Patch 1.16 Outline (02/24/2011)

[Shuichi]

You know, despite the fact that Yoshi P. is having to come into his role after a rough launch I think he's doing a good job at getting improvements out to this game. I'm gonna look into my crystal ball now and say by the time the PS3 version of this game launches it's gonna be pretty solid.

/shrug

Now Komoto get to work on making my Salvage HD!

[Rivian]

About the MP regeneration thing....i see it as a gateway to content other than fucking leves where MP is refilled between them anyway. Possibly longer instanced things such as Dyna, Salvage, etc. Even with Exaltation and Siphon MP etc, i would see it hard to keep MP up in something longer and more drawn out with harder mobs to kill. So here's to hoping.

[Patriarch]

slower gear degredation will be most welcome

also, i love mods, you are the light of my life

[Darte]

If anything, I'm guessing MP regen will only be limited to when you aren't fighting. That way, aspir/mp abilities won't be completely useless.

[Elcura]

About the MP regeneration thing....i see it as a gateway to content other than fucking leves where MP is refilled between them anyway. Possibly longer instanced things such as Dyna, Salvage, etc. Even with Exaltation and Siphon MP etc, i would see it hard to keep MP up in something longer and more drawn out with harder mobs to kill. So here's to hoping.

What? The only way I even come close to running out of SP is if I do nothing but nuke every mob and never use Siphon. Exception to that are skels. I haven't used Exaltation since... well Siphon MP.

[Elcura]

derp.

[Amastacia]

This patch will be at approximately 5 months after launch. SE does not have an indefinite span to get a competitive game in place.

There's some good stuff in here, but they need a lot of overhauling, and not so much tweaking.

Considering how long Yoshida's list of things to do is, and how slowly these patches seem to be chipping away at it, I'm a bit worried.

[Hyan]

I can't say I'm too concerned about it... yet. All signs point to a complete restart of development since mid-December. It probably took them a month to even set everything up so mid-January sounds feasible too. No overhaul is going to happen in just a month, but if they take longer than 3 months for any of the features listed they're going at a too slow pace imo. It's unfortunate but hopefully they can catch up the lost time during the spring and the summer.

Good thing, if true, is that once things start rolling we should see quite a bit more substantial changes at once, if they're finished roughly at the same time. If letter 1 had 30% of the planned changes listed and he is aiming to implement them before 2012 there has to be something more to it, or he may as well just give up.

[Elrina]

This patch will be at approximately 5 months after launch. SE does not have an indefinite span to get a competitive game in place.

There's some good stuff in here, but they need a lot of overhauling, and not so much tweaking.

Considering how long Yoshida's list of things to do is, and how slowly these patches seem to be chipping away at it, I'm a bit worried.

Have to disagree. I think each of the patches is a relatively solid step in the right direction (if you consider it as what it is, and aren't expecting huge game changing content additions asap, which is unrealistic considering their long term goals), and shows that things are being done and feedback listened to even mid-stream (like the durability issues and fixing the rank problems with which local levequests are offered).

The prep stuff also has the benefit of not taking as long to put together. Like Hyan is saying, it's likely we'll start seeing larger features/content/changes added together or within a month or so of each other, alongside more of these tweaks/minor additions, since their longer development time should be completing closer to each other.

It looks mostly like a lot of prep stuff, things they want in place before adding future content/features that will utilize them. Yoshida said in his first letter that he wanted to iron out a lot of the UI changes first because it would directly relate to how the battle system changes and new content was experienced, and that's exactly what it seems like they're doing, reinforcing my thoughts that things are mostly going according to whatever internal schedule they have. I'm curious as to what post-poll thoughts he'll have included in his next letter along with the other things he mentioned that he plans to inform us about.

I've said it before, but I think they're only mildly concerned with placating the current population. Sure, they want to keep as many as possible, but with how much money they're dumping into the game and how long they've left it f2p, I think they've got their eyes on making a big fanfare around the PS3 release. They're hoping that they can peg it as a re-release, and I seriously expect the current populations to be merged onto a smaller number of servers in preparation for it (once we're closer to that point) so that there are a number of empty, "new" servers for what they hope will be an influx of people who will want to play FFXIV as it is at that point, without them having to feel intimidated or oppressed by all the people who have been playing since PC release.

I don't know if it'll work or not, but that's the only thing I can imagine, with the information we've gotten and what the updates have looked like.

[Lucavi]

Wonder how much MP they're talking and how better the degrading system will be?

[Gulkeeva]

Wonder how much MP they're talking and how better the degrading system will be?

probably be similar to how the hp regains atm, and as for people complaining about the patches etc etc... gotta remember the new guy hasn't been there working on this stuff for "months" he's only been there for a month. He's pushing out fix's adjustments faster then tanaka was

[kisada]

i'm guessing once the battle system is overhauled, there'll be a ton of changes flooding in. if i'm correctly assuming battle is their current priority, at least.

[Lucavi]

probably be similar to how the hp regains atm, and as for people complaining about the patches etc etc... gotta remember the new guy hasn't been there working on this stuff for "months" he's only been there for a month. He's pushing out fix's adjustments faster then tanaka was

I think anyone could have pushed out fix adjustments faster than Tanaka, but lets hope for the best.

[Hyan]

I've said it before, but I think they're only mildly concerned with placating the current population. Sure, they want to keep as many as possible, but with how much money they're dumping into the game and how long they've left it f2p, I think they've got their eyes on making a big fanfare around the PS3 release. They're hoping that they can peg it as a re-release, and I seriously expect the current populations to be merged onto a smaller number of servers in preparation for it (once we're closer to that point) so that there are a number of empty, "new" servers for what they hope will be an influx of people who will want to play FFXIV as it is at that point, without them having to feel intimidated or oppressed by all the people who have been playing since PC release.

This said, I think it's a bit of a mistake for them to try to split the development between content and adjustments for the time being. Sure they can try to do both and keep the current playerbase satisfied, but considering the huge amount of work they have to do to the core game mechanics I don't think it'll be satisfactory. I think it'd be in their best interest to get the core of the game where they want it to be as soon as possible before implementing content that will make use of the new mechanics. Current players will bitch, so let them. They will do it regardless. I think they may even get some wicked enjoyment out of it too.

[Kurokikaze]

The problem with Tanaka is that he liked to hold all the patches/improvements and give people one gigantic update like every 2-3 months. All while not realizing that their execution was poor; so by the time they put something in, they could've gotten feedback on a previous update a few weeks ago that could've been pretty bad.

And of course, the fact the dude made less of an effort to reach out to the community than a dead person.

Yoshi-P's approach is much better. He releases things when they're ready (more or less) and works on something else while receiving feedback on whats in. It's on-going progress. Although I would like for more updates this is much faster than I'd have expected from SE.

[Alkar]

I think it's too early to say anything yet. Obviously things are released as they're ready and more robust content will obviously take more development.
We'll probably see something coming with or after the battle system patch.

[Draylo]

I'm waiting for the class name change and reshaping to suit that. The new director seems to be working well though.

[Nightplague]

An update every two to three weeks isn't bad at all as far as I can see. If they pump it out faster they'll be spending more time on emergency maintenance than actually making content/tweaks. In FFXI there was always a number of broken things after every patch release, which generally took them a few days to fix. If they spammed new patches any faster than this, we'd just be stuck in perpetual maintenance downtime, and they wouldn't be able to get much feedback in the end regardless.

I see them fixing a number of things in this patch update which I've been hoping for since I started playing. While it may seem like relatively small patches, actually fixing the UI, interaction with your bazaar (which you'll have to do so frequently) and other key things like item durability or targeting etc. It really makes a difference. It's like Yoshi said, if the basics aren't any good, you wouldn't be able to enjoy the rest of the game anyway.

[Ragnus]

Adjustments to item condition values
Adjustments to lower the rate at which item condition deteriorates

Hell yes. Time to jump back into Ezorea. :D

[Rivian]

What? The only way I even come close to running out of SP is if I do nothing but nuke every mob and never use Siphon. Exception to that are skels. I haven't used Exaltation since... well Siphon MP.

That's true, but you don't siphon so much on mobs that are still alive. If there was content with tougher fights for extended periods of time then i don't think it would cut it. Maybe they just need to either lower the amount of MP siphon gives or increase it's recast in addition to the regeneration feature.