Suggestions: Quality of Life Stuff and other suggestions

[Lithera]

Had a friend breed two red chocobos and got a green. Love most of the ideas here already keep me coming people

[Vivivivi]

Because dance spamming and running around your party because you're bored while waiting for your event to actually happen is soo different than people jumping around because of the same thing in XIV.

It is actually! Dance spamming and running around your party doesn't look quite as unusual as a bunch of chocobos/behemoths/goobues jumping around. I guess my original point was just that FFXI feels a little more elegant to me than most MMOs despite its age and older looking graphics due to the fact that there is a significant lack of extraneous iconography and general elements that constantly remind you that you're playing a game.

[Vivivivi]

Update Dynamis II - for 18 man groups

Ooooh. I'd be interested in new zones, especially after having nearly completed the WotG storyline.

[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.

[Evogolist]

I don't think that it should be visibly present icons above a NPC's head or something like that, if anything, I would opt for one or both of these solutions.

A: Have a new marker color such as red for quests, or simply recycle the hardly used green we have now, with these markers we should be able to talk to a NPC who can mark all currently available quests on our map with these markers. The location of this NPC should be somewhat easy to find out, rather than making it hard to find like how Trust can be for anyone who doesn't read the update notes. When progressing in a quest new markers could be placed on your maps accordingly and the old ones removed, as to keep your map up to date on the quest in progress and inform you of your next traveling location. This marker system would not annoy people who are not in need of it, it would not clutter, and it would only really end up helping people, the difficulty in this option I fear is implementing it, as SE may have problems with actually getting it in the game.

B: Make the quest log more comprehensive. The quest log could not possibly be more vague with its descriptions of what you are expected to do, if the quest descriptions were made more like how RoE is displayed, with some accurate information as to your objectives, that would easily help people complete them. If the quest log displayed positions for NPCs or at least told you what zone to look in, it would make it much easier to understand and complete, rather than the NPC only giving hints as to the location you need to go and at the same time providing no help if you need to stop during a quest and forget where you were. By adding a list format as well, they could put something like a hollow circle next to each objective and replace it with something like a star upon completion so a person knows exactly where they are in a quest when coming back to it. This again seems like it would be a lot of work on SE's part and may not be possible because the quest system is quite old and it would take time to redo it probably, though it is just the display and may be easier than it sounds.

I would second this, both of them. I like how you think and either one would be a great alternative to quest icons.

Just on a side note, I hate that the moment someone mentions anything slightly similar to what WoW has and everyone begins going into a WoW panic attack. As if this game hasn't already started going down that road with item level equipment and becoming more casual/solo friendly. Even with the addition of quest icons, you guys have to remember that most quests are locked by their respective fame level requirement. Even with Jeuno, where most of the quest aren't available until after you've acquired a sufficient amount of fame in each of the three main cities, you would be icon free until enough fame was established. Like I said, it doesn't even have to be the big exclamation point floating overtop of a npc's head. A simple change in the color of their name, or just something in the quest log would be enough to help players out when questing.

Funny story is, a few months back I was considering quitting this game after playing since PS2 release. I mean I could pretty much solo almost everything here and most of my jobs were at 99 now and I was getting bored. Fortunately and Unfortunately (don't ask) I fell out of love with XIV and decided to come back to XI. Mind you, this isn't the same XI that I fell in love with 11-12 yrs ago, but yet I've been having fun thus far with some of the newer content. Do I want this game to be or become like WoW or any of it's clones? No...hell no! I played WoW for like a week, quit and haven't resubbed since. I can't even play any of it's clones because I feel empty inside. My point, this game at some point was bound to change whether we like it or not. Adding a few things, making a few changes, and updating a few old mechanics so that the game can last another 11+ years in a world where most MMO's are nothing more than WoW clones and are going FTP is better than letting this game die and fade into obscurity. Don't like quest icons? Fine, but why not add some feature that allows players to identify which npcs are quest givers or quest involved. The expansion of wide scan to all jobs was great, but why not take it a step further?

[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.

[bungiefanNA]

1) Quest Icons. I think one of the biggest issues and gripes of the game is not knowing which npcs are quest givers, let alone which ones are related to a particular quest. The only way that a player can even identify who is who is by either having a hard copy of an out of date Brady's Guide like I do, or searching the web for a guide. In today's MMO's, quest npcs have become a lot easier to locate due to having some sort of Icon to signal that they are a quest giver or associated with a quest that a player has currently undertaken. I think the addition of this would alleviate that comes with doing quests in the game.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/...p-22/ref=nosim

They are still releasing guides for the game in Japan, at least yearly. This one detailed a lot of previously unconfirmed hidden effects and latent effects on equipment, which is starting to propagate to the wikis.

That said, a printed guide is always going to be out of date after the next patch, which is now occurring at least monthly. A wiki really is the best way to keep on top of an MMO, because it's the only thing that can be maintained and edited fast enough.

http://www.playonline.com/polapps/s/...op?polg_loc=en

They do link to one of the wikis on the Community Sites page, which is linked from the front page of the official site.

In-game indicators tend to clutter up the visual display, and the previous games never had them, yet had plenty of hidden sidequests. I'd say the better time investment would be actually making the quest descriptions more useful and informative.

[Evogolist]

Just to do a bit of thread control, I'm understanding that the majority of you guys are not in favor of the Quest Icons suggestion I made. But please remember that this is a suggestion thread and try to stay on track please. I definitely should have been more clearer on my first suggestion, because I now have you guys in a WoW panic and this thread has turned into a "GTFO with you WoW-esque idea".

You know, I was reading through the thread on XIV (not started by me) that's similar to this one and even though XIV is a semi new game and the ppl over there will have more suggestions than what we'll have for this 12-13 year old game, I'm sure that at one point we've all sat our pc or at our tv screens and wondered what could possibly make this game better or make playing the game better. Well here's your chance. I'm sure that we all love this game and would like for it to stick around for another 11+ years.

For those of you who have offered suggestions, thank you and I'll edit my OP to not only have my suggestions, but all of you guys' suggestions as well.

[Spectreman]

1) Create more merits for weapon skills
2) Revive the old areas for Party XP (Dunes, Kazham, Altepa, Kuftal Tunnel)
3) Revive Zeni NM
4) Allow players to solo Assault Missions

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

http://www.playonline.com/polapps/s/...op?polg_loc=en

They do link to one of the wikis on the Community Sites page, which is linked from the front page of the official site.

It's about the only link on that page that still works (which says something about how frequently that page is updated), that particular wiki went through a fork, and the one linked to has been rendered all but useless thanks to the deliberate release of a rampant bot and a lack of follow-up (because why bother when you can just go to the other fork?).

And on top of that fragmentation of information across (by my last count) three different wikis, the only information that tends to get updated is that for bleeding-edge content. Reliable information from those sources tapers off with player interest, creating a vicious cycle where players only do the content for which there is information available.

And this is without getting into all the little bits of "How the @#$^ was I supposed to know that?" stuff strewn throughout this game ("Dcotor" status, anyone?)

That said, a printed guide is always going to be out of date after the next patch

If only there were some sort of first-party, online information resource that could be regularly maintained with game updates...

This is a problem with playability. This problem with playability has been fixed in their latest-and-greatest. The playerbase should not be paying $12.95/mo for the privilege of doing S-E's work for them.