Dev Tracker: Discussion (Old)

[Byrthnoth]

Two Matsui posts today.
- First one looks like it's responding to questions about new abilities / magic / avatars.
- Second one is responding to a request to lengthen the amount of time items stay in the treasure pool, I think.

Google translate tells me that all of the replies are something along the lines of, "It might happen some day."

[Hitou]

Looks like new BLU spells in november update.

[Malithar]

Instead of simply adding new spells to other existing sets of magic, I am currently consulting with the development team as to whether we can add new systems of magic which could broaden current play styles and enable new ones.

Thats interesting. Other than new jobs with accompanying new spell types being added, what could they add? Nature with the Geo-esk spells we've wanted from previous games to Geo, Runic with snazzy rune nukes/buffs to Run, Time with Haste/Slow/Stop/Quicken/etc added to all jobs who currently have Haste and/or Slow? Just tossing out ideas. Never really sat back and thought about new spell types being added, other than obvious ones like Geo and Bell.

The bit about increasing event time remaining after loot is added to the pool is a no brainer. Seen more than a few occasions of someone afking and causing people to time out before they can get the loot they lotted on. Even adding just a few extra seconds to the time you're left inside of the event area would be enough to remedy this.

[Ophannus]

Maybe they mean something along the lines of Samurai techs i.e Asura/Bizen Boat/Murasa or Dragon Techs like Reis Wind/White Draw all which would consume MP.

[Kincard]

It's such a vague answer. I interpret it more as "we're going to add more spells like Adloquium, -ra line or Migawari", that is, just spells with completely new effects rather than adding stuff like Fire VI, so it'd be hit-or-miss. Wouldn't get my hopes up on something as far-fetched as Samurai Iaido.

I must ensure that we have the personnel available to assist in this effort

I know we joke about XI's spaghetti code a lot, but it's still unbelievably funny that it apparently takes so much effort to add maybe 15 seconds onto the timer after you use the key.

[Draylo]

Maybe they mean something along the lines of Samurai techs i.e Asura/Bizen Boat/Murasa or Dragon Techs like Reis Wind/White Draw all which would consume MP.

That would be pretty cool lol.

[dasva]

I read new systems as everyone can use ebbulience! Or something like that

[Kaisha]

I know we joke about XI's spaghetti code a lot, but it's still unbelievably funny that it apparently takes so much effort to add maybe 15 seconds onto the timer after you use the key.

Makes me want to see that design document that was mentioned the other day, which I assume is the 'bible' for the Do's and Don'ts of doing shit with XI.

All they have to do is make the treasure pool drop after 4 minutes, 59 seconds. Easy fix for all.

[Damane]

Makes me want to see that design document that was mentioned the other day, which I assume is the 'bible' for the Do's and Don'ts of doing shit with XI.

All they have to do is make the treasure pool drop after 4 minutes, 59 seconds. Easy fix for all.

there is never an easy fix in FFXI, never! or did you forget the 99999 cures on undead!?

[dasva]

Makes me want to see that design document that was mentioned the other day, which I assume is the 'bible' for the Do's and Don'ts of doing shit with XI.

All they have to do is make the treasure pool drop after 4 minutes, 59 seconds. Easy fix for all.

Well probably more like 4 min 50 sec since a full pool can sometimes take a few seconds to empty

[Spira]

i wonder if its easier to change loot resolve time or remaining time in instance.

a 10s buffer between zone ejection and loot pool resolving, whichever they change, would probably be ideal. sometimes i'm puzzled by how they don't consider things like this to begin with.
then again i guess its just how the game was designed. not being able to lot when dead is quite a clear indication of this.

it would be rather interesting if they changed things up for magic.. like with some JA that affect magic effects.. we do have some of this but its very complicated these days lol. I'd think they should probably proceed with merit SP first.

really do hope they overhaul blood pacts again.. even if the new ilvl weapons and pet level accessories do close the dmg gap between smn and everything else, at 45s between each rage/ward.. they're just so slow.

[NynJa]

If SE wasnt a bunch of monkeys, opening the chest probably changes your remaining instance time to 300 seconds, so change that 300 to 330, bam done.

[Ophannus]

They say they're short on spell slots but they could fix that by removing all of RDM's barspells and replacing it with the AoE version. That's like 16-20 slots right there. Also theres like 40+ spells in the .dats that players don't get and mobs dont use. Meteor II, Toad, Confuse, Reflect, Ignis, Aer, Terra, Bar-Element II, Bar Status II, Bar Statusga II, Bar Elementga II, Dia V, Bio V, etc.

One thing I wish they did, if they added new JAs, is make a Merit Ability skill tree like in Xenosaga III or in FFXIII. If you unlock certain merits it lets you unlock a related ability/spell. Would allow us to specialize futher.


The jobs that really need new JAs are jobs like BST/DRG/SMN/PUP where like 5-6 of their JAs are eaten up by pet commands like Stay/Leave/Assault/Dismiss/Deactivate, which is annoying because those are necessary JAs but they eat up slots that could have been used for self-buff JAs that enhance their own abilities. One idea for removing the strain these abilities pose is making them shared, like how 2hr abilities are shared.

[Spira]

i can't tell you how annoying it was that BST commands were combined in the past.. but mainly because you could no longer Heel+Stay immediately. i actually hope they split them again.

[dasva]

I wish they would take away the tp requirement for ready. I mean really are their any moves that are so powerful that being on a 1-3 minute timer isn't bad enough?

[Ophannus]

Well mainly i meant that Assault/Fight/Deploy count as separate abilities but do the same shit. Just make one shared ability that makes you pet fight and rename it something like "Attack" and give it to BST/PUP/SMN at lv1 and it sends your pet to fight regardless if it's an avatar/automaton/jug pet. We don't need 10 abilities to control pets when you can condense it into 3.

1. Deploy/Fight/Assault
2. Dismiss/Release/Leave/Deactivate
3. Heel/Stay/Retreat

You can condense all of those abilities above into just 3 and give those 3 to SMN/BST/PUP and give DRG the one for dismissing their pet too(since the wyvern engages/disengages automatically with the master)

[Hitou]

While naming all the similar pet abilities the same thing might be convenient, at least from a standpoint of someone new to those jobs I suppose, it doesn't do anything to reduce the number of job abilities for any one pet job. The issue isn't total number of job abilities in the game, but rather total number of job abilities per job. And they've already expanded the total number per job to the point it's now possible to add new JAs. Matsui was just saying they're going to tread lightly before they decide to max out the JAs again.

[pancakesandsex]

Well mainly i meant that Assault/Fight/Deploy count as separate abilities but do the same shit. Just make one shared ability that makes you pet fight and rename it something like "Attack" and give it to BST/PUP/SMN at lv1 and it sends your pet to fight regardless if it's an avatar/automaton/jug pet. We don't need 10 abilities to control pets when you can condense it into 3.

1. Deploy/Fight/Assault
2. Dismiss/Release/Leave/Deactivate
3. Heel/Stay/Retreat

You can condense all of those abilities above into just 3 and give those 3 to SMN/BST/PUP and give DRG the one for dismissing their pet too(since the wyvern engages/disengages automatically with the master)

Stay wouldn't be in that group, it would be Heel / Retrieve / Retreat, stay operates differently. Group 2 also operates differently and has different timers per job. Unless you want avatar release to be on a 20 minute timer. I see no reason why the various "make pet attack target / make pet come back to master" commands can't be unified though. Lowering the timers to 1-5 seconds would be nice too.

[noodles355]

Group 2 also operates differently and has different timers per job. Unless you want avatar release to be on a 20 minute timer.

The logical response would actually involve lowering wyvern dismiss timer to 10 seconds, not increasing the other ones.

[Spira]

unfortunately spaghetti code + something like DRG/PUP with an automaton out (don't ask me why) and trying to use the attack command will probably cause problems somehow.

it does make you wonder tho.. what is it about Job Abilities that the exact same ability effect (in the rare instances they exist, such as with pet common commands) has to go by distinct names on different jobs, but spells are more than willing to be shared?