Current Game Feedback.

[neoxdeciple]

My thoughts of the current state of the game.

About me: Over 2 year player, a few levels off all classes 60, guild owner, logging on every day, capping weekly, avid crafter, savage raider, pvp player. I enjoy and experience every aspect of the game. That being said, I'm starting to see problem's in my favorite game :(



If this is too much reading for you, the main point of this thread is ways the game have changed by the content added, or modifying the standard formula commenting on what you like, what impacted the game in a negative manor or caused problems with other content, as well as focusing what you could fix the issue brought up.



People leaving the game: Now its not uncommon for players to leave and look for something new, it happens, (like with the content lacking before) but all I've heard this week is "there's nothing to do" or "i'm bored" etc. I personally don't agree. because I play all content, however I can see how things have changed.

Alexander Savage: Normal mode takes away a lot from savage, you lose the reward of watching events of the story unfold after working so hard to clear it, you experience the same bosses every week (for normal token drops) and then see the same bosses again in savage. Savage's reward's consist of just dye-able versions of gear you already own, see story you have already seen, after beating a boss you have already seen, albeit a much harder version. Which is considerably less reward. Most want a NEW experience, with a UNIQUE boss. with UNIQUE gear to show off for doing these hard raids and we have lost that but I personally enjoy the challenge of savage, regardless of this, although enjoyment has diminished in terms of satisfaction and reward. I understand why normal mode exists. I just feel savage needs its own rewards if the story has to be spoiled.

Roulette's: I'll be honest, as much as I've enjoyed some of the new expert roulette dungeons since the expansion. They have been beautiful and interesting. But the dropping from 3 to 2 is making them rather short lived and the enjoyment is being sucked from them faster than before.

24 man content: Void Arc doesn't seem to have the same spark as Crystal Tower, it doesn't look as grand, the bosses, while having their own mechanics don't really have mechanics that the whole alliance has to aim to complete or bust. Which made it enjoyable and frustrating at the same time. Void arc tend's to have nothing of the sort. I mean the bone dragon - skeletons, Archon - barrier plate, Cerberus - team for belly, chains, adds, Xande - meteor's etc.

Relic's: Relics this run round have been slow to release which I think the development understand, I've completed 2 myself, while I used everything available to me (beast tribes, alex, tomes, in order to alleviate the grindy feeling) the effort this time required for it was far far too high in my opinion. If the relics didn't require specialist items to complete I believe the effort would have been fine, the reason why I felt the old relics worked well is when it came to crafting segments you had people around you, whether that's in fc or friend's list, or hell even just a random person when you use shout chat you could ask for assistance, which brought the effect of people working together outside of a dungeon. One of my favorite things with a new relic patch was I could actually help people in my fc with their progress to catch up. Which leads me to my next point.

Crafting: The specialist system and scrips. honestly its been a bumpy road with these systems. Specialist only recipes forces you into 3 classes (in a game that allows you to level all classes) Which never really made any sense to me. Why play the game more to level all crafts when you only need one class? seems a rather silly way to motivate players to play your game. The way it previously worked was perfectly fine and I rarely saw complaint's about the old system except "you need all crafting classes to craft" (fixed with specialist actions). Which essentially, I assumed the whole point was of specialist. I think that expression is "don't fix whats not broken." Scrips (the crafters weekly equivalent of tomes) gated crafting to an extreme extent. Making crafting an even less appealing feature to attempt, again I never saw anyone ask to slow down crafting progression and I see less and less crafter's over time. It used to be a past time you could do here and there to make some money, top crafted recipes (my my server) tended to be about 120k, money a new progressive player could afford to get a helping hand and part time crafters could make a little money. now its a rather all or nothing system making it rather unappealing.

Mini-games: While i appreciate that the development is adding other activity to do (chocobo racing, triple triad, Lord of verminion, etc) I feel a major issue is the lack of purpose to do these things is an issue. They have no relevance to the main point of the game of progressing in terms of being a Warrior of light (in my opinion) which I feel isn't NEEDED but becomes an issue when your relying the rewards to be purely on glamour items. with already multiple means of accessing them. That's not to say i dont enjoy myself a bit of triple triad its a nice throw back to an older game i enjoyed but that's all it really is. A nice concept but doesn't help me progress or make me want to spend a larger amount of time on the game itself. I do believe too much time is being invested in this. Its nice to see new mini games. just not all the time.

Now with the above said that's not to say I don't find a lot of good in the game, the story's and quest lines have kept good, its nice to see Hildebrand a constant. attempting new things has been great (personally loved diadem) new ability's to the game for the most part was a great addition, addition of a new pvp system with an actual ranking system (although give us rewards for teams and more maps for play modes :P) extreme primal's and their unique weapon designs. Housing and Airship building (something people can do together) Lots of different location dungeons and the list goes on.

What id like to see in future:

Less restrictions on crafting, more maps for pvp game modes, Savage mode end game having Unique boss models and Unique gear rewards (not dyable versions of existing gear) More and grander style dungeons, Places that really make you feel like your in a world not an instance. (open world dungeons wouldn't be half bad either.) And I'm gonna be that guy to say it again... some horizontal progression would be lovely, but im not sure that ones gonna happen (i felt diadem gave it in some sort of way if you did it enough to get multiple pieces.)

I apologize for the long read. No i will not be quiting, as much as it may seem I've been moaning, I enjoy this game thoroughly and intend to be playing a lot longer :)
just thought id throw out my current thoughts on the game. :D