Simplicty - Key factor in moving FFXIV towards Success.

First, I commend Mr.Yoshi P and the new dev team for their efforts trying their best to take the game forward including 1.18 which was a good and appreciated step forward.
In this light, i'd really like to bring to attention a simple but huge hindrance in FFXIV's progress which i feel really is a major source and root of frustration in the vast majority of players and this has been reflected time and again in many threads. So thought i'd make a thread about this with the hope that Mr.Yoshi and the Dev team will take this seriously and hopefully make this concept the foundation of which they build upon in whatever new features and developments they introduce.

The concept is simply..

[SIZE="5"]Simplicity[/SIZE]

The game more than anything at this stage, needs to be simplified. This is especially important with the game having the casual player in mind although i can see it equally frustrating for all types of players. Reason simply is, besides the tediousness involved, no one wants to waste alot of the game-time just going through the over complicated and long processes involved in doing anything. I will point out some points/examples brought up time and again and until now (post 1.18) are still a major source of frustration and are the cause of dissatisfaction. With the sincere intention of making this useful for the devs, i will propose basic solutions. Please all, feel free to add to the list and voice your opinion on this. and please press the Like button if you agree. Mr.Yoshi P is asking for our feedback to move forward.

Quoting Mr.Yoshi P:

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I realize some of you may be confused or upset at some of the sudden changes, but that’s why the forums are there for you to have your voice heard. So please leave us your feedback!

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We’ll be taking all your feedback, positive and negative, into account as we move forward. So please keep it coming!

1) Party search - Unnecessarily complicated and just doesn't work. It's so bad that i personally know of no one that actually uses it. Those that did try using it, stopped using it after trying it once or twice.
We just need a very basic and simple interface, along the lines of Seek >> join

Any useful additional good features like further filtering and comments.

A seek Flag might be a good thing, although the game isn't crucially party oriented yet but as it is encouraging party play, this would certainly help people party up and hence meet and socialize better making the game more community friendly - bonus!

2) Setting abilities - It is just a pain in the rear to have to worry everytime about changing a class and re-setting all the abilities.. and unfortunately Macros really isn't the solution for this. Also, The actual process of choosing abilities and juggling them around is quite tedious in itself. While I'm not a big fan of this whole class system and complete customization of abilities from ground up and I hope the new job system will do away with this system and would then like to see fixed pre-loaded abilities the moment you choose a job, there certainly are ways for improving current class system configuration system.

The least that could be done as mentioned in the past, is have your last class configuration saved and reloaded so you don't have to reset the abilities back everytime, whether manually or through countless macros for all the classes which are ever increasing with the upcoming patches/expansions.

There must be an easier way to pick and choose abilities, it's just tedious the way it is now, going all the way to the right (esp. through a keyboard), choosing a class, choosing an ability from there, doing the same for another 5 or 6 or more classes till you have your whole list of abilities set. A simple interface can make it more user-friendly and quicker. I would say solution for this is more in UI design.

Swapping Abilities around in your ability slots without having to go back and forth all the time to the main class menu. In the current design, it should be as simple as highlight one ability, go to another and instantly swap them together instead of having to go back to the class drop-down list. Perhaps a light-weight drag & drop feature can make it all easier.

3) UI Design - While there have been some improvements which is good to see, it really still doesn't feel too user-friendly. I would personally like to see whole UI revamped. Still feels rather slow to navigate around the UI, especially the Gear/Inventory since a good amount of time is spent there. And ofcourse.. The horrendous chat window which has been a royal pain since the start.
First and Foremost - Chat Window is still a huge pain. It is just very unpleasant to deal with. Whether it's scrolling through the history, or having to create numerous different custom chat windows which end up clogging the screen, or the horrible lag. Why not have a chat system like FFXI? As far as i recall that had no issues with Lag and, it was just one window that did it all. Multiple tabs to filter through the different types of chat - LS, party, battle, generic chat, etc. It was situated and fixed at the bottom of the screen and expands when needed and lag-free. was perfect. Can we have such a system back please? would make it much more pleasant.

Is there anyway to make it lag-free scrolling through the menu? Just a very smooth transition from one item to the other.

Same issue with Chat as well, it's still unpleasantly laggy to type into chat window that i often end up either mistyping or deleting more than what i intended on deleting when deleting text, due to lag - and my connection is fine.

Why is it that until now there is no simple feature of showing the difference in stats when hovering over a new item i.e showing what it descended/ascended from as a point of reference. So example: 90 -> 120 This is a very simple basic feature and is a constant annoyance not having. Have to keep scrolling through the items to compare each attribute. This should be a piece of cake fix.

4) Battle System - This is a work in progress area, and while it's nowhere near perfect, i do like how it is changing, It does feel like it's moving towards a more strategic style of play which is great. I think it's already well established that Battle Regimen is a complete mess and needs to be completely redone, complicated and hardly fun. I know it's been mentioned in a recent letter there's plans for the whole Battle Regimen system to be redone from the ground up, so thats good.
Skill Chains and magic bursts could completely replace Battle Regimen. Not only are they much simpler and logical to perform. Theyre much more fun and interactive. Was one of the most awesome experiences in XI battle system, involved strategy, picking your party and weapons precisely and boom you watch the effect and numbers fly, very satisfactory, the whole party would be cheering and happy, that was some pure awesome-ness. It also gives room for distinction between Good and slack players, so it's excellent in every way. I would say expand on that, make it even more fun, introducing wild and fun ideas to it.

Magic casting could be simplified further - still feels you have to press multiple times to get things done. A possible solution that could work for controller and keyboard is to have it instant cast on target when button is tapped. If button is held, then allow player to select a separate target to cast on.

5) Retainers - This has been a real nuisance since launch and still widely unused especially by the casuals. While i welcome new ideas and exciting features into a new game, sometimes re-inventing the wheel isn't the way to go, especially if it doesn't work properly or efficiently. Selling and buying continues to be tedious and time-consuming and frustrating process. It really just sucks too much valuable game-time and is quite flawed. Too many people have complained from this and i realize Auction House is being examined. Though i hope it's not just examination, but actual implementation.
Simple.. Bring back Auction House, it works, it's convenient, its less hassle for everyone. Retainer system has already been improved on a few occasions, in the end it feels like a broken Auction house system which is still inefficient.

6) Crafting - This game holds crafting as an integral part of the system. While it has improved recently which is great, it could certainly welcome further simplicity. It's nasty spending lots of time on crafting especially if you're a casual and have limited game-time. Dedicated crafters can add to this, but in a nutshell:
Simplify the process, less clicking and scrolling, more autonomous. Eg. When you synth an item, you should be able to repeat straight away as you do in local leves, instead of going back to menu and click recipe again.

These are some of the main points that come to mind, all well known issues and while some of them are slowly being addressed, i personally feel they need urgent priority before new features such as raids and what not, as these issues form the foundation of the game. All related to the idea of simplicity. I really hope to see this basic fundamental concept take priority and become a primary focus in future development.
Please add your comments and hit the Like button if you agree. Do mention what else that's bothering you which you feel can be simplified to make the game a more enjoyable experience.

Thanks for reading.

I mentioned a lot of these on another thread, I agree with everything you have written especially the UI lag, the chat window being incredibly cumbersome (I can't even check if people have spoken to me while I run AFK for a drink easily) and as I mentioned in my thread:

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Originally Posted by Nixius

I switch back to archer and now I have my horrible refill quivers ability in the top row where I normally have Raging strikes. I cannot de-equip refill because I am not allowed, therefore I cannot move it around. There needs to be some sort of smart way of 'replacing' one ability with another so you can order it much easier. Very frustrated about this =P.

Of course if there is already I way I apologise in advance and please let me know how! =P

I say bring in some drag and drop. Also It's cumbersome to chat whilst you are crafting.

I'd like to add a couple of things as well I've said in another thread which is not as nicely laid out as this one.

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Magic casting could be simplified further - still feels you have to press multiple times to get things done. maybe have the default setting to cast straight away on target instead of prompt to choose the target even though you already have a target.

I think an option that would work for controller and keyboard is to have it instant cast on target when button is tapped. If button is held, then allow player to select a separate target to cast on.

For crafting, I think it takes too many items from too many different classes. Also, the rank requirements to make an item don't match up with the gear being made. I have to be at least rank 14 weaver to make armor optimal for rank 4? Seriously lame.

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Originally Posted by Nixius

I say bring in some drag and drop. Also It's cumbersome to chat whilst you are crafting.

Cool. Added that in.

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Originally Posted by kynous

I think an option that would work for controller and keyboard is to have it instant cast on target when button is tapped. If button is held, then allow player to select a separate target to cast on.

For crafting, I think it takes too many items from too many different classes. Also, the rank requirements to make an item don't match up with the gear being made. I have to be at least rank 14 weaver to make armor optimal for rank 4? Seriously lame.

Good idea on the holding down button, that could be a middle solution instead of changing default setting which can be good or bad for mages depending on their playstyle.

Thanks for the posts, i have updated the original message with your ideas.