Letter from the Producer, XV

[Arximiro]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...530#post259530

Hello everyone! Yoshi-P here with another post for all you FFXIV-ers.

Last time I wrote something along the lines of wanting to talk about 1.19 in my next letter, but after all the feedback we’ve gotten from you since the last patch went live, I decided to write a letter addressing some 1.18 topics. Direct replies to forum posts would be quicker, sure, but with an official letter I can see to it word gets to all regions at the same time.

So 1.19 news will have to wait till next letter. I’ll try to get it out to you as soon as I can.

Patch 1.18 marked the start of radical changes to Eorzea, across a wide range of the game’s features. We updated a lot of things, and I’m wondering if maybe we didn’t go a little overboard. We were debugging and balancing along with the development tasks, and trying to have the patch out as soon as possible. But the dev team and I are only human, so there were bound to be mistakes.

I realize some of you may be confused or upset at some of the sudden changes, but that’s why the forums are there for you to have your voice heard. So please leave us your feedback!

The topics we’ve gotten the most feedback on are class balance, UI visibility (which will be addressed in 1.18a), and skill points for levequests between ranks 20–30. We’ll be using this last week’s worth of feedback to decide where more adjustments are needed, and will be working on them and any further balancing that is necessary together with our 1.19 tasks and releasing them in smaller patches.

But I’m happy to see posts claiming that combat now requires strategy (though this should go without saying), since this was the starting point for our changes to the battle system. After getting feedback like this, I hope we can work towards our future goals with the same results. We’ll be taking all your feedback, positive and negative, into account as we move forward. So please keep it coming!

It looks like about 280 people have cleared Dzemael Darkhold (as of Tuesday, July 26 at 2:00 a.m. PDT / at 9:00 a.m. GMT). But there are rewards you can’t get just by killing the last boss. Stick to it, though, and keep searching for the key to unlocking that additional treasure! (That’s a metaphor. It’s not an actual key...)

Talk to you next letter, or on the forums. See you soon!

P.S. The swimsuits I mentioned last letter will be available as part of the summer event planned for early August. Sorry for the confusion!

[Toth]

skill points for levequests between ranks 20–30

So it isn't just me and something seems wrong? XD

[Hyan]

Stalling...!

Man the fuck up, Yoshi-P.

[Draylo]

So it isn't just me and something seems wrong? XD

It's really slow?

[Gulkeeva]

P.S. The swimsuits I mentioned last letter will be available as part of the summer event planned for early August. Sorry for the confusion!

Soon....!

[CaptainN]

So it isn't just me and something seems wrong? XD

Leve quests are terrible now, you get about 160 skill per kill with favor and 1800 SP at the end of a ~20/~30 leve. It's a major kick in the nuts compared to leve linking 4 people and getting 650 SP per kill. They need to make the reward like 5k for completing ~20/~30 leve's and probably 9k for completing ~40 leve's if they want these to be good soloable content.

If they could fix the D/C issue in the dungeons or make it so you don't get kick out of the instance if you d/c during a dungeon then I would really love the 1.18 patch.

[miokomioko]

Spending like 5 minutes on a Rank~40 leve grants me like 150 skill per mob and 3,000+ skill bonus at the end. That's way better exp for my time than it used to be.

[Hyan]

The point at which you're thinking "man, sure I'm making progress but this is still pretty slow; I'd rather party instead" would be perfect!

[Niiro]

-Fix exp from leve mobs or preferably increase the bonus at the end, 150 per mob (11 ranks above me) and 1060 at the end is not cutting it.
-Maybe tone down the mp cost of cures a bit, it was certainly too low before but increasing it more than threefold seems a bit much.
-Remove the exp penalty for completing quests below the recommended rank, if I can complete a quest recommended for R37 at R30 why should I be penalized?
-Gear damage on death-return, knock it off.

Also annoys me how much SP I was dicked out of from completing quests/missions before they added SP rewards, probably well over 100k, being reimbursed that SP from the competed quests in my log would be nice (at the very least the main story quests considering they give a shitton). This is more a personal gripe because I did a lot of quests already for shitty rewards in the hope that they'd unlock future ones.

[Hyan]

-Remove the exp penalty for completing quests below the recommended rank, if I can complete a quest recommended for R37 at R30 why should I be penalized?

You might as well change to a r1 class and get a shitton of SP...

[Purrrfect]

Last time I wrote something along the lines of wanting to talk about 1.19 in my next letter, but after all the feedback we’ve gotten from you since the last patch went live, I decided to write a letter addressing some 1.18 topics. Direct replies to forum posts would be quicker, sure, but with an official letter I can see to it word gets to all regions at the same time.

So 1.19 news will have to wait till next letter. I’ll try to get it out to you as soon as I can.

[conspiracy theorists]How convenient...[/conspiracy theorists] lol

[Kaiyoko]

-Maybe tone down the mp cost of cures a bit, it was certainly too low before but increasing it more than threefold seems a bit much.

Completely against this, people just need to learn to conserve. Put away your weapon between Curing, unless you're spamming. This is the same shit people are complaining about when WoW had their Cataclysm release, once people learn conserving they'll be fine. Probably should be using abilities like Spiritbind as well (yes, I know not every situation you can use this because of the bind). A lot of the healers bitching about enmity too should learn to use Soughspeak. The Dev team gave you these abilities for a reason, learn to use them.

[miokomioko]

-Remove the exp penalty for completing quests below the recommended rank, if I can complete a quest recommended for R37 at R30 why should I be penalized?

What he said. It's there to keep you from switching to lower-rank classes right before you turn it in and earn the reward(s) because they can't control what rank you actually perform the quest duties on.

[Ragnar]

Also annoys me how much SP I was dicked out of from completing quests/missions before they added SP rewards, probably well over 100k, being reimbursed that SP from the competed quests in my log would be nice (at the very least the main story quests considering they give a shitton). This is more a personal gripe because I did a lot of quests already for shitty rewards in the hope that they'd unlock future ones.

This one is annoying because i completed all the story quest and sidequest before patch, should have been there since day 1 but the change is good... might have been better to add those sp only to the new quests instead to be fair with everyone, but i still think it was worth it

[miokomioko]

A retro-active 100,000 skill reward for those who had already done the last quest in the game would have been easy and considerate. They need to not punish people for having been playing this game since launch.

[Hyan]

Sounds like a waste of gewd development time.

I'm not playing tho! Mwhaha.

[Sta]

The most realistic reimbursement would be Gil, I guess. I think WoW done it too. If players had a certain amount of Justice Points that where going to be removed from the game after a patch, those Justice Points would be mailed to them but in the form of gold. There's no reason why SE can't work out a SP <=> Gil formula.

Although, you guys would probably like all the SP in one big lump for your second or third class. Would be nice, but so so SO unrealistic.

[Ragnar]

A retro-active 100,000 skill reward for those who had already done the last quest in the game would have been easy and considerate. They need to not punish people for having been playing this game since launch.

Well you know there's always two way to look at this...

Let's say i give you that 100 000 sp you want, but to be fare with the new players, i'll remove the sp you gathered from healing glitch when the game went live and all those "extra sp" from leve linking

But don't get me wrong i would be really glad to get those sp too

[CasualPlayer]

You don't get rewarded retroactively for clearing changed content in an mmo. How is SE punishing you by not giving you shit for clearing content you've already been rewarded for?

They didn't go back and give everyone xp in ffxi when they had the big xp nerf and they won't now. Why is this even an argument.

[miokomioko]

You don't get rewarded retroactively for clearing changed content in an mmo. How is SE punishing you by not giving you shit for clearing content you've already been rewarded for?

They didn't go back and give everyone xp in ffxi when they had the big xp nerf and they won't now. Why is this even an argument.

You seem to not understand a few things...

a) it wasn't an "argument" until you popped in to argue with it.

b) XIV is a special case right now and they need to do what they can to keep people interested as well as drawing new players because the people that are still playing act as free marketing when you please them. Right now, it's a big "fuck you" to those who kept on playing with high hopes during all this development chaos.

c) do you really think that the chunk of gil they were (still are?) rewarding for the storyline quests compares in any way to the 30,000~40,000+ skill points that they reward now?

d) I was pretty specific in what I said though and I don't think it's unbalanced at all. If you had already completed all of the storyline quests, including the last rank-46 one, before this patch, you missed out on a lot of exp just from those for sticking with it and continuing to play their broken game. A solid chunk of skill should be retro-actively rewarded to those who had already completed the rank-46 storyline before they decided to make them worthwhile. 100,000 skill is still significantly less than all of the main quest rewards put together. Hell, the last one alone is almost half that. It's a courtesy thing. I don't care if you think no MMOs would possibly such a thing (not true). Refer to point "b."

It could be extremely simple. Have the NPC linkshell blink if you qualify for it. Tataru asks you to swing by the Merchant's Ward real quick to get a skill point reward from Minfilia as recognition of your recent generous acts for the Path of the Twelve. The reward being based on Rank-46 (and losing out on the standard 10% of it per rank you are below it), you couldn't effectively dump all that reward on a lower class. Done and done.

The point being, it would be courteous, it would be wise, and it would be fair. That is all.