Calendar, Company Chest QoL Features, Timer Items, New Aetherytes, Feedback Voting
Hi. Before I begin, I want to say that I love this game. I grew up on Final Fantasy, and I just made full mentor on XIV. This post is not to criticize Square but rather to tell them how I think they could improve the game.
I recently got into running a guild with a few other people and I started using the company chest. I was floored when I realized I couldn't rename any tabs, auto-organize items, or assign icons to tabs to differentiate them. This is something WoW has had for like... 15 years. The only reason I use WoW as a comparison is because it's a good baseline when you're looking at certain features that mmo's should have. I'm not a fan or player of WoW but when I used to play these features seemed like a no-brainer.
Then I wanted to check and see what events were going on. I realized that I could only do this by logging in and looking at the initial login event message or by checking the lodestone website. What strikes me as odd is that the top-right corner and minimap already show time, weather, compass directions, etc. I'm not sure why there couldn't be a calendar icon on the minimap and/or a menu item. Again, this is something other mmo's have done for years.
The Timers menu could have some additional items. One that immediately comes to mind is Island Sanctuary. We have to go to the Moraby Drydocks, talk to the NPC to go to our island, then go up to the NPCs that handle production and granary expeditions to see what's going on. It would be nice to open the Timers menu and see that some of our production items will be done in 3 hours and that we have 2 days left on our granary expeditions so maybe we should head over and reup them.
The game could use some additional aetherytes. I'm not sure why we have to go to the Doman Enclave to get to Bozja or go to the Moraby Drydocks to get to our Island. The Gold Saucer has an aetheryte... I'm sure the aforementioned could also have them.
Tank stance should stay on until you turn it off. You shouldn't have to turn it on every time you enter a duty. You shouldn't have to turn it on at all. It should automatically turn on when you switch to a tank job like stealth for gathering jobs.
Add more action categories. We already have categories like Combo Weaponskills. Tank buffs like Shadow Wall, Camouflage, etc. should be placed under "Defensive Buffs". Actions like No Mercy should be placed under "Offensive Buffs". I don't care if all buffs are placed under a "Buffs" category but do something with it. Healing spells should be under "Healing Spells".
FC actions should not have to be bought manually and repeatedly. They should simply make up a list. You select two and they stay on so long as the FC has the seals to pay the daily "rental" fee until you select different actions or disable your current ones. I wouldn't even mind having to buy each FC action initially but it should be added to a list permanently after that.
Lastly, some services have a feedback forum where users can post feedback and other users can upvote. The posts with the most upvotes get the most attention from the developers, and developers can tell us when they're considering beta testing new features. I believe XIV would benefit greatly by doing this.
XIV does so much right that these smaller things become glaringly obvious. I hope that we can have a constructive conversation about why these items would or wouldn't work. Have a good day~
