Final Fantasy XI overhaul

Hello,

i started to work seriously on Red Mage. I knew that enhancements add up ingame, but as far as i got, it just got too extreme. Guides show different sets to enhance yourself and others. Also you got way too many tiny enhancements, for each tiny step of creating a macroset/gearset separated on way too many items, while you have to keep caps of each kind in mind. I know that FFXI suffers on it's own age, but when a game runs for that long, could the developer not reduce the amount of items needed?

Wouldn't it make sense to put enhancing effects to yourself AND others in one item?
Wouldn't it make sense to enhance the duration, cast time and strength of physical and/or magical effects in one, or atleast less item(s)?
Wouldn't it make sense to reduce the MASS of items needed to play a job, so people don't have that massive inventory problem?

Even if different head pieces of different skins (or other slots) of armor would have the same stats on each body part, it would help people not to desperate on the game itself.
The longer this game runs, the longer it takes for people to get items/jobs to the stage that is needed to play this game as it is needed.

It also doesn't help, that normal players suffer on the content made more difficult by SE, cause there are 3rd party tools that reduce reaction times and SE adjusts content like Ambuscade, where you HAVE TO HAVE those programs, or you can' react quick enough on barspells without them...

pretty much everything you want to change is half the reason people still play this game and why it has a niche - horizontal progression and lots of items for different situations to swap out.

There is a fix for this and it is an idea I have been considering for awhile now. Each job would have a created blank set of JSE armor equipment. This new JSE armor equipment is interfaced through a NPC progression capability. You trade this new progression armor equipment to the new NPC and a corresponding item you've obtained and the NPC will allow you to apply any bonus, stat, and effect of the traded un-augmented item to the new JSE progression armor. This way your new JSE progression armor would be able to possess all available stat effect and bonus from a corresponding armor type that currently exists or is added in the future.

Example: You trade your AF+3 head and your progression JSE head to this new NPC, the progression JSE head will be upgraded to include the highest stat bonus and effect your AF+3 would apply and in addition would retain any bonus, effect or higher stat that the JSE progression armor would have had prior to the trade. The non-JSE-progression item would have to allow for the use of the job that corresponds to the JSE progression item.
So in this application you could trade as a WAR your JSE progression head in pairs with a variety of heads that WAR equips, i'll use a list of some 119 heads.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Adorned_Helm_%2B1 Unity head
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Sulevia%27s_Mask_%2B2 Ambuscade head
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Flam._Zucchetto_%2B2 Ambuscade head
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Arke_Zuchetto_%2B1 Crafted head
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Boii_Mask_%2B1 Abyssea Reforged head
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Agoge_Mask_%2B3 Relic Reforged head
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Pummeler%27s_Mask_%2B3 AF Reforged head

The combined result would look something like this:
Warrior Progression JSE helm (whatever Square Enix would determine what to name it)
Armor: Head | Lv.99 WAR | <Item Level: 119>
DEF:139 HP+156 MP+40 STR+36 DEX+34 VIT+40 AGI+31 INT+31 MND+31 CHR+31
Accuracy+50 Attack+83 Magic Accuracy+44 Magic Evasion+73 "Magic Def. Bonus"+4 Evasion+56 Haste+11% "Store TP"+10
Damage taken -9%
Unity Ranking: Attack+5~15
(Flamma)Set: Increases Strength, Dexterity, and Vitality
"Triple Attack"+5%
(Sulevia)Set: Enhances "Subtle Blow" effect
Resistance to all status ailments +6
Converts damage taken to TP +10
Critical hit rate +4% "Double Attack"+5%
(Boii)Set: Augments "Double Attack"
Parrying skill +21
"Warcry" effect duration +30 Weapon skill damage +10%
"Aggressor" duration +18
(Pummeler)Set: Increases Accuracy, Ranged Accuracy, and Magic Accuracy

There would need to be a 'handling' accommodation invented, likely in the creation of a new item slot to address the placement and amount of any -enmity property or +enmity property. In that manner players could selectively equip configurations for +max +enmity, +max -enmity, or chose to have no enmity adjustment.

If combining properties of equipment that are not currently related to ambuscade, AF, Relic, Empyrean is too immense of a task; then at minimum allow for the properties of equipment from reforged AF, reforged Relic, reforged empyrean and ambuscade sourced equipment to combine.

Progression JSE would not be able to be placed onto moogle claim slips due to the intense augmentation, but is a valid trade off.

This could be a impressive task to undertake, but i do believe it would breath alot of interest, activity and effort into FFXI for all jobs and for all equipment slots effected.

I just think that it would help people on not getting desperate to have less items with more skills included. It would make macros and equipsets so much easier. Ignoring the fact that most of us repeatedly wish to erase Oseem with it's "xybnhxbyhcbxbcvxhbjyvhb cybvujhbc uh" augment system out of our memory and the game itself. ;)

Oseem is completely horrible and deserves a complete retooling. Oseem augments should work in the same manner as our ambuscade capes with a feeding of stones into augments until maximum is achieved with four player selective augments allowable. That being said, my above suggestion would eliminate the need to overhaul Oseem.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by madmartin

pretty much everything you want to change is half the reason people still play this game and why it has a niche - horizontal progression and lots of items for different situations to swap out.

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The reason I still play this game has nothing to do with those things and I too wish this were streamlined at least a little bit, there is just way too much stuff to carry around, its almost like a scheme to get you to pay for more characters than you should really need.

For me, it was the community, the story, the freedom to play the way you want (no making stats obsolete just because the devs said so) the huge range of content, the variety of distinct jobs that all function differently rather than just being different flavors of the same thing, the huge world, and the sense of accomplishment when you beat stuff. The need to carry 343 items per job that you wear for 1 second each every few minutes is at the very bottom of my favorite features list- I like the game in spite of it, rather than because of it.

I think there are better ways that they could accomplish this to get the same effect with less of the frustration that comes with setting it up and juggling jobs.
Sort of like the automaton inventory, where you have a library of permanently aquired modifiers for stats, abilities, and additional effects . You could have one of these special inventories for every modifiable job ability, and they would just work, without having to create macros and gear sets in many cases (where you're always using the same items for a particular ability).

You could easily change what you're using with a subcommand button in the abilities menu-
Abilities > Provoke > Select Modifiers
for example. It makes a lot more sense for situational "gear" like this to be implemented in th is fashion, since tying these stats to real peices of equipment like pants and stuff is just silly, even in a fantasy world it's dumb instantly taking off and putting on pants for seconds at a time.

I'm glad that thing I got from XYZ fight years ago might still be useful, but at the same time it's annoying to still carry it around. This way you could keep its benefits and still have room for new loot, and be able to change jobs much more quickly.


The inventory bloat, and the time it takes to actually set up for the first time (and move items around if you can't carry it all with you) is literally my least favorite part of the game.