Market Wards, Anima, and Food
Square Enix have announced some changes to the market ward system that will be implemented in the near future. These are to help improve the user experience. The current system of trade between players has often been criticized for making it difficult to find items.
Some questions and answers were posted on the Lodestone website today detailing the upcoming changes as well as other things. The text is as follows:
Market Wards
Q. I have read that there are changes planned to improve the market system, but is there any more specific information available regarding these changes and the direction the market system will take?
A. We have continued to receive copious amounts of feedback regarding changes that players would like to see made to the market system. As a result, we are planning a number of revisions and additions to the system, the first of which are scheduled to be implemented in the next one to two weeks.
Specifically, market wards will be organized according to specific item types, making it easier to consolidate similar items in the same area. Further, if an item sold within a ward corresponds to that wards’ item type, the tax incurred will be reduced. Items not of that ward’s category may still be sold, but the tax imposed will remain the same as it has up until now.
We will be closely monitoring the trends and developments of the market system following the implementation of these revisions and new features, and will continue to make further adjustments and alterations to improve player usability and convenience. For example, we are currently looking into options that will provide players with precise information as to which items are located in which market areas, or the ability to seek out specific items without the need for speaking to retainers, and more.
Also, we are now taking steps to increase the number of retainers that a character is able to simultaneously employ.
Anima
Q. What is the deal with the anima regeneration rate?
A. During the Open Beta, anima was recovered at the rate of one point every six hours (Earth time). Since service began last week for owners of the collector’s edition, however, that rate has been adjusted to one point every four hours.
Food
Q. What kind of effects does eating have on my character?
A. Eating food serves to temporarily increase certain stats, such as physical and magic attack power, or attributes, such as strength and dexterity. Also, there are foods and dishes suited more to the palates of certain races than others, resulting in more powerful effects.
Please, for f###’s sake, add an option to browse EVERY BAZAAR IN THE MARKET WARD SIMULTANEOUSLY.
The current system may be the WORST IDEA EVER. The Auction House wasn’t perfect, but at least it was centralized – having to change targets, open my menu, hit “browse,” find that the person isn’t selling what I’m looking for, then doing it again is insanely stupid, and I shouldn’t have to pay an NPC to do my shopping for me. It’s a drag on the game’s experience equitable only to the horrific, debilitating lag that the servers are currently experiencing.
Are you kidding me? You have got to be kidding me? Adjusting the tax? So I spend 45 minutes searching a ward for one item that isn’t there instead of 3 hours searching ALL THE WARDS for an item that isn’t there? Haven’t you guys designed games before, even the original Everquest had a better market. More than a DECADE later, you make a WORSE market, and decide that the fix for this maze of crap is to change the smell of each pile?
Anima and food can be put on the back burner guys, market ward and the npc markets are hell and I won’t be sticking around for your “tax incentive” method of fixing it.
OMG – Beautiful game. Too bad you didn’t make a game you made an interface. I would like to see more of the game and less of the interface. Stop the redundant mouse clicks, organize and don’t ask me 11 times if the spell that took me 3 hours to hotbar, is the one I want to cast and if the target I have is the one i want to cast it on, are you sure?
This current market system is terrible. Absolutely terrible. I do not like to go shopping in real life. why would I want to spend hours going from vendor to vendor hoping they will have something I am looking for. This is possibly the worst idea I have seen in a MMO to date. The idea does not even make since on paper much less implemented into the game.
Thought this game was targeting “casual” users as well. I’ve played FFXI for years, and have been trying to figure out where to buy items for a week. The ball SE dropped on this game started within the first 10 minutes of play when you stand there with no information trying to figure out how to get out of the gate in Limsa. Followed by absolutely no information on gameplay, then followed by a crappy market system. And what the heck armor is damaged anyway?! It doesn’t say damaged on my inventory screen, that I see.
No the market is bad, but there are more balls being dropped on this game than a freaking bowling alley. FYI, if you are looking to hook the “casual” player it’s not with a $12.99 a month price tag. Guild Wars 2 is coming soon and any casual player would do well to jump ship and head over to that game.
If you view the following posts you can see some recent information about the situation. We will be posting a weekly Five on Friday (in the sidebar links) with updated information as it is released.
I personally agree with some of the opinions stated here, not all of them.
-Mog Da’Moogle
http://www.final-fantasy-online.com/about-ffxiv/nycc-2010/
http://www.final-fantasy-online.com/ffxiv-weekly-review/five-on-friday-oct-08-2010/
I’m ready tocancel the game because of this
Menu speed = /cry
Menu efficiency = /cry x5
Crafting = /cry x100
Bazar/Market browse = /cry x100000000
It would be nice to:
-have a sort option for inventories
-see the crafting list instead of guessing what could be use to do something. SIMPLICITY PLEASE
-have low crafting recepies that doesn’t require a high crafting rank peice. EX: a weaver lv.4 our 6 require a strap lv.26 of another job WTF?! and how to find it? Yell or browse bazzars indefinitly? eeee… no thanks.
-have an auction house / more efficient market
-To see what effect provides food
Casual gaming fail! I spent more time running, guessing crafting than playing and see the story. The game complexity and learning curve is way too high versus the casual fun it could be…
Need to lower the anima use cause frankly running for 30 min is just boring and running and getting attacked in the back dying and returning all the way to where you started is not much better have a sign to warn you your getting attacked. The market system is horrible at least have the retainer be able to post on its head what he or she maybe selling but the auction house still the best idea. The interface needs a whole lot of work its just annoying clicking. Damaged gear please have a way to inform you which gear is damaged, and the job and level to repair it. Levequest you should be able to get them from anywhere cause running all the way back to activate them and then running again all the way back is just as annoying. Thank you…