Dev Tracker: Findings/Posts (NO DISCUSSION)

[Slycer]

I have no idea what they're talking about when they say they're going to "restart the areas," but that's what it said. I assume they meant partial area maintenance rather than taking the whole world down.

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Mocchi: Reive Follow-up

Hi everyone... just following up on this.

Right now, the development team is going through verification of the adjustments with the QA team. If we do not run into any major problems, we plan to make adjustments as soon as midnight tomorrow by restarting the areas.

For more information on the contents of the adjustment itself, we will confirm tomorrow once the update verification stage has been completed. We will be looking to make adjustments in roughly the same direction as the last adjustment.

Reive Evaluation
Participate in Reive.
↓
Player behaviors are evaluated and a score is granted.
↓
Score is compared with the threshold value.
↓
Threshold Reached: Bayld and EXP granted
Threshold not Reached: Bayld and EXP carried over to the next evaluation

We will be adjusting the components in red.

We apologize once again for the inconvenience.

We will be updating you in detail on the progress for this, so please give us a bit more time.

[Ligray]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...502#post415502

Greetings everyone!

Thanks for all the feedback on enmity. Just as Producer Matsui has mentioned, we will be performing on-going adjustments to the enmity system and will start by working on laying the groundwork and the essential features.

Once the groundwork has been properly established, we’ll be working on the slightly smaller aspects and after that focus on the minute portions.

This should give you an idea of the progression we have mapped out, but let me shift into a slightly more detailed explanation.

Based on the feedback we have been seeing on the forums, for our next step we will be making adjustments to the static enmity generated from some job abilities and spells around the end of this month. (This is of course pending that there are no major issues along the way.)

With the adjustments we will be reducing the enmity generated by approximately half of the current value.

Additionally, we will be increasing the amount of enmity generated by the white magic spells Reprisal and Foil.

We will let you know the details on which job abilities and spells will be adjusted to have less enmity generation in the coming days, but I wanted to inform you of what we have planned ahead of time.

[Gwynplaine]

At the following time, a version update was performed on FINAL FANTASY XI.

[Date & Time]
Apr. 4, 2013 at 3:30 (PDT)

[Affected Service]
- FINAL FANTASY XI

[Update Details]
The following adjustments have been made:

- Evaluation points have been adjusted for reives.
Evaluation points have increased for enhancement, healing, and magic attack spells. Evaluation points for melee attacks, which were easier to obtain, have been reduced.
?
- The message explaining that experience points and bayld were not gained due to the minimum value not being reached will no longer appear when an evaluation occurs.

Well then.

[Slycer]

I need to run - this is a first pass translation and I don't have time to review it right now. If someone else wants to take a look at the original JP you can go ahead, but I think it should be mostly accurate. Note that they mentioned in at least one other quoted response in addition to here that it is important to keep the HP of the obstacle or nest dropping as the battle continues to get max evaluations.

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Mocchi: Reive Evaluations

I wanted to take this time to describe Reive evaluations.

As I will need to describe this step-by-step, please excuse me if you're already aware of the information.

• For the balance of the amount of content available, the idea that players will participate as follows:
  
  Coalition Assignments > Colonization Reives > Lair Reives
  
  This is for the following reasons:
  
  • Coalition Assignments are intended to consume imprimaturs as they are generated.
  • If only Reives were performed before assignments, coalition ranks would fall.
  • If coalition ranks fell, you would not receive coalition support.
  • If you do not receive coalition support, the status of Adoulin in general is difficult to develop.
  
  
• The assumption to the amount of bayld available is as follows:
  Coalition Assignments: 4000 per day
  Colonization Reives: 1000-1500 per Reive
  Lair Reives: 700-800 per Reive
  
  Based on these assumptions, we determined the bayld fees for things such as the items that can be exchanged for bayld. Note that the reive amount is the amount obtained in total across an entire reive battle, not the amount for any one evaluation.
  
  
• Why did we set the bar so high for healing, enfeebling, elemental, and enhancing magic?
  We were initially concerned about the bayld situation if a player was repeatedly casting enhancing magic. We also had to consider the case of area of effect enfeebling and elemental magic spells. Finally, we were concerned with the possibility of players using equipment to adjust their maximum HP and heal themselves.

Based on these original assumptions, we looked to make adjustments in the recent update.

In other words:

• We reduced the amount of bayld available for melee attacks because we realized that it was possible to attack more frequently than expected.
• We raised the evaluation values for elemental, enhancing, enfeebling, and healing magic. Because of our concerns, the initial evaluation rate was set too low and it was more difficult than expected to generate good evaluations.
• We hid the message that said when the player had not reached the threshold value because there was confusion among some players that the evaluation value was reset if the threshold was not reached.

We have seen a lot of information being exchanged about Reive battles on Twitter, forums, fan sites, etc., and there seems to be a large difference in understanding between lair reives and colonization reives, which seems to have led to an impression that there is a very different evaluation amount available.

Please note that if the obstacle or nest's HP has not been lost, no one will be able to receive bayld or experience points. To obtain the maximum evaluation, you need to be reducing the obstacle or nest's HP.

The obstacle or nest's HP should be reduced while also defeating the enemies, with back line players supporting those who are actively engaged. Please try to separate responsibilities in the battle and see how it goes.

Additionally, acquiring "Reive unity" and various Ionis effects will enhance these battles, so please take advantage of them.

We also want to note, that we have some future plans such as:

• Adjusting how fast the colonization rate increases
• Reduce the reive re-entry penalty from 10 minutes to 5 minutes
• Adjust individual thresholds

We are also considering other adjustments. Since there are a bunch of things in consideration, depending on when and how the content is finalized, we'll get back to you with that information.

[Slycer]

Couple of other posts besides this one, I'll translate and post as a follow-up.

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Matsui: Marble Nuggets

[[Bunch of quoted posts about the stupidity of the mining quest for the Excavation KI]]

Hey, it's Matsui.

To all of you pioneers, I'm sorry about the inconvenience m(__)m.

As a response to this, in the maintenance that we are performing tonight, we plan to raise the rate of this item obtained through mining.

We've received other suggestions such as making the quest instead require a key item, or make the item come from a specific mining point. Since these adjustments would require a more detailed process of creating a game patch and verifying the patch, when we took everything into consideration, we chose the method above so that we could respond immediately.

After the adjustment, we will leave it alone for a bit and then decide whether we want to adjust the rate again.

Work on this issue is continuing and a formal announcement will be made separately including the maintenance time (note: this announcement is already on POL, it's 10:00 - 11:30am PDT).

[Slycer]

Interesting - this "bug fix" actually turned into a nice duration buff for these elemental barpells.

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Mocchi: Barspell Duration

Thank you for reporting the bug.

As a result of our investigation, we were able to confirm that there is indeed a bug that shortens the duration of the effect of these spells.

To overcome the glitch, we will make the following adjustments:

• Eliminate the time extension provided by increased enhancing magic skills for elemental resistance spells (e.g. Barfire).
• Increase the duration of elemental resistance spells (e.g. Barfire).

For these spells, we will use the same duration that we use for status resistance spells (e.g. barsilence). That is, the spells will be increased from 150 (and up to 300 seconds with enough enhancing skill) to 480 seconds.

This will be implemented for the following spells:
Barfire / Barblizzard / Baraero / Barstone / Barthunder / Barwater
Barfira / Barblizzara / Baraera / Barstonra / Barthundra / Barwatera

If there are no major problems with the development and verification work, this is scheduled to be implemented in the version update at the end of this month.

[Slycer]

This makes sense because I've infrequently seen the colonization rate go a tad over 25% (to like 27%), but quickly drop back down. Obviously they way overestimated the number of reive battles that would be taking place...or something.

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Mocchi: About the Colonization Rate

We went back and confirmed this.

Based on the report, this is normal behavior. However, we plan to make adjustments to this for the better.

Let me explain in a little more detail:

The current mechanism is that when the colonization rate (pioneering rate) exceeds 25%, there is a reduction to the rate of increase.

Once the colonization rate becomes 25%, a certain amount of reives and coalition assignments would be done to beat out the rate of decay. We made a prediction to the amount of activities that would be done, and the rate was set based on that.

We will continue to consider how the world develops with each subsequent release, and, as a result, we will be reducing the amount of decay in colonization rate increase as well as increasing the amount that colonization rate increases due to reive battles.

We are currently working on this so that in can be included in the version update that will be implemented at the end of this month. Please understand the status of the current situation.

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Very nice on this next one, not much else to say. Depends on how much the reduction is, of course, and how it works with multiple coalitions or whether it just takes your highest rank into account.

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Mocchi: Regarding the Amount of Bayld Required to Obtain the Key Item to Challenge Wildskeeper Reives

The title became a bit... long. I was thinking about possibly making a separate thread about this (but it seems to follow with the information in this thread).

So, about the main issue.

In the version update at the end of this month, depending on the rank within each coalition (probationer, petitioner, etc.), the amount of bayld required to take on the Wildskeeper Reive will reduce in a stepwise manner. (We are currently working on the development and verification of this.)

More information will be announced at a later date.

[Slycer]

Bunch of translations below. I'll post the big one about enmity in a separate reply to this thread.

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Mocchi's first line here is kind of a tease, indicating that there's some information we may not yet be aware of.

Mocchi: Skirmish-related Items

As it currently stands, there is virtually no reliable information available on how to obtain items required to take on Skirmish (statue segments) with any certainty.

Without specifically saying how the trigger items are or aren't produced, we have noted that the yield per day has been increasing very rapidly on a daily basis.

Every day since it started out, there are more and more people confirming obtaining statue segments and reporting their actual participation in Skirmish (including equipment performance). This became particularly noticeable around the end of last week. (It seems that people were not actively pursuing the obtainment of Skirmish-related items until now, so I believe that's why this is the case.)

At the moment, the trend of the increasing yield in Skirmish-related items is proceeding as expected.

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Matsui: Lancer's Cuissots

Hello, it's Matsui.

Thank you for confirming and reporting these bugs. I did some research on this.

As a result of the investigation, I found that rather than affecting the attack power of "Soul Jump," the attack power of "Spirit Jump" is increased. In the late April version update, we will correct the effect of Lancer's Cuissots so that it is effective for Soul Jump and also modify it so that it is effective for Spirit Jump as it is currently.

To all dragoons, I apologize for the inconvenience.


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I'm sure the folks who killed Achuka were greatly "inconvenienced" by the lack of monster repops.

Mocchi: Achuka Issues

Thank you for your reports.

Since there are two separate items that have been reported, I will reply to each individually.

I'm unable to deal any damage to Achuka.
This first report we received is normal behavior. There are aspects to Wildskeeper Reives that are linked to the colonization rate, so this has to do with the current state.

When assisting monsters (raptors) die, their corpses dont' disappear, and they no longer repop.
This second report is confirmed to be a bug. We are working on verification of a corrective action to fix this, and we're sorry about the inconvenience.

Regarding the timing of the correction, I'll post separately once we can confirm.


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Mocchi: Frontier Station Assignments

Just wanted to respond to a couple of questions we've received here. Coalition assignments involving the Frontier Stations cannot be redone once the stations are constructed.

While the Frontier Stations do not disappear, additional coalition assignments will appear after construction of the stations. At the moment, there is no plan to make adjustments to coalition assignments involved with the Frontier Stations.


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Other Random Notes
Already noted on NA forums, but they will change the station and bivouac markers on the map so that they say "F. Station" or "F. Bivouac #1," etc., so that you can see the numbers of which is which.

Second note, the Lost Article that appears in a section of Foret that is out of clickable range will be adjusted, but not until the version update later this month.

Lastly, they will be adding an ON/OFF toggle for Geomancer magic spell effects in the version update at the end of this month, pending verification. HOWEVER, it will only function for "Indi-" type spells and not "Geo-" type spells. The two effects are apparently displayed by a different mechanism, so this particular filter will have no effect on Geo- spells.

[Slycer]

Looks like this covers almost every fixed-type spell. Notably, a lot of AoE spells are excluded (e.g. Sleepga, Barspellra, etc.), and I also noticed some random exclusions like Baramnesia. I'm sure there are other exclusions as well, maybe comment about them on Discussion thread. As far as JAs, looks like they just tackled a couple, mainly for RNG/BST, but also notably Benediction (somewhat surprising to me as the WHM Relic+2 body already has an Enmity-50 augment for Benediction).

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Mocchi: Enmity Adjustments for Spells/Abilities

This is a follow-up report.

In the next version update, as a next step to the enmity adjustments, we will be adjusting some spells and job abilities that are classified with fixed-type enmity increase.

Most affected spells and abilities will be adjusted to yield approximately half of the enmity that they currently receive.

However, Foil and Reprisal will both see increases to the amount of enmity yielded.

For the abilities and spells below, we will lower the amount of enmity yielded:

• Job Abilities
  Benediction / Shadowbind / Sharpshot / Barrage / Heel / Leave / Sic / Stay / Reward / Deactivate
  
• White Magic
  Raise / Raise II / Raise III / Arise / Poisona / Blindna / Silena / Stona / Viruna / Cursna / Blink / Stoneskin / Aquaveil / Slow / Slow II / Haste / Paralyze / Paralyze II / Silence / Barfire / Barblizzard / Baraero / Barstone / Barthunder / Barwater / Barsleep / Barpoison / Barparalyze / Barblind / Barsilence / Barpetrify / Barvirus / Sacrifice / Esuna / Auspice / Repose / Erase / Addle / Temper / Embrava / Enfire / Enfire II / Enblizzard / Enblizzard II / Enaero / Enaero II / Enstone / Enstone II / Enthunder / Enthunder II / Enwater / Enwater II / Enlight / Phalanx / Phalanx II / Regen / Regen II / Regen III / Regen IV / Regen V / Refresh / Refresh II / Aurorastorm / Voidstorm / Firestorm / Hailstorm / Windstorm / Sandstorm / Thunderstorm / Rainstorm / Adloquium / Animus Augeo / Animus Minuo
  
• Black Magic
  Poison / Poison II / Poisonga / Bio / Bio II / Bio III / Burn / Frost / Choke / Rasp / Shock / Drown / Retrace / Blaze Spikes / Ice Spikes / Shock Spikes / Sleep / Sleep II / Blind / Blind II / Break / Breakga / Bind / Dispel / Absorb-STR / Absorb-DEX / Absorb-VIT / Absorb-AGI / Absorb-INT / Absorb-MND / Absorb-CHR / Absorb-Acc / Absorb-Attri / Endark / Klimaform
  
• Summoning Magic
  All avatar and spirit summoning spells. Just the summoning spells themselves.
  
• Bard Songs
  Too lazy to translate all of these. It's basically everything.
  
• Ninjutsu
  See above.
  
• Geomancy
  Ditto.

[Slycer]

Couple folks already posted translation on discussion, just reposting info here:

Rune Fencer Job Adjustments

This post is to inform you about the job adjustments that will occur for rune fencer.

We plan to adjust the following job abilities in the version update scheduled for the end of this month.

• Enchant Rune
  Increase the value of the elemental resistance effect.
  
• Vallation
  Recast Delay: 5 minutes → 3 minutes
  Duration: 3 minutes → 2 minutes
  
• Pflug
  Recast Delay: 5 minutes → 3 minutes
  Duration: 3 minutes → 2 minutes
  
• Valiance
  Recast Delay: 10 minutes → 5 minutes
  Duration: 3 minutes (no change)
  
• One For All
  Recast Delay: 10 minutes → 5 minutes
  Duration: 30 seconds (no change)

[Slycer]

Some comments on Enmity, and a couple random notes on colonization. Enmity stuff is a translation, colonization details below are just highlighting the main points.


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Mocchi: Enmity Replies

[[Someone asks about a number of exclusions including the Dia system, stratagems, and lots of pet and avatar commands.]]

• Dia System
  Dia spells do add a fixed amount of enmity when cast, but because the amount is so low, we have excluded it from the scope of the adjustment.
  
• Stratagems
  Stratagems which add a fixed amount of enmity are excluded from the adjustment. The impact of the stratagems' effects on enmity are proportional to damage, such as on elemental damage.
  
• Ready / Summoner Pacts
  Enmity does not occur.
  
• Spur / Run Wild
  The enmity added from these abilities is fixed type, but it is only time-volatile enmity and is the amount that decays in one second, so they are excluded from the adjustment.

[[Someone asks about NIN, since this will make it more difficult to hold hate. Another asking why blue magic was excluded.]]

With regards to Ninja, good points have been raised. With respect to hate control on Ninja, we will make corrections in another adjustment.

At this time, since there would be situations where, for example, a Red Mage has chosen Ninja as a support job, we have made the adjustment.

Additionally, with respect to blue magic, since part of the blue mage job is being able to withstand taking the target's attention for some amount of time, we have chosen to not adjust enmity of blue magic at this time.

[[Someone's asking why AoE barspells were excluded. Also asking about the incongruity as to why various BST commands were included, but not some avatar commands like Retreat/Release]]

Because the enmity was already set low for area of effect spells in the Bar- system, we have excluded them from the adjustment.

*Hostility increases accordingly with the number of party members. [[Not exactly sure what this next line immediately after is talking about]].

Since there is no enmity associated with Retreat or Release, they are excluded from the adjustment.


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Random Colonization Stuff

Someone was asking what happens when you do enough assignments to get past the contributor rank. They responded that contributor is the highest rank at this time and in the future, additional coalition ranks beyond contributor will become available.

Someone asks to make it easy to check which Bivouacs are in need of supplies to be maintained as you can't realistically expect people to continue to do supply runs to every single bivouac all the time and asks about how they impact colonization. They responded by saying that constructing Frontier Bivouacs and Frontier Stations raises the lower limit of colonization rate. For example, the lower limit of the colonization rate is 10% after construction of a Frontier Station. I'm assuming that doesn't mean it automatically increases to 10%, because I know on Fenrir the stations were up when the colonization rates were at 1-2% in Morimar and Foret. They also mentioned potential adjustments to make it easier to see where supplies needed to go (this may be something that's already planned for future Courier edification services?).

[Slycer]

I'm going to use the "standard" terminology that we're familiar with ("cumulative" and "volatile"). It seems SE doesn't even have standard - previously they've referred to them as "damage-volatile" and "time-volatile," now they're calling them "non-volatile" and "volatile."

I made a few assumptions in this translation since it was highly technical. I think I got it right, but I would wait until the later "official" post to confirm. Most confusing part was the last paragraph - I'm pretty sure the implication was that they were considering but are NOT making adjustments to the rate of enmity decrease when the avatar takes damage. I'm not positive on the bit about increased enmity characteristics - they're either considering it, or they considered and already shot it down also. If someone more familiar with JP grammatical structure wants to go take a look at that last beast of a sentence in the original post, see if you can figure it out.

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Mocchi: Summoner/Avatar Enmity

This is a supplement to yesterday's post.

I'm sorry if the post yesterday wasn't clear. To be more precise, when a blood pact is performed, 1 enmity is added to the cumulative type.

If we were to leave the summoner with no enmity, when the enmity for the avatar was gone, problems would arise such as losing the claimed state of the monster. (As an example, if your avatar is fighting a monster to which another monster links, when the avatar is gone, the linked monster will become passive. If no enmity was associated with the issued commands, the same would be true for the monster on which the actions were performed).

The hostility of the avatar has a cumulative value of 1 and a minimum volatile value of 1. At the time of issuing a blood pact command, the cumulative enmity of the summoner itself is raised by 1 making the cumulative total 2 and the volatile total 1, so the target will switch from the avatar to the summoner.

As an adjustment to this, we are considering the following:

• If the Summoner already has enmity against a monster, when a blood pact command is issued, 1 enmity will not be added (= if the summoner has 0 enmity against the target, +1 enmity will be added).

Please understand that because this update will require additional programming to change the process (not simply adjusting the abilities), it will take a little more time.

As another separate adjustment, we are considering giving increased enmity characteristics to avatars in the same way as pets called by beastmasters. Furthermore, we also considered adjustments which would lower the enmity reduction when taking damage; however, this adjustment would mainly be made for soloing and there are party situations where the avatar not taking hate would be preferable, so we are instead planning the adjustment cited above where 1 cumulative enmity is not added.

[Slycer]

[[Whatever this "Menace Inspector" thing is, it's the new content that was discussed in the first talk about the update on Playonline. Also, from Matsui's post below, it sounds like they didn't mean that you will be required to finish Naakuals or Skirmish, simply that obtaining the gear from those fights would make you more successful here. Also, I really hope "Menace Inspector" isn't the official English term for this, lol.]]


Edit: It's called "Delve" in the English versions.

Matsui: About Content Level and "Delve"

In the late April version update, we will finally be implementing "Delve."

For capable adventurers who want to test out their skills, they can aim to defeat the NMs of Delve. If you have not yet done so, as part of the training, you should go ahead and obtain equipment from Bayld or Reive battles as well as Skirmish loot in preparation.

The content level of Skirmish is adjusted to be above that of the new Nyzul and Salvage and is intended to be on par with the content level of Reive battles and obtaining equipment there.

If it feels too challenging, please go back and obtain some equipment from new Salvage or Reive battles. We think you'll have an easier time once you adjust your equipment and have taken on the new Salvage content.

This new content will be released tweaked for the top players. After this new top-level content is introduced, we will continue to adjust it for the players who follow.

As for the content level, we are trying to come up with a more accurate way to describe this in our development process, so we will post more detailed descriptions at various points in the future.


Mocchi: Summoner Enmity

I wanted to clarify and reorganize my previous post.

• The current situation which needs to be solved:
  When at the minimum value of the Summoner and Avatar's enmity (cumulative enmity=1, volatile enmity=1), the cumulative enmity is increased by 1 when a blood pact command is issued, and the Summoner becomes the target.
  
  
• Adjustments
  When the summoner has pre-existing enmity against a target, the cumulative enmity will NOT be increased by 1 when a blood pact command is issued. Cumulative enmity will be increased by 1 only if it is 0 before the command is issued.

Are we clear up until this point? Please let me know if you had different assumptions.

From there, let me continue.

• Under what circumstances is it preferable where the avatar does not take hate in party situations?

First, in most battle party situations, the general sentiment is that neither the summoner nor the avatar should be taking the target's attention.

If we make an adjustment such as giving enmity increasing characteristics, for example, when using blood pacts, the enemy's target may change off a tanking Paladin and this will create situations where the enemy will be moving on the battlefield more often than in the past.

In other words, it could unintentionally turn the enemy's attention and place targets which were in a different placement such as behind the enemy into attack range.

To put it more simply, it would add an additional consideration that makes avatar abilities more difficult to use in party situations. Because of this, we are not planning to go in the direction of implementing enmity increasing characteristics for avatars.


Mocchi: Final Sting Adjustment

This post is to inform you regarding adjustments to monster special skills.

The other day, we had a post regarding Fluid Spread which mentioned consideration of adjusting the power of Fluid Spread. As for Final Sting, we are now working on adjustment and verification.

In the update at the end of this month, we will update Final Sting so that it deals approximately 50% of the damage it currently deals. (There will be no change to the conditions on use, i.e. remaining HP at 1/3 or less.)

In the following version update, we will consider other changes, for example, slightly increasing the activation time. We will let you know more once we decide. Since this will impact the behavior of bees all across Vana'diel and will take more time to program and verify, it will not be implemented at the end of this month.

[Slycer]

Lots of great (and much-needed) clarifications in Matsui's post. Note that the details like his reference of a previous mistake and the "spoiler alert" are actually exactly how he had them in his post, I didn't add in anything that wasn't there.

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Matsui: Delve Information

Hello, it's Matsui.

Just wanted to fill in some details about Delve prior to the more detailed information included with the version update, regarding participation and the planned flow of the system.

From my earlier post in this thread, the setting that we are referring to as "content level" of Delve [[JP: Menace Inspector]] is higher than that of Skirmish and Wildskeeper Reives.

Therefore, in order to host a "Delve" event, the key items that can be obtained by defeating the seven Naakuals are required.

Although the key item is not required if you are simply joining the battle, the event's balance is adjusted under the assumption that your equiment is aligned with the caliber of equipment that can be obtained from Skirmish or Wildskeeper Reives. (In my last post I also referred to equipment obtained for Bayld - this was a mistake.)

Items that are related to Delve include:

• ○○ Petrified Lumber
• ○○ Fragments
• ○○ Crystals

There are three different types of each, (the "○○" will be replaced with the specified type) corresponding to the battle area.

○○ Petrified Lumber is exchanged for the "Vi-ja Board" and ability to invade the fracture.
[[I have no idea what this is, Ouija Board? rofl. Wait for official translation to correct the item name.]]
○○ Fragments are items required to carry out field battles against the NMs.
○○ Crystals are attached to the board, which will force up to three of the NMs to not appear within the fracture.

These items are related to Delve events in these areas:

• Ceizak Battlegrounds
• Morimar Basalt Fields
• Foret de Hennetiel

They can be obtained from colonization reives, lair reives, and from defeating monsters.

Within Delve, in addition to the equipment that you will find there, you will also receive materials to strengthen the equipment as well as dedicated points known as Mweya Plasm [[JP: Menace Plasm]].

1. Before defeating the boss monster, you must first defeat the NMs that appear in the field and fractures, acquiring Mweya Plasm, equipment, and materials to strengthen the equipment.
2. Once you've strengthened your equipment and you feel ready for the challenge, take on the boss monsters in cooperation with other players.

These are the steps as the system is planned. Of course, if you're confident in your abilities, you do not necessarily need to follow these steps...

Note that there are also items that drop by chance, but by repeating the Delve challenges to accumulate Mweya Plasm, you can also exchange reliably for the items you want. While the defeating the boss monster is definitely planned as a challenge for 18 people, I think that collecting Mweya Plasm and materials to reinforce your equipment is more of a challenge for 6 people, so this will vary depending on what your goal is.

After collecting Mweya Plasm, the npc Forri-Porri in Western Adoulin (I-10) will exchange for items. Even if you have enough points, however, you will still need to complete certain goals in order to exchange for items. For example, if you want to exchange for items that boss monsters drop, you will need to defeat those boss monsters at least once.

Spoiler alert:

Spoiler: show

This NPC will not be available without the Inventors' Coalition emblem, so I hope you're voting for that!

So there's my simple explanation of the system. More information will be passed along on the day of the version update. Additionally, we're also considering using a video to introduce the Delve content.

I just want to emphasize this once more - upon introduction, Delve will be released in a state tweaked for the top players. We expect that as new high-level content is introduced, this content will be adjusted for the players that follow.

[Slycer]

I did a bit of fudging in here for readability, hopefully didn't change the tone/meaning too much. Wasn't really apologetic in any way, just addressing the disappointment created by the stats on the new equipment.


Matsui: Level 99 Relic, Mythic, Empyrean, and Coin Weapons (with Follow-up)

Hello, it's Matsui.

This is a follow-up on Relic, Mythic, Empyrean, and Coin weapons (referred to in the future as RMEC).

As an impact of the kind of equipment which was added in this version update, some of you have become angry or anxious to find out more. This information is not yet finalized and might be spread across multiple threads where relevant. Once we have further confirmation, we will post all of the ideas together in one thread.

If the weapon has been upgraded to level 99 (including weapons with no afterglow, but not including instruments or shields), we are thinking of unlocking the weapon skill. However, this would be conditional to the jobs which can equip the RMEC weapon.

Since we have not yet completed the verification as to if and how we can do this, there is still some uncertainty.

Due to the nature of this project, we want to proceed with caution, even in this introduction of the idea. We understand that there might be some disappointment if this cannot be implemented, but we are also considering other things and thought it would be better to tell you at this time. We didn't want to make no announcement until we were able to confirm our adjustments so I decided to make this post now.

The performance of the new weapons is not intended to be proportional to old equipment, but these weapons were the result of everyone's hard work so please let us test a few things out.

This might take some time, so please continue to be patient.


Matsui: RMEC Follow-up

[[Quoted post with 3 important questions/comments about unlocking WSes:
1) How will the lack of aftermath be accounted for (since aftermath is obviously the deciding factor behind using a lot of these WSes)?
2) You can already unlock mythic weapon skills through a quest.
3) How would you differentiate Empyrean and Coin weapons since they have the same WSes?]]

I understand what you're asking here, but I am not able to answer any additional questions at this time. Since we have not really done any verification or testing yet, I am hesitant to discuss the example of unlocking weapon skills as it is not even confirmed. I will follow-up in the future once we have more a more concrete plan.

We don't want to stay completely silent so you know that we are working on this, but we also don't want to go into any details that might cause inflated expectations, only to let you down in the future.

So, my best answer at this point is really... I'm sorry, but I can't answer right now.

Once we are finished organizing and verifying the content, we will give you a proper update when the opportunity arises.


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Matsui: Delve and Content Level

The Delve battle content which was implemented in the version update at the end of April was originally scheduled to be released along with Seekers of Adoulin.

When I take a look back and think about how the content level steps up as you continue to move through more challenging content, I feel that there isn't a smooth transition.

In particular, we want to adjust the difficulty for small groups participating in lair and colonization reives and the difficulty associated with accessing Skirmish.

It is assumed that subduing the boss monsters of Delve will be the top level content for a while. With the game in this state, rather than adding even more higher level content, we plan to prioritize better connecting this high level content with other level 99 content as well as adjusting or introducing content for soloing or small groups. We will continue to work to satisfy as many people as possible.

[Slycer]

I may have left some details out, but this should have most of the meaningful info. I'm surprised that they thought simply adding a rage mode would work as an anti-congestion measure in the first place. That said, I have yet to run into anyone else popping any of these NMs and been held up by it; is congestion really that big of an issue? Maybe on JP time? idk.

Anyway, there’s a long follow-up post that I’m working through translating now as well, will post it as a separate reply here.


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Iwagami: Delve Field NM Time Limits

Hello, this is Iwagami, in charge of Delve.

Thank you for playing the Delve content!

At this time, I'm considering making adjustments to the length of time that Delve field NMs can be occupied for, so please give me your opinions.

So, on to the main topic.

The proposed adjustment at this time is to put in place a 45 minute time limit battle time for Delve field NMs.

Note: I added in option 3 below.

[[Looks like the post was first made referencing the 45 minute limit, and then they added in the third option for the 20 minute limit with no hyper mode later on.]]

Delve monsters are designed to be defeated by well-equipped players in about 15 minutes. If the battle is not going well and it's taking longer than 15 minutes, the monsters are powered up as an anti-congestion measure which I'll refer to as "hyper mode."

I'm sure a lot of you have already felt that the evasion of the monsters increases significantly or they become much stronger, and this is true. Since there's no message that's displayed when the monster powers up, I'm sorry if it wasn't apparent that things like the increased defense or evasion were part of the monster's behavior. Since the increased evasion or strengthening of the monster can be avoided if the battle goes well, you should notice a change as you get stronger if you can complete the battle with this time limit in mind.

We also understand that many people continue to battle the monsters for a long time even if they go hyper, so these adjustments are not necessarily working as an anti-congestion measure. Based on your experiences and feedback, I'd like to make a decision from the options below.

1) Keep the status quo, with the understanding that there may be congestion.

2) Implement a time limit as an anti-congestion measure.

3) Instead of the monsters going hyper, implement a 20 minute time limit. This time limit would be stricter than the one in item 2 above; however, some people may prefer the longer time limit even with the hyper behavior...?

I'd like to take opinions on which of the three options you prefer.

We would especially appreciate the opinions of people who have challenged the NMs in their current state and have been unable to defeat them. I think as more information comes out and the characteristics about the specific monsters are discovered, completing each battle will become easier and the rising monster parameters associated with drawn out battles can be avoided. We would appreciate being able to set an upper time limit on the battles if you'd allow it.

As I believe we can implement the adjustments on or about 5/10, I know it's a short period of time, but we would appreciate any comments you have by 5/7 (Tuesday).

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

[Slycer]

Also may have missed or misinterpreted some details here, but shouldn't be anything critical.

-----

Iwagami: Delve Follow-ups

Thanks for your feedback. It's Iwagami.

I've been reading through all of your opinions (up to #50!), and while it would be difficult to reply to every one, let me answer by responding to a few of them with my thoughts.

For those who want us to increase the number of ???s

This is something we also considered, but considering the size of some of the environments we believe this would be difficult to do. We had to consider the following:
*Accessibility to the point
*Number of active monsters around
*Nearby a wall

After consideration, we used only the best places as a result. Some of you have asked us to provide three locations like in Voidwatch so that you can check the locations and pick one. Since we have of other content plans, we want to save some locations for future use and we don't plan to do that.

For those who want a message regarding monster weaknesses.

This is some extra information, but while we're talking about Delve, there are no random magic or WS weaknesses that keep changing like in Voidwatch.

As an example, there might be a monster that is particularly susceptible from the defense down effect while Dia is on. Of course, the scope isn't necessarily as narrow as Dia, specifically... it could be something like after doing XXX, the reduction to damage taken drops by 1% or the evasion is reduced by 10, etc.

I just wanted to give an example so that it would be easy to understand, but I think if you try different things, you'll find out more for yourselves.

I'm happy to see that the monster weaknesses which can be exploited are gradually being discovered. Continue to share information about the difficulty of the fights or anything unexpected and hopefully even more will be found.

Preparation (Equipment)

The content level of Delve is set in stages:

Highest stage: Boss monster. The boss monsters are balanced for utilizing all available equipment aside from those dropped by the boss monsters.

Middle stage: IV and V shard NMs. These are balanced for utilizing augmented equipment obtained from shards I~III.

Lowest stage: I~III shard NMs. These are balanced for not requiring Delve equipment.

If you skip to the higher stages without preparing yourself with equipment from the lower stages, it will be extremely challenging, as there is a large content level gap between the stages. You will be able to tackle a higher stage more successfully if you gradually build your equipment with the stage below.

If even the lowest stage seems too challenging, by acquiring equipment from other content such as the new Salvage, Skirmish, and Wildskeeper Reives, you should have an easier time. While it's understandable that people may not want to spend a lot of time developing their character in preparation to obtain better equipment, please note that you'll be facing a much higher challenge level in that case.

After reading some of the comments so far, I consulted with some other development team staff and added the third option to my previous post.

[[third option copied here, see post above]]

We had some people ask for the monster to wait 30 minutes before going hyper, but I think that would be too significant of a change, so please consider the proposals above, along with the 20 minute time limit as another option with no hyper mode. If you plan to take 30 minutes or longer on these fights, we would appreciate if you would try them out inside the Fracture.

P.S.
For those who have been posting about certain tribes of monsters... As an example, the attacks that are successful against the Chapuli NM will vary from those that are successful against the Twitherym NM. The characteristics of the individual NMs vary greatly, so comparing one with another may not be relevant.

[Slycer]

Replacing my post with official translations since some details were incorrect or skipped in mine:


Hello, Iwagami here.

First off, thanks so much for all of the comments. I've read through them all.

In addition to the feedback from those who have participated in Delve and those that have not, hearing feedback before you tried it out and then once again after having tried it out has contributed a lot to our discussion. This decision was made after personally interpreting all of the comments received, so even if it is not fully in accordance with your wishes, I'd appreciate it if you could understand our reasoning.

Before the result of our discussion, I'd like to let you know about one bug.
We've determined a bug where Mastop's magic and abilities are affecting players outside of the fighting alliance, and we will be fixing this immediately. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Discussion result
Now then, I would like to inform you all of the result from our adjustment plan discussion.

After sharing what I wanted to do for the adjustment, there were a lot more comments agreeing with the feedback posted, and also considering that these battles would increase moving forward in order to procure Yggzi Beads, we will be making adjustments so that these monsters do not go into hyper-mode, but will disappear after 20 minutes.

The reason we predict an increase in battles for Yggzi Beads
The two reasons why we foresee an increase in battles for Yggzi Beads are:

1.Preparations have been made to take on the boss
2.The drop rate of Yggzi Beads is not that high
Due to the fact that the drop rate of Yggzi Beads are not that high, it will be necessary to fight these NMs multiple times in order to obtain them. Design-wise we thought this would also give new comers to the Delve content an opportunity to participate. While in actuality there may be some who say "don’t come do Delve unless you have Delve equipment," we’d appreciate if you would keep in mind that we designed this system to give these players an opportunity. With that said, making a 100% drop rate for Yggzi Beads or increasing the drop rate would make it difficult for newcomers, so currently we do not want to do this. We'd really be grateful if those of you who are experienced could invite these newcomers to take on this content when you have the ability to do so. Also, the triggers for Delve can be found in reives and as drops from monsters in the zone at a decent rate, so even if you are inexperienced, definitely try to give it a shot and gather members who aren’t worried about losing.

Regarding feedback to keep as it is now
There's also been comments mentioning to keep it as it is now and to wait until the monsters can be defeated in 15 minutes, but due to the below reasons I cannot agree with this.

•The battles will become easier as more information is circulated
•It's easy to re-challenge
•It's easy to check whether you are lacking preparation
•We would like to eliminate the congestion between now and when you can all defeat them in 15 minutes.
Regarding feedback to increase the "???" points
While I am repeating what I said previously, the below reasons are why we will not be increasing the number of "???" points at the current time.

•We would like to avoid lag issues from having multiple points positioned nearby.
•Considering future content, we don't want to use up too much in areas that are further away.
•There will not be any cost effectiveness as pros and cons will arise from having them further away.
Also, while it's possible to spawn any NM from a single spot, we actually looked into doing this before implementation; however, problems arose with claiming trigger points and we also wanted players to adventure, so we cut this idea. We always have to consider the trade off even though we want to relieve congestion, and though it might sometimes be difficult for the development side and the player side to match up, we'd really appreciate your understand with this as we move forward.

It may appear that I've only extracted the portions of feedback that were suited to what I was thinking, but most of you are in agreement and I apologize that this system became something different than we had imagined initially. With that said, we have decided to adopt a time limit for Delve monsters fought in the field.

I've also made an announcement here about additional adjustments that will be made to delve.
Thank you very much.




Hello, Iwagami here.

We will be performing an adjustment on the conditions to unlock the boss room in Delve. This is something that has already been finalized, so I would like to let you know what we will be adjusting and our reasoning.

Adjustment
Pre-adjustment: The boss room will unlock by either defeating all of the NMs or after a set amount of time has elapsed.

Post-adjustment: The boss room will unlock after only defeating all of the NMs.


Reason 1
The first reason is that we want to bring the pace of this content in line with what we had originally envisioned -- adventurers would defeat all of the NMs one by one and then take on the boss, as opposed to waiting for the time to elapse until the room opens up and then fighting the boss. If it were content where you would only take on a boss, then we feel it would be more enjoyable without the wait time to make a battlefield where there is only a boss.

With that said, the NMs that appear inside Delve each have their own special traits. The concept of Delve is to think of a party setup that will make it easier to fight multiple NMs and the boss, and there is a good margin for strategy from person to person depending on how you would like to fight and what NMs you chose to avoid and defeat. This is also why we have the element of having at least three consecutive battles inside even if you use the maximum amount of Yggzi Beads.

Reason 2
The second reason is that it's difficult to convey the method in which to take on a fracture with the objective of defeating the boss. Currently the boss room will open after a set amount of time has passed or if all of the NMs have been defeated. Unlocking the boss room after a set amount of time is similar to having the field NMs go into hyper mode, and this is causing the battle to become stagnant as you wait. Due to this, you are left with only a minimal amount of time to defeat the boss. We feel that having it so the boss would spawn after a set amount of time was making it difficult to convey the advantages of quickly eliminating the NMs along the way.

Due to the above two reasons we will be making adjustments so that the boss room is unlocked only after defeating all of the NMs.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the first adventurers defeat the boss. Thank you very much.

[Ligray]

Some NA exclusive news, mostly minor but welcomed for Morimar vines:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...259#post431259

Geomancers and Rune Fencers, we're doing our very best to implement your limit break quests in the next version update.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...260#post431260

We are planning to make it possible to climb those alluring vines! However, before you imagine yourself swinging from vine to vine and climbing all over Morimar Basalt Fields, you will need to acquire the correct survival skill.

[Slycer]

Well, that didn't take long. No mention as to how the upgrade will occur (other than it not being Magian related), but with all this talk about content level, it would pretty silly if there was no additional legwork required considering the content level of RME related stuff is all in the bottom half of that range, at best.

______


Matsui: Follow up on Level 99 Relic, Mythic, Empyrean, and Coin Weapons

Hello, it's Matsui. Thank you for all of your opinions about Relic, Mythic, Empyrean, and Coin weapons (hereafter, RMEC). They were very helpful.

After reading all of the varied opinions, we have decided that rather than unlocking the weapon skills specific to each weapon, a reworking of RME weapons would be more effective (for coin weapons, more information will be provided later, but we plan to allow these to unlock the dedicated weapon skills).

I have written and reorganized this in various ways and it has become quite lengthy with examples. After you have gotten a chance to look over it, please let us know if you have any further opinions.


Content Level

We received many questions about the parameters of Adoulin equipment. Because this is an important part in order to be able to understand the reworking of RME so you can provide your opinion, please allow me to repeat the explanation for content level and growth in Seekers of Adoulin.

In Adoulin, the basic design is a repeated play cycle where players become stronger and stronger as they align themselves with equipment obtained from challenging content which, in turn, allows them to take on even more challenging content.

By aligning themselves with this equipment, players will continue to grow even without leveling up.

The content level of Adoulin content is set as follows:

[[Info below is much better formatted in a table on the original post.]]

20: Delve (Boss Monsters) (Current)
17: Wildskeeper Reive (New Additions) (Next Version Update)
14: Delve NMs (Tier 2) (Current)
13: Skirmish (New Additions) (Next Version Update)
11: Delve NMs (Tier 1) (Current)
6-9: Colonization / Lair Reives (New Additions) (Next Version Update)
7: Wildskeeper Reive (Current)
6: Skirmish (Current)
1-5: Colonization/Lair Reives (Current)

The strength of the equipment that can be obtained, rather than the level of the equipment, will be dependent on the content level. The equipment to be added later in Adoulin will of course be equippable at level 99, but the level of the equipment parameters would be even higher to match the content level (for example, similar to what level 110 or 120 equipment might look like).

While the strength of the monsters which appear is determined to match the content level, in order to fill out the hierarchy between content to some extent, we have designed monsters of variable strength. The parameters of the equipment that can be obtained in Adoulin is set by determining the parameters that would be necessary to compete with those monsters.

The level of current and planned content is set to minimize the gaps between content level, but we may also insert additional intermediate content if the jump between levels remains too high.

In some cases, content variations will cause content to cover multiple levels. We also plan to enhance the amount of content available horizontally at individual levels, rather than just vertically over the content level range.

The content in the next version update will be added with this in mind.

Referencing the "next version update" items above, it will be possible to add new colonization and lair reive equipment purchasable for Bayld in the level 6~9 range (which currently includes Skirmish and Wildskeeper Reives). In addition, we will be inserting new content at levels 13 and 17.

Also, one part of smoothing out the content level will be adjusted in a maintenance to be carried out of the end of this week: we will be adding a fixed probability to obtain the items needed to enter Skirmishes (Simulacrum Segments) from Lair and Colonization Reives. (This adjustment is unrelated to the current rules associated with coalition assignments, gathering, and Soul Pyres.)

By making this adjustment, the assumed progression will be:
1. First, take on lair and colonization reives.
2. As a result of those battles, obtain Simulacrum Segments.
3. Combine the segments in order to enter Skirmishes.


Reworking RMEC

Please excuse my lengthy explanation above. I'll now return to the topic at hand.

First off, since it is necessary for the development staff to further consider the implementation, we cannot guarantee the timeframe as far as whether it will be included in the next version update.

Regarding the types of parameters that would be reworked, special abilities such as Aftermath and Afterglow will remain, while parameters such as the DMG rating, attack, and accuracy will be set to match the content level post-rework.

Since the parameters will be reworked to become aligned with high content difficulty, we do not intend to rework it in small intervals such as with the previous method of Trial of the Magians.

Prior to now, RME were considered the strongest weapons, so I think there will need to be some change to this viewpoint. For those who have RME, you may not require the other weapons, but there now be a choice among other comparable weapons.

If you are worried about how these weapons will be able to be used, for example, against Delve boss monsters, here are some parameters which we are looking at for the reworking. This is just for RME one-handed swords as an example:


Excalibur
DMG:73 Delay:233 Attack+40
"Knights of Round"
Additional effect: Damage varies with HP

to

DMG:121 Delay:233 Attack+60 Accuracy+20
"Knights of Round"
Additional effect: Damage varies with HP


Burtgang
DMG:73 Delay:264 Enmity+18
Physical damage taken-18% Reduces Enmity decrease when taking damage
"Atonement"
Aftermath: Increases Acc./Atk./Occ. attacks twice or thrice

to

DMG:131 Delay:264 Attack+20 Accuracy+20 Enmity+18
Physical damage taken-18% Reduces Enmity decrease when taking damage
"Atonement"
Aftermath: Increases Acc./Atk./Occ. attacks twice or thrice


Almace
DMG:70 Delay:224 DEX+20
"Chant du Cygne"
Aftermath: Occ. deals double damage

to

DMG:114 Delay:224 Attack+20 Accuracy+20 DEX+20
"Chant du Cygne"
Aftermath: Occ. deals double damage


Since coin weapons were originally just intended to be used for Empyrean weapon skills, based on the concept, I believe that instead of reworking them, they can be used to open the dedicated weapon skills (with certain level and job restrictions). We are currently considering the adjustment procedures necessary for this..


In conclusion

I've gone on for a while, so considering the reworking for level 99 Relic, Mythic, and Empyrean weapons as well as the unlocking of dedicated weapon skills via Coin weapons, please let us know your opinions. We will read through your thoughts one by one to make sure we understand your point of view.

Note that this is a large departure from the original plan. Considering the feasibility of scheduling this change, the development may take some time.

I apologize for keeping you waiting on my response.

Thanks in advance!