Puppetmaster on incorrect gear?

[Balloon]

Firstly, I'd just like to preface this with an apology. I am aware that this might not be considered a localisation issue, and I wouldn't like to be exploiting Unelonborros goodwill.

That being said, however, I have read Unelonborros other posts on this forum and found them to be incredibly informative. They display a level of passion and transparency that should be commended. In particular, your exchange with Byrth about the nature of ingame translations.

The discussion made me think, how do you decide what jobs appear on what equipment? In the past, with the Sekhemet corset it has been indicated that previous pieces of equipment have an effect on what jobs appear on future equipment.

If equipment generation is a largely automated process, then I guess I am just curious as to why Puppetmaster so frequently appears on Mage gear, despite not being a mage job? Is this because it is on a table in some database that perhaps it shouldn't be?

Is there some lore reason? It seems to be a consistent theme, and it makes no sense considering what the job does (No native MP, not even any native magical weaponskills to pull from.) Yet it frequently ends up getting Occult Accumen or MAB gear.

Again, my apologies if this is deemed inappropriate to put this question here. From your past responses though it strikes me that you have a level of competency and understanding of some of the inner workings of the game, which prompted me to ask here. I wouldn't know of another way of asking you.

Thanks!

[Unelonborro]

Good day, Balloon!

Thank you for your inquiry! I wish that I could provide you some insight as to how the battle team decides which jobs are able to use which items, but those are discussions that I am, unfortunately, not privy to. I can say that every part of every item that goes into the game, from name to stats to jobs, is hand-crafted from scratch at every stage of the process. This doesn't mean that the team just throws whatever they like on an item, because they always have a clear goal in mind.

Have you ever played XIV? Stats in our sister MMO are very straightforward, and it's often clear who an item is intended for (and there are usually job restrictions to match.) Here on XI, we have the luxury of choosing from a plethora of different stats that suit different situations and playstyles. In many cases, a particular piece of gear is meant to be worn by multiple different jobs in a variety of secnarios, with the understanding that not every job will get 100% efficiency out of it. Some PUP equipment falls under this category. As for PUP equipment that is pure mage gear--that is a question which I cannot answer for you.

However, sine you enjoyed my tangent the other day about translations, let me share with you an item-related tidbit that falls a bit more under my purvey--equipment naming. For many years now, all equipment and armor in the game other than samurai/ninja gear has been named by the localization team, with the item planner having final approval. At present, we are pushing 10,000 pieces of equipment, meaning that over time the process has grown into quite the herculean task. Here's some of what we have to think about:

* A lot of weapons and armor use the "noun/adjective + equipment piece" convention, like "Wax Sword" or "Homestead Flute." Often times these words become off-limits once we've used them to prevent players from mistakenly thinking that a new item is part of an existing set.
* We have to make sure that the name matches the theme of an item. You wouldn't see a "Debilitating Cape" that increases cure potency!
* Some words are just not suited for the world of Vana'diel. You will never see "Rasatafarian Baghnahks" or "Selfie Coronet."
* Because of the finite supply of usuable English nouns and adjectives, we often draw inspiration from words, concepts, and mythologies found in foreign languages and cultures that the majority of our player base isn't familiar with. In Seekers of Adoulin, for example, many of our monsters (hi Naakuals!) and equipment have names inspired by Aztec, Incan, and Mayan legends.
* On top of the above, the items have to fit in Japanese. Items in Japanese have a limit of nine characters, and we have to work around this. With proper nouns, like "Burtgang" and "Kenkonken," it's pretty easy. More generic items get a bit tougher. For example, "sword" in katakana is ソード: three characters, leaving us six for the main part of the name. This gets really hairy when we have to name, say, a gambison (ガンビソン), some poulaines (プーレーヌ), or a burgeonet (バゴネット) and only have four characters left to work with!

Just a little look at what goes on behind-the-scenes!

Regards,

Unelonborro
Localization Lead

[Malithar]

However, sine you enjoyed my tangent the other day about translations, let me share with you an item-related tidbit that falls a bit more under my purvey

While not everyone enjoys/reads what you may say, I just wanted to echo that there's at least one more fan of these tangents. :P

I'd totally read a weekly "Unelonborro's Musings" post. Bonus points if you've completed the quest to blow in Matsui's hair, and you lived to tell the tale.

[Selindrile]

I also would like to chime in that I enjoyed the behind the scenes look at what goes into the naming process, and would love other such articles, many thanks!

To concur with the original post, I did sometimes question what possessed the dev team to put pup on gear they'd not likely have much use for though, that's become less of an issue in Adoulin gear, as Pup has access to some very good gear now.

[Balloon]

While not everyone enjoys/reads what you may say, I just wanted to echo that there's at least one more fan of these tangents. :P

I'd totally read a weekly "Unelonborro's Musings" post. Bonus points if you've completed the quest to blow in Matsui's hair, and you lived to tell the tale.

It's honestly incredibly refreshing to see some explanations and technical discussions. I wish this extended over to some of the other reps, as it's all too common to get answers that consist of "We feel that ... balance ... no plans to change at this time"

There was an xiv post recently that exposed some of the thinking about their mechanics, and an interesting look at the history of Random number generation. I'd love for our devs to field some questions about some more specific, technical topics about the game.

I actually did notice that in my time playing XIV, one of the things that drew me back to XI was the range of interesting stats that we get on our gear compared to the generic splashing of Cast Speed / MND that seemed to just increase linearly.

While PUP on mage gear has eased up a bit, the last update brought us 2 pieces that were particularly egregious, pants with "Occult Accumen" and a MAB Cape. I'd just like to see that stopped.

Thank you for fielding my questions though, Unelonborro. I, too, vote for more tangents!