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

[Valkrist]

First and foremost. Thank you for your time Producer Matsui. We the players enjoy playing the game, but it's human nature to always be asking for more. Unfortunately when humans are given everything they want, they grow tired of their previous possessions and become jaded about everything. One fear that has been whispered among the community since the introduction of the Abyssea add-ons was that Square-Enix was trying to break the game by giving us everything we want. What I sincerely hope is that whatever's taken from this thread to be something that'll help the game's integrity, complexity, and longevity.

-----

Game developers and game information to be more readily available without cryptic responses. For many years whenever a player had asked anyone part of the FFXI team, they would be given answers that generally said something along the lines of, "try for yourself and figure it out yourself." Only recently have things been more of a dialogue between players and the dev team. The player base would like things to be more transparent and have things explained in depth. FFXI's dev team has always been overly secretive and has caused nothing but grief. One notorious example would be the Absolute Virtue fight. Today no one still knows what's the "proper" way to defeat it. Spawning the Almighty Apkallu has still been is another example of players asking the dev team a direct question and players are left feeling completely ignored. Instead getting answers about AV or AA, they received a recipe to make a Cheese Sandwich.

-----

There're lots of things that the FFXI interface lack that would make the game more difficult to play than necessary.
-It's commonplace for games to show skill and magic recast timers on the macro bar with the skill/spell icon.
-It would also be nice if recast timers were shown without having the macro bars displayed would relieve clutter for the players that don't want to see the icon with the recast timer as well.
-The game lacks distance from target as well.
-Lack of access to maps aside from the main menu or typing /map.
-The ability to see what your target's targeting.
-Being able to have a secondary target without having to <st>. Having a new < > to act upon the secondary target.

Expand macroing abilities by adding new < > calls.
-Players want bigger macros because this game is all about gear swapping, but macros don't allow enough gear to be swapped with one key. Allow < > calls to other macro book pages. Players can then dedicate entire macros to gear swapping that can be called with one button press.
-Allow multiple equip macro < > calls within the same line.

Let players turn down or turn off the title screen's music.

-----

Emity needs addressing.
-Currently tank job classes can not generate enmity and damage at the same rate that damage dealing jobs can.
-Current ways to shed hate, or generate less enmity can not compete with the enmity gain from how much damage is done by damage dealers.
-Many battles no longer need a tank class. Fights are now all about zerging the monster down before either fanatic's drink, fool's drink, or Perfect Defense wear off. There is no need to have someone tank a monster anymore.

-----

Thief needs to move away from being purely an enmity shifter.
-Enmity shifting was rarely a job trait that the job was used for. THF was always brought to improve treasure drop rates.
-If THF's party role changes as it levels up, like DNC, it can not only become a more utilized job, but it can open up more enmity abilities for tank jobs.

Red mage is possibly the most under utilized job in the game at this point.
-There are current dev talk about increasing the RDM's enfeebling spell repitoire, but that would not solve the core problem. Currently enfeebling monsters is looked as a waste of time since monsters can be easily killed without being enfeebled.
-RDM's enhancing role is greatly overshadowed by BRD, COR, SCH and even SMN. Soon Geomancer will be released to be another job that is a party oriented buffer.

Paladin needs more tools to generate enmity that can not just compete with, but also hold a slight lead over damage dealing jobs.
-Cover is still an under-utilized skill. Making this skill act as a more active version of THF's Trick Attack as well would help "control" the enmity for a short while.
-Give PLDs a damage-over-time like spell that generates a significant amount of enmity. The spell doesn't necessarily needs to do damage. The spell's main purpose is to actually generate hate over a period of time as if the PLD is physically, or magically, attacking. This is to try to have their enmity-over-time can come closer to a damage dealer.

Dark Knight needs to either move away from a physical attacker that casts dark magic, or that dark magic for a DRK needs to be completely revamped.
-Casting spells greatly takes away from a DRK's damage-over-time. Unless DRK's casting time is almost non-existant, DRK will never have a reason to cast their current spells.
-DRK's enfeebling line is unique, but there is not enough incentive to cast it.
-Create dark magic spells that do only damage. A DRK's version of Holy for example.

Dragoon heavily relies on their wyvern now, but wyverns are always dead.
-Even with current pet commands, wyverns very commonly die in one or two hits. For something that needs to be at melee, they severely lack in their hit points, vitality and defense.
-Call Wyvern's recast time is far too long considering that wyverns tend to die within seconds of being summoned. With the twenty minute recast time, just meriting group one lower recast timer can never lower the recast enough.

-----

Reassess Relic weaponskills and aftermaths. The majority of relic weapons have weaponskills that are so lackluster, that the very first weaponskill learned with five skill points are more useful. The aftermath of some of these weapons are also lackluster that these weapon owners will never use the relic weaponskill for an aftermath. Compounding bad weaponskills with bad aftermaths make some of these relic weapons lose half of what makes these weapons very unique.

Relic weapons to be made for "new" jobs that were created after Chains of Promathia. Currently there are five jobs that don't have a Relic weapon. Currently every other job in the game are balanced so that they can choose to make one of three weapons to complement their gameplay. Also currently game developers are saying that they plan to have Geomancer and Rune Fencer to have their own equivalents to Relic, Mythic, and Emperium weapons. Yet these older five jobs have no currently announced works in progress.

Alexandrite costs to make a Mythic weapon is too difficult to obtain when compared to Relic and Emperium weapons. Right now there are multiple ways to gather alexandrite is true, but the quantity obtained is so little that making a Mythic weapon not appitizing at all. Currently Relic weapons can be made in as little time as two months if the currency is soloed. Emperium weapons can be made in just two weeks when soloed. Alexandrite for Mythic weapons have to be farmed in a group of three, and realistically could be obtained in three years if alexandrite isn't bought with gil. This is also not considering the need to do every Assault again and killing all the required notorious monsters.

-----

Adjust the current Assault scenarios to match 2013's FFXI's gameplay. Currently Assaults allow 50, 60, 70 cap, or no level cap restrictions. Add more level restrictions that also reward players for doing higher level assaults, like obtaining small amounts alexandrite from monsters and the lockbox. No level cap would offer more items like the normal potions and ??? items, but more sought after crafting items and alexandrite pouches.

Increase incentive to continue Voidwatch for players that have nothing to gain from earlier fights. Currently the only thing players gain from doing earlier fights is the chance to get very monster specific, tradable items for armor or weapons. Their drop rates aren't that high and it causes players to farm only a select few monsters. This causes players to always refuse helping out on the majority of the Voidwatch monsters.

Change the Union coffers act like Voidwatch Pyxis and increase rewards. Currently players are only participating in Campaign to build up Allied Notes to buy one or two pieces of equipment and then never touch Campaign again until something strikes their fancy. If the rewards of participating in Campaigns became worthwhile, then players would be more willing to continue to try to win zones and attempt at unlocking the burning circle.

Reassess spawn times and/or rewards of current and previous twenty-one hour notorious monsters. Monsters like King Vinegarroon for example has a rediculous spawn conditions and their rewards were never ever worth the time to find it or to kill it. Meteormauler Zhagtegg is a less known twenty-one hour respawn NM that drops an equally unknown pick. King Behemoth is now more available to players that didn't join linkshells that specialized in NMs like it, but their drops like defending ring is now less likely to be obtained to the players that did join those linkshells.

Chocobo Circuit has lately been blurry to whether or not they will or will not allow players to teleport to a town of their choosing. Originally the Chocobo Circuit only allowed players to go back to the town that their first entered the circuit from. Now there is the added option of going to any town after using a Rounsey Wand. The option to pay gil or chocobucks to get the same option as the Rounsey Wand would cause the Chocobo Circuit to receive a lot more traffic.

-----

The active item slots on a player needs to be increased. Currently players have up to 80 active item slots to work with and 160 item slots for on-player storage. Mage jobs for example carry a plethora of gear which is only growing with every major update. Players are currently left with the decision of either leaving some of their equipment in their mog house, or to be playing shuffle in the middle of battle with their mog satchel and sack.

The amount of items that can be left in the mog house needs to be increased. Claim slips and the porter moogle have helped alleviate the amount of items that the player needs to always have on hand, but it's nowhere close to being enough. New equipment is introduced with every other update that's unstorable through the means I mentioned above and they're often left to be stored on a second character. Unless the goal is to have the players nickeled and dimed to buy "mule" characters, the "main" character needs to be able to hold more.

Furniture needs to be no longer the factor to how much "storage" the mog house gains. Pieces of furniture that are placed into the /bank should be placed there solely because the players want their mog houses to be furnished with those pieces of furniture.

Finally make "storage" accessable outside of your home nation. Currently "storage" has always been the place to stick items that you want to keep, but have no immediate use for and can not send it to an alternate character. Since the "storage" can not be accessed easily, players tend to stick items into there to just fill up the space as well. Allowing storage to be accessed from any mog house causes players to have more usable space, and use their "storage" in better ways than it currently is.

An itemless way to hold linkshells. Currently linkpearls take up too much space for players that like being in multiple linkshells. Linkpearls are handled in a menu system like blue spells where the player can decide which pearl is worn. Shell and sack holders are able to create actual item pearls which can be distributed. Those pearls then can be used like spell scrolls and disappear from the player's inventory.

Add new synth recipies to make stacks of 12 crystals to become clusters. Players that craft a lot and stockpile crystals end up having multiple stacks of 12 crystals. If there was a way to make it so that these stacks become clusters would help out crafters a lot.

[Salvation]

I would really like to see some new mage foods that are more than enmity, base stats (INT, MND), and MP. For example, fruit pies that have boosts to magic attack bonus, magic accuracy, or perhaps even fast cast.

Also I would like to see some of the games NPC menus become more streamlined. For instance, getting bonus attributes (Regen, Refresh, etc.) from a field guide requires re-initiating the conversation with the book for each effect. I would prefer a menu in which all attributes desired could be selected and purchased during one conversation. The Campaign battle NPCs are another prime example.

[Cheryth]

RDM needs more Melee capability and/or more weaponskills when Composure is active! I also suggest revamping enspells during Composure to provide certain buffs depending on the element (For example, Enaero could boost evasion and AGI, Enfire could boost attack and STR, etc.) and perhaps adding a physical enspell that, rather than adding additional damage or stats, reduces your weapon delay and improves all weaponskill damage. I also think it would be cool if you gave RDM "red magic", spells that do more than one thing at a time! One example would be a spell that applies Paralyze, Slow, and Blind all at once! Requirements could include having all three spells, and a particular enfeebling magic skill level. Other examples could include elemental spells that induce an enfeebling effect on it's target (a Fire spell that inflicts Burn req. elemental magic skill x) or a Dia+Bio spell that gives an effect equal to both at once (req. divine magic and dark magic skill x). These could also require the use of a new Job Ability that cannot be used at the same time as Composure, in the same way Dark Arts and Light Arts function for a Scholar.

Another idea I have in mind involves PLD. PLD needs to get provoke on it's own, though I understand the balancing issues that come into play with that idea (Utsusemi ><) so another idea would be to grant PLD a Job Trait that allows them to occasionally retaliate after a blocked auto-attack.

My final ideas are to either abolish the requirement for assault tags for the old assaults (including Nyzul Isle) or to drastically increase the number of assault tags that can be saved up, starting at 3 and building up 1 per day up to 50 total. Lastly, cutting many old notorious monster respawn times to a reasonable level-- 20 minutes or something for NMs that generally take an hour to respawn perhaps?

I know I've said alot, so thank you very much for reading and taking these ideas into consideration ^^ You guys are awesome, keep up the great work! Have fun catchin' up, Producer Matsui!

[Sunrider]

Re: Sunrider

I am in agreement with about 95% of what you say, but I do feel that Enspells II only applying on the first hit is actually a blessing in disguise, particularly in this day and age of powerful effects such as Haste Samba, or Additional Effect: TP Drain. Because (somewhat unfortunately, in my opinion) any serious front line Red Mage will be Dual Wielding, if you still want your pretty elemental damage effect (with lowered elemental resistance!), but don't want to gimp yourself by missing out on these effects (since Enspell will override them), you can very well have your cake and eat it too, thanks to the magic of Enspell II. All the better for Temper to compound these bonuses, too.

I will agree that damage calculated on each hit instead of on casting is a huge blunder, though, and particularly after what they did to fix Scholar's Accession-Enspell (which was more of an insult to Summoners than Red Mages, IMO).

If I were to design a set of Enspells III, they'd have the following properties:

-Damage calculated on cast instead of on hit
-Activates on only the first hit of each attack round
-Start at double Enspell damage, gradually increasing attack speed with each successive activation, eventually capping at, say, 10% magical Haste
-I guess keep the lowered elemental resistance effect, too, as that's actually kind of cool

The manner in which tier 2 En-spell damage is calculated makes it largely impractical, and thus they don't see much use anyways. So any Red Mage using En-spells are likely using tier 1, and overwriting/being overwritten by the Dancer's Sambas regardless.

If cooperating with a Dancer or Dancer sub is really that big a deal, I'd prefer to see Samba effects were reprogrammed, such that they co-exist with En-spell effects, rather than overwrite.

[Teraniku]

Matsui-san,

These are the things I want:

1. A worldwide Channel in game specifically for forming Parties, completing mission content etc. Think of it as a linkshell where everyone on the server is automatically a member. This channel should and can be configured to be turned off or on through the configuration menus, so you can block it when you don't need it, or to keep lag down.

2. revisit Campaign to allow skill ups and to be able to upgrade the highest tier armor sets.

3. Story , story, story! Hope to see more wonderful stories. I want everyone on or past where I'm at to be able to help me, no more linking other content to keep everyone from helping each other like in Wings of the Goddess

4.I want the enmity system fixed, like a lot of people, it's a big joke anymore. There's no such thing as a tank in the game when everything is zerged unless you need that proc on some mob.

That's pretty much it for me for now.

[deces]

Add new synth recipies to make stacks of 12 crystals to become clusters.[/B] Players that craft a lot and stockpile crystals end up having multiple stacks of 12 crystals. If there was a way to make it so that these stacks become clusters would help out crafters a lot.

I have always thought we should be able to trade 12 crystals to one of the 3 Crags and receive a cluster in return.

[Rocketship]

I would love for the 6-person partying dynamic to once again be the main source of leveling! With Fields of Valor, Grounds of Valor, and Abyssea, the game no longer requires skill. It's too easy. Players are so focused on getting better gear, rather than learning how to play their job correctly. Personally, I think the minimum level to enter abyssea should be increased to 70~75, and Grounds of Valor and Fields of Valor should be heavily nerfed; perhaps back to the one page per/hour Fields of Valor initially had.
Also, many of the newer two-hour abilities descriptions were simply sub-par. Instead of adding new ones, why not add the ability to augment the existing ones upon reaching level 99?
Lastly, as I'm sure all of Square Enix has heard dozens of times, more jobs! I personally think Mime would be splendid, or many of the jobs available in other Final Fantasy games; specifically those from the Tactics series. Just my thoughts.

The best of luck to you!

[Ellorion]

1. show last sold item list when you try to sell an item in the action house
2. get shield skills like parry /guard ( it's alot easier to "re"skill parry nowadays than shield )
3. add content /quests where you can choose if you wanna do it alone, lowman or alliance ( should also be doable alone )
4. more good quests / storyline ( i don't care about any reward, as long as the story is entertaining and doesn't involve in moving from a to b to a every 2 min, just to read a single textline )
5. i personally would love to see shield skill on blu ^^"
5.1 ( question ): why does pup have throwing skill and nothing to throw and blu has throwable items but no skill?
5.2 make it possible for pup to equip ammo while using the animator
6. h2h weapons with the option to use grips would be nice
7. spellsets for blu ( or at least something to prevent losing the current spellset when you use blu as subjob ( by accident )
8. newer jobs don't get relic weapons, maybe a relic puppet? ^^" ( or any sort of new puppets )
9. a pup attachment which priorizes trigger spells ( mage puppet ) in vw or abyssea
10. a reraise / resurrection dance for dnc would be handy
11. enhance the duration of spectral jig ( i know, that jig doesn't aggro mobs as magic spells do as an offtrade, but the mage spells last alo~t longer now )

that's it for now, hope at least 1 persons feels the same ^^"

[Dew]

Here is the things I want fixed or changed.

1.Crafting/Crafting Materials.
-Make most stack to 99.
-Allow Singles, 12 stacks, and 99 stacks to be sold on the ah.
-Revamp the guild to add more materials with higher rank in the craft.
-Make some materials more available.(Staghorn coral, Penelope cloth, etc.)
-Make a HQ on cloths, ingots, sheets, threads, and leathers result in more of them.
-Create a material bag to store only materials in.
-Add more guild items to improve skillups, HQs, and less material lose.
-Create Expert and higher guild point items.

2.Fishing
-Fix the whole fishing system.

3.Merits
-Allow all of the merit weaponskills to be merited.
-Add more misc merits like Haste, Cure potency, Waltz Potency, Accuracy, Attack, Ranged attack, Ranged Accuracy, Magic attack bonus, Magic Accuracy, Evasion, Magic Evasion, Magic Critical Hit, Critical Hit Damage, etc.
-Add new merit groups to improve weaponskill modifiers.
-Add Relic, Mythic, and Empyrean weapon specific merits.(After obtaining Lv.99 version.)
-Add new merits for spell enhancing.

4.Delivery Box
-Allow all items to be transfered between characters on the same account.
-Make all currency transferable through the delivery system.

5.Auction House
-Make new section for currencies to be sold on the auction house.
-Increase the range of items that are auction houseable.

6.Inventory
-Make new mog sacks/sachlets.
-Increase the inventory max to 160.
-Allow furniture to be stored in a separate slot for decorating.

7.Spells
-Add new job specific spells to jobs with magic.

[Kristal]

What I want:
* A more defined role for RDM. Any uniqueness has been eroded away since the level cap was raised from 75 to 99, either through subjob RDM or giving other jobs formerly unique RDM spells. Devastating enfeebles, tier III enspells, increase staff skill from H to B+, native sword-staff dualwielding, anything crazy enough to give the job it's unique feel back.
* Upgrade PUP's Harlequin automaton. It's the first automaton you get, but it scales poorly compared to all other automatons. For example, give the Harlequin Head +1 rank in melee, ranged and magic at level 40+, make it attack with both hands like a monk (1 hit/hand), give it one or two unique weaponskills to set it apart from the mage frames with the same weaponskills, etc.
* Give players reasons NOT to level a job from 30 to 99 in a few hours just by leeching exp in abyssea.