Durability loss on death or synth failure only.Follow

In FFXIV any action on the player's part leads to equipment durability loss > leads to spending time repairing equip > leads to boredom.

So on one hand you are advancing, while at the same time, in the back of your mind, you know you are also losing something. Durability. Which really equals time. Basically, doing well and being successful = penalty.

Penalize me for dying. Penalize me for faling a synth. Don't penalize me for doing well. The only way to keep my durabilty up and save that time spent on repairs is to not play.

I really want to just play (battle). I don't want to have to continually repair and keep up my crafting level up for the privledge of being able to play.

Casual gamers want to log on and battle for 1-2 hours and gain something. (Wasn't that in the FFXIV mission statement?) Unfortunatley, by the time I'm done battling, I have a yellow icon indicating that tommorrow, instead of logging on for an hour to enjoy myself, I get to repair equip for the first 10-15 minutes. Boring.

SE - You are looking to make FFXIV more fun, yes? You're going to have to take a serious look at your timesinks. This one in particular actually rewards you for not playing.

I understand what you are saying. There has been alot of improvement so far. I don't believe it has been improved far enough to be labeled fun.

To be quite honest, I just repaired all my gear in another game in less than 5 seconds. There was a little button that read "repair" and I clicked it until everything was fixed. No synth animation, no un-equipping, no placing the right material in a little box. These things are quite boring.

I want to avoid doing these things so badly that not playing at all is my best option.

Edited, Jan 25th 2011 4:46pm by RufuSwho

If they made tools/weapon wear at the rate armor does, that would be better.

I'm not sure I understand this last bit about the Dormouse. Yes, you would still have 100% if you did not die or fail a synth. I am not looking for a game to be overly realistic at the expense of fun. I want to enjoy my limited playtime.

Fun needs to be the focus of any future changes to FFXIV. Removing systems that specifically causes players to not want to play at all seems to be a reasonable request.

Boomerang, you are far too high level to be seriously suggesting NPC repairs as a valid option. Your playtime dwarves my own by about 10 to 1. Would you prefer that FFXIV was only populated by people that have so much free time that they are willing to use some of it just for upkeep? People who are willing to be bored for the priviledge of playing the parts that are fun?

Can you honestly say that repairing gear is not boring?

I never said that repairs weren't boring - just that I've gotten so used to the system in place that everyone else that I know who plays with me will generally (myself included) wait until most of their things are in red durability before going for repairs; and most of the gears that I have, I can repair myself. Yes, it's kind of tedious to unequip and repair, but at least now you don't have to go digging for the repair item if you already have it in your inventory. For things I can't repair myself, there are people in my Linkshell who will gladly do so...for a payment of shards/crafting items/gil etc...and there are plenty of others who will do the same. It's also a team thing as well - if the whole Linkshell is out together in a party, none of us generally have to worry about durability. The down time that we have in between is for further socialising, getting real life necessities done...and repairs.

I know casual players who are also part of the Linkshell's I'm in, but one thing I've noticed is that they've put up with the system in place. People who want repairs will say so in the Linkshell, and others will run over and perform the task.

Now, if you weren't in a Linkshell, then you only (currently) have a few options:

a) Buy another weapon (or two, as another poster has pointed out)
b) Repair with NPC
c) Put up in Bazaar (and find something else to do in that time.)

As I've said before, you don't need to repair your weapon if you so choose, which is unrealistic, but I've never said unrealistic wasn't fun, and I've never said realistic wasn't fun either. I've had to run to the NPC for repairs for gear that I couldn't do myself, and even if it broke my wallet, I still paid for it.

My MMO history only consists of FFXIV, EVE Online, and Ragnarok Online. RO had no repair system (though they did have player signatures on crafted items, so people knew others by reputation,) but they did have EXP penalty upon death. EVE Online has damage aspects for EVERYTHING (just as in this game,) particularly if you overheat your modules, as well as EXP Penalty upon death if you forget to upgrade your clone. As for the repairs, these are dealt with by an NPC, who can charge rather exorbitant rates (45000ISK for an overheated blaster,) but at least all repairs are to 100%, and more importantly, FAST. Both games can be a grind fest; both games can also be played casually. It's as though FFXIV took these two aspects and sort of birthed a bastard child out of them...SE's intention may not have been clear, but it's possible they made the 75% limit so as not to diminish the usefulness of crafters - the repair icon UI is note of this.

However, I'm welcome to any change that would assist/enhance the playability of the game for casual players, and I believe that these will come - so long as enough of the player population wants them.

Edited, Jan 26th 2011 10:57pm by GuiltyBoomerang

Agreed to all of it :D

As irritating as the armor system is, I would be ok with it if it was modified. Although there has been some improvement with the underwear thing, the rate of gear and weapon damage is totally unreasonable. I swear I blink and blow out something. Also, how many times have you changed jobs or logged out, only to change back or log back in and find gear damage where there was none before? A little data integrity, please.

I'm not sure the magic formula, but I do know gear damage should mean something in the form of noticeably reduced stats and performance, maybe not so significantly at 50% - perhaps add another tier @ 33%, and then the severe status @ 20-25%.

Having to repair a weapon 4-5 times per level now just isn't right. Suffering gear damage for every action in the game isn't right, suffering gear damage when a synth step attempt succeeds and fails isn't right either. Stuff just blows up by design. However, if you totally fail a particular synth, ok, some level of damage. Some level of wear and tear on weapons and armor too, but not to the extent it is today. Also, I've done no definitive testing but it seems like weapons wear out just as fast regardless if you're fighting a R40 mob or farming R10's. Maybe some adjust here would be warranted.

TEST.



[poll]
[question]Will the second poll work?[/question]
[choice]yes[/choice]
[choice]no [/choice]
[choice]this is the same question as the first poll only re-worded [/choice]
[choice]please don't use your own thread to test muliple poll functionality in the future[/choice]
[/poll]

I don't know when you played last. There have been major revisions to the durability system. The changes I proposed here are very nearly the current system now. As long as your are wearing equip that fits your class and rank you lose very little durabilty for normal actions.

You lose durabilty for dying. Everything else is peanuts.

But synthing and regular fighting does not take nearly the toll it once did. I partied for a full week on some brand new R38 Armor and was surprised to see that it was still at 97%.

For the items that I cannot repair, the repair NPC is charging a fraction of what it once did, somewhere in the range of ~4,000 for R30-40 gear, to get it back to 75%.