Dev Tracker

[Gokulo]

No one cares about "Play as a monster", Treasure Caskets are fine, who the fuck cares about fellows, and the F8 key thing might be useful if we could customize it in some way, but still pretty useless.

Pointless update is pointless.

You're such an awesome voice of the community.

[Karbuncle]

No one cares about "Play as a monster", Treasure Caskets are fine, who the fuck cares about fellows, and the F8 key thing might be useful if we could customize it in some way, but still pretty useless.

Pointless update is pointless.

You hating these updates so much... God save your addicted little ass if you actually still play this game.

[machiko]

If anyone finds the content they are now putting out offensive, just quit and play something else. There are some awesome games out now so try something else. Worry about them just letting go of FFXI if subs drop is no excuse, they are treading it into the ground anyway and subs drastically falling is the only thing they are going to listen to here. I was constantly pissed off about what they were doing to FFXI and then I just said fuck it and ordered the Tera beta, been having a blast ever since (once I got past the boring training isle anyway).

If you do unsub make a post saying why on the official forums, so there is no doubt they know why monthly subs are going down. I regret not doing this before I lost access to on the official forums. I know nobody cares if you quit or stay but they need to know what is making 5++ year vets leave.

[Genosync]

I'd agree if it wasn't a stupid fucking mindset regardless of the funds Tanaka's game is lacking. His game is in decline and his game is hemorrhaging players so the challenge is to design roadblocks that keeps people playing until the next version update comes out which is fine. Let's use the Heavy Metal Plate example because it affects practically every player in the current XI endgame scene:

Tanaka's method: 1500 plates with drops being set crushingly low which leads to high prices. Naturally this eliminates many casual players from ever finishing their Empyrean and your upper crust may consider 1-2 weapons worth 99'ing. Tanaka alienates casuals from ever being attempting to finish (a la old relics) their weapons, rich people finish the trial but largely from not doing the content.

How many people actually finished the 95 and 99 trials by doing Voidwatch for all 1500 plates? Right, thought so.

Alternative and not fucking retarded method: Set the goal to 1500 plates but also set the rates of plates higher in such a fashion that by repeating the content you can eventually finish the trial. In such a method your casuals can at least feel they're going somewhere (albeit slowly) and your hardcores might speed through their first Emp but guess what? They'll want more plates for the other 6 weapons they've got sitting around which keeps them busy and eventually your casuals might actually finish a second weapon.

A win-win scenario for both players and Tanaka who needs 3 months to churn out the next fuckup.

Also, why the the final Emp/Relic/Mythic result didn't naturally just glow as a "good job" gesture from SE is beyond me. Instead they attach the effect to a no-lifer tier trial with zero benefits for completing the trial besides what has to be the most humorous area effect the team could come up with.

I really wish Tanaka would just get at up fan fest and in his most engrishy voice start the event with "Fuck you guys" right into the mic.

1500 metal plates. Make a guaranteed one drop from every VW Tier 3/4 based on the area. Make pouches drop 50% from the main nation Tier 4s or Tier 3s of the others. Maybe Tier2 of some of the newer ones too, idk because I stopped caring. Make pouches give you an average of 10 over the course of time. No less than 5 (to prevent INSANE frustration), no more than 15.

Minimum fights needed to finish a weapon: 1500/16 = round up to 94
Average number of fights needed to finish a weapon: 10/2 (pouch rate) = 5, +1 per fight, 250 fights total. This is about 62.5 hours of work total if you're looking at it from an optimal point of view, but now it finishes 18 people's weapons at once (which honestly is a little... not right now that I'm looking at it. that's too quick).

^ combination of tanaka's beloved Random Balance along with some logic applied. However now I'm starting to see something. And it's kind of frustrating.


If you're farming as a group in Abyssea, everyone is effectively giving up their drops to someone to upgrade them. Voidwatch, this isn't the case.

Let's take the amount of time it takes to upgrade weapons into account here.

Doing a weapon twobox style, let's throw a value of an hour on two drops for 80 and 85. Yes, some of the weapons might be less than this, some might be more, but let's not argue about something ridiculous like this right now since we're just trying to analyze an average of time spent for all players. I know I can do mine faster, I don't care. Hour's good enough for this.

Anyway, this means after all the pre-trial work to get to the 80 trial (which counts too!), it's going to take you 25 hours of work at best to do those stages.

Good luck doing the 90 stage solo. This isn't always easy due to the mobs involved (think about this from 90 cap days). If you want to brew the pops and can multibox, you're looking at a potential gil investment (not very high anymore iirc) and time, so we'll call it yet again another hour for two drops. 37.5 hours. That's 87.5 hours to get your weapon to this point by yourself/extremely small group.

Now, if you're with an alliance, this is going to take a lot less time if you're doing this properly. A group I was in could do 60 drops for an 80/85 in like what, 6 or 7 hours? Let's just use that for now. So 10 an hour (two separate weapons at once). We'll call the manpower needed for one stage for one person at 5 hours just to relate it to metal plates.

A 90 upgrade took even less time for most of them. Pended on if it was pop items, or key item/KI from random pop. We'll say you could get those at a rate of 15 an hour since those were the most common ones done (and that's lowballing it). Again, that's 5 hours.

Now let's take new model for VW and pool all the metal plates together for one person. 3.5 hours. And this is getting people to give up things that are rightfully given to them, which is not what VW was intended to be like, so it should not be included in the Devs' model anyway; it's just a nice comparison to be able to look at.

I'm not going to edit this post in order to show my flawed logic at one point (after I figured out the 62.5 hours for 1500 plates gotten solo was too quick!), but... in essence this pretty much shows that making the metal plates that common of a drop would have fit a pretty fucking decent model for both solo attainment and group attainment.

God, and I did all of this thought within an hour at work, while getting work done in between...

[Weeks]

Very happy with the prospect of casket changes, very frustrated with people who smugly state that the system is fine because they don't realize you shouldn't lose puzzle minigames by design.

[Khajit]

Remember when we actually looked forward to updates?

[machiko]

God, and I did all of this thought within an hour at work, while getting work done in between...

Know what it's like? It's like going back a few years before Abyssea and reading all the end-gamers coming up with good/better ideas for all the problems with the game. It's like when people went to the vanafests with these ideas and were laughed at.

The sheer unbelievable nature of kings in the day and how they let it go on and on and on, then everythign changed and they understood. Now they are back to fuck you mode.

Maybe they will implement something like you posted, when Tanaka goes off onto FFXV or something. He is way to stubborn to ever change his base ideas. I'm still amazed there have been no more HNM additions, that was super cheap content that lasted for 5-6 years, Tanaka specials.

[NynJa]

Very happy with the prospect of casket changes, very frustrated with people who smugly state that the system is fine because they don't realize you shouldn't lose puzzle minigames by design.

The first digit is either 1, 2, or 3.
The combination is between 15 and 39.
The first digit is odd.

True story

[Septimus]

The first digit is either 1, 2, or 3.
The combination is between 15 and 39.
The first digit is odd.

True story

Smells like balance to me.

Oh, and don't forget "You were unable to glean anything from your examination of the lock." It's awesome when that one comes up because you still lose a turn!

[Teryu]

Wait what? I have never gotten that message before. But now that you've said it I bet it will start happening now.

[Septimus]

Wait what? I have never gotten that message before. But now that you've said it I bet it will start happening now.

It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does it is super awesome. And by "super awesome", I mean "one of the biggest loads of shit I have ever witnessed."

I think it has happened to me on three occasions. Seriously, what sadistic asshole comes up with shit like this? Cut to the S-E offices...

[Madeline]

It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does it is super awesome. And by "super awesome", I mean "one of the biggest loads of shit I have ever witnessed."

I think it has happened to me on three occasions. Seriously, what sadistic asshole comes up with shit like this? Cut to the S-E offices...

I chuckled a little. Sometimes this really does feel like a bad sitcom and we're the guys that just cant win for losing.

[Yugl]

Surprised to see us missing a few posts. SE really need to give us some cake in return for whatever the fuck BG does for them:

Hello!

As we have finally reached the final chapter for Voidwatch, starting with the upcoming version update we will be implementing adjustments focusing on making this content more enjoyable.

• Adjustment content
  
  • Upcoming version update (scheduled for mid-May)
    
    • Adjustments to drop rates and number of drops from Provenance Watcher
    • Crystal Petrifact stack quantity increased from 12 to 99
  • Next version update
    
    • Application of the weakness system of the final chapter to all the other chapters
    • Implementation of ticket system for specific items
    • Implementation of a system where weakening monsters is possible through paying a fee (Excluding the final chapter)
    
    　
  • Objective
    As I mentioned at the top, we will be making this content more enjoyable, but to go into a bit more detail on this, the idea is centralized around those who are coming in late and did not do this content as it came out with everyone as well as those players who cannot log in during peak times.
    
    Specifically, we are planning to increase the options to counter situations such as not being able to participate when there is a shout due to progression issues, lacking members to defeat a monster, and the strong desire to obtain a certain item.

This post was intended to serve as an outline for the adjustments and the objective behind them, but we will be bringing you specific details for each adjustment in the near future.

Oldish:

We have a few more things to add regarding gamepad controls for the new UI for the PC version.

The concept for this new UI is to improve mouse and keyboard controls, since currently the game is much easier to control with a gamepad.

Integral aspects of the new UI, such as multi-windows, continual macro display and drag-&-drop are all UI features that require a pointing devise such as a mouse. These features are very difficult to control using direction keys and analog sticks on gamepads. As such, using the multi-window interface with a gamepad will actually be more difficult to maneuver than the current interface, which goes against our objective of improving usability.

For the above reasons, we would suggest that gamepad users continue to use the current UI, and mouse and keyboard users use the new UI. Players will be able to freely choose whichever UI that suits them better. However, there are some other adjustments in the new UI, such as multi-logs and recast displays, which will only be available on the new UI due to the required memory size and system specs.

We understand that gamepad users would also like to utilize these new UI features, so we will do our best to make the new UI as maneuverable as possible for gamepad users.

As it is very difficult to have it both ways with this UI, the recommended operating environment for the new UI will be mouse and keyboard.

Also, the features included in the new UI require more memory than the current UI, so as stated earlier, the new UI is impossible to implement on platforms with fixed memory, such as PS2 and Xbox360.

Livin' la vida Limbus

Happy Friday everyone!

I have some more information on the Limbus renewal I’d like to share:

• Any plans for area instancing?
Changing the non-instanced Limbus after the fact to be instanced would require large changes to the entry area and the process as well as the possibility that it affects other instanced content, so considering these aspects it is not something we can easily do.

As an alternative direction for congestion, we are making it so that every participant will receive the key item when clearing route 1. This removes the need to repeat runs over and over to get everyone this key item and makes it easier for players to get together and challenge the content.
　
• Why are metal chips included in the participation requirements?
This is basically a continuation of the regular Limbus progression flow, receiving ancient beast coins as well as various chips, and using these to progress to the higher tier version of the content.

If we were to eliminate this process, it would definitely become easy to access the higher tier route, but congestion would become an issue. Based on this idea we have set the rewards and would like to maintain the current metal chip requirement.

Instead, we plan on making adjustments to go along with the large amount of ancient beast coins that are consumed. For example, adding a system for exchanging the chips required for the original Proto-Omega/Proto-Ultima battles for ancient beast coins and other ways to obtain them while also making sure there are merits for doing the currently existing Limbus content.
　
• How many ancient beast coins will drop in the higher tier expansion areas?
We are currently adjusting the drops right now, but we are thinking it will be possible to obtain around 40-50 coins if you defeat all the enemies in Temenos/Apollyon.
(What we are imagining is if the drops are good, then you will be able to obtain a metal chip in a single run.)
　
• Any plans for AF+1 revamps?
We understand that there are a lot of requests for this, but we feel that this would take players away from the new routes, so we will only be adding revamped Homam/Nashira and new gear.

[Khajit]

pay to weaken the monster? What kind of bullshit is this?

[Selamis]

I love how they always are worried about congestion for these new revamps on old content and within a a week or two there's hardly anyone doing them for one reason or another.

[Madeline]

I love how they always are worried about congestion for these new revamps on old content and within a a week or two there's hardly anyone doing them for one reason or another.

The only ones to ever have that problem were the ones that were actually fun.

Wait! I'm seeing a pattern here.. If the content is fun, then you can concern yourself with congestion issues! But they never did that when it actually mattered. I am relatively sure that I do not even.

I think that's part of the problem. They're too busy taking care of/paying attention to all the wrong things and they continue to release a bunch of rubbish for content that provides less entertainment than your average cardboard box and is a thousand times more frustrating.

Every update note it's the same crap. We can't do x because of y, it would be difficult to implement c because of b. They defeat themselves before they even get started. The company nor the people under seem to have the mind to create good games/content.

I'm ending my subscriptions this month after having payed since 05 or so and I've never let them lapse. It's a travesty where this game ended up and it's even worse that people just continue to put up with it. I'm here for fun and I can finally say, this game is just not fun and with whoever is currently at the helm, it never will be.

Apologies for the off-topic rant. I'm just utterly disgusted by the way the Development Bros. have been acting lately.

[KCem]

• Any plans for AF+1 revamps?
We understand that there are a lot of requests for this, but we feel that this would take players away from the new routes, so we will only be adding revamped Homam/Nashira and new gear.

Um.. Add the inevitable items/conditions needed to upgrade AF+1 to the new routes ? Or am I misinterpreting the question here and people are asking SE to do-over the stats on AF+1 ?

[Tagus]

If anyone finds the content they are now putting out offensive, just quit and play something else. There are some awesome games out now so try something else. Worry about them just letting go of FFXI if subs drop is no excuse, they are treading it into the ground anyway and subs drastically falling is the only thing they are going to listen to here. I was constantly pissed off about what they were doing to FFXI and then I just said fuck it and ordered the Tera beta, been having a blast ever since (once I got past the boring training isle anyway).

If you do unsub make a post saying why on the official forums, so there is no doubt they know why monthly subs are going down. I regret not doing this before I lost access to on the official forums. I know nobody cares if you quit or stay but they need to know what is making 5++ year vets leave.

I lost access to the official forums as well. Started up playing the original Guild Wars, as I skipped it when it came out due to FFXI... it's enlightening, playing another MMO. Once you access an area, you hit the map and click a town, and you warp there instantly. It's like... holy shit. I can actually accomplish something in an hour or less, with virtually no prep time or random hoop jumps. The prestige of my accomplishments might not revolve completely around pride in the sheer force of will it takes to stick with the game.

But anyways, I know this thread isn't about quitting ffxi so I'll let you guys stick to it. Thanks to the contributors to this thread, because it's the source of my ffxi info regarding current trends in the game. It's fun to read.

[Yugl]

Once you access an area, you hit the map and click a town, and you warp there instantly. It's like... holy shit.

I've wanted a feature like that even if you can only teleport to particular sections of a town.

[calinz]

I've wanted a feature like that even if you can only teleport to particular sections of a town.

Technically already in the game. But only in Windurst lol. The tarutaru NPCs will warp you between the different parts of windurst. However they're not very convinient since they have a fixed zone they warp you to and require some walking to get to them as well. The system could easily be expanded and included in all cities but it's SE...