As much as I love Final Fantasy XI looking back now there just seems to be problem after problem after problem and I hate to sound like I'm bashing it. With MMO's being so popular at the moment you can see a lot of trends that have grown in the last few years. Healing items and the use of food is one of them.Back when I played XI there weren't many options for healing yourself. You either /heal or get a white mage to take care of you.
The healing times were atrocious once you got up higher in levels. You were looking at 2+ minutes once you got over level 15 and with the lack of items to make it faster it always felt like the game was trying to make you slow down.
In FFXIV I'd like to see a better system to deal with this. The /heal is a great idea and I think should definitely be kept but I think it needs to be tweaked a little to make healing just a little bit faster. If they don't make it faster then the use of food and potions needs to be implemented where they are available cheaply. FFXI was known for being cruel when it came to prices and it's something that I'll be talking about in a later article.
A perfect example is World of Warcraft, their food/drink system works very well. It's openly available, doesn't break the bank and it still causes a small amount of downtime but not enough to take you out of the game.
Oh food actually has a significant role in FFXI, nothing better than boosting your attack/accuracy by 15~25% with a sushi or meatkabob.
ReplyDeleteI think that making the combat faster will take care of the resting issue as well.
The cooking profession in the game was very good but the items only gave stat boosts and buffs for the most part.
ReplyDeleteI would have liked to see healing potions available more freely