1.18 impressions, appreciations, criticisms, and ideas for the future

[Platinumstorm]

Hello,

I'm a pretty loud critic of the game and have given a good chunk of feedback in the past and the direction I think the game should head in the future. I just wanted to take some time to give you my impressions, criticisms, and suggestions for the future regarding 1.18.

Obviously 1.18 was a large undertaking by the developers. This makes it difficult to start at any location, so this will be a pretty random order.

Battle system:
I play a rank 49 archer as my main class, a 25 conjurer, and I am tinkering around with the lancer a bit, which is now rank 16 or so. I can really only give impressions based on what I see at my level range.

As an overview, I really like this rough step the developers are taking with the system, but refinements need to be made, and so many animations need to be redone as well. Most of my battle system stuff won't be too technical, because frankly I'm more interested in the smoothness of play than of individual power levels, so it won't be terribly descript in numerical values.

I feel like each class should have at least two options to use skills that don't consume TP, and all classes would greatly benefit from the addition of multiple attack bars with customizable binds. I would also recommend adjusting TP levels on skills so there are more options to choose from, because this would help players eliminate awkward gaps in the time between auto attack, their default actions, and their tp moves.

Archer:

Auto attack implementation is awkward with the archer class. Fighting in melee range isn't really the highlight of an archer, and I would like to see an auto attack based on shooting an arrow implemented. The animation for Roegdayn auto attack is horrendous.

Archers function okay with the cooldown changes, but I often find an awkward gap of around 1-1.5 seconds during my play. These gaps are taking a long time to get used to, but they are less apparent in the dungeon setting because of the length of the battles. I am sure there are issues with players being able to choose whatever skills they like and how they all interact together, so maybe this is something I can tolerate, but I do think it can be made tighter in play.

Multishot:
Multishot functions fine, and it still keeps a lot of its basic functionality for solo play.

Bloodletter animation:
The new bloodletter animation is pretty, but it's weird to me that it isn't focused on a red color, and also strange that blood has nothing to do with the animation. While it looks powerful, and nice, it still suffers from the "abstract blob" problem that many animations do in the game. While many people are upset with the elemental attacks for looking like abstract blobs, at least they give meaningful information to what the skill does and is named for. Bloodletter fails to do that.
http://www.thekots.com/Platinumstorm...loodletter.png

Conjurer:
It constantly looks like conjurers are becoming white mages, and I really dislike how this interacts with the game lore, conjurer weapons, and conjurer skills. I know this is a hard place, but it's much easier to erase "Thaumaturges are masters of destructive magics", than all of the lore and quests intertwined with Gridania and the elements.

Focusing on battle I find the Conjurer to play tighter than the archer. This is because the conjurer has spirit dart, elemental dart, and core moves that don't take TP. A major complaint about the conjurer right now is that stoneskin is the most mana efficient form of healing.
From an aesthetics perspective, conjurers need animation revamps on essentially all of their skills except for radiance. They all look like abstract blobs, and that is saddening. Protect and shell would appreciate revamped animations as well. It would also be great to define whether white magic or black magic is being cast through animation, and if you're really aggressive, the elemental type, through animations that effect the caster.

Lancer:
I don't have a terribly high level lancer [16], but he constantly misses and is TP starved. When I heal, I use up all of the mana so quickly that I end up having lengthy sitting periods after just a few mobs. I have lengthy periods where my lancer is simply doing nothing, and he doesn't feel very fun.

I've found an interesting way to generate TP is by equipping javelins. It's not great damage, but it lets me do another action that does damage, and most importantly, generates TP.
I would suggest making a three use ability per mob engagement, allowing lancers to throw them or use them three times per fight. It makes sense that you could retrieve your javelin when you're in melee range after a fight, so the cost could be given back to them. It would be a nice way to give the class some flavor. Carrying around 99 javelins seems difficult.

Animations for lancers are some of the worst in the game, and they desperately need love. I have heard some of them were revamped, with the cherry blossom one being the most noticable. I can tell you that leg sweep doesn't look like a leg sweep in the slightest.

Mana cost increases:
Curing feels like it costs too much mana. I know you don't want endless mana pools, but two casts of cure drains my lancer. I'm not sure how many cures I can do on my archer, but it's not many.

Guild Leve changes:
I've only done two sets of combat guild leves, and I'm basically hooked to Gridania now based on my classes. I'd like to cover criticisms of the changes first.

Criticisms on leve system:

Disconnects:
DCing on a guild leve is still a huge problem in the game, even though there isn't anything to exploit from a guild leve anymore. This is probably one of the highest priority refinements that needs to happen for the game. If you crash you lose everything, and it ends up feeling like a massive waste of time, especially considering the only worthwhile SP from leves is from the reward at the end. The system needs to be modified so that if you DC, or if your computer crashes, either you can start your levequest over, or the timer keeps moving.

Transportation time:
My archer needs to do leves for guild marks. I have to walk him from Gridania to Treespeak, do my leves which take less time in total than it does to walk there, and then I have to walk all the way to Camp Nine Ivies. This is for my Archer. If you add in my other battle classes, then I need to walk to Camp Tranquil. I spend more time walking through the zones than I do engaged in content, and this is a source of aggrivation. Hopefully, based on our feedback, hints from the development team, and the story lore, redesigned maps are on the way that will make this issue temporary, but right now it's an infuriating point.

It's disappointing that alternative transportation methods were not available for this patch, as it would have made the community more receptive to the patch launch.

Individual leve mob SP gain too low:
While many players have complained about the nerf to SP, it was in the making, and needed to happen. It's obvious this is a transitional step, it's just going to be a rough one to get through. The worst thing about this lowered SP from leve mobs is they tend to give out less exp than the mobs directly in the vicinity. Yes, they are a bit weaker, but they're also special mobs and I think a bonus that is higher than a regular mob for SP gain would be appropriate. The perception of it is just awful, however, even when you take into consideration that the bonus gives you more per mob than just killing mobs.

Individual complaint:
I feel permanently connected to Gridania based on my class choices right now, and at the same time this is a good thing because if I wasn't, I would never be able to complete my leves because of how much walking is involved.

Positives:
The localization of leves made the game world more alive. This was a very nice change.
I don't want to beat my Final Fantasy box doing leves because I'm not running all over so far with my head cut off; but I haven't done any Necrologos quests yet, so this may change.

Fieldcraft leves:
These are finally worth doing, but the logging point ones could use a bonus to completing each tree.