Dear Devs; please move the "Off-hand" and "Soul Crystal" slots to the top of UI

[Eriane_Elis]

Even Yoshi-P has said he's not fond of the job/soul crystal system. It's a weird relic of 1.0. Unfortunately, getting rid of it would require rewriting a lot of job quests (several of them, including black mage and dark knight, explicitly use the soul crystals as a plot device), and redoing how summoner and scholar split off the same class. It's just one of those things they want to work on but can't prioritize over new content.

Soul crystals don't need to be a part of it in inventory and can easily remain as a part of the lore. The only difficult thing would be telling the difference between scholar and summoner for example. But, I'm sure that's just a UI button they can have to toggle between the two classes.

[LMMotoss]

Right now, the standard character-sheet is lop-sided. It displays 5 pieces of gear on the left, and 7 pieces on the right. TWO of those pieces on the right, however, shouldn't even be there; those are the "Off-hand" slot, and the "Soul Crystal" slot.

Just like your Weapon is literally a job-defining piece of gear, so too are the Soul Crystal and Off-hand slots. In fact, I would display them as such:

FIRST in line (left to right) should be the Soul Crystal, since thematically, it is the most important piece of gear on your person. Next would obviously be your Weapon. The third "Off-hand" slot, however, I would actually HIDE ENTIRELY, unless on a job that specifically uses it. Which, to my knowledge, are literally just low-level BLM's and WHM's, meaning it's effectively a PLD-exclusive equipment slot. Which, whatever, that's fine; only display it for those characters, then.

In terms of the Armoury Chest, I would display them in largely the same order, but move ALL of the icons to the left side of the window, and move Soul Crystals ABOVE the Weapon slot, and Off-hands BELOW the Weapon slot. That would actually perfectly align them, using the exact same amount of space.

I know these probably sound like trivial changes -- and make no mistake, for most players, they are -- but as someone who REALLY values a clean-looking UI, and likes for things to be displayed in a way that makes sense, these changes would really clean things up a lot.

That's all I've got! I hope you guys get a chance to forward this to the Devs. I know it sounds a bit complicated, but if you look at my post while you're actually in-game, looking at your character-sheet (or Armoury Chest, where referenced), I think you'll agree these suggestions would really look a lot cleaner.

I agree with you that it should be moved around but FYI basically every crafter uses the off-hand slot as well

[-BlueGreen-]

I totally support removal of the soul stone slot. It wouldn't even really be that hard as I think it could be done with these changes:
1. If you equip a weapon usable by both class/job, and you have the job unlocked, then you change to the job, otherwise you change/stay the class. Except for one CNJ quest I know of (the one for the unicorn mount), there's no good reason to deliberately unequip your job stone anymore. For that one quest, just open it up to WHM as well, and that should solve the problem.
2. Remove SCH and +mind from all books currently equippable by ACN/SMN/SCH.
3. For books level 30+ that are currently usable by ACN/SMN/SCH, create SCH-specific versions of those same books that have +mind instead of +intelligence. This wouldn't be very many as every book I'm aware of level 50+ already has SCH-specific versions separate from the ACN/SMN ones, and even some below level 50 are like that (e.g. the level 41 drop from stone vigil). This mostly impacts just the few crafted books from 30-50.
4. Delete DoH specialties. They've been made more and more pointless since their introduction. They were a mistake just like the previous limits desynthesis that prevented you from maxing out more than 3 classes at once. One of the core appeals of this game is that you're able to do just about everything from a single character without the need for alts. DoH specialties work against this even if you are able to change them almost at will now that it basically boils down to a smallish fee in crafting scripts.
5. Move the soul stones to collections. That way they're still an item you have and can look at as far as the plot goes.

On the other hand, I don't support removal of the offhand slot. Sure, it's a shame that only one combat class (currently) gets to utilize it, but I wouldn't mind a mace/shield and/or possibly even 1H-axe/shield tank in the future. It could even be opened up as a glamour slot to customize the left-hand weapon appearance separate from the right hand for dual-wielding classes (NIN/DNC) and perhaps even for certain parts of some 2H weapons (e.g. a BRD's quiver and the crystal the RDM holds in the left hand). On a more practical note, all DoH and DoL (except FSH) currently use the offhand slot potentially for glamour while crafting, but also as another thing to meld materia in to. The max 5 slots that adds isn't much, but they still provide some wiggle room for customizing your melds, especially if you ignore crazy-expensive BiS guides and go for a more economic route tailored to your specific goals as a crafter. When belts were removed, I found that I suddenly no longer have the ability to craft 4-star level 80 crafts without redoing some of my melds because of the way my belts had been melded. It's no big deal now because level 80 crafts are obsolete and upgrading to level 90 gear will also make the stat requirements no longer a problem either for level 80 crafts should I have reason to craft them again.

[Rongway]

The only difficult thing would be telling the difference between scholar and summoner for example.

Easily fixed by duplicating all the Lv30 to Lv49 books (there aren't that many of them) and making one set SMN only and one set SCH only.

[Terin]

Honestly, I'm down for a number of these suggestions. I'd probably still keep the Off-hand slot (simply because there's no no easy substitute for it), but I would definitely ONLY display that slot when playing Jobs that actually USE it.

But honestly, removing the Soul Crystal slot makes a lot of sense. In terms of storytelling, nothing really needs to change, we can still obtain the Soul Crystals, but just like so many key items in the Story, there's honestly no reason they need to clog up inventory space.

I don't even care about getting a bigger Armoury Chest or anything like that; maybe if we can find more ways to clear up more space, maybe they'll be able to do things more often like add new Housing wards, etc?

[ArkenaeuxBelmont]

Completely in favor of.

Though realistically, it needs to be said, probably won't ever happen.

All of it is holdover from 1.0's mess. Cleaning all of that up and recoding everything is probably a developer nightmare. ARR was made in such a short development time, that the amount of technical debt they had to incur by using 1.0's assets and code still affect us to this day.

Example: They finally JUST removed belts, something that was in the game in ARR to now only because they existed in 1.0 and had to be able to port over legacy characters' gear. Visually they did nothing, they were a stat stick, and it took them this long to rebalance the stats and remove the item.

I think if they were going to do it, doing it when they did the stat squish for EW would've made the most sense, as they were already elbow deep in the code.

I'd absolutely LOVE to see the lower level 1-30 stuff revamped in this form and soul crystal removed all together as an equipped item, I just highly doubt the devs would devote the time to doing it.

Also before someone inevitably says "I'm in coding blah blah blah it's not a lot to do it", none of us have any idea the actual work involved in messing with this game's spaghetti code. It could very well be easy, or it could be a technical nightmare for the devs. We just have 0 clue what would be involved.

[SeverianLyonesse]

Also before someone inevitably says "I'm in coding blah blah blah it's not a lot to do it", none of us have any idea the actual work involved in messing with this game's spaghetti code. It could very well be easy, or it could be a technical nightmare for the devs. We just have 0 clue what would be involved.

It does sound like a technical nightmare for the devs.

And as much as I would wholly support a total overhaul, update, and streamlining of the code for a new decade in lieu of new expansion content, it pretty much won't happen. They will keep squeezing out regular content as best they can, even if they are running a janky old engine into the ground.

HOWEVER. I will say that the game is extremely successful and making a lot of money. And it's not like there is a finite limit on a number of developers they can employ or contract with. If I were in SE's position, given the long-term potential for this game to become a sort of legacy experience the way WoW has for over 15 years, I would be looking to find a third party developer to undertake the process of an engine update. Much of that could happen totally independent of new content development, and with proper communication between studios could be synced up incrementally without causing too much of a release delay.

As a matter of clunky interfaces and dated models/textures, I think this is a necessary change if, as they say, they want to keep making content for another 10 years and expect FF XIV to remain an industry standard without falling into post-content maintenance mode. And frankly given how much XIV drew from every title in the series and succeeded on intertextuality, another FF MMO is not going to be as successful. It will either take a new direction that will not resonate and gather the same fanbase, or it will attempt pretty much the same thing with updated graphics/mechanics and be criticized for being unoriginal. Increasing the longevity of FF XIV is pretty much the only responsible decision by SE at this point in the MMO genre.

[Eriane_Elis]

Easily fixed by duplicating all the Lv30 to Lv49 books (there aren't that many of them) and making one set SMN only and one set SCH only.

After thinking about your proposal, I think it would be difficult because of the anima weapons and other things that are unlocked / achievement bound. I think a toggle would be the simplest alternative approach. It could just be at the top corner of your avatar preview in the character window that only appears on classes that share the legacy class evolution thing.

[ArkenaeuxBelmont]

It does sound like a technical nightmare for the devs.

And as much as I would wholly support a total overhaul, update, and streamlining of the code for a new decade in lieu of new expansion content, it pretty much won't happen. They will keep squeezing out regular content as best they can, even if they are running a janky old engine into the ground.

HOWEVER. I will say that the game is extremely successful and making a lot of money. And it's not like there is a finite limit on a number of developers they can employ or contract with. If I were in SE's position, given the long-term potential for this game to become a sort of legacy experience the way WoW has for over 15 years, I would be looking to find a third party developer to undertake the process of an engine update. Much of that could happen totally independent of new content development, and with proper communication between studios could be synced up incrementally without causing too much of a release delay.

As a matter of clunky interfaces and dated models/textures, I think this is a necessary change if, as they say, they want to keep making content for another 10 years and expect FF XIV to remain an industry standard without falling into post-content maintenance mode. And frankly given how much XIV drew from every title in the series and succeeded on intertextuality, another FF MMO is not going to be as successful. It will either take a new direction that will not resonate and gather the same fanbase, or it will attempt pretty much the same thing with updated graphics/mechanics and be criticized for being unoriginal. Increasing the longevity of FF XIV is pretty much the only responsible decision by SE at this point in the MMO genre.

The problem with that, at least from my understanding, is that SE doesn't give the developers back the budget they deserve for the amount of money the game is making. I'm fairly certain I read an interview with YoshiP somewhere or another where he was talking about what other games achieve with bigger budgets then they are allotted. It sounds like, at least from the surface, that the devs could stand to have more capital infused into their department. SE being a production company as well a developer, however, has to fund all their different projects. It would be no stretch of the imagination to deduce that the money FFXIV generates gets used primarily elsewhere in the company, as plenty other of their projects do not do as well as XIV, or the Final Fantasy brand itself. Marvel Avengers was one such flop, for instance.

You'd think that SE would funnel back a good portion into the game but, as we all know, Corporate Side =/= Devs. I'm sure with more money, resources and manpower they could accomplish a lot more with the game.

[Rongway]

After thinking about your proposal, I think it would be difficult because of the anima weapons and other things that are unlocked / achievement bound.

There are no shared SCH/SMN weapons after Lv49, so I don't understand why you think it would be difficult. Only Lv30 through Lv49 books lack a SCH only version.