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

[StriderShinryu]

my 2 gil
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

While I'm not sure it directly fits into the scope of the ARR rework, I think this is a pretty important point to make. Most classes feel extremely hollow when pared down by level sync, and some feel completely broken/useless. I don't know if the solution is just a scaling power downgrade or what but it would really benefit the game to not simply kill all of your later acquired skills when synced down. This is absolutely something SE should address as it would help not only ARR content feel more relevant (or at least enjoyable) at later levels but would carry forward through the game even into the future.

[Avidria]

...

3c-33 explained it way better than I was gonna... A huge chunk of those quests seriously felt like just wasted time. I've never played another JRPG, but I hate quests like that in other MMOs too. Those "run across the world, talk to a guy, then run back with zero action, little interaction, and maybe a tiny scrap of plot if you're lucky" quests. Or worse the sea of, "go talk to the guy literally three feet from me to get his report or kerchief or the sweat on his cheek or whatever because I literally can't be bothered to take two steps apparently" quests where it's just like... hello? Am I still just the errand boy?

At least I get to enjoy all the tongue in cheek and snarky dialogue options they've added where the WoL can basically just... point that out lmao. Like, "it doesn't even matter what I say, you all think I'm just an errand running sucker don't you?" Because apparently they do.

ARR was worse I think because so much of it, all the way to 50, was those kinds of fluffy empty quests where I found myself not really interested in what I was doing. It dragged on. I also couldn't stand Minfilia after a while, so the fact that running back to the Sands over and over meant running back to her just made it even less engaging. The most interesting part of a lot of those quests was the changing flavor quest and dialogue you got talking to all of the NPCs inside the Waking Sands. :/

Worst part, which I'm not saying they should just toss out, was that the story wasn't - and still isn't - optional if you want to access an absolutely massive amount of the game's content. Most of the game is locked behind the story. You either trudge through the parts that are boring, skip every cutscene to hurry it up, or shell out cash to actually skip it. That's part of why I hated so much of the L50 quests... Mostly uninteresting filler in the way of me getting to HW content, which was the new expansion everyone I played with was enjoying at the time. While I was still playing errand cat with mostly-forgettable characters and a plot that took its sweet time to get where it was going.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Turn some of the "pray return to the Waking Sands" quests into cutscenes instead of traveling across the continent just to travel right back.

Turn the quest to get Minfilia's knife melded into a sidequest, or just kick it waaaaay down the line to a point when materia actually might matter. It's not like she ever actually uses the knife anyway.

Add a mandatory quest to receive your job soul stone before Titan. There should be no excuse to not have it.

Trim some of the fluff in Coerthas and the lead-in to Garuda. That segment really drags, to me.

Prune the living hell out of the pre-HW patches.

[Awful]

Mostly outdated character customization I feel the games showing its age and all of the old races need a tweak.

Dungeon revamps, specially dungeons like Haukke HM and Copperbell and Toto-Rak for an example. Msq roulette should default to all dungeons/trials related to the story that's not castrum/praetorium as those can be solo dungeons instead.

Gear coffers after beating ultima for ilvl 130 gear left and right side that way people dont have to waste poetics on upgrading gear. Also have a short side quest to move the upgrade vendor into Mor Dhona.

Post story is getting trimmed gonna wait to see how SE handles that first.

[Bonbori]

When it comes to the Coerthas part of AAR, could we just replace that entire ordeal with:

1. Go to... whatshisface that gets accused by the fake Inquisitor guy
2. Go to Haurchefant
3. Give Haurchefant a headpat and tell him he's a good boy
4. Go to Witchdrop to interrupt the trial AND WHILE THERE just kick the fake Inquisitor guy down the hole and resolve that entire nonsense plot then and there instead of letting it drag on forever
5. Go with Haurchefant to that buttface whose name I don't remember who has the keys to Stone Vigil
6. Let Haurchefant slap him across the stupid face and order him to just do what we ask
7. Go to Stone Vigil
8. Airship acquired
9. ???
10. Proceed!

There, I fixed Coerthas in 10 easy steps. You are welcome, all future players.

[Dreggit]

While I know there are areas that can be improved;

I recall in an interview that they said it's difficult to edit ARR locals because either an event is tied to a location on the field or there's some arbitrary code that if removed would cause issues elsewhere.

I don't remember when the interview was though but it was at least pre 4.2

[HyoMinPark]

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:

It’s not laziness. It’s the sheer number of times you have to “Pray, return to the Waking Sands” that makes the lack of a nearby Aetheryte annoying. This is coming from someone who has done ARR MSQ several times—and from someone who, the first time, RAN to every quest as opposed to teleporting. Unless they significantly trim down the number of times Minfilia tells you to run back for a couple lines of dialogue that she could just as easily tell you over the Linkpearl, I’m all for having an Aetheryte there.

Besides, lore gets retconned all the time. SE made Kingdom Hearts, so they’re experts at it!

[Rilifane]

When it comes to the Coerthas part of AAR, could we just replace that entire ordeal with:

1. Go to... whatshisface that gets accused by the fake Inquisitor guy
2. Go to Haurchefant
3. Give Haurchefant a headpat and tell him he's a good boy
4. Go to Witchdrop to interrupt the trial AND WHILE THERE just kick the fake Inquisitor guy down the hole and resolve that entire nonsense plot then and there instead of letting it drag on forever
5. Go with Haurchefant to that buttface whose name I don't remember who has the keys to Stone Vigil
6. Let Haurchefant slap him across the stupid face and order him to just do what we ask
7. Go to Stone Vigil
8. Airship acquired
9. ???
10. Proceed!

There, I fixed Coerthas in 10 easy steps. You are welcome, all future players.

While you may not like that part, it does give a good insight into Ishgardian politics and their general view of things. The constant interruptions from the Inquisitor are meant to be frustrating to underline how little your voice means: next to nothing. It also introduces the different high houses and their very different view on things.
By the time you have located the airship and finished your trip through Coerthas you have already learned a lot about Ishgard, its people, its struggle and the different high houses with their own views, responsibilities and agendas.
Of all the ARR arcs, I think this is one that should be kept as close as possible to how it is now.

Also: shoving the false Inquisitor down witch drop without any evidence that HE is the responsible for everything?
Congrats, you just got a lifelong ban from Ishgard plus plenty of temple knights tailing you for murdering one of their most respected people. ;D

[Infindox]

The 100 quests to HW. I have several friends who want to play but are waiting on them to change this. Keep the fights, of course, but remove the filler.
Make hunts in ARR areas harder to kill but allow them to still be able to be done by lower level jobs.
Put an aeitheryte at the Waking Sands. (While we are at it, this is a HW area but put one in the Hinterlands!!!) I think removing the point of going there defeats the "big thing" that happens after Titan but definitely do not need that long ride everytime.
Put gemstones in for FATEs in ARR, and make rewards available like in ShB areas.
Fix maps so you can fly/swim.
Cut out some of the more obnoxious fetch quests in the msq.
Fix the music in some ARR areas. I don't know if it's just me but I'll notice the music isn't playing right.

[Kaiserdrache]

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.

ACN would become Scholar Class, summoner would receive a new beginner class called the "Sorcerer" or "Invoker" or "Spiritualist" or whatever fits best the theme n flavor in favor of FF14.

From then on only arcanists/scholers use books, all summoner book skins become acn/sch only skins, summoners and their beginner class use instead then warhorns to call their summons with them.

Both classes get their whole skill sets from Level 1 to 30 reworked, cause the whole skill sets of bith never fitted to the skills they us, which sre in fact green mage skills, stuff like bio, miasma, tridisaster, ect all dont belobg to the theme of neither a Scholar nor especially a Summoner.

summoner gets its gameplay mechanic changed, only Scholar should use Ether with skills like Energy Drain/Draw.
Summoners need to be designed alot more around supporting snd buffing their summons to make them more effective and efficient in the small time window that they are there when being summoned.

They are sbout dealing alot of aoe damage with their summons, not about spamming tons of negative dots snd micromsnahing these, thats not the job of a summoner to do this misdesigned stuff, greenmages would to that when going for the offense, if they current don't bufftheir allies.