FFXIclopedia interview with Development Team at E3

[SephYuyX]

Most of the best meleeburn parties are fairly balanced, consisting of 3 melee and 3 mages.

Yes, but those melee are always usually WAR, MNK, meleeNIN or a good SAM or DRK and the mages are BRD, RDM or sometimes WHM. It's not balanced. Untill they can actually make use of PUP, DRG, BLU, etc in a high XP PT, something still needs to be done.

I do agree with you about everything else though.

Granted FFXI has seen many evolutions, and it's now on "zerg the shit out of everything" phase, and it seems like its the best thing ever, doesnt mean it's the best for the game itself, or how SE wanted it to be, which im sure they didnt.

[BRP]

Anyone with at least half of a brain and wants SC+MB to return doesn't want other formats nerfed. In my opinion, the problem is there isn't enough incentive to kill monsters with more HP/def/so on and there isn't any monsters built especially for that tactic. Increasing the exp gained from ITs(not VTs) of naturally stronger monsters would go along way(this can even be done with an exp bonus, like CoP did many times) would encourage longer fights. If you combine that with designing monsters around SC+MB and add benefits(especially for mage endurance) to and enhance(accuracy/damage) SCs, it will be enough to bring it back to people who aren't BRD, WAR, MNK, and NIN. (Longer fights also puts more importance on RDM enfeebling instead of just supporting, I'm sure some RDM will love that).

If SE really wants to lower the difference, they might find it necessary to buff monsters like Colibri. Hopefully, they don't do it poorly... and hopefully they plan on enhancing SC+MB instead of just nerfing TP burns.

[S N K]

OH here's a good question that NOONE ever asks:

Could you PLEASE fucking fix the fact that 90% of nVidia cards SUCK BALLS with bard songs and firaga III? PLEASE FIX THX.

I'm pretty sure everyone is experiencing this lag, and not just nVidia users...

yeah I was getting that shit also with an ATi card.

[Titanss]

Where and when is the Fan Fest where the dev team will be killing AV? Serious I'm going to go and record this thing.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

Anyone with at least half of a brain and wants SC+MB to return doesn't want other formats nerfed. In my opinion, the problem is there isn't enough incentive to kill monsters with more HP/def/so on and there isn't any monsters built especially for that tactic. Increasing the exp gained from ITs(not VTs) of naturally stronger monsters would go along way(this can even be done with an exp bonus, like CoP did many times) would encourage longer fights. If you combine that with designing monsters around SC+MB and add benefits(especially for mage endurance) to and enhance(accuracy/damage) SCs, it will be enough to bring it back to people who aren't BRD, WAR, MNK, and NIN. (Longer fights also puts more importance on RDM enfeebling instead of just supporting, I'm sure some RDM will love that).

If SE really wants to lower the difference, they might find it necessary to buff monsters like Colibri. Hopefully, they don't do it poorly... and hopefully they plan on enhancing SC+MB instead of just nerfing TP burns.

What IT mobs?

[BRP]

There are camps out there, though some of them pop VT(which isn't much of a problem really). Of course, new camps would also be important.

[FinalJustice]

LOl they should do something really annoying like make Feather tickle AoE

[Beckwin]

A dmg done converted to MP system for Magic Bursts could be really cool. Let's say 20% (just to throw a number out there). Burst a T4 for 1.6k, get 32 mp back. Stacked with conserve mp, aspir, and support refreshes, blm (and even nuking rdms) should be able to keep up on MBs in a pretty fast paced party. This could apply to SMN BP and BLU spells too. Reason for that damage done -> mp rather than just a flat MB spell cost reduction is that it benefits more on xp situations (nuking in full damage gear; lower defense/eva or whatever for blu and smn) and wouldn't be too game-breaking on HNMs (magic bursting on tiamat won't get you 32 mp back). Even so, it still creates added incentive for skillchains in non-xp situations where straight manaburn has become popular (ouryu, jorm/tia, even fafhogg).

[Leroy]

Bleh fell asleep.

For whoever it was saying +15 attack in the offhand would fix two-handed weapons, that is not true. The problem is fSTR and speed.

Just grabbing some formulas from the wiki, lets see Maneater (49DMG) compared to Triton's Scythe (98DMG):

fSTR:
(STR - VIT + 4)/4

fSTR caps:
Upper: (Weapon Rank +8)
Lower: -(Weapon Rank)

Capped cRatio, fSTR = 10

Maneater: 94-141 damage

Triton's: 172-259

That stacks up okay since the delay on Maneater is a bit over half the delay of Triton's, but who one-hands an axe? So let's go with a dual wield setup (same conditions):

Maneater: 94-141
Juggernaut: 89-134

Total: 183-275

So Maneater/Juggernaut does 183-275damage/479delay, and Triton's does 172-259damage/513delay. The difference becomes more pronounced with a Suppanomimi.

A step in the right direction would be modifying fSTR for two-handers to look more like:

fSTR:
(STR - VIT + 4)/2

fSTR caps:
Upper: (Weapon Rank +16)
Lower: -(Weapon Rank) - 8

[BRP]

I still say a Conserve MP-like system would be better than straight damage to MP conversion. Something like 50 to 75% off the spell's cost. This makes it quite a bit more useful at all level ranges and to more jobs. What would really be important is allowing SMNs to benefit from it.

[Taj]

OH here's a good question that NOONE ever asks:

Could you PLEASE fucking fix the fact that 90% of nVidia cards SUCK BALLS with bard songs and firaga III? PLEASE FIX THX.

Turn your MIP Mapping back down to 1.

[Beckwin]

I still say a Conserve MP-like system would be better than straight damage to MP conversion. Something like 50 to 75% off the spell's cost. This makes it quite a bit more useful at all level ranges and to more jobs. What would really be important is allowing SMNs to benefit from it.

That sounds a little much, but I guess 5 minute fafnirs would be cool. blm/nin would be incredibly popular.

[BRP]

Now, you've confused me. Did you mean 2% in your original post? 20% of 1.6k would be 320 MP(320-171 w/o Conserve MP=149 gained)... which is... quite a lot of MP "profit" compared to spending 85 to 42 MP on Thunder IV.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

Maths

I know all that stuff but that's not nearly enough of a difference for the big gap people see in damage outputs with the perceived 2h/1h difference. You're talking somewhere in the ballpark of a 10% difference. That's not what most people are talking about. A black belt (over speed belt) alone can make more of a difference than that.

[Khamsin]

OH here's a good question that NOONE ever asks:

Could you PLEASE fucking fix the fact that 90% of nVidia cards SUCK BALLS with bard songs and firaga III? PLEASE FIX THX.

Turn your MIP Mapping back down to 1.

Would that allow me to play FFXI with SLI mode on (not that it uses SLI, but just because I'm too lazy to keep switching it on and off for FFXI)? I get lagged out from Firaga III and Escape if I leave SLI mode on, so I always turn it off before playing FFXI.

[Leroy]

Maths

I know all that stuff but that's not nearly enough of a difference for the big gap people see in damage outputs with the perceived 2h/1h difference. You're talking somewhere in the ballpark of a 10% difference. That's not what most people are talking about. A black belt (over speed belt) alone can make more of a difference than that.

It's more like a 14% difference.

Anyway, the point is, a two-hander requires far more STR to close that gap, and even if you hit the fSTR and cRatio caps, the damage will always be less when compared to a comparably equipped dual wielder. There is also a point where even a lesser equipped dual wielder will still outdo you. Simple ATK+ won't change that.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

If it was only a 14% difference then it wouldn't be nearly the issue that it is, 14% damage can be made up for by the other specialties jobs have (jumps+wyvern, abs-tp + atk bonus, tp gain out the wazoo)

[BRP]

They could always a pull a page from DnD(like what RPG hasn't) and give 2-hand weapons a x1.5 bonus on STR... but I'm sure that would be quiet extremely broken in that exact sense. Something similar might work though!

[Khamsin]

They could always a pull a page from DnD(like what RPG hasn't) and give 2-hand weapons a x1.5 bonus on STR... but I'm sure that would be quiet extremely broken in that exact sense. Something similar might work though!

Well, if x1.5 STR would be broken, and make everyone use 2h weapons, then go for 1.25x. If that's not enough, and everyone still uses 1h weapons, then try 1.35x. At some point, you'll reach a spot where one will be just as broken as the other.

[Epical]

Going to paraphrase/make clearer for the lazy (and this is what I got from it):

http://forums.ffxiclopedia.org/viewtopic.php?t=5032

http://www.ffxiclopedia.org/ganiman/e3_ ... C00242.jpg
From left to right: Koji, Tanaka-san, Ganiman, Koichi, Sundi, Yasu

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Is there anything you can tell me about the new jobs that will be released in Wings of the Goddess?

No, but there will be more than one.

Corsair, Blue Mage and Puppetmaster don't really fit a tanking position. Will there be a new tanking job?

Maybe, maybe not.

Will the new jobs that are coming in Wings of the Goddess play an important role in accessing the new areas?

No, but they have to do with the new areas.

Will there be instanced battlefields so multiple groups can enter the same battlefield at the same time?

Yes.

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Will Wings of the Goddess be mission related only? Or will we be able to gain experience points?

It will be more open like Aht Urghan (as compared to CoP).

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Will there be a level requirement to access the new zones?

As for the regular areas, there won't be any level requirement. As for the Assault-type areas, you will be able to set a level requirement.

Will there be capped missions similar to Chains of Promathia?

No.

Many players have told me that they would like to see more content that can be done with smaller groups. You have said that an assault-style setup is planned. How many people will be allowed to enter?

Some events will take a few players, some a lot.

Will Wings of the Goddess reenact events from the Crystal War?

The Crystal War will be the foundation of the story in Wings of the Goddess and also we hope to catch on to some things that weren't even revealed in the previous expansions telling more about the mysteries behind the Crystal War.

Are we going to see the battles that took place in areas like Sarutabaruta?

Yes, the players will be able to come in contact with a lot of historic events that happened during the Crystal War. The battle in Sarutabaruta was one of those. The expansion is not experiencing the whole war. It's going back in time and being part of the things that happened at that time and solving mysteries of things that happened during the Crystal War. It's not like you're going back and experiencing the whole war.

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Will we be able to travel across zones the way we do now, or will it be like Assault where we enter through some kind of portal where you sign up for a mission and you are teleported to that zone?

For the most part you will be able to travel between the areas freely. To get back to the past, where the expansion takes place, there will be a special portal.

How many stories are planned on being told? Is there one for each nation? Will it depend on which nation you belong to?

We aren't telling you.

Will the new zones be part of the conquest system? Or will this be something entirely new?

It will not be connected to the conquest system. It will be something totally different along the lines of a besieged system.

Will we be able to see the current standings from any time? Or will we have to go back to see the standings of the past?

We're hoping to make it like it is now where you can see conquest and besieged results by pulling up a map. We hope for the new system to be accessible from anytime and anywhere.

Will Wings of the Goddess increase the rank cap for the three main nations? Will you be able to obtain a different story by changing nations?

As for the stories of the three nations, we feel that those stories have come to an end. Right now there are no plans on increasing the number of rank, however it's not something that is set in stone. There is always the possibility for increasing the ranks. Right now we feel those stories have ended.

You have said that Wings of the Goddess will have around 30 new areas. Most of them will be revised versions of the original zones pre-Zilart. Will any of the new zones include Tavnazia before it was destroyed?

We aren't telling you.

Can you tell me more about the multi-player battlefields that are planned for Wings of the Goddess?

The only thing we can tell you right now is that there will be Besieged type multi-player battlefields.

Was Besieged a test for what's to come in Wings of the Goddess?

It wasn't really a test, but it's become a foundation and given us ideas and experience for what we will be implementing in the new expansion.

Are we going far enough back in time where the ancient currency we see in Dynamis is used? Will that be part of this story line?

Ancient currency was used at that time, but no, what the players will probably be using in the past will be gil.

Einherjar appears to be a very random battlefield and does not scale to the size of the group entering. Some groups have reported to clear a zone with 6 while others fail with 36. It seems to be very unbalanced. I have tried it a few times with myself and we wipe with no chance of recovering. I find it very difficult to get other players to return to that battlefield. Although I'm sure people appreciate the efforts of Square Enix to give us a new challenging battlefield, what plans do you have to adjust this battlefield?

That system was not really intended for small groups. As for adjusting the difficulty, we're always watching. It was just released, so we're still watching to see how players are reacting and gathering data. We do plan to make adjustments in the future.

Will the Aht Urhgan storyline and the missions be concluded before Wings of the Goddess is released?

The main missions will be finished before Wings of the Goddess is released.

Will we ever gain access to the pit or the collessium?

"The Pit" will hopefully be released in the next version update.

Have you thought about implementing a runic portal multi-pass?

No, because when the AC is taken, we do not want players to have the ability to still use runic portals.

Back in March at the Premiere Site Summit, we were told that there would be a window mode released. When will this be released?

The reason this has been taking so long is that FFXI uses DirectX 8. To allow the windowed mode, we have to rewrite the program to be DirectX 9 based, which is what we're doing right now. And we hope to have all of that work finished by the time Wings of the Goddess is released. It will probably come out at the same time the expansion is released.

In higher levels, a balanced party setup that skillchains and magic bursts struggles to gain experience points in comparison to a heavy melee party, which can kill enemies much faster and quicker. An
experience point bonus to successful Skillchains could help a more balanced setup of players earn levels and merits. Do you have plans to make skillchain/magic burst parties more attractive?

We're probably going to gimp some jobs and make your exp mobs stronger when the new jobs are released, so you can return to your epic battles for 250 exp.

Are you considering any revisions to the auto-translate function to give us more useful conversational terms such as mission names to make it easier to communicate with multi-lingual parties?

Players need to send in their feedback as to what should be added/removed.

Do you plan to implement more storable armor sets? Right now there is a rough level range of 25-50 where you can only store the normal quality. Will we be able to store the high quality as well as other armor sets?

We'll take that back with us. The person who is charge of that is not here today, but it is something we can work on.

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The throwing skill is the only attack skill that has no weapon skills. Many players have shown interest in seeing throwing weapon skills. Most consumable throwing items do not get used like the Shuriken - they are too expensive and no one uses them. Are there any plans to implement throwing weapon skills and increase a market for consumable throwing items?

We're probably not going to add throwing WSes, because that would take far too much work and intuition. Instead, we'll probably add a CHR down add effect to shurikens.

The adventuring fellows cannot access Aht Urhgan zones. We brought this up at the summit March but did not get a good answer. Are there plans to give Adventuring Fellows access to more zones?

Our programmers are still learning how to do their jobs, so when that's finished we'll make it so.

A common complaint I hear about the game is how the graphics engine is dated and does not use hardware acceleration. Is there a plan to eventually allow the PC client to take advantage of a user's advanced graphics hardware?

No, because we are FAR too lazy, and we want this to look like as much of a PS2 port as possible.

A large number of people feel like crafting is slowly dying, and some would argue that it's already dead. Also, aside from occasional new synthesis recipes, crafting has received very few or no modifications or enhancements for years. Many people are bitter about the fact that they spent years, and millions of gil leveling up crafts that are by and large worthless now. Are there any plans to breathe life back into this system?

Hey, we're still working that whole RMT thing that we should've fixed years ago, give us a break! We may get to something related to crafting before FFXI dies... probably along the lines of adding some more elemental resists to crafting gear.

Absolute Virtue....

lolAV

Absolute Virtue is now believed to be completely invincible. No methods have been discovered on how to defeat him, with the majority of the end-game community from North America, Japan and Europe at a complete loss as to what to try. Some minor information about his Regen was released, but it appears that he has been modified without any announcements. How can we defeat him? We've had over a year without learning his secret, it is about time some real information is released. Are there any more tips you can give us about this NM?

We're not sure how to kill him ourselves, but we do know how to stop his regen, which we know isn't the real problem.

Do you believe it is possible to beat him?

Our devs said they did, so it's possible. They also said they had squirrel-flavored ice cream last night. The packaging was red like a ferrari. Yum.

Are you afraid that they won't win?

Uhh, gosh I'm hungry!

Will we see relic gear for the three Aht Urhgan jobs?

It will be released in the future.

Will it be obtainable through an existing battle system? Or will it be something new?

Something different than Dynamis.

I got BLU to 75 pretty quick and I've been waiting for it...

Sucks to be you!

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Are there plans to add new spells to existing jobs? Maybe something like Aspir II or Reflect?

Maybe when WoG is released.

Would you consider giving more items the ability to be bundled?

If enough players think it is necessary, than we will definitely consider it. We'll take that back with us.

Many people feel two-handed weapons are becoming a thing of the past. Even Dark Knights are dual wielding axes. What are your plans to add items for the sub slot to enhance two handed weapons?

The same question was asked at the private show that we had a few months ago, and the battle developer did talk about something like putting something in the open slot to give people an advantage to using two handed weapons. We're really happy with the VIT+4 enhancement all BLM-equippable scythes get!

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Will there be another fan festival?

Yes. We have a fan festival coming up this year. The place and the exact date will be announce in a couple of weeks.

How about another premiere site summit?

We would like to do this at least once a year. Perhaps a couple of months after Wings of the Goddess.

Can you tell me anything about the next MMO?

No.

Would you consider releasing your next MMO for operating systems besides Windows?

Nothing is set in stone, but we are shooting for PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows. This is not to say that there will not be a Linux or Mac OS version. Creating versions for those platforms would be a little harder, but it's not out of the question.

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pics were kinda big, so i de-linked them