Random Complaint Thread. No white knighting allowed.

[Meko]

What is Tera? I've seen some sites refer to this but I don't know about it. Also, looks like SE has been a little busy on the side:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/114/1144403p1.html

[Hyan]

1. What's their current way? Lots of bird sounds in Gridania?

More or less grouping focus, crafting focus, etc. Now they need to do moar than that. Apply that shit to missions and quests, fuck soloing 'em. Make crafters dependent on fighters like fighters are dependent on crafters currently. Give us a place in this community. You need me, I need you. Companies? Make shit matter. Make the different companies interact with each other. Minicommunities of sorts. PvP? Okay in my book if done like that.

Even if you don't feel the game is dead, still.... its not looking good right now.

Ain't looking so good indeed. While it was easy to look past TERA as being another Korean grindfest, the gameplay is starting to get up there and it has been in the making for long enough. No other MMO has me worried at this point.

Not like I'll be playing it either way. But I'd like there to be enough people with me in XIV for it to not become EQ2 with everything content related in cash shops. However, it could have gone that way already, and I'm glad this isn't the case, yet at least.

[The Q]

1. What's their current way? Lots of bird sounds in Gridania?
2. I'm sorry. Even I slip up on the sarcasm detector. Even if you don't feel the game is dead, still.... its not looking good right now. I'd give them till the launch of Rift to really hammer out a good content patch. Between DC and Rift, those will hold a lot of people until the next wave of GW and Star Wars, and eventually, Diablo 3 and Tera.

DC Online is pretty ballin' I must say. It's damn near everything FFXIV isn't at this point.

[Hyan]

Actually, XIV is everything DC isn't (as well). The way it should be honestly, especially when both are competing for teh PS3 audience.

[Elrina]

More or less grouping focus, crafting focus, etc. Now they need to do moar than that. Apply that shit to missions and quests, fuck soloing 'em. Make crafters dependent on fighters like fighters are dependent on crafters currently. Give us a place in this community. You need me, I need you. Companies? Make shit matter. Make the different companies interact with each other. Minicommunities of sorts. PvP? Okay in my book if done like that.

Crafters need more things they can do together, and possibly in competition with each other, not just reasons to need to beg combat players to escort them around, in my opinion. Making them dependent on combat players means either they're getting help from ls people or they're waiting around or begging for help for hours and can't accomplish what they need to do, neither which is fun if you have to do it all the time. Crafters should depend on other crafters to accomplish things, and they should be able to make things together, do things together, and have reasons to compete with each other that are different from the motivations combat players have.

Making combat and crafting classes dependent on each other isn't fun when it requires waiting and searching and asking for help all the time from random strangers to function. I seriously don't know what motivations a max rank crafter would currently have, even if there was a proper endgame right now, to continue staying on that same class other than to get on it to craft something specific, then change back to something else. They need some kind of in-game community activities that includes other crafters, leaderboards of some kind maybe, there could be some kind of event that allows some kind of unique item generation to garner points towards high tier mats that function outside of the event. I don't know, something, damn.

And yeah, I agree that companies should have reasons and means of interacting as well, and I think they always intended it, once they finally get them in there. Maybe not to the degree they should have, but with PvP or something. But again, leaderboards per server or something, like Aion does it. Let us build dynamic company housing, giving crafters a purpose outside of making gear for combat players, and all kinds of nifty things we can do with/from the housing that crafters can work on, and motivations for them to want to.

[kisada]

I think S-E must have about 50000 layers of management and every change has to go through a chain of bureaucracy that eventually results in piles of shit despite having quality programming talent.

Programmer tells his boss: "We've designed the game with a stamina bar to give people choices on what attacks to do for a particular situtation. You can queue attacks as well so you'll never have to spam buttons trying to do something."

1st level boss that has knowledge about video games and MMOs but doesn't play them: "This is our combat system. I think we should introduce random lag between actions, make some actions fail for no reason, and prevent queuing of multiple attacks or the RMT will take over."

2nd level boss who has nothing but a business degree and who has never played a video game before: "This is too like other games. We need to add something new like an active and a passive mode. The game shouldn't baby you. You should have to press a button to do everything. It should take at least 12 button presses to start combat and 3 button presses for each attack. I don't know what RMT are but they sound scary. We're putting 99% of our effort into foiling them from now on. Stop all other work on the game."

And then it snowballs to the point where you end up with total paralysis of good ideas and the only things that can get through are minor changes that don't require oversight. I think that's the case with any large corporation filled with retards at the management level. In most cases big companies have enough good people to overcome the shitty people. In a society where mindlessly obeying authority is accepted and originality is frowned upon it only takes a few bad apples higher up to ruin everything. I think that's why Japanese companies are failing so hard in making quality video games these days.

A shakeup of the team can only mean good things. We know that it got at least some of the retards like Tanaka out of the way.

this is what really happened with FF14 and nobody can convince me otherwise.

btw, updates would be nice and they shouldn't stay silent. but at this point i don't really care as i haven't played in 2 months, i'm sure the same goes for others as well. unless they completely knock it out of the park with their next update i'm not even remotely interested in any future changes they make.

[Sephiroth]

The world doesn't bother me except for the Shroud. I'm sure SE realises they made the starting areas and Coerthas too big and will fix that with future areas. Mor Dhona is about the right size for a zone. The zones won't feel half as bad when they add all those missing dungeons and the focus is on them rather than the outdoor areas. But they aren't even using the dungeons they have now other than for some rank 30 leves in some of them. Something went wrong there.

The main things I find wrong with the game are:

The SP system. Make red mobs give significantly more SP, yellow more etc. also balance mob HP. It's ridiculous that a doblyn has 4-5 times less HP than a sea hare of the same rank for example. Why not just copy and paste XI's SP system and tweak it if it can be improved?

More content. Add some large scale PvE events for 30/40/50. Increase party size beyond 15 (being the 16th or 17th member at an event isn't cool right now). Add some low rank NMs, add some quests that are fun at low ranks. Make behests even better, up the cap from 15, make them last longer, make them feel like good content at low ranks rather than a quick ten minute thing.

The story missions aren't fun because there's no challenging fights. You can't expect them to rescript the story, but in future they need to take away DoH/L's ability to do them. For now add a rank 50 story mission with a challenging fight.

The economy. An AH won't change a thing but it's needed at some point. The problem seems to be how easy it is to get mats, this means people flood the market with items that then become worthless. Change drop rates, or at least make some items harder to farm. Prices of shit like Hauberk in XI stayed decent because that claw it required was difficult to get. If that dropped off every other scorpion it would have been worthless.

Battle regimens. These actually work fine on mobs with a lot of HP (NMs) with a group who know what they're doing but they need changing to be worthwhile on SP mobs. SP mobs die too fast. Already suggested giving them more HP. Make regimens a separate bar so you can still use abilities while others are setting up the regimen.

Overhaul the UI, especially the point allocation, macro system and changing job system.

I can't think of much else that is wrong with the game, certainly nothing that requires shutting down servers until fixed. It's obvious SE are already working on this shit, it would be nice if they talked but that won't get it released any faster. We know there will be a big patch by march adding more content but who knows what else. It's that they need to talk about.

I think if the levelling system was fun and there was some content other than NMs that require 10+ rank 50s people would be a lot more patient with the game, after all it is a new MMO and they don't tend to be perfect in the first year.

[Hyan]

Crafters need more things they can do together, and possibly in competition with each other, not just reasons to need to beg combat players to escort them around, in my opinion. Making them dependent on combat players means either they're getting help from ls people or they're waiting around or begging for help for hours and can't accomplish what they need to do, neither which is fun if you have to do it all the time. Crafters should depend on other crafters to accomplish things, and they should be able to make things together, do things together, and have reasons to compete with each other that are different from the motivations combat players have.

Oh yes, I agree with that. I just gave some examples and the group focus could and should apply across playstyles, and not be just restricted to combat. While synergy in XI was a bit poorly received I think it would work better here.

And what I meant by making crafters dependent on combat classes wasn't only about needing them help with escorts etc., but more about needing mats only combat classes can get for example by farming or killing NMs or such. Gatherers on the other hand would require some escorting sometimes, in a good scenario. Right now they are the most independent of the bunch imo.

I'd really like it if they made the world "lively" through those sort of mechanics. Obviously it's not for everyone, but I don't think it has to be. It's a niche game for a niche audience no matter how you slice it. And I'm not against using NPC's and prescripted events either, but I don't think they can or need to do it on the scale of most Western MMO's. It would work best for complementing this "community" side of the game, imo.

I mean all of us have played XI. Something in that game made it feel like a "world", at least for some of us. I am pretty sure it was the "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" approach. Vana'diel was simply the stage for the people that reside in it to co-operate and interact.

Why not just copy and paste XI's SP system and tweak it if it can be improved?

XI's leveling mechanics weren't that good. That kind of tweak gives room for all kind of pigeon holing and stricter party set-ups, something I'd rather not deal with here. I'd like if they took another approach instead.

And because the theme of the topic is complaints, my biggest gripe is that there is no area variety when progressing. No gustaberg>valkurm>qufim>jungles>garlaige. No subjob quest>trip to jeuno>chocobo quest>kazham keys>2-3>advanced jobs. Fortunately shit like that isn't that hard to add by adjusting the current content.

[Elrina]

The problem is that it doesn't really work as well in practice as on paper. I'm worried that when it comes to it, it's going to just be an annoyance. It seems like they are/were possibly going the route of having high tier NMs only drop crafting mats, making it necessary for them to process all high level drops. This could work, although I see it as mostly just being an annoyance. I'd think it a better idea if it were more like they dropped items and gear, but there was a way for crafters to "upgrade" gear. Kind of like a mix between magian trials in XI and enchantment stones in Aion, so people can go on quests or farm certain items, and with enough they can have them processed into an item that they can use to upgrade a piece of gear with x stat(s).

But the mats in that sense are always going to just be about the combat players, or mostly, and it will be more about crafters synthing them for the combat classes than about the combat players obtaining them for the crafters. Especially in an ls environment, where the crafters are basically just processing the drops like was done often enough in XI with crafting mat drops. And I had a lot of fun in Aion avoiding mobs and stealthing around when I was raising my gathering skills in areas much higher level than me, but with the mini-games involved in XIV I think it will just aggravate people if they need to have combat players keeping an area clear for them to be able to gather certain things. If they were going to do that, there should be some kind of additional reward for the combat class keeping the area clear for the gatherer. Like, maybe killing a mob within x distance of a gather point gives a bonus SP reward.

I can see those working in some specific situations, like gathering from behind a major boss/HNM after it's been killed for rare mats (a way of rewarding the gatherer when the boss is defeated), but I can see that becoming an issue later too unless it's instanced (other people coming in to benefit from another linkshell/company defeating the boss/HNM).

I don't know, I just remember people complaining about that very thing and them already making it so that gathering points could be accessed without having to deal with higher level mobs. On paper it might sound good, but in practice it just doesn't seem like people will find it very fun to have to deal with.

[Hyan]

If they were going to do that, there should be some kind of additional reward for the combat class keeping the area clear for the gatherer.

Ofc.

It's also annoying having to look for people to do missions and stuff, but it can also pay off. That's something they should aim for in all aspects of the game, instead of the mechanics feeling like an unnecessary annoyance. It should also be targeted for some more special items and such, so to not develop these mechanics for some mundane everyday task. Maybe some gatherer+gatherer action works better for that purpose.

"This mining point is so deep, you need two people to get to the good stuff."

I actually liked duoing leves like that when I played.

[Fawkes]

Oh yes, I agree with that. I just gave some examples and the group focus could and should apply across playstyles, and not be just restricted to combat. While synergy in XI was a bit poorly received I think it would work better here.

And what I meant by making crafters dependent on combat classes wasn't only about needing them help with escorts etc., but more about needing mats only combat classes can get for example by farming or killing NMs or such. Gatherers on the other hand would require some escorting sometimes, in a good scenario. Right now they are the most independent of the bunch imo.

I'd really like it if they made the world "lively" through those sort of mechanics. Obviously it's not for everyone, but I don't think it has to be. It's a niche game for a niche audience no matter how you slice it. And I'm not against using NPC's and prescripted events either, but I don't think they can or need to do it on the scale of most Western MMO's. It would work best for complementing this "community" side of the game, imo.

I mean all of us have played XI. Something in that game made it feel like a "world", at least for some of us. I am pretty sure it was the "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" approach. Vana'diel was simply the stage for the people that reside in it to co-operate and interact.

It's possible to switch classes in XIV. There should be no such thing as a "crafter" or a "gatherer" because that person should be both of those and a few combat jobs as well. How do you balance dependency when it's not necessary for everyone, only those who choose to be dependent? Who actually wants to be dependent and have to wait around for someone else instead of being able to do what they want when they want to?

Vana'diel felt like a world because it was describable. If I say something like "secret beach" or "Leaping Lizzy" or "Shantotto" every god damn one of you knows exactly what and where those things are. Are there any points of interest in XIV? Is there much of anything in the world now that could rise out of the blandness?

[Elrina]

Ofc.

It's also annoying having to look for people to do missions and stuff, but it can also pay off. That's something they should aim for in all aspects of the game, instead of the mechanics feeling like an unnecessary annoyance. It should also be targeted for some more special items and such, so to not develop these mechanics for some mundane everyday task. Maybe some gatherer+gatherer action works better for that purpose.

"This mining point is so deep, you need two people to get to the good stuff."

I actually liked duoing leves like that when I played.

That idea is a good possible way to set up group gathering, I guess, and some use of having to obtain additional people isn't bad as long as it did have special rewards for everyone involved, not just mundane stuff that becomes necessary to farm/utilize regularly. Regardless, ways of doing things in groups and rewards for doing so for everyone involved should be the norm. But it should still be focused on gather+gather, crafter+crafter, and combat+combat, with some but less emphasis on mixing them. People aren't crafting so that they can be a bitch to a combat player, or vica versa. There needs to be persistent content for crafters and gatherers at 50+ so that they have reasons to be on that class, otherwise it shouldn't be treated as a main class. And there should be ways for non-combat people to gain SP with friends that actually involves multiple people, not restricted to having to do it solo even if they're in a group.

It's possible to switch classes in XIV. There should be no such thing as a "crafter" or a "gatherer" because that person should be both of those and a few combat jobs as well. How do you balance dependency when it's not necessary for everyone, only those who choose to be dependent? Who actually wants to be dependent and have to wait around for someone else instead of being able to do what they want when they want to?

Vana'diel felt like a world because it was describable. If I say something like "secret beach" or "Leaping Lizzy" or "Shantotto" every god damn one of you knows exactly what and where those things are. Are there any points of interest in XIV? Is there much of anything in the world now that could rise out of the blandness?

I agree that there could be exceptions to the first point, but in general, that's exactly how I (and you, and probably most people) feel. And I haven't seen all of the areas in XIV yet, but out of what I have seen, I've got to agree that the place is pretty much large expanses of nothing noteworthy.

[Lucavi]

The world doesn't bother me except for the Shroud. I'm sure SE realises they made the starting areas and Coerthas too big and will fix that with future areas. Mor Dhona is about the right size for a zone. The zones won't feel half as bad when they add all those missing dungeons and the focus is on them rather than the outdoor areas. But they aren't even using the dungeons they have now other than for some rank 30 leves in some of them. Something went wrong there.

The main things I find wrong with the game are:

The SP system. Make red mobs give significantly more SP, yellow more etc. also balance mob HP. It's ridiculous that a doblyn has 4-5 times less HP than a sea hare of the same rank for example. Why not just copy and paste XI's SP system and tweak it if it can be improved?

More content. Add some large scale PvE events for 30/40/50. Increase party size beyond 15 (being the 16th or 17th member at an event isn't cool right now). Add some low rank NMs, add some quests that are fun at low ranks. Make behests even better, up the cap from 15, make them last longer, make them feel like good content at low ranks rather than a quick ten minute thing.

The story missions aren't fun because there's no challenging fights. You can't expect them to rescript the story, but in future they need to take away DoH/L's ability to do them. For now add a rank 50 story mission with a challenging fight.

The economy. An AH won't change a thing but it's needed at some point. The problem seems to be how easy it is to get mats, this means people flood the market with items that then become worthless. Change drop rates, or at least make some items harder to farm. Prices of shit like Hauberk in XI stayed decent because that claw it required was difficult to get. If that dropped off every other scorpion it would have been worthless.

Battle regimens. These actually work fine on mobs with a lot of HP (NMs) with a group who know what they're doing but they need changing to be worthwhile on SP mobs. SP mobs die too fast. Already suggested giving them more HP. Make regimens a separate bar so you can still use abilities while others are setting up the regimen.

Overhaul the UI, especially the point allocation, macro system and changing job system.

I can't think of much else that is wrong with the game, certainly nothing that requires shutting down servers until fixed. It's obvious SE are already working on this shit, it would be nice if they talked but that won't get it released any faster. We know there will be a big patch by march adding more content but who knows what else. It's that they need to talk about.

I think if the levelling system was fun and there was some content other than NMs that require 10+ rank 50s people would be a lot more patient with the game, after all it is a new MMO and they don't tend to be perfect in the first year.

That's the long, short, and middle of it. You get it. If I could give you a cookie, I cannot, so I'll give you a job well done. All of those changes would make this game different from other MMOs, yet still give it some sort of legs to stand on. Right now there's pretty graphics and crafting and nothing else. At all.

[Siatdiat]

It's possible to switch classes in XIV. There should be no such thing as a "crafter" or a "gatherer" because that person should be both of those and a few combat jobs as well. How do you balance dependency when it's not necessary for everyone, only those who choose to be dependent? Who actually wants to be dependent and have to wait around for someone else instead of being able to do what they want when they want to?

Vana'diel felt like a world because it was describable. If I say something like "secret beach" or "Leaping Lizzy" or "Shantotto" every god damn one of you knows exactly what and where those things are. Are there any points of interest in XIV? Is there much of anything in the world now that could rise out of the blandness?

Amen. The game is not going to exist in a vacuum. You can't just intend for unrealistic things to happen and expect it to work. People are going to be people and you have to balance the game around that.

Either that or have fun whining because you are one of a small handful of niche players playing a shitty game. Good on you for being "strong" enough to do that.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

What is Tera? I've seen some sites refer to this but I don't know about it. Also, looks like SE has been a little busy on the side:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/114/1144403p1.html

Ugh... If this game is as linear as XIII was, and I'm sure it will be, I think I'm done with the FF series for good. It's gotten progressively worse since VII. The whole concept and lure of FF series(at least for me) was the ability to 'side quest' or 'explore' at almost all stages in the game while having a great story. Then once getting to the end of the game you're left with a ton of stuff you could do to get stronger and a few beasts that were hella hard to take down. VII had 3 weapons, VIII had a few hard mobs, IX had Ozma which was a joke, X had some summons and the monster arena that provided some hard mobs, XII actually had a bunch of hard stuff you could do which I've still yet to complete. XIII was linear until the missions you could do and farming the big turtle guys which proved to be incredibly dull. It's just gotten easier each new release since like... IV? I remember IV actually providing a challenge, V I never even beat, and VI being one of my favorites of all time providing a challenge the whole way through if you didn't spend some time leveling up. Graphics and watching CS's for hours on end aren't what make the game good(though they play a role), you need an intriguing story, challenging game play and [some] freedom to explore the world as you see fit. I guess the golden days are over and it's time to move on.

[Sephiroth]

XI's leveling mechanics weren't that good. That kind of tweak gives room for all kind of pigeon holing and stricter party set-ups, something I'd rather not deal with here. I'd like if they took another approach instead.

Well I don't mean copy XI's levelling mechanics, it was awful sitting in Jenuo LFG for 8 hours as a DD because there was no tank or no WHMs. I mean copy the SP system. 100 for a mob your rank, 140 for a tough (low yellow), 200 for a very tough (high yellow), 300 for an incredibly tough (red) etc. I have the numbers wrong but you get the idea. Then SP chains allowing you to get even more if you kill fast enough.

There's always going to be party setups that will get you more SP per hour than other setups no matter what they do. Although it would be nice if it was based on mob type rather than one class being more powerful than another. For example archers being strong against birds and pugilists against skeletons.

It would be nice to just get rid of the grind altogether and make it possible to get good SP per hour from behests or similar events, but I'm not sure how you could make those strategic. With 15 people the mobs just die too fast. You'd have to give them a tonne more HP to live long enough for any strategy.

[Elrina]

It doesn't need the strategy, really, and they could and should give SP rewards for completing leves/quests as well. Add in a campaign-like event for middling levels, and some instances, and not only is there a lot of stuff to do throughout the middling levels but all of it gives SP and Exp on top of it greatly reducing the need for actual grinding. The rest of the system though, static for each tier with chains isn't a bad idea. They could add the RNG back in too (albeit with reduced numbers since there's a static SP reward per mob) so that it's like a bonus on top of the static reward per-mob.

And I think the game needs a lot more work than you listed earlier. Most of it was good (although I took exception with a couple things), but there's a lot of stiff competition coming out and if they want to maintain a respectable user base at this point they need to make some much bigger changes, over the course of the next year. I still think with some brutal editing of the current design along with newly added elements, they could make what they have a lot more fun at the same time as implementing new content, and it could still all be done incrementally.

Edit:

Ugh... If this game is as linear as XIII was, and I'm sure it will be, I think I'm done with the FF series for good. It's gotten progressively worse since VII. The whole concept and lure of FF series(at least for me) was the ability to 'side quest' or 'explore' at almost all stages in the game while having a great story. Then once getting to the end of the game you're left with a ton of stuff you could do to get stronger and a few beasts that were hella hard to take down. VII had 3 weapons, VIII had a few hard mobs, IX had Ozma which was a joke, X had some summons and the monster arena that provided some hard mobs, XII actually had a bunch of hard stuff you could do which I've still yet to complete. XIII was linear until the missions you could do and farming the big turtle guys which proved to be incredibly dull. It's just gotten easier each new release since like... IV? I remember IV actually providing a challenge, V I never even beat, and VI being one of my favorites of all time providing a challenge the whole way through if you didn't spend some time leveling up. Graphics and watching CS's for hours on end aren't what make the game good(though they play a role), you need an intriguing story, challenging game play and [some] freedom to explore the world as you see fit. I guess the golden days are over and it's time to move on.

I liked XIII, personally, but I think this is more a cash grab. I could easily be wrong, but I'm thinking that it's more design and ideas that were cut from XIII but already laying around + 12~18 months worth of development, not a fully developed game. It's Versus XIII that you should be looking towards before giving up on Final Fantasy, I think.

[jPuff]

It's possible to switch classes in XIV. There should be no such thing as a "crafter" or a "gatherer" because that person should be both of those and a few combat jobs as well. How do you balance dependency when it's not necessary for everyone, only those who choose to be dependent? Who actually wants to be dependent and have to wait around for someone else instead of being able to do what they want when they want to?

This. Thank you.

Vana'diel felt like a world because it was describable. If I say something like "secret beach" or "Leaping Lizzy" or "Shantotto" every god damn one of you knows exactly what and where those things are. Are there any points of interest in XIV? Is there much of anything in the world now that could rise out of the blandness?

Again nailed it. The areas in 14 just feel like homogenous globs of polygons spread over a large area (and only large in the sense that they take forever to traverse; not in any remotely good way). Skull Valley, Iron Lake, Bloodshore are all exactly the same. Yeah, there are some different mobs (lolmice/crabs) around them, but they look and feel exactly the same. Again though, I am not naive enough to think that these areas will change at all. The only hope is moving forward at this point, and that's up in the air.

[Hyan]

It's possible to switch classes in XIV. There should be no such thing as a "crafter" or a "gatherer" because that person should be both of those and a few combat jobs as well. How do you balance dependency when it's not necessary for everyone, only those who choose to be dependent? Who actually wants to be dependent and have to wait around for someone else instead of being able to do what they want when they want to?

That's why you can't really make these things into a side activity or anything. Leveling Doh or DoL is already much longer of a task than it was in XI. No one but the no lifers are going to end up being completely independent. You aren't suddenly a crafter, gladiator and fisher at the snap of your fingers- and most importantly, you won't be good at any of them.

I don't think there is a "should be" situation at all. Crafters are supposed to level more crafting classes, combat folks are supposed to level more combat classes, same applies to gatherers. Very few will have time and interest for all three, aside from trying them out anyway.

People aren't crafting so that they can be a bitch to a combat player, or vica versa.

Well, I am crafting to be of use to everyone else. What does it matter whether I craft or not if I can't put my skills to use for anyone else's but my own gain? I want to feel like I belong, that I have a purpose. That's pretty important if the game wants to immerse me.

I mean copy the SP system. 100 for a mob your rank, 140 for a tough (low yellow), 200 for a very tough (high yellow), 300 for an incredibly tough (red) etc

It's the same thing, Sephiroth. Harder monsters => people need to specialize more => you need to look for specific classes/people to be able to perform in said specific roles => you need more people => you can't exp "the most effective way" without X number of people => we all know that exping "not so effectively" was possible in XI, but no one ever did it because they wanted "most" out of their playtime.

You didn't LFG in Jeuno for 8 hours because some magical Tanaka fairy decided that way. It was the result of all these mechanics that made the situation that way. Everything affects everything.

It would be nice to just get rid of the grind altogether

lol

[Elrina]

Well, I am crafting to be of use to everyone else. What does it matter whether I craft or not if I can't put my skills to use for anyone else's but my own gain? I want to feel like I belong, that I have a purpose. That's pretty important if the game wants to immerse me.

The point is that what is there to do at rank 50 once you've maxed out your SP? What is there to do other than actively skill before then? The actual crafting system might be somewhat more complex, but the actual motivations to do so aren't any more than they were in XI. Not even with a dozen variations nobody cares about simply because you have to do a completely different synth to have a different colored item.

I realize that to some extent the purpose behind crafting is to provide equipment, weapons and items to other people. But when crafting is as large of an emphasis as it is in this game, containing more than half of the game's main classes, there should be more involved. Look at that thread on Archeage, with crafters building houses that characters can actually use as personal housing and ships to use to travel and fight in. There should be stuff like that, with crafters able to do all kinds of awesome things by designing their own buildings or own items, or working together to do so, or in competition with each other to see who can come up with something better.

They could offer stat incentives in different ways, or sometimes simply be for vanity, but it would still give plenty of motivation since being able to design different aspects of housing would be a literal way of showing off your house to other people. Even if it was just Company housing, being able to craft the different aspects of it with different materials in different ways would give them something to do and there are all kinds of ways they could reward players once something is complete, based off of what they accomplished or created.

Once chocobos and airships are in, crafters could also create things for them. Making crafters such a major aspect of this game, and leaving their primary ultimate purpose once they're at max rank nothing different than in XI or another game other than possibly introducing reasons for them to need a combat player to kill something for them is a real cop out (and really bland), and there should be a lot more involved there. Either stop pretending they're main classes and do some of that heavy editing to the armoury system itself, or give them an actual reason for existing beyond requiring every piece of gear obtained from every NM to be crafted, and making all the seasonal events "crafting events".