Don't change a thing!!!

[RabidSquirrel]

Unfortunately, SE is a business. If a profit cannot be made on a product, then it's dropped. Because there is still potential in FFXIV as it is right now, they are continuing to make it better. When they decide to roll out the PS3 version of the game, that will be their last big chance to get new players. If that game gets bad reviews and no one picks it up, I'm willing to bet the end of FFXIV will be close. But you know what? Packaging the game the way it is now and reselling it on the PS3 will literally kill this game. Please don't do that. Everyone on these forums wants this game to live on. Even the whiners. Even SE understands the game is currently unworthy of anything more than being free to play.

[Choc]

Elemental wheel still exists, and even though stats are not effective as they can be, elements still exists and this is still more than most other MMOs can say that don't carry this feature. Wow, Aion... All have elements, but play almost NO role in monster weaknesses. Fix stats, and this becomes a WONDERFUL strategy to pay attention to. It already is worth doing, so don't get me wrong here, pay attention to it.

Monster weapon type weakness is more effective than people give credit for, I urge you to test for yourself and find 2 player with equal stats but with different weapons, one effective vs the monster you are fighting and one ineffective, nothing ground breaking but it is definitely worth paying attention to.

Affinity isnt what people think it is. Affinity KEEPS class uniqueness by penalizing the skills off-class. The classes in FFXIV are unique on their own right because of affinity. When you fight a crab NM for instance, you want archers and lancers for piercing weaponskills and attacks that are innate to the classes. While you CAN have your PUGs and MRDs use piercing attacks, they will never be as effective as LNC and ARC at dealing with crabs and this creates the class definition people are complaining doesn't exist. Well, it does.

Light strike and heavy strike are not the only skills in the game, far too many people aren't purchasing these skills with guild marks, they are HIGHLY effective if used correctly:

Archer:
-Close Shot: Attack with your bow, dealing projectile damage and rendering the target immobile.
-Light Shot: Attack with your bow, dealing projectile damage.
-Heavy Shot: Attack with your bow, dealing projectile damage and reducing the target's TP.
-Far Shot: Heighten the angle of your attack, increasing range and reducing attack power

Lancer:
-Heavy Thrust: Attack with your polearm, binding the target.
-Light Thrust: Attack with your polearm, dealing piercing damage.
-Pierce: Attack with your polearm, dealing piercing damage to the target and all enemies between.
-Full Thrust: Attack with your polearm, dealing piercing damage and increasing TP

Gladiator:
-Light Slash: Attack with your sword, dealing slashing damage.
-Light Stab: Attack with your sword, dealing piercing damage.
-Heavy Slash: Attack with your sword, dealing slashing damage and increasing enmity.
-Heavy Stab: Attack with your sword, dealing slashing damage and increasing enmity.

I wont go on, too much spam, you get my point... there is more here than heavy and light attacks. People aren't using them, if you are, good for you!

Yoshi admitted battle regimens in their form, not functionality were not working correctly. The mechanic of using them is indeed clumsy, but the idea of teaming up for a larger attack like skillchains in 11 is not "broken" simply the mechanic of how it is being done is what they are going to take a look at. Do not mistake the method of doing battle regimens with the outcome or effect of them. These are different things.

It does not change my point that battle regimen EFFECTS are something that people are not looking at or using effectively. Regardless of HOW they happen, people aren't using them for their effects.

Also, coordinating BRs with a group of people that know its coming and know how to look and see that another player has TP doesn't take 20 seconds to accomplish. My shell does them effectively and efficiently in anything we do. Yes it takes practice and coordination to do them. BRs are only as effective as the people behind the keyboard sir. Don't blame the mechanic because you are playing with people who can't do them.

And finally, healers didn't skillchain in 11 either, doubt that's going to be a ground breaking thing here, not sure why you brought it up... In this game however, they can if they want and healing isn't needed. The mele in this game all have heals at their disposal and if healing is at all an issue for you in this game, well, you are bad. AOE healing is absurdly simple, keep all the mele together and you should have no issue Cure 3ing them to full pretty easy. Unless of course you mean NM's, in which case your healers shouldn't be BRing anyway....

No element affinities arent worth paying attention to, Naturally I do this without even noticing it as years of playing various ff games has taught me to use thunder on water elemental creatures, but like I said ive been a conjurer since beta and while there is a very very very small difference in the end it doesnt really matter to stress over it.

None of those special effects from weaponskills are useful aside from the classes that already have them. Binding mobs? I tried it a couple times, but nearly everything has a ranged attack anyways so it doesnt prove as a strategic advantage, and mobs dont run away aside from a very limited number of leves. Having a skill to bind 1 mob for 1 leve isnt exactly useful.

TP increasing attack is less effective than something like siphon tp, or invigorate or other skills to raise tp, also while Ive never used it cross class I doubt it will give more tp than your normal attack on your own class which would do much more dmg as well.

Increasing enmity...not many classes aside from gladiator is going to want that. I suppose if you need to make due with tanking as a lancer it might help, although...again I dont play melee so I cant test out weapon skills. The only cross class ws casters get is levinbolt and flashfreeze, both of which i use on both casters.

I dont get your point of nobody buying skills with guild marks though, maybe its just the people you run into. Guild marks are insanely easy to come by, and I have nearly 100k on my 2 classes with no purpose (have bought all skills). Everyone I talk to has bought all their as well. FYI the only one I really can get is natures fury (or other variations) and I love it.

So limiting the use of battle regimens to ONLY our immediate friends/ls mates is a good idea? This is supposed to be an mmo and people are usually encouraged to party/socialize with everyone within the game, not just who you usually hang out with. BRs should be at least doable/worth your time with those random groups you happen to join up with.

As you said healing is insanely easy/simple in this game. It would be nice to give us something to do other than casting Cure III over and over again with aoe on, since theres no downside of having it turned on (another stupid idea imo) and its our only healing spell unless you count sacrifice. Which is another major concern I have with XIV, healing is always my forte. Its the most fun I have on any mmo, yet how simple and boring they made it in this game is mind boggling. Did they want healing to just not be an issue in this game? want to make it easy? or just not care about the people who find healing fun?

Yes most classes will have various healing abilities, but hardly any of them use it because its the healers job to heal, those are meant to be available mostly as a panic button...so no casters job is primarily to just cure III nonstop.

[BadJoeRed]

^ oh yeah, choc you brought up some good points about battle regimens and the curing be mind numbingly boring and too easy.

[Amsai]

Someone mentioned before that all the people not interested in the game or not having fun would have left by now. I am still hear, but I'm in wait and see mode. I got a class to 50, have most battle classes over 15, and even played around with (barf) crafting. However, I have not played much for a while and won't til I know its worth my effort. I'll be honest with you, when I first heard about this game I thought yes everything I love about FFXI with a new setting, graphics, and story. I thought they would take the lessons they learned from FFXI and make a better version of it.

You ask me why haven't I left if I don't enjoy the game? Its SE and FF!! I love their games and I know that they are capable of making amazing games. FFXIV was supposed to be the game that I would play and love for the next 10 years, but so far that hasn't happened. But I desperately want this game to turn into the MMO of my dreams, and right now it isn't there.

Where would I go though if I gave up on it? I loved FFXI but played it for far too long and I have left it and wont go back. Besides I'm not in love with the new direction. Other MMOs? I hate most of them. The battle systems always feel like spam fests with no depth of battle involvement and no weight to you decisions. You just end up cycling through a patern for the best DPS and what not. Other than that most of them almost always have a large or a complete focus on PvP at endgame. This in my opinion makes for poor gameplay and is an excuse for devs to be lazy and call it "player driven" content. This doesn't leave me any real options but to either crawl back to FFXI, hope this game becomes the game I know it can be, or give up MMOs.

There are aspects of FFXIV that I like, and there are things about it I dislike. Unfortunately right now, the bad outweigh the good. Most issues though I would agree though are minor and only need tweaking. However, there are a few glaring ones that if not changed I will leave.

1. There needs to be a focus on party dynamics, and right now there isn't. It all just feels like one big clusterf**k when you group. There is a difference between a group that acts in a coordinated and strategic and DEPENDENT way, and a group of self-reliant people that all just happen to be beating on the same mob. You might say this isnt true, but form my perspective it is true. Not too mention I really don't like how much soloing goes on in this game, it needs to be toned down.

2. Class uniqueness/role specific classes. This issue is actually tied in together with party dynamics, because role specific classes could help a party dynamic by creating a NEED for class interdependency. I also want to be able to tell the difference between being different classes. Again, you might say this isnt so or isnt necessary, but I think it is. And even if you say these thigs exists, then I would say that it is not nearly significant enough. It also encourages more soloing (horrible for an mmo) and all-in-one builds (hello mr. tankdpshealnuker). People want to much freedom, and to me it just destroys the game.

3. Repair: They have made more improvements to this, but its not enough. I want to be able to play a couple of full days in a row before I need to worry about repairs. I want players to be able to repair equiped gear (the NPC can do it why cant we?) And I want the NPC to repair ALL equipment to 100%. Though it could still be expensive, and treated more as an emergency situation. Again, you can disagree with me, but this is a matter of my comfort zone and tollerance for useless BS.

4. Gear Drops: I want SE (when they release more content) to have endgame and NMs and epic tyled quests drop epic gear. Thats gear NOT materials. This epic gear should ALWAYS be better than crafted gear. I am sick to death of this focus on crafting, at least keep it out of my endgame. Nothing could be more disappointing than getting to the end of a dungeon, killing the boss, and finally getting that rare drop, only to discover its a material and not an awesome piece of gear. In my opinion to do that would be tragic and very uninspiring. If endgame dungeons drop mats instead of gear its instnt /ragequit for me.

5. Epic Content: This is the only thing I am not worried about......... I mean this is SE........ this is what they do!! People that have grinded away and have nothiung left to do want this, and I understand that, because so do I. However, as I said before I have every confidence that SE will deliver. Its the other 4 issues I am uncertain about.

I sure would like them to announce a direction for this game. I'd really like to see what ideas they want to implement and a general timeframe. And I mean give us specifics, because we can all argue all day over how the game is good as is or needs minor changes or needs an overhaul. At the end of the day, what matters is what direction the devs take this game in, and the sooner we all know the better.

[Ostia]

If they don't change anything, the game will die, is just as simple as that

[Alcide]

bump

/10char

[SevenFold]

My biggest pet peeve is when switching jobs, it should not take a day or two to reallocate all your attributes. When SE announced you could draw your sword kill a mob, put on a staff and cure a fellow player on your way back to town, and then see a mining node a switch to a pickax and mine, all in a matter of minutes. Yet make it so hard to allocate your attributes to fit into the role you currently want to play.

[Shadowskill]

Only way I can see the game dieing so to speak. is if they stray to far from their direction, set forth on the FF14 site, they rushed it out to the market before ironing out all the details. Stances, Lore, quests. they are all there.

If SE looks back on what the true path they decided by their own site. then take ideas from the player base to build upon that. they can incorporate views from both streams combining together what the masses like. with their own direction. making FF14 stand out on its own from the rest of the games on the market.

This is just my opinion though, always loved how SE stuck to their guns and taking the uncharted path.

[Karvapeikko]

Arguing if the game should change is pointless. It will change and we should only argue on how it should change. I personally consider even fixes as change and they are number 1 things, I want to see working aka "changed". I don't see major overhauls of basic mechanics to be the answer at this point, they just need to be fixed. I like this "skeleton" apart from annoying things that can be fixed(elemetal wheel, stats, BR and such), but there is this thing called "making arrows rains with knuckles" system that needs imo the sledgehammer fixing and other thing is not having roles to play(this is role playing game!)

I don't say anyone in particular wants to keep the system just as it is now, but that would be pointless. It would mean keeping less than half of community happy, which is already less than 1/10th of the population, this game was meant to at least get, which is less than 1/10th of the population of the game FFXIV is supposed to compete against. Realistically succes is business and business is bad.

[Shikyo]

If they don't change anything, the game will die, is just as simple as that

this statement about wraps it up simple and to the point, some think big changes are needed and are called whiners, and some think very little is needed and like the idea of riding a sinking ship but again time will tell if this statement holds true