Dev Tracker: Findings/Posts (NO DISCUSSION)

[Slycer]

Letter from Matsui

Hi everyone - sorry for the worry about my lower back pain (although it is pretty terrible).

Since I first pulled a back muscle, I have had lower back pain for nearly 20 years, although it is likely not a hernia. Now, when I am waking up, when I'm at work, or when I'm on the train and it starts to shake, it's scary. It can be so painful that I have to wear a back brace when the pain is severe.

My stiff body, lack of exercise, and being overweight were pointed out as possible causes, and Fujito told me that so the proud old man doesn't get ill, he thought I should take it easy for a week.

At the end of last week, the data for Adoulin monster special attacks was about 90% implemented (although some adjustment is still required). I will consult with the team regarding the implementation of the rest this week. Since I had been away for a while working on my own until about two years ago, I was careful to make sure I consulted with the staff that I am currently in charge of. Honestly, it was fun (was it useful that I was in charge?).

We have many other things to do, for example, talking about the logic behind the calculation of enmity that we promised, as far as its current state and how we will fix it as we move towards Adoulin. I want to put this post together, so please be patient.

I didn't have much time, so please excuse my hasty writing.

[Slycer]

Translation of the post people were talking about in discussion is below.

___

Matsui on Job Disparity (Re: Twilight Scythe)

Hello!

Thank you for your posts regarding Twilight Scythe. We appreciate your opinions both in favor of and against the changes.

However, I also saw some intolerably written feedback which we had to put an end to. Such writing is extremely selfish and is not useful in determining why you are for or against the changes.

After re-examination of the comments we received and discussion with the development team, we have decided to adjust the performance on Twilight Scythe.


When comparing individual jobs, there is a certain amount of unevenness between the jobs, and this is a good thing (to have special features which distinguish the jobs from one another). This unevenness between jobs changes with the addition of new items, equipment, and job adjustments. Since the goal is to have the jobs be well compatible with the content, this leads me to a discussion about the disparity between jobs.

If the unevenness between jobs reaches a degree beyond what was intended, there are various methods we can employ to adjust.

For example:
Job Adjustments
Equipment/Items Adjustments
Content Adjustments
...and so on.


Dark Knight now has a high level of unevenness when compared with other jobs. We believe this is the case because many of you seem to share the same point of view. Therefore, we decided to review the performance of Twilight Scythe.

We will continue to study the weapon, but here are some proposals that we have come up with:

• With Twilight Scythe equipped, each attack will have a risk of consuming HP (overlapping with the effect of Souleater)
• Grant the non-attribute performance as an additional effect which triggers less frequently
• With HP below a certain amount, trigger with a fixed probability, with a higher probability (and increased risk) with a decreasing amount of HP.

These are some routes we may take.

Regarding other weapons (and weapon skills) that are non-attribute, we have determined that the job unevenness created by them is at an acceptable level, and we have no plans to make adjustments at this time. Next, regarding elemental magic, we have decided to review the current adjustment plans. (From time to time, I will provide feedback on our adjustment plans).

[Slycer]

Another translation:

Fujito on the Flu, Profit, and Testing Geomancer Animations

Hello.

A midnight snack is my favorite kind of food. Today, I'm enjoying my break from work.

Recently, the flu has been spreading rampantly. The other day I even thought I might have caught it, but I tested negative for it. I guess the vaccination I got worked.

Maybe with the release of "Seekers of Adoulin" imminent...we should lock all the employees up in an airtight chamber.

Or, maybe we'll carry this for luck.


Tenkomori

We traveled to Hanozono Shrine near where we work for the Rooster Festival and purchased the kumade [[lucky bamboo rakes]]. Because this prayer is for prosperity and wealth, however, I doubt it will affect my health....

But, now that I think about it...

If the development team members are all healthy...
Development is expedited...
Version updates come faster...
FFXI becomes the talk of the town...
More people play the game...
Profit!

We've done prosperous business and I'm also perfectly healthy! We've also become the talk of the town and we're making a lot of money! Is the marketing guy on fire?!

OK, let's set him on fire.

Anyway, speaking with some insiders earlier, we were chatting about innovations.


What can surpass the limit of warrior equipment!? Geomancer!!

We use this screen while creating the animations to check whether various equipment works correctly with the animation when equipped. I seemed to have good luck this time with the Mithra Geomancer, so Mithra fans across the nation, please check it out!

Not so fiery, I know.

[Slycer]

Follow-Ups to Fujito Post

Since I have a few minutes before a meeting, I have a few replies.

If the development team members are all healthy...
Consider what the players want...
Reconsider development policies...
Development is expedited...
Version updates come faster...
FFXI becomes the talk of the town...
More people play the game...
Profit!

Let's do it like that!

What I posted wasn't a serious reply, so please don't read too deeply into it.

I think if you look at the current workflow and you read Matsui's posts, you'll see that you aren't very far off! Truthfully, even though it looks like Matsui is the only one who's hard at work, there are a lot of development team members working behind the scenes but we don't get much spotlight.

In this short break I have I started my own thread here...it's been quite a burden!

I think there's something wrong with that armor....

It looks funny, but maybe that's how they check for overlapping polygons?

Yep. The animation team always checks armor and weapons like this to make sure that animations don't cause the armor and weapons to overlap each other.

With that.. I gotta run to the meeting. Adieu!

____

(Mr. Fujito... Can you hear me?... Aytanri and Gibbous Axe are in my characters ribs when standing...)
(This won't be a problem... you will also consider whether you can implement Ark Angel EV's shield into the game...)
(Hope you do well at your meeting...)

(Mr Pneumo...Can you hear me...?...I am speaking directly to your heart...)
(The Gibbous Axe and Aytanri clipping into your character... which race are you when they are equipped...?)
(Though I don't perform special fixes, let me know because I have a personal interest...)
(The Ark Angel EV shield would clip quite a bit... it would be difficult to implement simply...)
(The meeting went well...)

I guess a Tell is the voice of the heart?

All of this mystery is too much! ><
1) Does the tail move around in the geomancer animations?
2) The legs AF are so sexy...

While I expected #2, I find it personally exciting (* '-')

The AF is equipped together with the feet as it is in the illustrations. As for the tail... you'll have to play Seekers of Adoulin to confirm for yourself!

Doesn't really mean anything but... you just reminded of that manjyuu [steamed buns] commercial where the wind speaks.

(...You mean this...I know...)

[he linked to a google search for the marketing tagline for the food they were talking about, something like "it's good... oh so good"]

____

This break was a little too long, so I need to get back to work (...I have to wonder about this job sometimes).

Take care, everyone, I look forward to my next break~

[Damane]

From the German Forums, answer on adding more mogsatchels and sacks.

Seid gegrüßt,

eure Idee ist wirklich gut. Leider können wir aber zur Zeit keine weiteren Beutel hinzufügen. Der Grund dafür ist der, dass jeder Charakter nur eine bestimmte Datenkapazität hat. Da sind zum Beispiel die Daten über die Gegenstände oder auch Münzen, die ein Charakter besitzt, auf welche Spielinhalte er Zugriff hat, wie weit er im Spiel schon gekommen ist usw.

Diese Informationen haben einen Einfluss auf die verschiedenen Spielaspekte. Zum Beispiel würde sich die Ladezeit beim Wechsel von Zonen erhöhen, wenn mehr Informationen mit dem Charakter verknüpft sind. Je mehr Charakterdaten es gibt, desto länger braucht man, um eine Zone zu wechseln. Das ist aber nur ein Beispiel, auf was das Hinzufügen eines weiteren Beutels Einfluss hätte. Aber für Probleme dieser Art muss zunächst eine Lösung gefunden werden, bevor wir euch weitere Beutel zur Verfügung stellen können.

Greetings everyone

Your Idea is very good. Unfortunatly we cant implement any more satchels/sacks at this time. The reason behind this is, that every Character has only a limited amount of Datacapacity. For example there is Data about Items or Currency, which a Character posseses, which events a Character can access, how far he has proceeded in the game etc.

Those Informations have an Impact on different game-aspects. For example the Load time between changing Zones would go up if we would connect more Information/Data with the Character. The more Character-Data there is, the longer it is needed to change a Zone (Loading time). This is only one example what kind of impact another satchel/sack would have. Before we can put in any additional mogsatchels/sack, we need to find a Solution for theese problems.

[Slycer]

Translation of new post:

Regarding /yell (Follow-up)

At the time when Seekers of Adoulin is released, we would like to add the following areas:

• Town area added in Adoulin
• Aht Urhgan Whitegate
• Chocobo Circuit

For cities such as San d'Oria, Windurst, Bastok, and those in the outlands, we will continue to review the situation after we expand to the areas above.

Additionally, we are also currently doing development work to expand the range of party invitation. Because this will take a little more time, we will introduce these one at a time, first introducing the additional yell areas, and then expanding the party invitation range.

...I almost accidentally gave away the name of a new area.

[Slycer]

tl;dr, don't expect any more version updates or patches until SoA releases.
___

Regarding Version Updates/Patches until SoA

[[Quoted old post from community team about Gleosuccus not working correctly and that they were going to fix it in a future version update. They just quoted this as a jumping off point for the more general conversation below.]]

Regarding this matter, we'd like to apologize for the continued inconvenience.

For a little information on the current situation, on the development side, although there is already a fixed version, it is in a state that cannot currently be delivered in a version update.

Upon release of Seekers of Adoulin, the game state is called the "validation master." It is required to finalize this, and we are currently in the middle of the validation process.

The validation master copy of the game must be provided for hardware manufacturers and ratings agencies for further examination as to whether it is functioning properly without any problems and to review the game content. The ratings have not been carried out yet, for example (this is quite a loose explanation).

This validation is not necessarily performed all at once, and modified/updated versions are resubmitted after a certain period of time, so there is a need to prepare several revisions.

While managing several versions of the master copy for validation and separately making versions of the release copy of Seekers of Adoulin, we cannot prepare patches for version updates and we will put their status on hold. (Patches will be incorporated into the version update currently in development for the Seekers of Adoulin data.)

For this reason, you've had to wait longer than expected for this and we truly apologize; however, we request that you please give us a little more time.

[Slycer]

Not really sure what happened, but was double EXP implemented early by accident? It's not really clear from the post (translation). Anyway...
____

Regarding Double EXP

After the version update the other day, we were surprised by the increased amount of GM calls we were receiving regarding the amount of EXP for the double EXP campaign [[I'm not really clear what he's talking about here, but he's alluding to the fact that the double EXP mechanism might have been turned on early??]].

Anyway, the campaign will be conducted at the end of this week and I'd like to answer a few questions about Double EXP.

[[Player asks if the location "all of Vana'diel" also includes "other world" areas like Dynamis, Lumoria, Promyvion, etc.]]

Yes, all those areas are included.

[[Player asks if adventuring fellows also receive double EXP]]

This is only for player characters. We will consider this after the campaign ends; however, and may do this in the future if it won't create any problems.
____

Follow-up

Regarding the "implementation period" for the campaign, there were some suggestions that it was too short. Although we are not saying that three days is the best duration for something like this, after we take a look at this with some trial and error, we will move to a better policy.

Also, regarding variations to the campaign, we will consider it. Since we prepared the game to allow future campaigns, based on the results of this one, we will decide to what extent we want to implement these in the future.

[Slycer]

Translation of some comments about the new Adoulin story that was posted on POL today. NA (English) link included below.
____

Thanks for submitting your messages of support and feedback on other forums, blogs, and through Twitter. Because of all of your support, we were driven to deliver some new reading material to you, which even includes some new drawings from Mitsuhiro Arita.

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...51/detail.html

The theme of this story is the insignia of the Sacred City of Adoulin.

From the person in charge:

Thank you everyone for your interest in reading about Adoulin!

In this story, it is explained why the coat of arms includes 12 swords, etc., so please check it out.

You can also meet the people we mentioned in the story in Vana'diel when you visit Southern San d'Oria, so please pay them a visit when you get the chance!

That was the message he sent.

If you liked the story or want to give us your opinions, we'd appreciate it.

By the way, this time we talked about the Trail Cookies that you may receive as a reward on your quests to get the Proto-Waypoints.

Now, to prepare for the next story....

[Damane]

Hallo Damane,

Ich habe mich bei den Entwicklern erkundigt und bei der von dir beschriebenen Situation handelt es sich nicht um einen Bug.
Sie werden die Voraussetzungen für das Erscheinen der Notorischen Monster auch nochmals überprüfen, aber aufgrund der momentanen Arbeitsbelastung können sie dafür leider noch keinen Zeitpunkt nennen.

Ich hoffe, dass du und deine Freunde inzwischen die Chance hattet, die Gegner zu bekämpfen.

Forgot this to Translate a while ago: Considering ToAU kings

Translation:
Greetings Damane,

I have contacted the Devs about your situation and the situation you describe is indeed not a bug.
They will look into The Spawn Conditions for those Notorious Monsters (Gurfurl, Medusa and Gulool), but due to the current workload they have they cant name a Date or Time when that will happen.

I hope you and your Friends still had the Chance to battle those foes.

(fun fact: I really got the remaining 2 titles just 1 week later, but gulool didnt pop for 21 days)

[Slycer]

Translation below. In case anyone was holding out hope that RUN wasn't (or was) the official abbreviation for rune fencer, the file names of the two screenshots below on the JP site were "geo_01.jpg" and "run_01.jpg."

Nothing else really shown in this, but I'm interested as far as why the AF1 equipment is shown as Lv95~.....
____

We just tweeted this story on our official Twitter account.

For those of you who are anxious about the performance of the JSE of the new jobs, I tried to take photos.

*These contain various temporary messages.


Geomancer Equipment
[[Translation: Geomancer AF1 Body / Currently in development! / Lv95~ GEO]]


Rune Fencer Equipment
[[Translation: Rune Fencer AF1 Body / Currently in development! / Lv95~ RUN]]
The notation of equippable jobs for rune fencer has become [[kanji in screenshot above, i.e. "sword"]].

In the future, we'll just tweet small stories of this kind to Twitter. If anyone isn't already following FFXI on Twitter, please check out out here!

https://twitter.com/FFXI_JP

[Slycer]

Fujito: Fundoshi, Valentine's, Cupcake fail, and more...

Fujito here, back to vandalize the Dev Tracker some more... Hello!

Rather than posting a bunch of separate posts, I'm going to write it all together so it flows better.

So then, does everyone know what today is?
Yes, that day...

Today is Tomb Raider's hero Lara Croft's birthday!
Happy Birthday~♪

...What? You didn't know? That's strange...

If you didn't know, click here! [[link to JP Tomb Raider site]]

So, now you know.


Fundoshi Day
[[Fundoshi are loincloths worn by traditional Samurai basically as underwear]]

[[Difficult to translate ridiculousness]]

Yeah, yeah, I know today is Valentine's Day.

This guy got a Tender Bouquet. I'm using it to participate in the "Mog House Decoration Contest"! We've heard a lot of good things and we're looking forward to viewing everyone's masterpieces!


It's Valentine's Day!

Without even asking for it, almost everyone has brought sweets (mostly chocolate) and we're accumulating them in one corner of the development booth.


They're already almost gone...

Also, opposite Fujito there is another masterpiece from Shimaumako [[means "Zebra Child," lulz.. nickname of some girl involved with FFXI dev team]]


Chick Madeleines: Food effect: INT+1 Enhances effects of Tea

There were no less than 60 of these. Shimaumako has the Patissier key item, but these were still a bit frightening. Click here to see the results of her struggles [[rofl @ 2nd photo on blog]].

Check out the previous entry too; it's a must-read story about Mizuta's music box.

Anyway, here are a few responses:

[[Quoted post saying that Fujito's thread has been crazy since the start and that there isn't really any information here.]]

Although the amount of official responses have decreased, that's unrelated. [[He goes on to say that the purpose of this thread is really just to chat back and forth unrelated to the game and that any real official replies regarding FFXI have to be reviewed by Ito and Matsui before they're posted and right now they're approching tons of imminent deadlines which are keeping them super busy.]]

[[Quoted post asking if we'll ever hear from some other development team members.]]

Rather than posting here, I think it'd be better if we had that broken out into a separate topic. [[He continues by saying this thread is really just his and he wouldn't want any misunderstanding so if other developers post they will have separate threads.]]

I've gone on for a while now, so take care!~~~

[Slycer]

Fujito: Chocobo Circuit as a Party Forming and Hub Area

Hello!

Why is the Chocobo Circuit one of the areas we're adding to /yell? About that... let me comment.

Actually, while this is still just a plan for the future, we were planning to have the Chocobo Circuit be like a hub allowing you to traverse all of the connected areas.

So, in that case, you'd want to hear the /yells as you moved from place to place, and we added that area to the list. As was pointed out, we would also like this to be an area where parties get formed.

Since the idea is to have it be a hub area in which to form parties, it wouldn't make sense to hear yells and not be able to recruit and party at the same time. [[He's talking about the fact that they need to work on the system that will allow for invites across larger portions of the game world before these changes come to the Chocobo Circuit]].

Apart from this, regarding the hub area function, we're still considering it and going back and forth about the pros and cons, so please do not debate that in this thread.

Later on, we will announce our ideas here.

______________


Random Comments

They are looking into updating the items rewarded from the Mog Tablet quest, and will probably change them out around the time of SoA release.

Re: Geomancy, some of the enfeebling effects are duplicates of other existing effects and will not overlap. They will be subject to the same immunities as normal debuffs when a target is completely resistant. They're asking us to hold out until the end of the month for more detailed info, but again a lot of this might be JP onry since they are media interviews that will be published in magazines. Hopefully we get the same level of info.

[Slycer]

First post of several... Matsui's responses for today:

Matsui: More Time!

I'm sorry!
I'd like to ask for just a little more of your time.

Although I had planned to post this week, with the flood of meetings and all of the work for adjustments of monster techniques, I didn't even have time to write up the outline.

Please give me 2-3 more days to get this information together.

Matsui: Magic The Gathering

Magic The Gathering... brings back some nostalgia. My main deck was blue-black.

[Slycer]

Fujito: New SP Stuff

[[There were a bunch of Fujito replies to randomness on his thread.... about his poor vision, cutting back on the sake, opening combination crates, and even telling some guy with gastritis to go to the hospital so that he could counter more "fujito food attacks." Apparently this went on until 11:30pm or so JP time, lulz. Anyway, the response below seems to be the only thing really FFXI-related.]]

[[Quoted post saying they've basically neglected the new SP abilities for the past two months and asking for some more info. Acknowledging that they're probably busy with Adoulin, but the info just stopped.]]

I'm sorry for the inconvenience and for worrying you.
There really isn't any other reason aside from Adoulin coming, we just don't have enough hands to put together a response. We want to organize the comments properly so that they don't receive a poor reception.

While myself, Oriole, and Mocchi do put in an appearance here, we know that the answer has been delayed considerably. Please give us a little more time to get an appropriate response.

[Slycer]

Mocchi: Random Responses... and a Little Teaser

[[Quoted post asking why can't they just make the Mog Tablet quest so that you can choose what you want as a reward after retrieving a tablet. Guy's trying to get a Talaria and never gets one.]]

I know that feeling well...

Kupofried's Ring is received for all tablets. Additionally, there is another bonus item tied to each tablet (we won't list them all here). I don't think we'll be changing the way this works for the moment.

However, it's possible that we might make opportunities available in the future to obtain Talaria or Nomad Moogle Statue outside of the Mog Tablet Quest.

For example, we can give them out as event prizes, or as prizes for contests like the current Mog House Decoration Contest. We can also use them as prizes for Twitter events in the future.


[[Quoted post asking them to create "motion" versions of job emotes that don't display log text when used. Apparently this was something that was discussed as a possibility in the past but never happened. Also asking about using job emotes in battle.]]

Response basically says they aren't going to change the job emotes' log display because it's something fundamental to the way they are programmed. They go on to say that you can't use job emotes in battle because many of them would really screw things up (i.e. NIN) and they aren't going to go emote by emote for what would work and what wouldn't.



What's the next promotional campaign?



Do you understand?

[[Screenshot text:
Which would you like to look at?
->Hecteyes Belt
Thunder Gem
Montiont Silverpiece]]

(all three of those are items that were not previously distributed by wizened worm NPCs. Guessing the Leech Belt and Slime Belt will also be from this.)

[Slycer]

For clarity, here's how the terms below compare to Kaeko's (widely used) enmity terminology:

Damage-Volatile Enmity: Cumulative Enmity (CE)
Time-Volatile Enmity: Volatile Enmity (VE)

It may be better served to think of the terms as "damage-decaying" and "time-decaying" enmity, to avoid confusion with Kaeko's VE term.

____


Regarding Enmity

It's Matsui. Sorry to have kept you waiting.

Regarding what happens with enmity in FFXI, we have described it, including some numbers. I will also briefly mention how we plan to try to make adjustments.

I would like everyone to understand that I do not plan to expose all of the game mechanisms and future calculations. However, I believe it makes sense in this case to show how large the adjustments to the enmity system will be.

As a result, this is a little complex, and the text is also quite lengthy. However, in order to provide a more in depth discussion on enmity, I hope you'll give it a read.

The Enmity System

• Quantification
  With the enmity system, the monster determines the most threatening player character (hereafter "PC"), and uses this mechanism to choose its attack target. To make a determination as to which PC is most threatening, we must measure and compare the degree of threat using a parameter we call "enmity."
  
• Purpose
  However, the enmity system is not there to make the monster AI more intelligent. If anything, it is there to place some tactical significance on giving the PCs better control of the monster's target (to some extent).
  
• Enmity Types (Classification by method of decay)
  In FFXI, enmity is recorded and decays separately in two ways:
  
  
  • Time-volatile enmity
    Decays with time
  • Damage-volatile enmity
    Decays as the PC is damaged.
  
  Because more than one PC takes action against hostile monsters, there is a list of PCs to keep track of enmity (although I refer to this as a "list" here I will not use that terminology again in this document).
  
  On the list, the PC with the highest total value of "time-volatile enmity" and "damage-volatile enmity" will be the main target of the monster (the target of auto-attacks).
  
• Actions (commands, such as magic) with enmity-related settings
  
  • Classification by how enmity is increased (directly, indirectly, none)
    Actions not related to enmity processing are set to the "none" type, while other actions are split into two categories depending on how they increase the enmity.
    
    • Direct
      These are hostile actions of the type taken by PCs directly against monsters which cause the monster's enmity towards the PC to increase. This is mainly related to damage and enfeebling commands.
      
    • Indirect
      When there is already a hostile relationship between a monster and PC1, friendly behaviors taken by PC2 on PC1 will generate enmity towards PC2. This is mainly related to recovery and enhancing commands.
  • Classification by how enmity generation is calculated (fixed, effect-dependent)
    
    • Fixed
      When an action is performed successfully, a set value is added directly to damage-volatile and time-volatile enmity. This is generally related to actions without quantified results, such as enfeebling or enhancement.
      
    • Effect-Dependent
      This type of action adds damage-volatile and time-volatile enmity proportional to the amount of damage or healing, based on certain rules (a formula).
  
  
• Final Formula
  
  • Defining 1 Enmity
    Talking about FFXIV for a moment here, at the time of the rehab, we described the calculation as 1 damage = 1 enmity, with no system to decay enmity over time.
    
    In FFXI, the enmity does decay and is divided into "time-volatile" and "damage-volatile" because we believed that the purely the amount of damage dealt by stronger NMs was not sufficient for a decay mechanism and we have different methods of adding enmity dependent on the type of action (fixed or variable calculation).
    
    The amount of enmity that will decay in one second is defined as 60 enmity (this is because development started on PS2 and the smallest unit of time measurement was 1/60, the framerate limit at the time). As an example (I'm hesitant to give numbers for everything), the "Provoke" job ability is a fixed-type calculation and is set to 1800 time-volatile enmity. In other words, the enmity generated decays completely in 30 seconds.
    
  • Effect Change of the Enmity Calculation
    First, for each level there is a set value for enmity-calculation defined as "standard damage."
    *This value is about the same as the DMG value for the reference data of weapon creation (a sword with 240 attack delay).
    
    For enmity given at the time of dealing "d" damage:
    Time-volatile enmity: (240 * d)/"standard damage"
    Damage-volatile enmity: (80 * d)/"standard damage"
    (Standard damage is obtained based on the level of the monster)
    
    In other words, if you are dealing "standard damage" once every 4 seconds, the time-volatile enmity would repeatedly decay from 240 to 0. Additionally, the damage-volatile enmity is calculated as 1/3 of the time-volatile enmity (25% of the total enmity).
    
    My belief is that current damage dealing power is so much higher than the reference values in the original design, that we must correct these conditions which cause volatile enmity to cap so easily by reviewing the "standard damage" values.
    
  • Calculation of decay from damage taken
    When a PC receives "d" damage from a monster, the damage-volatile enmity of the PC is reduced.
    
    Damage-volatile enmity reduction = (1800 * d)/PC's max HP
    
    In other words, if the PC takes the same amount of damage as their maximum HP, 1800 damage-volatile enmity is decayed.
    
    *This calculation is subject to correction by Sentinel's effect.
    *From the point of view of back-line jobs, this may be too low. By increasing the 1800 value, more enmity will be decayed when damage is taken. However, this would also have the reverse effect of making it difficult to maintain enmity when receiving damage as a tank. This all needs to be taken into consideration when making adjustments.
    *For healing magic, the value is half of the above calculation.
• Other
  
  • Enmity increase from resting
    By maintaining a certain distance from the monster, this can be reduced to 0. The distance is approximately half range on casting magic on a target.
    
  • Enmity Cap
    The upper limit on enmity is common to all jobs and is the same for both the time-volatile and damage-volatile types.
    By raising this limit, since we cannot eliminate the cap in the current system, and we can only raise the value by approximately three times, it will not be an effective solution.
    It has also been proposed that we change the upper limit on enmity for each job. In that case, under the current circumstances it would mean that you will not always be able to maintain your target's attention, depending on your job.
  
  
• First Step of the Adjustment
  
  • Standard Damage (Time-Volatile Enmity)
    We first plan to adjust the "standard damage." Since we can set this for each level, we will only adjust the high levels without affecting the lower level ranges.
    
  • Damage-Volatile Enmity
    When the standard damage is adjusted, damage-volatile enmity will also be adjusted. At the time of dealing damage or healing, the amount and the proportions of time-volatile and damage-volatile enmity generated will be reviewed, along with the amount of enmity that decays when the PC takes damage.
    
  • Individual Commands
    If there is a problem with fixed values for individual abilities, we will make adjustments.
    
  • Content
    When comparing a monster with twice the HP that takes twice the damage and a monster with 50% of the HP that takes 50% of the damage, the number of attacks to defeat the monsters will be identical, but the treatment of enmity will be significantly different. For the monster that takes reduced damage, enmity generation will occur at a much lower rate than the monster that takes increased damage. We must set content and monster parameters with an understanding of these mechanisms.

[Slycer]

First few responses here to the Enmity thread. I'll be posting another few responses shortly to the Adoulin article. No doubt some rage about the lack of Tarutaru inclusion will be there.

____


Mocchi: Responses on Enmity

Thank you for all of your posts! Along with Matsui, I read all of the information in your replies.

Today, although Matsui was supposed to write some replies, a bunch of things came up and he didn't really have time to do so, so I'll be posted for him a bit.

Because I'm just writing up his responses from when we spoke earlier, there may be some missing or incorrect info. (Sorry in advance if this is the case, I'll correct it later).

For more details, please hang on a bit for Matsui to write up a response. Hope you understand!

____

Guy's wondering what they plan on doing from a development perspective, saying it's probably going to take a long time to think about it.

We want to avoid the current situation where the enmity remains stuck at the cap (= enmity control mechanism is not functioning well).

Since we wanted to receive everyone's feedback and respond first, we didn't go into too much detail on that part.

Sorry if there was not enough information!

Guy talking about standard damage calculations, pointing out two problems and his ideas for solutions:
Ideas
1) Time-Volatile Enmity (VE) decay can't keep up with the enmity increase
2) High damage WS yields as much enmity as 2-4 Provokes
Solutions
1) Set new standard damage from 76 on, using a new calculation that takes into account haste and multi-attacks
2) Make enmity accumulation from WS and possibly elemental magic FIXED rather than variable with damage.

In our original post, we listed your proposed improvement for 1) as one of the items that we are actually working on.

For enmity, we are considering a number of proposals and how to coordinate them with other updates. We do not want to pack too many changes into one update as then we run the risk of creating new issues. So, as the first part of the enmity update, we would like to set the new "standard damage" velues at the release of Seekers of Adoulin.

For 2), Matsui's response was "I didn't have much time to polish my initial response, so it was mostly just my rough first impressions on what needed to be adjusted and how to do it."

[Slycer]

Mocchi's borderline trolling Tarus here, lol.


Mocchi: Reponses about Adoulin

Guy's saying that although Tarutaru isolated themselves in the Sarutabaruta area for protection during the wartime, they did spread out in later eras so he's wondering why most of the Tarutaru population is still concentrated in Windurst, and especially why there are more Galka there than Tarutaru. Also mentions surprise that there are two Tarutaru out of the 12 council members if they are such a small percentage of the population.

As you say, the number of Tarutarus that appear outside the Sarutabaruta region is low. They are a timid race, and in the depths of dungeons they are actually afraid of the dark. Also, since they are not very strong, if they go outside their nation, they become easy targets for hostile foreign enemies.

*Note that there are some super-human Tarutaru with special abilities that are not subject to these limitations.

Therefore, we have included "Tarutaru" in the "other" section of the population. I am sorry to those of you who like Tarutarus.

That being said, you will find the usual handful of Tarutaru NPCs in the city as well as some unique individual Tarutarus, so I don't think you'll feel that it's much different than anywhere else when walking around town.

____

Guy doesn't really understand how the all of the houses could establish a line of descendants considering how Galkas don't exactly have heredity.

The names of the twelve orders of Adoulin are not hereditary.

When the alliance was first formed, each of the distinguished families had a small part of the land. Later, each order scouted from among those residing in that land to find the best representative for the council.

Now, the family names are just the honorary titles of the orders. Gratzigg has served as the peacekeepers' coalition maester because he has been so influential.

It should be noted that the seat of royalty of the original Adoulin bloodline has been passed down, and Ygnas is the legitimate heir of August.

____

Random excited guy saying that he liked the story, asking for more info, and saying that he's very excited about Adoulin being only a month away.

For more information, including information about the various facilities in Adoulin, we really just want you to take a look and explore while walking around down. Some facilities will become important as the scenario progresses...

Once the gates to Adoulin have been opened, a new history will be carved and you'll all be a part of it. We're greatly looking forward to it!

[[There was one subsequent post saying there was some wrong info about Ikhi Askamot in the original story on the forum. Maybe it was only incorrect in JP, not sure.]]

[Fiarlia]

Unearth More Treasures with a New Seekers of Adoulin Celebratory Event! (NA)

Last week's double experience weekend was only the first special event in advance of FINAL FANTASY XI’s fifth expansion, Seekers of Adoulin.

Before enjoying our newest content, why not take a fresh look at the next most recent—that's right, Meeble Burrows! During the next couple of weeks, the rewards for completing Meeble Burrows will be even more lucrative than before! Whether you're an experienced spelunker diving into the depths or a neophyte who's only just beginning to scratch the surface, approach the Burrows with aplomb and your efforts will be handsomely rewarded!

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/at...511531&thumb=1

Event Schedule

Descent into the from Thursday, February 28, 2013 at 12:00 A.M. (PST) and get ready to tunnel out at Thursday, March 14 at the same time.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/at...511574&thumb=1



http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/at...511632&thumb=1



http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/at...511681&thumb=1

What are Wizened Worms?

Three types of Wizened Worms are awarded to battle-hardened adventurers who emerge victorious from Meeble Burrows—Tunnel Worms, Morion Worms, and Phantom Worms. These worms may be exchanged with Utrig in Sauromugue Champaign (J-7) or Sokrov in Battalia Downs (J-8) for a random chance at receiving an item.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/at...511769&thumb=1

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...l=1#post403378