The Unofficial "Why is this still a thing" Thread

[Kazrah]

Ever have an item or done something in the game that you feel like has lost its purpose? Something that may have had a use at some point in time, but now just feels like an arbitrary chore? I felt like there are enough of these now that we should make a list. Maybe make a fun game out of it, who knows.

All you have to do is state what the thing is, your case to question why it's still a thing, and provide a reasonable solution (or at least as close to one as possible). Claims can be refuted as well to explain why something should still be a thing in the game, but do keep it civil....I know, easier said than done on these forums sometimes, but I thought that had to be said anyway.

And remember: devs are not all-powerful, so not everything can be done at the snap of their fingers.

[Transient_Shadow]

Protect. It just takes up cross role space. I'm certain they could have done some math and edited damage taken so protect would no longer be necessary.

[MilanFrozen]

Protect. It just takes up cross role space. I'm certain they could have done some math and edited damage taken so protect would no longer be necessary.

Well when you die you lose protect and it has to be recast when you're ressed.

My 'why is this still a thing' is just some of the currencies in the game taking up inventory slots.

[KisaiTenshi]

Protect. It just takes up cross role space. I'm certain they could have done some math and edited damage taken so protect would no longer be necessary.

It's still a thing because it's the only thing healers offer to a group that otherwise may as well be a bunch of DPS. See PotD. SE took half of WMH's kit and gave it to all the healers to simplify things and that had the opposite effect of giving the impression that all role actions were optional (including Esuna), even though it makes them available at all levels the Role action slot is available at.

I'd rather all three healers have had their own Esuna skill, and Protect being unique to WHM's skillset. Maybe AST could have got a version of Protect that was Dirunal/Nocturnal aspected, so Dirunal AST-protect acted like WHM's protect, but Nocturnal AST-protect acts like SCH's version, and SCH's version would be like the original cross-class version (eg without proshell.) Whoever has the more powerful version overwrites the weaker one.

Why can't we send mail to our alts? From a consumer POV this is a pretty basic thing we should be able to do.

Because RMT. Also because it makes stripping an account possible by players who share the same account. Not that it doesn't stop people from doing either of these with some free-trial account, it just requires effort.


You know what is still a thing, that's been around since 2.0 and still happens? "Cast canceled", why not simply do what all the stand-alone FF games do and send DPS casts to the next NPC on the enmity list if the previous one dies, and the same with healing. This is infuriating with casters as you will start casting, but the melee or tank will take down the last bit of the mob before your cast completes, so you then start the cast again on another target and the same thing happens.

Another thing, that is still a thing. Locking people out of the boss room. Like either just teleport everyone, or don't spawn the boss until everyone is in it. Early pulls should never be a thing.

[Skivvy]

Because RMT. Also because it makes stripping an account possible by players who share the same account. Not that it doesn't stop people from doing either of these with some free-trial account, it just requires effort.

I've never understood the RMT excuse (has this actually been said by SE?). What is the harm if RMT can send gil between characters on the same account? This can all be tracked by SE.

Also, account sharing is against ToS (aside from sharing with your legal guardian or minor child), so that shouldn't be a concern anyway.

[KisaiTenshi]

I've never understood the RMT excuse (has this actually been said by SE?). What is the harm if RMT can send gil between characters on the same account? This can all be tracked by SE.

Also, account sharing is against ToS (aside from sharing with your legal guardian or minor child), so that shouldn't be a concern anyway.

It's a thing with all MMO's, usually stripping an account is caused by players engaging in RMT, because they're idiots and gave their account info away. Some people play in the same household (eg teen children, spouse), and you don't want to buy 4 subscriptions if you only have one computer capable of playing it anyway. It's a bad idea anyway.

But typically in Freemium games, you want to avoid players creating more "free" accounts to use as mules, and one way you curb that abuse is by attaching costs to transferring items through the mail, but you often have a common bank inventory (eg retainers in the case of FFXIV). However in FFXIV you get additional retainers for additional characters on the SAME server, thus it allows players to get additional retainers without paying for them (or by doubling the number of retainers you can have that you pay for,) by using the additional characters as essentially additional inventory space, and their additional retainers.

At any rate, the actual worry about this is kinda moot. If SE blocks players from sending stuff to their own alts, with some misguided notion of not letting the main character interfere with the alt character, perhaps the real problem is that SE should have made an actual "bank" inventory that was shared, or allow sharing via housing (another thing you can't do, invite your alts to your own FC without at least one other player to do it. AFAIK)

[alimdia]

It's a thing with all MMO's

No it's not? I've played many MMOs and not one of them restricted either creating alts or using alts as storage, this is the only one that does it and I think the only reason they don't change it is because they fear they'd lose money from additional retainers.

[Makeda]

It's a thing with all MMO's, usually stripping an account is caused by players engaging in RMT

Yeah let's see...

I also have played or still play: WoW, Wildstar, Elder Scrolls, Guild Wars 1 & 2, Everquest 2, Tera, Blade and Soul, Age ofConan (for about 1 hour... ick), City of Heroes (a moment of silence please for a fallen friend), Neverwinter, Champions Online, Black Desert, and a few random things here and there...

This is the only game that is so alt-hostile.

I get that you can play every class on a single toon, but you can't play every race at the same time on the same CHARACTER... so I and others have alts.

And in ALL of those other games, I can send things around between various characters.

Yet it is this game that has had the most problems with RMT of them all. Guild Wars 2 came close at launch... but a few days in they banned 30,000 accounts in one hit, forced a password change for all users, blocked any password that had ever been used by ANYONE from being used by anyone ever again (*)... and that was it...

* (so if you had the password "12345", the system would not let me have that password)

The RMT issues are not alt related... they're account security related.

On launch day of this game, I was watching as people I was talking to or standing next to in game vanished, then logged back in minutes later and started spamming RMT offers...

Me... I got an SE Token, that 'one-time' thingy...

If everyone had that, we'd be done talking about RMT here... (*)

*(Hackers have recently showed proof of concept for cracking into two-factor authentication, but the process is complex and involves gaining access to a Wi-Fi network and a two-factor system that is using that same network: as in... if somebody hacks your two-factor... it means they're sitting outside your house in that black van with the guys in mirrorshades in it... you got bigger problems at that point... one of which might be "seeing things" that aren't there... ).

[VanilleFang]

snip.

Protect is a useless ability. It grants defence and magic defence, sure, but it wastes a slot that is better suited for something else. If they changed Protect to function as a defensive CD (a la Protect in PvP) it would be much more useful. As it stands now they could just grant Protect to everyone for free in a dungeon and nothing will change.

You've mentioned how you've played since ARR yet you are asking for something that they changed in HW because of balance issues? Protect was always a cross class skill first off, so it was never truly unique to WHM. Secondly Proshell (the trait) was removed and implemented into the standard Protect because it caused unbalance with WHM having more protective power than SCH. If they had kept Protect the way it was in ARR then WHM would have been an automatic pick for any fight that had Magic damage since it would have been the only class to grant Magic Defence with its Protect (Proshell).

The best options we have are either make Protect a decent CD (like I mentioned above) or remove it. Fiddling with how it's current state, and trying to make it "better" will only make matters worse. Buffs that last a prolonged amount if time are also lazy gameplay features. You just make sure everyone has your buff, otherwise they require no thought or strategy to use.

[KisaiTenshi]

Protect is a useless ability. It grants defence and magic defence, sure, but it wastes a slot that is better suited for something else. If they changed Protect to function as a defensive CD (a la Protect in PvP) it would be much more useful. As it stands now they could just grant Protect to everyone for free in a dungeon and nothing will change.

FFXIV's protect is a combination of previous FF's "Shell" (Magical damage reduction) and "Protect" (Physical damage reduction), when Scholar takes it from WHM in 2.0, it's "protect" not "Protect+Proshell". There were even different icons for it.

The system that they turned into the role actions owes it's original design not to V1.0 but to how FF1 had cross-class aspects lifted from Wizardry. Essentially you could level up to X in some job, then change to a new job and take a few skills with you, and because leveling and permadeath were a thing, you would take whatever from the class that was most valuable. If FFXIV had this system as it was originally designed, you would not be able to take skills like Protect and Stoneskin from WHM without getting WHM to a level that allowed you to take two skills from it first, and then if you changed class, you would have no incentive to switch back. So the ultimate character setup might be one where you picked every long-lasting defensive skill from all the healers, and then stack them to be the ultimate healer. That is not the game we are playing.

Where the healing aspect of FFXIV falls apart is that changes made to the healers resulted in LESS to do. If protect doesn't really serve any purpose, then why is it in the cross-role set? Because people were always taking protect instead of other things from WHM. Hence the mistake was taking Esuna and Protect out of WHM's kit. They should have just changed the levels for equal skills in the AST and SCH kit, but because SCH is half a DPS, that can't be done. Protect is level 16, Esuna is 20. What does ACN get at 16 and 20? Drain and Diversion from the current role system. In the previous 2.0, WHM had protect at level 8, and Esuna at 18, Scholar had leeches at 40, and 3.0 kit for AST, Exalted Detriment was level 18. The problem pre-4.0 was Protect, Stone skin and Cleric stance were all considered "required" and you'd get yelled at for not doing at least Protect and Stone Skin before every fight.

You know how I'd fix Protect? Move protect to WHM-only. Bring Stone Skin back, Scholar and AST don't get it at all. They have their own shields. Now make stone skin overwrite regen/medica II. Make Protect be the long-term cast thing that WHM brings to the table. Make AST have a long-term Haste or buff-extending type of cast, and Scholar have a long-term cast like Reflect (allow stacking different long term effect casts, but not the same effect.) Put an exhaustion time on those long-term casts where they end if the healer runs out of MP or dies the effect is removed from the party. Once all three healers have both a long-term and a short-term shield, start putting mechanics in fights that party-wide shield mitigation is required or wipe/heavy damage is sustained.

It's of course difficult to balance because you can't give healers anything unique, otherwise it makes them the preferred healer. AST has RNG buffs, Scholar has the Fairy which can buff. WHM presently has no party-buffs unique to it's role, and that could be restored by deleting protect from the role actions and giving it back to WHM.