Letter from the Producer, XLIV (03/19/2013)

[Gulkeeva]

I predict an endless supply of bitching, regardless of the schedule, lack of schedule, or things being kept to schedule. Also, Yoshi could have the game release with a free blow job and people would complain it wasn't a real mi'quote, but a JP model dressed up as one.

edit: or Justin Timberlake dressed as a mancat, whatever strokes your boat.

female miqo'te onry!

http://imageboard.neko-sentai.com/_i...4d7868a414.jpg

[Spira]

if the focus of Phase 2 is only gamepad testing then arguably its not gonna be a very long phase. i also wonder how many people actually use gamepads to begin with on the PC out of that 100k testers..

[Gulkeeva]

if the focus of Phase 2 is only gamepad testing then arguably its not gonna be a very long phase. i also wonder how many people actually use gamepads to begin with on the PC out of that 100k testers..

Probably a decent amount, personally though, being a PC gamer, I use the keyboard... as I can do more with it then a gamepad by far >.>
Also I alt-tab between the game and ffxiv anyway to do stuff as usual!

[Charismatic]

Fuck the furries, give me a female highlander.

This man knows the deal.

[Agito]

Gamepads are awesome for doing stuff you're on auto pilot with like crafting, gathering, questing or dungeon grinding. When you get into some challenging content that you want to play to your fullest ability in then that's when you should pull out the heavy artillery which is keyboard and mouse. It's just nice having the ability to change between the two like your arms and hands could get tired using the keyboard and mouse and it would offer a big relief to switch over to the gamepad while you recover.

[Karinastar]

I use gamepad, and plan to in ARR. I was never that much of a PC gamer growing up so I'm fairly uncoordinated with mouse/kb. I'm not like, clicker bad but I'm definitely not good either. With a decent UI gamepad is fine (note I'm not saying optimal, put the pitchforks down). I used it in Tera and was never really disadvantaged by it (I did play melees though, I know it wasn't so good for ranged and especially healing), and Tera is a far twitchier game. I'm guessing ARR will be the same way. Combined with the Legacy control scheme, gamepad will probably be just fine for most jobs, endgame performance wise. I can imagine that gamepad healing will probably be a huge no-no though, since it's just so much easier to use the F keys or click names on the party list.

All that said, I do play so that I can reach my keyboard for things like menu/targeting shortcuts, and I use Xpadder to map certain functions like /targetnpc and /assist macros so I suppose I'm not really a pure gamepad player.

[Sign]

Any bets on what happens when a whole bunch of beta testers plug in their PS3 controllers to their PC for the first time and expect it to work? Unless people have a 360 controller or an actual PC gamepad it looks like Motioninjoy is going to see a decent spike in downloads.

[Waraji]

inb4 beta tards want SE to create their own PS3 gamepad emulator program for ARR. MUST HAVE OR GAME WILL FAIL!

[Elcura]

I used gamepads pretty much the entire time I played XIV. The way it was designed you weren't at that much of a disadvantage when using a gamepad. If I had to actually aim at something I wouldn't even consider a gamepad, but we'll see how well it works.

[Gokulo]

I used gamepads pretty much the entire time I played XIV. The way it was designed you weren't at that much of a disadvantage when using a gamepad. If I had to actually aim at something I wouldn't even consider a gamepad, but we'll see how well it works.

I got used to playing with a pad because playing 1.0 with a keyboard was pretty terrible, but I still was annoyed each time I had to put it down to type something. Yet, playing with a pad in general is so much more relaxing than with kb+mouse that I feel I need to give it a try again now and then decide.

[Elcura]

Pretty much. FFXIV wasn't the kind of game I put 100% into, I barely even put 50% into playing and I still completed all the fights. Gamepad made 1.0 playable because you could relax, if I couldn't lean back and half be doing something else then I wasn't playing.

Having tried keyboard in phase 1, I'm looking forward to seeing what they have in mind with pads.

[Jamison]

While I plan to make sure I'm proficient at using both, I'm really looking forward to using a gamepad. The one thing myself (and a lot of other folks) were saying was wrong with 1.0 is that they desperately needed to separate the targeting functions from the action bar navigation -- which they've now done -- and I'm expecting good things.

[Alkar]

Well, my Xbox controller is ready! But yeah, it'll be very short. I assume 2-3 testing weekends at best. I know many will simply try it once and skip the rest, at least those I've talked to in-game.

[Waraji]

I expect a whole 2 months for phase 2 testing. cuz fuck it. *Edit: have they mentioned at all if they are letting us use the new PS3 UI gamepad action bar for this test? I was just under the assumption that it was just going to allow us to use it as is for the PC version. Though they did mention a while back that we would be able to switch between UI's in the PC version come re-launch.

[Raldo]

The fact that phase 2 is slated to be so short, makes me wonder why they're wiping characters between 1 and 2. I don't know how prolific it is for people to play on a computer with a controller, but I have zero reason to play in phase 2 because I don't give two shits about a controller.

[Gokulo]

I expect a whole 2 months for phase 2 testing. cuz fuck it. *Edit: have they mentioned at all if they are letting us use the new PS3 UI gamepad action bar for this test? I was just under the assumption that it was just going to allow us to use it as is for the PC version. Though they did mention a while back that we would be able to switch between UI's in the PC version come re-launch.

I think the whole idea is to test the gamepad UI functionality. I don't think we will actually be able to play with a gamepad and the standard UI?

[Waraji]

That's the thing I'm asking about though, they haven't specifically mentioned how it will be presented. You could totally use the gamepad with the standard UI, ala 1.0. Retarded, but still functional. Hey I'm all for trying out the XrossPad thing in combat, seeing as how I'll never play on a console or use gamepad for other than crafting/gathering.

[Hyan]

Well, my Xbox controller is ready! But yeah, it'll be very short. I assume 2-3 testing weekends at best. I know many will simply try it once and skip the rest, at least those I've talked to in-game.

They'll invite more people though. I guess they have enough feedback to go on, but I think it's just feedback from the legacy+alpha tester group? Having some new opinions should be good.

[Gokulo]

They'll invite more people though. I guess they have enough feedback to go on, but I think it's just feedback from the legacy+alpha tester group? Having some new opinions should be good.

They invited some outside people too, but yeah, they even advertising Phase 2 on FB so more invites is a pretty sure thing.

[Sigmakan]

That's the thing I'm asking about though, they haven't specifically mentioned how it will be presented. You could totally use the gamepad with the standard UI, ala 1.0. Retarded, but still functional. Hey I'm all for trying out the XrossPad thing in combat, seeing as how I'll never play on a console or use gamepad for other than crafting/gathering.

My understanding is that a controller will only be compatible with the controller UI. The current UI cant really support a controller since many menus require a mouse click/movement of some of sorts.

Really looking forward to testing out this controller UI, from the video that was release the action bar setup looks really promising. Would like to test out the UI for crafting, gathering, vendor, retainer, inventory