Gamer Retention: what does FF14 really need?

[0451]

So what does FF14 really need?

A quest about a vicious motorcycle gang of lalafells. They can only be defeated by one thing. Rock N' Roll. Are you man enough to go on a rock off challenge against the Eorzea Ankle Terrors? Reward: Bard class.

[Tezz_Xivectro]

Here's my list of changes before the game could be on par with P2P quality (leaving the 1.19 changes out):

Interface tweaks/designs/etc - drag-n-drop, when you hovor/view armor your currently equipped pops up for comparison(green/red color coded stats), trading made faster & more slots, descriptions on food & such, Auction house, delivery, retainer storage made as fast as opening your own or quicker, view all storage from main menu(even organize it), the ability to toggle list or icon view, slot cost removed etc...

Combat & World - Camera shaking when walking over simple little terrain bumps, Jump, a desire to even play the classes(they all seem bland), guildleve difficulty rating balanced more appropriately, regimens/skillchains, dungeons/raids that are not boring & the d/c problem associated with them, partying/searching & more general incentives to do things and not just AFK in town all day.

Crafting/Gathering - Crafting simplified to the point where you can just fix armor in just a single confirmation without long loading, synthesis time reduced to at least half the time it takes now, crafting similar to leves where you just keep crafting after you complete(this is a big one), a quit crafting button, an on-screen display(toggled) of the remaining materials(crystals too) for the current recipe, haven't gathered much lately but it was slow (speed up gather time even more?), why can't i mine in the... mines?.

Quests - quest tracking, many more quests for all levels (at least 10x amount now, even more), repeatables (not leves), completed quests appear on your map, cut-scenes for epic/story quests(but with good purpose), not so much text with all the quests, quests that you don't have to accept in town only to return back to the quest issuer(i guess i mean chain quests that have you explore?), questing/leveling that takes you ALL over the world seeing all sorts of things on the journey.

Linkshells/Companys & Achievements - LS administration page, Company perks from leveling up the Company & completing certain Achievements, Linkshell messages, Company/LS ranks that you can assign to people, a bank, Achievements that reward titles, perks & items.

[SilvertearRen]

FF14 really needs to dump ClickandBuy. It's a dangerous system to use, because it unnecessarily exposes users to financial threats.

Subscriptions via PayPal, or a different payment processor - one based in the U.S. - please, because this shouldn't even be a problem.

[Ava]

To answer your first question, I would quit if the game went F2P right now. I can't forsee myself (at the current rate of development) paying for this game anytime within the next 6 months or so. But I do like the direction the game is going and am willing to give it an ongoing chance while it is F2P.

I thought your post was well-thought out and hope a lot of people read it. I agree with mostly every concern brought up. But I feel like some of the concerns are inevitable problems caused by the game's current population situation and will resolve themselves if/when the game gets off the ground. Such as the dead Gridania/LL. I would really like to see the social aspects of the game improve dramatically. There needs to be global chat channels (which may help Grid/LL too) and there needs to be a central market ward. Either allow you to search every ward from any city right now (but require travel if the item is in a different city), or give us some kind of centralized AH ala Jeuno AH in XI.

But I think these things are inevitable and will be addressed, I like where Yoshi-P is taking the game, for now it's just a matter of playing the waiting game. They still have a ways to go, but they'll get there.

[nibelunc]

I think this game needs the time, the devs need to realise their plans and less people whining around and throwing out bad ideas and having the feeling of working in Square Enix.

[Synthesis]

- more lively world, not so copy and pasted terrain
- faster dynamic combat, auto attack every 5 sec is so freaking boring.
- completely different battle UI + different menu UI, less lag in UI
- different retainer UI, maybe an AH
- PvP
- more content and so on...

[Wolfie]

Most of the things Yoshi has mentioned so far will greatly help player retention. I'm still wondering what their progress is with server infrastructure and game engine fixes, because we're still seeing minimal progress in terms of LS management, player/party search, etc.

Few other things that would help a lot:

Player search
Party search
Mail/delivery system
Fully customizable keyboard shortcuts
Redone controller keys; too many actions, not enough buttons.
Mouse + keyboard UI
Allow custom UIs (this has been talked about since before the game went into alpha)
Moving the game config inside the game instead of having separate programs
Alt + Tab crash fix
More optimization of the game client
Lag reduction by letting the game client take care of mundane tasks
Get rid of MW and/or put in a GOOD trading scheme that doesn't revolve around vendor zombies in a dungeon

[Esk]

Not 100% on topic but for me..
Top things that need work to keep/gina players/improve the game are basically:
( OK carried away but i had lots more lol)

Combat/content
- Story content, (not just the imperials add a new unknown that causes strange dark monsters to appear and attack everything (players/npcs/mobs everything!), have the imperials flying over head landing attacks at random locations)
- Dynamic attacks on the camps (reworked behest?) via mobs and the imperial attacks on the camps/hamlets
- A more aggressive/adaptive AI with some of the old Mob AI brought back.
- Static NM removal
- Evolving NM's added (un killed mobs have a chance to evolve into nm over time (4 stages/lv's to the NM's).
- NPC hunters added to camps to tell people which way to go to look for Local NM's

Visuals / Game world
- Make Gridania feel like a forest (darker then current, like a deep forest would be)
- Mob placement making scenes
- Mob size reduction on trash mobs
- More lively NPcs, kilds running around the towns Npcs walking from a door somewhere in town then back
- Npcs changing places not just sitting in one spot
- Some npcs only being available in the day/night in towns. (or change location)
- New places (not on the open world map (instanced) for leve's/quests accessible via the camps crystals
- addition of new sub areas around hamlets (mini housing areas (non instanced) for the hamplet population) wtih a small surrounding zone accesable in the say ways as the new quest places)
- plant lfe that reacts to your presence
- Small R0 (un attackable) mobs that run when your near/target them

Misc
- Players housing
- Patch companion becomes a more central figure (can also be customised like your main)
- Reward items of Evolved NM's reward npc
- Npc attacks on ferry (mini game we get to shoot cannons?)
- Mob attacks on ferry quests(add npc guards/crew to the ship like in LL intro)
- Imperial attacks on airships (mini game we get to shoot cannons?)
- Jobs (not directly linked to a specific class no archer=bard only lol)
- Company + company housing

Crafting/Items
- Replacing the removal of parts with a slimming down and improved recipe crafting system and recipe book), but much simpler crafting
- Re addition of crafting guilds focused on HQ items.
- New gear that is crafted from both low and hi rank components
- More dye options
- group crafting protects inside company housing

Character
- More hair, face, marking, scar, eye colour choice.
- free makeover at Ps3 launch
- in game barber shop to redo hair/facial hair/decoration (only)

Missons
- Path companion based misson that are available every 2nd leve reset (GC/Story based)
- Random missions give by pach companion
- Imperial atttack/defence quests (repeatable)
- New thread attack/defence quests (repeatable)
- Airship attack/defence missions (combat & canon mini game)
- Ferry Attack/Defence missions (combat & canon mini game)

Dungeons
- Massive expansion of current dungeons with multipul routs though.
(some choices lock off other ways to complete each one)
- New bosses you fight several times in the dungeon but they always escape (even at the end)

Tools
- Player search
- LFG tags
- mail system

Mini World events (1-2 per week + 2 on the weekend)
Only finish ones they are defeted, npc's in take areas are inacessable
- Copper Coblyn's revence (mass attack on ul'dah)
- imperial foot hold in the north of BS
- Pirace invasion of LL, or the hamlet along the coast.

[Autodidactic]

I want some soloable NMs that don't respawn every 5 min and drop good loot that can be sold. There also seems to be a major lack of different gear, what is it like 80 percent of rank 50 DOWs use tarred leather trousers? I would like more solo player content in general, it is basically non-existent outside of gathering or crafting. I never have any anima so I'm spending an hour to walk to some places, need chocobos ASAP or regeneration of anima needs to be quicker, or quests or something that give it.

The buffs I think should be instant, you have to click on them a few times sometimes for them to even register after their animation, if you are using a few at a time, which is likely. As others have said, I have no clue why square couldn't have had a seek party function in place already, that would seem like a relatively easy programming fix that would make a huge difference to peoples enjoyment. Allow for more things to be put up for repairs at a time.

I don't know about anyone else but I have 2 retainers maxed out on items and my inventory is always near full, stuff doesn't sell fast enough on my server and if you are leveling multiple jobs you need a lot of different gear for them all. Add some gobby bag quests or a mog house or another retainer to store more items.

Overall my biggest gripe is the lack of solo content, I know there is a general lack of content period, but there is very little you can do to progress right now solo.