Things I want to see DIFFERANT in FFXIV

[Aegis77]

These are a list of serious issues I had with Final Fantasy XI that forced me to quit after 5 painful months of playing the game a few years ago (some they have fixed somewhat but most are a major issue).

1. Reduce downtime for resting. This is a huge problem in Final Fantasy XI, you fight a monster or two, and you have to sit there and sit and sit there...often up to 5 minutes at higher levels....Food helps a little, but for the most part, it's a huge amount of downtime all around. I really hope FFIV speeds up the process and significantly.

2. Make solo play (or atleast small and/or casual grouping) easier. Though I heard that a recent update "slightly" fixed the problem with solo play and casual, it's still a major issue. Final Fantasy XI was never meant to be soloed from 1st to 75th without a group. I can kinda understand wanting people to group up to fight, but to make it so hard that you MUST be in a very tight and very efficient 6 man group (almost like a 5 man heroic instance run in wow) just to level from level 15 onward is insane. I painfully tried and tried to group up and level over hours and hours and hours of hard core grouping; each one requiring very demanding work to get every drop of XP they could get, and they only wanted specific classes that made killing Incredibly Tough monsters in chains resonably consistant. If you the wrong class for you're current leveling bracket, you were basicly out of luck (Dragoon or Red Mage anyone from level 15-30?...FORGET IT!!). This was hard core grouping at very early stages of the game; and even if you were good, you got burned out of it FAST. I really hope they make leveling at least a little more casual and fun for the rest of us.

3. Allow potions to stack and make them easier to obtain/craft. This issue was mind boggling to me being an old school Final Fantasy player who lived and breathed popping Potions and Ethers all day and night to get my party through the next dungeon. They made almost every potions in Final Fantasy XI practically worthless 99% of the time by both making them very expensive and difficult to craft and making them so they don't stack in you're inventory, almost no one used potions because of this (maybe a paladin tank needed one megaelixer on a 30 man BCNM75 to keep alive when things got rough, but that was basically it!). If potions work in FFIV like they did in FFXI, I'M OUT!

4. Make a (MUCH MUCH) better interface. Face it, FFXI interface was terrible, even for the time it was made it was bad; it felt like a mid 90s DOS game in some ways with the big bold text that scrolled extra slow and permanent full-screen mode (that if you ever windowed out of auto-logged you out, even if it wasn't you're fault), not to mention zero custom-ability. You got used to it, but man, when wow came out, MY GOD was it a breath of fresh air, even if you didn't like wow at all, almost everyone agreed that WoW's all around interface was better in almost every way to FFXI's. I really hope FFIV is a really really big step forward in interface and user friendliness.

5. Make travel faster and easier. Getting around in FFXI was a real bear (almost as much as resting). Ever take the chochobo from Sanoria to Windy? Even at it's fastest it's about 40 minutes (and it isn't like you can AFK it like you can in WoW taking the Griff from Darnassus to Gadgetzen, which is STILL 1/3rd the closest comparable travel time). Yeah, there are airships, but that's very expensive and requires a lot of work to even get access to. And if you are going anywhere but a major city, forget about it, you gotta travel on the ground, often atleast 20-25 minutes. And then there's the dungeons that get in the way of some areas where must walk to get through. Darn, so many obstacles, why can't there be an easier way. I hope they make travel a whole lot easier and less time consuming in FFIV.

6. Make crafting a little less demanding. I loved the way FFXI did crafting, almost everything you obtained was some kinda component for crafting, so most people had to develop it at some point or another. But the problem was, it was just too darn hard for most people. I spent something like a million gil and atleast 30 actaul game hours just to level one craft to somewhere in the mid 40s; just insane! FFIV should find a better balance between difficulty and reward of crafting; it just frustrated too many people in FFXI.

7. Make PVP a better option. The territory influence system in FFXI would have been great with a PVP system, you could have gotten influence points for killing players from different cities and would have made a much more dynamic way of gaining influence in various regions. But they never did that and only allowed PVP in very tightly controlled (and frustrating to access) Balista game matches and a couple other limited ways. I hope FFIV improves PVP potential.

[Khalus]

You know that FFIV has been out a long time already...its FFXIV.

All the complaints and/or concerns you've mentioned are basically saying that you have no patience at all and want everything "now!" You want FFXIV to turn into basically what WoW already is as well as almost every other MMO out there currently, making everything so simple and worthless.

Removing the group enforcement, or lengthy travel and resting times as well as make crafting accessible to everyone is just really silly. Thats part of what make FFXI unique. Solo play isn't supposed to be something one should rely on to level with in an MMO....its about the community and playing together to earn your way through the adventure. {The reason communities are so horrible in most every MMO, is cause there is no encouragement to get to know each other or work together...just berate until one starts to cry and quits the game for asking a simple question!}

Potions are for the weak minded that can't stomach a challenge and has to be rescued constantly, if you must have them all the time instead of on occasion and used when it really counts. Potions in FFXI were scarce and kinda rare most the time because there was no need for them unless you really were doing something that required them...you don't just keep popping them like vitamins.

For an MMO that was built using PS2 architecture and has proven to stand the test of time with other MMOs, the UI was quite good and did exactly what is was supposed to do, and nothing more. I loved it and so do quite a few others. One doesn't need UI Mods to play an MMO with a UI that functions just fine.

PvP, well almost every other MMO out there is focused on adding some horribly implemented PvP...that always ruins the PvE experience...it has already been heavily stated it will be minimal at best in FFXIV...its another amazing and very rare PvE focused MMO in the works ~ nuff said!



Many of you're complaints have been addressed over the years in FFXI to a small degree to allow a little stretching room, but no mass overhaul like most pre-WoW MMOs have done to mimic it or almost every new MMO that does everything it can to copy WoW! FFXI is still the only MMO that to this day trumps almost every major MMO in subs still, and has remained in the top 3-5 best MMOs for its lifetime. Thats a formula that would be stupid to break, and as I've said before what you want is just another WoW clone out of FFXIV, and its simply not gonna happen.

You're better off staying clear of FFXIV as it will not be what you're looking for!

[Aegis77]

I understand you're point. The fact is, I don't seem to be satisfied with any MMO these days, I played and dropped everything from Pirates of the Burning Sea to Aion, to Dofus, to WoW, to Ultima Online. Doesn't seem like any of them are my cup of tea after a while. I think my problem is I am just not that good at any of them.