Request: AoE range indictator

[Arcell]

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.

1. Range: You don't use your own judgement, it's just guesswork. You hit the skill and if you're in range it goes off, if not you get an error, move closer and try again. No real skill involved there, just guesswork.

2. AoE: Same as above, except if you're not in range it simply doesn't hit them. No skill involved in guesswork.

3. Enmity: Arguably, knowing what the hate situation is will allow a player to push the limits harder than before when they were simply guessing. Instead of wondering if they're close to pulling hate or not, they know and in knowing they can use that information to play more skillfully.

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.

Even with the aid of various information displays, personal skill is still needed. It doesn't matter how much information you know if you don't know how to use it to your advantage. If you can't do anything with that information, you may as well not even have it. You need to know what you're doing to properly utilize the information that you are given.

Simply knowing the AoE range doesn't help you much if you don't pay attention or know the limitations of certain skills. Also some lesser known bits of info, like AoEs only hit up to 8 things at a time, are not made apparent and must still be learned anyway. The best way to utilize certain AoE skills despite their range is another personal hurdle that some must overcome. Simply knowing where it will hit is only half the issue.

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.....)

Exactly, also again if a player doesn't know what to do with the information then it is useless. The enmity bar is really only useful if people know how to manage their enmity properly. Seeing red on the bar doesn't help you much if you don't know how to shed hate.

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.

Actually FFXIV is still kind of aimed at a casual audience, more casual than FFXI at least. Things can still be challenging even with information displayed. Knowing something only does so much for you and the rest is up to personal skill/judgement. These things don't make combat inherently easier, they just display information which you must then use yourself. Figuring out the best way to use that information is what keeps it challenging.

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.

That's an awful idea, I'm sorry. Punishing people for using an information display? No, I would not stand for something like that. Those who don't "need" them can be rewarded with a personal sense of superiority or something, don't punish people for using a feature in a game.

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.

Putting an information display in doesn't take up a huge amount of resources. Compared to creating dungeons, quests, gear, etc... it's a pretty small thing. It requires a little testing but all it does is display information, not a lot can go wrong with that compared to other things.