Ask Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXVII! (Localization Koji Fox)

[Rowyne]

Might we someday see more sidequests related to learning racial lore? We see a brief example of this when talking to Rolandaix in the South Shroud, a Duskwight Elezen who is excavating Issom-Har of the Gelmorran ruins. I was hopeful this would turn into a quest hub and a long quest chain that would delve into Duskwight history and their conflict with the Wildwood. Unfortunately, these sidequests are all too brief and reveal little lore. The Au'Ra are also seriously lacking these kinds of sidequests. I was expecting to learn more of this race and their two differing clans in Heavensward, but felt there was virtually no information.

[Ashiee]

In a recent post, it was stated that the localization team changed the character of Haurchefant dramatically. This is not the only instance of changing dialogue and characters from the Japanese version. Going forward, how does the localization team plan on being more faithful to the intended presentation of the game's characters and setting?

[umbralcadenza]

Serious question for Koji: Will the localization team ever chill the hell out with all the memes and pop culture references? It makes the game's lore pretty difficult to take seriously where nothing can happen without the pun apocalypse crashing down.

It annoys me that Western MMO developers/writers/localization teams/whatever seem to think that it is absolutely impossible for an MMO to exist without drowning you in awful puns.

Between this and other more serious criticisms (localization taking quite a lot of liberties in many places,) I really do not feel like the localization team does a very good job. I wish they would treat XIV with greater respect and less like their obnoxious meme playground.

[Alahra]

In the NA Localization, the PLD and WAR titles for the Tankless Job I achievements were changed from White Knight and Bloody Warrior to Meat Shield and Meat Axe. Is there any way we could receive those titles, either as additional rewards for the achievement or as rewards for a new achievement, and could the other localizations get Meat Shield and Meat Axe in the same way?

[Wilan]

Is there a chance, in future updates, to see the Great Gubal Library restored and used as some sort of Lore Encyclopedia?

[Chewy2nd]

How come the Sharlayans left behind so many dangerous items? The Arbouretum is a death trap, and has begun to effect the enviroment around it, it seems pretty irresponsible of such a intelligent nation to just leave this sort of thing behind, especially when they thought the Empire might take over Eorzea.

[Aleo]

This question regards the localisation of boss abilities from Japanese to English. I apologise for the long post but feel this should be addressed.

Many boss abilities in the game, particular those in Alexander raid have ability names which in Japanese give a very direct hint as to how to deal with them, this extends to raid specific buffs and debuff tooltips too.

However when translated in English the context is adapted and often completely changed to sometimes means something completely misleading or inappropriate, this means English players will spend more time trying to learn what a debuff does when they could learn it faster by directly translating the japanese text instead.

Two examples of this is firstly on A3 (arm of the father - savage) where a debuff in the final phase is called "throttle" in the English version, but a direct translation of Japanese translates to asphyxiate which is more in line with the context of the ability, the player is encompassed in a bubble causing them to suffocate, the debuff in Japanese also states this, with specific mention that if the debuff is not removed the player will die.

The English context talks about throttle which most people primarily recognise as a valve controlling fluid flow, almost never do people refer to thottle as windpipe and the debuff description mentions "windpipe is crushed". But this makes no sense in the actual fight because the player is encompassed in a bubble, it has nothing to do with their windpipe being hurt, and besides how do you dispel someones windpipe being crushed?

Secondly and this the big one: On alexander turn 4 (burden of the father - savage) there is a ability/mechanic called "royal pentacle" in English and "Steam Judge" when directly translated from Japanese.

The name royal pentacle implies something COMPLETELY different to what the context actually is. The adds that spawn as part of this mechanic are called steam regulators and spawn in a circle, they do not spawn in the shape of a pentacle and in addition there are only 6 of them.

Secondly a pentacle is an occult symbol associated with satanism, in Celtic mythology a six-sided pentacle is put on an altar as means of warding off evil spirits, which has NOTHING to do this fight, its Alexander a "holy" element primal and most of the abilities in this fight pertain to religious connotations.

The Japanese translation "Steam Judge" is much more effective at describing the context. The adds are called steam regulators and the correct way to deal with them is by using the Judgement Nisi debuff to remove them without deaths.

On that topic "Judgement Nisi" and its debuff "decree nisi" is a divorce proceeding in UK court law where only on the grounds that a good reason is given that the divorce does not happen - What the hell has this got to do with this fight?


The Japanese version just refers to them as decree alpha and decree beta.


So, please take more care when you localise the boss abilities, you may have to do them directly in many cases because the developers want to hint to players how they should deal with it.

[Scribe]

Will we see any updates to tank balancing soon? Will Paladins receive some attention?

[RiceisNice]

MCH and BRD share too many parallels to each other, almost to the point that they are essentially the same job with some differences. Are there any plans to dehomogenize their gameplays from each other to the same extent you'd see from the three melees and both casters? Are there any plans to re-implement the original design of MCH centered around using different barrels and a more involved ammunition/turret mechanic?

[Stormfur]

Will we ever have the option to learn more lore about the characters we choose or other beast tribes? For example, we could take a series of sidequests about the Au Ra and potentially unlock some of their hairstyles at the aesthetician. With regard to the beast tribes, they should all have something beyond the mount that makes us want to learn about their culture and what drives them to do what they do. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a dance like the Vanu, but perhaps some kind of Amaljaa tribal tattoo, sylph-style clothing, Sahagin weapon (made with shells?) etc. Any chance this is possible?