, but there are some things SE could do to make it easier (for example remove/reduce collision detection or perform a back-check).

[Vortex]

This has actually annyoed me before but was never an issue untill recently when trying to fight for spots in voidwatch confluxes but does anyone notice that when you click a conflux or anything really, if to many people do it at the same time it "cancles" you, it's pretty annoying when trying to quickly get in a run but you get screwed out of it because it just happens to cancle you out 3-4 times in a row and you're standing going "wtf?" this really hasn't been a issue i noticed but now that i have..it's pretty damn lame.

[Arcon]

Another thing to add.. not being able to target someone when other people/objects are standing at the same position. You can tab through them and it just skips some people.

[Kaisha]

I didn't read the whole thread so i'm not sure this has been mentioned but I always wanted to know why a mob can hit (physical attack) you while you run but a player can't.
When a mob is running it is impossible to hit it from behind (sometimes I had to chase a mob during 30s before he would finally stop and I was able to attack it).
It's a latency difference. Where you see the mob on your screen is actually a good second behind as far as the server is concerned as well as your positional difference from its perspective, which leads you to be out of range for auto-attack.

Only 'fix' to that is to run ahead of them to attack.


If you are playing and then log in to the same account from another machine you can get straight onto the game. But if the game crashes and you try to log back on, the game tells you that character is already logged on and you have to wait a few minutes.

I was hoping the move to SE accounts would remove the need for PoL, but sadly not. I would love an option to go straight from choosing your PoL account to the character select screen.
I would like to see this addressed also. FFXI server takes WAY too long to time your character out.

[noodles355]

They need to finally decide on which way round the following options will occur on a confirmation window:
1)
Accept.
Decline
2)
Decline.
Accept.

Bloody annoying using Runic Portal and hitting Cancel every time because on almost every other confirmation window, Accept is the top option.

[Arcon]

They need to finally decide on which way round the following options will occur on a confirmation window:
1)
Accept.
Decline
2)
Decline.
Accept.

Bloody annoying using Runic Portal and hitting Cancel every time because on almost every other confirmation window, Accept is the top option.

Streamlining and unifying menu options is one of my top gripes with FFXI. It's like every single menu dialogue was designed by a completely different development team, different designers, different scripters and a guy tossing a coin who makes the decisions.

[Kaisha]

It's because every NPC dialog prompt is hard-coded as to why there's no uniformity unfortunately. At least they learned from that one particular mistake when developing XIV.


But I digress, it wouldn't kill them to go through a lot of the heavily used NPCs and streamline the system.

[Motenten]

When you lose connection, it's treated as an error. When the game aborts due to an error, changes to macros and map markers are not saved. This has caused me annoyance dozens of times over the years. Please fix it.

Workaround: Changing macro sets forces a save of the one you were on; the game saves the initial palette's macros to a file in your user directory, then loads the new one. Change the active set after you make adjustments to your macros (just arrow up and then back down) and you don't have to worry about losing them in a crash.

[Hashmalum]

Workaround: Changing macro sets forces a save of the one you were on; the game saves the initial palette's macros to a file in your user directory, then loads the new one. Change the active set after you make adjustments to your macros (just arrow up and then back down) and you don't have to worry about losing them in a crash.Interesting, thanks. I don't suppose you happen to know a way to force-save map marker changes?

[Eric]

Streamlining and unifying menu options is one of my top gripes with FFXI. It's like every single menu dialogue was designed by a completely different development team, different designers, different scripters and a guy tossing a coin who makes the decisions.
Not only that, but it seems like every single menu has at least two confirmations for the same thing, to the point where it's ridiculous. Even ones that are used very frequently.

"Select an option"
"Is this the option you have selected?"
"Accept/Decline"
"Are you sure you want to do the requested action?"
"No/Yes"
"Are you really sure you want to proceed? Blah blah blah will happen if you choose this option. "
"Yes/No/Cancel"

I wish there were an option to do the same thing that you can do with synergy--the option to turn off confirmation requests for EVERY SINGLE action. Of course there are important things that should have confirmation requests, but for the majority of the mundane menu surfing we have to do, there is no reason to make it such a tedious process.

[Byrth]

Not only that, but it seems like every single prompt has at least two confirmations for the same thing, to the point where it's ridiculous.

"Select an option"
"Is this the option you have selected?"
"Accept/Decline"
"Are you sure you want to do the requested action?"
"No/Yes"
"Are you really sure you want to proceed? Blah blah blah will happen if you choose this option. "
"Yes/No/Cancel"

I'm really glad they abandoned this for the Porter Moogle.

[mistmonster]

What is funny with Porter Moogles is that I always grab extra gear accidentally because I'm expecting a dialog! No I'm not complaining! Wish more menus were like that!

[noodles355]

I would also like to know why Whitegate is still so seriously laggy, even when there's no one here.
I mean seriously, I'll have my 2nd character on /follow on my main, and he will lag and think my main has stopped moving for like 5 seconds before his client updates my main character's new position (which is usually around a corner and down some stairs with the design of the city). This crap is happening when there's only like 20 people in the zone.

[Ladycandygem]

Not only that, but it seems like every single menu has at least two confirmations for the same thing, to the point where it's ridiculous. Even ones that are used very frequently.

"Select an option"
"Is this the option you have selected?"
"Accept/Decline"
"Are you sure you want to do the requested action?"
"No/Yes"
"Are you really sure you want to proceed? Blah blah blah will happen if you choose this option. "
"Yes/No/Cancel"


I hate the ones where you have confirmed everything, you cannot cancel out, but then still have to press the button again. So many times at outpost NPCs I've confirmed I want to warp, look away from the screen for a few moment while I zone, and look back to see I have to press the button again because the guy wished me a good trip.

[Mirage]

More irritating issues:

1) The way that in certain situations, the camera will go into some sort of spasm, rapidly switching back and forth between two positions multiple times per second. Apparently, it's trying to get further away from a solid surface and failing amazingly at it.

2) The way that, if you are pressing up or down to change target between party or alliance members, if the player you are trying to move the cursor to is at a certain distance, the cursor will "whiff" back to where it started. (If they are close, you can target them fine, if they are far away, the cursor skips over them entirely, but there's a strange middle range where they become a sort of bizarre cursor-obstacle.)

3) Why can't we just enter numbers for our AH bid/selling price directly with the number keys?

4) Along the same lines as "Why do we need free inventory space to accept items we have partial stacks of?", I ask, "Why do we need a free inventory space to accept gil when gil never goes into our inventory to begin with?"

5) Spurious spell/ranged attack interrupts! You know, when you run up to casting range, stop, start casting a spell... then lose it for no apparent reason. The actual reason is that the packet telling the server about your character's movement was delayed slightly and received by the server after the packet telling it to start casting. However, if each packet were numbered sequentially, and the server code was changed such that a movement packet with a number lower than the packet that initiated the spellcasting/ranged attack were simply silently ignored, this problem would be solved.

Oh, and about the annoying and ridiculous way that we can chase a mob, and not hit it, while the reverse is not true... All that's required to fix that is get rid of the collision detection, which causes other annoyances anyway! You see, when you are chasing a mob, you can't attack it because you can't catch it, and you can't catch it because you keep bumping into it, but you are really bumping into where the client thinks the mob is, which is actually where it was several hundred milliseconds ago.

This post. A million times over.

[Rambus]

Ok, here are even more enduring annoyances.

1) Items in the treasure pool should not shift out from beneath the cursor when I am trying to lot/pass. The cursor should shift appropriately when this happens.

2) Inventory handling can only do one thing at a time apparently. This manifests itself in the following ways:
a) Moving items from storage (including safe, satchel, etc) to or from inventory is slower than it should be--it takes longer than it should to switch out gear sets when changing jobs. Worse, commands to move items do not queue or stack, but if you are too fast in trying to move items, your attempt is simply ignored.
b) Inventory sorts, both manually initiated and automatic, will fail to happen if there is other item movement at the same time. For example, an item dropping into your inventory when you are trying to do an autosort will cause the autosort attempt to fail. Or if you are moving an item from inventory to your mog sack, and an item drops to inventory at the same time, the inventory will fail to sort.

3) Why can't we throw away items that are in mog satchel/sack/etc?

4) Why is there no loot all command for FoV/GoV area treasure caskets? Why can't we add their contents to the pool, or destroy them outright, like Abyssea caskets?

Changing 2-4 would be nice but i am not sure if it can be done. Your 1, though I cannot believe I forgot to say something about it. It pisses me off so much.

your 1. .... yeah that needed changing for a long time.

The place I remember that problem best was old Dynamis back when a lot of people did it. You would have problems trying to lot on relic when it auto selected a coin when you tried to lot gear. Then you have to go back the gameplay andi t was like uuuuuuuuuuuuh.

Also that issue made it hard to pass coins in the final minutes in dyna. It is not as a big problem now but in abyssea the issue can pop up time to time. But yeah I had a big issue with that problem back in the old dyna days. This never happened but i can picture it, or it did happen and i never said anything:

Rambus> sorry guys, we died because of a slow sleep
Rambus> I was trying to lot and the game kept changing the curser placement from the falling coins.
Linkshell> why did we loose the last bit of coins?
Rambus> because the curser kept blinking each time one coin fell, I go to hit pass and it blinks to a new coin and I could not pass the coins from it blinking over and resetting the “lot/pass” menu.

I also seen where items may be in the treasure pool and i have to click out of it a few times because both lot and pass where greyed out on items I did not pass yet -.-

[Kaisha]

I would also like to know why Whitegate is still so seriously laggy, even when there's no one here.
I mean seriously, I'll have my 2nd character on /follow on my main, and he will lag and think my main has stopped moving for like 5 seconds before his client updates my main character's new position (which is usually around a corner and down some stairs with the design of the city). This crap is happening when there's only like 20 people in the zone.
Add a /target <name> line to your follow macro. Targetting someone forces the client to update its position more often.

[Motenten]

Interesting, thanks. I don't suppose you happen to know a way to force-save map marker changes?

Unfortunately, no, I don't know how to manage that. I add map markers so rarely, it's never become an issue for me to look into.

[Meyi]

Interesting, thanks. I don't suppose you happen to know a way to force-save map marker changes?

I believe you can save map markers to the server, can't you? I know you can save macros for sure but I think I read map markers save as well. Could be wrong.

[Alhanelem]

Streamlining and unifying menu options is one of my top gripes with FFXI. It's like every single menu dialogue was designed by a completely different development team, different designers, different scripters and a guy tossing a coin who makes the decisions.
The reason this varies is because for some decisions, especially any that have a cost involved, they don't want you to accidentally do something you didn't want to do, so they make 'no' the default. Other times, when the cost of an error is low/none, they make yes the default. It's not because they like being inconsistent, they're just deciding the risk value of making the wrong decision on a decision-by-decision basis.

Somewhat of a devil's advocate post- If the choices were the same everywhere, mistakes in the first place would be less likely, at least one would expect.

[Alderin]

Put "Abyssea" and "Voidwatch" in auto-trans.

[Lokithor]

Change the GUI so that the spell progress bar doesn't block the first 3 slots of the macro bar.

[Juri_Licious]

Not sure if this was mentioned but..

How about when you're moving and you go to cast a spell which always end up in the spell interrupting.

^ But that's not the problem, the problem is you have to wait for the whole cast timer for it to tell you it was interrupted instead of it being immediately interrupted.

[Arcon]

Not sure if this was mentioned but..

How about when you're moving and you go to cast a spell which always end up in the spell interrupting.

^ But that's not the problem, the problem is you have to wait for the whole cast timer for it to tell you it was interrupted instead of it being immediately interrupted.

Was mentioned ish. The problem with that is, the check whether or not a spell goes through is only performed at the end of the spellcast. Moving does not and has never interrupted spells. You can move around all you want, as long as you end up in the same position you were when you started casting. This is really stupid though and needs to change, then spells could be interrupted immediately.

And, in fact, I believe that should hold true for any kinds of spell interruption, even when being hit. On the flipside, the same would also hold true for mobs, but it only makes sense.

[Owlet]

I would like if my character could actually manage to edge around tiny obstacles while on autorun. The landscapes are lovely, but I would prefer to not get hopelessly stuck on a twig five seconds after I get up to get a drink.

Have silence just immediately stop whatever a mage is casting so you don't have to wait out a long spell timer to use an echo drop.

*~*

I'm not sure if this counts as a fundamental game play issue, but it is somethings I would like to see changed

I would prefer it if reraise could not be dispelled and if you did not lose it after being dumped out of some battlefields. Sometimes it is the difference between winning and losing a battle, but more often it just means homepointing and doing a really annoying run back to where you started. Or a group just breaking up because they don't want to wait the reassemble time.

[noodles355]

I want to know why Aht Ugran Whitegate and Al Zahbi are so laggy (My frame rate is cut in half) when there's only ever between 10-20 people in the zone.

[Kaisha]

- <call> not respecting the sound effects volume level


Nothing like lowering game volume so you can blast your music, and then out of nowhere you hear the <call4> blaring in your ears.

[Cesil]

I couldn't agree with OP more. These issues have been driving me insane forever lol ; ;