Still without a Computer

I've been trying to make due with my 360 and my laptop for FFXI for the past week. So far I've been managing okay except for a few freeze ups that have been happening. Right now, I am doing Campaign/Soloing stuff strictly on my 360 while everything else on my laptop. The reason is that as much as I would like to play on my 360, I'm stuck with "PS2 Limitations." Pretty much, I'm really not all that excited to rewrite a bunch of BLM macros and having to readjust my playstyle accordingly to each of those systems (where I might have to hit 2+ some macros to prep up for a spell rather than hitting simply one.) My SAM is just as it would be on the PC since that really doesn't require too many equipment changes to switch from one set to another. My laptop is also not meant to be a gaming system either and it suffers from massive graphical lag issues even on lowest settings. Attempting to load up Firefox while playing FFXI will often freeze FFXI, so it is pretty hard to look up something unless I have a Firefox window open already.

Honestly, not even the 360 is doing well under laggy conditions as my laptop. Really, I froze like 2 times in campaign within the past 2 hours I've been campaigning and I properly vent my 360, both the PSU and the system itself. I will say though that on my flat screen monitor, the game looks very nice and crisp... but unfortunately, the frame rate just hits the drain when there's too many people and can often times freeze my Xbox.

I know I can play BLM on my 360... but even on my PC, I'm still trying to find ways to make the job work for me and not have to tumble around stuff too much (in terms of hitting buttons and finding the right spells). I've been trying to mimic Lissy's macro pallete setup and while it seems to be working "ok" for me right now, I still find it a bit off. There is really no way to fit everything you want onto 20 macros in one set (which if I was playing on the PS2 version like I was years ago, it would be HORRIBLE with the sudden lag that occurs when you change sets) so I'm going to try to limit it to at most 2 and reduce manual changing as much as possible.

Well, with that on my mind, time to make a wishlist of stuff that they should put in FFXI! T_T;

1. Premade Sets.

The premade sets idea is basically allowing you to create an equipment set and allow you to compact it into one line on your macros. For example: Lets say you want a WS set. It can be as simple as going to the equipment menu and on the Triangle/Y/+ menu to the side, have a "Edit Set" menu and have like... I dunno, 20 should be enough for one character. Then you simply build it together with the equipmenu menu UI. Another addition to that is if lets say you don't want to equip anything to a particular slot (like weapons for example), you can choose a (No Change) option that would be placed on top of the equipment list.

If I had photoshop, I'd draw out a mock example.

Once you save it, you can recall it in a macro like "/set 1" or "/set SAMWS" or something of that extent. You can also toss in more equipment stuff into your macro for specific cases like /set SAMWS and then /equip neck "Snow Gorget" for Tachi: Yuki/Gekko for example.

2. Finally show TP for christ sakes.

If SE wants an incentive for SC/MBs, they are obviously going to need more than simply what is given thus far This only really helps it. Only real question would be how to display it since having a small number in that corner would just look pretty icky

(side note: My 360 froze again...)

3. Show the distance between the player and the target.

Really not hard to implement. It really isn't a mystery any more and seriously, making this aspect easier for players isn't going to break anything. Things are hard enough as it is even for those using all these windower plugins anyways.

4. Make a brand new UI.

Lets admit, the one that is in the game sucks. You can barely see the HP/MP on a regular TV with the 360/PS2 versions unless you squint your eyes. In fact, the game just becomes hard to read in general off of a TV. What's even worse is that there is no room to add anything of further interest into the existing UI without having it slapped on and being a random number on screen. Granted, it would be hard to make a new UI with how the PS2 is limited (does that thing even have progressive scan for FFXI?) and really, the game is about to hit the end of it's life cycle (not to say it'll die but it is going to hit a point where interest will die out and the game will slowly progress further in terms of development).

How would I make it look like? No clue! I'll mock one up once I have a working PC!

5. Do something to reduce graphical hiccups.

FFXI will rape your processor. That's how it is on the PS2, that's how it is on the PC and that's how it is on the 360. While I can understand it is trying to load all of these different textures and models and stuff, it's rendering each of those frames of animation that is making your game lag like molasses. Like really, I don't understand why there's an Animation Frame Rate type of deal (you know, the one that makes the game look like it's Electric Football). That isn't gonna save you. I can understand that sometimes when a game is online, there's some sort of connection error and your game freezes or some weird bug or whatever.

But, to have the game freeze up on you when there's too many on screen and not have a limitation for it... Really, why does that happen? Take a note from old 8-bit or 16-bit games, they had sprite limitations. Like, that slider that reduces the amount of players on screen.... while it does something, it doesn't do enough. Like, seriously~ Lets do this~

If there's a shit ton of characters on screen:

Always render your character
Render mobs
Render NPCs
Render your party
Render your alliance
Render non-party characters

It shouldn't be flipping and flopping around where I can't see a Fafnir but I can see like half of the LS beating it and only one of my party mates. Like, a priority system would be nice and just having a hard limitation of how many models on screen at a time would be nice too, even having a custom limit that is reasonable for the game to not appear like it's a ghost town.

And for the love of god: the glowing effects on the avatars should have an option of being able to see it or not.

NEXT!

6. Make this damn Xbox 360 Messanger Pad work on FFXI

You see this item?

It's pretty nice when you just want to sit back and not have to tumble around with a keyboard and such. It's a nice chatpad too for messaging people. I think it's about 20 bucks and even comes with a nice headset for voice chatting (mainly because it uses the base and it needs a different plug).

Nice item for 360 and pretty nice for FFXI... right? Well, guess what? Shit doesn't work on FFXI. You can type stuff but special characters that involve hitting the Squareish button on the bottom left corner (which include a bunch of things like / and quotations and so on) is a total pain in the ass to do. See, whenever you hit that button, it removes the UI, much like hitting the back button. Stuff that you're supposed to tap and "holds" it for you don't work (like if you tap on Shift, it "holds" it for you until you hit a key).

It's such a nice thing for FFXI, especially when you just don't want to pull out a keyboard or anything and just want to play FFXI on the comfort of your own bed or something. Like, this works fine in Phantasy Star Universe... but not in FFXI. Sure, you might want a keyboard for stuff that you want to relay information fast but to type a simple macro with this without the problems it is would be very nice. Another thing to consider is having keyboard shortcuts on this chatpad. It would give me the funtionality of going to the menus really fast but just simply tapping a button on the chatpad, as if CTRL or ALT are constantly held down (which this chatpad lacks btw). Such a nice item, I've tossed a few suggestions to SE via Mail Form several times about this but it basically went ignored. It would be very nice if they added this but.... oh well, that's why we call it a wishlist I suppose!

7. Make a different icon for every single buff/debuff

You know, there's already a few UI mods out there that lets you change the icons to be unique... but why the hell do we have to rely on that for? They did it for Utsusemi (granted that thing looks like ass but hey, it's different), but what about other things like BRD songs, COR rolls, Hasso/Seigan, a crap ton of Debuffs. I guess this is starting to sound like a rant list now but hey, all I'm doing is Campaigning. Like, it isn't like you're pointing to one icon in the data. The icon is simply copy and pasted over and over so it's not like you're "hacking" the game to point to a custom made icon.

8. Make a new Raise spell

You know, I often don't care what raise I get any more, in fact, really don't unless I die going on the way to Einherjar or die to something retarded and time isn't pressed on us. EXP problems are now gone with the introduction of Campaign (though, given how my Xbox froze like 3 times, maybe it isn't the case) and really, it isn't going to hurt us much to get XP back again. So, how about make a spell (lets call it Arise, since that seems to be what Full-Life or whatever is called in the later FF revisions) and instead of raise with sickness, raise with full HP but give a penalty to the WHM casting it (the spell itself should cost quite a bit of MP and it should prevent the WHM from casting anything for a duration of time or give them a weakness of some sort) and restore no XP to the person being arised. The person that was hit with arise should either have all of their MP drained away or no MP gained from the spell. Hmm... though with all those restrictions, it might not even be a spell worth casting, would it? :3 BALANCING: It takes time!

9. Nerf Lissy

She's too over powered. :3

10. Make different music tracks for Campaign

do do do dodo dodo do do do dodo dodo do do do dodo dodo do do do dodo dodo...

; ;

Yes, I can always turn on my Winamp or use the Xbox 360's Custom Soundtrack function or even use Vanatunes Plugin for Windower.

11. Please... pretty please... Do something about the

Make the either quieter or match with the sound volume. Yes, it's made to bring your attention... No, it isn't made to give you a damn headache over your headset when you're listening to people over TeamSpeak/Vent.

12. Call of Help? More like "Cause Some Drama"

Honestly, why use this? More often than not, unless you're in some place where high level players pass around like a newbie zone or something, this isn't going to save you. The only real thing this function is used for right now is for grief tactics. I mean, it's like giving the player a "Fuck People Over" button. Like, why is it even there? I mean, sure there are some people out there who are respectful enough to not do such a thing but why even give them the option in the first place? If you're going to die, you're most likely going to die anyways unless you have a PL with you or something. Even calling for help on adds from Kirin is not even seen any more.

13. Make Dynamis instanced

You know, I can see how doing the current system isn't going to work. For stuff to be instanced and to involves zoning, it seems like everyone has to be zoned all at the same time. Assault requires this, Salvage requires this. BCs can do this because this doesn't require zoning, and Einherjar isn't instanced from what I believe. So really, where does that leave us? Is it possible for Dynamis to be instanced and still do the whole Glass/Trade system? With what the Mog House visitor system showed us, maybe it is but that's juat a Mog House with very little information tossed in. It would require quite a bit of rewriting to make Dynamis instanced. With how some people finding people in their Mog House without their permission though... it would have to be one secure rewrite.

I think I got it all out of my system now ; ; I'll be a good Moggie now~

... oh wait one more

14. Give credit for people that d/c during Campaign

While I can understand why this wouldn't work in Besieged since it would be abuse of the system (though honestly, increase the cap of how much XP you can get in that to like 5k or 6k or something, it is a damn hour), this would be some sort of compensation in case you disconnect during campaign. I mean, it sucks having to do one for like 45 minutes and then have it all disappear when your system goes poots on you. Like when you zone or d/c, give the credit then remove their tags. At least they won't get screwed out of losing those XP points they earned.

OKAY, now I'm done!

... I want my computer back. ;_;