Letter from the Producer, V (03/03/2011)

[Alkar]

The instance seen kind of scares me im all for instances becoming a major endgame event, but people that want to camp HNM the gear should be the best in the game or equivalent to the hardest instances. For the people that are dedicated and want to stand at a camp for 3-5 day every 15 or 30 mins should be rewarded more then people that are lazy who want to show up at a set time and play for 2-3 hours spamming an instance with their group

Lolno. Screw your Fafnirs and Behemoths.

[Lonely]

9. If the current target claiming system were done away with, would you be in favor of a system that rewards skill, experience, and loot only to the party that first deals damage to an enemy? Or would you be in favor of skill, experience, and loot being distributed amongst all parties that contributed to an enemy's defeat?
http://static.finalfantasyxiv.com/to...26ad1b5441822d
JP NA GB FR DE
Skill, experience, and loot going to only the first party to deal damage to an enemy. 53.5％ 40.0％ 39.8％ 39.6％ 55.7％
Skill, experience, and loot going to all parties taking part in an enemy's defeat. 46.5％ 60.0％ 60.2％ 60.4％ 44.3％

Player opinions are pretty evenly split on this one, and the regional breakdowns are varied a bit as well. I'm kicking myself for not having put in a third option combining the other two: Skill and experience going to all parties, and loot going to only the first party to deal damage to an enemy.

oh god why did people even consider option 2. That never works in a MMO thanks to asshats.

[Shuichi]

One thing that caught my eye in today's letter:

All of the system-side preparations have been made, and it's almost time for Eorzea's radical transformation to begin!

Considering the fact they have a team of about 100+ work on the game, all the while they've working on these smaller patches, they've also been working behind the scenes on revamping the game. I guess we'll see in time.

[Aratharn]

Doesnt mean that HNMs like that will never return, I hope they dont but right now they gotta add stuff everyone can enjoy to revitalize the game population. My thoughts after reading the letter were "I hope that guys plane doesnt crush with all this travel or we're fuckeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!"

hahaha I had that EXACT same thought at the end of the letter!

[blythe]

To be honest, I'm genuinely surprised by the response to Question 8, as are Matsui and Gondai on the battle team. We certainly didn't think that over 50% of players would be for doing away with physical levels. This would entail some pretty big changes tied in with enhancing class uniqueness. But we're coming to realize now that most of you seem to be saying you're fine with radical changes as long as they make the game more fun. We'll definitely refer to this data when coming up with new specs, and will be implementing them when we can!

I'm surprised they were surprised, lol

[Kurokikaze]

Bawwing to commence in 37 minutes.

[Hyan]

Considering the fact they have a team of about 100+ work on the game, all the while they've working on these smaller patches, they've also been working behind the scenes on revamping the game. I guess we'll see in time.

Yeah well, he said they had implemented some countermeasures to help with server crashes in 1.15b iirc, who knows what else they did without telling us ;o.

[Kurokikaze]

Hyan you slackin bro, the update details are up. Bawwing as we speak.

[Cooleko]

why baw? seems levequests are faster (removed the time inbetween each synth) and more distributed to higher lvls. win win!

[Balb]

I think Hyan gave up on XIV, someone else post the notes. (cuz i dont want to)

[Alkar]

Update is win indeed.

[Balb]

It is, but whats up with the icon for aggro monsters? >_>

[sruon]

78.3mb patch

[Cooleko]

Worry less about that and more about that fact that dodo/goats arent going to follow you into your AOE spam on levequests anymore!

[Amastacia]

The instance seen kind of scares me im all for instances becoming a major endgame event, but people that want to camp HNM the gear should be the best in the game or equivalent to the hardest instances. For the people that are dedicated and want to stand at a camp for 3-5 day every 15 or 30 mins should be rewarded more then people that are lazy who want to show up at a set time and play for 2-3 hours spamming an instance with their group

Go fuck yourself.

The patience to deal with horrible game design is not dedication. Masochism, more like.

And how does regular, active participation in content equate to lazy, when standing around doing nothing for 3 days at a stretch waiting for an internet dragon to pop isn't? You're not doing jack shit in-game, why should you get the best drops for standing around with your thumb up your ass?

And to address the second post there you had to clarify... new world NM was cool the first couple times until you figured out how to kill it efficiently. There's nothing "classic" about fighting Tiamat or DI repeatedly. And the fights got pretty fucking boring after you figured out what you were doing. Maybe there were lulz to be had in watching baddies struggle, but those baddies don't always fail, and those are drops you're not getting.

How much more epic would Tiamat be if the fight actually required more than a little crowd control and fire kits to make it mindless? You know, like if they could pop her in an instance, script the environment and AI to throw all sorts of crazy curveballs your way, and not have to worry about what other people might do (since there aren't any). And then, when you kill her, you rip her fucking talon off or something, and throw it, along with the talons you've collected from Ouryu, Jormungand, Vrtra, Nidhogg, and and Yilbegan elsewhere in the instance or in other instances, down at Bahamut's feet, spit in his face, and entice him into battling you so that you can make him your bitch too? And when he bends over and calls you daddy, he loads you down with loot that would make a world HNM-geared WAR's penis fall off from how hard he fapped?

oh god why did people even consider option 2. That never works in a MMO thanks to asshats.

Makes perfect sense if you actually want instances. If they implement an 8 man party size, and you want a 20 man instance, it'd be pretty bitching if everyone could get in on the XP and the rewards.

Doesn't make much sense for world spawns, no, so don't implement it for that. And just don't give them any drops worth standing around for days waiting for, or botting for.

[Mioko Lockheart]

To respond to the idiot Amastacia.....It took months for people to figure out the best strat to kill Nms like Tiamat etc. The fun is learning how to fight these NM's and even then not having the right party set up or not having certain members online made it hard which is why even the best of linkshells wiping sometimes. Nms like that added competition into the game and lore to the world.

What is boring is going through the same damn dungeon everyday fighting the final boss having several different drops until everyone in your ls has it and never doing the instance again like in Wow that is boring. Anything you do in an MMO is boring after while because the game stands for years just like people think Leves are boring as we speak its the same thing. No matter what you do in an MMO is boring after while so that argument is stupid.

No one said other events shouldn't drop the same gear why they had einherjar for example but for the people that wanted to camp HNMs it was fun or people would never kill them. Botting is what gave NM's the reputation for what they had but Tiamat, Ixion and other NMs which you couldn't bot it was fun running out to camp and killing it with your ls. Sorry you would rather get on at a set time run through a dungeon for years and kill the same final bosses over and over until you get a patch with a new dungeon and boss and do it all over again.

Also your talking about crowd control maybe you should know the fight of the people that zoned undead that pops at night and the mages that time nuked the fire elementals from aggroing the pld, the red mages keeping slow and para, whms running in getting protect and shell off, people stunning the firaga's all of that i guess isn't strategy. Same with khimaira and Ixion fights but i guess you played the game and forgot about all that

[Amastacia]

We'll just fundamentally disagree here. I can't think of anything more boring or idiotic than standing around doing nothing waiting for a mob to pop.

People won't figure out any well-designed content out overnight. The difference between FFXI HNMs and instanced content is that there are so many constraints put on HNM design that each new one is quicker to master than the last. People wiped to Tiamat for ages after it came out and were farming DI within a week. The mob itself is different and behaves differently, but since it's open world there are relatively few opportunities for real surprises.

And what's worse... not doing a dungeon ever again after a year, or still fucking farming Tiamat 4 years later because her drop never got obsoleted?

The nature of MMOs is onward and upward. If done right, the current best gear is virtually needed to get the new best gear in a timely fashion. Your effort isn't wasted because the time taken to get what you're wearing directly pays off to get something even cooler in a year.

If I'm even thinking about killing the stupid NMs FFXIV has now in two years (other than for shits and grins), SE has fucked up again.

[Mioko Lockheart]

I agree i fully accept the WOW approach in which all gear should be obtainable by all players hard core and casual. They can't take the FF 11 approach which is why the game was unplayable a few years after Xbox release because it was geared towards hardcore players even though i was one of them it was flawed.

I 100% agree with dungeon crawls with your ls or small groups of people to obtain gear but i still would personally like to see HNMs running around Eorza popping at different windows and Linkshells scrambling to claim and wiping as long as they can keep the bot situation down and people holding the NM's for hours i agreed that was flawed, but i am only one person i agree the game should go in the direction of what most players want i just hope everythins isn't about dungeon crawling if i wanted to do that i would go hop on Baldu'rs Gate again

[Aratharn]

If they do any more open world NM's in conjunction with instances, just don't have 21-24 hr spawns.. have 2-24hr spawns or 12-36.. not in 30 minute intervals or anything that can be predicted.. Or even use what they have now where they can spawn anytime during the day/night/weather effect.

[Lucavi]

I just want to say that I love the way he talks. This guy "gets it" about MMOs. Whatever it is that brings people to MMOs across all types, he has a talent for speaking to those people. I wish I could email him directly and say that.