Suggestions: Quality of Life Stuff and other suggestions

[Evogolist]

So there's one of these type of threads on the FFXIV forums, but when I come here there seems to be a lot of suggestions for different stuff, but not a thread where many people can come and post all of there suggestions in one place for the devs to look at all once. So I thought that it would be a great idea to make this thread. And seeing as how over the last 2-3 years the devs have become more responsive, I figured, why not give it a try? So what are some things that could help make this game better for both new and veteran players?

Here's two things from me that I feel should be addressed to help make a player's life in the game easier and bring the game up to date with current MMO's.

1) Make locating quest NPCs and/or quest description easier 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 The only way that a player can even identify who is who is by either having a hard copy of an out of date Brady's Guide like I do, or searching the web for a guide.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 a lot of stress that comes with doing quests in the game.

2) Empyrean Armor Seals Storage. This is by far the biggest issue I have to date. Nothing sucks more than having a bunch of for your Empyrean Armor taking up a lot of inventory space. Sure I could just drop what I don't need for my main job, but then the problem that comes in is what happens when I need to reacquire those same seals later on in my FFXI career for another job? Having an npc that players can store those excessive amounts of seals on would do wonders for people like myself who like to level and play multiple jobs.

I do have one more suggestion that came to mind as I was typing.

3) Artifact Weapon Upgrades. With the newly acquired ability to reforge and upgrade our Relic/Mythic/Empyrean Weapons I couldn't help but wonder, what happened to our very first special weapon...our Artifact Weapons? Back in the day, Artifact weapons were the first step to mastering you role/job. For some jobs, the artifact weapon was an useful addition to a lvl 40-42 job, but for others they were just an road block that needed to be passed in order to get your af body armor. My suggestion is to allow us to reforge them as well. Some players may gripe about having to upgrade yet another weapon, but the great thing about this game is that you always have some piece of gear that's more useful than others.

Last one from me

4) NPC Adventuring Fellow armor upgrades. While most people complain about not being able to lvl their npc fellow the last 4 lvls, my complaint is a bit more different and I don't think most people have mentioned this. Why is it that our npcs our still stuck wearing outdated pre-CoP gear? I mean how is it that they were released like a patch or two after the release of CoP and yet, you can't equip them with even that expansion's set of gear. I mean sure, while gear absolutely has no effect on your npc fellow's stats, I think it would be nice to have gear options that are more up to date with the latest expansion as opposed to Vanilla or RoTZ out dated gear. So why not SE? Trust npcs are nice, you've really neglected our npc fellows over the years.

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.

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.

Bring the EXP lvl back to what it was, it's so painstaking to grind out that low level, even with exp bands like Emperor and Empress (Kupofried on my RUN mule, but that's another story).

Though one thing I definitely agree on are those seals, why not just let us store them with something like a Shami system? Can put the NPC right beside Joachim/Horst

Bring about the coliseum please. If not then take out the npc that talks about it and it's part on the map.

Also airship fights. Seriously even now in game we get told why we can't take one to SoA sort of. You put in pirate attacks for some ferry rides and have fish or undead pop onto the ships so why not this in the air?

Stop being treated as someone no one has heard of. Only so many time a person can save the world and still get treated like a no one. Though you did fix thus a little with the trust npcs.

Find a woman for the prince quest. Would quit and restart this quest on my main more often til it said it wanted someone who looked like me if I didn't have to rezone after quitting.

Bridget and her quest for the love of god stop making the required armour needed random and at times harder to get than an Umbril ooze to drop. Make it so that there is an armor change every ten levels after 52 that is the same for the jobs that can equip the body and pants or w/e she asks for when turning in sub liars or just to do her seal quest once for completion for the zone achievements.

Drop rate on the items for the opo-opo crown needing an increase or at least another way to get the ones that drops off certain mobs.

Garrison: make it so people will also want to go do these again. Maybe upgrade the level of the gear they drop along with the drop rate of the other items you can get.

More adventure fellow quests: give us more story quests. Im sure there are other things Luto would find interesting. Specially with now with SoA.

That's all I can think of right now

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.

it is much easier and in the long run much more practical for them(newer Players) to learn about wiki etc.

it would be a waste of time and resources. we have large issues than quest icons and storage...

i mean really look how long it takes them to implement all recent content. everything is sectioned off and split up.

what we really need is content with better gameplay. content that is long lasting. real updates. so that give us a wide spectrum of content to do that will last for 6 months+ for linkshells. bring back the camaraderie.

so here is my suggestion to what the game content overall should be like.

i will probably miss something but im sure you guys will get the idea.

solo only
farming gil via syntesis mats, proc dynamis, salvage,
monstrosity
trust
crafting/helm

6man and below
assault
nyzul
skirmish
AA
orb *NMs
reives
coalition assignment.
R.O.E


12 man and below
vw


18man
Delve
higher tier vw.

18+
Wildkeeper reives


here is my suggestions

Update ZNM to 3 tiers
solo
take pictures for zeni

6 man tier
purchase NM pops from npc with pictures.
3 to 6 different NMs in the tier. based on Toau Bestiary.
drop accessories updated from previous ZNMs.
possiblities to drop single alexandrites.
synthesis materials relation to update gear for next tier(s). must be crafted by multiple guilds.
upon defeat of nm, everyone in party gets a KI.

12 man tier
harder NMs for 12 man groups
NM pops from combination of KIs
3-9 different nms
drop accessories updated from previous ZNMs
drops 1-4 Alexandrites.
upon defeat of nm, everyone in party gets a KI.


18 man tier
harder nms for 18 man groups
nm pops from combination of KI from previous tiers/path.
drops updated ilvld enkidu, aurum, oracle.
drops 1 alexandrite pouch 100%

we dont need any rewards directly from NPC like Delve or skirmish. Put us out there let us have fun killing NMs.

the alex and new gear will give content drops for everyone and it will also push interest in mythics. its what everyone wants.

Update Dynamis II - for 18 man groups
adds zone based on beastman strong holds, davoi, castle oztorja, beadeuz
maybe have new cop like zones from toau. like whitegate, al zahbi for accessories.

Please bring back game elements where blms Sleepga, THF puller and have Traps. example. aggro a stone and 10 mobs spawn.

alliance of players vs an alliance mobs. NM generals with new 1 hour abilities, just the ability to massacre larger amounts of mobs.

we dont need reservations where one group can enter or 4 hours caps to the events. 1 hour-2hour time limit.

We need better drop rates then dynamis was prior to proc update.

maybe dynamis af gear +3 that augment newer JAs and Merit II abilities. mobs must have with better drop rates. 1/15 kills guarentee a random job drop.
maybe add a currency similiar to plasm to purchase base items and upgrades from an NPC while allowing them to drop randomly in zones. similar to delve.

no need to update drop rates to relic currency. 0-3 per mob or just exclude it so that the players still have solo dynamis in the previous zones.

revamp VW.

add a path to vw from SOA that drops update/better gear, hmp/hmp pouches. cinders/dross
require the base athos/rubeus and ogiers to update new gear.

linkshell can grow and ppl can be trused to play with each other. there is enough solo content. s.e has done a great job in creating a foundation for solo casual play. updates to R.O.E Trust and monstrosity.

Bring back Level cap fights - 6man

Similiar to BCNMs but with a system that drops rare/ex and revamps gear 1-75. I think at this point most players didnt experience lower leveling and add difficulties like level caps will challenge older players and new players in the right way.

it also sucks to do lower BCNM the drops are rather useless and there is no space for holding level capped gear. if this rare.ex is added with slips there will be great depth added to the player base
the rewards for these can be new lower gear sets, 4-5 tiers

revamping gear with these models.
20 lizard beetle trump gear etc

30 bone noct

50 jse?

60 darksteel

75 sky armor and sea accessories


of course Delve II

tree with plantiods
hurkan with birds
and lion with beasts


with these events im sure the playerbase will be happy and busy for a long time.
we didnt need delve to give us 60k plasm it made it so easier to complete the content after 3 zone wins. just tone down the drop rates/ rewards. give yourself more time to develop the game which we are busy murdering mobs/NMs.

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.

That's it for me, but what other suggestions do you guys have that could help make this game better and breathe new life into the game?

[Renaissance2K]

I don't really have anything else to add, but I think the Empyrean storage option is a great idea that I haven't seen mentioned before. Sure, you can store them on a mule, but it'd be much more convenient if you could just store them with the Magian Moogles until you need them or something. In fact, I'd be in favor of that for all Magian trial items, including the NM trophies.

My Storage is clogged with currencies and assorted upgrade items (Veridgris Stones, I'm looking at you), and it'd be nice if I had the option of using them in the same way I use Beastmen Seals or Ancient Beastcoins. Dump it all at a NPC, and have an option to use/withdraw it.

[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.

[Anjou]

Bring the EXP lvl back to what it was, it's so painstaking to grind out that low level, even with exp bands like Emperor and Empress (Kupofried on my RUN mule, but that's another story).

Though one thing I definitely agree on are those seals, why not just let us store them with something like a Shami system? Can put the NPC right beside Joachim/Horst

[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.

[Draylo]

No quest icons... please. Leave that crap to WoW and FFXIV, it makes the game look so ugly.

[Evogolist]

No quest icons... please. Leave that crap to WoW and FFXIV, it makes the game look so ugly.

It's fine that you don't like the quest icons and you have every right not to as well as every right to express your opinion, but what about everyone else? Staying on topic, XI is very vague in telling you who's a quest npc and where or who to go to next. Like I said without a proper up to date guide, you're pretty much out of luck, especially for newer players coming in who don't know anything about FFXIclopedia, FFXIZAM, or any other website that offers guides/walkthroughs for the game. So my question to you is, if quest icons are not a good choice/option, then what would be a better way to help players locate quest NPCs?

[Sfchakan]

If they added quest icons, almost every single non-vendor NPC in the game would be marked by now.

It would look pretty atrocious.

[Lithera]

Bring about the coliseum please. If not then take out the npc that talks about it and it's part on the map.

Also airship fights. Seriously even now in game we get told why we can't take one to SoA sort of. You put in pirate attacks for some ferry rides and have fish or undead pop onto the ships so why not this in the air?

Stop being treated as someone no one has heard of. Only so many time a person can save the world and still get treated like a no one. Though you did fix thus a little with the trust npcs.

Find a woman for the prince quest. Would quit and restart this quest on my main more often til it said it wanted someone who looked like me if I didn't have to rezone after quitting.

Bridget and her quest for the love of god stop making the required armour needed random and at times harder to get than an Umbril ooze to drop. Make it so that there is an armor change every ten levels after 52 that is the same for the jobs that can equip the body and pants or w/e she asks for when turning in sub liars or just to do her seal quest once for completion for the zone achievements.

Drop rate on the items for the opo-opo crown needing an increase or at least another way to get the ones that drops off certain mobs.

Garrison: make it so people will also want to go do these again. Maybe upgrade the level of the gear they drop along with the drop rate of the other items you can get.

More adventure fellow quests: give us more story quests. Im sure there are other things Luto would find interesting. Specially with now with SoA.

That's all I can think of right now

[Draylo]

It's fine that you don't like the quest icons and you have every right not to as well as every right to express your opinion, but what about everyone else? Staying on topic, XI is very vague in telling you who's a quest npc and where or who to go to next. Like I said without a proper up to date guide, you're pretty much out of luck, especially for newer players coming in who don't know anything about FFXIclopedia, FFXIZAM, or any other website that offers guides/walkthroughs for the game. So my question to you is, if quest icons are not a good choice/option, then what would be a better way to help players locate quest NPCs?

How about they just talk to the NPCs to see if they offer a quest? It is the same in any previous FF game, there were no quest icons in the series outside of 14.