Special Dev-Team Interview (Game Watch)

[Brigandier]

I can't wrap my head around melee white mage at all. Seems like the worst possible answer to the WHM MP problem. Imagine this in a Mire party. WHM needs MP, go melee! Oh wait, now he's silenced and can't cure anyone. Oh wait, now firaga killed him. The later might be an extreme case, but the point is that back line jobs are back line for a reason. I don't think they could possibly make this work.

Using one situation hardly works to discredit a new WHM melee ability. Currently my WHM is 74 and I have yet to take it to an Imp camp (mostly out of level sync parties and meriting on birds/mamools with friends). The solution to the problem you propose is simple: stay back in that situation. It's no different than a SAM using Hasso while meriting vs. Seigan+TE while soloing. It's using your brain.

I swear, everyone keeps posting "back line job is supposed to be in the back line!". Everyone should look at it as "back line job should be back line when the situation requires it", and there are plenty of situations where it's not going to hurt a WHM or RDM melee'ing the mob.

[Xanthe]

And the one maze encounter per day limit shouldn't be a big deal. FoV is only once per day too, but by the time you finish one run the day will likely already have passed anyways. Glad the Chocobo Racing guy wasn't in charge or it'd be once every earth day

It's once per real life day, not Vanaday.

[Alistaire]

I don't understand what they're smoking encouraging mages to melee. In order to actually accomplish that and overcome the stigma it would take something big. It seems like too much effort for such little pay-off. And really, for what? So a mage can run up and poke the mob every few minutes? The RDM change is obviously the 2nd tier enspells, no reason to be coy there.

The way the article's worded it's not that they want mages to regularly melee or to match a melee's damage output. The wording suggested status effects from this, WHM gaining MP was an example, but tier 2 enspells could be more along the lines of adding status effects from meleeing. Give me an Enlight spell that lasts 3 minutes and adds dia to a mob without it reflecting that dia and I'd use that.

[Gwynplaine]

It's once per real life day, not Vanaday.

Eww, you're right. Well hopefully using a group rotation you can bang a few out like Nyzul Isle runs. Or if MMM bombs in popularity maybe they'd consider lowering the timer.

[Dohorehn]

Drakesbane Buff!!! Gimme moar candy!!!

Tweak Wheeling too plz

Make us spin the pole arm faster and twice as long... with blue flame effects!

[Ziero]

lol at that interview being 500x better then any NA one.

lol at NAs always asking the same dumb questions. Though to be honest, what new info did we get from this besides "possibilities"? Sure it was a longer interview, but that's because it's easier to speak in their own language. Plus, better questions make all the difference.

It's sad that they don't realize how big of a cockblock the Mythic Weapon quests are. They also don't seem to understand the relative power of Relic vs Mythic. From everything we've seen so far the Mythic are vastly superior to their Relic counterparts.

They not only realize how big of a cockblock they are, they made them that way intentionally. What's sad is how many people refuse to realize that.

They arent taking anything away from WHM, it's not like they would have to melee those imps.

Give them a "en-spell" that have high chance to interupt any spells for example, and I could imagine WHM meleeing quite a few spell caster.

Or you could silence them.

Using one situation hardly works to discredit a new WHM melee ability. Currently my WHM is 74 and I have yet to take it to an Imp camp (mostly out of level sync parties and meriting on birds/mamools with friends). The solution to the problem you propose is simple: stay back in that situation. It's no different than a SAM using Hasso while meriting vs. Seigan+TE while soloing. It's using your brain.

Then what's the point? There's already tons of situations and mobs where Whm and Rdm can melee effectively, if they added a buff to those times specifically, it still wouldn't help the jobs where they need help the most. The last idea SE had to "bring Whm to the front" was their Merit JAs low range. And how many Whm enjoy that?

The way the article's worded it's not that they want mages to regularly melee or to match a melee's damage output. The wording suggested status effects from this, WHM gaining MP was an example, but tier 2 enspells could be more along the lines of adding status effects from meleeing. Give me an Enlight spell that lasts 3 minutes and adds dia to a mob without it reflecting that dia and I'd use that.

Bad example is bad? Very few mobs reflect spells, and dia especially is hard to resist. But even then, debuffs gained through melee Dmg seems more of a Dnc or Rdm thing then anything a Whm should get.

[Seibar]

nice that they showed a picture of the maze monger


very informative interview, glad someone got ahold of this! ^^ thanks elmer

[Izzy]

stuff

You managed to troll 5 people in one post! Fantastic job contributing nothing useful except contradicting everyone else's post just because.

[Brigandier]

Then what's the point? There's already tons of situations and mobs where Whm and Rdm can melee effectively, if they added a buff to those times specifically, it still wouldn't help the jobs where they need help the most. The last idea SE had to "bring Whm to the front" was their Merit JAs low range. And how many Whm enjoy that?

The article says they're doing this to address the fact WHM can't get MP back on it's own short of taking a kneel or trying to gear up for a WS not many WHMs have. If this new ability allows WHMs to keep their MP pool up more effectively, I would say there's a hell of a point.

[ronin sparthos]

Why oh why is Itou saying Campaign is giving TOO MUCH exp.

I understand his point that overdependance on Campaign can lead to severely gimped skills but that was thrown to the wind when Level Sync hit the game. Skillup parties are not that hard to get, maybe some incentive should be applied for getting people to skillup pre-60+ if gimped skills is really such a widespread issue.

Campaign tops out at 6000exp/hr if you really push it and under favorable conditions. Many people use Campaign as a way of levelling around the foobared mechanics of this game that preach "Speedkill or GTFO" and the last thing they need is SE from up above saying "you arent exping in obscurity enough".

The game needs an EXP overhaul and saying that EXP in Campaign is too fast when Colibri basically scream imbalance is just confusing. Maybe someone should tell Itou that people are doing 25k/hr - and that many jobs are denied this because of the mechanical issues regarding EXP calculation.

[Dimmauk]

Using one situation hardly works to discredit a new WHM melee ability. Currently my WHM is 74 and I have yet to take it to an Imp camp (mostly out of level sync parties and meriting on birds/mamools with friends). The solution to the problem you propose is simple: stay back in that situation. It's no different than a SAM using Hasso while meriting vs. Seigan+TE while soloing. It's using your brain.

I swear, everyone keeps posting "back line job is supposed to be in the back line!". Everyone should look at it as "back line job should be back line when the situation requires it", and there are plenty of situations where it's not going to hurt a WHM or RDM melee'ing the mob.

Yeah I've seen some DDs that my RDM or BRD could out DD LOL. I'm cant wait to see what the adjustment will be.

[Bakthi]

I have a crazy idea! If it's such a problem that people level up "too much" using Campaign, resulting in gimped skills, why don't you let people skill up with tags on ZOMG? It's not like there are some PS2 limitations that made them put that restriction in. Only SE could see players enjoying new content "too much" as a problem that needed to be addressed by making the new stuff less fun. I bet that guy thinks abjurations drop too often in Einherjar.

[mackerel]

Nyzul congestion is easy to fix. The same fix would solve congestion at Salvage, Splitting Heirs and other BC arenas. There's a cap on the number of groups allowed inside at a time. Remove that cap, add hardware support if that's why they capped it in the first place, and let us play the game we pay for.

Then instance Dynamis and Limbus the same way.

[Tagus]

Yeah I've seen some DDs that my RDM or BRD could out DD LOL. I'm cant wait to see what the adjustment will be.

Wow... wow. That must have been one busted-ass DD.

Great interview though! Thanks alot for the translation... I enjoyed learning more from one japanese interview than our entire NA fan-fest... though I pity the ppl in a situation when a whm melee would come in handy. I don't have the job leveled though, so I guess I can't call bullshit.

[Kaylia]

Nyzul congestion is easy to fix. The same fix would solve congestion at Salvage, Splitting Heirs and other BC arenas. There's a cap on the number of groups allowed inside at a time. Remove that cap, add hardware support if that's why they capped it in the first place, and let us play the game we pay for.

Then instance Dynamis and Limbus the same way.

Splitting heirs and most BC aren't instanced.

Beside, upgrading their server for a particular instance when there is less and less people playing isn't a good investment.

[baudelaire]

Thanks, Elmer. A very interesting read. The repeated mentioning of budgets seemed very candid and out-of-place - and I interpreted it as an indicator that the game is reaching its half-life.

That they have a dev roadmap for at least the next year is promising.

Things of interest:

- they're mum about the link between POL/FFXI accounts and the new MMO they're developing, which I think is very promising for those of us who don't want to see the last few years of hard work evaporate.

- they're also mum about the new avatar, but seem to indicate that we'd recognize the name of it. Personally, I'm hoping for something very big that interacts with the zone, similar to the swooping dragon that flies through Misareaux or Lufaise or wherever.

- I hope the changes made to rdm/whm are as unobtrusive as possible. Get in, hit the thing for your debuff and get out. I really hope it's not something along the lines of DNC where the debuff will wear in 4 sec if you don't hit it again. Apart from putting the mages in aoe range, it'd feed the mobs unnecessary tp - though in a meripo environment that's probably not such an issue.

- very interested in past northlands and the new endgame event that will follow the wotg missions - especially if it's either a) tied into campaign results somehow; or b) on the scale of something like dynamis or einherjar (with similarly nice rewards). preferably both!

Edit: Nyzul floor 300 and "climbing downwards" go!

[mackerel]

Splitting heirs and most BC aren't instanced.

Beside, upgrading their server for a particular instance when there is less and less people playing isn't a good investment.

They are instanced. These areas allow 3 groups inside. If more than 3 groups want to be inside, every group after the first 3 is stuck waiting until a group exits. If you're arguing that this isn't what "instanced" means, replace my use of "instance" with something that makes you happy.

[Sanjiyan]

The "melee WHM" as the solution for WHM being the only mage job without a way of getting MP back quickly confuses me too.

BLM has aspir, high clear mind and their playstyle allows them to /heal
SCH has sublimation
RDM has refresh
SMN has siphon
WHM has... a big paddle to run up and hit the mob with. WTH.

It's almost as if they ran out of ideas.

Maybe the change to RDM and WHM is allowing those jobs some "DD" potential, since amongst the jobs listed above, these two are the weakest in that aspect (if we disregard that RDM solo) outside of just farm-level mobs.

But seriously, nobody was asking for it, and to approach it from this perspective is just outright stupid. They really couldn't tweak WHM as a healer job and give it some method of MP recovery and not be outshined by SCH or RDM?

[Tagus]

The "melee WHM" as the solution for WHM being the only mage job without a way of getting MP back quickly confuses me too.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. WHM melee is so bad of an idea that my first thought upon reading it was, this guy is messing with us.

[Malacite]

You sir, are made of win.