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

[Burningthought]

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.

I think the Job system is going to complement the current armoury system and make all the classes more defined. I don't think it's going to be like XI's Advanced jobs. But that's just my speculation.

I will say, I played XIV for about 1-2hrs today, and started picking up some of the random sidequests. I have to say, they are seriously adding that Fantasy atmosphere that I missed from previous FFs. I'm actually stoked to learn about the grand companies, and the impending garlean threat. Now if they can change up the battle system so its actually fun, and not limiting, I'll be a happy camper.

[Sephiroth]

I realise some of you haven't played for a while but when I see suggestions like "cut the current grind in half" I just have to cringe. Sure no one likes grinding, but grinding in this game is a choice and I don't believe it should be possible to go 1-50 in a week. When you get to max rank too quickly you don't really learn your class. I think it's too easy to get to 50 as it is now but that will be balanced out when they up the cap.

[Kaylia]

I realise some of you haven't played for a while but when I see suggestions like "cut the current grind in half" I just have to cringe. Sure no one likes grinding, but grinding in this game is a choice and I don't believe it should be possible to go 1-50 in a week. When you get to max rank too quickly you don't really learn your class. I think it's too easy to get to 50 as it is now but that will be balanced out when they up the cap.

People didnt know their jobs year after dinging 75 in FFXI, and they had like 5 abilities. Knowing your job is all about being not retarded.

[Groovebox]

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.

I pretty much agree with you when it comes to the issues with progression in this game. However, one thing that I think people need to think about more often is that while there may be a shitload of lowbie mobs that are essentially useless... there are a TON of high level mobs that we can't even kill yet. It's obvious they can't raise the level cap anytime soon (but really, who knows... they may!)... but once the level cap is 75 or w/e, breezing through 1-20 won't even make a difference.

EDIT: Another thing I wanted to say was that the progression to 20 was made a lot easier because they wanted people to have quicker access to the first class quest. Maybe they thought by doing that, that it would entice people to want to level up... who knows really, so far all the class quests have been pretty retarded... only ones I really enjoyed were THM and MIN.

[Cichy]

I realise some of you haven't played for a while but when I see suggestions like "cut the current grind in half" I just have to cringe. Sure no one likes grinding, but grinding in this game is a choice and I don't believe it should be possible to go 1-50 in a week. When you get to max rank too quickly you don't really learn your class. I think it's too easy to get to 50 as it is now but that will be balanced out when they up the cap.

Would be less annoying if the ranks actually brought in more new things. Been playing KTera for past month and lvling was really enjoyable because of all the new areas I got to explore and tons of content that I've done otw to 50. 14 lacks that almost completely. Hopefully the quest hubs and lvl 30 and 50 dungeon throw in that "my rank matters" feeling into it but there still more needed.

[Katlan]

please be a good patch, please be a good patch.. I'd like to have a reason to play the game again

[Burningthought]

I want them to bulldoze Ranks and Physical Levels for just one simple Leveling system, make all the classes more defined and unique (hopefully through the job system or w/e they have in store) and make grinding fun. If the battle system is fun to play with, then I won't mind waiting a while for actual content.

I think if they can't get the basic systems easy to use and a lot more fun, it won't matter what content is in the game, people won't want to play it.

Another thing on my wishlist is a better way to display equipment stats and stuff, it still feels really cluttered.

[Cichy]

So the first dungeon supposed to be released mid may still? I'm confused, says mid may but he said that 1st battle changes will happen than but that's not till mid june?

[Corrderio]

I want them to bulldoze Ranks and Physical Levels for just one simple Leveling system, make all the classes more defined and unique (hopefully through the job system or w/e they have in store) and make grinding fun. If the battle system is fun to play with, then I won't mind waiting a while for actual content.

I think if they can't get the basic systems easy to use and a lot more fun, it won't matter what content is in the game, people won't want to play it.

Another thing on my wishlist is a better way to display equipment stats and stuff, it still feels really cluttered.

From how it sounds he's going to get rid of physical levels soon.

So the first dungeon supposed to be released mid may still? I'm confused, says mid may but he said that 1st battle changes will happen than but that's not till mid june?

Unless he changed his mind, not expecting them til June, but we'll see.

[Dakin]

Add DRK or I'm quitting

So the first dungeon supposed to be released mid may still? I'm confused, says mid may but he said that 1st battle changes will happen than but that's not till mid june?

What I understood was dungeons not until mid june, but we will get more info on them this month through the 'reporting' of the grand companies on the info page

[Lucavi]

Would be less annoying if the ranks actually brought in more new things. Been playing KTera for past month and lvling was really enjoyable because of all the new areas I got to explore and tons of content that I've done otw to 50. 14 lacks that almost completely. Hopefully the quest hubs and lvl 30 and 50 dungeon throw in that "my rank matters" feeling into it but there still more needed.

How about new abilities? Fun abilities? Having XXX move II (now with leg crippling action!) is kind of weak when you're still only ending up with maybe 5-8 truly unique moves from 1-50. Even if there aren't any talent trees in this game to branch out into new abilities or modifications to existing ones, the game needs more well-thought out and unique moves per class. I don't think anyone - hardcore or non - can disagree with that.

[Lordender]

I realise some of you haven't played for a while but when I see suggestions like "cut the current grind in half" I just have to cringe. Sure no one likes grinding, but grinding in this game is a choice and I don't believe it should be possible to go 1-50 in a week. When you get to max rank too quickly you don't really learn your class. I think it's too easy to get to 50 as it is now but that will be balanced out when they up the cap.

This is a joke right?

No one is asking for level 1-50 in a week, assuming you have a static and everyone in the said static has Levinshower, inferno, ranine, dunesfolk and everyones within 5 levels under perfect conditions it still takes around 2-3 weeks of going from 30-50 assuming you don't grind outside of leve's, the pace doesn't need to be any slower than that.

Here is where SE's going to run into problems, the fundamentals of the game need to be polished up before throwing content like dungeons into the mix. There is no way for people to cast lots on loot, how is a dungeon system going to work with looting? The stat system is fail, enmity system needs to be polished up, there are a lot of things that need to be corrected before throwing out content on an already bad foundation.

I'm really hoping a lot of that stuff is included in 1.18 otherwise its going to be a gigantic clusterfuck. I understand they wanna get stuff out for L50's to have something to do but if they're not careful it could be one giant mess.

[Kurokikaze]

Yeah, theres a lot more fundamental flaws with the game than just content. I fully expect them to make minor tweaks here and there to the combat system and lay it on top of this one. Call it a revamping and moving right along.

Theres no way they tackle stats, enmity, classes, etc etc (list is fucking huge) in these next few updates. I, of course, would love to be proven otherwise.

[Takiwaki]

How about new abilities? Fun abilities? Having XXX move II (now with leg crippling action!) is kind of weak when you're still only ending up with maybe 5-8 truly unique moves from 1-50. Even if there aren't any talent trees in this game to branch out into new abilities or modifications to existing ones, the game needs more well-thought out and unique moves per class. I don't think anyone - hardcore or non - can disagree with that.

thing is this would be awesome in theory, but the entire battle system and animation engine as is, already limits the type of abilities we can obtain that would be useful/fun because of the simple fact that most battles are basically standing still punching buttons for each encounter. almost exactly like 11. the only option i see is for them to go a more tactical based style of system. maybe adding in directional attacks, buffing the effects of dmg type and giving every class the ability to chain attacks for some kind of effects.

[Cichy]

Well, we are creeping up on Golden Week here in Japan—a weeklong vacation packed with some of Japan’s finest holiday offerings. But for now it’s still business as usual in the office for Yoshida and crew.

Patches 1.17 and 1.17a are good and done, and we’ve started work on the next patch—appropriately named 1.18.

1.18 is going to be relatively bigger than previous patches. This means that balancing is going to take more time than usual, and so we’re anticipating a somewhat longer period between patches. Even if we break off some of the content and release it ahead of time in a 1.17b patch (which me might!), 1.18 will still go live sometime in mid-June at the earliest. Sorry for that.

But good things come to those who wait! Dungeons designed for ranks 30 and 50 are on their way, and 1.18 will see the start of our reworking of the battle system, as we bring in some changes to that area.

Also, we’re planning to introduce various new encampments that will serve as quest hubs. We’re in the process of testing these now on our development servers, and I strong-armed one of the designers in charge into handing over some screenshots for me to post here.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/a...3&d=1304316370

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/a...4&d=1304316371

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/a...5&d=1304316371

From top to bottom, those are encampments in the Ul’dah, Limsa Lominsa, and Gridania regions. In this way, we’re going to gradually increase the number of public areas with quest hubs. We also have some beast tribe versions in the works, but it’s looking like those will have to wait until 1.19.

By the by, this is still under development, but here’s what the beast tribe equivalent is looking like.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/a...6&d=1304316419

I’ll continue to drop more details on future patch content on the Lodestone forums, and in these letters as well. Akihiko Matsui, our lead battle planner, will also be posting on the forums in the near future regarding some of the new battle concepts we have planned.

Come mid-May, the vanguards of the Grand Companies will be the first to brave Eorzea’s newly discovered dungeons. Their preliminary reports will be made available on the Grand Companies page on the Lodestone, so be sure to check it out!

Instanced dungeons will provide a means to further solidify the bonds of the Maelstrom, the Immortal Flames, and the Order of the Twin Adder. The Grand Companies are large-scale organizations that will play an active role in the events going on in Eorzea as they happen, so be on the lookout!

In my next letter, I’ll be sure to update the list of game changes. (Sorry it’s been so long...)

Until then! And for players in Japan, I hope you enjoy Eorzea over your Golden Week!

Oh, and one more thing, I’ve seen some auto-translations of some of my posts going up on the forums. A recent one concerning synthesis actually starting spreading some misinformation before our official translation came out. I know I post at crazy hours sometimes, and that there are time lags, but ask that you please refrain from posting these translations in the forums. Thanks, and talk to you again soon!

I guess I took the bolded sentence as "us" exploring the dungeons but I guess we just gonna get info on the company page? gay SE and their stupid wording

[Kurokikaze]

Thats another thing... If these end game dungeons are beaten within the same day/week of release - I will be incredibly disappointed.

[Kensaki]

If I had to guess I'd say the dungeons are similar to heroic dungeons in WoW and will be beat by most serious players within a week.

[Cichy]

I'm almost certain they will be beaten within a week, it will most likely take few weeks to get items you want though

edit,
well nvm I guess they can be like limbus/einherjar where you gotta clear wings than you get access to the boss type of a thing

[Levin]

yeah, my hope is the dungeons not being linear. Was hoping for limbus style in a way, but maybe even add more to it. Like boss room requires 4 keys to open, 4 different paths lead to the mid-bosses that drop said keys. Then again, I guess that is limbus just condensed in one dungeon.

[Katlan]

dungeons will be cleared w/in first few days. i dont expect stuff to be balanced around combat changes right out the door, nor do i expect the first set of end game gear to be extremely challenging like ppl are expecting. I hope they aren't linear and they take stuff from XI, but most of the stuff has been pretty easy (it sounds like it), so i dont expect that to change until the game is in the right direction (if it ever gets that far)