The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (02/18/2011)

[MaachaQ]

The FINAL FANTASY XI community is ever abuzz with discussion on in-game content. Today, the development and operations teams return to address some of our fans' most pressing questions and concerns in FAQ format.

Q: The recent update supposedly made it easier to increase skills, but I'm not noticing much of a difference. What exactly has changed?

A: The minimum enemy rating for raising skills to their caps has been lowered from "even match" to "decent challenge," providing more frequent opportunities for skill increase and greater values accompanying each increase. However, as the calculations are adjusted based upon your current skill level and your target's strength, the difference will be more noticeable at lower skill levels. We intend to monitor game balance with the new settings for the time being, but will consider future adjustments for skills such as parry and guard that are triggered less frequently.

Q: I've got enough Kindred and High Kindred crests to wallpaper my Mog House three times over. Will I be able to do anything else with them in the future?

A: We certainly wouldn't want to put a damper on your interior remodeling plans, but you might be interested in knowing that the next major version update will make these items NPC-storable, as well as introduce new high-level battlefields accessible with crests. Needless to say, suitable equipment rewards are also in the works, so stay tuned!

Q: Can we expect any changes to be made to the Walk of Echoes?

A: Yes. We have received considerable feedback concerning the Walk of Echoes, and are planning a large-scale overhaul of this feature to make it more enjoyable and rewarding for players. The time frame and further details will be announced as soon as they become available, so we ask for your patience for the time being.

Q: I can't help but feel like my Aegis shield pales in comparison to the recently added Ochain. Will anything be done about this?

A: Yes. The concepts behind Aegis and Ochain were to focus on magic and physical attack defense, respectively. As it stands now, however, Ochain's extremely high block rate makes it appear significantly more effective. We intend to balance things out in the next major update by giving a boost to Aegis's magic defense capabilities.

Q: I've always found it inconvenient that the compass/radar and other vital information are hidden when engaged in combat. Can we expect any interface tweaks?

A: Yes. With the next major version update, we intend to make the compass visible in combat. Players have also expressed wishes for a fix to keep the macro palette from covering the casting gauge and status icons, and we will be looking to address this in the future.

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...58/detail.html

[RyaWHM]

Can we expect any interface tweaks?

A: Yes.

[Crysten]

Q: I can't help but feel like my Aegis shield pales in comparison to the recently added Ochain. Will anything be done about this?

A: Yes. The concepts behind Aegis and Ochain were to focus on magic and physical attack defense, respectively. As it stands now, however, Ochain's extremely high block rate makes it appear significantly more effective. We intend to balance things out in the next major update by giving a boost to Aegis's magic defense capabilities.

"We intend to balance things out by completely ignoring what makes Ochain so good."

lol.

[Julian]

I don't see the point of just re-iterating what they already said on twitter

anyway, more questions from twitter:

A “Perfect Treasure Hunter Ticket”: Bet you want Taisai’s drop, but the desire sensor might go haywire and you’d get the wrong item! :/

NPC costumes would be nice but from a programming standpoint, NPC equipment isn’t something PCs can wear so there’d be difficulties. #FFXI

A “Magian Trial Clear” kupon would be cool, but depending on the trial itself, selecting the prize rank would be rather difficult. #FFXI

Increase in amount of Magian Trials you can undertake: This shouldn’t be limited to Mog Bonanza and will be looked into separately. #FFXI

FUCK YES SUCK MY DICK YOU STUPID HATERS

There were also numerous suggestions for items with very high stats, that while sounded good on paper, would throw off game balance. #FFXI

We’d like to introduce a few ideas that we dismissed. Sadly, items that change race/gender are not possible due to equipment issues. #FFXI

Thanks for the Mog Bonanza prize suggestions! The dev team had a meeting yesterday to review the requests. http://twitpic.com/40owuq #FFXI

[Guitarman]

Q: Can we expect any changes to be made to the Walk of Echoes?

A: Yes. We have received considerable feedback concerning the Walk of Echoes, and are planning a large-scale overhaul of this feature to make it more enjoyable and rewarding for players. The time frame and further details will be announced as soon as they become available, so we ask for your patience for the time being.

About, FUCKING, TIME.

[Appie]

A “Magian Trial Clear” kupon would be cool, but depending on the trial itself, selecting the prize rank would be rather difficult. #FFXI

Kupon for the people who did 8k relic trials would be a nice start! No bonanza, just hand it over.

Q: I've always found it inconvenient that the compass/radar and other vital information are hidden when engaged in combat. Can we expect any interface tweaks?

A: Yes. With the next major version update, we intend to make the compass visible in combat. Players have also expressed wishes for a fix to keep the macro palette from covering the casting gauge and status icons, and we will be looking to address this in the future.

While I never bitched about not being able to see my radar, I was remembered yesterday, the one time I ran without Apoc atma, how fucking annoying it was not to have menu access while dead. Fix this first, then worry about some crap radar.

We intend to monitor game balance with the new settings for the time being, but will consider future adjustments for skills such as parry and guard that are triggered less frequently.

Don't "consider", just do it! Blue numbers go!

[S N K]

About, FUCKING, TIME.

God fucking dammit this shit!

[Byrthnoth]

I'm more pumped about being able to store Kindred Crests/High Kindred crests than the entire rest of the patch. I no longer go with a big group, so any fight resulting from KC/HKCs is probably going to be too hard for the group I can muster. Still, I'd like to hoard them without incurring an inventory penalty!

[Odin'sLaw]

About, FUCKING, TIME.

"a person can no longer enter once 40% of the time has elapsed since entering"

[Gergall]

Thank you for submitting your Mog Bonanza prize suggestions. In short, your suggestions are bad and you should feel bad. We had a meeting to discuss how terrible they are. We also probably made fun of you during this meeting.

[Gunitsoldier]

CREST BATTLES FUCK YES. 10 stacks of KC and 3 HKC need to gtfo!

[Kaslo]

"We intend to balance things out by completely ignoring what makes Ochain so good."

lol.

I thought the same thing reading it lol

[LinktheDeme]

CREST BATTLES FUCK YES. 10 stacks of KC and 3 HKC need to gtfo!

I feel as if you are in the minority. Now since there are parties of 18 rather than parties of 6, wouldn't this effectively cut the amount of KC and HKC by somewhere between a third and a half with comparison to the other seals? I wonder if the amount of KC and HKC required will reflect this?

Also the skill up update wasn't what the population of FFXI expected nor wanted. While the change was VERY GOOD the magnitude of the change wasn't what anyone is exactly happy with as skilling up all weapons skills past level 75 is nearly just as annoying as it was before. Not to mention Guard and parry skill remain the skills that never get capped which is just a dumb concept for a game when the bonuses received via capping are minuscule at best.

[Gunitsoldier]

Used to be only be able to get 1 seal / PT I remember, can get 3 items/ ally if im not mistaken? Even if the previous is false, KC stuff drops all the time, should be np

[Gwynplaine]

Wonder if they'll finally use those weird BC-like areas in Wings for the new seal BC's.

[LinktheDeme]

Used to be only be able to get 1 seal / PT I remember, can get 3 items/ ally if im not mistaken? Even if the previous is false, KC stuff drops all the time, should be np

The point I'm trying to get across is every time a seal drops the chance a of a person getting it is 1/18 rather than 1/6. Not to mention killspeed has not significantly changed in comparison to a bird merit pt which means the amount of seals that ultimately drop are about the same possibly higher (overall, but in the scope of 18 people parties still less per person) in some pts. Just with these facts alone everyone should be getting on average less seals assuming that KC and HKC drop as often as Beastman Seals and Kindred Seals.

Furthermore, there have been correlations (lolAaronBarr) noticed in the past that certain items (be it tagged rare or ex the condition is unknown but its noticed most often in Rare and rare ex and ex type items) that there is a cap on how many that can drop within a certain time frame. Most scenarios that I've seen and others have seen with this were the mini expansion items(no one could get them when everyone in the zone was farming them but once they died off a week or two later drops were far easier overall). My friend said he did some small tests(nothing past 2 hours, not big enough sample to conclude anything IF anything) with Exoray mold in Crawler's Nest kill all exorays getting the mold to drop a lot initially, then none would drop until some time interval passed.

Disclaimer: The second paragraph is not supposed to be the defense for the point I was trying to make rather something I was wondering if others have observed as well.



EDIT : Didn't really address the main point of your post, I don't think there is a 1 seal per pt limit as I'm pretty sure I've seen two seals in the inventory pool.

[Malacite]

"We intend to balance things out by completely ignoring what makes Ochain so good."

lol.

God damn it beat me to it. Attn. SE: Paladin does not need any more help in the magic defense department, thank you. As it is lv 90 Aegis is overkill (25% from 75 + Shellra 5 caps PLD on MDT right?)


EDIT: Finally, some recognition about Guard & Parry.

[Jeryhn]

A “Magian Trial Clear” kupon would be cool, but depending on the trial itself, selecting the prize rank would be rather difficult. #FFXI

Only useful if I can use it to skip Chloris entirely.

[Fievel]

Only useful if I can use it to skip Chloris entirely.

Am I the only person that enjoyed Chloris? I loved every single time I popped it, so much fun to fight. You know, for the 30 seconds it was alive.

[Rocl]

Aegis will block magic spells occasionally.