Letter from the Producer, XXVIII (05/28/2012)

[Takiwaki]

Either make it so that combo skills shift you into position automatically, or have a simple dash command that one can use to quickly change positions without the clunky animations

[Charismatic]

Isn't Archer/Bard supposed to get an autoshot in 2.0 when animation lock goes away?

I don't think this was ever really in the plans, they keep talking about spending ammo when you shoot as the reason for not adding an AA for that class/job.

[Niiro]

If only you could target a mob without attacking it.

If only....

[Raldo]

I don't recall them ever saying they intended to add auto-attack for ARC/BRD, but I still think that decision is stupid.

I wish they'd just make Light Shot a stance with no recast. You push it, you gain a (non-dispellable...) buff that makes you shoot arrows every [bow delay] seconds. You push it again, and now you're not shooting.

[Croy]

I actually like the current combat system in its base form but I would like to see more tools that require group coordination. From crowd control to status effects (Bring Zombie into this game, that should make a couple fights interesting XD), to team combo/battle regimens. Once animation locks are eliminated and smooth input become a reality (assuming the new server architecture is all they are saying it will be) then even the positional combo abilities should work just fine and I might even welcome more positional related things that were in the original game but had little use like maybe having a boss or mob with shifting weakness point during a battle where you damage it from certain places through out the battle, or multiple body parts (This was alluded to in the 2.0 PDF) for a boss fight where taking out a body part might keep the mob from using a specific ability for a short while.

As for Archer Light Shot, like others have said I have never heard them say once they were thinking about making it into auto-attack. I hope they do wise up to adding it but if they don't I won't cry a river; and this is coming from a person whose only lvl 50 combat class IS an Archer/Bard XD.

[TacoTaru]

Bleh, the comment I thought mentioned it mentions nothing of the sort. Oh well.

[Alkar]

This silence is killing me That letter better be worth it.

[Magi]

The third poll in general was fairly shitty, but I guess it's not aimed at me when I don't care about fluff like new races or player blogs.

New jobs (and classes because we really need those) when they can't even balance the ones currently in the game, I am hype!

I can't wait to rage when the majority of people vote for repairing/affixing items being fine as it is because they're so deathly afraid of change and making the game be less of a pain in the ass to play. Any class being able to repair could possibly mean even more income from being able to fix things you couldn't before, unless you already have most crafts at 50 (and why would you care at that point other than to be a dipshit).
Downside is there's more competition to repair things but A) If you have more people fighting to repair your gear before anyone else does that's better for the game as a whole, less time spent waiting around with your thumb in your ass and B) Why do you even care about money from repairs arhrhfghfh.

But nah let's keep it the same so people can spend more time in Uldah waiting for a random person with the right craft and level to repair your crap.
Someone tell me why keeping it the same way is a good idea.

[Grey Jorildyn]

But if an Alchemist repairs my Sword it ruins my immersion! Waaaahhhhhhhh.

[vadre]

Honestly I wish they'd just make NPC repairs completely equal to crafter repairs, and just give people with craft classes levelled the advantage of not having to find a NPC to repair stuff. This game needs to much streamlining in these kinds of things it's not even funny, but as mentioned above the OF playerbase they ask for advice are the ones who've stuck through it all for nearly two years and clearly don't feel like these things need to be changed. They're not asking the 580k other people who left the game.

[Burningthought]

Honestly I wish they'd just make NPC repairs completely equal to crafter repairs, and just give people with craft classes levelled the advantage of not having to find a NPC to repair stuff. This game needs to much streamlining in these kinds of things it's not even funny, but as mentioned above the OF playerbase they ask for advice are the ones who've stuck through it all for nearly two years and clearly don't feel like these things need to be changed. They're not asking the 580k other people who left the game.

Latest dev note said that they are overhauling the entire repair system in 2.0 iirc. Your complaints might not even be applicable in 2.0.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post708594

Honestly, I can't wait for that fucking promo site to open up so people can get refreshed on whats coming in 2.0. Granted they don't really have one place to figure all this shit out, you have to dig through interviews and dev comments so its easy to miss stuff.

[Vuitton]

Not to mention npc repairs up to 99% now. Big deal.

[Charismatic]

Not to mention npc repairs up to 99% now. Big deal.

Kinda is when you want to sell/trade the item lol

[Niiro]

As someone that can repair anything but the .....1? (afaik) piece of gear that requires alchemy, it's still a pain in the ass.

Fixing other people's stuff after a wipe or something is nice and easy sure (hit GSM macro-> Repair All -> WVR macro -> Repair All etc) but fixing my own stuff is annoying as fuck. I have to scroll thru 150 items of inventory slow enough that the durability %s show up (if you just hold down the numbers don't update) and every time I come to a piece that needs to be repaired by another craft I have to exit the menu, change jobs, go back into my inv, scroll thru and find the item, fix it, continue to scroll, find the next item, oh look it's a different crafuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

Even if they don't simply allow you to fix any item with any craft they could at the very least allow you to fix items on any craft as long as you have the needed craft leveled.

[Lucavi]

^ That's a lot of menus just to fix something, wow. Didn't know there were still that many clicks at this point in the game.

[Burningthought]

As someone that can repair anything but the .....1? (afaik) piece of gear that requires alchemy, it's still a pain in the ass.

Fixing other people's stuff after a wipe or something is nice and easy sure (hit GSM macro-> Repair All -> WVR macro -> Repair All etc) but fixing my own stuff is annoying as fuck. I have to scroll thru 150 items of inventory slow enough that the durability %s show up (if you just hold down the numbers don't update) and every time I come to a piece that needs to be repaired by another craft I have to exit the menu, change jobs, go back into my inv, scroll thru and find the item, fix it, continue to scroll, find the next item, oh look it's a different crafuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

Even if they don't simply allow you to fix any item with any craft they could at the very least allow you to fix items on any craft as long as you have the needed craft leveled.

HHHNNNNGGGGG That would be amazing as fuck.

[Hiruke]

I still enjoy carrying around 2 BSM hammers so I can repair the primary one. I don't even know if there's much point to even having a repair system, besides to annoy people. It used to significantly annoy people (huge durability loss, random annoying materials to fix items, NPC repair guy won't even look at your accessories), and now it just mildly annoys people (NPC repair guys everywhere - but only repair to 99%, vastly reduced durability loss, stupid different tiers of dark matter that you have to gather, buy, or farm from Ifrit - because dark matter is why you do it, amirite?). Is there any other merit besides player annoyance? Do people even bother to repair anyone else's gear if they aren't friends with them - or in a PT together? (I haven't bothered to for at least a year, but being able to repair all of my own stuff sure is nice.)

Though, I do extremely like the stories one of my LS mates frequently tells me: Folks have stuff up for repair. They need to pay 500 gil or w/e for him to repair it. He tries to repair it. They don't have enough gil on them to complete the transaction, so the repair can't be completed. The fuck? He's told me this at least a dozen times. How does anyone seriously walk around with essentially 0 gil?

[Burningthought]

I still enjoy carrying around 2 BSM hammers so I can repair the primary one. I don't even know if there's much point to even having a repair system, besides to annoy people. It used to significantly annoy people (huge durability loss, random annoying materials to fix items, NPC repair guy won't even look at your accessories), and now it just mildly annoys people (NPC repair guys everywhere - but only repair to 99%, vastly reduced durability loss, stupid different tiers of dark matter that you have to gather, buy, or farm from Ifrit - because dark matter is why you do it, amirite?). Is there any other merit besides player annoyance? Do people even bother to repair anyone else's gear if they aren't friends with them - or in a PT together? (I haven't bothered to for at least a year, but being able to repair all of my own stuff sure is nice.)

Though, I do extremely like the stories one of my LS mates frequently tells me: Folks have stuff up for repair. They need to pay 500 gil or w/e for him to repair it. He tries to repair it. They don't have enough gil on them to complete the transaction, so the repair can't be completed. The fuck? He's told me this at least a dozen times. How does anyone seriously walk around with essentially 0 gil?

Well like I said earlier, the repair system is being greatly revamped. I could understand needing a durability/repair system to take gil out of the economy, but it doesn't work very well when you're paying other players. I guess it was to give crafters a purpose other than making shitty items almost no one wants.

[Hiruke]

I know; I saw that community rep post before, as well. Pretty much my post has outlined that repairs have several times been "improved", because it's always been stupid. It's just become stupid for different reasons with each iteration. I'm suggesting maybe it doesn't need a revamp - maybe it just needs to be removed entirely. If the sole purpose is to suck gil out of the economy, I think we can do better. You currently lose gil when getting on an airship, setting a camp as a favorite teleport destination, etc. None of these anger me. (Well, repairs don't anger me, either, but I'm going to assume most folks don't have all crafts to 50.) Maybe we can just introduce more elegant solutions to problems rather than cling to broken systems, trying to shiny them up. We shouldn't be making the stupid mildly less stupid; we should be pioneering the not stupid.

They also said/implied they are going to revamp the whole "parley" thing, but until I see something concrete, I'm going to feel that things like parley, repair, whatever are going to continue being stupid, no matter how much they rework it. When and if they actually prove that any given thing is going to really and truly be something good (better is relative... we don't need better, we need good), then confidence will remain low.

Though I guess there's not much to do but what we have been doing: Buckle up and wait for 2.0 to actually come out, so anything we complain about will be even remotely valid.

[Burningthought]

I know; I saw that community rep post before, as well. Pretty much my post has outlined that repairs have several times been "improved", because it's always been stupid. It's just become stupid for different reasons with each iteration. I'm suggesting maybe it doesn't need a revamp - maybe it just needs to be removed entirely. If the sole purpose is to suck gil out of the economy, I think we can do better. You currently lose gil when getting on an airship, setting a camp as a favorite teleport destination, etc. None of these anger me. (Well, repairs don't anger me, either, but I'm going to assume most folks don't have all crafts to 50.) Maybe we can just introduce more elegant solutions to problems rather than cling to broken systems, trying to shiny them up. We shouldn't be making the stupid mildly less stupid; we should be pioneering the not stupid.

They also said/implied they are going to revamp the whole "parley" thing, but until I see something concrete, I'm going to feel that things like parley, repair, whatever are going to continue being stupid, no matter how much they rework it. When and if they actually prove that any given thing is going to really and truly be something good (better is relative... we don't need better, we need good), then confidence will remain low.

Though I guess there's not much to do but what we have been doing: Buckle up and wait for 2.0 to actually come out, so anything we complain about will be even remotely valid.

Well the dev note they left the other day about repairs said that its hard to adjust the current repair system and that they're overhauling it for 2.0. So i'm assuming its going to go further than the tweaks they've done in the past. You're spot on about the buckling up and waiting for 2.0 to actually come out. Just about everything people complain about is being addressed in some form.

That's why I hope the 2.0 promo site will outline all of the upcoming changes because its hard to keep up with them all.