Suggestion [remove Aether Currents as a catch up mechanic]

[Iscah]

This psychological harms the player every time

Could you be any more overdramatic about this?

Sure it's a bit disappointing and frustrating to be back down to the slow speed, but calling it "psychological harm" both overplays the severity of it and underplays the severity of actual psychological harm.

Slow mounts are tedium, not suffering.

[Kes13a]

- regarding path finding in WoW, it’s not intrusive. Mounts in WoW are much faster then the mounts in FF14. Here the mounts in new areas are almost same speed as sprinting, which makes them virtually useless. This psychological harms the player every time, because the moment you gain a mount speed increase, your gone from zone in ff14 and back to snails pace.

Likewise, paths are always in useful spots, in FF14, they never are. What is the point of a porter when it’s 20 feet from the crystal that I can teleport too? In FF14 they are always a hinderance as they are not where I need them.

By the time you unlock flight through in the region, it’s over, if the side quests where unlocked the moment one entered the maps, and the msq one was very early into the map, then it would be useful. This system punishes you for trying, and punishes you if you don’t. The result is burn out.

- mounts / flight cost a lot in WoW… not true. Even in cata you could go to goldshire inn, and role play for like a day and get enough gold to fly, it really was a not issue. Once you unlocked, it would last you for the entire expansion, not 1 hour while your getting burdened psychologically by moving at -300%. [feels]

Flight in WoW, was also rewarding. I greatly prefer the divide of land/ flight mounts, and find it weird and awkward how it is in FF14. The larger mounts make you feel like your moving at -1000% speed. [eg: Behumut].


TLDR

No WoW did not burden you the player more, it felt a lot less annoying to deal with.

um... pathfinding in WoW was "not...intrusive"?

Pathfinder 1... (first of two) BfA
10 reps to revered.
100 world quests
Fully explore 6 zones
complete 100 world quests
complete a war campaign
fully complete zone questline

PathFinder part 2 (BfA)
3 more revered reps
fully explore 2 zones

they expected an average player to complete in 4 to 5 weeks.
(reality was since you were also trying to increase your overall power, usually took longer)

I am not really sure how you think that was easier and "better" than FFxiv.

I wonder if you even played WoW based on what you wrote. as for "roleplaying in Goldshire" thats a laugh and a half. not everyone wants to make their gold erping in an online game.

as for lasting an "entire expansion" thats false. Pathfinder 2 was NEVER released until about 1/2 of the way through the expansion. half the time you never completed the zone questline until you were max level. in BfA pathfinder 1 was available on release, it was added in patch 8.01 (july 2018) and pathfinder 2 in patch 8.2 (june 2019).

in FFxiv, you can fly in the zone with the AC all unlocked. technically you can unlock them all day 1 if you no lifed it.

not sure what WoW you played, but certainly wasnt the same one I spent over a decade part of.

[TaleraRistain]

I don't really see much point in an adjustment. When they first came out in HW and they were way off the beaten path, I understood the feedback about that. But they almost universally follow the path the MSQ takes you on now with just one or two small deviations and a handful of blue quests. It also doesn't cripple you to move around a zone on foot. The paths are clearly laid out and take very little time to traverse on a mount and then there are multiple port spots for zones. It's all very convenient.

[Almagnus1]

- regarding path finding in WoW, it’s not intrusive. Mounts in WoW are much faster then the mounts in FF14. Here the mounts in new areas are almost same speed as sprinting, which makes them virtually useless. This psychological harms the player every time, because the moment you gain a mount speed increase, your gone from zone in ff14 and back to snails pace.

Likewise, paths are always in useful spots, in FF14, they never are. What is the point of a porter when it’s 20 feet from the crystal that I can teleport too? In FF14 they are always a hinderance as they are not where I need them.

By the time you unlock flight through in the region, it’s over, if the side quests where unlocked the moment one entered the maps, and the msq one was very early into the map, then it would be useful. This system punishes you for trying, and punishes you if you don’t. The result is burn out.

Having unlocked everything as it came out... it's not that big of an issue, especially if you can take time to learn to use the aether compass. Be thankful the flight point unlocks aren't at the end of massive quest chains like they were in Heavensward.

- mounts / flight cost a lot in WoW… not true. Even in cata you could go to goldshire inn, and role play for like a day and get enough gold to fly, it really was a not issue. Once you unlocked, it would last you for the entire expansion, not 1 hour while your getting burdened psychologically by moving at -300%. [feels]

Again, it's not this massive grind, you're just mad because you can't ERP your way to a mount.

It takes FAR less time for me to complete the MSQ in a zone and (assuming we're not looking at a zone we come back to later on), do the quests for the flight points and find the aether currents.

Flight in WoW, was also rewarding. I greatly prefer the divide of land/ flight mounts, and find it weird and awkward how it is in FF14. The larger mounts make you feel like your moving at -1000% speed. [eg: Behumut].

In WoW, you've got to grind for EVERYTHING. There's a lot of design decisions for WoW that should... **gasp** STAY IN WOW.

Don't advocate for bringing WoW to FFXIV as WoW is so thoroughly screwed up that we've gotten a huge population surge because the current state of WoW is objectively a bad game ran by an even worse company. Very few of the retail design decisions should be brought into FFXIV because most of those systems are basically crimes against humanity.

TLDR

No WoW did not burden you the player more, it felt a lot less annoying to deal with.

If that's true, why did the WoW subscriber count crater?

[SeverianLyonesse]

perhaps you prefer the system in WoW?

Seems like a false equivalence. I've never played WoW. But from what little I know about it, yeah they open up flight to everyone after a certain period of time and don't require weird search-and-find questing or limit new player mobility through swathes of content as much as FF (again, I could be wrong, never played it).

Not sure why you would presume I play or prefer WoW, though. Some of us come from having played no MMOs at all and are just trying to make the game more accessible for our other non-MMO playing friends who shouldn't need to wade through nine years of content to play with us.

[Kes13a]

Seems like a false equivalence. I've never played WoW. But from what little I know about it, yeah they open up flight to everyone after a certain period of time and don't require weird search-and-find questing or limit new player mobility through swathes of content as much as FF (again, I could be wrong, never played it).

Not sure why you would presume I play or prefer WoW, though. Some of us come from having played no MMOs at all and are just trying to make the game more accessible for our other non-MMO playing friends who shouldn't need to wade through nine years of content to play with us.

my apologies, I assumed you had some mmo experience, and WoW is a common one for many to have tried

they open up flight to everyone, sure... at max level.. after a huge grind. and thats for everyone... new.. old.. returned... everyone.

I only suggested WoW as well because it is a comparable mmo where you have to do something to gain flight. there however, its a LOT different than here. here is a breeze.


however, I doubt my words will have any effect since you and your friends would just prefer to be max level and not go through 9 years of content to get there. completely understandable in a way I guess.

[SeverianLyonesse]

OH they are? Nevermind then. We coo.

[TaleraRistain]

Flight in WoW, was also rewarding. I greatly prefer the divide of land/ flight mounts, and find it weird and awkward how it is in FF14. The larger mounts make you feel like your moving at -1000% speed. [eg: Behumut].

We used to have terrestrial and flying mounts. You can still see the divide in the descriptions. But the devs listened to feedback about how this was silly and limiting when we had to swap from our favorite mounts to fly so they made everything able to fly.

[Almagnus1]

We used to have terrestrial and flying mounts. You can still see the divide in the descriptions. But the devs listened to feedback about how this was silly and limiting when we had to swap from our favorite mounts to fly so they made everything able to fly.

And the kicker with flight speed: It's always at max, and never drops like land speed does. You need to unlock that to being faster.

[SeverianLyonesse]

however, I doubt my words will have any effect since you and your friends would just prefer to be max level and not go through 9 years of content to get there. completely understandable in a way I guess.

Lol. I *did* wade through nine years of content. It was mostly enjoyable--for me. But I also recognize that several of my friends simply do not have the patience to push past as much mandatory content as FF XIV has just to enjoy playing the game with me.

I don't think it is controversial at all to observe that, unlike other MMOs, FF is unusual in how much it requires players to grind through story just to unlock content. And I don't think it's unreasonable that some players don't want to have to play for 200-300 hours just to be able to participate at the current tier.