[Vent] What you guys think should change on ARR?

I hope they rise up the reputation per quest on ARR beast tribes, earning 10 points per quest is torture. :p

The character models. They're in need of some tweaks. Highlander men could use proper eyebrows, for example.

Well the big one would be shortening the after story MSQ.

While it was important back in the day when they were trying to prop up ARR so it didn't become a 1.0 incident. They probably added a bit much to the ending content after the original MSQ. Now the game is successful enough they don't need that kind of buffer and there's been 3 expansions.

MSQ-wise, streamlining some of the quests (especially 2.1 to 2.3/4). Try to show more of what Minfilia actually does when we are not around, so that she does not appear so useless.
Make Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium solo instances.
Add an aetherite in Vesper Bay, not Horizon. (And YES I know you can get to Vesper Bay from Limsa.)
Beast tribes did take a lot of time now that I think about it.

Delete Tataru and swap her with Moenbryda.

What should be changed in ARR content? ALOT, theres so much stuff that needs improvements:

1 Rework the outdated town maps and ARR maps to be all alot bigger in size n 3D like all maps from HW on making it possible to use mounts in them and fly in those maps

2: Rework and redesign the summoner and scholar to become finally two complete independent jobs with own different classes and summoners using warhorns instead of books, only scholars use books then

3: add more faces, tribe options ect to the character editor, for example a micote tribe that is looking much wilder n ferocious than the others, less human, more cat with fur on arms, legs, feet and much more claw like hands with long sharp nails, alot more tail options n ear options

Just 3 examples, could come up with aloz more, but typing with smartphone is exhaustive xD

Rework MSQ, but I read that they were going to do it for patch 5.3. Can't wait to see it with my own eyes.

Trim up the 2.X patches and trip up a few spots of the 2.0 msq like the pre titan quests. Maybe increase exp rewards so that you don't hit exp walls while leveling up through ARR if they haven't already.

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Originally Posted by Kaiserdrache

What should be changed in ARR content? ALOT, theres so much stuff that needs improvements:

1 Rework the outdated town maps and ARR maps to be all alot bigger in size n 3D like all maps from HW on making it possible to use mounts in them and fly in those maps

2: Rework and redesign the summoner and scholar to become finally two complete independent jobs with own different classes and summoners using warhorns instead of books, only scholars use books then

3: add more faces, tribe options ect to the character editor, for example a micote tribe that is looking much wilder n ferocious than the others, less human, more cat with fur on arms, legs, feet and much more claw like hands with long sharp nails, alot more tail options n ear options

Just 3 examples, could come up with aloz more, but typing with smartphone is exhaustive xD

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With SCH and SMN no longer having the connection that is ACN, what sort of changes to adapt the two do you suggest? ACN would have to be changed from a DPS to a Healer in order to stay lined up with SCH while a new starter class would have to be added for SMN so players aren't instantly getting thrust into a Job the second they start the game.

A few items, some minor, some major.

Minor
Haukke Manor NM needs something you can interact with to warp you to the start instead of having to Return.

Last boss of Haukke Manor HM needs adjustment due to DPS creep. She will often wipe parties because she has scripts tied to her current HP and will often sacrifice her last add with a lot of her HP left, wiping the party.

Keeper Of The Lake gunship boss is the most obnoxious boss in the game. Nothing about a super fast airship leaving patches of fire is fun to play against as a melee. Get it to chill tf out.

ARR has some excellent music we don't have as an orchestrion yet. Tranquility, Fealty, Undying Faith, and A Tonberry's Tears, to name a few. I get a few of these are short but that's up to us if we like that or not, right?


Major
Copperbell Mines is in a lot of ways the worst dungeon in the game. It has enemies that leash and go invulnerable if they are pulled too far. Most of all, none of the bosses here seem interested in actually fighting the party. They are just very noninteractive experiences and don't speak well for the excellent content to come in HW. I think all the bosses should be changed so you actually have something to interact with.

ARR's sidequests are all about quantity and little about quality. As someone who has done every single sidequest in the game, I found a lot of the ones in ARR just don't seem to be interested in creating interesting narrative or saying something about the world, and don't seem to respect the player's time. IMO they should cut like at least 2/3rds of the sidequests that are weak, then take the remaining ones and make them much better with better rewards.

Consider making Arcanist a healer class first and foremost. The branches of the class would stay the same, but it would be better if players had two healer options to start.

All the beast tribes need serious revision. Ixali shouldn't be asking us to equip gloves or go to different maps and stuff... not after we have experienced the fun, convenience, and variety of the namazu. All of them need to be able to completed faster.

The last two dungeons should be taken out of the duty roulette and made into solo experiences, which I hear is what they intended to do. Tomestone and XP rewards can be increased somewhere in content that is actually intended to be played and enjoyed. Nothing in either of these two dungeons are really interested in posing a challenge, and the way they crammed in so much exposition at the end of the main game is a disservice to the writing at large.

I would LOVE to have new maps, made to get the needed for swimming and flying, and making the maps more enjoyable and useful

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Originally Posted by PeppermintBrown

Trim up the 2.X patches and trip up a few spots of the 2.0 msq like the pre titan quests. Maybe increase exp rewards so that you don't hit exp walls while leveling up through ARR if they haven't already.

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this would be a good way to make ppl get to the endgame without thinking about skipping

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The character models. They're in need of some tweaks. Highlander men could use proper eyebrows, for example.

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Highlander males don't have eyebrows for lore reasons. That's something i feel while I would like to be changed, it won't be.

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Originally Posted by Esmoire

Haukke Manor NM needs something you can interact with to warp you to the start instead of having to Return.

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I think that the purpose of return on HM are especifically to teach you that you can use it on dgs, I personally would never have know that was possible without it. ARR works as a tutorial of sorts. So i dont think they need to change that.

ABout the Orchestrion music, i think its because these musics are from the 1.0 arent they? Maybe they have a motive, we just dont know

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Highlander males don't have eyebrows for lore reasons. That's something i feel while I would like to be changed, it won't be.

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Oh! its lore related? I didnt know

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Originally Posted by ReikoKuchiki

I think that the purpose of return on HM are especifically to teach you that you can use it on dgs, I personally would never have know that was possible without it. ARR works as a tutorial of sorts. So i dont think they need to change that.

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Nah. They definitely wanted you to walk back to the entrance, which is why the door opens up behind the boss before that to shorten the transition time. Though that door, and the stairs, and a myriad of the doors in that place, are not used likely because of designer oversight.

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Originally Posted by ReikoKuchiki

ABout the Orchestrion music, i think its because these musics are from the 1.0 arent they? Maybe they have a motive, we just dont know

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We already have a lot of the 1.0 music as orchestrion rolls anyway.

Put an aetheryte in vesper bay.

Yes I know you can port to limsa then sail there. This will still cut down on loading screens for your MANY trips there.

Yes, I know there's a throwaway line that the Syndicate didn't put one there because they didn't want to do it unless the scions curried their favor or something. It's just one throwaway line in one of the 2.X patches not a major plot point that would harm the story if taken out. This plot explanation is more a handwave for there not being an aetheryte there than some actually important detail.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Highlander males don't have eyebrows for lore reasons. That's something i feel while I would like to be changed, it won't be.

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Is that the shaving them because ala mhigo thing? Not every highlander, especially a wol highlander who nobody in ala mhigo recognizes from before 2.0, has to be from ala mhigo.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Highlander males don't have eyebrows for lore reasons. That's something i feel while I would like to be changed, it won't be.

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The lore reason was always flimsy. Not every Highlander NPC is even from Ala Mhigo, nor do they care for it - and the women don't make use of the same practice, so there's a major double standard.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The lore reason was always flimsy. Not every Highlander NPC is even from Ala Mhigo, nor do they care for it - and the women don't make use of the same practice, so there's a major double standard.

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Also, Ala Mhigo is kinda sorta free now too, giving reason for many who DID do it to stop.

I wonder if it's really more just they had trouble designing good eyebrows for them and said 'screw it throw in a flimsy lore reason for it that will be forced upon the entire population of male highlanders, but not the female ones they still need to be pretty.'

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Originally Posted by Wolfsbane706

With SCH and SMN no longer having the connection that is ACN, what sort of changes to adapt the two do you suggest? ACN would have to be changed from a DPS to a Healer in order to stay lined up with SCH while a new starter class would have to be added for SMN so players aren't instantly getting thrust into a Job the second they start the game.

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That's not necessary. It would be a simple matter to have ACN upgrade into SMN only, and have SCH be a separate job that is unlockable at ACN30 but not an ACN. It would be mechanically no different from leveling any class to 50 and unlocking DRK30 MCH30 AST30.

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Originally Posted by PeppermintBrown

Trim up the 2.X patches and trip up a few spots of the 2.0 msq like the pre titan quests.

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They have implied that the reason we don't have New Game+ for ARR yet is because they are working on changes along these lines.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

That's not necessary. It would be a simple matter to have ACN upgrade into SMN only, and have SCH be a separate job that is unlockable at ACN30 but not an ACN. It would be mechanically no different from leveling any class to 50 and unlocking DRK30 MCH30 AST30.

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Yeah, SCH would be easy to split off into its own thing, and just give anyone that has arcanist levels above 30 when the change hits get those level in SCH too so nobody has to relevel, and it would work. And hey maybe they can take that chance to give SMN a worthwhile physick. (Why not, we have clemency and vercure in the game.) Or replace it with something else.

The SMN/SCH fit always felt al ittle odd to me. Gameplay wise, SMN feels more natural of course because it stays as dps and doesn't have the sudden shift toward healing. Story wise though, the Nymian Marines and the focus on strategy etc always felt like a more natural extension of the arcanist storyline than SMN did.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

That's not necessary. It would be a simple matter to have ACN upgrade into SMN only, and have SCH be a separate job that is unlockable at ACN30 but not an ACN. It would be mechanically no different from leveling any class to 50 and unlocking DRK30 MCH30 AST30.

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I was sort of going off of their line of thought that SMN and SCH would have separate weapons.

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Originally Posted by Wolfsbane706

I was sort of going off of their line of thought that SMN and SCH would have separate weapons.

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That's still solved by making SCH a classless job, though.

1. Skip the filler MSQ.
2. Less Tataru and Nanamo Ul Namo.
3. Less fetch quest.

The Beast Tribes need to be put under heel and their eikons to the sword!

...also yes, I agree I wish their reputation was updated to expansion standards. Not only is there 5 of them, their quests are both more time-consuming and less rewarding than in HW and forward. Having done all the BTs twice... I really think Garleans had the right idea.

Could we just... quietly drop a space rock on the Ixali camp? No one has to know...

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Originally Posted by Bonbori

The Beast Tribes need to be put under heel and their eikons to the sword!

...also yes, I agree I wish their reputation was updated to expansion standards. Not only is there 5 of them, their quests are both more time-consuming and less rewarding than in HW and forward. Having done all the BTs twice... I really think Garleans had the right idea.

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I'm with you. I am NOT looking forward to going back to get my ARR tribes on my alt. The HW and on ones are bad enough, but those make me break out into hives. Definitely need a hefty rep boost.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Put an aetheryte in vesper bay.

Yes I know you can port to limsa then sail there. This will still cut down on loading screens for your MANY trips there.

Yes, I know there's a throwaway line that the Syndicate didn't put one there because they didn't want to do it unless the scions curried their favor or something. It's just one throwaway line in one of the 2.X patches not a major plot point that would harm the story if taken out. This plot explanation is more a handwave for there not being an aetheryte there than some actually important detail.



Is that the shaving them because ala mhigo thing? Not every highlander, especially a wol highlander who nobody in ala mhigo recognizes from before 2.0, has to be from ala mhigo.

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There's a big PLOT reason why vesper bay doesn't have one. Mil tells you this early on. Ul'dah won't put one there unless the Scions become Ul'dahs champions and stuff. The Scions are not tied to any nation and because of that Ul'dah won't let them put one there. It's the reason why they move. It's a plot point.

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Originally Posted by monk-dps

There's a big PLOT reason why vesper bay doesn't have one. Mil tells you this early on. Ul'dah won't put one there unless the Scions become Ul'dahs champions and stuff. The Scions are not tied to any nation and because of that Ul'dah won't let them put one there. It's the reason why they move. It's a plot point.

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A shoddy excuse for one of the most irritating parts of the entirety of ARR. I still begrudge all the time I spent running all the way from Horizon or wherever before knew you could shorten the trip by taking the ferry from Limsa.

Seriously though, at the thread in general, just getting rid of the filler and fetch quests and yes, doing something about all the running back and forth to the freaking Waking Sands, would make a huge difference.

I got so irritated, and so bored, while leveling an alt through the MSQ a second time, that I finally said screw it and bought a story skip before I even finished up at Costa del Sol. I barely remember most of the plot of ARR, beyond being annoyed at having to run back to the Waking Sands so much, a lot of people I only half remember anything about dying, Moenbryda, and then the latter chunk of the L50 quests when things hit the fan and actually got interesting for a change.

Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy a lot of it the first time through. But a lot of it really just felt like filler episodes that got in the way of the plot more than pushing it along, and it'd need a real good trip before I thought about playing through it again.


(Also, what's up with all the Tataru hate? She's my favorite Scion :( )

1. add an aetheryte to lower la noscea around red rooster stead, there's no convenient way to get there that doesn't take a number of minutes

2. delete the "teleport to the four corners of eorza to find the relic armor" quests at level 45 for all arr jobs

3. move the npc that lets you upgrade the ironworks gear to mor dhona (i never even knew you could upgrade it lol)

4. this one probably wont happen but some of the arr endgame dungeons are insufferable enough that i'd rather leave than actually play them and i wish i'd never unlocked them lol (copperbell hard, hullbreaker, brayflox hard's last boss, stone vigil hard, both halatalis, +the last boss of haukke manor hard should be fixed)

4.5 along with that there's a few dungeons levelling up and at endgame where sometimes they want you to kill the adds and other times they don't want you to and i feel that's confusing for newer players especially when after arr there's no longer instances where you want to ignore adds unless you can simply because of power creep. i feel this creates those kind of players who ignore adds when they shouldn't be later on (wanderer's, tamtara hard, haukke hard, sastasha hard at the end, stone vigil hard (killing adds in that first boss gives the boss buffs) are all instances of conflicting mechanics when the game otherwise tries to teach you to kill adds in many stages of the game. (normal tamtara, copperbell, halatali, darkhold etc you get it)

Not to double post but... That should say trim, not trip

Why the heck can't we edit posts from mobile??? Am I missing a button somewhere lmao

I guess I'll add that it'd also be nice if all the mini aetherytes in capital cities unlocked automatically with the big one instead of needing to attune to all of them individually. Doesn't matter much for me anymore since I have them all on main and next highest alt, but still. I guess lore wise it definitely does add some flavor with the whole attunement thing, so I can see why it's there and I'm not really gonna complain too hard about it. It's just not exactly fun running all over the city to click crystals when you've already done it in every city once or twice :P be nice if it was automatic for alts at least

I would like to see them fix Castrum Meridianum. I HATE the interrupted fights. Take out the cutscenes when you turn off the search lights, that is just super annoying and unnecessary, just have a system message. And move the one of the ceruluem pumps to the end of Cid's talking BEFORE we take the chute. Not sure what to do with the ship that destroys the last shield thing, but something so we don't get interrupted fighting the collousi (however you spell it).

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Originally Posted by Avidria

A shoddy excuse for one of the most irritating parts of the entirety of ARR. I still begrudge all the time I spent running all the way from Horizon or wherever before knew you could shorten the trip by taking the ferry from Limsa.

Seriously though, at the thread in general, just getting rid of the filler and fetch quests and yes, doing something about all the running back and forth to the freaking Waking Sands, would make a huge difference.

I got so irritated, and so bored, while leveling an alt through the MSQ a second time, that I finally said screw it and bought a story skip before I even finished up at Costa del Sol. I barely remember most of the plot of ARR, beyond being annoyed at having to run back to the Waking Sands so much, a lot of people I only half remember anything about dying, Moenbryda, and then the latter chunk of the L50 quests when things hit the fan and actually got interesting for a change.

Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy a lot of it the first time through. But a lot of it really just felt like filler episodes that got in the way of the plot more than pushing it along, and it'd need a real good trip before I thought about playing through it again.


(Also, what's up with all the Tataru hate? She's my favorite Scion :( )

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I don't understrand this hate when all mmos and JRPGS make you do things like this all the time. Horizon is literally no different then any of the other quest in this game. all of them are go kill this or go here for this bread to this person for this gil. That's how the game as a whole is made. And I don't feel it's a weak excuse when damn near everything in this game is locked or explained thur plot. Shit we don't even dungeon grind without the plot making us do it first. where in other mmos the dungeons are just unlocked on level. So to me this hate on like what maybe 20 quest in the early part of the game is odd. Mil does nothing different then all the other NPCs who make you do everything cause you're the main character. Unless they change the reason why the scions move and revamp all of those quest I don't see the issue. Hell by the time you really start going to that place you should have a mount and then it's just like any other quest from then to endgame. Are we that lazy now? D:

Ever since the FFXIV X FFXV crossover solo instances in Stormblood, I want the devs to retroactively modify all of the stack markers from patches 2.0 to 3.0 to be like the orange arrow ones from 3.1 and on.

Some examples include Thermionic Beam from Nael Deus Darnus, Imperium from Xande, the lightning stack from Five Headed Dragon, and the red marker fireball stack attack from Myath in Sohm Al come to mind.

After all, they did retroactively add the "Flashing Eye" symbol for gaze attacks from Lamia Prosector, Melusine, and Echidna (it wasn't there when they were initially released).

Ishgard Aetheryte network still needs the option to port directly to CWH, Sea of Clouds, and Azys Lla. Every other city state has the option to port directly to adjacent zones.

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Originally Posted by 3c-33

1. add an aetheryte to lower la noscea around red rooster stead, there's no convenient way to get there that doesn't take a number of minutes

2. delete the "teleport to the four corners of eorza to find the relic armor" quests at level 45 for all arr jobs

3. move the npc that lets you upgrade the ironworks gear to mor dhona (i never even knew you could upgrade it lol)

4. this one probably wont happen but some of the arr endgame dungeons are insufferable enough that i'd rather leave than actually play them and i wish i'd never unlocked them lol (copperbell hard, hullbreaker, brayflox hard's last boss, stone vigil hard, both halatalis, +the last boss of haukke manor hard should be fixed)

4.5 along with that there's a few dungeons levelling up and at endgame where sometimes they want you to kill the adds and other times they don't want you to and i feel that's confusing for newer players especially when after arr there's no longer instances where you want to ignore adds unless you can simply because of power creep. i feel this creates those kind of players who ignore adds when they shouldn't be later on (wanderer's, tamtara hard, haukke hard, sastasha hard at the end, stone vigil hard (killing adds in that first boss gives the boss buffs) are all instances of conflicting mechanics when the game otherwise tries to teach you to kill adds in many stages of the game. (normal tamtara, copperbell, halatali, darkhold etc you get it)

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Wait you can upgrade Ironworks gear?....

All my years on this game and I never knew...

Honestly in my opinion old tomestone gear, at least ARR and HW, should be coming augmented as is, and the rings made non-unique for convenience. Are we really so petty as to want to squeeze another 100 tomestones-per-piece on what is levelling gear at best and a convenient way for new players to catch up at worst? IMO it is not worth requiring old gear to be augmented, and weapons should be more convenient to purchase. If you need another sink for poetics maybe add some new cosmetics and stuff.

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Originally Posted by monk-dps

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the main issue is that almost the entirety of arr is padded gametime done by making you run endlessly all over the place for no reason and intentionally putting things in inconvenient and annoying places. it's not just the "pray return to the waking sands part" that's bad, it's all of it. nearly every single quest makes you teleport to the other side of the world and then travel the entire distance of the map and then do it again. and for what? because f'lhaminn wants perfume and this guy wants food and this guy wants you to water his crops and so on, things that have nothing to do with the plot. i still think the entire coerthas section is the worst offender here, the time you spend walking back and forth to places with no aetherytes and up those god forsaken towers is unbearable. my only regret is that i didn't get a riding map for there sooner.

it definitely goes beyond laziness and moreso into "everything is wasting my time." i'm a patient person and i enjoy grinding things in this game, like levelling and beast tribes and so on because i find those things fun and engaging and not overly annoying and you get things out of it. (and it's optional.) but having the game waste hours of your time because it bars you from doing anything until you complete the story? it's not well designed

given the fact they were under major time crunch when the game was first released, i can understand and forgive how bad the time wasting was initially. but could you imagine if they kept that design philosophy going forward all the way until shadowbringers? they could never get away with that and i'd bet this game's playerbase would be way smaller if that were the case, i don't see a reason to defend what they did in arr. again, i can understand why they did it, but that doesn't make it free of criticism anyway. i'm glad the game no longer makes you do that. and just because other mmo's do that doesn't mean it's a good practice

hell, i never did any of the alliance raids until i finished shadowbringers. so i started to doing the crystal tower quest stuff and sure enough i knew i was back in arr because of all the pointless running and teleporting it made me do lmao. i got so annoyed i just skipped all of it, coming from someone who actually payed attention to 99% of the game's text and cutscenes previously. i was spoiled too hard by the rest of the game being reasonable i guess so that's why i couldn't handle it anymore lol

my 2 gil

Story-
Change castrum meridium, cape westwind and praetorium to solo duties
make minfillia not useless, add more moenbryda, make alphinaud less of a pretentious git
slash the parts of the story that are unneccesary like joining the grand companies (supposed to be neutral and we get pressed into military duties?) and wasting several levels searching for correct crystal element (yes im salty about the lack of exp those had back in 2.0)
have the warrior of light actually emote for once

gameplay
add a miniture aetherite to vesper bay...or alternatively dont force us there so much. not once did we look at the paperwork minfillia always asked urianger for.
adjust old fights to add the up to date markers such as nael's beam, perhaps with some story fights adjusted so you actually see some of the newer markers (eg the spread out one for flares, tighten into line, acceleration bomb)
completely overhaul copperbell mines, adjust satasha so we actually free the poor captives etc...basically bring the dungeons up to standards of later ones where the loot chests arent in some side rooms a poor sprout will never see due to the tank getting shit over and done with
move drake and gerolt to revenants toll and adjust the relic weapons so that its less awful in terms of materia and dungeons
adjust twintania fight so that its add doesnt instakill, makes solo very difficult.
adjust the binding coil so you have tokens like later raid series to acquire loot
make arcanist a healer
change loot in cutters cry and qarn so its actually usable without crafting
bring back older skills that were sorely missed or thrown to higher levels. new player gameplay is atrocious and the playerbase is fed up of all the skill cutting and identity gutting over shadowbringers and stormblood

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Put an aetheryte in vesper bay.

Yes I know you can port to limsa then sail there. This will still cut down on loading screens for your MANY trips there.

Yes, I know there's a throwaway line that the Syndicate didn't put one there because they didn't want to do it unless the scions curried their favor or something. It's just one throwaway line in one of the 2.X patches not a major plot point that would harm the story if taken out. This plot explanation is more a handwave for there not being an aetheryte there than some actually important detail.

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It'd be kind of fun if they placed a side-quest at an appropriate juncture to sneak one of those mini-aetherytes inside in waking sands.

I would support this, do a side quest and steal it from rowena in return for the rudeness and overpriced wares she sells us through a monopoly