The FINAL FANTASY XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/28/2011)

[Divinius]

For me this is true, for some people... mostly the drwaffles and tsukos of the world, it probably won't be enough.
I don't care if I'm getting things done the fastest, I just care about enjoying myself. Leeching isn't enjoyable, getting slow-as-fuck exp isn't enjoyable either... a middle ground would be just fine.

Exactly. I hate leeching, not because I don't like getting lots of exp, but because it's boring as fuck. But I do it anyway (when I can), because the alternatives feel like pointless wastes of time in comparison. As I said before, I'd really like to be able to actually play the job I'm trying to level, and get xp at a fast enough rate that it doesn't make me feel like I'm wasting my time. For me (and I think others as well), it doesn't need to be faster than leeching, but if it's at least comparably close, then the enjoyment of being able to do something other than stand there with your thumb in your ass for 6 hours, would offset the slightly slower xp rate. The problem is now that non-leeching xp rates are, at best, about 1/10 what you can get while leeching, and that's just stupid.

[Greatguardian]

From what I understand, PS2 players make up a larger portion of JP players than EU or NA in their respective markets. Considering SE's primary concern has been and pretty much always will be the Japanese Console market, I highly doubt they're going to ditch their most valued customers. With that said it's unfortunate, because the PS2 really is running out of space.

Ring, the way the patches are working right now, the PS2 downloads all of the new .DAT files in a patch and then deletes the old versions after all of the new ones are on the hard drive. In that sense, by the time the download is complete there are 2 copies of every .DAT on the hard drive, thus the doubling in size. However, in the Installation portion of the version update, the old .DATs are always deleted, bringing the patch back to its proper size. If the PS2 HDD was unable to download the last version update because it was being treated as twice as big as it was supposed to be, that means that, even if this issue is resolved, the PS2 can only hold one more update of the same size before it is completely out of space.

Personally, I'd love to see the game continue to expand. I just can't get my hopes up, really. Even if the developers themselves wanted to ditch PS2 support in order to bring new, fresh content to PC/PS3/360 players in abundance, there's no way their corporate division would green light it. Not only would they be losing out on a great deal of monthly revenue, as Japanese players tend not to buy multiple consoles the way NA players do, but they would be antagonizing their sales "home base" and generating bad PR at home. Expanding content is also extremely unlikely to generate additional subscriptions, at least in any tangible amount. It's there to appease existing players, not draw in new ones, and existing players are already paying their monthly fees.

[Klaatu]

What kind of bullshit is it that I can solo IT in less than a minute inside Abyssea and be face raped by a DC outside after 3 minutes of fighting?

[Klaatu]

Where do I ask them questions w/o having twitter account?

[bungiefan]

From what I understand, PS2 players make up a larger portion of JP players than EU or NA in their respective markets. Considering SE's primary concern has been and pretty much always will be the Japanese Console market, I highly doubt they're going to ditch their most valued customers. With that said it's unfortunate, because the PS2 really is running out of space.

The PS2 version was not released in EU regions, so it's 0% of the userbase, excluding importers with JP or NA versions, which would count for those regions' numbers. JP users are supposed to be at least 50% PS2 users.

For the hard drive issue, the game only uses 8 GB of the hard drive for its partition. It used to use 5 GB before the Zilart expansion. Unless the hard limit of the PS2 HDD file system is 8 GB per partition, they should be able to expand it again, but the dev team has changed so many times since Zilart that they may not know how right now. If the hard limit really is 8 GB, they may also have the option of changing it so that each expansion has its own partition, as they seem to be able to link partitions together as PlayOnline Viewer and FFXI's partitions already are. FFXI writes data to the POL partition when you use the private message or screenshot functions, or change the global settings in the Config menu. 8 GB of space for the core game and each expansion would solve the issue.

[Byrthnoth]

Well shit, the hard limit of the playstation file system is 2TB. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation_File_System

Didn't a 40GB harddrive come standard with the PS2? Just expand the freaking partition again.

[bungiefan]

That's recognized drive size, not individual partition size. Each game installs to a seperate partition, and there is a limit of 256 partitions on the drive. People using HDLoader have run into this with larger drives and small games.

The only official HDD Sony released with the firmware required to use official HDD support was 40 GB, and it wasn't standard with the PS2, it had to be bough seperately, except for one bundle in Japan.

Anyway, I posted the query to Twitter, both JP and EN. I can't imagine they haven't already thought of it, unless they didn't know the partition had been expanded. However, I posted in English to the JP twitter feed. If someone can convert it to proper Japanese and send it there, it might get noticed faster.

The limit of the AutoTranslate is RAM, which the 128 MB of the PS2 cannot be expanded, unless they want to give us all TEST/TOOL consoles with 256 MB instead.

[Byrthnoth]

They could make infrequently terms and names menu-based as opposed to auto-complete, eh? So it would only have to load Key Items into RAM if you hit tab and went to Key Items? It's a sacrifice in a sense, but at least we'd be able to use it again.

[Malacite]

Not the most impressive stuff ever, but really glad to hear about the increased skill ups and AF3 acquisition adjustments.

Wonder what they mean by increasing EXP though? We already know they plan to remove the daily limit on EXP from FoV.

[Greatguardian]

AF3 acquisition adjustments?

Maybe it's just me but it seems like that response read closer to "Everyone and their cousin is whining about seal drop rates from Quests so we'll issue a response. We don't see any issue with the 'difficulty' in getting AF3. Deal with it." And personally, I agree entirely. AF3 is ridiculously easy to get. The seal quests are just an alternative for extremely casual players who can only get on for short bursts of time and tend to play solo. Anyone higher on the hard-core-o-meter is plenty able to Grellow NMs for whatever seals they need.

Completing Empyrean weapons and AF3+2 is already a joke for competent players, and the casual equivalents (WoE and AF3+1) can all be solo'd by casual players with 30 minutes of spare time a day. If they were to make them any easier they may as well just give AF3+1 away in Cities.

[Fievel]

AF3 acquisition adjustments?

Maybe it's just me but it seems like that response read closer to "Everyone and their cousin is whining about seal drop rates from Quests so we'll issue a response. We don't see any issue with the 'difficulty' in getting AF3. Deal with it." And personally, I agree entirely. AF3 is ridiculously easy to get. The seal quests are just an alternative for extremely casual players who can only get on for short bursts of time and tend to play solo. Anyone higher on the hard-core-o-meter is plenty able to Grellow NMs for whatever seals they need.

Completing Empyrean weapons and AF3+2 is already a joke for competent players, and the casual equivalents (WoE and AF3+1) can all be solo'd by casual players with 30 minutes of spare time a day. If they were to make them any easier they may as well just give AF3+1 away in Cities.

Agreed, Malacite is just a fucking moron, no need to respond to him.

AF3+2 is easy as hell and can be completed in no time at all, it's not really even an investment, go, proc grellow, kill, zomg done. If shit was any easier then like you said, they'd just be handing them to us. Emps are in no way shape or form difficult, shit you don't even need to trigger weakness for them, just sit and kill. zomg so hard

But then again

Masamune - 0/50 Carabosse 2/50 Cirein-Croin

So it makes sense why he wants it to be adjusted, its just so hard.

[Julian]

Where do I ask them questions w/o having twitter account?

Make a twitter account, translate your question into JP, and post on the JP twitter.

Or just post it in the NA twitter and hope that the NA team chooses your question to forward to the JP team or w/e.

[AzazaelFenrir]

What kind of bullshit is it that I can solo IT in less than a minute inside Abyssea and be face raped by a DC outside after 3 minutes of fighting?

It is called ATMA, nothing more.

[Yugl]

If you don't want PS2 limitations, go play FFXIV.

[Greatguardian]

If you don't want PS2 limitations, go play FFXIV.

But then we'd have to complain about FFXIV limitations.

[Cream Soda]

http://www.dryrootls.com/wp-content/...12/dragua1.jpg

Comin for ya bitch

[ReliTurino]

at least they were somewhat decent questions

[Francisco]

Emps are in no way shape or form difficult, shit you don't even need to trigger weakness for them, just sit and kill. zomg so hard

Agreed, but I think they should look at adjusting the "cockblock" NMs - specifically Amun, Tunga, Heqet and Guzamantz (sp)... They're pretty camped - and I've heard it's like Dragon's Aery on some servers. Maybe make the key items pop from gold boxes.

Not really complaining - as I'm 8/50 on Ulhadkdlsajd Fangs without making much of an effort towards it (helped a BLM and NIN with AF3+2)... I have a WAR in my LS working on Empyrean G.Axe, so it works out great for me... he cleaves while a BLM snipes kills for some azure, I run around and build pearl/amber - we walk out with some Chloris/Glavoid sets. Just hoping I don't get burned on certain pops (like the Torn Bat Wing... Cannered Noz sounds like a douche).

[Fievel]

Agreed, but I think they should look at adjusting the "cockblock" NMs - specifically Amun, Tunga, Heqet and Guzamantz (sp)... They're pretty camped - and I've heard it's like Dragon's Aery on some servers. Maybe make the key items pop from gold boxes.

Not really complaining - as I'm 8/50 on Ulhadkdlsajd Fangs without making much of an effort towards it (helped a BLM and NIN with AF3+2)... I have a WAR in my LS working on Empyrean G.Axe, so it works out great for me... he cleaves while a BLM snipes kills for some azure, I run around and build pearl/amber - we walk out with some Chloris/Glavoid sets. Just hoping I don't get burned on certain pops (like the Torn Bat Wing... Cannered Noz sounds like a douche).

A bit off topic, but Cannered Noz isn't too bad if you just proc red then zerg him down. Even without, counter/shadows/evasion etc, you'll be fine.

[Francisco]

A bit off topic, but Cannered Noz isn't too bad if you just proc red then zerg him down. Even without, counter/shadows/evasion etc, you'll be fine.

Red prevents the Reraise? One thing I read about him said he eventually gets fast cast Death - which would suck lowman.