Suggestions: Quality of Life Stuff and other suggestions

[Mnejing]

Home point warp expansion - more areas and also includes teleport crystals.

More Super Kupowers and expansion - Double exp for both monipulators and players, and double seal drop rate. Expands to all areas.

It's been brought up several times already but:
Reduce Missions and Quest delays that involves waiting after Japanese midnight to proceed.

[Evogolist]

Here's some more from me

1) New Main City Rank Missions. After eleven years, you would think we would have had this by now. I know SE is busy working on new quests/missions for the SoA expansion, but the main cities have become long forgotten. It's like everything occurring in the main three cities just stop at rank 10. Not sure how correct my math is with Vana'diel time, but I think a year in Vana'diel time is like a month Real life/Earth Time. So it would be nice to see what's going on in the lives of certain main city npcs since the end of the rank 10 missions. Even Jeuno could be involved seeing as how with Kam'lanaut no longer the Grand Duke after the events in RoTZ, there has yet to be a new Grand Duke named. So while it'll probably be awhile until after Adoulin is finish, breathing new life into the main cities would be nice.

2) Resurrect Kazham. Kazham, oh my dear Kazham, oh how do I have memories of taking up camp inside the small Mithran Village while waiting for a party invite. Chasing/following around the roaming Opo-opo npc while waiting for a party invite. What happened? SE has completely purged all knowledge of Kazham's existence. When the "Ease of Exploration" moogle power was added, Kazham was nowhere to be found on the list. Even with the addition of the waypoints, Kazham is not an option in the list. I wonder if new players to the game even know that this forgotten place even exists. There hasn't even been a decent up to date quest placed in Kazham since lord knows when. My suggestion, SE please remember that Kazham and the Elshimo area does still exist. Can we see some new life given to Kazham, some new npcs, new quests maybe? Give us reason to return here after we're done with the Elshimo/Ifrit's Cauldron/Sea Serpent Grotto portion of our AF quests and after we've finished the RoTZ quests not to mention Ifrit Trial quest and the teleport scroll quest. Because after that what other reason do we have to come here when we can just OP warp to the ones in either Elshimo Uplands/Lowlands?

3) Campaign Battles and Besieged expansions When these were released for their respective expansions, despite the lag issues, were great ideas. They were what made the game fun and made you feel like you were apart of the game's story/lore. But in typical SE fashion, they are forgotten and become over-shadowed, by newer content that eventually meet the same fate. I know this has been mentioned before, but it would be nice to see these type of events expanded to the present main city areas or something like that. Beastmen lurk right outside of the four main cities not to mention the Beastmen strongholds that inhabit the area not to far off, and I find it weird that they haven't tried to attack. For successful completion of these battles, the player would receive a nice reward.

4) PvP Let's be honest, PvP in XI has never really shined its brightest. Back when XI was at it's peak, it's shining era...I remember SE use to have Ballista or Brenner tournaments. Over the years, the idea for PvP was lost and forgotten. It made a brief reappearance in the form of Pankatron, but that never really went anywhere. With the introduction of Belligerency, PvP in XI makes a reappearance once more, but...I rarely see anyone taking part in this. My suggestion, make PvP worth doing. Give people a reason to want to do PvP. Reintroduce the tournaments at the yearly Vana'Festivals. Or better yet have a yearly tournament where the champions of each region meet for the final championship match at Vana'Fest.

5)Chocobo Raising/Racing Chocobo breeding and racing gives me the biggest headache. Why? Because you have so little control over the chocobo that you bred and worked hard to raise. Starting with breeding a chocobo, everyone has a yellow chocobo chick until it reaches it adolescent stage where you begin to see the colors of its feathers. The frustrating part of this is, you have to be careful of what you feed you chick if you're going for a certain color. What makes this worse is the chances of receiving a blue/black/red/green chocobo are pretty much very slim. And what happened to the white chocobo? What is SE racist against Albino Chocobos? I mean it's in the dats, so why can't we get one? Suggestion, SE please make it easier to obtain a blue/black/red/green chocobo without having to buy and raise 20-30 eggs. Moving into Chocobo Racing. Why was this even introduced if we weren't even going to have any form of control over our chocobos? What makes it worse is that the rewards aren't even worthwhile. Suggestion, Give us a reason to explore and actually enjoy this content. Allow us to have more control over what our chocobo does (ie: sprinting, items used by the jockey riding our chocobos). And introduce items worth doing to content for such as items that allow you to permanently increase your chocobo's stats or allow to increase their movement speed when riding them. SE brings in some great content, but then either doesn't execute it right or just lets it fade into obscurity.

I'll probably have some more suggestions later, but that's what I could think of at the time.

[Olor]

5)Chocobo Raising/Racing Chocobo breeding and racing gives me the biggest headache. Why? Because you have so little control over the chocobo that you bred and worked hard to raise. Starting with breeding a chocobo, everyone has a yellow chocobo chick until it reaches it adolescent stage where you begin to see the colors of its feathers. The frustrating part of this is, you have to be careful of what you feed you chick if you're going for a certain color. What makes this worse is the chances of receiving a blue/black/red/green chocobo are pretty much very slim. And what happened to the white chocobo? What is SE racist against Albino Chocobos? I mean it's in the dats, so why can't we get one? Suggestion, SE please make it easier to obtain a blue/black/red/green chocobo without having to buy and raise 20-30 eggs. Moving into Chocobo Racing. Why was this even introduced if we weren't even going to have any form of control over our chocobos? What makes it worse is that the rewards aren't even worthwhile. Suggestion, Give us a reason to explore and actually enjoy this content. Allow us to have more control over what our chocobo does (ie: sprinting, items used by the jockey riding our chocobos). And introduce items worth doing to content for such as items that allow you to permanently increase your chocobo's stats or allow to increase their movement speed when riding them. SE brings in some great content, but then either doesn't execute it right or just lets it fade into obscurity.

Um, I've never bred a chocobo from two coloured parents and not had it turn out the same colour. If you want a red choco breed two red chocos together. I've never heard/read anything about feed changing the chances of different colours.

HOWEVER. Choco raising needs to be improved/simplified. I'd like it to become WORTH doing even slightly by making it so that a raised choco CANNOT be slower than a rented one, but they can be faster (so the opposite of now, where you need to breed/raise a choco perfectly to get it the SAME speed as a rental). I love pulling out my blue choco but it sucks that I need to rent when I'm riding with friends because he can't keep up. Also choco items for GIL on NPCs please. Chocobucks are not a useful currency.

[Evogolist]

Um, I've never bred a chocobo from two coloured parents and not had it turn out the same colour. If you want a red choco breed two red chocos together. I've never heard/read anything about feed changing the chances of different colours.

HOWEVER. Choco raising needs to be improved/simplified. I'd like it to become WORTH doing even slightly by making it so that a raised choco CANNOT be slower than a rented one, but they can be faster (so the opposite of now, where you need to breed/raise a choco perfectly to get it the SAME speed as a rental). I love pulling out my blue choco but it sucks that I need to rent when I'm riding with friends because he can't keep up. Also choco items for GIL on NPCs please. Chocobucks are not a useful currency.

Actually I tried breeding my red choco with my alt's choco and all I got was a yellow chocobo. Also, for my red choco, I fed her nothing, but Sand'Orian Carrots and got a bright red choco, so food to some extent has some effect on what color you get.But then again I fed another choco I raised from egg some form of greens...can't remember which one...but all I got was a yellow choco. So the chances of obtaining a colored chocobo are pretty slim to say the least.

[Blbelt]

I am a returning player starting over. Even with my previous characters I never made it past 70 and I have never participated in FFXI's end game, nor am I in an hurry to do so. Here are my thoughts about the early game though:

1) Make Trust NPCs usable in mission fights. I want to go through the story *as* I level, not once I'm level 99. Makes the leveling experience much richer.

2) Make Trust NPCs usable for garrisons, and make garrisons soloable by a player with 3 alter egos (albeit with some difficulty). This would be a great introduction to group combat for new players. Heck, revamp garrisons completely -- so much you could do here.

3) *removed*

4) Add a mini-map (can be toggled on and off)

5) Clean up early-level quests. Some I've noticed are very finicky as to when they are available. For example, Windurst quests "Food for Thought" and "All New C-2000" were not readily available to me at level 10. Had to keep checking back.

I don't like that the lower levels are treated as a bland chore to be sped through as quickly as possible. I don't like that level 1-70ish gear is "pointless," and the idea is to get to 99 before you even bother with things like story line or quests. Personally I want to experience something other than FoV/GoV/repeat *as* I level, not once I get to 99.

[bungiefanNA]

I am a returning player starting over. Even with my previous characters I never made it past 70 and I have never participated in FFXI's end game, nor am I in an hurry to do so. Here are my thoughts about the early game though:

1) Make Trust NPCs usable in mission fights. I want to go through the story *as* I level, not once I'm level 99. Makes the leveling experience much richer.

2) Make Trust NPCs usable for garrisons, and make garrisons soloable by a player with 3 alter egos (albeit with some difficulty). This would be a great introduction to group combat for new players. Heck, revamp garrisons completely -- so much you could do here.

3) Don't make low-level missions require sneak and invis. Specifically Windurst mission 2-1. This is a huge turn-off as a new player. There shouldn't be level 80 mobs anywhere near low level areas.

4) Add a mini-map (can be toggled on and off)

5) Clean up early-level quests. Some I've noticed are very finicky as to when they are available. For example, Windurst quests "Food for Thought" and "All New C-2000" were not readily available to me at level 10. Had to keep checking back.

I don't like that the lower levels are treated as a bland chore to be sped through as quickly as possible. I don't like that level 1-70ish gear is "pointless," and the idea is to get to 99 before you even bother with things like story line or quests. Personally I want to experience something other than FoV/GoV/repeat *as* I level, not once I get to 99.

**EDIT: Added #3

3) Grounds of Valor was added to make EXP gain at level 99 possible in any area with the activity, so they had to add level 80+ monsters to those zones. They put them off in far corners of the areas, not the main entrance. However, they did not relocate some of the ???s for missions, but many of the monsters around those are not set to Aggressive. Sneak/Invis is also nearly free from the 5 Tab Circumspection from any of the tomes, so it doesn't matter what job you have.

5) Some quests aren't by level, they're by Fame, which means you have to do enough quests and repeatable quests to raise your reputation with the NPCs in that town. You can have max fame at level 1.

Leveling is so fast. players have stopped holding on to low level gear because of inventory space limits. When level 99 is achievable in 24-72 hours, and missions may take longer than that, it makes sense to level as much as possible. Especially because with Abyssea, you earn more EXP per hour the longer you stay in the party, because of the chain bonus. MMOs breed players striving for efficient play methods, as many things are made to be time consuming.

[Blbelt]

3) Grounds of Valor was added to make EXP gain at level 99 possible in any area with the activity, so they had to add level 80+ monsters to those zones. They put them off in far corners of the areas, not the main entrance. However, they did not relocate some of the ???s for missions, but many of the monsters around those are not set to Aggressive. Sneak/Invis is also nearly free from the 5 Tab Circumspection from any of the tomes, so it doesn't matter what job you have.

**EDIT: Circumspection does not work. You have to drop invis to get through the cracked wall. So my point remains, Windurst Mission 2-1 forces new players to get help, level up a whm, or buy prism pots and sneak oil that a new player cannot afford at this point.

5) Some quests aren't by level, they're by Fame, which means you have to do enough quests and repeatable quests to raise your reputation with the NPCs in that town. You can have max fame at level 1.

The quests I'm referring to are Reputation level 1 quests with no prereqs. Some are just plain finicky for no apparent reason.

Leveling is so fast. players have stopped holding on to low level gear because of inventory space limits. When level 99 is achievable in 24-72 hours, and missions may take longer than that, it makes sense to level as much as possible. Especially because with Abyssea, you earn more EXP per hour the longer you stay in the party, because of the chain bonus. MMOs breed players striving for efficient play methods, as many things are made to be time consuming.

Completely understandable and probably unavoidable with old MMOs. However, this is just my personal play style. I like to stop and smell the roses. I will stop and camp lower level NMs, and I prefer to mix in quests and missions as I go. I'm not asking to change the system, but Trust NPCs in missions/garrisons etc would grant new/nostalgic players a richer, more varied leveling experience if they so desire.

Thanks for your response!

[Camate]

It's been brought up several times already but:
Reduce Missions and Quest delays that involves waiting after Japanese midnight to proceed.

Greetings,

Below is a comment from Akihiko Matsui about this.

The reason behind the requirement of waiting until midnight JST for missions and quests was to set the stage for the storyline as well as to alleviate congestion. However, play styles have changed for FFXI and I think there would be no issue if we removed this requirement.

However, if we were to get rid of the requirements associated with the storyline it would be contradictive, and we need to address these one by one, so we will first start by addressing the aspects without any issues. Please give us a bit of time to work on this.

[Evogolist]

Greetings,

Below is a comment from Akihiko Matsui about this.

Sorry I'm kinda late seeing this, but thanks a bunch Camate for the response.
With that being said, come on guys let's keep this thread going! If you're reading this thread and you have some suggestions towards the quality of life or improvements to the games content feel free to drop it here.