May 2019 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

[Akihiko_Matsui]

We’d like to continue discussions with everyone, but first, we wanted to explain the reasoning behind why the development team decided to make adjustments to the white magic spells Esuna and Sacrifice.

The onset of this was the fact that compared to Afflatus Solace, the chances to use Afflatus Misery were extremely few and far between. From there, we wanted to separate Esuna and Sacrifice from the overall concept of Afflatus Misery, which is to have the white mage on the front lines trying to take damage first.

We are aware that there were times where the previous method was useful and some previous strategies will become obsolete. However, when looking it as a whole, we have determined that the new adjustments will increase situations where it will become more effective.

If the community believes that this decision was a mistake, then we’ll consider reverting the changes made to Esuna and Sacrifice. We’d appreciate if you could please continue to leave your comments and let us know which method (old or new) was more effective.

[Yoji_Fujito]

We’ve received a lot of feedback stating that the icon is too similar to the Refresh icon and it’s difficult to tell the difference. Thank you for the feedback! As this affected much more than what we envisioned, we’ll be changing the icon. Please note that graphical changes are done separately from feature development, so we’d require some time to make this change.

[Alhanelem]

I think that the drastic increase in the cooldown of Esuna hugely offsets any increase in usefulness it may have gained. I can understand viewing it as more powerful and thus needing a longer cooldown than before, but 2 minutes is absurd.

While I don't really support the previously posted idea of changing the avatar's favor effects to enemy debuffs, I would like to see one of them changed to an accuracy buff. While Fenrir has one, it varies by the moon phase and thus is unreliable.

[Alhanelem]

As far as I'm aware, to get to this point you have to have a series of "strikes" beforehand, so they have been warned enough. If they have been permanently banned in the first place, it's not the kind of people we want back.

It's actually incredibly easy to get banned from the forums. Under the current policies you can get banned for incidents of simply being negative, even without being rude or using coarse language. I've seen it happen. I know several perfectly decent and reasonable people who've been banned forever from th e FFXIV forums. Their rationale for being ridiculously strict to the point of absurdity (better not say anything that doesn't paint SE in a glowing light) compared to how hard it is to get punished in game is that the forums face the public, in contrast to the game which is technically private and random passerby who don't play the game can't see it. I'd argue it's even easier to get punished here than in League of Legends, and that's pretty darn easy, even without ever uttering a curse word.

Peoiple make mistakes sometimes, it doesn't mean they're bad people, the support team really needs to lighten up a bit.

[Jerbob]

Firstly, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for this opportunity to give feedback!

Regarding Afflatus Misery

I agree that the uses for this ability were limited. White Mages at times struggle to work on the front lines - not necessarily because of damage taken, as we have useful tools for resisting damage (equipment, barspells, stoneskin), but due to debilitating status ailments like petrification, stun, silence, sleep, terror, doom, death, knockback, and paralysis. Most White Mages prefer to work from the back lines, and that's completely valid. I also agree that splitting vital tools like Esuna and Sacrifice from Afflatus stances is very desirable.

However, playing White Mage is all about speed, quick reactions, split second anticipation, and timing. It is not a job that lends itself well to swapping stances regularly, as this introduces a small but highly significant delay to play. I need to be ready to respond immediately to situations. I need my basic tools to be there, ready to go. I simply do not have the time to swap stances to access vital tools. This actually includes the old Esuna - it was awkward to use due to stance and target restrictions, though its effect was valuable.

Afflatus Misery is already fun for players who enjoyed playing at the front lines in more relaxed situations - capacity points parties and casual play, the lower floors in Omen, and even against Wave 1 monsters in Dynamis. Some go even further. While the situations for this are somewhat limited, and require a certain player mindset, they do exist, and I personally know several White Mages who greatly enjoyed using Misery in this way. They are very disappointed in these changes.

In short, I think the original intent for these stances was solid. Giving White Mages who are enjoying casual play (or are looking for a different experience) more fun front-line centric tools is still a suitable use for Afflatus Misery, while White Mages who need to focus on supporting party members in heavy duty, rapidly changing combat scenarios still prefer Afflatus Solace. Because White Mages are healers, of course this will mean that Solace will see more overall use - but White Mage devotees will still enjoy the opportunity to expand White Mage's horizons with Misery.

The essential thing is not to unlock particularly powerful or essential tools (Esuna! Sacrifice!) behind the stances. That way there is no requirement to flip flop between them. It just doesn't work for WHM.

Regarding Esuna and Sacrifice

The old Esuna was unique. It was the only way (outside of Divine Veil - restricted to once per 10 minutes) that most White Mages could natively remove area of effect status ailments. In today's FFXI, almost every boss move inflicts status ailments to everyone in range - often multiple at once. White Mages need a tool to address this. Esuna was that tool; it was definitely awkward to use, and needed to be improved, but its premise was sound.

The new Esuna is very similar to the old Sacrifice - something we already had. It is admittedly slightly more flexible - troublesome effects like paralysis and slow are easier to deal with - but this is offset by the heavy restrictions. The recast time, MP cost, and Afflatus Misery requirement mean that I probably won't be able to use the new Esuna as much as I used the old Sacrifice. In fact, with Sacrifice altered too, I feel as if this change has reduced my ability to remove status ailments effectively.

The new Sacrifice is conceptually interesting. I like resistance to status ailments. However, with the restriction to Afflatus Misery and the inability to select an ailment, this is impractical to use and of limited value. Again, I have lost a valuable ailment removal tool.

Being able to remove Amnesia is a valuable tool. I greatly appreciate the development team considering this as an option for White Mages. However, I would much rather prefer to see this as a separate spell - even if the MP cost and recast times are large - than to incorporate it into Esuna.

In short,

• The new Esuna is not very different to the old Sacrifice - it's not new.
• The new Sacrifice has limited practical application.
• I do not have time to swap stances frequently in battle. It's also not fun. I really hate it.
• Most White Mages can no longer remove area of effect status ailments reliably (which is VITAL against boss monsters in today's FFXI)
• Removing large numbers of status ailments from a single party member is now slightly safer, but much slower, more costly, and more awkward.
• Removing Amnesia is valuable, but not when connected to Afflatus Misery and Esuna.

I have gained very little, and lost some vital tools, with this update. Reverting these changes to Sacrifice and Esuna would improve my White Mage experience.

If I may make some suggestions, however, these tools were already somewhat flawed in their original incarnation. Making them better while retaining their original purpose and functionality would be a wonderful boon for White Mages. And, as you have said, removing their dependence on Afflatus stances is essential.

The old Esuna was difficult to use because of the stance restriction; as I have mentioned, swapping stances in combat is too slow for a fast-paced job like White Mage. Furthermore, good White Mages do their best to help their party resist debilitating status ailments using barspells, Addle, and so on; if the White Mage resists the effects due to being well prepared, they can't remove them from (likely less resistant) allies with Esuna. The self-target requirement meant White Mages on the back lines either couldn't use Esuna at all, or had to pair it with Sacrifice, a stance change, and a lot of movement - there just isn't time, and this could easily wipe a party if the White Mage was taken out of action - potent paralysis, sleep, petrification, silence, stun, terror.

Relaxing restrictions and improving these issues would be a great boon to White Mages. Perhaps even allow it to be cast on party members and still act in area of effect, even if a greater cost/recast/new stored power charges requirement is involved - completely making regular status removal spells obsolete isn't desirable after all. Maybe there could be an interesting way to prioritise ailments to remove with barspells or some new mechanic too.

(While I'd like to recognise that this shouldn't overshadow our mythic weapon Yagrush, as someone who has a Yagrush, I also recognise that White Mages without one really struggle with AoE status ailments. Given the ubiquity of AoE status ailments in FFXI today there should be something usable and powerful for them, even if it's not a powerful as Yagrush itself.)

The old Sacrifice was incredibly useful, but hard to use when a target was afflicted with effects like paralysis and slow. Perhaps a prepared White Mage could completely block absorption of selected ailments by using bar-element and bar-status spells - barstone and barparalyze to block slow and paralysis, for example.

To make Afflatus Misery more frequently used, I'd suggest giving it more tools to make front-line White Mages more effective (and fun!). Effects like the accuracy bonus and Enlight from Auspice and the speedy, cheap and low-enmity Curas are nice for front-line work - other things in this vein would be welcome. Just make sure those tools aren't so powerful that they become a required piece of a back line White Mage's kit - there should be nothing to encourage stance swapping. This was Esuna's problem - while it was a nice timesaver for front-line WHM, it was such an incredibly valuable tool that it sometimes encouraged lots of awkward and dangerous strategies - it shouldn't be restricted to just Misery.

Also, as a semi-related issue - would it be possible to make Auspice not overwrite enspells like Enaero? It's very frustrating when I am playing RDM to have our well-prepared and hard-working White Mage constantly removing my enspells.

And finally, a completely unrelated and selfish issue - I really want to be able to cast Stoneskin, Blink and Aquaveil as single target spells on my party members. Any chance of this?

Thank you again for giving us the opportunity to feed back on these issues - it is greatly appreciated.

[CronsMule]

Thank you for putting time and effort back into this rich, diverse, beautiful, open world we all love and enjoy. This is probably too much to ask for but could you give a RDM Protectra IV & Shellra IV? I mean... Don't you think it's about time? If not that then maybe /toss a struggling red mage a Blizzard VI. Preferably in scroll form. One of the things I've always loved about this game that made me WANT to play was the acquisition of spells. Whether it be your first memory of walking down to the dreary dungeon of Regine's Magicmart in Port San d'Oria or the awesome time you had in the Necropolis hunting for the Genkai 1 scroll back when it was like a 1% drop rate and I don't care what the stats say cus I'm pretty sure I killed almost 400 of those effing undead before that papyrus dropped... I think the only thing worse was Carby's Ruby but I digress. But please keep up the hard work! And we look forward to the many more awesome spells you will introduce yes? Oh and more cutscenes??? The 'Dawn' CS at the end of Promathia particularly comes to mind. Oh the feels. Arigatoo gozaimazu. Ganbatte kudasai.

May the Goddess Altana protect you on your journey.

Cron's Mule <Cerberus>

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

This @Cronus have you tried using /sch for subjob, it's got some amazing job abilities if your role in the party as a RDM is primarily buffing+healing. Tier VI spells won't be handed out to RDM unless SE would invent Tier VII spells for BLM.

[Nyarlko]

As one of the handful of players who have attempted to keep the English speaking players up to date with what's going on on the Japanese forums in the past, I greatly appreciate this new Digest and the expanded information available in the text summary. Thank you.

I have one small request in the interest of increasing cross-language communication.

Can you please start posting the Freshly Picked announcements on the English version of the POL frontpage at the same time that you announce it on the Japanese version? Simply knowing in advance without having to open an extra webpage would be rather helpful.

Also, I understand that we're not likely to get any form of live translation during a Freshly Picked broadcast itself (due to the technical restraints involved and lack of even Japanese closed-captioning,) but what about the archived YouTube video? Might it be possible to get human-translated subtitles for the archive? Even if it's only possible to support a Japanese transcript officially, an official text-based transcript would go a long way towards opening up the amount of information that non-Japanese players can possibly have access to by giving fan-based translators something to more easily work with.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Marvelous_Cheer

Can we make this available in game via a battlefield, quest, questline, npc vendor?

[Nyarlko]

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Marvelous_Cheer

Can we make this available in game via a battlefield, quest, questline, npc vendor?

It's the current prize from the current screenshot contest: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...21-%28NA-EU%29