Tanaka blames foreign sites for rumors + XP Discussion

[millionsknives]

Original story: http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=23080

Surplus points, a new feature recently introduced into the Final Fantasy XIV beta, has had testers and fans on the outside quite confused. Most people consider it akin to "fatigue," where a character is beset with limitations after a certain amount of play. With no official announcement or explanation on how these points work, fan sites and forums have been struggling to figure them out -- often leading to some harsh criticism of the game. Now, Producer Hiromichi Tanaka seems to have built up some "fatigue" of his own, and lashed out at foreign sites on Twitter today, calling them full of rumors and fabrications.

"Foreign sites have lots of false rumors. They throw together words and fabricate remarks. Then Japanese sites take this and further [falsify it through] mistranslation. The fatigue point criticism has absolutely nothing to do with the actual [system] and is just full of wild ideas."

The source of Tanaka's dismay appears to stem from this interview with Famitsu from Gamescom. In it, the developers admit the existance of a fatigue system, claiming it was designed to benefit players with comparatively little time to enjoy the game. With the details left unclear, "fatigue" has become a source of speculation across the Internet and some articles have made shocking claims regarding its function in limiting player growth and freedom. The situation has reached a point where Tanaka believes that what people are criticizing is nothing like the system as it is in the actual game. Furthermore, the last line states that he believes too many people are just coming up with what they think fatigue might be and making the situation even worse.

Sure, wild speculation is not hard to find while wading through any popular forum, but the assertion that this is the fault of foreign sites is a little harsh. A quick glance at a thread on the JP Beta tester site dedicated to understanding this system reveals pages of baffled testers trying to figure out how exactly it functions. Several replies from Japanese fans also point to the lack of any official explanation as exacerbating, if not outright causing, the issue.

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Wow. Tanaka gives out no information on how the system we're testing works, and then complains when people speculate as to how it works? Isn't that what SE want? If not whats the point of having all their system workings a secret in XIV and XI?

Personally, I think Tanaka can suck my balls. All the good things that have happened to FFXI in recent years, right down to a shadow counter in-game, seem to have happened since he left for XIV. I'm beginning to think its no coincidence.

[Zilong]

Artefact just eats up any fucking rumor regarding SE games sucking.

In his defense though, aside from the fact that there really hasn't been a good Square game for a long ass time, FFXIV must've had one shitball of PR and development team if the whole 3 hours fatigue actually caught enough wind to be an issue and them actually not denying it with actual facts.

"Yeah, they're bullshitting, but we're not gonna tell you what the truth is"

Stay classy Tanaka

[Nevex]

Artefact just eats up any fucking rumor regarding SE games sucking.

In his defense though, aside from the fact that there really hasn't been a good Square game for a long ass time, FFXIV must've had one shitball of PR and development team if the whole 3 hours fatigue actually caught enough wind to be an issue and them actually not denying it with actual facts.

"Yeah, they're bullshitting, but we're not gonna tell you what the truth is"

Stay classy Tanaka

I think you missed that FF game released about 5 months ago.

Either way, regardless of how the system works, beta testers can't expect to know everything about that before the game is released. And the "rumored" idea of the surplus system isn't that bad considering how you're going to need to level different classes regardless if you want to get anywhere in FFXIV.

[Hyan]

Personally, I think Tanaka can suck my balls. All the good things that have happened to FFXI in recent years, right down to a shadow counter in-game, seem to have happened since he left for XIV. I'm beginning to think its no coincidence.

I think he has always been the producer of both games.

It's funny to see a reaction from an actual developer. Hopefully's he's pissed enough to actually tell us how it works if he doesn't want speculation!

[Blasta]

"Yeah, they're bullshitting, but we're not gonna tell you what the truth is"

Ohoh, this reminds me the oh mighty sentence: We learned so much from XI and we are going to use that knowledge! How about that proper communication for starters.

[Deadgye]

Actual basis of this dismay: Sankaku Complex; Add in that people not in beta can only speculate off rumors, and that even the people in beta don't know what the hell it is to combat the rumors.. and you have people taking Sankaku seriously.

And if a shitload of people were taking Sankaku seriously about something you made, you'd be pissed too.

[Zilong]

I wouldn't, it's a fucking online tabloid.

Most of their headlines consist of strange crime involving anime topic, chinese product sucking, JRPG sucking, console wars, nude filters, and assorted otaku shit to feed the weeaboo fags inside you.

If those appeals to the targeted demographic for FFXIV, there will be more problem in the damn game than the fatigue system, I can already guarantee you that much.

[millionsknives]

I think he has always been the producer of both games.

It's funny to see a reaction from an actual developer. Hopefully's he's pissed enough to actually tell us how it works if he doesn't want speculation!

He was definitely a dev for XI for most of its life, but for the past while I think hes been almost completely on XIV. I seem to remember him saying so? But either way I agree, hopefully this will teach him to just start giving out some answers. (Pigs will fly XD)

"Yeah, they're bullshitting, but we're not gonna tell you what the truth is"

So true.

[Deadgye]

If those appeals to the targeted demographic for FFXIV, there will be more problem in the damn game than the fatigue system, I can already guarantee you that much.

The problem was the article was copypasta'd into a bunch of fansites, and most of the targeted demographic for ffxiv not knowing what sankaku complex is, took it seriously.

[plue]

You know what, if he's so upset by the situation maybe he could actually explain what the circumstances really are? I'm thinking people have been dead on with the harassment of the fatigue system, and now they're just gonna try to recover, try to change a couple of things, and pretend like the bad PR was just mislead rumors.

[Zilong]

Then they're dumb, and they should feel bad.

Seriously, you can't believe everything you read on the internet, that's how World War I got started.

Artefact has been ripping on anything Square Enix since like...FFXIII release in Japan or something?

Probably longer, but really, the fatigue system wasn't the first defamation for FFXIV, and odds are it wouldn't be the last.

Expect this article to show up on Sankaku by tomorrow.

Tanaka pinpointing his rage toward the site does nothing but fuel the flame, and kinda show the kind of PR the development team is capable of.

[Lordender]

This is exactly why 14 needs transparency, a forum where the players can be informed by direct information that comes straight from the dev's.

He had many chances to squash these "rumors", he chose not to say anything and now he's paying the price. I hope this lets him know that the western audience he's trying get to play 14 is going to be extra critical of every move they make with 14 after 11's short comings.

[Deadgye]

Seriously, you can't believe everything you read on the internet, that's how World War I got started.

Sadly, I've given up hope. Years on the internet have led me to only one conclusion. Either I'm a fucking genius, or a majority of people in this world are retarded. And unfortunately, I don't think geniuses usually have to retake classes.

[omegaB]

Ehhhh hes actually right. everything he said is truth

A foreign site did start rumors, in what i can only discribe as trying to lie and troll SE.

They took actual quotes from an interview, then added fabricated lies in the next kines to make it seem luke a legitimate source

Then a bunch of gaming sites picked up the story and promoted it with no actual fact checking.

Yea whats partially to blame is them not explaining the system, but in all honesty, the game is still in beta, i dont think even SE has fully decided how the system will be fully implemented, so other than the broad ideas, they cant really tell you the mechanics of a system they are probably actively tweaking and changing.


even if the only people who should know, did know exactly how it works, beta testers, no one would have listened to them. Because, no one did. Any beta tester worth his salt outright debunked that story, and even people who actually followed the information coming out, Still it was getting reported on site after site as real info.


The end result, now they think all the bitching is aboout a system that doesnt exist rather than the actual system. So yeah its efffed up.


Fact is honestly everything that article said he says is completely accurate, and he has a reason to be pissed, not only the main article, but every other information source who posted it as fact.

Truth is, not much he can do about it now, Probably needs to make a strong clear statement and they definately will need to explain the system in detail before release.

[Kirb]

there really hasn't been a good Square game for a long ass time

On consoles, maybe. The DS library is pretty sweet.

Wow. Tanaka gives out no information on how the system we're testing works, and then complains when people speculate as to how it works? Isn't that what SE want? If not whats the point of having all their system workings a secret in XIV and XI?

It wasn't so much spectating as fabricating facts contrary to actual evidence on all of the fansites, seemingly for the primary purpose of driving people away from the game. I'd be pretty pissed too, if that's now how it worked in the slightest.

But on the whole issue:

-SE execs and producers need to allow the devs to give more info on such hotspot issues so websites stating bullshit as fact doesn't happen. I can see transparency with the devs being an understandable barrier with english users, but not with the japanese forums.

-People acting retardedly jaded by XI doesn't help things.

-Most people will unfortunately believe any damn thing they read or hear, and they're too lazy to verify it. It's why political smear campaigns are so effective.

[Uzor]

If we're lucky they'll just end up removing it from this. Odds are they won't though.

[Ryuushin]

Sounds like the political scene/media in the U.S where fact checking comes after the damage is done.

If it wasn't sarcasm, it's pretty ignorant to lump all Japanese people as xenophobes.

[Kylewhataru]

If he doesn't want people speculating then actually tell us how shit works... I know this is beta, but this community has a habit of speculating because of FFXI's track record, too much about that game was cryptic, just fucking tell us how shit works. Tell me exactly how much more % mitigation I get from adding VIT, tell me exactly how much crit/dodge I gain from AGI, tell me exactly how much attack power I gain from STR, tell me exactly how much % more magic damage I do per point of INT. And make it all easy to see in the damn character screen. People shouldn't have to read through 4 different forums to know what the stats do. It's not even an advanced concept, any newbie should easily be able to find out in-game how stats affect him, it shouldn't be a fucking mystery that requires investigation and outside reading.

I mean I understand you have to go beyond the game to find out how to min/max your character, but just to know what the basic stats do? C'mon.

[Jex]

Then they're dumb, and they should feel bad.

Seriously, you can't believe everything you read on the internet, that's how World War I got started.

haha i lol'd @ that one thought about that for a sec and was like ohhhh

[miokomioko]

If he doesn't want people speculating then actually tell us how shit works... I know this is beta, but this community has a habit of speculating because of FFXI's track record, too much about that game was cryptic, just fucking tell us how shit works. Tell me exactly how much more % mitigation I get from adding VIT, tell me exactly how much crit/dodge I gain from AGI, tell me exactly how much attack power I gain from STR, tell me exactly how much % more magic damage I do per point of INT. And make it all easy to see in the damn character screen. People shouldn't have to read through 4 different forums to know what the stats do. It's not even an advanced concept, any newbie should easily be able to find out in-game how stats affect him, it shouldn't be a fucking mystery that requires investigation and outside reading.

I mean I understand you have to go beyond the game to find out how to min/max your character, but just to know what the basic stats do? C'mon.

I'm convinced SE's online producers get boners over the assumption that cryptic systems in their games brings the player community together to discuss/theorize/test/explore/etc. There's some substance to the idea... admittedly FFXI went way too far with it. You can't honestly keep bitching like that after seeing how much easier to understand XIV is.