Kavaskous' Massive list of Suggestion

[Kavaskous]

So I got bored, had a few ideas to suggest to Square Enix, then the list got bigger... I figure rather try to look for suggestions like mine and agree/discuss them, there's simply too many I've listed to bother with. So here it is, my list of ideas, feel free to peruse and discuss.

Note: My Linkshell mate just informed me some of this is confirmed in up and coming patches; I just wrote what was in my head and got tired of writing. I -could- come up with a hundred more ideas, but choose to play the game rather suggest additions at this time. If there's something repetitious or confirmed coming out, just ignore it, I already edited this a few times before adding more lol

1. More Armor Colors
   I will soon be a Lv. 50 Pugilist and it would be nice to have an Upper Armor that matches the rest of my gear. I.e. Alpine War Jacket, which is white, matches the rest of my Armor, which is all Black.
   
2. Dynamic Environment
   I was thinking that certain environmental factors should change the elemental aspect of certain enemies, or change which ones are present on the field entirely. When there is a sandstorm in Thanalan, earth-elemental spells cast by either player or enemy should be enhanced, the same applies to when there is wind blowing strongly, it's raining, there is a thunderstorm, when near flames or lava, when it's night time Umbral damage is enhanced, or Astral when daytime. An example of this would be a shore in La Noscea, when it rains mollusks may appear from the sands, or when it rains in the Black Shroud in certain area, certain plants bloom, when the wind blows however, certain bugs may fly down from the trees. There would be varying degrees of monster dynamics for this: some places would see very little change, something may appear or disappear with changing weather, and other places would see a few different creatures appear depending on multiple conditions, such as the Black Shroud example above with the plants and bugs. Other places may even see a complete flip-flop in creatures present, i.e. 3 creatures normally present scatter when it rains, while 3 others appear.
   
   This isn’t the entirety of my idea however. Certain creatures may be enhanced or changed depending on what environment. Say I’m walking along Thanalan, and in this one area I approach a wolf, the winds pick up and sand blows across the fields, the “Lone Wolf” could become a “Dusty Lone Wolf” whose fur is caked in dust and sand. Their elemental affinity to earth would rise, and their defense could increase by varying amounts, in this case, because their fur is thick with soil. Ogres near lava could see a growth in overall power and TP generation, which an Ogre near water may be slightly weakened. A plant near lava would see a significant decrease in defense, or in some cases even receive damage over time (and lowered drop rates), but have an enhanced critical rate, versus say, a plant in/near water being stronger. Some creatures could have multiple factors, such as a plant in water during the daytime being significantly stronger, having more defense and HP, while in water during the night seeing only partial benefits, lacking sun-light. The only thing about this system is that it would require a means by which a player would have to determine the elemental affinities of a target, this could be a trait given to Conjurers at a low-level, and a possible Arcanist buff on players that lasts for a short time with modest countdown, how you could go about presenting elemental affinity of targets would be entirely on you, it could be a system like that of Final Fantasy X, where under the target’s HP bar you can see a percentage for each element.
   
   Weather should be random, it should be possible to rain or sand-storm for days on end, or go a week without.
   
3. Guardian Effect
   Selecting a Guardian should have certain effects on a player. When someone picks a guardian, it should have an effect on elemental alignment to that guardian’s element. My guardian is Rhalgr the destroyer, his element is lightning. I should have a slightly high proficiency to lightning.
   
   Another potential use of Guardians could be that when I obtain a guardian aspect during a levequest, I should get differing effects from my guardian. Rhalgr is the destroyer, so I could get a slightly enhanced damage output, Nophica, the Matron would be more suggested for gatherers, this guardian could increase drop rate success and gathering EXP. Thaliak, the Scholar would increase EXP gained and increase magical potency. Byregot, the Builder would benefit Crafters. These are all examples of what guardians –could- do, obviously something like this would be best to take into long consideration in order to make all guardians equal to one another in usefulness.
   
   Nameday could have certain effects on a player as well. When it is the player’s character’s nameday, they could have enhanced EXP, Gil, DMG bonuses, just a thought that occurred to me when thinking about character creation.
   
4. Character Creation & Customization
   Need more variety! Aion Online’s graphics can’t match the might of XIV’s and yet it quite possibly has one of the most impressive character creators/customization I have ever seen in my life.
   
   The ability to get haircuts would be nice; I just wish that there were long haircuts for Miqo’te.
   
5. Less Environmental Repetition
   I cannot count the number of times I have looked at The Black Shroud and thought “Didn’t I just pass this area?” or “this cave looks the exact same as the other one” or my favorite “Why are all of the conveniently placed, natural ramps to the higher elevations all the exact same?” there is too much copy-pasting in environments. Gridania has the most obvious, but all areas are guilty of it, it’s rather sickening to look at considering how beautiful the game is.
   
6. Ferry Encounters
   I heard that in Final Fantasy XI the ferry would be attacked by random encounters ranging from fish to pirates, can we have those?
   
7. Airship Encounters?
   I know these aren’t implemented -just- yet but like the ferry, airships should come under attack from creatures of all sorts. Condors, eagles, Ahriman, and small dragons could all be potential threats that appear by chance. In some cases there could be an 'Alpha' of decent strength players can take on once the airship raids is halted.
   
8. Quickstride
   This skill’s cool-down is ridiculously long considering how brief it lasts, especially when used by my Pugilist. I cast this skill, and of the 24 second duration, I waste almost 2~3 seconds on skill animation alone, then after my 21 second run, I must wait 3 minutes and 40 seconds to do it again; I understand the strategic value of such a skill, but the cool-down may want a slight tweak, and the skill animation should be more fluid as to allow now time to be wasted upon casting, this animation delay has causes me death three times now.
   
9. Active/Passive mode Animations
   Right now, it’s great that I can switch from active/passive mode without an effect on my running, but my character slides across the ground when doing it like it’s made of ice and she’s covered her feet in oil. There needs realistic motion of the (un)holstering/ (un)sheathing of weaponry like that of standing still, but altered to look realistic when in motion.
   
10. Fishing Spots
    I can’t fish in the rivers that go through Gridania anymore, but I can fish in the fountain in Ul’dah? Please fix…
    
11. Camera Issues
    I like having a free-moving camera that does not move from angle I set it to. Right now my camera automatically positions itself directly behind my character, at absolute sea-level so oftentimes I have to fight with my camera (and fail) or move my character just so I can see what I’m doing, most of the time I find myself looking through pixelated bushes; such an option should be a choice by default.
    
12. Pugilist Issues
    
    Pugilists should attack slightly faster; they are using fist weapons after all.
    
    Pugilist attack range should be minimized to only a few units in vicinity to the enemy, again, they are using fist weapons.
    
    Baghnakh’s are slashing weapons, and yet pugilist skills are almost all blunt, while two are piercing, this does not make much sense in way of weapon type>damage application for skills.
    
    The default Pugilist skill “Light Strike” should not use MP.
    
    Simian Thrash’ animation should be changed so that the giant purple ball is removed and the player can actually see the animation of the character striking the enemy.
    
    The website says Pugilists get a “Steal” skill, Pugilists do not.
    
    More Slashing/Piercing Weaponry should be added.
    
13. UI Ideas
    We need to be able to switch skill bars fast using a keyboard, and I think using the F1~F3 keys would do just that, though it would be easier to allow for the entire UI to be mapped however a player desires; personally I would use the F-Keys to change skill-bar rapidly.
    
    Sitting should increase MP and HP recovery rates slightly, and /sit should be map able to the keyboard because of this.
    
    I use Keyboard and house, and I hate it when I click on an enemy and 80% of the time I somehow have selected my character instead, this not only is a bad feature that turns some people off of a game, but it makes dying a great deal easier. I have died, or nearly died, countless times because I failed to attack the target, and instead was too busy trying to use weapon skills on myself. Again, camera angle also factors into this. (As mentioned above)
    
14. Levels 1 & 2
    Where did level 1 go? A player should finish the initial introductory quest still level 1, because at this point they have officially joined the game. Getting halfway through the level would make more sense than letting the player ACTUALLY start off as level 2 when they enter the world.
    
15. Item Deterioration
    I recently attained a pair of Smothering Baghnakhs, they’re a Lv. 47 item, and I was Lv. 46, after approx. 6 Lv. 40 levequests and two deaths, my weapons had already reached 10%. While I should be penalized for using an item above me, this is a bit harsh. Now I am at Lv. 47 and my weapons still deteriorate at a high rate. Damage should be dealt to items through certain means factoring in level.
    
    Personally I think causing damage on death is a bad idea unless the damage is minimal, something akin to about a .5~1% drop in durability upon death.
    
    Armor deterioration should only occur when a player is hit. If a player was fighting something that just hit normally, every hit should wear away about .025% of armor, if not less. Critical attacks upon a player should cause about .05% damage at most. Considering how often a player is hit this would still decrease armor at a decent rate. In 5 minutes a player can receive up to a 50 hits, 10 of which could be critical hits, so in 5 minutes, using those figures, a player’s armor will have decreased by 1.5% this means it would take about 1 hour of non-stop fighting before 0 Durability would be reached.
    
    If a player is higher than the optimal level of an item it should decrease significantly slower.
    
    Weapons should be damaged strictly only by use-per-hit, maybe with a death penalty of no more than .5~1% drop in durability. Each hit a player makes on an opponent should be equivalent to the proposed rates I stated above for armor damage. Critical hits on an enemy however, should do less damage to the weapon than a normal hit, as this implies the damage has bypassed the defenses and thus logically the weapon would be less damaged by the impact.
    
    I was mainly giving an idea, if rates are actually lower than proposed, ignore this suggestion all together.
    
    Certain special items being crafted should cause varying degrees of damage to tools i.e. Dodore Doublet, items made using Notorious Monster Body parts, et cetera should cause extensive wear and tear on tools.
    
16. Item Equipping Penalties
    It’s not good when a Thaumaturge is able to use plate armor in conjunction with say, a Seer’s Cowl, certain classes using certain armors should be penalized more heavily. A Mage should not be using plate armor, ever, and should be more penalized for using it.
    
    Exceptions should only be made if the items in question are more made for that class, for example, there could be a plate armor that’s made of Mythril and certain jewels that is meant for mages, but can be used my Disciples of War less for Defense and more for its other bonuses. Such armor would lack high defense seen in normal plate armor, and there would be even, well-rounded stats for STR/INT/MND to benefit any classes that are able to use it so no class really has a higher benefit over using it.
    
17. Stats
    I do not want to see these go away permanently; I think it would be better if each individual class gets its own set of stats that a player can pick out to suit their play style.
    
    Pressing the “Reassign” button on stats should enable a 100% stat reset for re-assigning. Pressing this button would enable a clock, like that for the “Return” skill, which forbids another reallocation for a set amount of time.
    
    There should be a “preset” button that accompanies the stats screen that allows for the player to set their character stats to a pre-determined setup a developer picks out for the most balanced play i.e. the preset stats coming out with the abolishment of Physical Level. I for one plan to stick with a high degree of Dexterity for high Evasion, followed by high Strength for damage, followed closely by Vitality for HP, and a small amount of Mind for MP. I am making a Ninja-like character that works on dodging attacks and countering, other players however, may decide to stack nothing but Vitality and Strength for a Monk-Like character that takes hits. Character customization and uniqueness is one of the more important aspects to any successful MMO.
    
18. Creature Strike Zones & Borders
    Some creatures need strike-zone enhancements to make things more realistic as well as comfortable, what I mean by this is that it is uncomfortable, irritating, and inconvenient to be fighting a “Dream Toad” and it not only takes up the entirety of the screen (refer to Camera Angles posted above) but my character is standing INSIDE of the enemy whilst attacking it. The Strike zone should be larger so that my character does not have to get inside of the sprite of the enemy it is attacking. This also needs to be coupled with adding borders to the creatures themselves, that, when engaged, to a certain degree a person should not be able to pass through the target. Obviously this could be bad if taken too literal, because in narrow corridors, a single Toad could block a potential escape route.
    
19. Notorious Monster AoEs
    When a person or group is engaging a Notorious Monster such as Slippery Sikes or Old Six-Arms, if a person is in an AoE strike zone, they should be hit by it even if they are not engaging them or in the party. They should get no benefits from participating in being attacked either, they just need to mind the environment and avoid NMs unless they intend to take one on.
    
20. Monster Variety
    Ragnarok Online. This game’s graphics are nothing compared to Final Fantasy XIV’s graphics, and yet there lies one of the largest varieties of monster sprites I have ever bared witness to. There is an extremely small portion of repetition with monsters; in fact, one of the only repetitions is that of the “poring” which is one of the most simplistic, iconic, well known creatures of the game. I myself have been waiting to see creatures taken from other Final Fantasy games, such as the creatures in the sunken sub in VII, the dinosaurs from XIII, the giant birds from XII, the Worm creatures from VII, or even machina-esque robots like those from FFX.
    
21. Creature size
    Some creatures I did not mind seeing enlarged, but not creatures like Rodents and insects such as marmots, squirrels, and ladybugs. The latest event that involved killing Moon-eyed/toothed/eared Mice was supposed to involve killing “larger than normal” versions of mice, but comparing them to the regular versions there is no truly subtle difference. Certain creatures should have not had their sizes altered, some should be made small simply because, it sets the environment and give it, again, a realistic feel.
    
22. Linkshell problems
    One MAJOR problem one of my Linkshells is having is that the leader keeps “re-shelling” (Making a new Linkshell and inviting players from the old one to it) because we are unable to boot offline players. I myself am about to leave this linkshell because there is simply no activity after its 5th "re-shelling." This upsets me because it’s a somewhat unique one. “Nekogumi” is a Miqo’te-Only Linkshell.
    
    It would also be nice to have keyboard commands to manage multiple linkshells without having to go to menu>linkshell>select a linkshell. One idea I’ve seen was the use of commands such as: /l1, /l2, /l3 et cetera, these would be useful to utilize.
    
23. Quest Difficulty
    Certain quests have been entirely too difficult or disappointing. One example of an easy quest is that which pits the player against one of Urianger’s Familiars. Even at lower levels the fight is not even a remote challenge, and I literally pressed my 1 & 2 keys while I walked to my friend. Another good example is that of the Gladiator’s Guild Quest for Lv. 20; I was expecting a challenge when I faced the enemy in the arena, but found that after a few seconds I was being handed Guild Marks for free in essence. Some quests, such as these, deserve at least a small degree of difficulty, otherwise it’s boring, and gives the player no sense of accomplishment.
    
24. Official Final Fantasy XIV Gamepad
    There is a possibility it’s my computer’s driver, despite my reinstalls, but enabled vibration is an annoyance in the game, more than immersive. I personally enjoy having vibration if I use my game pad, however, oftentimes being hit causes my controller to vibrate non-stop, and this is not only the opposite of immersive, it’s downright annoying. I have witnessed my controller vibrate for 10 minutes strait, just to see how long it would go for. This is partly a complaint and partly the precursor to a suggestion…
    
    When an enemy hits the player and vise-versa there should be certain behavior in the controller. Currently I seldom notice any vibration on my controller, minus the obvious problem I’ve had, when being struck.
    
25. Weapon Damage Type
    Certain skills for classes should change damage based on the weapons/arrows being used to cast them i.e. Puncture or Skewer would be strictly Piercing damage while using it, but using a Piercing or slashing weapon/arrow would change damage type of certain other skills. An example of this would be Jarring Strike or Haymaker would be 30% Blunt and 70% slashing if used with a Smothering Baghnakhs.
    
26. Battle Regimen Combination Attacks
    Like that shown in the introduction video, players should have the option to do a few things with magic as well as other select skills for variation in effects. An example of this would be the combining Fire II with Victimize II to create a piercing strike that does heavy fire damage on impact and causes a slow light burn on the target’s wounds. Another example would be combining Leg Sweep with Concussive Blow, skills that target the head and legs. There would be bonus blunt damage, and a chance (Varying on target level, type, and whether they’re a boss) to cause daze or stumble (fall down).
    
27. New Armor Type: Arcane
    I had the idea for a type of armor that both serves to give more variety to how players look, but to help accommodate certain play styles. Arcane armor would be an armor that served both melee and caster alike, but whose stats were balanced in such a way that armors more meant for one group was more beneficial overall. The armor would be of soft metals, and would contain varying types of gems and crystals in it. It would look akin to plate armor but would be shinier, commonly gold or silver colored. This armor would have good elemental defenses, but would only have moderate Physical Defense at best. The armor would give a balanced amount of INT and STR, and have a small quantity of VIT/HP and MND/MP. Plate armor of the same level would have notably more STR/VIT/HP while cloth armor would have notably more INT/MND/MP.
    
28. Cloth Armor Variety
    There is a large lack of magical garb by which to choose from, oftentimes players must use Leggings and Armguards because the cloth equipment either does not have what they are looking for, do not have any truly beneficial stats (instead have craftsmanship instead of say… MND), or simply do not look good when worn. There needs to be more options, and these alternatives should actually have stats meant for casters instead of gatherers or crafters. Belts are particularly useless to most casters.
    
29. More Elemental Weaponry
    There are so few elemental weapons that they keep people from being able to focus on a particular element of choice, and casters suffer being able to focus on one element of choice for maximum damage and be more offensive by using a radical because their radical likely uses 3 elements, and no focus on any one. A Fire/Lightning/Earth/Water Radical would be nice.
    
30. Weapon Diversity
    Weapons of equivalent level for a particular class should differ greatly in stats and damage type so that players are able to pick and choose their play style, and compliment it with offensive/defensive stats, of certain elements, and certain critical/attack levels.
    
31. Aetherytes
    No one knows where the Aetherytes came from or who built them, but there should be a storyline that slowly progresses towards the truth of who and why they are there. This should include a dead Aetheryte discovered in Mor Dhona.
    
32. Path Companions
    Need more use of them, more stories, side quests that include them, and more.
    
33. Less Text
    All cut scenes should have voices, instead of text; we have enough text as is with the current content.
    
34. Treasure Chest Locations
    Treasure Chests should be slightly more elaborately hidden, such as in bushes or put slightly off the common path, in alcoves and ridges.
    
35. Interactive Climbing Locations
    Just a thought that come to me, might be interesting to have interactive cliffs, ladders, and ropes that players interact with via menu, and climb up to access additional parts of the map. This would be accompanied by non-skip able cut scenes of their character climbing.
    
    This idea also includes Chocobos being able to leap to distant or elevated areas over a series of rocks or running along small ridges and gliding/flapping their wings to slow themselves.
    
36. Mail System
    It’s a little overdue for use in-game. Just going to add to the growing support of in-game mail.
    
37. Player Housing
    This is fairly self-explanatory, also hopping onto this band-wagon; could also have Linkshell housing.
    
38. Side Quests
    Most lack a great deal of complexity and are just glorified leves. They should be more random, unpredictable, no “You’re about to continue with the quest, get ready to fight, are you ready to move forward?” Example: An NPC tells you that your actions have attracted a certain group to you, and they’ve paid to have your head, however moving a certain distance in any direction away from this NPC spawns Assassins that attack you, no warnings, but the distance and time is inconsistent and therefore less able to be planned for. Quests like this should be more random and spontaneous to give it a realistic, a live feel.
    
39. Potions
    Potions aren’t used as often as they should be because they are few and far between and their cool-down is terrible in some cases. Ether would be more useful if they had a cool down of a minute and it were possible to craft by alchemists. Ether would have to be a Lv. 50 ALC craft and should require moderately hard-to-find materials simply because the item is so very useful and makes things too easy if it's readily available, and making it hard to make would be a balancing factor. Company issue Ethers should have a two, maybe three minute cool down and you can hold up to 5 at a time.
    
40. Enemy Status
    We’re currently unable to check what the effects on an enemy target is unless we know what the icons are, it would be nice to be able to mouse over an icon and have the effect read out to us.
    
41. Creature Difficulty
    Back in Closed Beta Testing, a friend and I were fighting Funguars outside of Gridania, we noticed (very quickly) that poison was absolutely devastating to us if it managed to hit us and if we incurred damage during the fight we would almost certainly die, this forced us to plan ahead and run away from the target when it showed signs of swelling/casting its poison spore cloud into the air, and continue fighting afterward. Currently however, poison from these creatures is a joke and it takes no skill whatsoever to kill them. I propose that certain creatures should either hit slower and harder, forcing lower level players to cast defensive spells to counteract the damage, while creatures such as the spores should have their poison effects enhanced. Creatures using poison should have varying degrees of poison dependent on their level and creature type, i.e. a Venomous Drake would cause particularly devastating amount of damage with poison than say, a Funguar in Gridania. Some creatures should have poison simply out of annoyance, but creatures such as the Funguar deserve to be somewhat of a challenge, because in the end, some challenge is fun no matter what the minority says.
    
42. Extra Item Slot
    I want a bow on the end of my tail! I want a big black bow on my tail and I don’t want it to use any of my equipment slots, the bow doesn’t even have to have an effect, gimme! @_@
    
43. Macros and Hotkeys
    These needs to be saved server-side, my friend had to use a different computer after the first one broke, and he spent two hours having to rewrite his macros.
    
44. Chocobo Customization
    We should be able to customize our Chocobo with Armor, flags that hang from the saddle with our Linkshell emblem on it, and even be able to put select jewelry made specifically for Chocobos on it; these items should all be craft-able by disciples of the hand.
    
45. Story For Each Respective City
    Each starting cities’ storylines converge too quickly for it to really matter, there should be more to the main scenario quest, plus more benefits to a player in the city where they started their adventure, such as access to exclusive quests in that city or region
    
    There could also be benefits such as cheaper prices from select NPCs for items and travel.
    
46. DirectX & Game Crash Issues
    It has been since Alpha that this problem has been occurring, and still, ALT+TAB from Full screen or Accessing Administrative Permissions STILL crashes the game, client, so PLEASE fix it.
    
47. Dynamic Play
    Random Encounters of aggressive creatures outside of towns, camps, settlements, and Aetherytes by same-level creatures when not bound by duty would be cool, if only rare.
    
    It would also be cool to see random events/quests come to the player from time to time.
    
48. Linkshell Ships
    It would be cool to see Ships that can be built over time by crafters, furnished, and designed artistically for individual Linkshells. These ships can be used to access special instances, dungeons, small islands outside of Eorzea’s mainland, and more.