Improvements from FFXI?

[Aydin]

It seems that since FFXI is dying, SE is going to make FFXIV online. I bet it's gonna be FFXI but with new and improved stuff...

What kind of stuff annoyed you in FFXI that you wanna see fixed in FFXIV?

As for me, I hope they make levelling much more shorter! In FFXI it took, no not hours in most cases, but DAYS to level up. Personally, I feel that this time spent is all just tedious and only adds thousands of hours to the play time just sitting there levelling.

[FFIX Choco Boy]

The lvling was tedious in XI, also, since I play WoW a lot as well as FFXI, the graphics hurt my eyes, but it's a given that they'll be improved.

[Aydin]

Yeah. Especially since it's gonna be on PS3. You know what else bothered me...?

The fact that such a limited amount of faces and hairstyles were available...

[Jessweeee♪]

More room for character customization, especially at the beginning so every newbie doesn't look like a clone. I want my character to be a little piece of me :(

[Ouch!]

It seems that since FFXI is dying, SE is going to make FFXIV online.
Final Fantasy XI's population recently reached an all-time high, actually. It's hard to say it's dying.

[Ultimage]

The ability to walk over pixel high ledges that get us stuck or give us a jump button, either will fix it. Also, I can see that Galka through that branch, don't tell me I can't.

[ReloadPsi]

A fantastic improvement would be not being so excruciatingly dull and tedious that it doesn't make me want to vomit my intestines into the gutter after a couple of hours then shut it down and install it, all while saying "This is the most boring MMORPG I have ever touched and I can't believe how much I just spent getting myself signed up for this awful crap".

Another improvement would be for it to actually feel like an FF game. FFXI just didn't feel like an FF game.

Finally, include lots of hate for the music from San D'oria.

[trancekuja]

I hope they will fix it to be a single player RPG.

[Yeargdribble]

Having played two years of WoW after playing 3 years of FFXI I have a slightly different perspective and things that used to annoy the crap out of me in FFXI make more sense now.

Leveling should be more accessible, but not ridiculously fast. In WoW who cares if you're 20, or 42 or 72 or even 79. You're either 80 and covered in epics or GTFO... you don't matter an 95% of the content isn't available to you until you get that little bit of XP to hit 80.... even then you'll be shat upon by people who don't like the fact that you aren't completely geared out from Maly, Naxx and Ulduar.

Making leveling too easy and making all of the content a throw away after every 3 months when a new raid is released makes it so that there is nothing else in the game.

There is content while leveling in FFXI, though it's painfully slow. Being 60 might actually mean something while obviously 75 means more. I used to believe that it shouldn't be so hard to get the rewards in FFXI, but if it was painfully easy it would also grow far more stale and rewards really do mean more if they take more effort.



The ability to walk over pixel high ledges that get us stuck or give us a jump button, either will fix it.

Absolutely. Jumping needs to be added. Nothing de-emerges you like not being able to step walk over a bump that someone could easily traverse in a wheelchair.



Another improvement would be for it to actually feel like an FF game. FFXI just didn't feel like an FF game.

Pure opinion and from the sounds of your whole few hours of experience I don't know that you're one to make that call. You can't play even one of the offline games from only a few hours and say it doesn't live up to the name. Beside that, what does make an FF game feel like an FF game. The series has made some major diversions in its history.

There are plenty of people who didn't think FFVII felt like an FF game because suddenly it was so much more mechanized. To the really old school fans VIII and XII didn't feel much like FFs because they weren't based in a more traditional RPG environment with nothing but swords and castles.

What makes a FF is broader than all of that and I'm sure XIV will be as much FF as XI was.



More room for character customization, especially at the beginning so every newbie doesn't look like a clone. I want my character to be a little piece of me

This is a huge problem in FFXI. We need more than to pick faces from a (short as hell) list. Also, gear throughout needs to be more varied, especially early on so you can feel the customization. In FFXI everyone starts with the same gear to their race. By the 10-20 stretch you are either wearing a harness, a doublet, or scale mail. That's just too limited and everyone looks the same. More variety of gear with similar stats so you can at least pick gear partially on aesthetics.

Either that or add a system like LOTRO has where you can pick a show set that everyone sees while you're really wearing other gear with better stats that may look like crap.


If the graphics in FFXI look like crap to you then you need to go tweak your registry. With the graphics truly maxed out FFXI probably has the best character and mob models of any MMO out there (LOTRO included). The environments are still not too great and the biggest problem is the draw distance of large environments. They need to adjust it so that things don't pop in so badly.





Biggest thing they need to improve is SE themselves. Their customer service is terrible. Many GMs are straight up racist. Problems are ignored for years and SE largely ignores and takes for granted their playerbase. Setting up your account and logging in each time should be very very simple the way it is with WoW. Blizzard is a fantastic company. They have a lot of 1 to 1 interaction with their players and take feedback very seriously. SE needs to learn this above all.

[Rostum]

It seems that since FFXI is dying, SE is going to make FFXIV online.
Final Fantasy XI's population recently reached an all-time high, actually. It's hard to say it's dying.

Not only this but it is confirmed that they have another years worth of content already planned out, and they also confirmed that they'd continue development for new content after that.

Yearg pretty much said it, but there's a couple of things I will add.



If the graphics in FFXI look like crap to you then you need to go tweak your registry. With the graphics truly maxed out FFXI probably has the best character and mob models of any MMO out there (LOTRO included). The environments are still not too great and the biggest problem is the draw distance of large environments. They need to adjust it so that things don't pop in so badly.

No doubt. If they actually had a high draw distance, and some of the technology in newer engines (pretty much just lighting/ambient occlusion/etc.), FFXI would probably look the best on the market. It is still very well done, has just as high of a poly count as the newest MMO's and textures are still very nice. It has aged very well considering when it came out.




Biggest thing they need to improve is SE themselves. Their customer service is terrible. Many GMs are straight up racist. Problems are ignored for years and SE largely ignores and takes for granted their playerbase. Setting up your account and logging in each time should be very very simple the way it is with WoW. Blizzard is a fantastic company. They have a lot of 1 to 1 interaction with their players and take feedback very seriously. SE needs to learn this above all.

This is the no. 1 thing I want. I want this more than anything, I'm sick of being treated like :bou::bou::bou::bou:, it's amazing how FFXI still has a playerbase after the way SE treats them.

[Yeargdribble]

With Wow touting 11 million no other game seems like a success, but among most MMOs FFXI is pretty competitive and like Om said, it's amazing that they have any players at all the way they treat people.

The game has changed significantly in the last two year. If it had started 7 years ago anything like it currently is it would probably be easily number 2 by a mile the way WoW is No. 1 by a mile. It had so much going for it with a great story, the Final Fantasy title, etc.

If FXIV can learn some of the biggest lessons and not suffer from the shadow that is cast by FFXI being an upsetting experience then I think FFXIV will be a very competitive game in the MMO market (which means something still in the megalithic shadow of WoW). They already have mentioned things they will fix that are huge so it seems they are going in the right direction and certain other issues will definitely not be a problem.

-World Passes will probably not come back because it's a stupid idea to make it difficult for people to get on the same server who are friends. This has gone to the wayside with FFXI and no doubt will be gone in XIV.

-Soloing won't be completely impossible most likely. Once again, this is something they've already made a HUGE improvement in for FFXI and they say they've learned from WoW.

-They will charge on the 30 day cycle instead of billing you full price for 5 days if you sign up on the 25th. Stupidity, but they've announced they will fix this.

-I strongly assume that certain issues with the basic structure of the game will be rethought as they become ridiculous but immovable problems in FFXI... problems like inventory management and mostly the 7 space auction limitation.



All that said, MMOs aren't for everyone and FFXIV won't be for everyone. People hate that it ruins their collection of boxes being online and all. People don't like the concept of paying to play, etc. Of course, if you put it into perspective how much you are paying for each hour you play the game vs how much you get out of most retail games... MMOs are one of the cheapest forms of entertainment out there. People think nothing of throwing 10+ dollars at a trip to the movie theater for 2 hours of entertainment, but if you tell them to throw 10 dollars at something they may spend 30+ hours a month enjoying they look at you like you're crazy.

[Markus. D]

I think FFXI's battle system is the second most amount of fun I've had with an FF battle system~

[xXsarahXx]

I agree with most of the points raised here to be honest, what i would like to see changed are..

Graphics: Its a bit bad that your graphics look pig ugly until you go and change reg files! But still this has been out for a while and graphic limitations back then were obviously far greater.

Leveling: OMG this needs to be made easier, im not talking bam Mr Mandragora die, oh look i gained 57 levels easier, just a bit easier lol. Im a lvl 37 DRG whose finding it hard to level up (being a WAR sub dont help i admit). i can spend days, non stop level grindidnand only gain 1 maybe 2 levels!!! Crazy stuff! This Fields of Valor is a help, but not enough i feel.

And character customisation: I cant begin to count the amount of times i have run into a character that is IDENTICAL to me in each and every way!

Endgame: I feel this game is much more geared towards engame players, until you reack 75 all you can really do is a few mission levels and some quests, it isnt until you reach 75 that you can really go mad and do everything. I was on a LS with quite a few lvl 75s and all i got was sorry you cant do this, its lvl 75 only got rather annoying as i felt i was being left out a tad lol!

Thats all i can think of right now!

[Yeargdribble]

Leveling: OMG this needs to be made easier, im not talking bam Mr Mandragora die, oh look i gained 57 levels easier, just a bit easier lol. Im a lvl 37 DRG whose finding it hard to level up (being a WAR sub dont help i admit). i can spend days, non stop level grindidnand only gain 1 maybe 2 levels!!! Crazy stuff! This Fields of Valor is a help, but not enough i feel.

I think they've probably struck the perfect balance now between Signet bonuses to eva/def, Fields of Valor and increase XP from weaker mobs. The game needs soloing to be an option, but obviously not the best one.

There are two primary reasons leveling shouldn't be too fast an easy.

1) Believe it or not (I didn't 2 years ago) working harder for something even in an MMO (or perhaps especially in an MMO) makes you appreciate it more. Leveling being slow but not impossible makes it mean more to be high level and even if you don't think it would, it will give you a greater sense of satisfaction in the long run rather than the relative emptiness you can get by leveling 3 alts to 80 in the span of a month in WoW.

2) Encouraged group play is really a good thing. You get to really understand what other people do and how they function in a group. You learn through real experience (rather than artificial numbers) how to react to oshi moments. Group play, like I said, should not be the only way to level, but making it possible to realistically reach max level having never played with another person leaves you unable to really play with other people.

I played WoW for 2 years and I still can't tell you half of what Shaman's do in that game because I've not be put in enough situations to really work with them and the fact that my function in a raid is relatively independent the remaining members. After 3 years of playing FFXI and 2 years off from the game I can still tell you detailed information about strategies and the roles almost all of the jobs can play under certain circumstances to pull a group's collective *ss out of the fire.


Perhaps I'm just an old fogey noticing games getting too easy. It just seems like everyone wants everything handed to them and wants to play a massively-multiplayer game without anyone around. While some would say they just want to solo to max level, then the next wave argues that they should also be able to have the best gear completely solo. This is something that is watering down WoW quite a bit.



Endgame: I feel this game is much more geared towards engame players, until you reack 75 all you can really do is a few mission levels and some quests, it isnt until you reach 75 that you can really go mad and do everything. I was on a LS with quite a few lvl 75s and all i got was sorry you cant do this, its lvl 75 only got rather annoying as i felt i was being left out a tad lol!

All MMOs are going to have this to some degree, but I have to agree largely with this point. There needs to be more mid-range content. I personally feel that FFXI does that a hell of a lot better than WoW does though. The problem is, even though FFXI puts serious content throughout the level spread, they have no pacing. CoP is laid out so that from 30 upward, at every 10 levels, there's major content. The reality, however, is that people want you to have the experience of a 75 job to do it as a level-capped event. Also, you need the income of a level 75 job to buy all of the things required to pull these off.

There needs to be more solid content along the way that's not fluff, but isn't impossible in the mid-range levels. Also, if this content could have some rewards, that would be great. Sure there's some intrinsic reward for being rank 10 in your nation, but realistically, there needs to be a bit more. More content should give decent amounts of money, experience and gear.





Now for one of my own wishes rather than responses...

As I've been playing lately (I returned after a 2-year hiatus FYI) I've been noticing a major problem in leveling. There's one factor that slows down my XP in the low range more than anything and it's that annoying "You must wait longer to perform that action" error message when finishing off one mob and trying to instantly engage another. I'd probably be able to pump my XP/hr up by 1k when absolutely rofl-stomping EPs if they would just make this not an issue.

Similarly, checking ... anything in the game. If you do it once you have to wait a good 10-20 seconds before you can do it again? Just checked your mail? Wait longer before doing it again. Just checked the sales status on the AH but forgot to look at something... wait longer to do it again. There needs to be more fluidity there and less of the server trying to cover its butt from being hammered.


Also, sending and receiving things shouldn't make you want to claw your eyes out. Send 8 things to a mule, wait 30 seconds to logout, hit the play button, select your mule, wait for it to load, check your mail, wait for it to load, take it out, logout of the mule, log back to yourself... repeat. If you've got a lot of stuff to send between characters this can end up taking an hour or more. Purely ridiculous in a game that's made for enjoyment.



Next up, inventory space is the bigger problem in this game. If you're going to have a game with 20 jobs that can be leveled on a single character and every job needs 40-60 pieces of gear for various situational stuff.... and most of the best gear cannot be sent away from your character once obtained... there needs to be better inventory.

Luckily they fixed macros to have 20 books of macros, one for each job. Something similar needs to be the case for jobs. Each needs their own closet or something. Inventory was one of the biggest reasons I left the game 2 years ago.

[xXsarahXx]

Ahhh the inventory space, thankyou for reminding me of this very valid point.
This is something that REALLY annoys me, i think the characters need to be able to carry more. The amount of random drops you get is unreal and it clogs you inventory.

The worst bit is when your after a rare drop and you obviously get other drops, you then obtain the rare drop and its a race against time to sory out your items so you dont loose it!!
Happened yesterday with a Carbuncle Ruby!! (Got it now thoigh).

[Yeargdribble]

Also, for a game focused so heavily on group play, not being able to invite someone because they are not in the same zone is pretty lame. Party invitations need to be able to happen worldwide.

[Miriel]

I think they should get rid of some of the more tedious aspects of the game. Stuff like how long those airplane rides takes and how fast characters run. And the length of downtime when you die.

The agonizingly slow pace of running without enhancements really annoyed me. What would have been so bad about making all the characters run faster? Would getting from one location to the next in 1 minute rather than 5, really make the game less fun/challenging/etc?

It's just little things like this that bug me. Just seems unnecessarily tedious.

[Rostum]

Captain obvious.

[Yeargdribble]

I think they should get rid of some of the more tedious aspects of the game. Stuff like how long those airplane rides takes and how fast characters run. And the length of downtime when you die.

The agonizingly slow pace of running without enhancements really annoyed me. What would have been so bad about making all the characters run faster? Would getting from one location to the next in 1 minute rather than 5, really make the game less fun/challenging/etc?

It's just little things like this that bug me. Just seems unnecessarily tedious.

First let me say that I completely agree with you, but let me also play devil's advocate a bit. I think slow travel is one of the things that makes Vana'diel seem so absolutely huge. I think completely trivializing travel could be a serious problem and make the world feel far smaller. For the sake of familiar comparison, WoW's world is pretty darn big, but you don't feel that way. You can be any place in the game in literally 5-10 minutes tops and most in far less.

Where it really sucks in FFXI is things like boat/airship rides. Taking the boat to Aht Urghan or Nashmau is absolutely horrible. Doing the simple Dancer flag quest was unbearable and took me a couple of hours simply because of slow travel.

I don't want to lose the novelty of the travel and actually being able to see familiar land masses as you pass by, but I also don't want to be bored to tears by a 10-20 minute ride when it's completely old hat. I'd be happy if they kept things like the ships for people that like them, but allow for alternatives. What if you could simply pay an extra 500 gil instead of 200 and be instantly teleported to the same destination the boat would've taken you.

Seems like a win-win to me.


As for walking, yes, walking is unbearably slow, however, I think zoning makes this far worse. When you need to travel between parts of a city the zoning thing adds insult to to injury quite badly. I really wouldn't mind them bumping up the speed of movement across the board. I do think if they remove zoning as an issue the running won't seem so bad.


So while we're on the topic, they need to obviously make callable chocobos that are less of a chore to get and maintain. A simple advanced chocobo license type thing would be perfect. Having a chocobo whistle with limited charges is quite silly imo.

[Lionx]

When you equip an item it should not take up inventory space in the bag because its FREAKING ON ME. I always found that ridiculous and make macroing such a big ass pain.

That and male mithras :3

[Yeargdribble]

Yeah, other than the obvious of wearing something that's in your bag, they just need to rethink inventory overall. Not just in a general MMO way. FFXI (and probably FFXIV) is special with being able to level up and gear out 20 jobs on a single character. With so much Ra/Ex gear and so much situational gear they just really need to think harder about potential storage solutions.

[Ultimage]

When you equip an item it should not take up inventory space in the bag because its FREAKING ON ME.

On that same subject, furniture displayed in your Mog House should not take up room in your safe. I kind of understand why they did it for equipment and your inventory, because if you just tried to take off gear instead of swap it and you didn't have space, that could cause problems. That, and the moves that some mobs have that unequip random pieces of gear.

[Quindiana Jones]

I've only just started on 11 but I find the biggest problem is the running speeds, which sounds odd. It's not so much a game altering problem, but it's something small and ridiculous that you have to put up with throughout. I'd like to see running speeds changed depending on race to add a little realism. It'd be quite cool, I reckon. I don't think this would affect race decisions too much, but then again maybe it would. At the very least running speeds need to be about doubled to make them realistic.

Also, my knowledge of things tells me that chocobos are essentially FF horses. Horses can run about 4 times faster than humans, and I'd like to see this sort of stuff added too. It's not like it's gonna destroy people's enjoyment of the game. Compared to other chocobos, the races and stuff will remain the same.

All these changes will do is make the game a little less tedious. Just some simple logic into body sizes etc. to make the game a little more lifelike. Also, I'm pretty sure everyone would agree that being able to go from one side of a city to the other in half the time is something that would have absolutely zero negative effects.


And I can see massive equipment troubles in the future. Limited home storage space is completely unnecessary. At the very least we should get more than 50 basic spaces. And everything should stack when stored at home. Everything. Also, as has been said before, if I'm wearing it, I ain't carrying it. These little things wouldn't cause any problems if they were changed, so it seems like SE put them in just to be annoying.

[Lionx]

You do get Inventory/Safe/Storage/Locker upgrades to 80 max each later. If you purchase the Satchel then its another potential 80. But the problem isnt the space because its plenty for ONE JOB, and because you will eventually level another job that may not share the same armor, then therefore it eats up space like mad.

I have PLD, WHM, and SAM that i level, and my god the space it HURTS. None of those job share alot of common equips, and with macroing other pieces in to optimize my performance...ffffffffffffffff!

--

They should however make it so Tetra Master is playable in-game. More interactive minigames between players thats casual! Or better yet, Triple Triad. Even Bliztball or whatever. If you have a minigame thats easy to implement inside the actual game itself, and it is reminiscence of older FF Titles, it can be potentially awesome.

[FFIX Choco Boy]

Bliztball

Yes please.

[Ultimage]

Eww, personally, I really didn't care for Blitzball all that much, but I do agree that some kind of mini-game would be nice. Although, Blitzball on the PS3/PC could be more enjoyable. Right now we have the gambling tables and /random wars? Sure we have Chocobo races, but it requires sooooo much to raise a good Chocobo. Oh, and The Pit, but people rarely do that too. I suppose we have Ballista and Brenner too.

I like the card game idea, maybe a Blitzball or made-up sport, and some other stuff in FFXIV though. Not something else we have to pay extra money to have access to.

Also, something else to change. I have a friend that has ALL the cardian cards. A complete deck. We have yet to figure out what they are for, if anything. He deserves a medal or something for doing that and considering how much people love collectibles in games these days, make stuff like that worth something.

[Yeargdribble]

I wasn't a fan of Tetra Master, but Triple Triad was great. It would be great to have either available in game as just some fun distraction. Maybe some small reward for different levels of having a complete collection of the cards.

--

From a design standpoint I understand why certain things are limited, but while they are great for saving server space (and money) for SE, they suck for the players. Take armor set storage. I get it... if you only check for a full set it's a 1 or a 0 on their server. To add a check for each pieces and whether or not it was +1 would mean extra strain on the servers having 10 extra choices instead of 1 for a particular gear set for however many 100k accounts are active. However, it's needlessly crappy. Small things like that drive people away.

Poor some money into making the players happy and don't cut corners to save cash. It's a business model that works great for Blizzard.

By spending more on the game you'll save (or make) more money. While it may cost more to you initially, it's definitely worth it when you don't lose 100k accounts due to people getting frustrated with some silly aspect of your design limitations.

[Ouch!]

Also, something else to change. I have a friend that has ALL the cardian cards. A complete deck. We have yet to figure out what they are for, if anything. He deserves a medal or something for doing that and considering how much people love collectibles in games these days, make stuff like that worth something.
I do not believe the cardian cards serve any purpose beyond avoiding aggro. If you have a two of cups card, no two of cups cards cardians can aggro you. If he has the full deck, I believe that would mean no cardians will ever aggro him, regardless of what level he is.

[Ultimage]

He's tried that, it didn't seem to work. I think that might just have been a theory or rumor.

[Rye]

I'm intrigued with this game. The learning curve of FFXI was too much for me, and the lagging on my laptop got on my nerves, so I'm curious to see how FFXIV goes.

[Del Murder]

Running faster and more low-man content (meaningful stuff you can do with 1-3 people) would be ace. The sprint shoes pace should have been the normal pace in FFXI.

[Jibril]

Less focus on camping timed spawns and low drop rates to get the best gear in the game. Assault had the right idea: gradually but surely work toward something rather than waiting on a 5% drop/24hr spawn. ZNM and Campaign were good systems, too.

Just get out of here with that Salvage/Dynamis/Kings nonsense.

[Miriel]

I hope they'll have a better way to organize your stuff. It was always such a pain in the ass switching jobs cause my gear would just be all over the place.

[Rostum]

I want rewards for exploration. I love exploring, but hardly any MMO to date has ever given anything remotely worthwhile for completing and exploring maps.

[Lionx]

Even WoW? o.o

[Rostum]

Even WoW? o.o

I haven't played it in quite some time, but doesn't it just give you a little bit of EXP? Not really worth it, imo.

[Mirage]

Isn't it about the same exp as you get from killing an enemy in said region?

[Rostum]

No idea.

It'd be cool if you finish exploring a map a treasure chest appears that holds a small pool of treasure, or randomly selects one thing for you (i.e. an item, a weapon, piece of armor, exp, etc.).

[Madame Adequate]

I'll step in with a minor thread rez and chip in on the WoW thing before I seque into how I'd improve FFXI.

In WoW, when you explore, currently you get a little experience (Usually more than killing an even-level mob, but not by a huge amount) and once you've explored an area entirely you get an achievement. When you explore everything on a continent you get another, and when you explore all four completely you get another, the title "The Explorer", and a tabard. AFAIK nothing else.

Travel and exploration are somewhat tied in together and I'm not sure how best to balance the two realistically. Ideally I would say make an absolutely gargantuan world and have fast, though not instant, travel. Look to EVE Online for the best example here. It should be big enough to have tens of thousands of people on at once with plenty of room to spare.

I'm sure that a more realistic, less resource-intensive compromise can be found though. After all, a huge amount of EVE is very cookie-cutter. The brilliance comes in character interactions and guilds messing around and so forth, not the game setting per se. What we need is a world which is big enough to be difficult to explore, has tangible rewards for exploration, but which doesn't in turn make it really trying to get from A to B. The first time I travelled from Bastok to Windurst it took forever and it was totally awesome, I absolutely loved trekking through dangerous lands, riding on the boat, and so forth. But I imagine that after doing it a couple of times it gets pretty freaking tedious. I think different options are the best. Pay more gil, get there faster.

But hidden away in caves and caverns and all sorts of dark, distant places should be danger and treasure. I'm not talking about taking two minutes off the beaten track to explore a cave and kill an elite mob for a slightly better drop. I'm talking about somewhere that is in no information you can get in-game aside from visiting, which takes half an hour to reach even if you know where it is, and which can be considered a full dungeon. Deep caves, complex ruins, mountain peaks - the world should be a vast and dangerous place full of wonder.

But ultimately that's somewhat I want to see in any MMO. What I want to see from XI specifically is twofold. First, make the game easier to play. Jess liked FFXI more than WoW, but she played the latter about five times as much at least, simply because one of these games has a pleasant and easy interface and the other seems specifically designed to break gaijin souls. Related to this is soloing. Whilst I appreciate Yearg's point about getting people to play together so they learn how, I really dislike doing it. I much prefer to solo, and once I reach endgame I tend to just reroll rather than play with other people. I like being part of an interactive world but that doesn't necessarily mean I like having to interact, or at least not to the degree that FFXI demanded. I certainly don't like having to set aside hours to play when I'm still before level 20, just because looking for a group takes so long.

[Yeargdribble]

I'm hoping for a happy medium. I want to be able to solo, but I want partying to still be the preferred method. I want to be able to be self-reliant against small numbers of weak mobs for a little XP here and there when I don't have time, but I also want to be able to buckle down with a party for an hour or so and get some serious XP when that's what I want to do.

Problem with FFXI right now is that to do anything with a group you'd better set aside at least 3 hours of your life. It's just unreasonable.


I much prefer to solo, and once I reach endgame I tend to just reroll rather than play with other people.

With all due respect, there are other games out there for you if that's all you want from an MMO. To be honest, at the moment I'm playing like you. My wife and I are literally just grinding different jobs in FFXI for no apparent reason. We want a little FFXI flavor, but we don't want to be hardcore like we once were. Now FFXI has taken large steps to allow us to do this. Once upon a time it wouldn't have been an option. Soloing or duoing was a laughable idea. But with the Fields of Valor thing and lots of other small changes, it's more than reasonable.

The game has a good balance right now of allowing that casual play while still having a very hardcore end game. I don't want FFXIV to have that WoW feel where people can easily level a character to 80 in a month taking their time or a week if they aren't. I want levels to mean something the way they do in FFXI. I want there to be content all along the way. I don't want the WoW things where because it's so easy to get to 80, the only content that matters is at 80. I want my gear to matter while I'm leveling up and not replaced in a few hours of solo grinding.


But hidden away in caves and caverns and all sorts of dark, distant places should be danger and treasure. I'm not talking about taking two minutes off the beaten track to explore a cave and kill an elite mob for a slightly better drop. I'm talking about somewhere that is in no information you can get in-game aside from visiting, which takes half an hour to reach even if you know where it is, and which can be considered a full dungeon. Deep caves, complex ruins, mountain peaks - the world should be a vast and dangerous place full of wonder.

I feel like FFXI has this in abundance. There are so many places that are utterly unique and just explorable. There are crazy things out there that you can't find out about from within the game with exploring. You can only find out more by discussing it with the community.

[Wolf Kanno]

Alright, so before I go into my list I'm just going to state that I am still a noob at this. I've owned the game for three years now but have probably only put in about 20 hours only in all that time due to computer problems, lack of time, or my attention being stolen away by console games. So for this reason, there is a very good chance that a few of my complaints are unfounded cause I'm just not aware of my options, so don't rip my head off if I say something ignorant cause I know I am in regards to this. Despite all this, I've finally picked the game up in recent days and have been having a blast.

Small Bag of Holding: I know this is kinda the norm for MMO's but seriously? This gets annoying, nothing grates on my nerves faster than having to stop and do inventory control every ten minutes on the field so I can keep my worthwhile Crystals instead of losing them cause every monster likes to give my WAR spell scrolls he can't use. It just seems what I can carry is a bit low and I've never liked it when games count your equipment you are wearing as items in your bag of holding. I'm not asking for a bag of infinity +1 but just a little more leeway. I would also like the ability to just sell extra items as well, you can sell them on the auction site but god knows at my low levels I have nothing of interest to anyone so it would be great if I could sell to a shop even if I may not get a great price at least I would be making more than I would from dropping the item or lugging it around until someone buys it at the auction. Considering how bad inflation is in this game, I need every little gil I can get and don't want to be bothered having to backtrack to a city just to sell crap I don't need.

Mules: This goes back into my problem with the small storage space. Even at my low levels I'm noticing how much I may need a second character just to store all my stuff... This is especially aggravating as I need to purchase this second character and while we can debate all day about how its a great price in comparison to other MMO's with fees, it doesn't change the fact that I need to pay extra just so I can have a functional character at higher levels. I would either like the ability to sorta establish WoW process of letting an account start with a certain amount of characters (just two or three since the nature of XI makes having eight or ten impractical and silly) or once again, just let me have a decent amount of storage space for equips and Crafting materials.

Better Interface: Probably my big issue with XI, I may need to completely customize my keys just to make this less frustrating and even then I'm going to have issues with the camera being next to my movement keys... Its been getting easier as I get accustomed to it but it doesn't change that the controls have a steep learning curve in the beginning and just get complicated as you go on.

PlayOnline: Needs to burn in hell.

[Yeargdribble]

By the time you have a fully upgraded Gobbiebag and Mog Satchel, your on person carrying capacity is about 160, which is adequate. While the Gobbiebag quests are ridiculously costly when everyone on the server is trying to do them, starting small and increasing the size makes you feel accomplishment. I also appreciated slowly working my way to larger and larger bags in WoW.

Mules.... Man f@#$ mules. This is the biggest flaw in the game and is quite related to the above problem. Sure, you can eventually have tons of storage in many places, but this game lets you level 18 jobs to max level on one character. Much gear is Ra/Ex, so you have to hold onto it and can't send it away if you want to. The game also forces you to min-max gear for every conceivable situation. When I was actually hardcore I normally had my bags nearly maxed out on gear I needed for BRD alone.

There needs to be a system that allows you increasing inventory space relative to the jobs you have at significant levels. There becomes a point where if you have many high level jobs you're either muling constantly, or you're gimping (one staff BLMs and one instrument BRDs, meleeing in STR gear). It's even worse with level capped gear you need to keep. The new system to allow gear at low levels doesn't scale gear at all, so if you need to be at your best in a difficult level capped area you still need level capped gear.



If you're going to allow tons of jobs on one character and the game is going to push for every job to have tons of gear, then inventory needs to be made better. And we shouldn't be forced to pay for mules which, due to poor design, are absolutely necessary to play the game.

[Levian]

I want there to be more stuff I can do alone before I'm level 30. I don't want to rely on others all the time.

[ANGRYWOLF]

I guess I wasn't the only person who wanted to play solo..and got ripped for it by another poster some time back.
So I gave up commenting about the game.

I wonder when we'll see anything more about the beta..when it actually gets going.
If I hear anything from Square I 'll decide then whether to go ahead with it.

I do agree about exploration.There should be a sense of wonder when you do it and you should be able to find valuable items and get credit for it.
There should be an air of danger and an air of mystery and the legends you uncover should be quite complex and enthralling. But it takes along time for a developer to come up with that and incorporate it in a game.

:p

[Yeargdribble]

It's not that I think solo shouldn't be feasible. I was very irritated with FFXI at a time when you couldn't solo past level 10. Having played WoW and FFXI I know the downsides of being able to easily solo.

Low Level Content

People say they want content at low levels and a game that allows them to level quickly and solo. The two are nearly mutually exclusive. In WoW, you can level so easily and quickly solo that the low level content is irrelevant. Any accomplishment you make before 60 is beyond pointless. You will never see half of the content because nobody cares. I you wanted to got get a set of Fang Armor or Blackened Defias Armor, by the time you've run the places enough to get any, you will have leveled beyond the range where that gear is even decent for you. By the 40 absolutely nobody is running mid-level instances any more. You're unlikely to find a group for Mara or Sunken Temple. Now your job is to grind.


Slower Leveling

The benefit of slower leveling with good content along the way is that every level counts and you don't outgrow gear faster than you get it. An MMO isn't an offline RPG you're meant to check off of you list in a month. If you want a game where you can just level quickly to max level all solo, there are plenty of games that don't cost 15 bucks a month that allow you to do that. Go play White Knight Chronicles where you can play completely solo, get gear and play online only if you want to... for free.


Solo
So for the people who want solo, would you be satisfied if solo leveling wasn't as fast as party leveling? That's what I'd like. I want solo to be an option when you don't have time for a group. But I don't want it to be the easy that WoW made it that invalidates all of the content and makes it pointless to be anything but the max level.

[Madame Adequate]

I can see where you're coming from and I actually agree in the main. It's one reason I like the fact you can now turn XP gain off in WoW. I can just merrily run Scarlet Monkatorium until I have the Chain of the Scarlet Crusade. Being in a party should also make life easier than soloing, and faster too, but I'm simply arguing - as others seem to be - that soloing should be possible even if it isn't the most efficient.

However, I don't agree that because someone likes to solo, they should play games other than MMO. I can't think of terribly many games I enjoy as much as playing WoW, even alone. I like going out into the wilds and yadda yadda explore, but when I come back into a city I like to see it alive. I like to see people coming and going and etc.

[Yeargdribble]

Being in a party should also make life easier than soloing, and faster too, but I'm simply arguing - as others seem to be - that soloing should be possible even if it isn't the most efficient.

Total agreement. This is where FFXI is now, though I think the solo opportunities could still be far more robust. I'm happy as long as it's not the sole option. You could argue that in WoW you have a choice to party, but the mere option of soloing all of your levels makes it the default choice and nearly eradicates party play from the game.

[quote]However, I don't agree that because someone likes to solo, they should play games other than MMO. I can't think of terribly many games I enjoy as much as playing WoW, even alone. I like going out into the wilds and yadda yadda explore, but when I come back into a city I like to see it alive. I like to see people coming and going and etc.

I can respect that. I was just saying that you could save yourself some money, but I enjoyed playing WoW solo (or duo with my wife) quite a bit and I like the fact that it's a living breathing world with people coming and going.

I'm not saying stay away from MMOs altogether, but that I hope (selfishly) that FFXIV doesn't cater to your type. There will be other MMOs (almost all of them) that will. I hope that FFXIV maintains some uniqueness while learning from the mistakes of FFXI. What FFXI did right above all was being individual. Virtually every MMO in existence is a WoW clone. Change the formula I say.

When I'd had my fill with FFXI and was disgusted with it, I moved to WoW and loved it. Other than the problems I've already mentioned, community is very different in a game like WoW. In FFXI you might have partied with someone in the Dunes only to see them big and grown up later. You forge longer relationship with the entirety of the community. People all interact in a much bigger way than in WoW and this really gives a different scope.

Through word of mouth you know the top tier crafters. You know the people famous for leading certain linkshells. There is literal awe when certain people walk by... it's not because of their Tier X epics. It's because of their name. Likewise, people become notorious. People know to avoid them. As much as the endgame of FFXI is stupid (camping HNM pops) you get to know all of the top players that way. You're actually there going against them and watching them.

It's really akin to someone on your WoW server getting a Legendary item, but on a much larger scale with many more people. All these years later I can still tell you who are some of the top Goldsmiths, Clothcrafters and Bonecrafters. I can tell you many of the small handful of people who have fully upgraded relics. You can tell me a job class and I can probably tell you details about the top person in that job on the server or many anecdotes about different people of that class as I went.

In WoW, my knowledge was mostly within my guild. We knew of the other guilds. We talked with them, but it was less intimate. The guild was an island in the game and largely self contained. There is something to be said for that, but in the long run it didn't lead to the same types of memories.

[Del Murder]

Off topic to WK: you can sell items to NPC shops in FFXI. You usually get crap gil for them, like 10, but some low level drops can sell for a couple hundred (like land crab meat).

[Miriel]

I loved the social aspect of FFXI, what I didn't love was waiting around for it to happen. I like playing in parties but I don't like waiting hours to form a party. I like doing missions with other people, but didn't like how NOBODY used the mission flag and you either had to shout around town, beg your LS, or post in random FFXI forums trying to scrounge up people to get the mission done.

Once you get to the point where you are in a party and you are doing missions with a group, it's usually a lot of fun. Occasionally you group up with idiots, but at least you can poke fun at the experience. But the waiting and waiting and waiting. Argh. Frustrates me just thinking about it.

I'm not sure what the solution to the problem is. All I know is that I didn't like it.

[Yeargdribble]

I think the reason people didn't use the flags, Miriel, is that even if you were able to join in, you couldn't invite someone if they were a zone away (in a different region). This limitation on invites contributed heavily to the problem.

Using a more robust seeking system like that in WoW and allowing invitation from anywhere in the world would help a lot in that area I would suspect.

Also, simultaneous JP and US release will stop the wannabes from copying every silly thing JP players do just to fit in. The players can create their cultures independently.

[Madame Adequate]

I will just add that my best memory of FFXI was when I managed to get into a party of people who knew what they were doing, who were helpful in explaining things to newbish little me, and whose Japanese bard was both very friendly and very good at telling downtime where to get off. :p So I completely agree that the social experience can be great, even though I've never really stuck with the game that much.

[Wolf Kanno]

Off topic to WK: you can sell items to NPC shops in FFXI. You usually get crap gil for them, like 10, but some low level drops can sell for a couple hundred (like land crab meat).

I know you can sell to merchants but I want the ability to sell to them while I'm on the field. There are some RPGs that will actually auto-sell stuff if you reach your inventory limit and I don't see why MMO's don't follow this. They let you put stuff in the Bazaar while your on the field, why can't I sell them and get the dirt poor gil instead? Better to get something than having to throw the item away to fit stuff you need or backtracking constantly to find merchants to keep your inventory free, while possibly missing out on more useful items on the way there.


I loved the social aspect of FFXI, what I didn't love was waiting around for it to happen. I like playing in parties but I don't like waiting hours to form a party. I like doing missions with other people, but didn't like how NOBODY used the mission flag and you either had to shout around town, beg your LS, or post in random FFXI forums trying to scrounge up people to get the mission done.

Once you get to the point where you are in a party and you are doing missions with a group, it's usually a lot of fun. Occasionally you group up with idiots, but at least you can poke fun at the experience. But the waiting and waiting and waiting. Argh. Frustrates me just thinking about it.

I'm not sure what the solution to the problem is. All I know is that I didn't like it.

I'm a bit concerned about this as well. I'm apparently on a closed server so I might actually be one of the lowest level characters on there and I'm concerned with the prospect of getting stuck cause all the high level people are too busy to help me do quest that feel more like menial tasks to them (I have a friend on the server but for some reason PlayOnline won't let us chat with each other, so its difficult to get a hold of him). Still, at the same time, I appreciate that XI also does this and I feel Yeargdribble painted a nice picture as to why this is the way to go. Most of my friends are WoW fans but whenever I watch them play I notice they rarely do parties or only do them with people they know from day to day. It just seems like few of them ever talk or even reach out to people they don't know. Though I'm hardly a social person, I appreciate the social structure of XI.

[Del Murder]

Yes it would be nice to have a higher inventory space for drops or provide some way to sell things out in the field.

[Mirage]

Travelling merchants?