Letter from the Producer, XV (07/27/2011)

Hello everyone! Yoshi-P here with another post for all you FFXIV-ers.

Last time I wrote something along the lines of wanting to talk about 1.19 in my next letter, but after all the feedback we’ve gotten from you since the last patch went live, I decided to write a letter addressing some 1.18 topics. Direct replies to forum posts would be quicker, sure, but with an official letter I can see to it word gets to all regions at the same time.

So 1.19 news will have to wait till next letter. I’ll try to get it out to you as soon as I can.

Patch 1.18 marked the start of radical changes to Eorzea, across a wide range of the game’s features. We updated a lot of things, and I’m wondering if maybe we didn’t go a little overboard. We were debugging and balancing along with the development tasks, and trying to have the patch out as soon as possible. But the dev team and I are only human, so there were bound to be mistakes.

I realize some of you may be confused or upset at some of the sudden changes, but that’s why the forums are there for you to have your voice heard. So please leave us your feedback!

The topics we’ve gotten the most feedback on are class balance, UI visibility (which will be addressed in 1.18a), and skill points for levequests between ranks 20–30. We’ll be using this last week’s worth of feedback to decide where more adjustments are needed, and will be working on them and any further balancing that is necessary together with our 1.19 tasks and releasing them in smaller patches.

But I’m happy to see posts claiming that combat now requires strategy (though this should go without saying), since this was the starting point for our changes to the battle system. After getting feedback like this, I hope we can work towards our future goals with the same results. We’ll be taking all your feedback, positive and negative, into account as we move forward. So please keep it coming!

It looks like about 280 people have cleared Dzemael Darkhold (as of Tuesday, July 26 at 2:00 a.m. PDT / at 9:00 a.m. GMT). But there are rewards you can’t get just by killing the last boss. Stick to it, though, and keep searching for the key to unlocking that additional treasure! (That’s a metaphor. It’s not an actual key...) :p

Talk to you next letter, or on the forums. See you soon! :)

P.S. The swimsuits I mentioned last letter will be available as part of the summer event planned for early August. Sorry for the confusion!