I haven't played since October. Coming back to 1.18 patch, I've been pretty pleased so far. I am a fairly casual player and have played my fair share of MMORPG's. Despite the criticism, I love the innovation of this game and I really hope it succeeds.

Quite a bit of the problems I had with the game before have been resolved. In its current state, I plan to continue playing for a while. That being said, I would to point out the frustrations I still have with the game. I know most of my issues are currently being examined or fixed already, but maybe some extra feedback will help.

Crafting
This is the only game I have ever spent my entire night crafting. Wasn’t because I had to, I wanted to. I like the customization it gives you and the feeling you get after completing something successfully. My problem is how much stuff from different jobs it takes to make an item and the rank requirements to craft gear. I’ll give you a story of what happened to me.

I got my friend to play so of course he has a new low level character and I’m going to level a new class. My gear is not suited for this new job so I decide to go make some low level gear. So, I look around online and find the armor I want. I look at the recipe list for it, and think “wow, screw that, I’m not going to hunt down all that stuff”. So I go to market place and try to find some low level gear. Not to my surprise, all the gear is at least rank 30 on the market. I’m not complaining about that, I know I haven’t played in a while so, no big deal.

I decide to suck it up and make the armor. I look at the individual items and I actually have most of them. I craft away till I get most the basic materials made such as Hempen Cloth. I eventually get to a material that requires a material from another job. I can’t make it so I go look in market place. To my frustration, no one is selling that item. I shout around a couple times, no one answers. I check around character bazaars with no luck. Finally after an hour, I find somebody that has it.

A separate material says it requires a dye. Since I was just going off a website, I was thinking it would be stupid to require a dye for an item since it should only effect the color allowing for customization. I was depressed to find out otherwise.

The issue with it is, even though the item I am making is optimal for rank 4, it requires at least weaving rank 16. It’s called hempen gown but requires quite a bit of cotton. It seems like it’s pretty difficult to make gear for around your rank unless you level your craft rank quite a bit past the class you want to make gear for.

Market
Being that I am a newbie at this game, I had a very hard time finding what category an item I was looking for would be under. I can’t think of anything to make it easier other than the ability to type in what I am looking for. Which leads me to next point.

I hate to be negative, but overall, I think the retainer system is a bad idea. It is currently being turned into something more functional though, an annoying auction house. Annoying because once you find the item you are looking for, you are going to go for the cheapest price and warp to that market area. Go walk through mass amount of retainers to get the item you want. Rinse repeat for next item.

It’s also annoying for the people selling items. I have no clue what to charge for some of these items. Most of the time, I end up looking up online what NPC’s will buy it for then charge a bit more than that. As a suggestion, I think when you go to sell an item, there should be something that gives you an appraisal of that item. From there you can choose what you want to sell it for.

Another issue is relying on other players to get materials. Armor and what not, that’s fine. But I think NPC’s should sell a lot of the materials I can only get from other classes such as rat fur. Just charge a much higher fee.

I understand the reasoning behind the retainer system. Avoiding set prices on items would be nice. However, as a player, I really don’t care. I just want it to be easy. I don’t get to play that much, and when I do, I don’t want to spend a lot of time just trying to get items.

Targeting
I don’t like having to hit enter more than once to use an ability on an enemy I already have targeted. I know this is primarily for controller users so they can easily select different enemies if they need to. So, I actually tried using a controller. Still didn’t like it. My suggestion is; if enemy is selected, cast it immediately if button is pressed. If button is held instead of tapped, then allow choosing a separate target.

Item management
I would like the ability to send more than 1 item at a time when exchanging items with retainer. Too many confirmations required. Viewing by category would be nice. Also, why is it that my equipped gear has to show up in my inventory? I never understood this in FFXI either.

Switching Classes
Switching between classes is a hassle. I think that your current action bar should be saved when you switch classes so when you go back, they will automatically load to what you had before. Right now, I’ve been using macros. I don’t like that I’m forced to use macros to make the game less annoying.

Final Thoughts
Hopefully no one will be offended by what I’ve said. Like I said, I like the game and hope it succeeds. I’m cheering for current team developers and wish them luck. I’m very excited for upcoming patch. Can’t wait till I can ride a chocobo!