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I personally think they are making a step in the rite direction with patch 1.18. With that said this game still lacks the hook line and sinker that ffxi brought to the table. I firmly believe they need to make the game more party oriented. That's what made ffxi so popular and most of your fans are people who play ffxi. Hell I'm one of them and just signed back in once I heard of this patch.
FFXIV is not FFXI though. I'm really glad they made XIV casual and party oriented. I have a full time job and when I get home, I like to indulge myself in a fantasy world that has that flexibility. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed FFXI until the hackers, bots, RMTs got way out of hand. My hope with FFXIV is that it will never get to that point.
When I don't have a lot of time to play I like the causal stuff. But with that said when I have the time to dedicate to the game and my character I would like to be immersed in group battles and events. I haven't seen anything like this at all so far. I don't know if they plan to or not. But I feel like it's lacking in that content. I am also aware ffxi and ffxiv are two different games. As much as I would like some of the ffxi features in ffxiv that may never happen.
I've played some hours now and think the patch 1.18 were good. The Auto-attack is nice. Grand Companies gives you better party leves. Finally it's easier to repair items.
But here is my current wish list:
+ Gives us the flag-icon and stuff so it gets easier to start a party, and see who wants to team up.
+ It's still better to equip high rank armour even if you are at a low rank. Fix so you have to use a more proper ranked armour.
+ It would be fun to have your companion at your side while doing solo fighting.
My two cents:
1.18 is good. It make solo'ing difficult to do and requires strategic planning for some battles (yay! no more "hack and slash" players). This change makes the game feel more mature and increases the "social" aspect of the game. Also, this new repair system and company "money" was a nice way to temporarily fix the ecomony (you should give the USA some suggestions)
I will say that I think caster's were kind of shafted. I don't know if that is because they were TOO good before 1.18 or if they are really disadvantaged right now (drawing hate for healing, really now?)
Suggestions:
Item search option in markets: It would be nice if you could also search for retainers that are looking to buy something (ie, I need 100 wind crystals. I request that from my retainer and give him cash. Players with 100 wind crystals see's that I am looking. Transaction occurs.)
Skill points for skill quests. They just give you gil and guild marks now.
Targetting system always seems to tab through mobs/allies randomly. It would be nice if it did it based on distance (ie Heated battle with a marmot. I desperately need a heal. Heal ::phew::. ::Tab to nuke the beast:: Target is a beetle that looks like a dead pixel on my screen its so far away.)
A "Looking for party/I have a party" system. Spamming the shout box is irritating.
Finally, raids should be hard. The r45+ is hella hard and awesome. But, it would make me feel like I had a shot if there were some clues along the way. Instead of wiping 10 times before learning the blue circles make mobs disappear. Maybe the clues would be cool when you are a lower ranked character. Oh, and by all means make me work for these clues (they don't even have to be great clues, just give me something to make me feel like I have a shot).
Enough ranting... for now.
truth be told im new to game and unsure of how i create party or use link shell?
I also think the patch did a lot right as well as a lot wrong.
Companies feel really fun to me (dialog, quests), and I like the prospect of being able to earn points and spend them on gear and items.
The new skill graphics and abolition of the stamina gauge feel great to me also.
I play THM so I can't really say how the update effected mele's, but as a mage I feel that the game is definitely more difficult now. Not all of the new difficulty feels necessary though.
For example, I like doing damage but understand that those who can heal carry the responsibility to do so. With no more healing aoe I find it a lot harder to help parties survive (with lag and the difficulty in targeting it's sometimes impossible for me to make good use of sacrifice/cure). MP costs for sacrifice/cure are unreasonable (75mp or so?). I mean you can argue that it's ok, but given that you have to cure so much more since aoe is gone it really isn't.
Repairs are better but still fundamentally off I believe. I don't remember who I heard recommend this but armor damage only upon death sounds a lot better. Conceptually speaking gear degrades much too quickly. It's like, am I wearing armor or paper lol.
All in all I like the patch and think the developers should give themselves a pat on the back.
My recommendations are to lower healing magic mp costs, make healing aoe again (if you really want 14 to be different from 11 don't start adopting concepts like dedicated curaga), make gear degrade a lot less (crafters already make money selling all the gear so repairs are meh anyway), and continue adding awesome dialog to the game!