Why I'm mad at Final Fantasy 14 (rant)

[KisaiTenshi]

Meh, forward, I'm not picking a fight here.

I hate that I can't whisper in a duty.

You can't because you're in an instance. The game has three kinds of chat systems, of which LS/FC/Mentor is a side-channel, but you are really being disconnected and reconnected every time you switch instances/zones.

I hate that I can't have more than 8 chat channels.

Because they're noisy. Even to send "hi", results in a large text blob. So if you get 8 chatty channels+mentor+alliance/party going, the game's netcode processing would be drowned by it.

I hate that I can't have a non-combat pet out in a duty.

It would double the amount of characters that send animation data, thus making it slower.

I hate that I can't show my FC tag in a duty.

Why is it even needed?

I hate that I can't see when someone logs in while in a duty.

More chat overhead.

I hate that I can't look directly up.

Hair would clip horribly.

I hate that my mailbox can only hold 20 items.

Because people would use it as extended inventory by keeping things in their mailbox.

I hate FFXIV's housing system.

*shrug*, instanced housing would only be worse.

I hate that I can only auction 40 items at a time.

Again, players would use it as extended inventory.

I ABSOLUTELY HATE the combat tic.

The game updates everything every 3 seconds, movement every half second. Games that don't do this, result in players being able to spam things with macro mice/keyboards with no delay.

I hate that Fates are a good idea, but poorly implemented.

FATES are just a dumbed down version of the previous V1.0 system where you'd manually join a behest by talking to a battlewarden that shows up at the camps, and then it worked essentially the same, just a lot slower.

I hate how dumb squad NPCs are.

If they're too smart, they will play the content themselves. Which they can actually do if you when you play a DPS, they just can't deal with the boss mechanics. Some kind of user-scriptable combat script would be preferable.

I hate how all Squad duty bosses spam nuke you. (have fun getting a LB off).

Feels like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hate that I can't trade between retainers.

Because each retainer is a character that exists and you can't summon more than one at a time.

I hate that I can't see all of my items in one bag (like before).

This is because the more inventory you have, the slower the load time is. The game sends each page as it's own data unit, and then doesn't update anything on it until an inventory item changes. So they reduce this to just the page to reduce the number of inventory item updates.

I hate that extra retainers cost money.

Yep, and because they're attached to the marketboard, don't expect that to change. If they decoupled the market from them, I'd rather have them over the Squadron. Dedicate one to the market that has n*slots being rented, the other 7 get to adventure with you.

I hate that Square-Enix lied to us saying they'll give us as much space as they can afford (And then claim they can provide extra with the paid app).

That's not a lie, it's just inventory takes up a disproportionate amount of data processing, and server-sided memory associated with the character. Inventory pages that aren't always loaded, like the chocobo bag, they could theoretically give us unlimited pages for, but they'd have loading time penalties. Other games refresh the inventory every time the inventory is opened, and if you have abnormally sized inventory, the entire game client would freeze while the netcode updates every item slot. It's actually amazing that the game client doesn't freeze at all with what we have.

I hate that the app is paid, and then charges additional fees. (It should either be sub based or micro-transactions--not both).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Don't use it then. If nobody uses it, then SE will see it was a bad idea.

I hate that the app doesn't let me talk in FC chat.

The app doesn't actually talk to the game servers, it's equal to sitting in lobby with the character select screen.

I hate how broken the PvP system is.

A consequence of not wanting to have yet another "nobody plays my amazing game because the openworld PvP'ers camp the spawn locations", I like that the PvP is compartmentalized to competative stuff, instead of the PK-griefing openworld style of all other games.

I hate that there's no Plate DPS classes.

That is a tank.

I hate how there's no two-handed sword DPS classes.

That is a tank.

I hate how there's no dual-wielded sword/axe DPS classes.

A dual-wielding sword type would have been a glass-cannon style DPS, where as a dual-wielding shield would be a non-DPS style tank.

I hate how all races are basically human+ears/tail.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anything else would require locked gear-to-race.

I hate that I can't change my eye color in-game.

That's what the Fantasia pot is for. Jandelaine can't replace your eyes.

I hate that the glamour chest can only hold 200 items.

Honestly, I don't know why they even put a limit on this. Probably would have made finding anything impossible though. It needs a "find by style name"

I hate that the glamour chest is only available in an inn-room or squad house.

Same reason the Chocobo bag isn't available in the instances. Only certain data things are loaded in those zones.

I hate that I can't use teleport while in an inn room. (I have to zone out just to teleport to my house).

Probably because it's an instance, it would be like trying to teleport from a dungeon.

I hate that there's only 10 glamour plates.

There should have been 10 per job.

I hate that I can't put my wedding ring on glamour plates. (seriously, what the heck? I'm fine losing the teleport. Let me show the sucker off).

This is likely a lack of foresight by the developers and they should fix it.

I hate Eureka.

It's bad. It's old-school style field grinding with FFXIV's AOE telegraphs, thus it's actually worse. In older games the mobs just did damage, you couldn't avoid it, thus you selected gear that made you immune to the status effects, to fight monsters that were the same level.

I hate that players can teleport-block you with a trade. Why is that a feature?

Probably to prevent item duping, since most item dupe scenarios involve holding the state of an item transaction open while the other party drops from it.

I hate that you can't zone out of a duty to repair. (Warcraft does this).

Is there really anything hard enough in the game where you'd have to do this?

I hate that they don't put a repair NPC in the beginning of a duty. (Swtor does this).

Likewise, other than Eureka, why would you need this?

I hate 15 button+ convoluted rotations.

There are no 15 button rotations. There are just meta's. At most there are 2/3/4 button combinations based on proc progress, and that's it.

I hate protect. Bake it into the encounters rather than wasting a slot.

Put Protect back on the WHM. Give the other healers something else that lasts that long that they can instead stack with it.

I hate the meta stigma FFXIV has.

Meta's are just minmax's for people who like to see big numbers. Nobody should use any meta for any job unless they know why they are doing it, otherwise you're just wasting time.

I hate that healers are expected to DPS in FFXIV, when literally no other MMO does this. It's ok for healers to dps--just why the toxicity?

Because of bad meta's and players unable to see the developers intent, while the developers wanting the players able to play the way they want, even if it's incredibly inefficient. The devs could fix this by making parties with healers disable healing skills on non-healers, and the first tank always locked to tank stance unless a second tank is present, and only enabling dps stance on tanks if no other tank has it up.

I hate that 4 year old content is still considered spoilers (even if it's in the HW OPENING cut-scene).

You can't expect everyone to have played everything. How long does it take to do all the jobs?

I hate Square-Enix's customer service.

It's unfortunate that they are not helpful.

I hate that making international calls can cost you lots of money.

Let me guess, you tried to call SE.

I hate that the in-game GMs are almost useless when it comes to bugged content.

Never encountered a GM in game before.

I hate that the forums are really bad at customer service. (A GM recommended I ask for technical advice in the general forums).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , probably a new hire.

I hate the mentor system.

Nothing really wrong with how it's setup, it's just there is no incentive to actually do it.

I hate that mentors can kick other players for silly reasons.

From the chat. Because you can't wait for a GM to come kick a bot.

I hate that you can't tag-share mobs.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hate that you can't enter a solo-instance while in a party.

That's how all games work. It could be improved if the game server would just treat a player in an instance the same way as if they're watching a cutscene. But really the problem is that the game only has one "party" concept, so to do solo content, you're entering as a party of one.

I hate that can't have your chocobo out while in a housing district.

Why do you need it out? And this probably more to do with instancing again.

I hate that very few bosses have voiced audio cues. (Who wants to read tiny text to notice a mechanic)?

That is an issue, and would probably improve many players ability to play high end content since they may not process the text quickly if it's not their native language.

I hate that DPS jobs have very little defensive and self-healing utility.

They're not supposed to have any.

I hate that if you D/C while crafting--you lose all of your materials.

That's to prevent item dupes, just like the trade window.

I hate how the percentages of synthesis seems inaccurate. 80% chance to succeed? Let's fail 47 out of 50 attempts. Yes possible, but plausible?

The risk is directly related to the ilevel of the item. It's RNG, so it's possible to fail 100% of the time even with 99% chance. This shouldn't be read as "you will succeed 99 times out of 100", but "I will roll a 100 sided dice, and if you get a 1, you fail" Even if you roll it 100 times, it's still possible to land on 1 several times. At any rate desynth doesn't really have much of a purpose except to destroy items, it doesn't act as a gilsink.

I hate how there's not many gil sinks.

Because almost everything worth buying is on the marketboard, and nothing worth buying is from NPC's to sink it.

I hate how cross-breeding gardening is tied to owning a house.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hate how limited houses are.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hate how large houses get more garden plots than small and medium houses.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hate how a FC can't access submarines and airships without owning a house.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hate how FC chest tabs are ALL or NOTHING access. Why not limit it 1-5 items per day or something like Warcraft has?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Really all house complaints can be boiled down to "why can't I have a free house automatically" when Apartments and Inn rooms should allow non-FC players access to the same stuff a FC has.

I hate how low level characters can't access the Shirogane housing ward (to visit community events hosted in FC houses).

By design. Otherwise it's a back door into Kugane.

I hate how the housing district teleports aren't accessible at level 1 from the city.

By design, otherwise spam bots would go there.

I hate how non-combat pets are not account wide.

I wish they were all account-wide, but most are achieved by achievements. So that just leaves the cash shop ones.

I hate how mounts are not account wide.

Same as with pets.

I hate how mog-station items are not account wide.

It's a cash grab, and an engineering thing, and likely someone doesn't want to go through the effort of changing something just for FFXIV.

I hate that Square-Enix comes off as extremely greedy. Fancy outfits like Minfilla's used to be 15 dollars. Cid's, Y'shotla, Lightning. Then randomly it ramped up to 18 dollars. Why?

Greed. Especially when it's not account wide.

I hate the companion app.

Don't use it then.

I hate how I can't talk to my FC with the companion app.

Again, don't use it.

I hate how many areas of the word are boxed off. Where are the horses in Doma. Where are the Badgers in Gridania?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯, V1 was a copy-pasta world. V2 changed that in favor of smaller sectioned off maps.

I hate how most things have incredibly complex or challenging to remember/spell names. Harshfront? What?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hate how raptors look like toy dinosaurs made by Tyco and colored by crayola. Do they have wings?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hate how Omega bosses have no story. Why should I care about their Joker rip-off? Oh he's not Joker. Why do you expect me to know other FF games? Explain it more for the community.

They have a story, they were plucked out of the worlds Omega has been to, so we have a tournament of "who is really the most powerful villain in the multiverse, so Omega can fight them using all the knowledge they obtained from watching them so they can be the ultimate being"

Considering the next tier is called Alphascape...

I hate that I can't un-sub and keep my Mist Mansion. Why can't they just charge me like 5mil~ a month in an estate tax? Gil-sink and let me take off.

Because that doesn't solve anything, and players who have millions of gil in reserve wouldn't be impacted. The more or less correct way to deal with housing is to limit housing to one-per-account (you can't have houses on multiple servers or data centers) and then pay from the cash shop a auto-demo reset service. So if you leave for a few months, you move your service from "full service" to "maintenance service" and your house just resets the auto-demo timer every 30 days for the same cost as one retainer, along with allowing access to the lodestone and app to check on what is going on. When you come back, you switch back to full service and things pick up where you last left off. That allows players to continue to pay for what is otherwise a paused service.

[MoroMurasaki]

snip

More than two thirds of this monster pile of garbage is you just saying you disagree. You could have accomplished this without writing a novel, just saying.

A fair number of these things are valid complaints and your dismissive attitude towards them is exactly the precedent we don't want to set for SE.

[Eloah]

*Eclair, was changed in America since it sounded like a pastry.

Darn Americans and our love of cream-filled donuts.

While you are technically correct that her real name was changed in English, because of the pastry implications, I must ask, Do you prefer Terra or Tina as you FFVI Heroine? Be careful with your answer, lest you betray yourself, lol.

Well, Japan has a fondness for naming characters after food just in general. Look at Dragonball/Dragonball Z...practically any anime, you'll find SOMEONE with a food name.

Her name actually has nothing to do with food. Eclair is the French word for lightning, as well as, Farron, her last name, being the Gaelic word for thunder, her name is a pun about thunder coming after lightning. A pun that still works in English; but instead of literal lightning it's more about a loud sound coming after a bright flash, which is her motif.

Plus, on a side note, lots of cultures have different theme naming, like plant related names for example: Lily, Rose, Dhalia, Heather, Daisy, Viloet, Oliver, Laura, Leaf, Juniper, the list goes on, XD

More than two thirds of this monster pile of garbage is you just saying you disagree. You could have accomplished this without writing a novel, just saying.

A fair number of these things are valid complaints and your dismissive attitude towards them is exactly the precedent we don't want to set for SE.

Does this mean my responses wer met with laughs and enjoyment, XD, yay.

[JackHatchet]

I hate it when people defend Square-Enix by saying "the game can't do that, because programming is hard," but then there's literally like 10+ other MMOs which are all capable of things like letting you whisper while in an instance, or having more than 8 chat channels. Saying it's "too much noise," or "too hard for the servers" seems like such a cop-out answer.

Again, as I'll repeat for the 2nd time. When I say "I hate that I can't look up." I'm talking about first-person mode. Why can't I look directly up? Hair clipping won't matter, because it's first person view. Your entire body is hidden--so literally nothing clips.

I also hate the response "I'd never use that feature or that Quality of life improvement--therefore it's stupid, and it's not important." Yeah, very constructive.

-----

Most of all, I generally dislike that people try to counter my issues with uneducated responses. I can do "everything" with an apartment, so I don't need a house? Where's my garden plots? How do I cross-breed in an apartment? Are you just trying to dismiss my complaint with misinformation, or do you care about solving the problem? What's your goal with a response? That one guy from early on said there was a 2-handed sword dps. It's Samurai, and I acknowledged that he was right, because his information was accurate. But I feel like some people are just being haters for the sake of haters. Which is more of a representation of the community than the game. Am I just as guilty as that? I'd like to think I'm complaining about valid issues rather than just trashing things for the sake of it.

Also to the random person who said 'git gud?" Please for the love of the Twelve, tell me how "getting better at the game" will help me look directly up in first person view? Explain how that'll let me trade between my retainers? I mean come-on. You even read what I posted? "get better?" Really? I could literally be the best player at this game and I'd still have 95% of these issues. Heck, even if I was teh best player ever--I still couldn't carry an ultimate clear on my own! Not that ultimate was a complaint of mine--anywhere. Ultimate is a cool feature. I have no issue with it. So to the person who said 'git gud" my response is 'lern2read"

[Claviusnex]

I hate it when people defend Square-Enix by saying "the game can't do that, because programming is hard," but then there's literally like 10+ other MMOs which are all capable of things like letting you whisper while in an instance, or having more than 8 chat channels. Saying it's "too much noise," or "too hard for the servers" seems like such a cop-out answer.

Again, as I'll repeat for the 2nd time. When I say "I hate that I can't look up." I'm talking about first-person mode. Why can't I look directly up? Hair clipping won't matter, because it's first person view. Your entire body is hidden--so literally nothing clips.
- snip -

My understanding is the reason SE doesn't allow whisper in Dungeons is due to griefing and harassment. I have no idea why SE had to take steps instead of telling folks like every other MMO to put the person on ignore and to never match people on ignore lists? However I agree that not having whisper in instances is silly and that there really is no excuse for not having it.

Not trying to shoot you down here but it wouldn't surprise me that there isn't a real first person mode and what you perceive as first person is just a really tight third person. I don't like first person but it isn't the only thing that restricts views when there isn't a need to.

I've gotten to the point that I don't see SE dealing with quality of life and am not sure they would implement the stuff in a decent fashion anyway. Given their history they seem to take a simple straight forward idea and make it as convoluted as possible. Who knows they might get somebody new who knows how to design architecture but I don't think that will happen as long as Yoshi is in charge.

[Lubu_Mykono]

I think fundamentally they have a specific budget to work with the game in terms of designing assets and coding to solve the problems that they have. The issues you have, although some of them are valid, aren't really the priority with all this other content and a reasonably busy production schedule. I mean they are probably pretty deep into development of a new expansion right now. Most people would be willing to forget the small effort it would take to fix some of these issues if they give us new shiny stuff at fanfest.

Priority is important, I mean we are getting better UI for mounts and minions, so there some quality of life being worked on. I just don't think every little query or suggestion will be worked on. It's just impossible. Some of your queries are so specific and would only affect a tiny proportion of players that someone has to authorise whether it's worth the cost of labour when there is so much more important stuff they could focus on.

[TheMax1087]

Stormblood came out. I capped my main job. I then focused on crafting. Maxed those out. I got to experience my first raid-patch. And was utterly disappointed. I came from Warcraft, so to get what, 4 bosses? Really? And on top of that, my FC couldn't even kill half of them? What the heck is this? Raiding in FFXIV is just farming 1-2 bosses per week depending on the quality of your FC? I'm used to Warcraft giving me 10 bosses a patch cycle! So the heck am I suppose to do with 4?

I didn't much care about most of the things in this topic but just reading this paragraph annoys me. Why does it matter how many bosses there are if you can only beat the first one. The only thing that would change for you personally if they added 10 bosses is instead of thee bosses you cant beat there’d instead be 9 you cant beat.

[Fredco191]

I hate how there’s no dual-wielding sword/axe DPS classes.

<quiet moan> I’d love a class that dual-wields axes!
5.0 perhaps SE?

[JackHatchet]

I didn't much care about most of the things in this topic but just reading this paragraph annoys me. Why does it matter how many bosses there are if you can only beat the first one. The only thing that would change for you personally if they added 10 bosses is instead of thee bosses you cant beat there’d instead be 9 you cant beat.

I didn't want to side step with a huge tirade about my pet-peeves with the raiding situation, but I'll try to sum it up. My core issues is that there's not enough mid-core raid content. As it stands right now. There's basically 3 different types of content. There's queuable content (which is so easy that you could literally AFK and receive a full clear). There's the savage content, and then there's ultimate.

What I specifically want is a broader learning curve. I want more mid-tier bosses. I don't want more 'puggable' bosses you can afk through. I want more bosses like 5 and 6 that require some skill, but not too hard that you'll wipe to enrage timer everytime you want to take Billy-Jean's girlfriend along (who doesn't understand materia melding or a proper rotation).

I want more bosses so that they can be spread out over a gradual curve of difficulty. So instead of getting stuck at boss 2 of 4. You may get stuck at boss 6 of 12. And then getting to boss 7 might seem a lot more reasonable as the curve is more streamlined.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I didn't want to side step with a huge tirade about my pet-peeves with the raiding situation, but I'll try to sum it up. My core issues is that there's not enough mid-core raid content. As it stands right now. There's basically 3 different types of content. There's queuable content (which is so easy that you could literally AFK and receive a full clear). There's the savage content, and then there's ultimate.

What I specifically want is a broader learning curve. I want more mid-tier bosses. I don't want more 'puggable' bosses you can afk through. I want more bosses like 5 and 6 that require some skill, but not too hard that you'll wipe to enrage timer everytime you want to take Billy-Jean's girlfriend along (who doesn't understand materia melding or a proper rotation).

I want more bosses so that they can be spread out over a gradual curve of difficulty. So instead of getting stuck at boss 2 of 4. You may get stuck at boss 6 of 12. And then getting to boss 7 might seem a lot more reasonable as the curve is more streamlined.

So... extreme trials?