I need to vent (VERY long)

[zaviermhigo]

I don't understand the argument about arrows. The class could be considerably more costly than all others, that's why it does the most amount of dmg. That's the trade off, its cost money to do the most damage.

[DoubleEcho]

For me, I don't understand the argument about leves. Do you really want everyone to teleport to some far out camp like Broken Water (Or run if they're anima poor) and then find out the leves this reset aren't that great? It makes more sense to get all your leves from one central location so you can plan where you're going to go with a group.

If you have a job and are given, say, places to deliver to, getting all of your delivery orders from the place you need to deliver to wouldn't make any damn sense. I still have no idea why people want to change the leve assignments, it's not broken.

[Mimmo]

I think rangers buying ammo is not a big deal either. Should tanks also get a free shield that comes with every sword they buy too? I also feel that buying different types of arrows is sort of what makes the job unique too. And again, managing arrows in this game isnt even difficult, they stack to 999 and they cost 3 gil each in an economy that is flowing with endless gil.

[DoubleEcho]

I think rangers buying ammo is not a big deal either. Should tanks also get a free shield that comes with every sword they buy too? I also feel that buying different types of arrows is sort of what makes the job unique too. And again, managing arrows in this game isnt even difficult, they stack to 999 and they cost 3 gil each in an economy that is flowing with endless gil.

And if you're worried about wasting your gil on arrows, jeez just buy Warped Arrows. If I'm doing leves I just grab a couple stacks of those - the damage difference isn't that great, and if you have a large party in the end it won't matter. Now, going up against a NM or later on, doing dungeons yeah you'll want top damage. But otherwise just get warped arrows - 1300ish for a 999 stack from the NPC.

[AshTS]

If you are worried about wasting money on arrows and consumables, don't be an archer.

Actually, after reading more of the OP, that guys needs to just find another non-MMO game to play. I've never heard such a butthurt decree for an easy mode since Wrath of the Lich King beta.

Also lol

[Neptune]

Right on man. Agree 100% with your post. Hope Yoshi-P reads it.

[Blitz0309]

The battle system. I don't care if its slow or fast... it needs to be fun and engaging. Stamina and being able to spam abilites is boring. Where is the excitement like in ffxi where you were trying to kill a mob and hoping you'd get enough TP to kill it before it killed you?

I played ranger in ffxi, it was my first job to 75. You go out knowing you're going to party and you take arrows with you.
Then again if you ran out you could at least swing with your axe/dagger (pending level) though the damage was horrid. Of course in this game if you changed to a dagger you're suddenly a gladiator which is a bigger issue in my mind than ammo consumption. I started out as a ranger in 14 as well, yeah i occasionally ran out of arrows but that is part of shooting something at an enemy. Eventually you're going to run out. If you don't like it switch over to a mage class.

Why you have to stop running to change modes is silly. I'm pretty sure you can pull out a weapon while jogging. Hell, i'd even be up for having a /rest command to regen. The whole active passive mode is silly really.

Death in this game is a minor just annoying. It doesn't have much of a penalty and its almost pointless, with how easy they are making this game i'm surprised it doesn't just pop up a box that says "You have been KO'ed, try again or HP?" Then again the fact that raise is 12 levels from cap, yeah that is silly. But i guess it goes to show the vision that this game has. /sarcasm

Travel is horrible. Not only is it like driving through a desert (as you see the same thing over and over), but its slow. Teleporting just adds to the easy mode, and i'm not a fan. Especially since you can go anywhere with someone in your party even if you've never been there. Always having the maps is pretty lame as well... but i guess i like a challenge and not to have everything handed to me. Having chocobo's but saying they are on shortage is pretty lame, but SE has to have that carrot on a string to keep people going.

Levelquests.. annoying, repetitious and i'd be fine if they were just gone completely.

So much wrong, so little right. That is ffxiv for ya. And the best part, they add more stuff that is wrong than right. Yay agro icons! You're killing me SE.

[Wolfie]

*The overall battle system is too slow. Its needs to be sped up to be more engaging and less of a drag.

Yes yes yes. The three major things that are slowing combat down right now are stamina (which is being taken care of), the dreadful delay between actions and activating an action and having it perform, and expensive, hard hitting abilities. The first two they said they'll take care of, so that's good. But then they haven't mentioned anything about ability rebalancing. I'd like to see spells and weapon attacks consume 50-70% of their current MP/TP cost and have their damage and additional effects reduced appropriately so that we can do more than 2 or 3 back to back attacks before having to pause for half a minute.

*Archers are the only class that runs out of "fighting" power because they consume arrows. This is the only game that I have recently played in which the Archers are penalized with arrows being consumable. If you are out of arrows you are practically useless. Other classes are not handicapped like this. If there is a great desire to limit ranger arrows at least make it work in the same manner MP works for conjurer/thauma*.

I'd like to see FFXIV take the WOW/Diablo route with this and completely remove ammo (and of course, rebalance bow damage to factor in the loss of arrow damage). If ANY class is heavily focused on using consumables or basically throwing money at enemies, it becomes very hard to balance. If it performs better than other, cheaper classes, then it's vastly superior and everyone will demand for it during endgame or leveling parties. If it's on par or worse than other classes, nobody will want to play it because there are cheaper alternatives.

*Switching between combat and passive mode should be instant and not be slowed down by animation switching. If I am running I should easily be able to switch between passive and combat without having to stop.

Yes. It was instant in FFXI (although it did incur a graphics glitch). It's extremely annoying having to stop and accidentally hitting the Active/Passive button when running around is infuriating. Along with this, I'd like to see a flashier/more obvious indicator of what mode I'm in. It's hard to tell when using gathering or crafting classes.

*Replenishing of health and MP should be faster and should also work when in combat mode. This would not be such a ordeal if switching between the two modes were seamless and non intrusive so that the gamer would be able to run around and explore in passive mode to replenish health and quickly switch to combat. The faster replenishing of these things to me would greatly enhance the game enjoyment because of the reduction of downtime.

I don't know about this. It can work without in-combat regen, and if you do a /sit emote, your regeneration is pretty good. I'd say its on par with having to sit down and eat in WOW, much faster than Aion and FFXI.

*When you die and you are not in a party the game should automatically prompt the user to return. Whats worse is that a simple ability to resurrect is not available until rank 38. That is nothing short of absurdity. It also limits partying because if someone dies you have wait for the person to return if no one has the ability to resurrect. Its even more problematic for lower rank gamers who would die often. Also death penalises health and anima but fortunately the cost of anima for returning is being reconsidered.

This should not be a huge problem when/if personal mounts are implemented. Since our transport systems are so weak right now, we can pretty much only run to places. If you were questing or leveling in an area far away from an Aetheryte camp, it's a PITA to get back to where you were. I'm pretty sure this will go away with mounts.

2. Travel. Mobility needs to be revamped. Currently moving between locations is painful and costly. Teleportation should not cost anima. There is no reason it should cost anything to move from one location to next. What could possibly be the reasoning behind this? To limit gamers mobility? Why would anyone want to do that? Whats worse is that there are Chocobos in every town but NONE are available. Why? Why tease folks with their presence? Simple make them available or don't have them. The renting or acquisition of these birds to gamers should not even be considered because its a given. Gamers want faster transportation and Chocobos are teasingly "available".

Yes and no. I disagree with removing anima; every MMO has a way to limit the amount of times you use instant travel methods. WOW requires ingredients, monetary donations, or is only limited to specific places (Cities, PVP instances, etc.). FFXIV's teleport system allows you to travel pretty much anywhere in the world that you have visited. A limit on how many times you can hop around the world is good. What I'd like to see is the three favorite locations become completely free, though. That should give you 4 free locations to teleport to at any time (Homepoint/bind point, and three other camps).

Mounts definitely yes.

3. Levequests. The last time I checked levequest was still mind numbingly illogical. Gamers should not have to get Leves from one area for it to be activated in an another area. That makes no sense whatsoever. Gamers should be able to get Leves and be able to do the Leves immediately or whenever they please without having to travel to a particular location to activate. This is not fun and I don't know who convinced the person who came up with this idea that this system is fun.

Yes! Sometimes I only feel like playing for 30-60 minutes. If I have to go pick up new leves, it's going to take me ~40 minutes to get to town and back if I don't want to or can't use teleports.

But I'd like to see leves be separated in a different way. Leves passed from the NPCs in towns should be random, as they are now, be more difficult, and offer better overall rewards. Leves issued directly at the camps should be simpler and offer smaller rewards. And the number of leves should be a good 10-20x what they are now to give them variety. I can't imagine creating a leve is hard work.

[Rutelor]

Just like people's geographical origins define their cultural biases, it seems obvious that previous MMO-playing experience shapes the concept of fun in any MMO-player brain.

To the OP: I was wondering what in your previous gaming experience defined your particular biases, based upon which you want a faster combat system than the one at hand, HP replenished faster than it already does, and during combat, no less, plus archers unencumbered by arrows? It's telling to me that you unquestionably assimilate combat speed to fun.

I, for one, have fled every game out there that included any of these options. Especially those games that strive to make MMO gameplay feel more like simplistic, linear, single-player games that gratify the player based on the simple rush of kill-kill-kill-and-kill-it-now.

[Wolfie]

Just like people's geographical origins define their cultural biases, it seems obvious that previous MMO-playing experience shapes the concept of fun in any MMO-player brain.

To the OP: I was wondering what in your previous gaming experience defined your particular biases, based upon which you want a faster combat system than the one at hand, HP replenished faster than it already does, and during combat, no less, plus archers unencumbered by arrows? It's telling to me that you unquestionably assimilate combat speed to fun.

I, for one, have fled every game out there that included any of these options. Especially those games that strive to make MMO gameplay feel more like simplistic, linear, single-player games that gratify the player based on the simple rush of kill-kill-kill-and-kill-it-now.

I played...

FFXI, Diablo 2, WOW, Dragonica, Aion, FFXIV, RIFT; swapping back and forth between MMOs every few months. I spent the longest time on FFXI, about 4 years. I've also played dozens of other RPGs, single player and multi player.

I was not a fan of FFXI's slow combat system for melee classes, so I stuck with mage classes and soloing. I've never liked the prospect of having to drop lots of money on arrows and consumable for combat. Arrows especially, because developers and gamers justify the use of arrows by appealing to realism or whatever; when in real life, you would go and physically retrieve your arrows after firing them, not simply abandon them. For me, it's either: no arrows, or let me recover 90-95% of my arrows like I would be able to in real life.