ARR often feels very contradictory in its design (long)

i totally agree with topic it feels so claustorphobic to play

There was an idea for crafting I mentioned way back in the 1.0 boards that would make it so crafting and raiding could coexist: Make the true best in slot (for a certain number of slots per tier, not all of them) something that is unsellable, crafted, and whose mats are unsellable raid drops. That is, the absolute best in certain slots should require its owner to be both raiding and crafting (and potentially gathering, just add another unsellable item in there). Have the next-best be very close behind, but have the best be a clear winner.

http://i.imgur.com/4UUZbUK.jpg

I agree with the craftings. Crafted items are pretty much of no value outside crafting and gathering. End game gears drops from dungeons, don't have Materia slots, and free.

I wish crafting is as integrated as in GW2. Sure you can get good stuff from dungeons (in fact, that's where good stuffs come from) but the truly best ones are handcrafted. Although I admit it's more about aesthetics, but that presents a long-term goal to get the looks you always want.

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Originally Posted by Ri_ri

The catch is... you are not japanese, so your opinion is ignored. Reps and devs only posts here to say "It won't be done".

Remember about the cat butts... the moment it was said in japanese, it got a response from the designer himself. Nevermind the english forums going on it for months.

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I'd -like- to think that this kind of thing isn't something done by intent.. i'll call SQE out on a lot of things, but i don't think they're trying to ignore their customers (this time). Though, i do think the CM's on the English (and other language forums, JP included) don't give two hoots about the opinions we express, but rather just wanting to keep 'order' on the forums or inform the Devs after a post reaches a certain threshold for posts or likes. I'd also think that it's easier for one of the Devs to browse through the Japanese forums on an a lazy day and find things they want to respond to.

I'm not trying to excuse them for things, but, i don't think they're doing this particular thing consciously.

Great post OP. You articulated what I've been feeling since Alpha.

2.0 was just didn't turn out to be the game I wanted it to be, personally. It fell short, big time. I remember when I first heard about 2.0 and how Yoshida was taking the reins, it was exciting. I was really looking forward to an upgraded and expanded FFXIV 1.0.

We got this instead; barebones of a game. Yoshida was not the savior of FFXIV to me. He kinda destroyed it for me as well as the 4 others I came to this game with.

I am not sure how long it's going to take for SE to make things right or if they will even put forth a meaningful effort. How long do we wait for that though? *sigh*

Anyways, speak with your wallets guys. Turn those sub renewals off, maybe SE will take the hint.

I just think there's a lot left on the table in this game, it's good that it's THERE, but as one of the first comments said: it needs to be fleshed out. Crafting is cool, but not as prevalent as most of us would have hoped. Elemental resistances are there, haven't really seen them come into fruition yet. Blunt/Slash/Pierce is there but it doesn't play a big part either. Picking your Deity is there, doesn't really do anything yet. Cross-classing is there, but sometimes I swear it feels like the Devs don't even play this game. WHY WOULD A PALADIN CROSS CLASS SKULL SUNDER!? It only works with either a combo or defiance (neither of which cross class). Materia is there, but it's just "+ X main stat." Where is increased Radius for X skills? Lower cooldowns for X skill etc etc.

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Originally Posted by M4Fade

Anyways, speak with your wallets guys. Turn those sub renewals off, maybe SE will take the hint.

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Sadly I doubt it, im sure they are going to milk it dry before they say screw it and flip the switch. (if it gets that bad) There won't be a third revamp as i doubt anyone in their right mind would buy the game a third time or even give it a third chance... well.. with other mmos coming soon anyway. There time to shine is right now... so they better hit it hard :P

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Originally Posted by M4Fade

Anyways, speak with your wallets guys. Turn those sub renewals off, maybe SE will take the hint.

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Honestly, this is counter-intuitive I think. I wouldn't say that Yoshi doesn't know what we want from the game, so therefore I'm going to sub to fund new content. Not paying a sub to prove a point is smart for one, but dumb for all.

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Originally Posted by Jubez187

Honestly, this is counter-intuitive I think. I wouldn't say that Yoshi doesn't know what we want from the game, so therefore I'm going to sub to fund new content. Not paying a sub to prove a point is smart for one, but dumb for all.

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I knew someone would say this, and honestly I was thinking the same thing you were as I typed that.

It's obvious SE needs the funds.. and time. My faith in 'Yoshi and Co.' has slipped though.. I'll see how the game is in 6 months or so then maybe I can throw some more cash their way.

It's basically because the took WoW Theme-Park mentality and slapped it on Tanaka more "open-world" view.

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Originally Posted by Zeno_McDohl

Does any of this make sense? Does anyone agree? Am I the only one that feels ARR's design comes off as incredibly backwards? I'm open to discussion and appreciate any civil comments whether they agree with me or not.

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I'm having trouble finding any part in this that I don't agree with. Excellent post.

The forums I used to hang out on actually had a surprising accuracy rate to their predictions, so much so that I feel like I came to accept these things even before going into the Beta. The only surprises I've gotten along the way were the use of Impulse Drive pre-2.1 as Monk, the old 247 piety plateau and quick-flare rotation for BLM, knowing how to squeeze buffs out to an extra ability with faint GCD reductions (Fracture w/ Jump opening at ~2.4 for DRG, extra ID for Monk at ~2.42), etc. Little things like that keep me going, for the moment, along with the all the new 2.1 content that I'm slowly getting through (and in no rush to complete). And if the problems I feel the game has were less than fundamental, it would probably be hard to get me off the forums, even long after I were to stop playing. Sadly, that's just what they are, and it's hard to even pick a road to improvement given how fundamental each issue is, especially when we each have our own priorities. Somehow it must serve those various wants and remain cohesive. And I can't even decide truly whether the present game is even cohesive or not. For better or worse, 1.2 felt cohesive to me. Here the combat system feels like it has its own consistent design, fairly streamlined and minimalistic (I mean these both neutrally, or even positively), and the world has a consistent style to it (though I just don't personally care for that style), but everything between and around the two feels unattached and ill-designed.

Well, I've spent far too many words saying nearly nothing...

By the way, does anyone have any thorough ideas on how they might like to see crafting better integrated into the other aspects of the game?

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Originally Posted by Ri_ri

Not everything in the game needs to be a raid encounter.
I fail to understand this mentality, FATEs are a tool for leveling, exp parties and questing doesn't requires any strategy either.

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That doesn't mean that they need to be mindless. I love open-world fight encounters. But I'd like FATEs a whole lot more if they actually did require some coordination, preferably of a very different type than that of standard raids.

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Originally Posted by Nadrojj

You fail to understand that for most fates you can run up to the boss, engage, walk to the fridge to get something to drink, walk back hit one or two keys, watch some tv and get gold? Engage and fire off a skill or two and get gold. There is no stragegy, there is no team work. Whack something for 1-3 minutes and win.

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That is only possible in a group. And leeching off the contribution of your party is not cool. You can also go auto-attack in CT and get loot for it... doesn't means you should do it.

As for "whacking something for 3 minutes", I still don't see how that's worse than having someone exp-tap mobs or talking to NPCs and getting levels for it.

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Originally Posted by Skyhound

The game hasn't fully fleshed out, we barely have half of the total jobs meant for the game. Give it some time, sheesh.

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How many expansions will that take? :D

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Originally Posted by Starplayer

I mean, with enough gil, anyone can max out all crafts in 2 days without ever actually crafting anything

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You don't even need much gil. Alchemy, for example. You can buy the exp, 6500 exp cost you less than 200 gil at level 15. Because our poor director decided to sell the levequest items by NPCs extremely cheap, and reward you with gil in addition to the exp you get by spamming it (for example; "Kiss of Life", ALC 15). When I saw these things, I realized that the ruining of the crafting and the economy is not being done by mistake, but by purpose.
Not to mention how I feel when I look at my crafting levels and luminary tools. Feels like I helped SE through a rough time with my patience, assistance and money for nearly 4 years now, and now we legacy players being kicked like rabid dogs. Yoshi-P shows his true face.

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Originally Posted by Skyhound

The game hasn't fully fleshed out, we barely have half of the total jobs meant for the game. Give it some time, sheesh.

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Can't tell if troll, but will treat as serious.

The game isn't fully 'fleshed out' because it's obvious they rushed the release. You can tell this because all of the features they grabbed out attention with (housing, addons, etc) and content they promised for release (Crystal Tower, pvp) was not there for release; We still don't have all the features they sang the praises of yet. This game needed at least a few more months in development, and they needed to operate a proper beta, not the gong show they had going on last summer.

SQE doesn't get anymore chances though, this is crunch time... They have a game, they have to make it work and can't expect the community to keep waiting from patch to patch, only to hear apologies from the Devs and then more promises for the next patch.

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Originally Posted by Jubez187

Honestly, this is counter-intuitive I think. I wouldn't say that Yoshi doesn't know what we want from the game, so therefore I'm going to sub to fund new content. Not paying a sub to prove a point is smart for one, but dumb for all.

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As long as the company does not see a drop in subscriptions, they will continue to ship content as if it has the communities full backing. No one would change direction on a project if your base is still handing you money to keep doing what you're done.

As for SE needing money to fund new content.. They should take all of that out of pocket rather expect to take it completely out of revenue; Especially with how they're making decisions lately.

The OP deserves every single Like of the 100+ he got atm.
This well written and constructive post has to be shown to Yoshi.

I would be happy if I was shown some kind of roadmap, especially for crafting and gathering.
Combat content is well done and in a good shape. Economy got heavily hit with the last patch, work as intend or is it, well, being afraid of RMT?

Here's some to add to the list:

Your character can swap between all jobs at will, as long as your are outside of battle
Your chocobo companion is forever locked into the role you choose for them, with no option to level each tree individually. WAT.

My character has a legacy mark since she survived 1.0
My account is not legacy

Place item level restrictions on instances so people that are undergeared do not cause duty finder to be unreliable.
Item level restrictions seriously too low for many player's taste.

Developers totally against RMT
Developers hype, and then release content with currency costs absurdly high for the majority of the server population.

I actually tried several times to write something in the suggestions forum on this subject, but I agree that the issues are so deep rooted it is pretty hard to suggest anything. The best suggestion possible is for them to support the systems we originally tested and liked during the summer beta months such as the crafting, Dying, and Armory System, instead of focusing on building challenge modes and a gear progression.

You know I think part of the problem is that because crafting gear is something easier to potentially get, there is this idea that dungeon gear must be better to account for skill.. But they almost had something with the crafting philo mat system that could have overcome this... Except that they allowed the crafted mats to be sold, and worse, required more crafting items then it takes to get DL itself. One crafted ring requires 9 peacock ore = 9*125 = 12 runs of WP. One DL ring costs 375 = 4 runs of WP. Then if you want the best stats you have to get materia, which means SB high level gear, meaning it takes even more. In the end it frankly makes little sense to get all crafted gear by the time you have the gil to buy, or the mats to make, you already have full DL and some myth anyway. For i70 can crafted gear be the best? Yes. But by the time you have it the best you probably already have some percentage of i90 gear to replace it, Certainly I got my myth robe before I was able to put materia on my Vanya. And I never got anything but the robe because it was so fast to get DL and then drops.

If they really want best in class gear to be hard to attain, including proof of hard content, they should make best in slot (three star maybe?) crafter gear more like relics, where you do hard content to get items needed for your own weapon, something that cannot be sold. Then you could request a crafter to make a crafted item with your mats, for you. In which case crafter gear could be better than dungeon drops, because it would require all the mats to be fetched by you for you. If they did this consistently, you could have dungeon drop which was RNG, or run hard content that dropped those items multiple times to get crafter gear. This would be something that couldn't go through the market board, but would have to be face to face, or self-crafted. This honestly would be a better path than the current myth path, because it would require crafting services, without allowing for people to get gear without doing content. If also done through materia and HQ vs NQ, it would allow all aspects to be fleshed out.

Anyway this is just some random thoughts I have on the subject. Overall I agree with the OP. The dungeon/myth/philo gear being better than crafting is a broken inconsistent aspect of the game.

Maybe vanity will help. But I currently don't hold much hope for it. It certainly won't save the materia system, which currently only has value for crafting.. Which only has value for CUL. As I currently see it the entire crafting system only exists to support crafter/gather gear so CUL can make HQ food.

All of which is very sad. Because I love the crafting system, but why make something that has no purpose to someone?

Sorry for the rambling incoherence, I don't have time to fully make sense of my thoughts on the subject.....

Very well written post here OP. I already canceled my subscription renewal, and basically just log in to give away stuff and say my goodbyes to folks. The direction that the developers seem to want to take this game is make it Dungeon/Gear progression heavy, with every other game activity such as crafting becoming a secondary hobbie that actually have little to no significance to the end game scene. I find it odd that Yoshida said that Dark age of Camelot had the biggest influence on him as an mmo player, yet he chose a development route that seems to contradict philosophies of DoaC design. This game was intentionally geared to cater to the LCD of gamers, as SE did not want to risk a financial meltdown should they have a second failed launch.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

By the way, does anyone have any thorough ideas on how they might like to see crafting better integrated into the other aspects of the game?

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It's very simple: There should be three ways to collect whatever the current max ilvl gear is (currently ilvl 90 outside of mainhand); Tokens, RNG drops, and crafting. The rare materials for the crafted gear should NOT come from the same sources as the tokens and treasure drops, as it defeats the purpose of crafting said gear if you are doing the dungeon that drops equivalent gear for "free." I believe some sort of FATE/Levequest/supply system designed for only crafters/gathers to participate in that rewards high level crafting material would be more inline with making crafting and gathering relevant.

Since they've already thrown in Token materials (which I hope they don't do again), I suggest that all two-star crafted gear get bumped up 10 levels. Currently, ilvl70 armor is actually ilvl55-ish stat-wise, with the HQ being the proper ilvl70, this extremely misleading. I suggest a change to ilvl70 with the HQ being ilvl80. HQ gear should also be listed as a higher ilvl. The two-star gear takes far more time and effort to craft than simply buying ilvl70 darklight outright; to be only slightly better once you spend hundreds of thousands on materia (and outclassed once you get ilvl90 gear outside of extremely overmelded accessories) is pure nonsense.

Finally, every piece of equipment should have (removable) materia slots and be dye-able. I honestly can't fathom why they bothered to carry over materia and add the awesome dye system (and even implement a dozen new dyes in 2.1!) only to limit it to high-level crafting and gathering gear (the latter being nearly pointless to materia regardless). Materia should also increase ilvl (as far as I know, it currently doesn't).

tl;dr Make crafting the third way to obtain max ilvl gear, along with the current token and raid system, and keep the materials out of said token and raid systems. Not only would these changes make crafting relevant, they would make the armory system itself more relevant by adding another way to gear multiple classes.

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Originally Posted by Ri_ri

That is only possible in a group. And leeching off the contribution of your party is not cool. You can also go auto-attack in CT and get loot for it... doesn't means you should do it.

As for "whacking something for 3 minutes", I still don't see how that's worse than having someone exp-tap mobs or talking to NPCs and getting levels for it.

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Again you fail to see the point. They could have done so much better with fates instead of having them be a zerg fest. Bring the environment into play in this beautiful world they have.

Example - fate pops, giant marlboro, only way to get the killing blow is to have a giant bolder fall on the marlboro, it would require timing and multiple targets. You'd have to fight the marlboro down to a sliver of health, then attack the rock that is hanging on an over hang, drag the marlboro over to the rock and let it fall on him. You miss with the rock, you have to start over. You keep attacking the marlboro and drop it to 0% health, he does "death breath" and everyone dies. This is just an example i came up with in 30 seconds that has more depth than the current fates we have. Before you pick it apart as to why it wouldn't work please read the part again where I said i thought of it in 30 seconds as an example.

The issue I have with fates is they are too easy. It's an instant win. Behem and Odin are cool, but the only hard part about them is being able to see the mob. (which I hear they have fixed but I honestly haven't bothered with these two fates since the first week since I am not fate spamming in those zones)

TLDR - Add some difficulty to fates instead of easy mode zerg fests.

PS - SE if you use this fate please name it "To Squish a Marlboro."

A well-stated, excellent OP. I agree: SE created these marvelous systems (multiple classes per character, crafting/gathering, materia, and a beautiful open world), and then "kneecaps" each one of them in some way.

Hopefully the devs can see that they're working against their best designs and revitalize this content in future patches.

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Originally Posted by Skyhound

The game hasn't fully fleshed out, we barely have half of the total jobs meant for the game. Give it some time, sheesh.

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"Give It Time."

1st thing I see someone say all the time lol They have had time and people told them what we would like and yet they pump out stuff we don't want. Yep, keep waiting.

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Originally Posted by frostmagemari

As long as the company does not see a drop in subscriptions, they will continue to ship content as if it has the communities full backing. No one would change direction on a project if your base is still handing you money to keep doing what you're done.

As for SE needing money to fund new content.. They should take all of that out of pocket rather expect to take it completely out of revenue; Especially with how they're making decisions lately.

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That's completely untrue. It would be true if Yoshi & Co. were completely oblivious to our wants and needs, but they DO read these forums. I do admit that we are just playing catch-up because patch 2.1 is just an extension of the release, and now they're taking their time with the PS4 version, but I know that they know what we want.

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Originally Posted by CHunterX

It's very simple: There should be three ways to collect whatever the current max ilvl gear is (currently ilvl 90 outside of mainhand); Tokens, RNG drops, and crafting. The rare materials for the crafted gear should NOT come from the same sources as the tokens and treasure drops, as it defeats the purpose of crafting said gear if you are doing the dungeon that drops equivalent gear for "free." I believe some sort of FATE/Levequest/supply system designed for only crafters/gathers to participate in that rewards high level crafting material would be more inline with making crafting and gathering relevant.


Since they've already thrown in Token materials (which I hope they don't do again), I suggest that all two-star crafted gear get bumped up 10 levels. Currently, ilvl70 armor is actually ilvl55-ish stat-wise, with the HQ being the proper ilvl70, this extremely misleading. I suggest a change to ilvl70 with the HQ being ilvl80. HQ gear should also be listed as a higher ilvl. The two-star gear takes far more time and effort to craft than simply buying ilvl70 darklight outright; to be only slightly better once you spend hundreds of thousands on materia (and outclassed once you get ilvl90 gear outside of extremely overmelded accessories) is pure nonsense.

Finally, every piece of equipment should have (removable) materia slots and be dye-able. I honestly can't fathom why they bothered to carry over materia and add the awesome dye system (and even implement a dozen new dyes in 2.1!) only to limit it to high-level crafting and gathering gear (the latter being nearly pointless to materia regardless). Materia should also increase ilvl (as far as I know, it currently doesn't).

tl;dr Make crafting the third way to obtain max ilvl gear, along with the current token and raid system, and keep the materials out of said token and raid systems. Not only would these changes make crafting relevant, they would make the armory system itself more relevant by adding another way to gear multiple classes.

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Someone give this guy a medal.

Crafting should allow the creation of high level gear. I DO NOT, however, agree that the absolute maximum level gear should be available from crafting. Crafted gears should be one tier lower than the currently available highest tier.

This is because the gears should complement gameplay experience, not the other way around. You don't want people to faceroll new contents because they can overgear themselves relatively easily.

Crafted gears should be that stepping stone from your current gear to the next best one

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Originally Posted by KyoKunChan

"Give It Time."

1st thing I see someone say all the time lol They have had time and people told them what we would like and yet they pump out stuff we don't want. Yep, keep waiting.

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There is one common thing I have seen with every single game that does it wrong.
Closed beta: "Give it time."
Open beta: "Just give it time."
Release: "Give it some time."
First bug patch: "Give it some more time."
First major content patch: "Need to give it time."

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Originally Posted by KyoKunChan

"Give It Time."

1st thing I see someone say all the time lol They have had time and people told them what we would like and yet they pump out stuff we don't want. Yep, keep waiting.

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What came from 2.1 that we, as a community, DIDN'T want? It may not have been the most optimal content for the 1% of people in full i90, but I wouldn't say there was no content that we didn't want.

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Originally Posted by Jubez187

What came from 2.1 that we, as a community, DIDN'T want? It may not have been the most optimal content for the 1% of people in full i90, but I wouldn't say there was no content that we didn't want.

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There are no new FATEs to spam. FATE students are sad

I agree with everything in OP.
This game has completely failed to grab be so far.

But no other major MMO i've tried, and i've tried mostly all of them, has grabbed me either, except for Final Fantasy XI.
Plus, i'm a Final Fantasy lifer since the NES days. I'm most comfortable in this world.

So for better or worse, i'm riding this train out its course.

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Originally Posted by Jubez187

That's completely untrue. It would be true if Yoshi & Co. were completely oblivious to our wants and needs, but they DO read these forums. I do admit that we are just playing catch-up because patch 2.1 is just an extension of the release, and now they're taking their time with the PS4 version, but I know that they know what we want.

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But how many second chances are we giving them? When are people actually going to hold this company to some sort of standard instead of just endlessly spouting "it'll get better" to everyone that wants SQE to try to improve themselves.

And as for knowing what we want, i can consider that true when they start -giving- us what we want; I'm not talking pipe-dreams or mail-order epics, i'm talking real solid content and reliable upkeep to content that's here (ie. Odin's still a cluster that brings down servers...)

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Originally Posted by Jubez187

What came from 2.1 that we, as a community, DIDN'T want? It may not have been the most optimal content for the 1% of people in full i90, but I wouldn't say there was no content that we didn't want.

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Did the community want the same three primals some people struggled on to be rehashed with extreme mechanics instead of new HM Primals? Did we want two new HM versions of Copperbell and Haukke Manor? Dailies? A raid that currently drops lower ilvl gear than most of us are wearing? I for one did not want any of these. Give us new hard mode primal fights, new dungeons and higher tier gear instead of the main raid dropping ilvl80 stuff.

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Originally Posted by Raestloz

Someone give this guy a medal.

Crafting should allow the creation of high level gear. I DO NOT, however, agree that the absolute maximum level gear should be available from crafting. Crafted gears should be one tier lower than the currently available highest tier.

This is because the gears should complement gameplay experience, not the other way around. You don't want people to faceroll new contents because they can overgear themselves relatively easily.

Crafted gears should be that stepping stone from your current gear to the next best one

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"Easily overgearing" via crafting would not be an issue. From the current market standpoint, possibly, but once (if) every piece of armor accepted materia and crafted armor/weaponry was actually in demand? Prices for both would jump tremendously, and overmelding wouldn't be as prevalent because of said increase. It would also put spiritbond parties back into the mix, giving DoW/M a way to profit (but not generate gil, which SE is purposely avoiding) off their class.

Crafted gear would be equal to everything else and in demand, DoH (and potentially DoL) are now useful and in demand, DoW/M now have a method of making a profit. Can't get much more complementary than that.

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Originally Posted by Nadrojj

Give us new hard mode primal fights, new dungeons and higher tier gear instead of the main raid dropping ilvl80 stuff.

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I wanted those things. What you want IS coming (Leviathan, Shiva [rumored]). SE had a lot on their plate with a buggy launch and whatnot. I don't think you understand the time it would have taken to:
1. Think, create, write the story for the new primals.
2. Create the quests leading up to the battle.
3. Design the primal's art, then RENDER it and its arena/battleground/stage/whatever.
4. Design the fight, think of the mechanics etc etc.
5. Code the fight into the game.
6. Write and record the music. (I'm a musician, this takes a while)
7. Playtest the fight, make sure all things are working as intended and that it's a good difficulty.

But you seem like a shiny-new-toy raider. So chances are you would rather have new primals right now at the expense of having 0 story. You want to log on, see "Leviathan is now available via the duty finder" run it, loot it, desert it. Then you know where you'll be? Right back on here begging for the next shiny-new-toy raid.

You just sound irrational, honestly. You're looking for Expansion-esque content out of the first major patch. I was actually wow'd at how much stuff they did in the patch. To read everything in the patch notes takes about 15 minutes.

Thanks OP for the epic read link.

Definitely agree with a lot of the points that were brought up on that Reddit link. This game more potential for greatness, but a lot of it is being heavily underutilized currently. I'm pretty sure the developers are well aware of these contradictions though lol.

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Originally Posted by Jubez187

I wanted those things. What you want IS coming (Leviathan, Shiva [rumored]). SE had a lot on their plate with a buggy launch and whatnot. I don't think you understand the time it would have taken to:
1. Think, create, write the story for the new primals.
2. Create the quests leading up to the battle.
3. Design the primal's art, then RENDER it and its arena/battleground/stage/whatever.
4. Design the fight, think of the mechanics etc etc.
5. Code the fight into the game.
6. Write and record the music. (I'm a musician, this takes a while)
7. Playtest the fight, make sure all things are working as intended and that it's a good difficulty.

But you seem like a shiny-new-toy raider. So chances are you would rather have new primals right now at the expense of having 0 story. You want to log on, see "Leviathan is now available via the duty finder" run it, loot it, desert it. Then you know where you'll be? Right back on here begging for the next shiny-new-toy raid.

You just sound irrational, honestly. You're looking for Expansion-esque content out of the first major patch. I was actually wow'd at how much stuff they did in the patch. To read everything in the patch notes takes about 15 minutes.

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I love assumptions. Sweeping generalizations after reading two of my posts about my playstyle is exactly what I expect from this board. Carry on champ. Continue to be WoW'd (see what I did there?) at how much stuff they did this patch and happily pay your monthly fee. I believe in SE but I'm disappointed to say the least with 2.1.

I've contributed plenty to this conversation if you read the whole thread, what ideas are you bringing to the table to make the game better? Or are you just here to play mr super cool guy white knight?

I think this is a well written post and has some good points. I'll highlight a few things:

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Originally Posted by Zeno_McDohl

The biggest is the Armory System...In 1.0, ignoring the critical reception for a moment, the class design was built around the idea of cross classing skills...

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I agree that the Armory System seems limited due to the certain lockouts in place. I also realize that without these lockouts that they'd lose subscriptions. There are several players that only want to play the content once and they're done with it. If people could get geared up within 3 days by spamming CT, Coil or Extreme Primals all day everyday, these people wouldn't be back for the next couple of months due to exhausting the content.


In terms of the cross-class skills, the lack of true choice was even evident in 1.0 because you were more or less pigeon-holed into having a specific set of abilities to optimally play your class. Wanted to play a tank but didn't have a THM at 50? Well, you were screwed because you were expected to have Emulate. It wasn't until the large class overhauls and job system was implemented that classes seemed to gain some sort of purpose and didn't require you to have everything leveled to 50. (because not everyone wants to play everything)

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I'll bring up Dye and Materia.

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I believe they should let all gear apart from job specific stuff be dyeable. The job specific gear is iconic and should keep its looks. I agree with your sentiment though; the dying system is largely useless because it can only be used on crafted gear, which is pretty limited to crafting or gathering specific gear in the grand scheme of things. There are some people of course that like to make different gear sets for town gear and stuff like that, but this doesn't affect the majority of players I think.

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And finally I'll talk about the open world.

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I feel they did a great job re-creating the world. They're starting to put more things into it (starting with daily quests this patch) so maybe this will continue to improve as time goes on. I really don't want to go back to the days of HNM camping though. It just isn't fun having to wake up in the wee hours of the morning, or competing against people to see who has the better bot.

That's just my two cents.

Keep in mind that this game was one thing, and had to be made into something different to find success. Yes, they "rebuilt" the game, but there still is going to be a bit of a transition.