Dev Tracker: Discussion (Old)

[Elizara]

Official translation go go go..

Hello.

Thank you all very much for your continued patronage of FINAL FANTASY XI.

Firstly, let me apologize that so much time has passed since my last post.

I have been struggling to comprehend each of the below points and organize everything to tell you all, and before I knew it, months had already passed by.

How has Vana'diel changed in the past two years?
How do all of the players feel about these changes?
What kinds of discussions are taking place within the development and operations team?
With what kind of intentions and ways of thinking is work being done?
What are the plans from here on out?


I'm at a point that I'd really like more time for all of this, but I can't just keeping saying that.

With that said, I'd like to share with you an interim report of what we are doing right now and what we would like to do moving forward.

Regarding the Roadmap

I apologize for the delays with the currently released roadmap. There are two reasons for this.

The first reason is that since the schedule was released before the announcement of Seekers of Adoulin, the effects of the development load for the expansion were much larger than anticipated.

The second reason is that the hours needed to work on and discuss all of the forum topics was much greater than we anticipated.

While we looked into a revised version of the roadmap to release, instead of redoing everything that was up until March 2013, we feel it's necessary to take time to build out a proper development plan from next year on, starting with redefining development plans and then deciding on the practical work content so that we do not disappoint all of you.

It's hard for me to ask this, as we've already caused everyone to worry and be inconvenienced, but please give us a bit more time.

Understanding the Current Situation

I have been reading over what everyone thinks, not only from all of the posts made on the forum, but from players' blogs, Twitter, and other sources.

For example, there's the concern with content and that the necessary content is not reaching the necessary people.

When thinking about the amount of content made thus far, it's not that the amount of content is skimpy by any means; however, I believe a contributing factor for this concern is that a lot of older content requires more than a party, but it has become quite difficult for a lot of players to do things with full parties these days.

Currently, due to the fact that there's a lack of low-difficulty and casual content, a majority of players are focusing on high-difficulty content, and there has been a lot of feedback that even though they log in they can't do what they want (nothing to do). Also affecting this is that things have become more complicated since adjustments have been made to drop rates and item stats.

Development Plans

With all that said, to make it easy to understand, we will be redefining and deciding on themes for the below points:

Content structure
Jobs overall
How to add stats to items
How to hand out rewards


I'd personally like to see players that are below level 99 reach level 99 quickly (we will be looking into whether we can make adjustments so that the level 95 limit quest can be completed solo), and for players that have reached level 99, I’d like to create separate elements such as solo, group, casual, hardcore, and provide game play after defining themes for new elements and adjusted elements.

It's necessary to make adjustments to increase the win/success rate for content that has already been played out by the top groups so that players that come later can catch-up.

For example, strengthening players through job adjustments or the addition of gear works, but another good method is to directly lower the difficulty of content. Of course this is all on the basis that we provide another challenge and even better rewards for the top groups.

Also, in regards to existing content, we will be redefining the number of people required, the level spread, and reward difficulty, and look into making adjustments to fit the needs of the current Vana'diel.
(I feel it would be best to work on the paths to these various types of content for adventurers that are coming back after a long break.)

In regards to item stats, this is a crucial growth element as you cannot level up past level 99. It's necessary to release items with stronger and really good stats in the future. For how you receive items, as many of you have requested on the forums, I'd like to have a point system in place for when you miss out on a reward that has its drop rate set low due to difficulty adjustments.

Additionally, there are a number of things that need to be decided such as aspects of battle that are not balanced up to level 99. For example, I believe the workings of the entire enmity system needs adjustment and the problem of TP given to enemies is an important issue to look into.

Once the framework of all of this has been decided, I will talk to the staff and we’ll decide exactly what we would like to do from here on out. Once all the details have been organized I will be sure to share the future plans with you all. Of course that will not be the ultimate finalized plan, as we would like to really hear your feedback now more than ever.

In Closing

I believe there are quite a few of you who would like me to communicate swiftly and with a high frequency like when I was using Twitter. Back then I was able to focus on Twitter all day long, but unfortunately these days I'm not as free as I once was. Sorry about that.

However, once things calm down a bit I would like to show my face a bit more.
(Even though I am taking notes while I read the forum, I haven't been able to handle it all…)

I’m still in the midst of learning what it means to be producer, but I am doing the very best I can and would like to build a FINAL FANTASY XI with you all that will be loved by everyone.

Again, thank you all so much for your continued support.

Source

[Obsidian]

So he definitely was talking about enemy TP gain.

At least he seems to have some understanding of what's broken. Whether or not these things will get fixed remains to be seen.

[Kincard]

So he definitely was talking about enemy TP gain.

Or our translator is doing some mental editorializing again, either one's possible given the track record.

[TummieGaruda]

So he definitely was talking about enemy TP gain.

At least he seems to have some understanding of what's broken. Whether or not these things will get fixed remains to be seen.

I see this as a welcomed change. Direct damage spells are 10% TP given to the mob, multi-hit blu spells are 10% per hit, and normal melee hits are the melee's base TP+3.

I think they should change it so:

- TP given by Blue Multi-hit Physical spells should be based off of the weapon being wielded for the first hit and maybe half for each hit thereafter
- TP given by melee's should give enemies 1/2 or 1/3 TP (Players get 1/3rd the mobs TP when hit by melee attacks)
- TP given by White/Dark magic spells that are direct damage should either be reduced to 7.5 TP or base the TP amount on the base casting time.

Given that non NM mobs if I remember use TP moves randomly when their HP is above 26% but then use them at 100% at < 25% HP, this could slow down their TP use but I see SE possibly changing that behavior slightly.

[dasva]

Really if they just made mobs gain the same amount from hits as we do it would go a really long way. I mean seriously we hit them and they get 17 tp they hit us and we get 2?

[NynJa]

Really if they just made mobs gain the same amount from hits as we do it would go a really long way. I mean seriously we hit them and they get 17 tp they hit us and we get 2?

Preservation of game balance.

[Slycer]

Or our translator is doing some mental editorializing again, either one's possible given the track record.

Half the stuff wouldn't make sense if I didn't do that, or would just sound like a Google translate. I assure you the original post neither specified player nor enemy (unless I totally missed the reference), and my choice of the word "system" was not intended to imply either of them as I mentioned in a follow-up post after people assumed references way or the other.

[Byrthnoth]

I think he was referring to Camate.

[Slycer]

Oh, that makes more sense in the context of what he quoted. Still it may be something I missed... I'll go back and check. I do find it hard to believe that they'd be referring to player TP though, so enemy is probably correct either way.

[Khamsin]

Are the official translations entirely the product of the individual community team rep who posts it, or are they given supplemental information or even official official translations, and all they do is go post it and respond to discussions?

[Cairthenn]

I imagine they're probably able to request supplemental information if it's required, as (while very rare) some posts do not originate from a JP counterpart, but for the most part they probably just facilitate the translation.

[Cairthenn]

Abyssea NMs (excluding seal/key item droppers) most likely would have facilitated strategy and cooperation pretty much across the board if atma and cruor buffs didn't exist.

[Kincard]

I sometimes wonder what people even define as difficult anymore. People always seem to go to "well it's not hard if you know the strategy!" Well, yeah...you could say that for just about anything. There was one monster I can think of where the strategy was known and it didn't do jack for us (AV), and as I recall, we hate shitty design like that.

I think he was referring to Camate.

Correct, heh. I actually find Slycer's translations to be more accurate. In this particular case the statement was vague:

(Moontext removed since it was screwing up the post)

"In regards to enemy enmity, there is a need for adjustments, and we suspect the rate of TP gain is also in need of adjustment as well."
Logically, since it followed the enmity statement it's likely that they're talking about enemy TP generation, but I never understood why the SE translators would decide to go with what "logically follows" when
1. They know what mind-boggling dev team they're dealing with
2. It's made them translate things incorrectly in the past.
It's possible they do get supplemental information that we don't, but if we're to accept that they're just soooo bogged down by Adoulin development they can't even add in very simple code changes, I doubt they give a shit about the community reps' plight. It's possible that incorrect info we get was just the developer changing their minds, I suppose.

Why even tell us that you are considering it but aren't doing anything when that's what we'd assume if you stayed silent?

Given how small the team is, I think the default assumption should be that nobody ever saw your post if nobody from the SE side responds. That's the attitude I take, anyway. Just the acknowledgement that they give a rat's ass is pretty nice.

[Alkimi]

Oh I understood the quote just fine.

I want you all to recall Abyssea. In the beginning, when the first expansion came out and we were all level 80 and that damnedable sand worm was kicking the asses of all but the best of us.

Yeah I think people forget what lvl 80 was like. 1 atma, no razed ruins, 10/tick refresh for mages or infinte reraises. Cruor bonuses to HP/MP/Stats weren't that much, empy weapons didn't exist, and very few had relics. The fights were certainly challenging. I saw very few successful kills of Carabosse, that thing was a bitch at lvl 80.

[Kincard]

Even stuff like Briareus was hard because nobody knew how their AI worked. There was a lot of people that didn't have atmas at all until Scars came around and gave us the laughably easy fish to knock out their first zone boss kill.

[Slycer]

Even stuff like Briareus was hard because nobody knew how their AI worked. There was a lot of people that didn't have atmas at all until Scars came around and gave us the laughably easy fish to knock out their first zone boss kill.

It wasn't even just the big NMs, a lot of less important ones could give a rather difficult time as well, like that dumb Gnole in La Theine with its ridiculous intimidation rate - trying to kill that without RNGs there at level 80 was almost asking to wipe, even with like a full alliance. I'm sure there were many others like that but most of those NMs became useless very quickly as their drops were immediately outdone by higher level stuff or Empyrean armor.

[Byrthnoth]

#4
In addition to Haste, the whole battle system is also under consideration. Because it is a huge part of the game and changes will have major implications, we have to take these considerations very seriously.

This one scares me a little. I find the exponential growth of DD potential in larger and larger parties to be one of the few features of FFXI that still forces us to party up and allows us to actually defeat the monsters we party up for. If they, for instance, removed the Haste caps and changed the formula (like Delay/(1+Haste%) instead of Delay*(1-Haste%) ), then it would certainly change the balance of the game but (superficially, at least) it would be in a very negative way.

DRK would potentially get:
Haste 15%
Apocalypse 10%
Gear 30% (I assume)
Marches (40% with +5 and Marcato on Victory March)
Last Resort 25%
Hasso 10%

Sounds like a lot, but that's equivalent to 56% Haste at the moment (less than Gear + Last Resort + Haste). Toss in SV and you're ~approaching~ Gear+LR+Haste.

Given how small the team is, I think the default assumption should be that nobody ever saw your post if nobody from the SE side responds. That's the attitude I take, anyway. Just the acknowledgement that they give a rat's ass is pretty nice.

My default assumption is that they don't give a shit, but making an almost-form-post telling us that they've read it and aren't doing shit still doesn't give me any indications whether or not they give a shit. Considering how many seconds it takes to skim an OP and think "Okay, no" I could copy/paste posts like that all day.

[Kincard]

It would seem strange to me for them to suddenly change the way haste works becase Abyssea was the point when it seemed like they really started to realize how incredibly broken haste was, and instead of nerfing/changing the formulas, they adapted item design to accommodate this. So instead of people just scrounging together whatever haste they could find, they just stuck haste on a shitload of armor and now you could pick and choose how to frankenstein your sets together to still maintain capped haste while getting whatever other stat you wanted. A change to haste would require a considering of like, 3/4 of the gear they've added in the past few years as well as a reexamination of almost every single monster ever made.

[Byrthnoth]

Well, that's what's scary. It wouldn't really change monster dynamics at all because monsters typically don't have large amounts of haste. Monster BRDs can only sing one march at most (because SE has never given them instruments). Monster mages can cast Haste, but (1/1.15 = .87 as opposed to 1-.15 = .85). Decreasing the potency of the few potent forms of Monster Haste TP moves available (Erratic Flutter?) wouldn't really be game-changing from a monster DD standpoint. Something like Hundred Fists (which ignores Haste) wouldn't be affected. The thing this would dramatically affect is player DD strategies. It almost can't avoid breaking them.

[Kincard]

That's one way of fixing magic damage, I guess...heh.

Of course if they do that it'll just be Ranger Fantasy XI. Welcome back to 8 years ago!