Producer Letter LIVE XVI Translation (Game Watch Transcript)

[Slycer]

Working on translating the Game Watch transcript of the producer letter live right now. I'll post sections as I work through them. Obviously it's going to follow along mostly with the translated Q&A that was already posted on the forum, but there may be some details here or there which are missing in one or the other, so give it a quick read. The article divided up the questions by topic, not based on the order they were asked.


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The 16th Producer Letter LIVE was broadcast live from the floor of the recent FINAL FANTASY XIV: Full Active Time Event in SENDAI. Producer/Director Naoki Yoshida of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn held his usual Q&A session to respond to questions which had been received on Twitter and via the forum in advance of the session.

Patch 2.3, Defenders of Eorzea, was the latest large-scale update just released on July 8, so the two main topics of discussion were play elements of patch 2.3 and the future of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

In the development team corner which has become customary for these events, Nobuaki Komoto, a lead planner, appeared as a guest to discuss the economy of Eorzea and answer other questions from players about battle content. In this article, I'll summarize the information that was presented at the letter LIVE.


Crystal Tower will be completed in its next appearance and will be followed up with a new, original raid.

Frontline

In Defenders of Eorzea, Patch 2.3, the 72-man three team PvP content "Frontline," 24-man raid dungeon "Crystal Tower - Syrcus Tower," and other field content such as The Hunt were implemented and well-received. Yoshida said that Frontline was a particular favorite, and many players have already participated in over a hundred battles without even advancing in the main quest. Questions started with those about Frontline.

When you participate in Frontline, if you change the job on which you're participating, you have to go and manually reconfigure your PvP actions and traits. Can you make it so that it's saved for each job?

For PvP actions, since the mechanism allows you to reset and reconfigure actions at any point, you need to make adjustments on the fly to raise the levels of other actions. However, we're currently looking into whether we can set it up so that you can configure it from the start for each job. Once we determine that, we'll let you know about implementation timing.

Are there any future plans to expand Frontline?

Among all regions, we've seen the most participants in Japan. Because of this positive reception, we're considering adding new maps and rules. For maps, since we have to develop the area so that it is fair with no advantages or disadvantages to each team, it will take some time. Once we have implemented job balancing for PvP in patch 2.35, we'll continue with further adjustments or additional content in 2.4. Additionally, we're planning to make an adjustment so that you can sort the results because the results are currently hard to see. I understand that PvP content will go obsolete if we don't make adjustments, so we'll continue to rapidly adjust the content.

Do you plan to randomize the starting locations?

There's no reason we couldn't do that, so we'll look into it.

Do you plan to add an alternative PvP attribute for Frontline to replace morale?

I don't think we'll be adding a parameter which replaces morale in Frontline. However, I realize that since the morale attribute of PvP equipment is disabled in Frontline, they have inferior stats to other items, so we need to make adjustments to those.

The PvP equipment does put you at a disadvantage because the morale is invalidated, but can we at least get the ability to use glamours?

Like I said, we will attempt to adjust these so that there's no disadvantage with respect to the parameters. As far as glamours go, we'll be allowing that in Frontline in patch 2.35.

Can you increase the maximum number of participants in Frontline?

We do want to have different styles available to meet the tastes of different players and so things don't get stale. I'm not saying that we couldn't do it in the current map, but I'm hesitant because it would affect the balancing. I'm thinking we'll leave it as is so everyone can enjoy it in its current form and we'll look into adding an additional map suited for more participants.

Can you implement other types of content and events which allow for some competition between Grand Companies?

Right now we're working on debugging the ranking system which will be added for Frontline on Lodestone. Once we get this out, we'll also be posting things like the weekly leader, so I want everyone to first take a look at that to see if they like it. We'll also be trying fan PvP events for the first time at Gamescom in Germany. I'd also like to do PvP tournaments around the world using that system. We could have something like a small bonus for members of the Grand Company which gets the top weekly ranking.


The Hunt

Even after the July 15 adjustment, when an elite mark appears, it's immediately killed. Since there's hardly any time to fight the monster, can you make further adjustments?

Since there's only so much that can be done by adjusting the HP, we're considering whether we want to adjust other elements.

Since some of the FATEs specified with the "Wanted" monsters don't frequently occur, can you make it so that these can be completed more easily?

We'll be doing some fine tuning for the frequency of FATE occurrence in the future. It would be strange to have FATEs constantly appearing so we'll look into adjusting the ones that have particularly low occurrence frequencies to some extent.

The rewards for mark bills and elite mark bills are too low.

One of the adjustments we are considering is to increase the rewards for the daily mark bills. Since the number of people is already getting increasingly higher for elite marks, we're looking into whether we can help disperse the crowd by raising the daily rewards.

Do you have any plans to add a rank of monster higher than S rank in the future?

We're planning to continue adding elite marks in general in the future, but for something higher than the S rank, that would be something that's more for the expansion pack.

For elite marks, can you add some gimmicks like those for dungeon bosses so they aren't just plain fights?

In dungeons, boss gimmicks can be balanced since they take place on a consistent battlefield. If this could occur out in the field it would be bad for novice warriors of light as well as for the server in general.



Crystal Tower

There are a lot of people who are aiming for Oil of Time and Unidentified Allagan Tomestone, so can you separate their lotting restrictions from equipment so that so much equipment doesn't go to waste?

Since both types of items can be used to strengthen your character, please decide whether to take it based on your strength. If you think it would be a waste to lose, then by all means use the Need or Greed choices.

Will Crystal Tower be completed with its next update?

First, we plan to complete Bahamut's dungeons in patch 2.4, and Crystal Tower is scheduled to be completed in the following update. Regarding Forbidden Land Eureka, we've also been planning this but it won't have the same atmosphere as the original. Since many legendary weapons were found there, I intend to use it for a different type of gameplay which we're considering adding later on.

Can you set up Duty Finder so that you can enter the content without everyone ready similar to Frontline?

We created that mechanism on the fly so it would be hard to immediately transfer it. We're planning to allow advance formation of an alliance of 24 with patch 2.35, so we'll consider it after that.

What will be the next alliance raid after Crystal Tower?

It'll be an all-new raid for A Realm Reborn and something that you wouldn't even imagine to this point. We're currently modeling the progression and once we've confirmed details and begin level design, I'll start providing more information.




Other Content

Can you change instanced dungeons so that more equipment and less materials are dropped?

We've seen the demand for glamour prisms has gone up a lot so we'll be coordinating this with the item team.

In the past you talked about buffing the magic defense of dragoon after consideration, what's the status of that?

We are looking at it carefully now. Each job needs to have strong and weak points. If dragoon was suddenly able to ignore magic damage, the DPS balance would collapse. However, we know there's a lot of magic damage occurring, such as on raid bosses, so we will carefully continue to look into this.

Please lower the exchange rate of items that you can obtain from Allied Notes.

Rather than lowering the rates, we will address this by increasing the amount obtainable from dailies.

What's the status on progress for the previously announced update list?

We're slowly getting there. We've had to delay publishing this in part due to the preparation of the expansion pack. Please hold on a bit longer.

In Hullbreaker Isle we defeated the Kraken's tentacles and arms, but are there any plans to have the Kraken boss from Hullbreaker Isle appear?

He'll be back, of course. He's not far off.

In the Tamtara Deepcroft (Hard) dungeon, an extended version of the BGM "Slumber Disturbed" could be heard - will you also be adding extended versions for other dungeons in the future?

I think it's something we'll do gradually.

Are you planning to add Tataru's song?

We'll look into this, but I think everyone already has their own version of the song playing in their heads.

Will you be adding other ways of obtaining Allied Seals in the future?

I'm not sure about the future, but we have no plans at the moment to increase the ways to obtain them since we just added them.


The Future of A Realm Reborn

For the Giruveganaus boss of Stone Vigil (Hard), you had to watch the enemy to determine its attack behavior which made the fight seem more realistic. Do you have any other plans to continue to add similar content in the future?

We found that players were able to complete it without much difficulty. We wanted to add some elements in patch 2.3 which was a little more random than before, and although we wanted to start this with the movement of the enemy determining the actions, we want to add some future challenges that won't be limited to this.

Are there any plans for a sequel to Edda's story?

Well, although I want her to be happy it'll depend on everyone's feedback.

With the addition of rogue and ninja in patch 2.4, the number of DPS will increase, so will you be continuing with the one tank, two healer, five DPS setup for future full party content?

We'll do matchmaking that ignores roles or uses irregular role structures in the large scale PvP and PvE events like Crystal Tower, but we have no plans to change the normal two tank, two healer, four DPS configuration for eight man party battles. In the next update, we'll have the final chapter of the Coil of Bahamut which will use the two tank, two healer, four DPS setup. Since this will be the final part of the story following from the Seventh Umbral era in the original FFXIV, we've put a considerable amount of work into it, so please look forward to finding out the truth behind the impact.

Do you have any plans to implement more riddle-solving quests like with Winebaud's riddles?

I think a lot of people have found these challenging, but it's also hard on the development team to prepare these, so we'd like to add quests involving riddles like these gradually moving forward.

You've mentioned that you want this MMORPG to last at least 10 years, but how far ahead are you currently planning?

Right now we're coming up with general themes of where the players will be going and who they'll be fighting in 4.0. I think we have associated content planned out for roughly four years into the future.

Are there any plans to add hairstyles for other FF characters besides Snow and Lightning?

We've already been planning to add the equipment of a certain character to certain content in a certain patch.... We won't be fiddling with the stories of characters from other FF games much, though, since they have to fulfill a life in another series.

Do you have any plans to add a different kind of PvP, for example, 4 vs 1 as in "Evolve"?

It's something we could do, but this is something we'd have to plan for long-term. Since we'd have to have the system prepared to go with it, anything like this would be after the time that 3.0 is released.

What's the progress on the armor and weapons guide?

Right now we're considering two proposals. One would be kind of a way to show your item collection, the other would contain lore about the items you have. It would affect the real-time updated data along with the armoury chest so we're reviewing that now. If we decide to do the former option we might be able to include it as soon as patch 2.4, but the other proposal is more elaborate and would be further out.

Will you be adding any more horror stories like the one in Tamtara Deepcroft (Hard) in the future?

I think a lot of players liked the horror aspect of it. This time around, all three dungeons focused on story in their own way. We'd like to keep moving in this direction in the future, possibly with some more horror stories if players ask for it.

Can you implement a "Savage" mode of the original Binding Coil of Bahamut?

If we were to do this, we'd like to implement it before the savage mode of the final chapter, so earlier than patch 2.4.

Are there any plans to add a new role such as a debuffer or buffer?

We're planning on sticking with the three roles for now. Since there will be new people starting A Realm Reborn even once 3.0 comes out, we don't want to destroy the clarity of each of the roles. However, that doesn't mean we won't have any jobs which mainly deal with debuffing or buffing.




Gil consumption doubled immediately after the release of patch 2.3.

In the development team core members corner, Nobuaki Komoto appeared as a guest. In addition to working on such titles as Xenogears, Chocobo's Dungeon 2, and FFIX, he was also responsible for serving as director, version update director, and chief director on FFXI's Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, and Wings of the Goddess as well as most recently serving as a director on the original FFXIV.

His main priority is to manage the battle content in A Realm Reborn. Based on the general design that Yoshida provides, he comes up with ideas along with over 50 other planners. Each day, he holds an afternoon session meeting where forum opinions and GM calls from the prior day are reviewed to keep an eye on the economies of the servers and provide support for any problems.

At this event, he discussed the economic situation of Eorzea around the time of patch 2.3 in great detail. He noted that although the gil which is generated by the system is normally about two thirds from enemy drops, like in dungeons, the ratio drops immediately after patches when quest rewards rise greatly. However, since the system is designed so that the total amount of gil available at any given time doesn't greatly change, it has remained pretty consistent.

The amount of gil consumed, however, doubled immediately after the patch. For this patch, this is primarily due to crafters who want to quickly grow their desynthesis skill and purchase items from NPC shops, so the ratio of gil paid to shops has gone up, while the ratio of repairs, which usually account for a third of the gil consumed, have dropped.

The items that accounted for the most gil consumed at NPC shops prior to the patch were Grade 5 Dark Matter and beast tribe daily quest commodities like the Bomb Palanquin Horn. Immediately after the patch, however, items related to new content like Krakka Root Seeds, Chocobo Stables, and new furniture took the top spots. By the way, as of July 15, 80,000 individual rooms had been purchased.

Gil consumption by the system is a necessity to control inflation, but the policy on this for A Realm Reborn is to increase the amount of content that consumes gil, rather than increasing the amount of gil consumed by a single type of content. For example, in addition to individual housing land and Free Company content which will be added in the future, Gold Saucer is also scheduled to be implemented.

The new "Gold Saucer" content will be an amusement park that features a casino which first appeared in FFVII. While it's expected that gil will be consumed here, it will also be a place where players can just enjoy themselves like an amusement park. Rough designs were shown for the first time, and the maps have already been completed for the area.

It was also announced that players will be able to ride their own raised chocobos in the Chocobo Race content, and it seems like eight players will be able to participate in a race. Also, a card game resembling "Triple Triad" which appeared in FF8 seems like it will show up, with players able to collect cards and competitions to be held at the Gold Saucer.

...

[Slycer]

Giving this a quick bump for the last few paragraphs at the bottom (I still need to translate the Komoto part so they won't be at the bottom after some time, it's the part about the economy and gold saucer). Some info about Gold Saucer that I hadn't heard before (triple triad <3)

[Sho]

Triple triad is coming? Amagad.

[Ratatapa]

Triple triad is coming? Amagad.

as an addon for XIV at 1$ per month

(HateU triad in XI)

[Cutriss]

as an addon for XIV at 1$ per month

(HateU triad in XI)

That was Tetra Master.

[Ratatapa]

still a card game

[Waraji]

That was Tetra Master.

And they just mentioned it would be ingame content in the very last sentence. Had they been vague, could have been "funny". :l

[Murdock]

Triple triad is coming? Amagad.

I want to believe.

[SamanosukeShiva]

How to obtain Nael Card: Clear T9 Savage Mode.

[Shenrien]

Enter duty finder for triple triad! spend 3 hours waiting for someone to stop spamming withdraw.

[Seravi Edalborez]

How to obtain Nael Card: Clear T9 Savage Mode.

Random + Take all rule

Lose Savage Nael card to a dude with lv1 cards. Rage ensures.

[Waraji]

Thing is they probably won't have 1v1 where winner takes others card/s. 1v1 will probably be for the fun of it, while they will probably add tournaments where the winners are rewarded a card/items instead. Thinking more of it from the way PvP is designed.

ANYWAYS. Gold Saucer, I'm /excitement.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Actually how was Tetra Master done for XI in terms of rewarding cards?

[Raldo]

Actually how was Tetra Master done for XI in terms of rewarding cards?

Recalling from a very dusty dilapidated bin of memories...

Tetra Master was a completely separate service from XI; you could play one without a subscription to the other. As such, there was nothing done in XI that affected Tetra Master, and vice versa.

Each battle (maybe only for wins?) you were awarded some sort of currency. You could then spend that currency on booster packs of varying rarities, or you could go to the player auction house and purchase cards there (like Diablo 3, sans the real money). Also, at the end of a battle, you could take one of your opponent's cards that was "on your side" (flipped to be your color) at the end of the battle. That last part may have been a particular mode that you could opt out of; I forget exactly.

After using a card enough, it was possible for that card to gain stats (increased numbers) or even arrows (which directions the card could attack).

Note: I don't recall if I ever actually played against a human, so I don't know if anything was different on that front.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Looks like that was true for humans too, based on the FFwiki blurb

Tetra Master's online incarnation introduced a variety of features: competitive modes for up to three players; new cards based on characters from Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy X; and special locations on game boards that could make cards more powerful or capture lines of cards with an electrical blast. The game contained an original soundtrack and employed characters from Final Fantasy IX, such as Quina Quen and Beatrix, as computer-controlled opponents.

Upon creating a Tetra Master account, players were prompted to join one of three groups: the Warriors Guild, which specialized in weapon cards with high offense; the Voyagers Guild, which specialized in airship and building cards with high defense; or the Summoners Guild, which specialized in eidolon and magic cards. This was intended to encourage trade between players since they would not have been able to obtain every card by themselves.

Players accumulated currency and leveled up their cards as they played the game. Winnings could be spent on themed booster packs containing random cards or used at auctions to bid on specific pieces. Like the original minigame, a victorious player could claim a card from the opponent's hand. In three player matches the winner could take a card from each opponent and the runner-up could take a card from the least successful contender.

The Tetra Master online service was discontinued on December 31st, 2010. The game has no offline component and thus can no longer be played.

[Ksandra]

If they add it, I hope they take a page out of EQII's book on how they handled the card game.

You can get cards as drops from random mobs, buy booster packs from the real money shop or from regular stores (the packs gave you a code you put in). You can challenge anyone you are standing near, or are on your friends list, or go against someone random of a similar rank as you. Playing opened up a new screen n' such.

I am not a big card player, but I felt they really did it well.

[Seravi Edalborez]

When they bring up Triple Triad specifically, I wonder if the cards themselves will be (de)synthed into something gear/synth/whatever related.

Or "worse", required for Supermega Novus Extreme +1 Turbo.

[Slycer]

When they bring up Triple Triad specifically, I wonder if the cards themselves will be (de)synthed into something gear/synth/whatever related.

Or "worse", required for Supermega Novus Extreme +1 Turbo.

Mods, delete this post quick. NOTHING TO SEE HERE S-E, MOVE ALONG.

Seriously though, aside from fun glamour gear, achievements/titles, or gil winnings from casino-type stuff, I strongly doubt they'll place any huge value on anything in Gold Saucer. If they get it right, people should just be hanging out and playing around in the casino, chocobo races, card games, and whatever else, just for the fun of it.

[Odin'sLaw]

Mods, delete this post quick. NOTHING TO SEE HERE S-E, MOVE ALONG.

Seriously though, aside from fun glamour gear, achievements/titles, or gil winnings from casino-type stuff, I strongly doubt they'll place any huge value on anything in Gold Saucer. If they get it right, people should just be hanging out and playing around in the casino, chocobo races, card games, and whatever else, just for the fun of it.

snowboard game or no dice

[Seravi Edalborez]

If they get it right, people should just be hanging out and playing around in the casino, chocobo races, card games, and whatever else, just for the fun of it.

Before they added Frontlines I would have called you crazy. "Doing something only for fun and no ultimate reward, in this game?"