The Companion App sucks

[ManuelBravo]

• It lacks have half of the Libra Eorzea features. Can't search for non-marketboard items, duties, profiles from people I don't know.
• Only players with active subscription can use it.
• Lackluster information on the profile page of a character.
• Can't chat with players using the in-game channels (FC chat, Linkshells, etc).
• It takes a lot of time to send a message, the screen dims and the page has to load again.
• There is a very tight character limit for each message.
• Sometimes you can send duplicate messages.
• Since it doesn't use the in-game chat, there is no reason to only show text. We can't add images or http links.
• It seems making an event doesn't shows in The Lodestone page.
• Speaking of which, zero Lodestone integration (blogs, FC forums, notifications)
• No web/desktop version.

I am very disappointed. There is no single added value into improving communication with friends and FC/LS members that other software (like Discord) can do. Why using this app when I can make a Discord server?

Your right it does, if anything the only good thing about it will be paying the $5 for the retainers and space. Damn SE with their tease take my money already -.-/...then again it could be worse I could be dealing with incompetent players online to begin with ...oh wait that still is an issue -.-;

[Stormfur]

I have no doubt they'll need to go through many iterations, updates and patches to make the app a lot more user friendly and USEFUL but not REQUIRED.

It's just that, in it's current state, there's no real incentive to want to use it. I'm sure it took a LOT of time, effort and money to develop.

But you know, it's not the whole P2W doom-and-gloom or even the cost that bothers me about it -- yes, that would be bad BUT --

What bothers me most is that we weren't even asked what features we might like in such an app. Maybe the JP forum was asked and this is what we got -- but I doubt it.

Yes, you'd probably get 100 different answers but that's part of what makes an app enticing, is that it incorporates player feedback and wishes. Your audience gets to see that they made an impact -- that they and their feedback matter (and not just in terms of dollar signs).

For example, some things I can say with a pretty good degree of confidence that we would want:
- Hunt notifications
- Raid scheduling/planning
- Rare node notifications for gatherers
- Retainer management when not in game
- Inventory management when not in game
- The ability to play triple triad with others players
- The ability to manage our squadrons
- Character preview with different gear (like a dressing room of sorts)

Of course it's one thing to suggest these things and another thing entirely to actually implement them without breaking both the app AND the game or straining the servers. But as it is right now, it just feels like we have an app...to have an app.

[Sigma-Astra]

It also could've been the other way around and don't start with SE programs suck because otherwhise you wouldn't play here. Either way i'm not a fan of these apps since people spend enough time staring at their stupid phone already.

It could have, but it wasn't. There's no point in going through the numerous "what if" scenarios that can nor never happened to begin with, so I don't get what your point was or where you were trying to go with that entirely here. Plenty of people on the forums weren't impressed when it was first mentioned and still aren't even now, while countless others were...well, to be blunt, acting like the app was going to be the end of the world or end of the game. It hasn't caused the game to implode on itself, but it's definitely not anything special to write home about either.

Probably not a good idea to jump the gun and think that I would say SE programs suck simply because I called their phone app tool a useless piece of fluff when you don't agree with it either anyways. I like their games, their games are not always the problem....the problem is that they're really bad at micromanaging their resources and budgeting. But, that's a higher-up CEO & accounting department problem and not always a developer/director problem.

The phone app's mini fees for kupo nuts was probably alllllllll on the CEO's idea and less on the person who coded the interface.

[Xion136]

I have no doubt they'll need to go through many iterations, updates and patches to make the app a lot more user friendly and USEFUL but not REQUIRED.

It's just that, in it's current state, there's no real incentive to want to use it. I'm sure it took a LOT of time, effort and money to develop.

But you know, it's not the whole P2W doom-and-gloom or even the cost that bothers me about it -- yes, that would be bad BUT --

What bothers me most is that we weren't even asked what features we might like in such an app. Maybe the JP forum was asked and this is what we got -- but I doubt it.

Yes, you'd probably get 100 different answers but that's part of what makes an app enticing, is that it incorporates player feedback and wishes. Your audience gets to see that they made an impact -- that they and their feedback matter (and not just in terms of dollar signs).

For example, some things I can say with a pretty good degree of confidence that we would want:
- Hunt notifications
- Raid scheduling/planning
- Rare node notifications for gatherers
- Retainer management when not in game
- Inventory management when not in game
- The ability to play triple triad with others players
- The ability to manage our squadrons
- Character preview with different gear (like a dressing room of sorts)

Of course it's one thing to suggest these things and another thing entirely to actually implement them without breaking both the app AND the game or straining the servers. But as it is right now, it just feels like we have an app...to have an app.

Those are part of the Premium Service.

[Sigma-Astra]

But as it is right now, it just feels like we have an app...to have an app.

This is basically what it feels like to a "T". I kind of wonder what the general consensus was among the people working on it and if they wondered "....do the players really even need this right now...?" at all during it's research and development phases.

[Luna-M]

I understand (some) people are upset about the app and its features. But why can't we keep it in the thread with bunch of pages already?

[Fawkes]

When it was first announced I thought it was going to be almost like a lite version of the game that just had the chat box. It's weird that it does seem to integrate with the game, like it even tells you you have to be logged out to use some features so it's presumably logging in in some way, but they just didn't bother with the chat part.

From the first reveal of what it actually is I haven't understood who this is for, it's primary function seems to be market board use. In what scenario are people going to get items and then sit on them until they log out so they can use the app to list it? I guess maybe if you're waiting for a price to drop before you buy something it might be useful, but the ability to create a buy order at a specific price would be better because you wouldn't have to manually check it all the time.

The only value the premium version has are the retainer and chocobo saddlebag, but unless you're at max retainers already you'd get more inventory space putting that $5 towards more retainers.

[Ilan]

It could have, but it wasn't. There's no point in going through the numerous "what if" scenarios that can nor never happened to begin with, so I don't get what your point was or where you were trying to go with that entirely here. Plenty of people on the forums weren't impressed when it was first mentioned and still aren't even now, while countless others were...well, to be blunt, acting like the app was going to be the end of the world or end of the game. It hasn't caused the game to implode on itself, but it's definitely not anything special to write home about either.

Probably not a good idea to jump the gun and think that I would say SE programs suck simply because I called their phone app tool a useless piece of fluff when you don't agree with it either anyways. I like their games, their games are not always the problem....the problem is that they're really bad at micromanaging their resources and budgeting. But, that's a higher-up CEO & accounting department problem and not always a developer/director problem.

The phone app's mini fees for kupo nuts was probably alllllllll on the CEO's idea and less on the person who coded the interface.

Where i'm going is that people who complained about such an app had all rights to complain about it and even if you think there is no point in the "what if" scenario, its only what you think.

[Sigma-Astra]

Where i'm going is that people who complained about such an app had all rights to complain about it and even if you think there is no point in the "what if" scenario, its only what you think.

I'm assuming you're addressing the people that thought the app was going to ruin everything, right? It's true that they had a right to complain about it, even if a lot of it seemed like extreme hyperbole. But, honestly, at best we could all agree it's a greedy/not very thought-out marketing maneuver and nothing more at the very least.

[Mimilu]

It also could've been the other way around and don't start with SE programs suck because otherwhise you wouldn't play here.

Their programs do suck, that doesn't mean we won't still play the game though. >w>
The game does still use a lot of 1.0's code spaghetti, which is probably one of the bigger reasons for the games limitation. :B