Aphrael (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silverthunder) wrote2010-10-15 03:15 pm
silverthunder) wrote2010-10-15 03:15 pm
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FFXIV Market Wards
So, SquareEnix have apparently deduced from the millions and millions of comments about the market ward system sucking that they might need to make some adjustments. Go figure.
In my earlier FFXIV post, I talked a little about the market wards. Basically, every player gets to employ a retainer, which is an NPC chosen from a selection of pre-designed NPCs nicknamed by the player to be unique and who can sell things for the player.
The system is thus: the retainer is set up in the area called 'market wards' with a bazaar full of things the player wishes to sell. Other players may come into the market wards and browse through the retainers to find things they wish to buy. It's a stupid system, because who wants to go in and randomly browse through a metric ton of retainers to find something which may or may not be there? Plus, you can't compare prices (when buying or selling), and you don't know if you've sold something until you go check your retainer.
Also, your retainer doubles as storage space since they can hold 80 items (only 10 at a time can go up in a bazaar). If you've set up your retainer bazaaring in one city, you can't access them in the next. Sooooo, in order to get the item you need from the retainer, you have to go back to the city where you've got him/her bazaaring.
Ugh.
SquareEnix just recently released a patch that is designed to make market ward browsing easier. The wards are separated into types: leather materials, smithing materials, finished weapons, finished body armor, etc. They did a good job of separating them up so that you can find what you're looking for, but it's still a shitty system.
Here are some reasons why:
- The wards are separated by type, but only the incentive of "lower taxes if you have the right type of item in the right ward" keeps players from just putting random whatever into their bazaar and setting their retainer up in the wrong ward anyway
- In order to effectively use the system, I can only sell one type of item at a time. This is stupid. If I have a body piece, a pair of gloves, and a pair of pants to sell, I either have to sell them one at a time or put them all up in the ward meant for one of them, pay the higher taxes, and hope someone wants to buy - for example - pants they find in the gloves ward, by random chance.
- Even if I know exactly who I want to buy from, I still have to find that retainer in a virtual sea of other retainers and browse into their bazaar before someone else does in order to buy what I want from them.
- When I sell things, I don't want to have to go back and visit a specific city to see whether or not they've sold and to get my money. I want the freedom to access this from any city I'm in. The fact that I also don't have easy access to the items on my retainer when I'm trying to sell things with her makes this even more frustrating.
I would also complain that I can't search for items to see if they're even there, but SquareEnix has already announced that a search function is in the works.
Seriously, though, why not just take this shitty system out and replace it with an auction house? That would answer every player complaint, including the ones I mentioned above. Players don't want to linger around trying to sell stuff or buy stuff. That's not why they play the game. They want to either buy what they need or put for sale what they want to sell, and continue with the game as quickly as possible. The best way to offer them this is with an auction house.
Honestly, I don't know what the hell was going through their heads when they came up with replacing an auction house with this piece of shit system in the first place.
In my earlier FFXIV post, I talked a little about the market wards. Basically, every player gets to employ a retainer, which is an NPC chosen from a selection of pre-designed NPCs nicknamed by the player to be unique and who can sell things for the player.
The system is thus: the retainer is set up in the area called 'market wards' with a bazaar full of things the player wishes to sell. Other players may come into the market wards and browse through the retainers to find things they wish to buy. It's a stupid system, because who wants to go in and randomly browse through a metric ton of retainers to find something which may or may not be there? Plus, you can't compare prices (when buying or selling), and you don't know if you've sold something until you go check your retainer.
Also, your retainer doubles as storage space since they can hold 80 items (only 10 at a time can go up in a bazaar). If you've set up your retainer bazaaring in one city, you can't access them in the next. Sooooo, in order to get the item you need from the retainer, you have to go back to the city where you've got him/her bazaaring.
Ugh.
SquareEnix just recently released a patch that is designed to make market ward browsing easier. The wards are separated into types: leather materials, smithing materials, finished weapons, finished body armor, etc. They did a good job of separating them up so that you can find what you're looking for, but it's still a shitty system.
Here are some reasons why:
- The wards are separated by type, but only the incentive of "lower taxes if you have the right type of item in the right ward" keeps players from just putting random whatever into their bazaar and setting their retainer up in the wrong ward anyway
- In order to effectively use the system, I can only sell one type of item at a time. This is stupid. If I have a body piece, a pair of gloves, and a pair of pants to sell, I either have to sell them one at a time or put them all up in the ward meant for one of them, pay the higher taxes, and hope someone wants to buy - for example - pants they find in the gloves ward, by random chance.
- Even if I know exactly who I want to buy from, I still have to find that retainer in a virtual sea of other retainers and browse into their bazaar before someone else does in order to buy what I want from them.
- When I sell things, I don't want to have to go back and visit a specific city to see whether or not they've sold and to get my money. I want the freedom to access this from any city I'm in. The fact that I also don't have easy access to the items on my retainer when I'm trying to sell things with her makes this even more frustrating.
I would also complain that I can't search for items to see if they're even there, but SquareEnix has already announced that a search function is in the works.
Seriously, though, why not just take this shitty system out and replace it with an auction house? That would answer every player complaint, including the ones I mentioned above. Players don't want to linger around trying to sell stuff or buy stuff. That's not why they play the game. They want to either buy what they need or put for sale what they want to sell, and continue with the game as quickly as possible. The best way to offer them this is with an auction house.
Honestly, I don't know what the hell was going through their heads when they came up with replacing an auction house with this piece of shit system in the first place.