It’s a minor issue, but one that can be quite annoying over time and seems relatively easy to fix at first glance.
All known content announced for Patch 4.3, set for late May, can be found in our post about it:
Final Fantasy XIV: All info on Patch 4.3 from the Producer’s Letter
The development team of Final Fantasy XIV is making an effort to make the settings and features in the game as user-friendly as possible. However, there are still some areas that need improvement.
It’s the little things we don’t really notice when they’re there, but miss when they’re gone. Here are 5 “Quality of Life” features that would definitely make daily life in FFXIV more enjoyable.
Repairing in Instances
Blessed are the Warriors of Light who have leveled all their crafters! They can repair their broken equipment not just in the middle of a dungeon, but even in the midst of a fight.
All others, however, face the problem: If their gear drops to 0% in the middle of a raid or dungeon, they have suffered considerably. It can happen to anyone.
The simplest solution to the problem would be “Request Repair,” meaning an option to ask other players to repair your gear. However, it’s also understandable why this option has not been implemented so far.
Along with, for example, teleportation costs, repair NPCs are part of the system that helps drain Gil from the game: a so-called gold sink.
If players could have their gear repaired by others, a larger amount of Gil would remain in circulation, which could ultimately be harmful to the economy of individual servers.
It would still be cool if the development team could find a solution for this, because especially after hours of wipes during progression in Omega Raids, even fully repaired armor can quickly drop to 0.
And this is especially annoying in fights like Neo Exdeath or God Kefka, which are split into two parts.
Notes on the World Map
It would be practical for new players to be able to note on the map which items, for example, NPC shops sell.
What level is their armor? Do they have potions in stock? Or do you have to go somewhere else for that?
Because, let’s be honest, the label “Merchant” for every single shop on the map is not exactly a wealth of information.
But it would also have its advantages for advanced players.
As a collector, one could then add more detailed markings on the map along with the time when a legendary gathering spot appears and disappears.
This would save players from having to use external sites like Eorzea Clock.
One could also mark spots shown on treasure maps to quickly find them again next time, etc.
It’s hard to say how much work such a feature would mean for the development team, but an option for notes or markers similar to FFXI would be really practical.
Settings for Color-Blind Players
It’s surprising why this feature is not yet in the game, especially since a visualization of sounds for deaf players has already been implemented a long time ago.
Since the reboot of the game, the development team has been trying to design the battles and the interface in such a way that a mode specifically for color-blind players would not be necessary.
Primarily, various types of indicators, also known as “Visual” or “Auditory Cues”, have been combined in combat mechanics, such as animations or sound effects that accompany the mechanics.
It’s a good approach and definitely a trend I like to see in battles, but it cannot replace a true color-blind mode.
In the official forums, there are regularly new threads with requests to revise certain features because affected players cannot distinguish the colors properly.
One example that has still not been adjusted is the fact that the brown color of the quest markers is difficult for color-blind players to see on a brown map.
Therefore, the development team should find a solution to the problem that does not involve many small adjustments.
Fewer Different Currencies
Final Fantasy XIV already has plenty of currency units, and with each patch, new ones are added.
Part of this problem has been solved with the introduction of the currency menu for the Beast Tribes.
While in the past, players had to carry around the various currencies in the form of coins, leaves, sticks, and corals, they have now disappeared from the inventory.
But there are still way too many items that remain in the inventory just so they can be handed to some NPC for useful stuff.
Every new 8-man raid brings up to 9 different items, each primal has one, each 24-man raid does as well, and there’s more.
Relic weapons in the past required several of such items per step, and it’s very likely that this trend will continue in the future.
They actively contribute to the everlasting problem of inventory shortage. A suitable menu for all these currencies would therefore be really practical.
Diverse Sorting Functions
And last but not least: While the various sorting and search functions in your own inventory and on the market board are really practical, there are still some areas in the game where they are urgently needed.
An example of this is the contact circles and Free Companies. Why is there no option to sort members alphabetically or by rank?
Especially in larger FGs and FCs, searching for a specific member whose intricate fantasy name one can never remember can become a real adventure.
Or another example: The crafting items that one could previously obtain for Allagan stones are eventually moved to the item lists of State Societies.
These lists are getting longer over time, and there’s no way to conveniently search for, say, Scheeliten. As soon as the next batch of stone items becomes available at Rowena, the list will get even longer and unwieldy.
It’s a minor issue, but one that can be quite annoying over time and seems relatively easy to fix at first glance.
All known content announced for Patch 4.3, set for late May, can be found in our post about it:
Final Fantasy XIV: All info on Patch 4.3 from the Producer’s Letter
