Komoto's Official Explanation of Surplus

[omegaB]

yeah there was a massive grind, but the cap was in place for years, and all that endgame content wasnt what made most people keep coming back, it was because they enjoyed leveling, and getting new charachters high level, because they enjoyed the game. New endgame content of merit probably didnt come around till art urgahn.

CoP was fun story wise, but 90% of it wasnt endgame

Sky/dynamis etc was nice but if you didnt want to play another job that much, you probably quit the game.

if they are hoping that people enjoy leveling enough that they will want to do it multiple times, that doesnt change weather people hit cap and switch, or they dont and have to switcheach day.

1) The truth is the real rub between hardcores and casuals come when they hit the same levels, and have to compete for the same things, items, money, mobs to kill. Casuals never cared about people being 75 when they were 20, they cared when they hit 75 and the other people had better gear, established linkshells, an elitist attitude, and put them down for not having every subjob that people liked and the best gear for thier level, which this system does nothing to change at all, in fact it encourages it even more.

2) Playing with surplus hanging over your head sucks, everytime you get good exp or start making progress you start thinking.... i wonder when surplus is going to kick in.... when you get 10% you start thinking... i wonder if i will ve able to hit the next even level and get a skill before it hits 30% and im frustrated. It makes you put way too much thought into leveling, and what your going to do next. it prevents you from hitting whatever milestones you wanted to hit on your own time.

really bad idea, even worse execution, its also counter intuitive to systems in game like point allocation.

[Meko]

End game content doesn't have to be super healthy at initial release for people to keep playing. People can and will level other classes/jobs/skills or whatever. The difference is that the game developers are FORCING you to play other classes/skills/weapons/etc etc. Make the game good and throw a little "high end" content out there and people will keep playing. Throw out a crappy UI, buggy EXP system, broken group operations and you'll flop from initial release until the servers shut down. See Warhammer or Age of Conan.

[BlackheartX]

For everyone acting like this system is majorly different and some how makes every previous complaint about the prior system irrelevant please get off it...

Spoiler: show

By off it I mean Wada's dick

[Ae Cha]

Okay, so what you're saying (and what Lucavi was saying earlier) is that while SE takes a dump on hardcore, Blizzard did the same for casuals (and surprise surprise, changed their ways after a while).

I'm not sure if that's better than what SE is doing, and frankly, this game has enough grinding without making the exp curve even longer than it would be now, with the way the class system is designed. I hate excessive grind.

I'm not saying it was better. Even as a hardcore player, it was pretty damn shitty. And yeah, they learned that taking a dump on anyone is a bad idea. Now anyone, regardless of how much or little they play, can enjoy WoW. If SE wants to encourage casual play, they should reward casuals instead of penalizing hardcore players. They should also take a note from Blizzard and take as long as humanly possible to release things.

If these players get bored with surplus, they'd get bored without it. At least now you could get somewhere in a less amount of time, although horizontally.

So, what is the point, then? If they'd lose these people with or without it, who are they helping? Why are "no surplus" and "tolerable grind" mutually exclusive? They don't have to lengthen the xp curve to compensate. They can just let people hit the cap and let people be bored for a weeks until they patch in content. That's essentially what they did with FFXI, and you've said that they're releasing the game unfinished because it worked fine for them before -- so why change this and not that?

[lurtsman]

Inc : Wall'O'Text. TLDR version @ bottom. (Edit: Many people on here throwing a fit should consider reading and thinking critically.)

I am happy to here an official release. It will take time for them to earn my trust after the last decade, but at least they are saying the right words. It's better than saying the wrong words, but it still isn't worth very much.

I enjoy seeing people rage about the system. I don't think it's a great idea either, but at least now we likely have more info about it. Assuming that it truly is "We estimated the average player will make X per hour, so you can get 8X before surplus sets in." We would rationally expect the most likely course after that--based on what we have heard so far is "total "skill" gained to your char and to surplus account--which does not yet have a use--will be 7X before the tax is at 100%. If surplus is used for something, the system will not have the intended effect.

Players who play on open beta and have a long history of being very good at the game and have the resources of a talented network (linkshell) behind them may easily find that 8X can be accomplished in 3 hours. It will take another 2 hours and change to earn the next 7X (of which much would go to surplus).

It sounds to me like they might be doing a "cooldown" plus a "forced reset". Meaning if you earned your 15X (counting what went to surplus) -- henceforth coining the term 15X Gross--as a reference to income before taxes, on Sunday...

You may still be in a lower tax bracket (from surplus rate decay). If you really want to earn the max levels, you will need to know the time the server resets. Lets pretend it is sunday 0:00 JST. If you were living in Japan, Saturday evening you would exp until you hit 100% surplus rate. (That is 0% going to you, all going to the government, err going to the surplus) Sunday it would reset, and you would start exping again.

Since we assume the amounts are based on 8X skill point gains allowed before surplus. Having a surplus rate decay--that is a reduction in the amount of surplus charged outside of the "Sunday Reset" would require a formula that increased the "skill points available for earning" through out the week. This seems overly complicated and I would prefer a system that most people can understand--such as no rate decay, full reset on Sunday @ specified time.

Given that I seem to understand the system well enough to theorycraft out the likely ways it might be implemented, my opinion is that it is not awesome. Watch out for nerd rage here--if your nose starts to bleed you should take care of that. It isn't ALL bad.

Knowing that I'm NOT in favor of this system, here are the things that are either good, or at least neutral, or would be suitable reason for this system:

1. There isn't much to do at level 50. I understand the counter points that people should be able to reach it--but from a business stand point they do not want people reaching 50. They could force an INSANE TNL in the 40s, but that would be very frustrating also. They have said crafting will be important. I will be hardcore. I will play 30-40 hours/week for the first month or two. If there was no cap on leveling my gladiator, it would take much longer for my crafts to get up. Because of this cap, I don't have to worry about falling behind while I level my sub jobs, maur/pug, or while I level my three crafting professions. Even if I go to 15x on all 6 of those things, that is only 90x. I assume I can easily earn at least 2X per hour. So I'd be looking at a max of 45 hours to do those things. That means my crafting gets done--and there will be more weapons/armor for other players to keep up with their leveling--otherwise level 50s WOULD be wearing level 1 weapons, or a random one from a guild leve.

2. Helps people cap addiction. It's not their job, and imo it's not their place, but the effect may still be there. I don't feel this is a good enough reason, but they may feel it has some merit. We are dealing with a different culture.

3. Keeps hardcores leveling their alternate classes in the same area as the casuals.
My hypothetical casual would play 12 hours in a week. Most of it would be on the week end. He would level 1 class mainly, and one off class or gathering prof. Surplus would not hurt him much. (He probably gains around 1X per hour, maybe less, he doesn't know the game very well and doesn't theorycraft much, he just wants an escape from a shitty job)

3a. The surplus causing him to level a support class makes it easier for him to find a party, because the more hardcore players will require having additional abilities. Casuals will rage, hardcores will refuse to waste time. Some hards will be an ass, others will be more polite, most will refuse to carry others without an incentive.

3b. The surplus cap means myself and my guild will be leveling in the same zone that casuals mains will be in. This will suck for server lag, but the theory by SE suggests having us in the same area will give the casual a better chance to get into our group. This will not be true in practice. I already have people to fill each role and class, they will all start in the same city. Our hardcore groups while fluctuating in number and members--will still be mostly using LS members. The randoms that are good enough to run with us, will usually (perhaps not always) be hardcore players themselves who do not have an LS, or are in a social LS. The hardcore players in social LS, may be a large boon to casuals. It sucks that this will increase lag, but I understand the desire of SE to help the casual meet players who can teach them things about the game. I think this will lead to more harm than good, as casuals and hardcores looking for the same mobs DO NOT get along. My pullers WILL get the mobs, and the casuals will become frustrated.

As far as I can see, the system has some major draw backs. As players we will object, but when it goes live inspite of us, we will learn to live with it. It will eventually decrease any stress about "I'm not leveling fast enough, I can't help an LS-mate with that event because it would take away time from leveling my main" and "I can't do crafting profs because I need to whack things with my lance POKITY POKE POKE". We also need a great deal of gatherers. Players being capped on leveling their main may go out and gather--increasing their resources and giving their characters better tools to level when it is time to do that. For the time we can level outside of surplus, we will enjoy it more. For me, it means I can watch blazer games without feeling like I'm letting my guild down by not playing 65 hours/week at launch.

TLDR Version: Director gave some info. Maybe they are learning, prob not. We can object to surplus, it is likely it will happen. While I'm not advocating surplus, there are some things that are less awful about it. It may work largely as intended (forcing people to play other classes), but perhaps not with the intended emotions. Our best hope is a cap on exp gained for primary job means more people online willing to help their LS-mates or a random because they are not missing out because of helping. They are "missing out" but refusing to help will not solve that problem.) Some suggestions are also made through out the post about how the system might handle resets of the surplus rate.

TLDR was too long, so I TLDRed that: Director talked. They heard us, they might care, probably not. System is not popular. System may be bad. It is less bad than holocaust.

P.S. The irony is many in government pretend taxes do not have this effect of reducing motivation. Look at the rage, people point to 30% surplus as being a major disincentive to level. Our tax rates are much higher than that.

[Zeno McDohl]

The post is now on the English dev site. Here is Square's official English version:

Once again, we would like to thank you all for your participation and support during the Closed Beta. We will continue to take your valuable feedback into consideration as we develop the game during Open Beta and even beyond the official release.

Now I would like to take a moment to respond to the many questions and opinions regarding the manner in and rates at which experience and skill points are obtained in Beta 3.

Firstly, the concept for FINAL FANTASY XIV was to design a system of character progression that offers meaningful advancement for those with limited time to dedicate to playing. We did not want to create a game that forced people to play for hours on end to see their efforts rewarded. To that end, in addition to the Guardian's Aspect and guildleve systems, we introduced a means of apportioning swifter advancement to shorter periods of play.

In order to achieve this balance, we calculated a value for the amount of skill or experience points that could be earned in a one-hour period. This theoretical value represents an hour spent engaged solely in combat, levequests, or any other activities that earn skill or experience points, and sets a threshold delimiting how many of these points can be earned in a period of play.

Based on this, we have implemented a “threshold value” concept. These thresholds are regulated by a one-week timer that begins counting down the instant you earn skill/experience points. After a week has passed, the thresholds will reset, and the moment skill/experience points are earned again, the timer begins counting down anew.

For the first eight thresholds during this week-long period, players will receive skill/experience points at the maximum rate possible. The actual amount of time spent reaching these thresholds is not significant. That is to say, a player who exceeds eight hours of gameplay will still be rewarded the maximum amount of skill/experience points, so long as the total amount earned is below the eighth threshold value. For the subsequent seven thresholds, players will earn skill/experience points at a gradually decreasing rate, eventually reaching a rate of zero.

It is worth noting, however, that the reduced rate will also gradually recover while players are engaged in activities that do not yield skill/experience points. In this manner, it is possible for the threshold value to reset completely, even before the completion of the one-week timer.

Any skill points earned in excess of the threshold maximum—that is, at a rate of zero—will be stored as "bonus skill points." These are specific to each class, so players limited to earning bonus skill points still have the freedom to change classes and begin earning skill points again at the maximum rate, allowing their reduced skill rates to recover in the meantime.

The experience point threshold, however, is unrelated to class, and switching classes will have no effect on the decreasing rate of earnable experience.

This is how the progression system currently works.

This system was not introduced in Beta 3, but has been in place since the beginning of beta testing. There are several reasons why many people believe that these features were only recently implemented:

- Leading into Beta 3, operation hours were extended, making it possible to play more often during the span of a week.
- To encourage players to form guidleve parties in Beta 3, skill and experience point rewards for guildleves were significantly increased.
- The process that reduced the amount of skill/experience points awarded for weak enemies attacking in groups was unintentionally removed at the start of Beta 3. (This issue has been addressed.)

That last reason in particular was the biggest cause for players running up against the threshold penalty, with characters earning far more skill/experience points than we anticipated. We also faced an issue where we were simultaneously unable to adjust the amount earned for guildleves as well as the effects of crossing each threshold.

We sincerely apologize for the lack of explanation and our failure to make the necessary adjustments in the game.

The threshold values are being reexamined, and we plan to further adjust the different rates of earnable points based on feedback from our testers. One of the top issues we are looking at right now is fixing the excessively rapid drop after crossing the eighth threshold. We also plan to improve experience point reduction rates, even more so than for skill points, considering the threshold is unaffected when changing class.

At the very least, we can promise that players won't be running into the threshold penalty in the same short time span as they did in the beginning of Beta 3.

We would like to take this opportunity to also explain the following issues.

The diminishing results experienced during gathering are a function related to that class alone, and have no connection to this progression system. We are in the process of adjusting this system, and plan to make changes based on tester feedback.

We are currently in the process of considering the means in which bonus skill points can be used. There have been suggestions for various types of incentives, but as encouraging people to play with that in mind defeats the purpose of this threshold system, we will be examining this issue very carefully.

These are not the only adjustments we have planned for Open Beta. As mentioned previously, we are looking into increasing the amount of skill points earned when fighting in a party, and we look forward to seeing your input on these changes.

Last of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in releasing a developer's comment due to my recent attendance to Gamescom. The article based on my interview during that trip, coupled with conjecture, outdated information, and some misunderstandings on overseas websites, only added to the confusion. In the future, I hope to avoid similar problems by responding directly through official developer's comments as often as possible. Thank you for your understanding.

See you in the Open Beta Testing!

FINAL FANTASY XIV Director
Nobuaki Komoto

[Kurokikaze]

Wow Lurtsman, thats news to me...

It is worth noting, however, that the reduced rate will also gradually recover while players are engaged in activities that do not yield skill/experience points. In this manner, it is possible for the threshold value to reset completely, even before the completion of the one-week timer.

Question is do you have to be logged in for this to happen...? If not, then the system isn't all that bad. Grind today and grind some more tomorrow when you wake up. I'm assuming that the effects revert at the same rate that they occur.

Also, it would be nice if we could get back some of our surplus through leves.

[Selamis]

Edit: Beaten by Zeno.

[Meko]

Maybe they can add an in-game timer to show me when Surplus is going to kick in. Still, doesn't matter, do away with it please. There's no way to keep casual and hardcore players playing together for large, group oriented things.

[Shuichi]

Well there you have it. Anyone still not happy? I'm cool. You cool? Let's have some coffee and donuts. My treat.

[Selamis]

Well there you have it. Anyone still not happy? I'm cool. You cool? Let's have some coffee and donuts. My treat.

Still not happy, it's a dumb idea and a dumb system. It being explained in further detail (since that's pretty much what Elmer posted in OP in this thread but with other points of interest) at least makes it make a little more sense now instead of random speculation how it works. Sad that it took a giant storm on the Internet, and a website spreading false info for SE to actually explain something for once that players didn't understand.

[Meresgi]

I'm sorry, but this system is fucking retard.

Who doesn't remember old ranger parties before rng nerf , for example , where we could gain a lot of exp .
Something closer would be the lovely colibri parties .

I'm pretty sure it's to prevent that shit. So people won't look for the absolute, very very best way to earn xp and stick ONLY to that method, voiding a ton of other xp areas and party makeups. Sure there's no reason you can't go make a super party and burst out xp till you hit the surplus cap, but then you can go level new classes for added abilities for your main choice. Grinding the hell out of Archer to level cap w/o having another other weapon skills leveled up past 4 won't do you any good. And once you've hit cap in 2-3 weeks...what then? Sit around and complain there's no content because SE is busy fixing certain issues and working on content still, because they didn't think you would, or want you to have, hit max level so fast.

I'll say chances are very high this surplus will be taken out of the game fully eventually after a majority have hit end game and content has been pushed out to keep people busy. Right now it seems as a way to regulate the flow of people to max level and make it so everyone arrives there at generally the same time. Otherwise you have 5% of your player base flying ahead of everyone else, and setting up the economy the way they want for end game goods.

[Meko]

I could be off a bit on this thought, but I almost feel like SE is going with the idea that the brand Final Fantasy alone will launch the game successfully. And while that is somewhat true, it raises the brow of players that enjoy any FF series, in this day in time, I don't think having a great brand matters as much as marketing does. With that being said, they have the brand and marketing so they just need to get with the program and remove the surplus. It's clearly not warranted by anybody regardless of how much defense people provide for the system. Whenever you have to say "it's not that bad"...it's probably bad.

[mintyice]

guys, everyone knows some wise-ass is going to figure out how to exploit this system anyway and make it largely irrelevant. don't sweat it.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

Eh. Sorta makes sense now, though I don't totally agree with it. All those lancer guild mark skills you could pick up that swap 10/20STR/DEX stat to 10/20/INT/PIE/MND are probably so you can level a mage job without point swapping, and I'm sure there's a lot more out there. That'll take care of the point allocation probably for at least early game, not to mention you're actually GAINING a lot of stat points if you have a mage class with the reverse stats(10/20/INT/MND to 10/20STR/DEX) since they don't play by the 2points=1 stat rule after the 40 threshold. Gaining marks for multiple classes is probably easier said than done though. I can also see this system as just being a reason to have two classes that you level up instead of just one, regardless if you want to or not. Hit surplus on one class, switch to the next and level that till you hit surplus, then switch back. I guess this could tie into crafting/botany/mining as your second class and not just another DoW or DoM.

What I don't agree with is the "approaches 0 exp over the next 7 hours". That's just crazy. I could understand a 50% skill cut but not a full 100%. Like someone else said, if you've hit surplus but are halfway to the next rank, and you really want that skill, there's a good chance that you won't make it due to surplus and the current %cut you're at. At least at a hard cap of 50% people will bitch and it will be a pain in the ass, but you can still stick it out for a short time, if only to get your level. The fatigue cooldown rate is pretty much the determining factor here; which I noticed it not really going away for long if I hit the 10% mark then came back about 24 hours later, I'd see the fatigue mark in under an hour easy and that's with gaining anywhere from 30-250 skill points per mob(which is just wack but maybe lollv1weapon?). Also, I could see a twist to the system if your fatigue cooldown rate is increased by you actually leveling another class over a period of time. Under SE logic, this would make sense since they want you to play another class. I guess just wait and see at release. I'm sure the final system won't be in place for a long time and things will be changed as people approach the 50 cap, and after the 50 cap is raised.

[Karnja]

If elmer is right with hitting the level cap after 8 hours * calculated amount of exp by Se per hour (and its not anywhere time based) it quite annoyes me that they dont set a fix amount of exp (lets say for example you hit surplus after 15.000 exp).

Of course it would be diffrent ifthey calculate diffrent amount of exp per hour each job level.

[Vuitton]

I'm pretty sure it's to prevent that shit. So people won't look for the absolute, very very best way to earn xp and stick ONLY to that method, voiding a ton of other xp areas and party makeups. Sure there's no reason you can't go make a super party and burst out xp till you hit the surplus cap, but then you can go level new classes for added abilities for your main choice. Grinding the hell out of Archer to level cap w/o having another other weapon skills leveled up past 4 won't do you any good. And once you've hit cap in 2-3 weeks...what then? Sit around and complain there's no content because SE is busy fixing certain issues and working on content still, because they didn't think you would, or want you to have, hit max level so fast.

I'll say chances are very high this surplus will be taken out of the game fully eventually after a majority have hit end game and content has been pushed out to keep people busy. Right now it seems as a way to regulate the flow of people to max level and make it so everyone arrives there at generally the same time. Otherwise you have 5% of your player base flying ahead of everyone else, and setting up the economy the way they want for end game goods.

I completely agree with you. This is how I am looking at it as well. I bet the AH will be added around the same time they remove this system, if it really is to prevent monopolization of the economy and forcing players to exp in only one way.

[Meresgi]

Sad that it took a giant storm on the Internet, and a website spreading false info for SE to actually explain something for once that players didn't understand.

They were slow on the ball...but still it went from "Hmm what's this?" to "HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE" in a matter of days as it snowballed out of control and burst into flames. Speculation about certain things about SE games has always been the norm so they probably just shrugged it off until they saw what had become of it. Can't blame them for not reading fan forums though, 90% of the shit is a waste.

[Meko]

I'm pretty sure it's to prevent that shit. So people won't look for the absolute, very very best way to earn xp and stick ONLY to that method, voiding a ton of other xp areas and party makeups. Sure there's no reason you can't go make a super party and burst out xp till you hit the surplus cap, but then you can go level new classes for added abilities for your main choice. Grinding the hell out of Archer to level cap w/o having another other weapon skills leveled up past 4 won't do you any good. And once you've hit cap in 2-3 weeks...what then? Sit around and complain there's no content because SE is busy fixing certain issues and working on content still, because they didn't think you would, or want you to have, hit max level so fast.

I'll say chances are very high this surplus will be taken out of the game fully eventually after a majority have hit end game and content has been pushed out to keep people busy. Right now it seems as a way to regulate the flow of people to max level and make it so everyone arrives there at generally the same time. Otherwise you have 5% of your player base flying ahead of everyone else, and setting up the economy the way they want for end game goods.

So they want to limit how people exp in the game? Sounds like no matter how you dress it up, it's the same thing.

[Nevex]

Can't say that beta forums are much better than fan sites. Can't blame SE for ignoring their own playerbase after all.