Things you want SE to keep doing

[AwesomeJr44]

Thavnair benefits from it as well. Sometimes I just go there to stare at the skies, and it really could be confused for something out of an anime, especially if you get the big giantsgall formation in.

Sometimes I do the same in Ultima Thule when I visit. I don't particularly like the location's story, but that skybox... that's a pretty damn good skybox if I've ever seen one.

To the Job Balance issues that have come up - I would like to remind my fellow community members that it is only the highest tier of gaming (Savage and Ultimate) where these imbalances may affect performance to the point of wanting to change jobs. All jobs are valid in almost every instance without issues. I have a WoW history & can say definitively that the balance issues here are small by comparison.

I don't think that anyone is really suggesting that job balance matters outside of Savage/Ultimate, the main problem people have is that certain jobs were having extreme difficulties (and I'm not just saying the content's hard, you can play WAR and not clear, but then swap to GNB and clear with 2 damage downs) clearing in week 1, which is a HUGE problem, especially if one of those jobs is your main. My main is actually pretty good right now, but thank god I don't play paladin. I pity anyone who mains paladin right now.
(EDIT: Ok, no joke. I literally JUST realized your main job is PLD rn. No shade being thrown lol)

This game has offered me a chance to play any job I want, and I think that flexibility alone is one of its strongest points.

Just don't choose to play Paladin in the first few weeks P8S lol

[Lauront]

Sometimes I do the same in Ultima Thule when I visit. I don't particularly like the location's story, but that skybox... that's a pretty damn good skybox if I've ever seen one.

Yeah I'll admit to enjoying the starscape with that one as well, especially that star cracked open like an egg.

[Payadopa]

I would prefer they put less emphasis on "balance" and bring back uniqueness to jobs, even if that means not making new jobs.

I am happy they are making graphical changes to the game, but that needs to include the character deficits which already exist in the present system. if they are updating the graphics, they need to update the issues stated for the races they have already included.

I second that. Balance is important, but so far it has only been detrimental for me in terms of overall enjoyment. I hope SE reverts course and brings fun abilities back.

[Soge01]

More non-Sharlyans joining the Scions' main cast. I love them all, but I really like seeing characters like Estinien join up with us. I hope Gosestu and Fordola can join up with us next. :3

[TaleraRistain]

Island Sanctuary is definitely a sweet little thing, and I know it can only get better. Though crafting and gathering skills are not needed for it, I was wondering perhaps if you do the Island as one, if maybe it could give some nominal amount of EXP if you are actually the job that should be doing these things? Or maybe a bonus to them, like getting extra items from trees if you know Botany, or being able to 'teach' your mammets to do metal working (i.e. Goldsmith/Blacksmith/Armorer) so they are either more efficient or grant a quality bonus, making their work more valuable.

I say this as 90 in both DoH and DoL, IS giving us an extra benefit seems a little unfair to anyone who isn't interested in those aspects. IS is something we're all kind of on equal footing with. The alternate exp path is an idea I like, though, and wouldn't affect the success of others who don't engage in those aspects of the game.

[Azuri]

Really appreciate them providing more and more fuel to the delicious forum drama happening lately.

[Packetdancer]

I would prefer they put less emphasis on "balance" and bring back uniqueness to jobs, even if that means not making new jobs.

While I'm inclined to agree from a player standpoint, I also understand why they wouldn't want to from a developer one. We as a community have demonstrated that if there is an "optimal" party meta, we will not only stick to that party composition, but actively shut people out of party finder if they play jobs that aren't optimal. And trying to make it so that every standard party comp is equally viable is potentially detrimental to job depth, inasmuch as getting all jobs to fit within the same mold often means sanding off the edges and bits that stick out.

But even if it's detrimental in that sense, it's also a solution to the "we have demonstrated that we as a playerbase will shut jobs out of endgame content if there are other jobs that are measurably more optimal" issue... and truth be told, I'm not sure I have a better way to address that. It's a thorny game design issue, and I'm not sure there's a good solution.

[Aexnidaral]

I've played the game for awhile, and while I have many criticisms about the game; there's more that I love about it.

For me probably the biggest thing I want them to keep doing is making the engaging story they've had. Wrapping up the Hydaelyn/Zodiark saga really allows them to get out of the boxes they were otherwise constrained in, and I think it can lead to some very good storytelling opportunities and I very much trust the writing team to do so in the upcoming patches and expansions. Out of all of the MMOs I've played, FFXIV has the best and most accessible in-game lore with supplementary material that is genuinely fun to read and engage with (ie Encyclopedia Eorzea, etc.)

I love Island Sanctuary. It's a very fun and unique new thing to do. In the same vein as the upcoming Variant Dungeons, I hope they continue to add various types of content and expand on them. Having more options for people to engage in the game in a way that tickles them is always a good thing, so long as they're willing to keep it updated and growing and not abandon it.

As others have mentioned as well: this game is very beautiful overall. I have some very specific nitpicks about how when you zoom in on yourself, or certain characters some of their textures can look very... crunchy in a way that can take you out of the moment (ie. 5.3 and the Crunchy Exarch); but for the most part on a macro level the game is very pretty. I hope that the upcoming graphical enhancements will alleviate some of this.

The music in this game is absolutely bonkers. There are so many themes and leitmotifs that are genuinely stuck in my head I don't think I'll ever get them out. Sokken and his team do a fantastic job, and I hope this continues.

[Midareyukki]

I guess I should add to this topic tbh, since the opening post I made is kind of "meh".

I agree when people talk about the skybox, that sky is amazing and it really immerses people who want to play Astrologian. You can see the different constellations, you can see the milky way, you can see circumpolarity which is just bonkers!

And as flawed as Jobs can end up becoming, I actually think they're neat and that the decision to let people play whatever they want on a whim is so good. Because I'm the sort of person that gets bored really easily, so even if I love playing Gunbreaker, I get tired of it after a few hours. And they're all enjoyable to a fault, I've always at least tried to understand the flow of each class every expansion. Endwalker probably has the least amount of classes that I can play without feeling like it's too stiff, but I just see them as needing a bit of a tweak rather than a world-ending cataclysm if they don't fix. I could argue that the game needs a bit more individuality in the jobs to make them stand out, but I also know that those typically are an outright mess to balance.

And for all the problems the plot may seem to have, I only really had two issues with Endwalker thus far. One being Loporrits, as they did break the flow for me real hard, and the other being that sacrifice moment at Ultima Thule. Could have been done better for more impact. Otherwise, I loved Garlemald despite absolutely despising their philosophies and methods at a fundamental core. I like how it tells you "Yes, they're fascist. They have been for a long time, and it's going to take a while to break it. Not everyone is going to enjoy this. But this is a fight for humanity, and it's also about how resilient they are and how people can change. Your hatred for Garleans is no different than the Grand Companies and the Beast Tribes. If they can set aside their crap and come together, so too can Garleans if they're willing. Those who are unwilling to adapt are just pitiable, nothing more. Because they could not learn to be better and rise above."
Even the sidequests had that. I really wanted to abandon the little Garlean kid, but the devs had the foresight of telling people "He's just a kid who grew up in garbage mindsets". And even if it was just a little fantasy story on a computerized setting, it felt cool to go out and prove the kid and his parents wrong. It isn't easy, and I imagine it wouldn't have been easy for Hrothgars to just up and accept Garleans so willingly after Bozja happened. But life isn't easy. And it wasn't easy in real life either, we see that happen right now. Yet we worked out somehow in the past, because that's what mattered. It won't make the pain they inflicted go away, but it makes sure the future isn't a loop.
I love Radz-at-Han and the way they portrayed the people and the culture. And can we just talk about how Square does it? Square actually pays attention to the cultures they build. Some are more subtle than others, but there's a lot that they add and they typically stay consistent when they portray it. They take real world influences and add their own fantasy twist. Sure, some stuff is "Planet of Hats", but it makes it all the more identifiable and work within the lore. It was cool to explore the Azim Steppe as it was cool to explore the different parts of Norvrandt. If there's anything this team has shown they can do is blend different aesthetics into the same world and make them fit. It gives every area its uniqueness and identifiable culture.

And the game is beautiful. A much-needed downgrade from 1.0, sure, but it's still amazing for an MMO with the sort of quality it has. And I just don't want Square to squander it. By this I mean that... well, we all know Square's a company known for their graphics, right? And the game is robust and hefty without being a glorified graphics demo like 1.0 was. We know they're going to do a graphical update in the near future, and I cannot wait for that because it's going to look so good. However, making graphics of any kind takes time. And for all my gripes with Viera and Hrothgar, I want them to do what they can without going overboard. But if they're going to commit, I personally feel they should treat everything the same way and think carefuly on what they add and what they don't. This world looks amazing, it'd be such a disservice for it to not match.

idk, YMMV on this thread, but that's the cool part. Square does so much good stuff, half of it can't even fit in a single post and not all of us will agree on what we like more or less. And to me, that's fine.

And no. I saw the stupid tag you put on this thread. This isn't about White Knighting. Sometimes, it's nice to have some appreciation for the devs and not concentrate yourself only on the negativity, isn't it? And hell, more than give a platform for those who argue against the negativity, it also gives a platform for those who do have complaints about the game feel more validated by showing that they do care. Same as everyone else who enjoys this game and wants to see it succeed.

[Packetdancer]

And the game is beautiful. A much-needed downgrade from 1.0, sure, but it's still amazing for an MMO with the sort of quality it has.

I'm actually going to note that I don't even think the game's environment is a straight downgrade from 1.x. Yes, the textures were considerably downgraded in many areas to allow for Playstation 3 support, and the animations are more 'floaty' (though there's some good reasons for that). And 1.x had an amazing lighting engine; I loved that since shadows were reliable in all lighting, they were able to do the little trick that -- as in lore -- someone possessed by an Ascian cast no shadow. (There's a reason the Ascian theme they still use is a track called "Shadowless".) It was subtle, but a neat touch.

HOWEVER. The tradeoff in 1.x, at least in my opinion, was that the world felt less varied and alive.

The Black Shroud is a great example; while I can appreciate as a storyteller that they captured the closed-in and almost oppressive feel of a dark and foreboding forest (even if my seething hate for the 1.x Shroud's layout has not entirely faded), the fact that they had like four trees total and copy/pasted them across the entire zone was... let's go with "a little bit jarring at times".

Similarly, I seem to recall a lot of "man, that's the same pile of rocks I saw about 30 feet back" in certain parts of Mor Dhona in 1.x. And there were some pretty big chunks of pre-Calamity Coerthas which felt to me like "So here's just some largely-undifferentiated rolling ground with a lovely grass texture. This is basically 75% of your zone. If you want variety, there's some evergreens over that-a-way near the cliffs. Enjoy!"

Basically, 1.x felt to me like they not only valued graphical fidelity over actual gameplay, they valued graphical fidelity of individual assets over actual variety in those assets. Who needs 20+ different tree models when you have just four really detailed ones, after all?

Conversely, whatever else you want to say about the shift in the game's graphics from 1.x to ARR, I feel like they are actually far better at making interesting, living -- and lived-in -- environments for the various world zones in many ways. And honestly? To me, I think that makes many of the game environments feel more beautiful than they ever did in 1.x.

Beauty in environment doesn't always mean graphical fidelity. Valheim can be beautiful, and it certainly doesn't have photorealistic textures and whatnot.

I mean, this is not to say current-era FFXIV is perfect at environment design, of course, but I do think it's generally an overall improvement from the state of things in 1.x in many ways. Sometimes dramatically so.

So for all that I look forward to the graphical updates on a technical level -- because, yeah, those PS3-era textures are... not super great -- that zone design is something I definitely appreciate and would like them to keep doing.

Sometimes, it's nice to have some appreciation for the devs and not concentrate yourself only on the negativity, isn't it?

This is also an excellent point. Most of us are here because we enjoy this game and care about it.

That doesn't mean we're blind to flaws it may have. After all, just because I (usually) can understand from a developer perspective why they make the choices they do -- or what technical limitations they're likely working with -- doesn't mean I always agree with those choices.

(Do not start me on their UX/UI, because if you think I can be wordy normally, you have not seen the literal avalanche of text I could produce on that topic.)

And in general, people are more likely to come to the forums to post when they're unhappy about something; if they're happy, they're potentially off just... y'know, playing the game. But if we didn't care about anything in the game, we would probably not be here -- we'd be off playing something else. Even when there's things you think could be improved, there's got to be things you still do like, or else you wouldn't still be here.

And sometimes, it is actually nice to share those things we like for a change. To focus on the elements that factor into why we're still here, playing this game. Rather than the things we think could or should be different; Twelve know we cover those in enough depth in 98% of the threads on this forum.