Hey guys, please take a moment, read my blog post, and tell me what YOU think. Add your own ideas into this thread, I'd be happy to post more blogs with others ideas and get everyone involved. Thanks!

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/rc/diary/entry?e=116917

Honestly, the only thing that could fix Final Fantasy is for Square Enix to give the franchise to somebody else.

Only a very small amount, but a step in the right direction.  A few more though:

• Return the class names back to their Final Fantasy staple ~ Warrior, Monk, White Mage, Thief, Dragoon...etc
• Keep the current no sub job format, cause I like being able to pick and choose any classes skills and abilities.
• Allow classes to equip a multitude of various weapons, ala FFXI without changing class based on the weapon.
• Remove durability from items, its just an annoying hassle, especially for non-crafters looking for repairs.
• Add hard levels to all items, thus you can't be lvl 1 wearing lvl 50 gear anymore, but do allow cross class equipping of gear, for cosmetic reasons, like heavy plate shouldn't be good to go into battle with as a Mage.{you could but it would be stupid...lol}  This would make it easier for everyone in choosing the proper gear per ones level, and also show a players progress.  I loved that in XI, being levels 1-35 gear was rather bland and every job looked similar, but starting at 35-45+ and especially at 52-60+ is where gear became more job specific, colorful and made you really stand out that I'm a Red Mage, he's a Paladin, and she's a Summoner.
• Allow us to sell more than 10 items in our character bazaar, as many as we have space avail.
• Return to us the proper macro system from XI, right now its rather pointless because you can't use a spell or ability unless its equipped to your hot bar too.
• Give us Chocobos, Carriages and Airships, and remove the insta-teleports at any time.  Just allow us to set more than one bind and port to those binds from another crystal.
• Add more dangerous enemies on the overworld instead of being tucked away in various corners of the world that can mostly be avoided, bring back the need to sneak/invisible, deodorize.
• Loss of XP death penalty, even in XI it wasn't that much and made the thought of dying or attempting to run past that deadly basilisk all the more exciting.
• As you mentioned with zones, while these massive zoneless regions are nice, they should be more appropriately populated with varying monster strengths and levels, for instance the main central area of Thanalan is the newbie starter area, and the further E/W you go the mobs get slightly harder, but then each of the 4 corners and dungeons should have say lvl 10-15 in the SW, 16-20 in the SE, 21-25 in the NE and 26-30+ in the NW...etc
• Bring back the 'Con' or consider system instead of the horrible color coding that mostly doesn't make any sense, especially since many classes can already take on some mobs with a red symbol which should be 'Incredibly Tough' and impossible to solo.  Where others with a red symbol really are IT and 1 shot you, you don't really know unless you attack it and find out.  Or its just a huge lizard or dragon and one should know better, but still...lol
• Appropriately space the level that spells and abilities are gained, I find it quite absurd that you don't get Raise until lvl 38, when it was 25 in XI, or Protect/Shell II until 47, when it was in the early teens in XI also.
• And anything else from FFXI that should have already been in XIV...

The game doesnt need 'dynamic change'.

Zinc: One function

Pyrite: One funtion

Ash wood chips: One funtion

Copper Ingot: One funtion

On and on, the list is the same. One funtion. Monsters that drop from other loot tables but has one key element.

The game needs more content. It should have had no less than 20 times what it has now in recipes, mobs and drop loots.

Originally posted by free2play

The game doesnt need 'dynamic change'.

Zinc: One function

Pyrite: One funtion

Ash wood chips: One funtion

Copper Ingot: One funtion

On and on, the list is the same. One funtion. Monsters that drop from other loot tables but has one key element.

The game needs more content. It should have had no less than 20 times what it has now in recipes, mobs and drop loots.

I agree with the above ^.

The game still has plenty of bugs, but it has a really nice foundation to work with. It does need a massive amount of new content to keep players playing, however.

Brokers are fine, the combat system is fine, but we need much more content to play than the game currently has.

Khrymson it sounds like we share the same vision of what we wanted FFXIV to be.

From a reply I made on the ZAM forums

Well since everything in FFXI was old I would create FFXIV in the same world as FFXI but much earlier.
Or I would make it hundreds of years later. Mithra, Galka, Taru, Elven, Hume would all stay, none of that bull**** lets call everything something else crap. The world in FFXI was fine, major GFX overhaul needed.

I WOULD PUT IN AN AUCTION HOUSE!!!......Items sold from the auction house would be soulbound unless they are worn for 5 levels. every server would have someone in charge of the AH and people abusing the AH would be warned and then banned. AH prices would follow the +/- 10% system that was used in FFXI.

The group oriented playstyle of FFXI would be kept. A rated quickgroup system that includes free Chocobo rides to set locations. The rating system would have a point for point system that rated you down if you rated someone else down. if the majority 3/5 rated someone down no one would lose points for rating down, Downrated players cannot rate untill 5 sucessive rate ups from different groups.

NM camping/hunting would be like it was at FFXI launch. Rare/EX items would only be tradeable within the linkshell and would have it's own LS storage. A 5 day item hold on new LS members and a 5 day wait to join would be in effect. Items put into Rare/EX storage are linked to the person who put them there untill they give the ok for said player to remove the item. New LS members on item hold retain all LS communication.

The attack system in FFXI was brilliant. it would be kept with some changes. The Skillchain system would get it's own UI that shows available skills that would highlight when the link to SC is available.

There will be a set of leveling servers that allow all the worlds to use. IE a 1-20 server, a 15-30 server....etc. This helps people level and have fun playing in a non level saturated environment. No more empty LL areas. players can switch between them and their main server at will. This also helps prevent higher level/RMT from taking all the NM pops. Which would be useless to them anyway due to Rare/EX

The starting classes of FFXI would be used. + a few more that would be created by FFXI vets to ensure popularity and balance.

The already set world would allow the developers to put a massive amount of effort into new storylines, and questing, and arena type environments. Prestige classes would be added in an expansion that involves a whole new world to explore.

Hard level caps on items would stay, the BS soft level cap in FFXIV sucks.

Auto attack would stay. this lets the players concentrate on skillchains and type a lil to help communication.

The FFXI macro system worked well, The Keyboard was great to use as the only input device. these control options will still work as they did in FFXI. A second UI designed for mouse players and remapped keys will be made. UI elements will be moddable by the public. The UI interface will be very well crafted to avoid programming changes down the line so modders aren't constantly having to rewrite their mods and debug code. There will be a panel that OK's mods so unfair advantages don't appear.

The world will be greatly expanded while keeping much of the familiarity of FFXI. New areas will open up, Underground labrynths, Floating cities, Etherial spaces. All areas will be larger. There will be greatly expanded weapon and gear sets with set bonuses. Leveling will be slowed down because the huge amount of quests to do.

I could probably go on but I think I have painted the picture I want as far as FFXIV goes.

*edit* There will be a much broader variety of mobs....and bunny rabbits will transform to a frightening rabbit like creature that's all teeth and claws.....no more weak pathetic looking mobs.....anywhere. attack animations for mobs and players will be redone so as to avoid repetitive animations. Mob animations will be varied according to the attack and the player and will include the player being attacked

I agree, also another thing is being able to use abilities from different classes, it makes them non-unique. Sure, SOME abilities are unique, but others aren't. It's kind of overwhelming having 30,000 different abilities to choose from for one lineup.

Auction House using the retainer system.. possibly.

Originally posted by dreamscaper

The game still has plenty of bugs,

The game doesn't have plenty of bugs- it never did.

Let's talk about features with their real names shall we.

Auction House: disagree. The current system is a good compromise between an auction house and the markets at launch.

Auto-attack: disagree. I think no matter what combat system you have, there's going to be boring repetition involved. That's par for the course. The manual attacks haven't been a problem for me, and it would take them a while to overhaul the system; that's time and effort that would be better spent on something else.

Quest arrows: Confused. Every leve and story quest points you straight to where you have to go, either directly on your minimap or on the quest map.

More quests: agree. There is not much variation at all in the guildleves, the chapters of the main story quest are much too far apart, and there aren't any one-shot quests outside of the main story and guilds.

Exp chain: sort of disagree. The exp chain system of FFXI was fantastic, but wouldn't fit into FFXIV. FFXI was built entirely around the concept of downtime; exp chains worked because they rewarded you for planning your downtime correctly. There's no MP regen at all in FFXIV so there is no need to stop between fights unless there are no more mobs. However, I do think they need to find a way to encourage partying. Right now, it seems like all mobs are meant to be soloed, as opposed to FFXI where all mobs were meant to be killed in a party.

Also, I hate nostalgia with a passion. It's the enemy of logic.

Materia.

Consumeed on use,

Hard as hell to make.

I-Win

Summon any character in previous FF games.

Materia Made, used, Cut Scene Tifa drops down, curb stomps anything with aggro. It isnt about killing something in game, its about a cutscene with Yuna or Yuffie or cloud or Loche.

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Here is an observation

PS1 FF top seller 10 million (FF7)

PS 2 FF top seller, 5 million

PS 3 FF top seller 2.8 million

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You are doing something wrong that you did right long ago. I hope you get it back.

Originally posted by Hyanmen

Originally posted by dreamscaper

The game still has plenty of bugs,

The game doesn't have plenty of bugs- it never did.

Let's talk about features with their real names shall we.

• Market wards crashing.
• Portions of the map that confuses the server and trigger map desyncs.
• Camera zoom resetting and ignoring your configuration settings.
• Spells whose stamina and/or casting time doesn't match their description.
• Battle Regimens sometimes simply popping up your menu when you press the button rather than executing like they should.

Originally posted by thinktank001

 

- Combat is clunky, give us an auto attack, let us rotate through different abilities though. Instead of having to rely on that bar to fill up over and over again.

 

No thanks.  The current combat is fine as is.  If you feel it is clunky, then you need to think outside the box a bit and plan your skills.  All enemies have weaknesses that can be exploited, and make life almost too easy.   I thought it was clunky at first too until I got out of the spam 1 - 0 mentality.

 

- Quests and missions are hard to come by, hard to understand, and there aren't any indicators as to where something is located. Give us indicators, mapping, arrows in the right directions, this will help the casual crowd stay in-tune with where to go if they don't feel like reading a long-drawn out story and just want to "game-on".

The purpose of most quests and missions are not to progress the character's level.   They most certainly can be used for such, but their purpose is to bring players into the story.  I know it seems a bit different than the norm, but FF does have a story to tell.

Not only that, but you are given information on where to go. I've done main story missions in both Gridania and Ul'dah and have not had trouble completing any of them, without helpers, without looking it up online, without asking others what to do next. It's all given right in the quest dialog.

Perhaps if some people could stop feeling they have to race through everything as fast as humanly possible, there wouldn't be a "problem" for any of them.

I know... I know... "But I don't have the time to sit around reading!"  That's BS reasoning to me. Somehow talking about "not having time" (and we're talking 30 seconds to a minute, tops, to read them) to read quest dialog... while you're sitting on your ass playing a video game.... dunno... just rings as disingenuous to me.

Oh, and incidentally, there is an option in the game to show you on the map where you need to go next for a quest if you choose to use it. I believe it's a map button located in the quest interface.

 

 - Open more options for quests, doing the same ones over and over is boring. Provide a main story that we can follow to level up our toons, or give us "zones" that are level-friendly for grinding on, like FFXI.

FFXI has changed considerably since I last played.  Last time I was there quests and missions did not give any player experience as a reward.

Well, Fields of Valor quests do, but those aren't story-related. They're closer to leves. Same with Campaign Ops.

But you're right, the main storyline missions (except maybe a handful) don't give xp in XI. Nor do the local quests from town/city NPCs. They do give fame, which is important in other ways to work on, as it gives you access to better quests with better rewards later on.

First and foremost, though, FFXI quests are about moving the story forward. FFXIV's main story missions seem to be the same.

 

- Reintroduce the WONDERFUL party system that was FFXI, chaining mobs made it exciting, and trying to keep the train going made it even more fun. Add a twist to your party system, like "Party Points" that you can exchange for rewards in towns around the area to get unique emblems, capes, clothes, armor, weapons, items, ect.
 

I would  agree that this is a good suggestion, but I don't know about the rewards.   Maybe something more inline with their "player economy" would be beneficial.

 

 

I would agree that another system like Conquest in XI, or its similar systems in Aht Urghan and WoTG would be ideal. Something you earn as a sort of passive currency by doing things for your nation, etc. It would be slow to gain, but there ewould be some nice items available in exchange for it.

I don't agree there should be some kind of points rewarded specifically for partying.

 

 

Originally posted by Khrymson

Only a very small amount, but a step in the right direction.  A few more though:

 

• Return the class names back to their Final Fantasy staple ~ Warrior, Monk, White Mage, Thief, Dragoon...etc

Personally I don't think this really matters, the jobs now are pretty interesting and fairly standard.

• Keep the current no sub job format, cause I like being able to pick and choose any classes skills and abilities.

No arguments there, I like this system.

• Allow classes to equip a multitude of various weapons, ala FFXI without changing class based on the weapon.'

I disagree with this, I enjoy that each class has it's own special defining weapon.

• Remove durability from items, its just an annoying hassle, especially for non-crafters looking for repairs.

I honestly have never been hindered that much by repairs in my journies and I have never leveled a crafting career above 1.

• Add hard levels to all items, thus you can't be lvl 1 wearing lvl 50 gear anymore, but do allow cross class equipping of gear, for cosmetic reasons, like heavy plate shouldn't be good to go into battle with as a Mage.{you could but it would be stupid...lol}  This would make it easier for everyone in choosing the proper gear per ones level, and also show a players progress.  I loved that in XI, being levels 1-35 gear was rather bland and every job looked similar, but starting at 35-45+ and especially at 52-60+ is where gear became more job specific, colorful and made you really stand out that I'm a Red Mage, he's a Paladin, and she's a Summoner.

I disagree with this, I like the current system that anyone can wear anything they want if they want to suffer the penaties.  If you want to wear vintage haubergon at rank 10, go ahead...just expect to be repairing it every 3 fights.  If you want to wear plate as a thaum....go ahead, just expect it to be worse than the cloth you should be wearing.

• Allow us to sell more than 10 items in our character bazaar, as many as we have space avail.

I don't think that's a good idea.  The 10 item limit is probably so we don't end up using our bazaar as a second inventory.

• Return to us the proper macro system from XI, right now its rather pointless because you can't use a spell or ability unless its equipped to your hot bar too.

I actually agree with this quite a bit,   the macro system as it is, is good for no more than switching careers.

• Give us Chocobos, Carriages and Airships, and remove the insta-teleports at any time.  Just allow us to set more than one bind and port to those binds from another crystal.

The former, heck yeah...the latter....not so much.

• Add more dangerous enemies on the overworld instead of being tucked away in various corners of the world that can mostly be avoided, bring back the need to sneak/invisible, deodorize.

Hell no...that was one part of 11 that I was glad to be rid of.

• Loss of XP death penalty, even in XI it wasn't that much and made the thought of dying or attempting to run past that deadly basilisk all the more exciting.

Exciting to those that have the time maybe.  For people who have an hour or so to play a day...the risk of losing time and money is enough.

• As you mentioned with zones, while these massive zoneless regions are nice, they should be more appropriately populated with varying monster strengths and levels, for instance the main central area of Thanalan is the newbie starter area, and the further E/W you go the mobs get slightly harder, but then each of the 4 corners and dungeons should have say lvl 10-15 in the SW, 16-20 in the SE, 21-25 in the NE and 26-30+ in the NW...etc

Couldn't tell you much about this, I don't have a career above 22.

• Bring back the 'Con' or consider system instead of the horrible color coding that mostly doesn't make any sense, especially since many classes can already take on some mobs with a red symbol which should be 'Incredibly Tough' and impossible to solo.  Where others with a red symbol really are IT and 1 shot you, you don't really know unless you attack it and find out.  Or its just a huge lizard or dragon and one should know better, but still...lol

I dunno, I've gotten quite used to the colour system.  It beats having to check everything, I think anywa.

• Appropriately space the level that spells and abilities are gained, I find it quite absurd that you don't get Raise until lvl 38, when it was 25 in XI, or Protect/Shell II until 47, when it was in the early teens in XI also.

They are balanced that way for a reason.  Protect/Shell are far more powerful than they were in 11.  Also, since dying has few consequences except a wait time, raising isn't needed until you start doing NM's and the such...which 38 is an appropraite level.

• And anything else from FFXI that should have already been in XIV...

Eh, I would have been personally more happy if they were more distinct from each other really.  As it is they are far too similar.

I supposed you all know that FFXIV is designed by Japanese company so the game involved more Japanese cultures. Quest without hint, no tips or not sufficien information to get your quest done. That's typical Japanese games, besides, the game is not only for American market. I like to experiencing different culture game, but its just one or two months or max 3 months. I suggest you just play what it is and dont expect they willl do any changes for you.

Originally posted by Larry2298

I supposed you all know that FFXIV is designed by Japanese company so the game involved more Japanese cultures. Quest without hint, no tips or not sufficien information to get your quest done. That's typical Japanese games, besides, the game is not only for American market. I like to experiencing different culture game, but its just one or two months or max 3 months. I suggest you just play what it is and dont expect they willl do any changes for you.

Originally posted by Larry2298

I supposed you all know that FFXIV is designed by Japanese company so the game involved more Japanese cultures. Quest without hint, no tips or not sufficien information to get your quest done. That's typical Japanese games, besides, the game is not only for American market. I like to experiencing different culture game, but its just one or two months or max 3 months. I suggest you just play what it is and dont expect they willl do any changes for you.

 Add boring, predictable, unrewarding, lacking any creativity time sinks?

Teleport to any camp, don't bind, attack something your own level and watch your avatar die without fail, 100% of the time. Why? Because you didn't bind and will return to where you teleport from and get to dump another 6 points of TP that regen over 2 days. So because you wanted to save your bind for when you actually needed the MP you get a 2 day TP penalty applied to the error in judgment.

Thats bad game design. I dont care what part of the planet you are on. Dont tell me Japanese gamers see that shit as cool.

Well, I agree that the quests could be better done but I don't see how adding a auto attack and take away the marketplace would help anyone.

I would say that making a new UI is one thing that would help.

To add more story is also a good idea and if they make a game with quests they could at least have interesting quests.

Well IMO FF14 needs to add more quests, with storyline (shouldnt be too epic, yes i'm aware of the rank 10, 20, 30 etc main quest). And at the same time keeping all those repeatable quests.

In regard to the OP blog:

- no auto attack, but increase accuracy abit. I love how combat works in FF14, but hated that most skills miss a lot.

- no to AH, but make it possible for you to place your retainer on camps, i hate to travel back just to buy something. it'll also make it possible to "play" the market.

- add npc trader outside of cities (just a few on "major" camps) for those vendor trash, again having to travel back because your inventory is full....not fun.

- add minibosses~!

my 2 gil.