Letter from the Producer, XI

[Arximiro]

Looks very promising. Happy to see the stamina bar go and even happier to see the active/passive while moving. Now just to be able to check bazarrs while moving. As for the pace, I really like the pace, it does remind one of FFXI. I personally don't think it needs sped up too much more, we don't need jerky combat. If they could make it fluid but a little faster it would be perfect.

[Elcura]

Pace is fine I think, and it's a good reason to get some haste spells/gear in.

[Alkar]

They also showed new animations though. Those look way better than before. Battle classes should refer to both mages and melee otherwise they could've used a more specific term but only Gladiator, Lancer and Pugilist are in that video so mages are probably not included.

[Takiwaki]

Yay ffxi-2, I dunno I hope there are some differences

[Nilheim]

I'm pleased with all the changes he brought up, but I'm sincerely hoping he'll tell us there's more than AA and 2 dungeons in 1.18 or that "massive" patch is gonna be a disappointment (especially since it's delayed, although we all knew it would be, lol). I'm also hoping that they'll work faster once 1.18 is out since it seems to have been pretty tough to work on it, but who knows with SE... sure feels like there's 3 other guys on his team and a bum they hired to make coffee.

[Alderaan]

Can you cancel animations and move or are you stuck there til they're over? This really doesn't look that much different to me but it's still a work in progress i suppose.

[Spira]

could anyone show or point out what those moves used to look like

edit: o lol apparently this is what rage of halone currently looks like..

[Zettofaia]

^ That's one impressive jump in animation quality...

I wonder how much more has been changed, also, while I'm feeling really good about the video, it still feels "heavy" and "laggy" to me.

[Reapz]

could anyone show or point out what those moves used to look like

edit: o lol apparently this is what rage of halone currently looks like..

Huge difference lol, interested to see what other animations will be getting improved. I think it looks really good overall, the delay is sad but if they can get out a perfect patch because of it then it's welcome. Hopefully this is the turning point for the game and we will start to see content patches rolling in after the core mechanics have been sorted out.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

I'm pretty underwhelmed. I expected a bit more for all this taking so long(January?) not to mention another two weeks added to patch date. Auto-attack, stamina gone, and two dungeons; two months since last patch. Looks like a copy-pasta XI system with a few tweaks, which at this point isn't such a bad thing.

Though not really surprised with the 'content' of 1.18, I'm really just disappointed over this short ass letter. Possibly could have gone into a bit about the dungeons since 'one is complete'? No mention of server latency fixes either or any recipe fixes(again, multiple teams what?) Also could have avoided the vauge "two weeks more in addition to mid june" bit. Looking at my calendar it's June 14th and that's pretty much mid-June. Could learn to be straight and say "Probably another three weeks, four tops".

[Tomino]

Since we'll probably have a lot of time ahead to discuss around details or useless things, I went and tried to analyze inputs a little better. There could be the secret to beat AV hidden there.

* Stamina bar is indeed gone, but I was expecting action bar to changes too, like less skills overall. In the video, the gladiator has 2 rows full of abilities so i dont know how much they'll cut.
* It seems that Red Lotus blade is a TP builder move. It hasn't any tp cost shown unless I'm wrong.
* You can still see a Light Slash / Heavy Slash icon, so unless it's major WIP, it could be they reworked them into some kind of special attacks.
* Rampart looks on a 1:00 recast, as well as Aegis Boon.
* It could be that they stressed WSes much more, since all 3 examples end with a nice looking animation (well, not PUG one). It could be that TP build is much slower, or cost much higher, and your WSes now play a major role.

[Meko]

The video looks...interesting. However, I was hoping for some UI changes too but apparently thats later?

[blindSharingan]

I am extremely disappointed by the speed of the auto-attack. I wasn't expecting anything ridiculous but that's just way too slow for me. If I wanted to play XI I'd just go play XI. Hopefully they increase its speed a bit before it's implemented.

New WSs look cool though.

[qpoiuwer]

I am extremely disappointed by the speed of the auto-attack. I wasn't expecting anything ridiculous but that's just way too slow for me. If I wanted to play XI I'd just go play XI. Hopefully they increase its speed a bit before it's implemented.

New WSs look cool though.

Regardless of what speed it was, you can always say "if I wanted to play game A I would just go play game A". Speed looked fine to me. I don't want to just be mashing 1-5 on my keyboard as fast as possible for 10 seconds every fight like how it's felt in some other games.

[blindSharingan]

The speed looks about the same as XI which is why I brought it up.

[Shuichi]

Hmmm. Video was ok. Combat could use just a bit of speed-up. Ok Yoshi, you got two more weeks. I hope this 1.18 is enough to bring me back and playing on a somewhat regular basis. Maybe 1.18 is the foundation they needed to finish before the rest just flows?


/twizzlers

[CaptainN]

Regardless of what speed it was, you can always say "if I wanted to play game A I would just go play game A". Speed looked fine to me. I don't want to just be mashing 1-5 on my keyboard as fast as possible for 10 seconds every fight like how it's felt in some other games.

I agree big time

I don't need super fast WoW like speed and this game isn't an action rpg MMO like Tera/Vindictus, I think the speed of the auto attack is very fitting.

[Meko]

I think the speed is ok as well. Not sure if haste will be in the game or if it is (I'm only level 18thm/23PL) so that might change the auto-attack etc. I will say though, over 3 weeks of silence and a 2 minute video of auto-attack is weak imo. Maybe they have more and want to spread it out but it seems very blah. Kuro was right...sadly.

[avelle]

Auto-attack looks good, or at least a big improvement over the current system. Weapon skill animations look like they always should have. I wasn't even aware they were changing them? Having flashier animations should make combat feel a bit more fun. With the introduction of auto-attack and seeing that it is fairly slow at the moment, what are the chances of them adding haste gear down the road? (Assuming it doesn't exist now, only got to level 20 or so) It seems like it would be fairly likely to me, but I obviously have very little experience with itemization in 14 at the moment. At any rate, glad to see more information and to see them making solid steps forward.

edit: Beaten to the haste punch, FU Meko!

[blindSharingan]

It's just my opinion but I feel like having to wait for them to add haste to the game just to be satisfied with the pace of battle seems kind of silly.