Letter from the Producer IX (5/2/2011)

[Alkar]

My only concern is that if the battle and job changes can be done gradually, then the complete change is not going to be different enough to make a difference. It just does not seem like they are going to revamp anything just build upon the shitty system in place.

They've already changed the battle system once and it was a pretty big change. Gradual change doesn't mean small, it simply means that some parts of the combat system will be changed first (like the Stamina bar, class abilities, etc.) and other parts (job system for example) may get added later on.
I just hope we get some posts this week that list some of the changes that will take place.
In the meantime I need to hit r30 lol. Shouldn't take long even if I'm forced to solo all of it.

[Sephiroth]

R30 is so easy to get. I started MRD last night and will be 24 after the behest at half past. Two non-linked rank 1 leves on 5 stars took me and two others from 1-8. 3 leves at Drybone (one linked) 3-4 stars and a couple of behests and we were 15. Then off to Horizon for 7-9k per half hour on behests there. It does slow down when you hit 21 but it's super fast without even having to grind. If you did some 20 leves among the behests you'd get there faster. So yeah a hardcore player could do 1-30 in a day, casual you could do it in 3-4.

If they would have waited a year I don't see it being that much better. A lot of these changes are due to people playing all this time.

Ideally the game would still be in a proper beta right now and they'd be doing what they are now. It's just a shame that it took the game flopping at release to wake the company up. Hopefully it will recover and then we can forget this mess in a couple of years.

[Alkar]

I don't have much time to play lately. I got 21-23 in a bunch of solo leves though, gotta love those Necrologos ones lol.
And I guess Bodhum is pretty much dead anyway, I hardly ever see people around.

[Lucavi]

The amount of "omg quest hubs and low level dungeons - this isn't WoW" bawwing thats going on on those forums is absolutely unheard of.

Tee hee.

Hubs look good, though.

[Lordender]

Hubs is a cool idea but I hope at least those quests give SP. I don't really see many people doing them if its anything like current quests where you get maybe 5-100 shards, gil, item of low rank.

Fuck those people who are whining "omg that this is WoW" there is nothing wrong with taking idea's from a widely successful MMO and putting your own spin on it. This game will never be WoW no matter what they do to it so lets just get that right out of the way.

[Croy]

I hope the quest hubs are going to be mostly daily quests with some nice one shot quests sprinkled in the mix. Main problem with a WoW style quest hub is unlike WoW you can rank up on multiple classes from rank 1-50 on one character. Once the 'quests' are done, you can't use them again on another class if they are all one shot. As for the hubs themselves. They put at least 2 or more of these in each sub region it should narrow the zones down and actually make them look less like empty husks; this kind of change is crucial imo. Also that farm territory in all three hubs really makes me long for the ability to garden again ; ;. I hope whenever the player housing is finally implemented we can garden in a locale much like these (I know I wish for far too much).

[Levin]

I like the beastmen's camp. Can't wait to see what the other tribe's ones will look like (if there are any). This is definitely what the mapping needs though, stuff to add into the mix. Maybe they'll even throw in a few landmarks.

[Lucavi]

Psh, we already had "beastman camps" in XI. Those awesome campfires with the 2-3 beastman that would roll around them in circles. Brings back memories; my first time playing the game and laying siege to the campfire outside of Bastok with the level 4-5 quadav.

Good times.

[miokomioko]

Looks fun.

Also, to those crying about system changes, they need to be supplemented somewhat with some environment/aesthetic changes too. This is all for the better.

[Vendog]

That beastman one looks like Movapolos.

[Draylo]

Looks fun.

Also, to those crying about system changes, they need to be supplemented somewhat with some environment/aesthetic changes too. This is all for the better.

Yeah of course but theres been almost 0 new info... cmon.

[Tomino]

We could really use some battle infos because it'd be nice to at least prepare to what's coming.
If they're gonna make your favorite jobs available, it would be nice to know their prereq for example. I might be grinding the wrong class if I want to become a Red Mage, for ex.

[Lordender]

Yeah of course but theres been almost 0 new info... cmon.

I don't know what you're expecting though, its going to take 3-4+ patches to complete anything significant in terms of combat/class overhauls. Never ever invest in a SE mmo expecting some ground-breaking update(s) thats going to blow your mind and completely alter the way you feel about the game.

I'm not expecting much out of SE. I fully expect dungeons to be cookie-cutter, hub quests to be really cookie-cutter and offer no SP for a turn in. If/when i'm proven wrong and it ends up being amazing then I got more than what I expected.

[Siatdiat]

We could really use some battle infos because it'd be nice to at least prepare to what's coming.
If they're gonna make your favorite jobs available, it would be nice to know their prereq for example. I might be grinding the wrong class if I want to become a Red Mage, for ex.

If they go the route of requiring you to grind one job to unlock another job.... then they will be fucking up. That would not be a positive change I don't think, grindy bullshit is not what people are looking for in games anymore, at least not so obvious and unfocused. But yeah changes are coming so slow at this point I don't expect much of a basic gameplay adjustment that would cause this game to suddenly become fun, seems to be locked in a groove of the current system and it won't be able to make it too far away from that.

[Gulkeeva]

Well all this mid level ish content will be nice, something to do besides Dunes from R31-> R50

also wouldn't mind "unlocking" new class or some advanced class at R50, something to do and look forward to.

Although once you get most melee/caster classes to R50 as is, you get... one overly overpowered "class mix" could say, that can effortlessly tank/solo/dps anything down with ease >.>
Protect3, shell 3, sentinel, rampart 2, defender 2, obsess 2, feather foot 2, rank 3 heals, forsight 2 ...!

[Siatdiat]

Well all this mid level ish content will be nice, something to do besides Dunes from R31-> R50

also wouldn't mind "unlocking" new class or some advanced class at R50, something to do and look forward to.

Although once you get most melee/caster classes to R50 as is, you get... one overly overpowered "class mix" could say, that can effortlessly tank/solo/dps anything down with ease >.>
Protect3, shell 3, sentinel, rampart 2, defender 2, obsess 2, feather foot 2, rank 3 heals, forsight 2 ...!

This is the quality level of an official forums suggestion.

Inb4 you post woosh and pretend you didn't actually think this was a good idea.

[Gulkeeva]

Just a thought (about the max level thing) I've played a few games that do it, so you technically play over and over again (exmples like Ragnarok online and Nexus of the Winds). Although in RO you don't need to reach max, just a certain stat requirement (when I was playing it).

Nexus of the winds took it a step further to where you would grow your character indefinably (you wouldn't even get close to reaching max level playing 12-14+ hours a day for 3 years), but the thing is, those games gave you something to do/look forward to that entire time, which is something ffxiv currently is lacking (I've seen so many basically quit after R50).

Hopefully the upcoming major changes will add some content for the R50's and not mostly content to make you want to go "level one your lower classes up". For some, there isn't much for them to be doing ingame
http://www.ffxivpro.com/player/Mysidia/Arc-Tea
(especially the botters out there that SE does nothing about)

[Hyan]

Grinding one class to unlock another is not necessarily a bad option. If they want to keep the progression similar to what it is now they would cut the current grind in half (at least). That would probably work quite nicely for casuals, as while you would 'need to' level more than one class, it is a relatively fast process. They could also make you start somewhere between rank 1 and 30 on your "upgraded class", say 15, so that you wouldn't have to start from the scratch (not that there is much to grind to get to 15, but it's more of a psychological thing I guess). Since 1-20 are considered the "tutorial" from now on, there is not much point to making us go through that level range over and over again.

At this point I'm up for either (specs or advanced classes). It's a bit hard to justify doing low rank content other than exping when the process is so fast, but I guess they can figure out some nice perks to help with that (level caps & sync? Yes please). I'm not sure whether they could keep grouping appealing enough either. Well, it's not worth thinking about those issues yet.

In the end I don't see why different features can not reward you with different types of character progression (as opposed to everything being means to achieve a higher rank). Maybe there is something I'm missing there though, not the first time that would be the case. The point is, when you do the [main leveling activity], you level fast and the process is efficient.

[Zubis]

Couldn't these new hubs be the base for both leves and normal quests (that we currently pick up at towns right now)? I mean, the current aetheryte camps are just making me sad. That way they'd be the bases for both leveling and actual storybased content. Since someone brought up how you'd level multiple classes from 1-50 and it'd be pretty weird being able to redo old quests, if they gave exp.

[Vuitton]

I think SE should work on fixing the current 1 - 50 rank progression before they start worrying about secondary "evolved" or "reborn" classes and other such nonsense. For example what is the point of having half of each of the three regions covered with R1-5 mobs when it takes 2-3 leves to get R10? Your first leve literally takes you to R7 or so. That is 7 ranks in less than 5 minutes. You're rank 15 within an hour. I can't even level up that fast in WoW. It takes me about 2-3 hours questing in WoW with all my +% exp heirloom gear to do that, and when I do it I am experiencing the game world (traveling all over the zone). This game you never really the immediate area of the camps for any of the leves and for most of the leves you get sent to the same 2 or 3 areas, sometimes just the same one area.

Why are we ranking up this fast? Is it fun to go from R1 to R7 in a single quest that is completed in the blink of an eye? Then, conversely, ranking up starts to take forever once you get past R30. It is so lopsided. If every rank took roughly as long as each of the R20-R30 ranks, I would be happy. Long enough where you don't feel like its meaningless, and fast enough where you don't feel like it is taking forever. Right now we have both. Front-loading the ranking experience with meaningless speed and rank acquisition, followed by a period of "hey, this isn't that bad, i am kind of having fun", followed by the monotany of "why the fuck is this taking so long for one rank".

Maybe once they can bring some consitency to the ranking system, we can start worrying about unlocking classes (when people are already complaining about being over powered from ranking up so many classes), unlocking "advanced" classes, or having their class "reborn" or "evolved" circa RO-style. Of course this class speculation is all meaningless conjecture since we know they're already planning/currently working on changing the class/job system.

I am happy to see that they're adding new mid-rank and end-rank content since the game's current progression system has the player spend the majority of their time in this rank area. Low rank content might as well be ignored until they figure out how to make those ranks more meaningful, since they go by faster than most people spend masterbating in one session.