Comments from the Devs

[Eagleheart]

Got all excited about latest letter from the producer x.x basically a rehash of what the mods posted in OF earlier this week. Rats.... was hoping for screenies and things.

[Raldo]

Wait, has the two-jobs-for-one-class thing been confirmed? It seems like such an obviously advantageous route to take, I just haven't heard of it actually happening. In fact, I seem to remember someone saying that Yoshi had no plans for it.

It has been mentioned officially only in a statement like "It won't be in at 2.0 launch, but it could happen in the future."

[LD]

It would be a slow starter, but once you have the right base new stuff doesn't take nearly as long. For a pro using the right software, UV'ing anything shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours. This can happen while making the game because the framework for the new races is the same as the old ones. Same/similar polycounts, similiar skeleton and rig (depends on race specifics, like the need for flappy ears or tail). Only textures would be significantly different, but the texture size and split would be the same as other characters (IE if all chars use 1024x1024 textures for the face, a new race isn't going to use 2048x2048 or some other shit). Normals are pretty much automatically generated when you have the hi-poly model, so the only edits you really need to do are to clean up the normal map, this process is only as long as it takes to make the hi-poly model. Sometimes this can take weeks, other times it can be done in hours. Mileage varies with experience and expertise which you can assume SE has a crapton of.

Basically what I'm saying is once this stuff has been done a couple of times it becomes far easier and faster to do the rest. In terms of making characters I wouldn't be surprised if SE is reusing the hands for all races and making minor changes, same with the feet, possibly the ears, the eyes, mouth box.

So are you saying it's reasonable to ask for whole races in addition to the ones we're already expecting (male mithras, etc.)?

Personally, I think they never had a good base in the first place. A lot of time was probably spent scaling back from shaders doing everything, as SE put it, and re-mapping to increase optimization. It doesn't matter how easy or fast it is to do in a vacuum. There's all the other shit they have to do, getting all of that working and looking good is more important than an entirely new race just for the sake of it. Of course they COULD do it, that was never the question. The question is whether or not it would be worth working on that over equipment or monsters or making sure the older races get enough QA attention.

I didn't think I had to explicitly state that it wasn't just the work that goes into modeling the race, it's all that COMBINDED with the announced work and put on a timetable. I don't know SE's pipeline, Hell maybe they need to clean it up. All I know is video game modeling has a bunch of parts and I've seen fantastic modelers make great work that had fewer variables than SE's. The more variables there are, the more time it takes to find and fix problems. That's why Yoshi looked like he was going to murder everyone with a rusty knife before collapsing into a coma.

[Spider-Dan]

Oh god can we please stop with this nonsense? PLD already has a strong Cure and THM does not need to heal, they need to give it another purpose that's not healing.

The game needs another healing class. I don't particularly care about PLD getting Cura; it has no major impact (and PLD can use anything it can get), but it makes more sense than putting in some sort of special rule that only THM and BRD can use Cura.

Making Cura cross class is a really stupid idea.... if all classes can equip it CNJ/WHM will easily be replaced.

1) CNJ was completely obsoleted the day WHM was released. It's probably the most useless class in the game. No impact (Cura is R30).
2) WHM is not at all affected by PLD/THM/BRD getting Cura, as those three are still vastly less effective as healers (Curaga/Presence of Mind/Shroud of Saints/Blissful Mind/various traits).

We need a new healing class/job that works with White Mage and not against it.

No, we need a healing job that is a workable (but not necessarily superior) substitute. Adding another job that can only work with/supplement WHM does nothing, as everything is still bottlenecked at WHM. At an early stage of the game, it's fine to require WHM for "serious" stuff, but there is a major void when it comes to a main healer for something like an exp/spiritbond party. The game has the same bottleneck that early XI did, only worse (because there isn't even RDM to pick up the slack).

2.0 needs some sort of relief for the tank and healer bottlenecks.

[Elcura]

So are you saying it's reasonable to ask for whole races in addition to the ones we're already expecting (male mithras, etc.)?

I think it's reasonable if it's what everyone wants and it's worth the time and money to do. It's not reasonable just because you can, because despite my last post it's still hard work (and quite a lot of it).

Personally, I think they never had a good base in the first place. A lot of time was probably spent scaling back from shaders doing everything, as SE put it, and re-mapping to increase optimization. It doesn't matter how easy or fast it is to do in a vacuum. There's all the other shit they have to do, getting all of that working and looking good is more important than an entirely new race just for the sake of it. Of course they COULD do it, that was never the question. The question is whether or not it would be worth working on that over equipment or monsters or making sure the older races get enough QA attention.

For the most part, the people doing the character models are doing just that, while the people tying it together are also doing just that alongside them. I'm saying once all is done, adding a new race is mostly a matter of just making that new race, which isn't as hard as you might think if all else is functioning correctly (but again, it's still difficult because making that race to the same quality and standard as the others might be difficult in its own way).

The only problem with making a new race is that it increases the amount of extra work to do on top of the race. Stuff like animating their attacks and giving them versions of all existing equipment (which might need modification if the race has unique features). Every race you add increases the amount of work you need to do on top of it when you include new weapons, armour and skills (and classes/jobs), though iirc SE had a nice way of modifying equipment so that isn't as much of a problem, but everything else probably is and even if it isn't it'll still take more time with than without. But this was 1.0 stuff, so things might have (or need) to change for 2.0, so it could be faster or slower still.

I didn't think I had to explicitly state that it wasn't just the work that goes into modeling the race, it's all that COMBINDED with the announced work and put on a timetable. I don't know SE's pipeline, Hell maybe they need to clean it up. All I know is video game modeling has a bunch of parts and I've seen fantastic modelers make great work that had fewer variables than SE's. The more variables there are, the more time it takes to find and fix problems. That's why Yoshi looked like he was going to murder everyone with a rusty knife before collapsing into a coma.

I can't say I know precisely what's going on with SEs pipeline, but generally all character models face the same problems, so testing new races for problems is easier and faster than testing the initial bunch. But if I know anything about game development, it's that it is often unpredictable at the best of times and completely fucking broken at the worst. No doubt a new race means new problems, but again if the benefits outweigh the cost I don't think it's much of a problem to add a new race alongside the rest of the stuff that needs to go into 2.0.

[Charismatic]

but again if the benefits outweigh the cost I don't think it's much of a problem to add a new race alongside the rest of the stuff that needs to go into 2.0.

They don't though, so who cares?

[Alkar]

1) CNJ was completely obsoleted the day WHM was released. It's probably the most useless class in the game. No impact (Cura is R30).
2) WHM is not at all affected by PLD/THM/BRD getting Cura, as those three are still vastly less effective as healers (Curaga/Presence of Mind/Shroud of Saints/Blissful Mind/various traits).

I'm talking about every other class in the game. If everyone can equip Cura it'll make WHM a lot less useful to the point that simply sticking to classes will be enough to overcome any possible advantage and even if you don't a couple BRDs will easily replace the job completely (on top of PLD getting one extra cure and all the THMs). It's a stupid idea that makes no sense when you consider why it was never possible in the first place when they reformed all classes.

No, we need a healing job that is a workable (but not necessarily superior) substitute. Adding another job that can only work with/supplement WHM does nothing, as everything is still bottlenecked at WHM. At an early stage of the game, it's fine to require WHM for "serious" stuff, but there is a major void when it comes to a main healer for something like an exp/spiritbond party. The game has the same bottleneck that early XI did, only worse (because there isn't even RDM to pick up the slack).

2.0 needs some sort of relief for the tank and healer bottlenecks.

It's not possible to create a job or class that covers a very specific role like healing and it not being worse/better than White Mage. It either is or isn't unless it's a carbon copy when it comes to effects. By creating a class that works with one instead you simply reduce the number of required healers by half which is the biggest part of the issue. On top of that content finder will help a lot too.

[vadre]

And yet, other MMOs have multiple healing classes that are able to compete with one another to a point where there isn't a static requirement for an encounter. The general structure of a healer might be the same (one strong/fast heal, one slow/efficient heal, one fast/expensive heal or whatever) but that certainly doesn't remove the opportunity to make each one different and unique.

And also, it has been suggested by devs a few times (e.g. yoshi giving the example of DRk stemming from gladiator in an interview, which provoked a lot of discussion) that multiple jobs will come from each class. Otherwise, the whole system is pretty redundant and they might as well have just renamed classes and given them AF.

[solracht]

It's not possible to create a job or class that covers a very specific role like healing and it not being worse/better than White Mage. It either is or isn't unless it's a carbon copy when it comes to effects.

Best post of 2012.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt though: as long as the other healing class/job is close enough, nobody will care. Technically one thing is always going to be better - the goal should be making the options so close that the difference is very hard to spot unless you're under very, very specific conditions. I don't think this is what you meant, however.

Examples: Look no further than Warcraft.

[Elcura]

They don't though, so who cares?

I do? Personally I'd like to see more races because the ones we have now aren't exactly diverse. But the point of the conversation is to show whether or not we (as people merely speculating and not knowing anything truly accurate about the process) think they can or can't do it.

I didn't think explaining this to someone who obviously doesn't care was needed. If you don't give a shit, ignore the conversation.

[Grey Jorildyn]

There is no racial diversity at all, other than cosmetic. The only reason to pick one race over the other is it is more visually appealing to you personally. There are no racial traits, abilities, or spells of any kind whatsoever at this point. It's all the same crap whether you add bunny chicks or goblins.

In the live letter Yoshi said they would stick with what's there now due to modifying all current gear for those models. Adding more races would add more time to the process right now so it's not top priority. It is feasible though.

[Niiro]

In a game where you only have 1 main character because you can play any class that's kinda the better option.

People should be allowed to play whichever race they want based on aesthetics rather than be penalized because that race performs poorly at jobs they might want to play. While the homogenized character animations do make things a bit more dull it avoids the issues that arise when certain race animations are unique for their own sake (see: the epidemic of elvaan F autism in XI).

Imo there should just be a race/sex change option that lets you recreate your char for a fee (like server transfers). They've already stated that RSE underwear is getting removed to work like regular gear so the only RSE left would be the new starter sets which you can just get from NPCs for most likely nothing (as if lvl 1 gear lasts long anyway). Would allow people to play as different races without someone having to come up with a 3rd party program like in XI (think it was gearmod? was an awesome app) and give SE some extra revenue for essentially vanity stuff.

[Elcura]

My point about race diversity is purely aesthetic because we have: Human, tall human, short human, wide human and cat human (I say cat human because they're far more human--especially in XIV--than they are cat). Maybe if they could give all these human subsets some unique customizable traits in character creation to not make them so boring it would be alright, but we haven't exactly seen that sort of customization yet (and here's to hoping). But generally you look at the lineup of races and it isn't that exciting. Adding Viera or a reptile race or hell, even Moogles (as a few friends would say as a joke) would great increase the visual diversity of the world. Not just from an NPC stand point either.

Looking at a couple other MMOs quickly, Tera has: Human, tall humans, horned humans, dragon people, lolis, furries and giants. GW2 has: weird shorties, plant people, humans, tall humans and furries. Whether it's feasible or not to create new races, SE dug themselves into a bit of a hole by copying the extremely limited race choices that XI gave you. But at least in XI Galka looked weirder and Mithra looked more feline, whereas in XIV these two races are basically just humans with different proportions.

I agree that races only need cosmetic differences, and not any statistical difference because that would be gay (like it was in XI).

[Lucavi]

So are you saying it's reasonable to ask for whole races in addition to the ones we're already expecting (male mithras, etc.)?.

Yosh already said that he wanted to include a beast-like, feral race at some point; something like a Lizard, that looks nothing like the cute characters we're always saddled with. Whether it happens or not is anyone's guess, but the wheels have turned for that idea, yes.

@Alkar: You're wrong about that. Perhaps you're right in a strictly FF-lore sense (which is restricted to Whms, Rdms, and potentially Dancers or Bards, but in terms of MMOs, you're wrong. So wrong. So terribly wrong.

There are dozens of ways to effectively heal that vary from one to another. Again, watch a Cholomancer from Rift if you want to see a crazy awesome way of effectively keeping a party topped off.

Hell if SE really wanted to get crazy (AWESOME!), they could introduce the FFT version of Samurai with Sword Spirits. Murasame, anyone? INT modifier? Massive AOE healing?

[Aratharn]

Will you indulge my laziness and just give a quick rundown on how Cholomancer works in Rift?

[Lucavi]

Sure. There's a debuff that refreshes quickly that you "place" on enemies. From that point on, any damage you deal to the mob will transfer a large percent of it dealt to your allies. Thus, the harder (and faster) you hit, the more you heal everyone in your party (or AOE if in PVP). Chloros also have single target insta-heals for "oh shit" moments, castable AOE heals to keep people topped off, and had a nifty "cocoon" move that jacked up the caster's defense, absorbed a portion of damage, rendered them immobile and recharged their mp very quickly, for those times in a fight where things are going smoothly and they want to top off. Before you start comparing it to dancer, it was far, FAR superior to dancer, both in damage and in healing utility.

It was a well-designed class and was fun to play because you actually got to beat the piss out of the mob as a main healer or a support. The job was outright absurd as a support healer, though; keeping the group topped off while someone else more suited to large, direct heals focused on the tank, for example. It was so much fun that people actually ran it in PVP, and nobody usually wants to be a healer unless they're joined to the hip of a tank buddy.

Bottom line, there's a lot of ways to do healing. It doesn't always have to be this kindly little frail white mage curebombing everyone. That's how its done in FF, sure, but people that say that there's no other way to do it need to get out more and see what other ideas are out there first.

[Spider-Dan]

I'm talking about every other class in the game. If everyone can equip Cura it'll make WHM a lot less useful to the point that simply sticking to classes will be enough to overcome any possible advantage and even if you don't a couple BRDs will easily replace the job completely (on top of PLD getting one extra cure and all the THMs). It's a stupid idea that makes no sense when you consider why it was never possible in the first place when they reformed all classes.

I'd say Cura was not available in the class reform for a different reason: to make a greater distinction between CNJ and THM. Now that jobs exist (and BLM has no access at all to cure spells), such a distinction is no longer necessary. There is more than enough distinction between WHM and BLM, CNJ is completely useless, and THM is only marginally less so.

No one is going to use LNC/PGL/MRD over DRG/MNK/WAR just because they have Cura. Classes already have access to much more than that and they are fully obsoleted outside of lowman situations (and even then, you wouldn't use class over job if you had a WHM with you, unless you desperately needed a backup Raise).

It's not possible to create a job or class that covers a very specific role like healing and it not being worse/better than White Mage. It either is or isn't unless it's a carbon copy when it comes to effects.

THM/BRD with Cura are still significantly worse than WHM. That's the point: while they would be no substitute for WHM in "serious" events, they would be an adequate substitute for exp or similar pickup-level events.

The goal isn't to replace, or even compete with, WHM... it's to provide a middle-tier healer that can allow you to leave town with decent healing. Right now, the drop off is from best healer directly to totally inadequate healer.

By creating a class that works with one instead you simply reduce the number of required healers by half which is the biggest part of the issue.

By creating a healer class that works with WHM, you do absolutely nothing to alleviate situations in which 1 WHM is currently needed. You only help with 2 WHM scenarios (which, again, are "serious" events).

On top of that content finder will help a lot too.

Content finder will not magically create more WHMs. The bottleneck still exists.

[xopher]

Just play WHM Dan. You've solved your problem.

[Lucavi]

They could have did a lot more with Blu to make them a viable healer. There's still time to have blu spec into different focuses, should they ever decide to bring the class back.

[Spider-Dan]

Just play WHM Dan. You've solved your problem.

"Job change menu" has never been a valid substitute for class/job bottlenecks. The solution to early XI RNG dominance was not "just play RNG."