Observations from a New Player

[Unglitteringold]

Things I think would make FFXIV more fun:
- The ability to re-queue with random players
- Mobs that drop loot
- More challenging mobs
- Boss fights that require tactics (not memorization)
- More variety between jobs

If improvements can't be made to things because of over taxing the servers, I think FFXIV should trim some of the fat from the game.
Things I think FFXIV can get rid of:
- Guildheists
- Potions It has been explained to me that potions and food are necessary in end game raiding.
- FoodIt has been explained to me that potions and food are necessary in end game raiding.
- Chocobo fighting
- Hunting/Sightseeing logs
- City to City Airships
- Treasure Chests
- Linkshells
- Irrelevant quest lines (Ultima's Bane, Relic Weapon, etc)

[Shneibel]

troll post, definitely troll post ! actually

Things I think would make FFXIV more fun:
Things I think FFXIV can get rid of:
- Guildheists
- Potions
- Food
- Chocobo fighting
- Hunting/Sightseeing logs
- City to City Airships
- Treasure Chests
- Linkshells
- Irrelevant quest lines (Ultima's Bane, Relic Weapon, etc)

I would like an explain to why the red text need to be remove, from point to point and why you think they should be remove

[Unglitteringold]

I am not saying they *need* to be removed, I am suggesting that they are not necessary. If we can not have more inventory slots because the data servers can't handle it, then why are we bothering with potions and food?
- Guildheists: I do not understand the point of the guildheists. They seem to be supposed to teach players how to work in a party, however, they can, as far as I have experienced, be completed with little to no communication, and are not challenging.
- Potions: The benefits of potions have been rendered irrelevant by my skills. I have access to Cure as a cross class ability on most of my jobs, or I have self healing abilities, which are more powerful than a potion. The potions that increase attributes do not last very long and have a very long cool down. I honestly have not been in a situation yet where having a 16% str bonus for a few seconds would make of break a fight.
- Food: Similar to potions, they are not powerful enough to serve much purpose. I just eat whatever to get me 3% xp bonus, but beyond that, I have not noticed any significant difference between being well fed and not.
- Chocobo fighting: having a chocobo fight with me seems kind of pointless. If I can not accomplish a quest by myself, then I should need a party. Being able to summon my mount to fight with me is just one more reason to not interact with other players, thus negating the MMO of this RPG.
- Hunting/Sightseeing logs: It's just a bonus for grinding mobs. I don't even know what the point of the Sightseeing log is.
- City to City Airships: I teleport everywhere. If I'm in Old Gridania, I will TP to Ul'dah. It's only a couple hundred gil more than running to an aetheryte, teleporting to the plaza, running to the airship, loading Ul'dah, then running to the elevator to run down to the aetheryte to go where I wanted to in the city.
- Treasure Chests: The loot is not particularly exciting; potions, food, or gear that's not as good as what I have.
- Linkshells: I do not know what these are for. I have my friends list and my FC. Why do I need a linkshell?
- Irrelevant quest lines (Ultima's Bane, Relic Weapon, etc): Queue for Ultima's Ballad some time. See how long it takes. If no one is doing these, then why have them? The Relic Weapon is irrelevant now, unless I am missing something. There are many quests that req. level 50 to do, but offer no XP. I understand why they existed before the level cap increase, but I do not see the point now.

[Cyrus-Wallace]

- Linkshells: I do not know what these are for. I have my friends list and my FC. Why do I need a linkshell?

This makes no sense. Do you even know how LS work?

[QiLymePye]

This makes no sense. Do you even know how LS work?

I actually have an issue with this as well. In FFXI, link shells were more useful. You now have FC chat. I never had a linkshell in this game. But Im gonna tell you how syupid this game is with linkshells...I'm supposed to use them to communicate long distance for just hunts, but I can.t use them for a stupid filler quest to talk to minfilia or whomever, having to run around doing errands to talk in person and confirm stuff. Then after turning in said quest, she hits up her LS in a cutscene to talk to other NPC'S???!!! really????!!

[Avyiur]

Guildheists: I do not understand the point of the guildheists. They seem to be supposed to teach players how to work in a party, however, they can, as far as I have experienced, be completed with little to no communication, and are not challenging.

Guildheists are meant to be filler exp for when you are very close to leveling and don't want to wait for a dungeon queue (this mainly pertains to DPS roles). They are also talking about having higher level guildheists that way it benefits everyone, regardless of what level you are. Not to mention the amount of exp you get from doing them from the challenge log is quite a decent chunk and they are quite easy to do (essentially free exp, who doesn't like free exp?)

Potions: The benefits of potions have been rendered irrelevant by my skills. I have access to Cure as a cross class ability on most of my jobs, or I have self healing abilities, which are more powerful than a potion. The potions that increase attributes do not last very long and have a very long cool down. I honestly have not been in a situation yet where having a 16% str bonus for a few seconds would make of break a fight.

Most classes have a decently lengthy cooldown for anything that might be considered a self heal (unless of course you are playing a healer). Bloodbath is 90 seconds (Marauder skill), Equilibrium is 60 seconds (Warrior skill), Second Wind is 120 seconds (Pugilist skill, equivalent to a potion recast timer), just to name a few. If you are not using a higher level potion, mainly either Mega Potion or X-Potion then you are missing out on the extra healing you would receive from those (since potions do cap on the amount they can heal). In times of need, especially when I'm tanking a dungeon, it is nice to be able to rely on potions to supplement my HP if I'm about to take a killing blow.

Food: Similar to potions, they are not powerful enough to serve much purpose. I just eat whatever to get me 3% xp bonus, but beyond that, I have not noticed any significant difference between being well fed and not.

Where to start with this, mainly I think the type of food you are eating is why you are not seeing the change in stats. That or you simply don't understand which food you should be eating depending on what class/job you are playing. Certain stats are amazing to get a boost to, and they do make a difference. As a Warrior main, I love to use HQ Bacon Bread to do dungeons with (Parry +33, Vitality+28, CRIT+16) and when I'm leveling I like to use Sauteed Porcini (Determination +18, Vitality +Max 26, Parry +11). These foods make both my life easier and my healer's life easier simply because I either have a larger health pool to take hits with, I'm able to parry more damage in a dungeon, and the extra crit/det lets me hit harder so that way when I do pop a skill like Bloodbath I can regenerate more HP per hit.

Saying food is unnecessary gives me the opinion that this may either be your first mmorpg (especially if you played WoW, gods knows food is very important there), or you don't understand how to utilize it correctly since you are a newer player. Given that you may not know how important a stat increase of determination may be (which is to say, it's amazing).

Chocobo fighting: having a chocobo fight with me seems kind of pointless. If I can not accomplish a quest by myself, then I should need a party. Being able to summon my mount to fight with me is just one more reason to not interact with other players, thus negating the MMO of this RPG.

Chocobos are amazing at higher ranks. Depending on how you skill your chocobo, it can either become a tank, a healer or a fighter for you. While you are right in the aspect they do diminish the need to interact with other players, if you play at off times like myself, or you are on a smaller server, they are able to supplement the need. Not to mention, there are times where even if you look for people to help you, you might not be able to find it. Another reason chocobos are great is for FATE grinding up another class/job. The ability to solo boss fates with just my chocobo out is the greatest, and having one that heals can make for a more streamlined quest experience since you don't have to worry about simply not dying as much.

I urge you to reconsider this one, and perhaps work on your chocobo a bit. If you get it to a higher level, you might start to see them shine! Not to mention you can get an awesome barding for them one they reach rank 10 of their respective trees (which you can get all of now since you can buy a fruit to reset their talents).

Hunting/Sightseeing logs: It's just a bonus for grinding mobs. I don't even know what the point of the Sightseeing log is.

Depending on when you do the different ranks of the hunting log, you can get upwards of 1-2 levels per rank. It's not just merely a bonus for grinding mobs, it's an excellent way to grind out exp (which is unfortunate that there is no hunting log for the three new jobs or for the Heavensward zones).

As for the Sightseeing log, this one actually has two different functionalities. The first being, it simply gets you out to see the beautiful world that Yoshi-P and the developers of FFXIV have made for us. It's also tied to achievements for the 1-50 zones, which award a minion as well.

The Sightseeing log for Heavensward actually awards you experience when you go out and find the spots. A nice little bit of it I might add as well. For your added benefit, I have added a link below to where you can find all the locations, and what type of weather you need to be in to get credit for them (weather does not affect the Heavensward sights).

http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Sightseeing_Log

City to City Airships: I teleport everywhere. If I'm in Old Gridania, I will TP to Ul'dah. It's only a couple hundred gil more than running to an aetheryte, teleporting to the plaza, running to the airship, loading Ul'dah, then running to the elevator to run down to the aetheryte to go where I wanted to in the city.

This one only really pertains to low level players who do not have a decent amount of gil to throw away teleporting everywhere. It's an easy mode of travel that gets them to and from the major cities. A couple hundred gil can go along way at lower levels, so for newer players it's best not to spend it to recklessly teleporting everywhere. Not to mention it also ties in with the MSQ at the start. Both the Airships, and chocobo porters for that matter are both equally nice to have, even at the higher levels.

Treasure Chests: The loot is not particularly exciting; potions, food, or gear that's not as good as what I have.

Treasure chests have different colours. The different colours are as follows:
Brzone - Awards the potions, food, white items for crafting, etc with a low chance of dropping aetherial gear
Silver - Awards aetherial gear (pink gear)
Gold - Awards either aetherial gear or plundered gear (pink or green/blue gear)

If you are doing a dungeon, most people know which bronze chests drop the aetherial gear, if you are doing a levequest be on the look out for silver chests!

Linkshells: I do not know what these are for. I have my friends list and my FC. Why do I need a linkshell?

Linkshells, while not as important as they were in the first iteration of the game or FFXI, they are EXTREMELY useful. They work as a different type of FC chat. Not to mention there are different linkshells for different things. The main use for one, is for hunting ranked mobs. Your FC mates might not always be on top of getting relays for hunt marks, so having up to 8 different linkshells filled to the brim with people you may not communicate with on a daily basis because they are in different FC's is great.

Not to mention, you can use them to find end game raiders or simply be able to talk with your friends without having to whisper them (especially since you cannot send or receive whispers while bound by duty (levequest, dungeon, trial, guildheist).

I myself have one linkshell dedicated to my friends/static, 1 linkshell dedicated to doing everything from helping new people to run dungeons to doing endgame content, 2 linkshells dedicated to spawning S rank hunts, and then the other 4 are used to relay hunt marks.

Irrelevant quest lines (Ultima's Bane, Relic Weapon, etc): Queue for Ultima's Ballad some time. See how long it takes. If no one is doing these, then why have them? The Relic Weapon is irrelevant now, unless I am missing something. There are many quests that req. level 50 to do, but offer no XP. I understand why they existed before the level cap increase, but I do not see the point now.

Relic weapon...this quest line is anything but irrelevant. The relic weapon, in its highest form was at the time, the best weapon you could get in the game. Even know, the Zeta relic lasts until you hit I believe level 56 or 58. The relic weapon at the time was a great thing to have, especially once you were able to upgrade it to Novus simply because you could choose the stats you wanted to have on it. This alone, made it the single best weapon to have for its duration. Being able to put the stats that benefited your job the most is a great thing, not to mention the weapon essentially geared up as you geared up.

Ultimata's Bane, and quests like this, give you access to more dungeons/trials, and more ways to gear up back in the day. While it's easy to get a good item level at level 50 now, that was not always the case. You get handed your ilvl 90 AF gear with the job quest, where as anyone who wanted it previously had to run dungeons, and hope they won the token for the pieces (provided they even dropped). Getting to ilvl 90 at the start of the game was a pretty serious deal, and things like Ultima's Bane helped make the grind a little bit easier (because yay accessories!).

Hopefully, if you take the time to read all of this, it will help you understand the importance of all of these things

[Lumivyory]

- Food: Similar to potions, they are not powerful enough to serve much purpose. I just eat whatever to get me 3% xp bonus, but beyond that, I have not noticed any significant difference between being well fed and not.

You can't eat random food and expect it to help you. Different food have different buffs and you need to choose food that will benefit exactly your class.

- Linkshells: I do not know what these are for. I have my friends list and my FC. Why do I need a linkshell?

Linkshells are like little (not always so little) private chats. I don't have all of my friends in my FC and if I want to talk to some of them at the same time what am I suppose to do? Make a party for that? Why bother if I have a linkshell.
Plus there are such things as hunting linkshells, alliance linkshells (2+ FC's) and others.
Linkshells are probably one of the most useful things in the game.

[Tuathaa]

I am not saying they *need* to be removed, I am suggesting that they are not necessary. If we can not have more inventory slots because the data servers can't handle it,

There are going to be hoarders in the game that will never have enough slots no matter what but there is more than enough inventory slots for the average player.

[Odstarva]

Oh boy... I would duck and cover if I were you, for you'll either be ignored entirely or suffer a barrage of hell-fire regarding:

Food, Potions, Chocobo fighting, Treasure Chests, Linkshells, Ultima's Bane, etc...






On a more serious note, you are indeed a new player. Give it some more time, I'm sure you'll understand why most of the things you mentioned are important.

[Unglitteringold]

Well, why are they important? If there is something that I am missing, I would like to know.