Developer Interview (Dengeki Feb. '09)

[thetruepandagod]

FIX MY CLAUSTRUM

[Nattack]

contrary to popular belief, the aftermath effects of claustrum was a gaming "red herring"

you just lost that much ancient currency for refresh

[Qeomash]

I don't really understand why SE is being so secretive about the new avatars and their ability. Are they so afraid people are gonna be "you said this but did this instead"

They want it to be a surprise. That, and they don't want the "OMG THIS IS STUPID!" backlash until it's already in the game so that we can't really complain.

[Riel]

This is the best interview I've seen in a while. Thanks much.

[tymora]

FIX MY CLAUSTRUM

Make that 2.

[Melios]

contrary to popular belief, the aftermath effects of claustrum was a gaming "red herring"

you just lost that much ancient currency for refresh

Not only that, BLM/SCH could undertake the monumental task of getting alexandrites, etc, for a staff that lets you nuke for less damage (with less magical accuracy) than a corresponding HQ elemental staff that costs no more than 500k at most (on Asura at least).

[Okan]

as long as they dont fuck with bst the way it is now, that is, charming mobs for 3-30 minutes at a time with no cost other than randomly failing, I'm fine. I'm still pissed about mob depop...

I quit the game when they first implemented the MPK patch because BST was almost unplayable. Mobs took the full time to respawn if I remember correctly so when you released your pet, you were screwed in to waiting for TWO mobs to respawn. Then since there was no TOAU areas, exp areas were highly sought after and I was in the Garlaige Citadel levels of my career so a party was almost always showing up where I was since it was nigh impossible to get behind gate 2 solo at that time.

And I do agree on that I don't want to lose the charming aspect. It's the one feature I truly enjoy over other pet classes in the game since.

[Shassira]

First, let me thank Elmer for the interview, it was a good read ^^

And now:

Lose the charming aspect of BST? It was lost long ago. Name the last meaningful event you charmed a mob and used it. Salvage? Sea? Einhenjar? Dynamis? Nyzul? Ah yes, Hakutaku! And maybe Sky, if you happened to be outside killing gods.

BST's charm ability has already been ostracized by design, so there's nothing else to remove from it, if you are happy with how things are now, then you can feel safe it will never be touched.

I'm still waiting for that little change where I can feed meaningul food that enhances my pet's needs or when bard/cor songs can affect my pet too. (In before random smart ass: COR pet rolls don't count, they only affect the pet); but to be honest, having the Mythic basicly address some of these things we can pretty much consider that though a dream. We'll probably get something stupid like pet development while killing mobs that give exp!

That will be awesome. Yeah.

[Naash]

(Field of Valor)
We are planning to expand it to other areas from here on. Also, to make things even easier for the players, we are looking to fix up Field Manuals that are tough to access or have training regimens that need adjusting.

Just having the Valor refresh (1 hour and very cheap point-wise) is already a charm, I hope they add books in other areas. Even in XP PTs it can be nice if your PT is open to doing it. But it's true that some manuals are not placed the best. :/
What if they just had several manuals in one area? (or is it already the case for some, maybe?)

Nyzul Isle faces congestion problems at different times on different worlds, but according to information received through Customer Support, Japanese prime-time is especially tough no matter where you play. We’re working to improve the situation, but the issue at its core has no quick fix. Currently, we’re trying out a number of ideas.

I hope they fix it soon ><
If you're playing in Japanese time like me, for months after the Nyzul update you often had to wait 30+ minutes trying to enter, and every time you finished a run your connection would time out.
The only reason it's been getting better is that many people finished climbing now and there are less groups...


It would be nice if one of the job adjustments they have in mind would allow for more other classes to tank during XP parties...

Kendai:
Gendai:

You doubled this guy's name, too.

[Genosync]

dying game, shitty company, etc

[Nekio]

Wow I wasn't expecting the info on the trainee weapons... they talk about the 40-and-below skill like it was common knowledge.

[Okan]

First, let me thank Elmer for the interview, it was a good read ^^

And now:

Lose the charming aspect of BST? It was lost long ago. Name the last meaningful event you charmed a mob and used it. Salvage? Sea? Einhenjar? Dynamis? Nyzul? Ah yes, Hakutaku! And maybe Sky, if you happened to be outside killing gods.

BST's charm ability has already been ostracized by design, so there's nothing else to remove from it, if you are happy with how things are now, then you can feel safe it will never be touched.

I'm still waiting for that little change where I can feed meaningul food that enhances my pet's needs or when bard/cor songs can affect my pet too. (In before random smart ass: COR pet rolls don't count, they only affect the pet); but to be honest, having the Mythic basicly address some of these things we can pretty much consider that though a dream. We'll probably get something stupid like pet development while killing mobs that give exp!

That will be awesome. Yeah.

Charm isn't at fault for this. It's the location of said NMs. To make up for the location of NMs and maybe the availability of charmable mobs (or lack there of), they added jug pets. This is the problem now: Jug pets just do not compete with an EM and Beast Affinity does not do what we'd want for uncapped pets (They still spawn at 73-74). Our merits don't increase our overall performance like most other jobs since it's mostly recast timers for abilities. For anyone to complain that their SP/2 hour ability is useless should consider leveling BST. Don't get me wrong, it's total fun to charm a VT and use Familiar and then destroy an entire zone, but is this really a 2 hour ability? Should be more like 1 hour and give us a two hour that allows us to do spike damage or be apart of a zerg on an HNM. On things like Limbus, Nyzul, Einherjar, and Salvage, things should be able to be charmed. Sure, you won't be able to use it every time you do these events but having a bone tossed to us would be most excellent; think MMM for those of you who have done it. The first thing I did when I got enough marbles was get the Aquan rune just to make sure I can always use charm to make my life easier.

Sure, I can change job to WHM or BLM, but when you really like a job and spend a lot of time investing in it, why should I have to? This goes along the lines of me telling all those PLDs that they are now useless as we only will use NIN from now on. RDMs are useless because BRD can refresh and debuff better. BLM and WHM are useless because SCH can heal and nuke just as well as both as well as buff the PTs better with group Stoneskin, etcetcetc... Besides, look at what happened to DRG. It went from lolDRG to a job that everyone really really wants in their merit parties and even at HNM events.

You play the game because you enjoy it. I play BST because I absolutely love the job. I don't want to play another job. I only do because otherwise I'd still be looking for an LS that would let me do Einherjar with them as BST only. I only do it because I'd never see another HNM even though I was killing them before 90% of that LS even knew what FFXI was. I'm tired of WHM. I don't like BLM.


[Note: All those about PLD, RDM, etc, above are just ramblings and not to be taken as truths. I'm just making an example as to why one class should not be ostracized because another can do it "better".]

[Shinryuu]

Fix BST: make charmed/jug pets give no TP to the mob. Up jug pets a bit. Lifedrinker Lars is pretty good already.

WotG AV/PW: Drogaroga, in Meriphataud_S.

[Okan]

Need more than that to make BST highly more accepted, but it's a start.

And Drogaroga is win.

[Riel]

Problems with 1H weapons since the 2H update are a big part of BST being gimped lately. Of course, there is also the ignorance (apparently some people kint reed da perser dat will) about the dot provided by the job in the first place in situations like merits.

I support these general ideas as far as bst:

1) Fix 1H weapons. Even better, make 2H weapons give mobs more TP per hit to match 1H tp-feeding rate AND fix the damage on 1H to compete with 2H.

2) Altered BST 2hour, designed to allow BST to deal spike damage. One idea I had here is for Familiar to function the same as it does now, but for it to add 10 levels (ignoring 75 cap) to any jug pet it is used on (or some crazy attack/acc/haste bonus)

3) Since all people really seem to care about it WS damage, a meritable ability (to replace the worthless crap we have now) allowing the BST to take TP from their pet would be pretty nice--and it would go great with Snarl.

4) More charmable mobs as discussed in other posts.

[Talisien]

Thanks very much Elmer!

[Reapz]

Thanks Elmer! I wonder when version update announcements will start, should be a month till early March if they are on schedule still.

[Nattack]

I quit the game when they first implemented the MPK patch because BST was almost unplayable. Mobs took the full time to respawn if I remember correctly so when you released your pet, you were screwed in to waiting for TWO mobs to respawn. Then since there was no TOAU areas, exp areas were highly sought after and I was in the Garlaige Citadel levels of my career so a party was almost always showing up where I was since it was nigh impossible to get behind gate 2 solo at that time.

And I do agree on that I don't want to lose the charming aspect. It's the one feature I truly enjoy over other pet classes in the game since.

alot of my friends who were also fervent bst's quit as well. leading to the destruction of a tiny linkshell D: I was like 60 bst at the time of that patch

[Kaylia]

Those interviews make me rage. They seriously need to include gamers in their rank, because they suck at making enjoyables endgame contents. I'm not even sure what kind of audience they are targetting with NM like AV and PW.

[Okan]

alot of my friends who were also fervent bst's quit as well. leading to the destruction of a tiny linkshell D: I was like 60 bst at the time of that patch

I would say I'm sad I didn't wait longer to see the changes, but it still took 3 years for almost all of these changes (Wasn't the pet EXP change just in December?) and the job is still laughed at when someone wants to say that they want to do events on BST and they're told to change jobs to something more accepted.

Yeah, I know it's silly, but I remain hope that the job will be more powerful and accepted because of WoW. Hunter went from worst to best in a sense up there competing with Rogues and DPS Warriors, Mages and Warlocks, everyone... They weren't the least DPS only brought for pulling anymore.

I'm not even sure what kind of audiance they are targetting with NM like AV and PW.

A continually shrinking audience as people realize that the risk versus reward just isn't enough anymore...