Request: AoE range indictator

[Asiaine]

First Off: Some Definitions

The more 'aids' there are, the less 'skill' you will need. If there is somethign to tell you:

-- The range.. you will no longer have to use your own judgement, just the ability to read 'in range'
-- The AOE... you will no longer have to use your own judgement or take a chance..just look at the indicators
-- The Enimity... you will no longer have to judge based on experience or other clues that it is safe to keep attacking or not. Just look at the flashing bar.

The more 'aids' there are, the 'simpler' things become. That is the purpose of aids. Not to enable something that was not possible before, but to make it so ascertaining or accomplishing something is easier than before.



Now: The Effect
If there are a lot of 'aids', the argument can be made that the world is made more open to people who need the aids. In other words, lack of aids would drive away people who would need it. Some might argue they wish to restrict the world to people who do not need the aids. Others would argue they do not want the world restricted from them because they can't get the aids they need.

Another argument is that the more 'aids' there are, the less opportunities for personal skills to be used and made more apparent. Yes, there is an argument that one could disable all the aids, but if there is no benefit from it the reality is that it most likely will not be used. Example: Why drive 'manual' instead of 'automatic' if behaviour/performance/everything will be 100% the same.

A side-effect of this argument is that some people will want to keep the world more 'exclusive'. 'Weed' out those who do not have the 'skillz' to play without aids.

And finally, the last argument (that I can come up with) is that by spending time implementing more aids, the limited resources are not being used to add more content or fixes. Additionally, by adding more 'aids' they run the risk of adding more 'bugs'. So the tradeoff has to be questioned and answered.


Side note on enmity bar
At present, as far as I can tell, the ONLY way to judge enmity is by the bar. In Vana'diel, you could judge enmity by the way the creature would 'twitch' and sort of look like it was comming to you for a moment... a sign that you should back off (if you weren't the tank). We do not seem to get that here, so we have no choice but to look at that bar (or wait till we get hit then say: Yup, okey, I got hate now.....)


Now for me
I am not in favour of making things simpler. But I am understanding of those who, for whatever reason, may need things to be made simpler. Not everyone is good at visual cues or spatial geometry. Not everyone has a good gut feeling. Some people just plain have disabilities or inabilities to properly see things. Whatever the reason, I can fully understand people's needs for 'aids' (Let's keep in mind that this is supposed to be fun, and not real war here...)

That being said, I also appreciate 'challenges'. I can also accept that it is hard to make this world both 'easy' and 'challenging' at the same time, yet make all content freely available to everyone. Something has to give.

My understanding is that FFXIV is supposed to be a more 'challenging' world than other places out there... most of which are easy (and some downright super casual easy). If this is the case, I would like to encourage this world to stay on the challenging side, as there are a plethora of non-challenging-easy-mode-worlds out there already, and few challenging ones left to enjoy.


One final suggestion
For those who truly want the best of both worlds, it is possible to enable an /easymode option to turn on all aids, etc. But I think this should have limited use (only from Inn/House), and a penalty (-10% xp, -10% to all stats, can not equip double-melded+ equipment). This would keep it available for those who need aids, but still reward those who do not.




And one final final note (promise):
As for AoE Range Indicators.. as mentioned above... Although I can appreciate its usefulness to some people, I still submit that the limited resources of SE be put towards something that alot of people would benefit from (rather than just a few).


Thank you, and sorry for the long post.