Patch Advice - Thoughts of a gamer

[zergasaur]

First of all, best wishes to everyone in Japan effected by this natural disaster.

Now the reason I am writing this post is to hopefully give the leadership (YoshiP or anyone) in SE another opinion about whats going wrong in the FF14 game. Now before I begin, I do understand that everyone has their own opinions on the matter and I am sure there will be many people who will agree or disagree with me. But I basically wanted to write this letter outlining some of the issues I believe to be outstanding. So let me begin.

1. Content - Story Driven Quests and SideQuests - This last patch that gave us side quests was a step in the right direction however it failed miserably. Why? Reasons why is the rewards were obsolete and the quests were boring and not thought out. What would have made it a smashing success was the addition of some new unique items and some more engaging tasks for the sidequests. Going into this in more detail: Rewards should not be an item I can buy from the wards for 10k Gil. I spent an entire day to do a series of repetitive annoying quest to get something I could buy in 5 seconds for 90k gil??? If you would have given me a new unique hat with a tulip on top(not serious on the hat), I would have been more satisfied than those Tarred Pants. Which leads me to the topic of boring repetitive quests. Why does most of the quests involve running back and forth long distances? They all seem to be like the leve Quest "Adamantine Wills" in Nanawa Mines. Diversify these quests. This is a simple one but Give us a riddle, make us search out a key then some ancient ruins where we must struggle to fight our way into the heart of the dungeon (not simply run in) where we must slay a boss then take its head to turn in. At this point you could either give a small reward and a new connecting quest, or if its a final quest of a certain series .... give a new unique item. Simply doing that would be fun, engaging and could even involve teamwork. At the same time, the person would feel rewarded with a cool new item and 4 hours of fun questing time. Currently its: kill 10 of these but for each kill you must run back to the other spot which is 5 minutes away. And after i spend an hour doing this, my reward: An brand new pair of pants that I can buy in 5 seconds. Woot! Its like a kick in the face.

2. Crafted Items - I put this at number two simply because a good gaming experience involves struggling to get something and standing out from the crowd. Which is why there was an outcry for NMs. But aside from NM dropped items, obtaining normal crafted items should be somewhat a struggle as well. Currently gil is relatively easy to obtain. Due to the mechanics of the game, crafting is encouraged. All gear can also be fixed and resold. In a years time with 1000s of crafters and no gear consumption ..... there is going to be a massively saturated market of every item. Along with undercutting wars, this would result in dirt cheap items and everyone having the best items with relative easy. I understand that this is inevitable, but SE must slow this down as much as possible if they want to keep their players challenged and happy.

3. Diversifying Skills and Classes - I think Yoshi has this part in mind already. I just wanted restate the fact that currently most of the skills seem the same. Version 1 and 2 of certain skills usually meant similar damage with a added bonus of incapacitation. If possible I would like to see a more distinguished difference between these classes. Lancers aren't bad currently. Their skill seems to be the most unique of all the classes.

This post seems too long now. So I will end it here. I feel that there is a small disconnect between the SE developer team and the players desire in the the game. So I hope this helps anyone in SE in fixing the game. Again this is my opinion. I am a MMO gamer since EQ1, a normal gamer since Atari - Commodore 64. And this is what I feel to be the major issues at the moment in making the game more FUN!

[Winry_Rockbell]

First of all, best wishes to everyone in Japan effected by this natural disaster.

Now the reason I am writing this post is to hopefully give the leadership (YoshiP or anyone) in SE another opinion about whats going wrong in the FF14 game. Now before I begin, I do understand that everyone has their own opinions on the matter and I am sure there will be many people who will agree or disagree with me. But I basically wanted to write this letter outlining some of the issues I believe to be outstanding. So let me begin.

1. Content - Story Driven Quests and SideQuests - This last patch that gave us side quests was a step in the right direction however it failed miserably. Why? Reasons why is the rewards were obsolete and the quests were boring and not thought out. What would have made it a smashing success was the addition of some new unique items and some more engaging tasks for the sidequests. Going into this in more detail: Rewards should not be an item I can buy from the wards for 10k Gil. I spent an entire day to do a series of repetitive annoying quest to get something I could buy in 5 seconds for 90k gil??? If you would have given me a new unique hat with a tulip on top(not serious on the hat), I would have been more satisfied than those Tarred Pants. Which leads me to the topic of boring repetitive quests. Why does most of the quests involve running back and forth long distances? They all seem to be like the leve Quest "Adamantine Wills" in Nanawa Mines. Diversify these quests. This is a simple one but Give us a riddle, make us search out a key then some ancient ruins where we must struggle to fight our way into the heart of the dungeon (not simply run in) where we must slay a boss then take its head to turn in. At this point you could either give a small reward and a new connecting quest, or if its a final quest of a certain series .... give a new unique item. Simply doing that would be fun, engaging and could even involve teamwork. At the same time, the person would feel rewarded with a cool new item and 4 hours of fun questing time. Currently its: kill 10 of these but for each kill you must run back to the other spot which is 5 minutes away. And after i spend an hour doing this, my reward: An brand new pair of pants that I can buy in 5 seconds. Woot! Its like a kick in the face.

2. Crafted Items - I put this at number two simply because a good gaming experience involves struggling to get something and standing out from the crowd. Which is why there was an outcry for NMs. But aside from NM dropped items, obtaining normal crafted items should be somewhat a struggle as well. Currently gil is relatively easy to obtain. Due to the mechanics of the game, crafting is encouraged. All gear can also be fixed and resold. In a years time with 1000s of crafters and no gear consumption ..... there is going to be a massively saturated market of every item. Along with undercutting wars, this would result in dirt cheap items and everyone having the best items with relative easy. I understand that this is inevitable, but SE must slow this down as much as possible if they want to keep their players challenged and happy.

3. Diversifying Skills and Classes - I think Yoshi has this part in mind already. I just wanted restate the fact that currently most of the skills seem the same. Version 1 and 2 of certain skills usually meant similar damage with a added bonus of incapacitation. If possible I would like to see a more distinguished difference between these classes. Lancers aren't bad currently. Their skill seems to be the most unique of all the classes.

This post seems too long now. So I will end it here. I feel that there is a small disconnect between the SE developer team and the players desire in the the game. So I hope this helps anyone in SE in fixing the game. Again this is my opinion. I am a MMO gamer since EQ1, a normal gamer since Atari - Commodore 64. And this is what I feel to be the major issues at the moment in making the game more FUN!

Definately Agree with the whole thing. Hopefully they listen. (wait they never do....)

[Dreamer]

1. Content - Story Driven Quests and SideQuests - This last patch that gave us side quests was a step in the right direction however it failed miserably. Why? Reasons why is the rewards were obsolete and the quests were boring and not thought out. What would have made it a smashing success was the addition of some new unique items and some more engaging tasks for the sidequests. Going into this in more detail: Rewards should not be an item I can buy from the wards for 10k Gil. I spent an entire day to do a series of repetitive annoying quest to get something I could buy in 5 seconds for 90k gil??? If you would have given me a new unique hat with a tulip on top(not serious on the hat), I would have been more satisfied than those Tarred Pants. Which leads me to the topic of boring repetitive quests. Why does most of the quests involve running back and forth long distances? They all seem to be like the leve Quest "Adamantine Wills" in Nanawa Mines. Diversify these quests. This is a simple one but Give us a riddle, make us search out a key then some ancient ruins where we must struggle to fight our way into the heart of the dungeon (not simply run in) where we must slay a boss then take its head to turn in. At this point you could either give a small reward and a new connecting quest, or if its a final quest of a certain series .... give a new unique item. Simply doing that would be fun, engaging and could even involve teamwork. At the same time, the person would feel rewarded with a cool new item and 4 hours of fun questing time. Currently its: kill 10 of these but for each kill you must run back to the other spot which is 5 minutes away. And after i spend an hour doing this, my reward: An brand new pair of pants that I can buy in 5 seconds. Woot! Its like a kick in the face.

*SNIP*

And this is what I feel to be the major issues at the moment in making the game more FUN!

I can't say I agree with you completely. I personally could care less about what the rewards are for the side quests. What I do agree with you about is the lack of diversity, and more importantly fun, in the current crop of quests. At the end of the day, we're playing this game to unwind and have fun, and the side quests as implemented simply fail in this regard.

I would much rather have a small handful of fun, engaging quests than an army of mediocre chores.

[OmegaNovaios]

1. I haven't attempted any FFXIV quests yet, but by what you said I would definitely rather have unique/exclusive item rewards or storyline behind the quest. IMO FFXI quests were much better than any quests than any other MMO had because quests were the main idea for gaining XP and had very little to no significant storyline/lore behind them so you just got used to skipping the text and moving on to killing the mobs that dropped whatever you needed in a boring endless cycle until you hit the Lv. cap which I think was the worst way to Lv. up and killed the point of what a quest should be.

2. I'm not sure of a good fix for crafting/economy (not the best at that stuff) but I know that crafting already ranks slower than battle classes do currently and I don't think that ranking up in crafting should take longer. I don't find a challenge in doing something longer unless it is to challenge my patience. I find a challenge in the gathering process/success rate for crafting.

3. I think this is the best thread along with its proposal for class uniqueness.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...sic-FF-Classes

[Malakhim]

Why are people still bitching about the current sidequests? Does anyone honestly think that this is the state they're going to be in permanently? The system has just been introduced, and quite frankly they're not for high levelers. They're directed at low to mid right now, and they do an admirable job of adding involvement with NPCs other than leves.

Give it time to gestate, people. Rome wasn't built in a day.

[zergasaur]

People aren't very patient. Especially us gamers. We want our fix right now. If we cant find it here, we'll go somewhere else. Its just how it is. I'm not bitching at them, I am trying to state some obvious fixes that would make the game fun. I love Final Fantasy and hope things get better before everyone is gone. This last patch made 4 ppl in my LS simply say, I need a break. If I keep playing I'll just get mad, quit and not comeback. I love my LS and want to have fun playing this game. This thread was created in hopes of helping the Devs in SE. Nothing more.

[RabidSquirrel]

People aren't very patient. Especially us gamers. We want our fix right now. If we cant find it here, we'll go somewhere else. Its just how it is. I'm not bitching at them, I am trying to state some obvious fixes that would make the game fun. I love Final Fantasy and hope things get better before everyone is gone. This last patch made 4 ppl in my LS simply say, I need a break. If I keep playing I'll just get mad, quit and not comeback. I love my LS and want to have fun playing this game. This thread was created in hopes of helping the Devs in SE. Nothing more.

Huh. I can't find "Fix this now" anywhere in the OP's post. He's just saying what feels off-putting about some things currently in the game.

In respects to #2, I would be very much for a "bind on equip" system. As stated in the OP's post, getting money isn't that hard. Even if all you do is play combat classes. Bind on equip helps to prevent inflation of a specific item due to someone purchasing it, using it for a while, then turning around and reselling it. Just like there are ways to introduce gil into the game economy, there are also ways to take it out of the economy. This is essential to prevent an astronomical inflation of gil, and I believe it should be applied to equipment as well.