All Worlds Emergency Maintenance (Mar. 17)

[Gunslinger]

Run numbers, parse to see how far ahead the dual wielder was before changing any formula then plug in some more DD's like a mnk and a GAXE war and see how the mnk does then take all that data and begin to adjust the formula accordingly.

It is against SE company policy to use 3rd party tools, and such, a parse would have never happened.

Srsly though, 2 handed buff was fun while it lasted, and it gave people an excuse to gear up a 2H build on war.

[Afrohatch]

ninja edit: booobooo 4 hrs maint. booobooo screwing us EU, fk SE, dammit, diaf, etc

You get a couple ground kings in your prime time in the coming days . NA is screwed pretty much for a week.

Screwed? More like a week off! On top of that, no camping Tiamat, Cerb, Khim all day monday, and gives me time to do other stuff, such as lvl my WAR, rub one out, and farm gil for my Claustrum~

[arus2001]

But SE's testing and QA has always sucked, they don't even test the stuff they directly change properly. See: 2h weapon update.

It's impossible to say without actually knowing what SE was thinking but I'd bet the 2H buff wasn't a mistake. Blizzard recently gave a talk at GDC that referred to their techniques for adjusting and introducing jobs in a beta program. Though this isn't beta the same principles apply, and the logic goes like this:

1. Whatever job or action needs to be adjusted almost certainly has a stigma attached to it (it's gimpy, useless, etc).
2. A measured buff that brings this job or action in line with where it's supposed to be will almost certainly be dismissed by the community because of simple psychology.
3. You can't possibly test all of the edge cases as well as your 500K+ community can.

So, rather than doing one perfectly targeted buff or a series of smaller buffs spread out over time, you do one massive buff that's intentionally over-powered. This grabs the community's attention and causes tons of people to level that job or skill up that action and use the crap out of it. They'll quickly reveal exactly how over-powered it is, at which point you can slowly back the changes down to a more appropriate level.

Using this technique you get the community aware of the useful changes you've made to the job or action. When you back them down people will complain a little but they'll generally agree that the "nerf" was necessary, but they'll still see the usefulness of the buff. You end up at the exact same place you would have been with a series of smaller buffs except this way your players actually notice the changes.

This is almost exactly what they've done with scholar, too - rather than make a series of smaller changes they made one big fuck-all change and, if it turns out to be over-powered, they'll deal with that when it comes. But this way they've gotten the community's attention and that's what you really need.

I like this development method because it does, indeed, get people looking at things again. Back when I worked in other game mod communities, it was something I practiced routinely, and oftentimes the scaling back process wasn't too bad, if it even happened at all if the players wound up enjoying the changes. Really, it's the best way totally get new ideas out the door and put a spin on things that may've otherwise become stagnant.

I still can't say I agree with how the 2H update had been scaled back, but potential improvements do lie in what future we have in grips. Sadly, I do see this becoming a point of neglect from the devs, but it certainly wouldn't be the only one.

In the end, I do wish SE would correspond with us more. POL feedback just feels like the equivalent of sending things to the recycle bin for me. Just going by all the cynicism being flung about, good faith is definitely something in short supply. The unfortunate truth of this situation is that even if we quit in protest, it won't change anything. You've gotta wonder how they'd react if subscriptions suddenly dropped to 250k users instead of 500k. Server merges aside, would they even try to lure people back? I honestly can't say they'd try.

Far as test server stuff goes, it's something the testers could easily exploit. Knowing changes ahead of time, currently blah items could be bought out on the cheap. Must haves might become second-rate, and thus sold off while value is high. Craft ingredients could be gathered in advance. NMs and all they entail would already be known and ready to exploit come uptime. This game's too ingrained in one-upsmanship to simply trust players to "beta" out of the goodness of their hearts. I wouldn't call throwing people in gold star gear at everything the true stress test, either. Not everyone has a relic, Ridill, etc.. Unintended consequences may result from the blinged, but fixes are always a patch away.

[Olo401]

For those of us at work who won't be updating until about 6PM eastern..

Can someone let us know about how long of a download to expect?

[ronin sparthos]

Either SE does not test updates of their servers need some runtime parameters to be passed them, there are many glitches that really shouldn't be there.

How can you explain the (now fixed, thank god) Blood Pact Recast gear not working anymore?
They added a smn ability, they HAD to test it with smn, yet they did not notice gear not working as supposed...

Get better testers! (or just not lazy ones)

Giving us players a chance to (willingly) beta-test would be nice, a fair shot at a non-broken AV even better!

ninja edit: booobooo 4 hrs maint. booobooo screwing us EU, fk SE, dammit, diaf, etc

SE will never do open betas now that the game is up and running, they much rather handle issues internally, it probably is because they are Japanese but yeah - SE taking player suggestions will continue to be strictly Cheese Sandwiches, cryptic AV vids and poached Dances. Beta Testers would be given power that could be easily abused but where is the overall player/dev corrospondence? the game is far enough down the line that they can start to take more player ideas (free ideas) and implement them while the games story runs on cruise control. Why dont they take some polls, randomly survey a group of people about events? stuff like Pankration or whatnot - its like they know its not popular and then they say 'whatever' to that and do it anyway - a waste of resources.

The idea that they purposely overshoot updates on jobs then scale back via nerfs makes sense, but then why is that they are so deathly afraid to buff certain jobs but not others? Quickly the minor samba buff must be eradicated but the rune chopper took them forever to hose - i just dont get it. Do they play jobs? Observe the playerbase directly? or do they just get monthly reports of what people want and whats broken according to them?

Id like to know what the agenda for doing things update-wise is because it seems they take the player ideas to the table but somewhere along the line the inner urge to shred and continue the agenda comes out.

[SephYuyX]

For those of us at work who won't be updating until about 6PM eastern..

Can someone let us know about how long of a download to expect?

None, if anything ~5 files at most I would think.

[Lokim]

This isn't a beta, the same principles do not apply. A beta is where you do your testing, not the release version.

Actually, in this particular case the strategy is arguably better suited to a release environment than a beta one. The point of the post (which you seem to have skimmed past) is that the buff strategy is a psychological ploy. The extra edge-case testing that you get is a bonus that goes along with it.

I'm well aware of the difference between beta and release code just as I'm sure you're aware that modern MMO games blur the lines between beta and release software in the first place! You could state - without irony - that all MMOs are in a perpetual state of test/release/re-test/re-release, and thus many of the techniques you employ in a traditional beta program work quite well.

Understand that I'm certainly not making excuses for things like broken bloodpact timers, missing item information, garbled translations, lack of proper regression testing, etc. I'm simply explaining why I think SE did the 2H update in that manner. Frankly, I think the alternative explanation that SE never did any testing whatsoever (which is what would have to have happened for them to not notice how strong it was) is much more far fetched than mine.

[chi]

Since the implementation of the latest version update on Mar. 10, 2008, we have confirmed the following issue. Investigation and recovery work is currently underway.

- Dancer's job ability "Samba" is effective to the player's pet.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

They test nothing, but cockteases like this to pet jobs make it worth the watch.

[Gaea]

who would have thought there would be such an outcry for a "PUP NERF" lol

That's the last thing I thought anyone would whine about

[Nyuneko]

who would have thought there would be such an outcry for a "PUP NERF" lol

That's the last thing I thought anyone would whine about

Running out of stuffs to QQ because last patch didn't bring much, I guess.

I re-read the Known issues list, even though most of them are related to the jobs/events that they have tweeked, none of them is the thing that they have tweeked.

While I have never worked as a QA before, would it be insane to assume that they did test what they tweeked but not what they didn't touch? I mean, FFXI is quite a huge game, if for every patch, they need their limited QA team(I don't think there is one game, online or offline, that has a 2000+ people QA team?) to test every aspect of the game from lv1-75, to merit, to NM camping, etc... then we should expect a patch this size every year.

Seriously, even though I QQ a lot myself, I think people are just grasping at the last straws to stay QQing about everything.

[ronin sparthos]

Seriously, even though I QQ a lot myself, I think people are just grasping at the last straws to stay QQing about everything.

Well i think if your a BST you have every right to QQ you heart out, they got a massive cocktease that ended in getting socked in the nuts. Lower Reward timer is great, but not 'wait 3 months great'

Ok guys, your Slime/Leech/Coeurl jugs are ready - we were leaving it till patch day as a surprise! *hurrahs*

Look! you can sub /dnc and get sambas to cure your pets - isnt that amazing? Look at all the wonderful possibilities we've opened up for you! *shock and awe*

*days later*

We messed up, we didnt release those jugs - sorry guys, maybe the patch after next. *fuck, oh well... it was too good to be true*

Oh and we're taking back those samba buffs, they are obviously too broken for an already borderline top-tier DD like yourselves - enjoy those reward timers and pet biscuits though: if you can get them. *what the fuck????*

If that isnt a letdown, i dont know what is. lol

[Reality]

Seriously, even though I QQ a lot myself, I think people are just grasping at the last straws to stay QQing about everything.

Well i think if your a BST you have every right to QQ you heart out, they got a massive cocktease that ended in getting socked in the nuts. Lower Reward timer is great, but not 'wait 3 months great'

Ok guys, your Slime/Leech/Coeurl jugs are ready - we were leaving it till patch day as a surprise! *hurrahs*

Look! you can sub /dnc and get sambas to cure your pets - isnt that amazing? Look at all the wonderful possibilities we've opened up for you! *shock and awe*

*days later*

We messed up, we didnt release those jugs - sorry guys, maybe the patch after next. *fuck, oh well... it was too good to be true*

Oh and we're taking back those samba buffs, they are obviously too broken for an already borderline top-tier DD like yourselves - enjoy those reward timers and pet biscuits though: if you can get them. *what the fuck????*

If that isnt a letdown, i dont know what is. lol

good post, give this man a beer

[Nyuneko]

Seriously, even though I QQ a lot myself, I think people are just grasping at the last straws to stay QQing about everything.

Well i think if your a BST you have every right to QQ you heart out, they got a massive cocktease that ended in getting socked in the nuts. Lower Reward timer is great, but not 'wait 3 months great'

Ok guys, your Slime/Leech/Coeurl jugs are ready - we were leaving it till patch day as a surprise! *hurrahs*

Look! you can sub /dnc and get sambas to cure your pets - isnt that amazing? Look at all the wonderful possibilities we've opened up for you! *shock and awe*

*days later*

We messed up, we didnt release those jugs - sorry guys, maybe the patch after next. *fuck, oh well... it was too good to be true*

Oh and we're taking back those samba buffs, they are obviously too broken for an already borderline top-tier DD like yourselves - enjoy those reward timers and pet biscuits though: if you can get them. *what the fuck????*

If that isnt a letdown, i dont know what is. lol

Even though I am not a BST or a pet-job player; they are on my list, just not priority much; I did find the pet-samba thing bullcrap(understatement, could insert a much worse word here, I guess?), but that's as far as this go.

Did you read the whole 3 pages of QQing? Bloodpact timer, Mog house lag, etc. I don't think those were necessary at all. Pet-samba thing though, let it slide for god's sake, SE, not like any of the pet-job can do any game-breaking with a little "feature" like that.

[Wakmidget]

I hope they fix my moogle in this update, he's been giving me the cold shoulder since Monday..... takes like 10-12 tries just to change jobs.

[Cream Soda]

Moogle problem was whitegate only for me. If it hasn't been fixed this is what you do. Go in MH, exit to Al Zahbi, re-enter MH. Problem solved.

[Wakmidget]

Happens in all my MH's for me, whether I'm in Windurst or Aht Urghan.

[Meloria]

I can't say I noticed a problem, but I'm usually in windurst past or present and avoid whitegate. Could it be a particular system having problems? I play on PS2.

[Slycer]

Update is available now, 56 files, <2 minute download.

[Reality]

For those of us at work who won't be updating until about 6PM eastern..

Can someone let us know about how long of a download to expect?

None, if anything ~5 files at most I would think.

56 files for windows.

[SephYuyX]

For those of us at work who won't be updating until about 6PM eastern..

Can someone let us know about how long of a download to expect?

None, if anything ~5 files at most I would think.

56 files for windows.

Geez, wtf did they do :E