Let Producer Matsui Know How He Should Catch Up on 2 Years!

[Xtrasweettea]

Well, I have something I would like to be addressed is the issue of what is Red Mage's role in FFXI.

Currently, Red Mage does not serve a real purpose in non-EXP group events. I understand that Red Mage is a job that used to be and can slide into party slots that need to be filled. Though, with the current end-game events as they are now, there is no need for a "filler" nor is there any strategy that can afford a slot for "just in case." With events like Nyzul Isle Uncharted and Legion, Red Mage is not used in most strategies used. These events have specific setups by most of the player-base that does not include Red Mage. Red Mage is too marginalized to be of any use in almost all endgame settings.

I would like for Red Mage to not be marginalized as it is now. I would like Red Mage to have a specific purpose in Final Fantasy XI in end-game events.

Here are some things I believe that can be used to help in improving Red Mage and to give it purpose.
1. Increase Red Mage's Enfeebling Magic spell library and a reason to use Enfeebling Magic: Currently, Enfeebling does not have a place in endgame events other than trying to proc weaknesses. There isn't a need for the current Red Mage list of enfeebles because either the enemies in the events are immune to the spells (like Gravity and Silence) or the spells do not seem to have any effect at all on the enemy (like the Blind spell line). The current list of Red Mage spells are not enough to entice the player-base to include Red Mage in events. I am proposing to increase the Red Mage spell library. Some examples would include enfeebling magic that can weaken TP moves from enemies, enfeebling magic that can reduce TP production on enemies, and enfeebling magic spells that specifically target an enemy defense or attack stat (beyond the Dia and Bio spell lines).

2. Increase Red Mage's Enhancing Magic Library: As a job that was once touted for it's great enhancing magic skill, Red Mage enhancing magic isn't used very much at all in the community. Most spells that Red Mage possess are self target enhancing spells. These spells do not really work with the AF3 bonus set. The only two spell lines that can benefit from the Composure buff from the AF3 set are Haste and Refresh... which these two spells alone are not enough reason to invite a Red Mage to end-game events. White Mage and Scholar do a much better job with enhancing the party and are usually picked for that benefit in conjunction with their other benefits. I would like to see an increase in the Red Mage enhancing spell library that would want other to invite Red Mage for events (even if the spell does not directly benefit a party member). A few examples would be a single-target form of Temper that can be used on a party member ("Saber"), a Self-targeting enhancing spell that gives the same effect as "Fencer" (strength of the effect would be based on enhancing magic skill), a single-target Regain type spell, and a single-target spell that gives the same effect as "Fast Cast" to a party member.

I think with the two items would help Red Mage be more viable and desirable for endgame events. I would like to use my Red Mage in end-game events.

I also have one other thing that personally bugs me: Red Mage has two ranks in "Shield Mastery" but not enough Shield Skill to properly benefit from it. I would like to have Red Mage's Shield Skill raised if possible.

Thank you for reading and addressing my post.

[Zubis]

Thank you for reaching out to the community.

I want the rewards given out in future events to be focused on effort, not luck.

Players are much happier when they can see that there is a guaranted reward at the end of doing something, ie "fight x 50 times" instead of "fight x and you might get lucky on the first go".

[noirin]

I very much appreciate you taking the time to even read a thing i post on here sir. I'm honestly surprised at even the bit of effort the Dev team has put into reaching out to it's playerbase in the past year or so.

Honestly there are few things i can just blab off the top of my head for improvements, though over the course of the next few hours i'm sure i can find things to edit into here over time.
Things i can think of right now though?
---------------------------------------------
* The new BST 2hr. it honestly will forever be a terrible idea as long as you're forcing the job to KILL it's pet for any kind of buff.it's not an idea i've seen a single person on this forum like or enjoy in any concept. i'm still a big fan of the ideas of either A-a 2hr that calls a notably stronger pet for sometime or B-some sort of way to raise a pet, that could be called as your 2hr. As the ability stands now, you're effectively forcing the job to pay per usage for this 2hr when it is flatout considered to be mediocre, situational and of no use to the majority of all BST.

* The ability for party only spells to be used alliance wide. Coming from my WHM side i more specifically mean Erase or Sacrifice, though this concept is stretched to a variety of things [Regen, Healing Waltz etc]. In a game where I am encouraged to take on endgame and Abyssea content with a group, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the majority healthy when the main tank isn't in my party, or the tank's party healer is currently down, leaving me to toss him cures and single ailment remedies.

[Chamaan]

I want more open field solo friendly battlefields like the revamped Dynamis. If I want to solo old Salvage I shouldn't have to wrangle up two bodies just to fill a minimum party requirement.

No more lamps in Nyzul Uncharted.

Change Upheaval's mod from Vit to Str (personal gripe, Vit mods suck).

Further adjustments to Relic weapons. The WS, even with the bonuses from upgrading to 99, are lackluster. Change mods, Aftermaths, or just plain redesign the weaker ws.

You can solo an entire relic weapon to 95, but the items for the final upgrade to 99 (the upgrade that finally makes SOME of them competitive with Empyrean weapons) cannot be solo farmed, please consider an alternate magian trial to upgrade to a non-afterglow 99 via a soloable method. Maybe something like 5k WS kills so it is commensurate with the difficulty of obtaining 5 umbral marrows.

[Camiie]

Mr. Producer, I'm not going to ask you for any specific changes. I'm simply going to ask you to play the game. Play it the way we play it. See it through our eyes. Hop on a live server of your choosing and follow today's progression from square one. I think that's the only way to truly understand what needs to be done.

[detlef]

A few complaints:

-I dislike having to zerg so much of the current content. For most fights, you simply want something to die ASAP and zerging is simply the best option. I don't like that everything is related to Perfect Defense, Embrava, and balls to the wall DD. And sometimes Chainspell Stun. I don't like crazy AoE moves that will wipe you without PD. Insta-death moves are also very cheap.

-Crafting to 110 is ridiculous at the moment.

-Hexed gear abjurations are annoying to get and the -1's are somehow even more annoying to get.

What I would like to see:

-More 6-man content. I am looking forward to the Salvage revamps.

-Less content that is restricted by timers.

-Stronger, more potent melee foods. Useful mage food.

[Mirage]

Hello Mr. New Producer.

I would like for you to look closely at some of the content that was never really popular, or where popularity decreased very quickly, and see what could be done to make them more popular.

Often times, it is not the gameplay in the events that is undesirable, but the rewards you get from them compared to the time you put into them.

Some examples include:

WotG Campaign:

A cool concept, I think. Join one of the forces of a huge war and help turn the tides, which in turn unlocks certain areas with (at the time) all right rewards. However, the Allied Notes rewards weren't that great, and after not very long, it became very hard for the few players that actually did campaign to actually capture the areas needed to do the more challenging fights.

Walk of Echoes:

Another event that I thought was pretty fun to participate in. However, the rewards from these are greatly overshadowed by a lot of abyssea stuff, and in many cases, the stronger abyssea version takes less time and effort to complete while also being stronger. Additionally, as a result of so few people doing WoE, the dice and residue items that are used for the lv95 and lv99 upgrades become prohibitively expensive for the players that these weapons are meant to be for.

It seems to me like these weapons are meant to be for mid-tier and somewhat casual players, however, the effort and cost of these items is more in the ballpark of what a non-casual and high-tier player would want to spend on getting them. The problem though, is that such a player would simply go for the real Empy weapons instead.

Here are some ideas on how to fix this: Add more desirable items to WoE, items that lots of players would want to get. Increase the drop rates for coins and perhaps add a feature where you can spend undesirable coins on a minigame where the rewards could be other coins (hopefully one of the coins you need), dice, residues, or other items. Make more fluxes that are tailored for various common low-man groups and that still give good rewards. Like I've said in a different thread, some fluxes could be for a DD-heavy party of 6 people or less, other fluxes could be for mage-heavy parties, while some fluxes are best dealt with by having a balanced group of healers, damage dealers, tanks and nukers. Then you'd also have some fluxes that are clearable by maybe just 3-4 players (without these players having to be pet jobs), and fluxes that are made for large groups of over 10-15, and in some cases more than 20-30 players.

Oh, and remove alliance-wide hate from it. All that encouraged was that you'd have 20 people fighting solo instead of one or two alliances working together, because it was safer. If you were in an alliance, you could risk a bunch of mobs coming right for you even if you hadn't even done a single action yet and were outside their aggro range.



Other than that, I'd want you to consider the fact that new players still join the game, and that you'd want the game to make a good first impression on them. The leveling speed for new players is probably fine nowadays, but there are some things about the leveling nowadays that I don't think they find very exciting.

For the first 70 levels, you'll be spending 99% of your time fighting skeletons in a dungeon, then crawlers in a dungeon, and then bats in a dungeon. Of course, the old FF11 did not have the greatest variety in enemies either, but nowadays it is kind of ridiculous. It is made even worse by the fact that you're punished for leaving the area, because the exp from pages resets.

I think perhaps you should just remove the gradually increasing exp from GoV and put in place a static exp value which is perhaps at 90-95% of what you could get from a page when you reached the exp cap of it. Additionally, Fields of Valor should be balanced up against Grounds of Valor. Currently, it is a lot faster to level up with GoV than it is with FoV,and the buffs offered are much better. I think this is a shame, because it encourages players to stay in dark, depressing dungeons all the time, instead of trying to level up in some of the much prettier zones in the game. Speaking of pretty zones, some of the CoP and ToAU zones should definitely get field manuals/grounds tomes too.

Then there is also the issue of gear for new players. Levels 1-60, you will find extremely little gear on the AH. In the past, we could do things like spend Conquest Points to get all right weapons and armor for the first 30-40 levels. However, now that the game has shifted to killing EP mobs and get page rewards, people make extremely little conquest points as they level, far from enough to buy any of the gear available from conquest guards. Solution: Make page exp give conquest points as well, like it would if you got the exp from a monster. Now, new (and returning players without lv75 jobs) will be able to get gear from conquest guards as they level up, instead of having to look at the (for them) almost entirely empty auction house.



And last, but not least: I would like more nation missions! Let us get to rank 15 or something, and introduce some nice gear from the new missions. Perhaps add some conquest point items that are relevant for levels above 75 at the same time.

P.S. Even if we're going to stay at level 99 for a long time now, please do not be afraid of making us stronger. I would not want a repeat of the situation at lv75, where a lot of new gear that was introduced would only be 0.0005% better than what was available before.

P.P.S. Let future reward systems not be extremely reliant on luck. FF11 is not a slot machine. Let rewards be slowly but surely built up to, and/or let extremely hard mobs give very good gear at a high drop rate. The challenge should be in the fight, not in how many times you can do the fight without dying from boredom.


-edit-
This turned out a lot longer than I planned, but you did ask for specific examples, so then I thought I'd oblige.

[Twille]

I would like to see the merit caps removed if possible. However, I figure that's rather unlikely, so at least consider lifting some of the caps, most notably in the Weapon Skill category, along with combat skills.

[SpankWustler]

As far as really specific suggestions about game-play go:

I'd like to see enmity changed to depend less on raw damage dealt and more on spells and abilities that deal directly with enmity. That's what the abilities are meant to do, yeah?

I would like this adjustment to merit caps to be reconsidered.

This isn't a suggestion, but I absolutely love the conglomeration of warps that can be obtained through Voidwatch and other means as of late. It just feels so good after years and years of watching my little onion-bro run around for relatively long periods of time.

[Bersty]

I would like to see serious consideration for the requirements of completing a level 75 Mythic weapon. The following needs to be taken into serious consideration:

1. Alexandrite: I sincerely hope you consider the Alexandrite component of the Mythic quest as being the aspect in most need of change. Instead of suggesting the amount be changed; as I am sure you will see positively throughout these forums as being the "only" solution. I feel that instead, what needs to be addressed is moreover the means for obtaining it. As it currently stands, the counterparts to Mythic Weapons (Relics and Empyreans) can for the most part be solo'd as far as the items required for completion (items/currency). Mythic weapons, on the other hand, for the most part requires a team to "farm" the Alexandrite so I would encourage you to either consider allowing the entry requirements for Salvage/Nyzul to 1; or more importantly, to increase overall the drop rates for Alexandrite, Alexandrite pouches. Consider making a linen-pouch 100% (or 99.99%) guaranteed when killing a Salvage zone boss.

2. The completion of Assault Books: i.e., The completion of assaults for the second time. Was it not challenge enough to obtain captain status? for those who are in need of obtaining 150,000 Nyzul Assault Points, this severely hinders their ability to even start focusing on that aspect of the quest. My suggestion would be something along the lines of the updates done with Einherjar; in that, the said player who obtains Captain status would automatically receive the "clear" for each page of the books for Assaults in Key Item form. This would alleviate having to them again.

3. Spawn conditions for Aht Urghan Kings: Currently, it seems as though it can be anywhere from a week to two or more for these Notorious Monsters to spawn. Would it not be possible to reassess (as it was promised in the past) the spawn conditions for these Notorious Monsters? Is it completely unreasonable to adjust their re-spawn rate to a 24hr pop time?

Bersty