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

[Grey Jorildyn]

You can also check doubles of leves if you wanna be hardcore about. As people hit the counter to refresh leves, have them check if they have the same leves in their list. If there are possible 3-4 links, my group comes back to the city to grab the double before moving to another region. Basically: do thanalan leves > port to ul'dah to grab doubles > do thanalan leves again > port to LL and do la noscea leves > port back to LL and grab doubles > do la noscea leves again.

It takes a longass time to do this but my group squeezes out an additional 10-30k/reset as we've been fortunate to almost always have at least 1-2 doubles in ul'dah (usually wills and dunesfolk) and 1 in LL. On last night's run, in 4.5 hours we generated approx. 55k for our mid-40s jobs and 165k for our low-30s jobs.

[Gulkeeva]

Someone speed hacked/wall hacked through ffxiv to locate what may be a "instanced dungeon area" (could be something else entirely of course) currently on live servers. From the pics it looks impressive. Reminds me of the temple of doom.
http://forum.neko-sentai.com/showthread.php?t=11155

[Vuitton]

Black Shroud (tranquil region) and Thanalan (south of dry bone region) have areas blocked off by a similar NPC. I wouldn't be surprised if La Noscea has one too. I wonder if there are areas behind them as well similar to this one.

[Kenshiin]

Looks pretty nice, I've been dying to see what's behind them.

Edit: There's one west of Bluefrog, so I'm guessing there's a few in each region.

[Cichy]

Black Shroud (tranquil region) and Thanalan (south of dry bone region) have areas blocked off by a similar NPC. I wouldn't be surprised if La Noscea has one too. I wonder if there are areas behind them as well similar to this one.

I ran into a ramp north of Iron Lake that leads into a cave that's guarded by the NPC, bunch of kobolds out there. Was thinking that's probably where the underground Kobold city would be.

[Kurokikaze]

South of Bald Knoll through a cave is another. The area has a lot of QQs.

[Sephiroth]

SE keeps talking about adding beast tribes. Maybe they're all have their own little dungeon area too like in XI.

[Cichy]

If the current beast tribes would have strongholds/their own areas that would be an achievement

[miokomioko]

There was a really old thread around here where we took note of all the blocked-off areas in the game and what any nearby NPCs had to say about them. Not really sure where to look for that, but I always wanted to no-clip through all of them and explore. Notably, one in some far reaches of Coerthas and places like the western areas of Mistbeard Cove.

[Kurokikaze]

Is it amusing to anyone else how reading the forums and the state of the game is sorta like US Politics?

If Tanaka were Bush and Yoshi-P was Obama etc etc... lol

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

^^^ Yep, it's good for lols. I usually pop on a few times a day not really expecting much, but getting something sweet like the link above to that dungeon one in a while. Hope they unlock at least the ones around the cities in june!

[Elcura]

Is it amusing to anyone else how reading the forums and the state of the game is sorta like US Politics?

If Tanaka were Bush and Yoshi-P was Obama etc etc... lol

Now I have a reason to visit official forums again.

[Kurokikaze]

Think of those that don't want change as Republicans/Conservatives and those that do as Democrats/Liberals/Progressives and then read more.

I posted something like "I can't believe something as lolbipartisan as this would have so much opposition." in that thread about not being able to invite players while engaged.

It's actually pretty hilarious when I look at it that way.

[Sephiroth]

I don't want to be able to invite players while engaged. It gives power to n00bs and retards. I remember the horrors of XI's early days (before rage timers) where LSs would bring 30+ people to Fafnir and zerg it dead in a 5-6 hour fight because they could just keep throwing people at it by booting the dead.

Rage timers prevent that somewhat, but it still makes shit easier for those who don't wish to learn a strategy. Dodore was a hard NM for most LSs on my server back in Jan for example. If they could have booted their dead tanks and added new ones they'd have zerged it dead no problem.

Right, easy solution to satisfy both parties. If the mob is an NM, don't allow invite while engaged, otherwise allow it.

[Kurokikaze]

So if someone d/cs midfight then they are shit outta luck. Makes perfect sense.

That had me facepalming when I read it on the boards.

[Siatdiat]

So if someone d/cs midfight then they are shit outta luck. Makes perfect sense.

That had me facepalming when I read it on the boards.

Don't forget there are hardliners on BG forums too, its not retard free here either.

[Woozer]

Hell, half the people over there are either functionally retarded or just massive trolls and I honestly can't tell if I'm being whooshed or not.

[solracht]

I don't want to be able to invite players while engaged. It gives power to n00bs and retards. I remember the horrors of XI's early days (before rage timers) where LSs would bring 30+ people to Fafnir and zerg it dead in a 5-6 hour fight because they could just keep throwing people at it by booting the dead.

Rage timers prevent that somewhat, but it still makes shit easier for those who don't wish to learn a strategy. Dodore was a hard NM for most LSs on my server back in Jan for example. If they could have booted their dead tanks and added new ones they'd have zerged it dead no problem.

Right, easy solution to satisfy both parties. If the mob is an NM, don't allow invite while engaged, otherwise allow it.

So put a buff on the party that is placed on the claiming party only when you claim the NM. The buff stays until the NM dies or claim is lost. Can't attack the NM without the buff, can only interact with people who have the buff during the fight. No need to cut the arm to prevent bleeding under specific circumstances. Especially not to implement something they already had in FFXI (confrontation).

So tired of seeing half-assed systems that inconvenience everyone and then seeing people defend them just because they take care of something else that's completely unrelated.

EDIT: You want challenging fights without chances of recovery or zerging. Ask for them, not for the dumb inviting system to stay. There are a lot of ways to take care of issues without pissing everyone off.

[Kurokikaze]

So tired of seeing half-assed systems that inconvenience everyone and then seeing people defend them just because they take care of something else that's completely unrelated.

Stockholm Syndrome or battered housewife. Take your pick.

Btw... The most obvious fix to this is - since dungeons are going to be instanced; put a cap on how many players can be inside that particular instance. In FFXIV's case the cap will be 4 or 8 for light and full party dungeons. Aside from keeping that d/ced character in the party as "OFFLINE" for 5-10 minutes until booted.

SE should hire me right? I know. Its called common sense.

[Lucavi]

I like his system better, Kuro. Yours fixes too many problems and makes for too much work for people that we're supposed to be paying to work.