Ladies and Gentlemen. Answers to the Interview....

[Khamsin]

Better start compiling the next list of questions to send to SE for the July response.

[Jeryhn]

Better start compiling the next list of questions to send to SE for the December response.

Made your post eat some sushi.

[aurik]

I must admit I LOL'd a little when I read their reasoning for fellowship gear in DynTav.

[Tajin]

cheaply made dhalmel jug. I shit you not.

Ok i'll bite, why a dhalmel? was this even half serious? >.>

[Tanag]

I think from now on when we ask questions we need to treat SE like an evil genie or devil.

Word the questions so perfectly they know exactly what were asking and can't dance around the answer. This shit is ridiculous.

I'll make a wish that can't backfire. I wish for a turkey sandwich, on rye bread, with lettuce and mustard, and, AND I don't want any zombie turkeys, I don't want to turn into a turkey myself, and I don't want any other weird surprises. You got it?

[The monkey paw's final finger curls up. A turkey sandwich materializes in midair. Homer takes it]

Hey! Not bad. Nice, hot mustard. Good bread. The turkey's a little dry. The turkey's a little dry! Oh, foe, the cursed thing! What demon from the depths of hell created thee?!

[Norrissnake]

totally underwhelmed....

/sigh

[levish]

cheaply made dhalmel jug. I shit you not.

Ok i'll bite, why a dhalmel? was this even half serious? >.>

Alternative to CC everything?

Thanks for all the work Bercus

The responses make me sad in the sense that SE knows best who in their infinite wisdom (sarcasm) when they do not play the game.

The people that know the game are:

- Those people that play it 3-6 hours a night, every night if not more.
- The people that come up with tables and charts for synths through 1000's of combines.
- The people that have been to the end and back again sometimes multiple times and with multiple jobs.

The people who know the game are:

- Not the people that give AV a try with the DEV team for a quick run knowing the tricks.
- Not the people that know the factors for synthing, who don't even synth under normal market circumstances.
- Not the people who wouldn't waste their time 2-3 hours a day trying to get their LS equipment.

After running Dynamis for months on end just because I wanted a around time armor set with nothing but boots to show for it, I am positive of one thing. SE doesn't know what fun and exciting is.

It's new things
It's new places
It's new challenges

Not grinding the same thing over and over.

[Tsunade]

so if many voices claim they are unsatisfied with them, we might make some adjustments

Can SE make a weekly poll / vote that asks everyone if they want to make a change to ____? It's far easier than asking all of us to submit suggestions through POL, and them deciding for us, which ideas are "desired" the most.

For example:

Week 1: Do you want SE to add the ability to seek party on multiple jobs? Yes, No, Don't care

Week 2: Do you want FFXI to be playable in windowed form on PC?

Week 3: Do you feel the three wyvren's drop pools are valuable enough to make the fights worth it?

etc. (these are just random yes/no questions that I thought up real quick). But basically, a poll like this now and then would really quickly show SE, without wasting everyone's time sending/reading emails. Maybe they could ask BG and other select sites to suggest what question to poll for the next week.

Having polls would also let SE show us what problems/adjustments they are considering, rather than us sending a suggestion through POL and doubting that they read/care about it.

[Siatdiat]

cheaply made dhalmel jug. I shit you not.

Ok i'll bite, why a dhalmel? was this even half serious? >.>

Have you skipped ever fighting Dhalmels somehow? They do healing breeze and lvling in east altepa back in the day was awesome.

[Tajin]

cheaply made dhalmel jug. I shit you not.

Ok i'll bite, why a dhalmel? was this even half serious? >.>

Alternative to CC everything?

wait, you telling me CC is not a Job Ability?



EDIT: To the above poster, no i havent skipped on dhalmels and yes healing breeze, i just wanted a more indeep answer (if there is any, since im not a BST ).

[klvino]

Cue the pic of Sage Sundi..... they could've given Bercus more, but didn't.

u mean dis?

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/9899/dev6mu4.jpg

THAT'S IT!! Sage Sundi and his Galkan friend.

[Daveys]

Question 1:
Will there ever be new HNMs that drop equal or better gear than Fafnir, Nidhogg, King Behemoth, and Aspidochelone that do not have 21-24 hour repop timers or that can be popped rather than camped?

We believe that because these powerful monsters dwell deep inside dungeons, players fear them more and the dropped items resulting from defeat of said monsters have added value because they are difficult to obtain.
(If every single player has a rare item, we can’t call really it “rare” can we? )

[b]Considering this real pleasure in RPGs, we are not planning to make changes as you mentioned. Nevertheless, for those HNMs whose items have become “too” popular which causes unwelcome confusion, we are planning to make various changes with the next version updates. For example, the introduction of some new methods to obtain these items.

Question 8:
Can new uncapped Beastmen Seal battlefields (BC99) be added? Can abjuration items and other "3 kings" gear be added to existing or new Kindred Seal 99 (KS99) battlefields?

A8:
Currently, we are concentrating on content which was added with the latest expansion pack ToAU, such as Besieged, Assault, Salvage and some other new battle content, so we will consider adding new battlefields by monitoring progress.
Regarding the second part of your question, as we mentioned earlier, we have no plans at the moment.

Is it just me or are the answers they gave to those 2 questions in conflict with each other?

[Faranim]

SE Fails at communicating with their customers.

90% of the new items they have introduced are virtually useless compared to existing gear. All of the "good" gear has actually been made more rare via updates (moving Archer Rings to BC = very few Sniper +1, Kraken Club moved to BC, Ullikummi sky bottleneck, broken AV, RMT monopolizing most other NMs)

The problem with end-game is that you don't even get the opportunity to play it. Broken NMs (AV, Ullikummi), long pop timers (Kings,Wyrms,ToA NMs), lack of instanced areas (Dynamis, Limbus), retarted wait timers (ENM, Assault), and bad drop rates (Cloud Evoker) prevent players from even playing the game at all.

I still have hopes for this new Assault area, but I'm not counting on anything.

[aurik]

Question 1:
Will there ever be new HNMs that drop equal or better gear than Fafnir, Nidhogg, King Behemoth, and Aspidochelone that do not have 21-24 hour repop timers or that can be popped rather than camped?

We believe that because these powerful monsters dwell deep inside dungeons, players fear them more and the dropped items resulting from defeat of said monsters have added value because they are difficult to obtain.
(If every single player has a rare item, we can’t call really it “rare” can we? )

[b]Considering this real pleasure in RPGs, we are not planning to make changes as you mentioned. Nevertheless, for those HNMs whose items have become “too” popular which causes unwelcome confusion, we are planning to make various changes with the next version updates. For example, the introduction of some new methods to obtain these items.

Question 8:
Can new uncapped Beastmen Seal battlefields (BC99) be added? Can abjuration items and other "3 kings" gear be added to existing or new Kindred Seal 99 (KS99) battlefields?

A8:
Currently, we are concentrating on content which was added with the latest expansion pack ToAU, such as Besieged, Assault, Salvage and some other new battle content, so we will consider adding new battlefields by monitoring progress.
Regarding the second part of your question, as we mentioned earlier, we have no plans at the moment.

Is it just me or are the answers they gave to those 2 questions in conflict with each other?

not if the new ways to get old items is not a battlefield.

[Necronus]

Is it just me, or are they living in their own little world where FFXI was released last week?

Dragons being in "dark mysterious dungeons" causing "fear and awe and wonder" or whatever their wording was? I mean, maybe 3 years ago it did, just like CoP wyrms did, and just like salvage recently did, and perhaps Nyzul will tomorrow (Although, I'm not sure anything can be fear or awe inspiring in today's Burn Age).

They fail to realize that days of 2 hour Fafnirs, months of figuring out how to kill Vrtra, or just simply enjoying the scenery of a dark "dungeon", when the "dungeon" being talked about is a tree cave we've been to a million times, are over.

Now, I'm no HNM camper. I've killed Fafnir once and I've only camped it maybe 6 times, and I likely never will ever again. (Note: I have 0 tolerance for camping, I didn't even get Moldavite til I was bored at 75). So, doesn't this somehow make me the kind of person SE is trying to inspire with "fear and awe". Well, I felt neither when I went there ... Fafnir is simply an entry in any given mob database with a three year history of drama. All I got out of it was a severe case of boredom .. followed by hitting one or two nuke macros between replacing stoneskins. How exhilirating >.>

If SE lurks into here and reads this and thinking they're impressing people like me (HNM virgins), they're dead wrong. And I have a mere 6 camps under my belt from 1 week of NA prime. Thats nothing compared to pretty much any BG forum member, with hundreds of camps, and an ungodly number of hours of life they will never get back. I was impressed three years ago when I was a noob and watching BG videos of gods and wyrms, when a Goblin Leecher was my worst enemy. I was filled with awe when ToAU was released, like many other people, as I explored these strange new areas. But I am no longer impressed by something I saw when I bought the game way back when.

So, when Bercus replies to them, perhaps our next graphic we attach pretty much spells out that killing kings is a job... a tiresome laborious job that needs to be retired into a system with an equivalent drop rate but with fairer conditions and replaced with something NEWER, BETTER, and as AWE INSPIRING as they are in their land full of unicorns in their head.



Disclaimer: I in no way wish to seem like I'm complaining as if I have a right to complain. I know I don't. As far as I'm concerned the Kings and Wyrms are meaningless to me. Something that, beyond a nifty title and another notch on the belt, are useless to me (BLM and upcoming BLU). I frankly could care less about a change from a selfish/greedy point of view, but frankly I'm not like that and truly do wish to see broken systems fixed even if it doesn't benefit me. I care as a fellow player and a career programmer who really does wish to see these things fixed.

[Daveys]

True Aurik. I missed that.

[Khamsin]

Question 1:
Will there ever be new HNMs that drop equal or better gear than Fafnir, Nidhogg, King Behemoth, and Aspidochelone that do not have 21-24 hour repop timers or that can be popped rather than camped?

We believe that because these powerful monsters dwell deep inside dungeons, players fear them more and the dropped items resulting from defeat of said monsters have added value because they are difficult to obtain.
(If every single player has a rare item, we can’t call really it “rare” can we? )

[b]Considering this real pleasure in RPGs, we are not planning to make changes as you mentioned. Nevertheless, for those HNMs whose items have become “too” popular which causes unwelcome confusion, we are planning to make various changes with the next version updates. For example, the introduction of some new methods to obtain these items.

Question 8:
Can new uncapped Beastmen Seal battlefields (BC99) be added? Can abjuration items and other "3 kings" gear be added to existing or new Kindred Seal 99 (KS99) battlefields?

A8:
Currently, we are concentrating on content which was added with the latest expansion pack ToAU, such as Besieged, Assault, Salvage and some other new battle content, so we will consider adding new battlefields by monitoring progress.
Regarding the second part of your question, as we mentioned earlier, we have no plans at the moment.

Is it just me or are the answers they gave to those 2 questions in conflict with each other?

not if the new ways to get old items is not a battlefield.

Or if it is a battlefield, just not a BS or KS one.

[Ryko]

lame

^

[Sagacious Sundi]

It means no to king items in Orb Battles I think.

Concerning the jug pet enhancements, items that are crafted with a bunch of jugs that make scroll-like items for jug pets? (Watch it just be NQ jug pets.)

EDIT: While I like the concept of relic weapons being the classic "ultimate items", I don't like how they vary in utility. They should adjust some of their stats or make new items that focus more on the player overcoming trials or whatever like the mini avatar fights.

[Epical]

Those relic census numbers have probably doubled since that was posted, too.