Interim Report – Sorry to keep you all waiting!

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings!
I have a couple follow-up comments from Producer Akihiko Matsui.

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does this mean you guys consider finally a Campaign UPDATE?!

(listen more to playing people right? good luck with checking all the Campaign threads then....)

Now why did we have to throw in anything about Haste when the community is already addled and exhausted?

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Originally Posted by Byrth

Still, the absolutely most essential and important part of such a system is:
The point items MUST be the same as the items that drop off the monster
You haven't actually improved the system by cutting off the upper tail of the distribution until this is the case.

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This. This. This.

Meebles got close but the point reward items are different then the ones you get as drops. This is not a new idea. 6 years ago when I started, people were asking the devs about making the game keep track of kills on Leaping Lizzy and the like until, eventually, they would gain a reward. They'd be able to cooperate with other players for a shared goal, a strikingly uncommon thing in a PvE game such as this. I'd hoped Hunts would be the answer for that but we all know how that turned out.

A lot of what ppl has said already has a lot of merits so not going to repeat what many has said. However, a few things that if at all possible to please pass on over to the producer:

1. Please don't just answer the JP forum's questions and concerns. I understands that he's JP and probably does not read the English forum unless it's through the translation/community rep team. But this keeps the JP favoritism bias in many english speaking player's mind going. If he is really serious about making an effort into listening to what ALL the players are saying, he needs to rotate/balance answering questions from ALL the variou regions. Maybe based on percentage of players from the region or something.

2. Before you were to develop NEW content, you need to first FIXED what are broken. Yes, I know that people trends to think we can do a parallel tracks in development. However, the fact of the matter is that with everything such as battle system, enmity system, job (ja/spells/weapons/ws/etc) all together forming the basis of the game mechanics, it will be extremely difficult to develop new content/system that relies on current systems which would then be broken when these current systems are changed/fixed. So, STOP doing the new stuff and FIXED the critical problems NOW. This is a major undertaking and should be given the highest priorities and resources. Everything else, things like new UI, play-as-mobs, new expansion (yes I said even the new expansion) can all be shelved until the fundamental systems are fixed.

i'm definitely hungry for more concrete details about how the devs plan to actually deal with these things, but still; it's reassuring to see that these major issues have landed.

cautiously optimistic.

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Regarding the Roadmap

I apologize for the delays with the currently released roadmap. There are two reasons for this.

The first reason is that since the schedule was released before the announcement of Seekers of Adoulin, the effects of the development load for the expansion were much larger than anticipated.

The second reason is that the hours needed to work on and discuss all of the forum topics was much greater than we anticipated.

While we looked into a revised version of the roadmap to release, instead of redoing everything that was up until March 2013, we feel it's necessary to take time to build out a proper development plan from next year on, starting with redefining development plans and then deciding on the practical work content so that we do not disappoint all of you.

It's hard for me to ask this, as we've already caused everyone to worry and be inconvenienced, but please give us a bit more time.

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Instead of asking for us to be more patient and accept excuses, I suggest that you acquire more/better manpower and resources and implement better management strategies. (Sound familiar?)

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Understanding the Current Situation

I have been reading over what everyone thinks, not only from all of the posts made on the forum, but from players' blogs, Twitter, and other sources.

For example, there's the concern with content and that the necessary content is not reaching the necessary people.

When thinking about the amount of content made thus far, it's not that the amount of content is skimpy by any means; however, I believe a contributing factor for this concern is that a lot of older content requires more than a party, but it has become quite difficult for a lot of players to do things with full parties these days.

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I think the problem is that you're trying to squeeze relevance out of content many of us were done with and tired of years ago. I did HNM, Sky, Dynamis, Sea, Limbus, Einherjar, Salvage, Nyzul Isle, ZNM, VNM, and Campaign BCNMs each many many times. I ran the proverbial table on a lot of it until you shoehorned in things like augmented abjuration gear and relic armor +2. As a player who's been here so long it's almost embarrassing, I'd like to see the focus on truly new events and let the past stay in the past.

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Currently, due to the fact that there's a lack of low-difficulty and casual content, a majority of players are focusing on high-difficulty content, and there has been a lot of feedback that even though they log in they can't do what they want (nothing to do). Also affecting this is that things have become more complicated since adjustments have been made to drop rates and item stats.

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Well, the dev team had some really fantastic content that fit the needs of the casual player perfectly, but it was deemed a failure and abandoned. I shudder to think what casual content they would produce they they'd consider "successful." I imagine the rewards would be less than useless and not at all aesthetically pleasing since just anyone could do it.

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Development Plans

With all that said, to make it easy to understand, we will be redefining and deciding on themes for the below points:

Content structure
Jobs overall
How to add stats to items
How to hand out rewards


I'd personally like to see players that are below level 99 reach level 99 quickly (we will be looking into whether we can make adjustments so that the level 95 limit quest can be completed solo), and for players that have reached level 99, I’d like to create separate elements such as solo, group, casual, hardcore, and provide game play after defining themes for new elements and adjusted elements.

It's necessary to make adjustments to increase the win/success rate for content that has already been played out by the top groups so that players that come later can catch-up.

For example, strengthening players through job adjustments or the addition of gear may work, but another good method is to directly lower the difficulty of content. Of course this is all on the basis that we provide another challenge and even better rewards for the top groups.

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The way WoW does it, if I'm not mistaken, is by the gradual enhancement of an instance-wide player buff and enemy debuff over a series of weeks or months after a raid is released. They also have "Normal" and "Heroic(Hard)" modes from the outset with corresponding gear for each mode as well as 10-man and 25 man versions of raids. One doesn't have to purchase items from a shady guy behind a building in the woods to make a boss weaker. They just choose to fight the "Normal" version and accept "Normal" level rewards. Simple, no?

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Also, in regards to existing content, we will be redefining the number of people required, the level spread, and reward difficulty, and look into making adjustments to fit the needs of the current Vana'diel.
(I feel it would be best to work on the paths to these various types of content for adventurers that are coming back after a long break.)

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It's definitely better to adjust content to the community you have than expect the community to somehow adjust itself to your content.

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In regards to item stats, this is a crucial growth element as you cannot level up past level 99. It's necessary to release items with stronger and really good stats in the future. For how you receive items, as many of you have requested on the forums, I'd like to have a point system in place for when you miss out on a reward that has its drop rate set low due to difficulty adjustments.

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Thank goodness for this. Many of us have been asking for this for so long. Heck, while they weren't exactly what you're talking about here (which is even better), you've had very well received points systems in the past. I thought it was a bit silly that you'd gotten away from them, especially since you created content that would have been served very well by having points available (WoE and VW). It was nice to see the idea return with Meeble Burrows.

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Additionally, there are a number of things that need to be decided such as aspects of battle that are not balanced up to level 99. For example, I believe the workings of the entire enmity system needs adjustment and the problem of TP given to enemies is an important issue to look into.

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So, you want to make it where people won't yell at the front-line fighters for actually being front-line fighters? If so, more power to you. I always hated it when I wasn't allowed to fight for fear of TP-feed. I know people want varying strategies, but having the melee classes all have to sit on their thumbs is one I can do without.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

I ran the proverbial table on a lot of it until you shoehorned in things like augmented abjuration gear and relic armor +2. As a player who's been here so long it's almost embarrassing, I'd like to see the focus on truly new events and let the past stay in the past.

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Part of the issue came with all of the people complaining when they announce the level cap increase about their gear being obsoleted.

All I want to say to Akihiko_Matsui is : please read the complaints of the census and adjust most of them without waiting more months (what's the point of this ?).

*There is NO reason for mythics to be set at such a high level difficulty (and artificial difficulty : einherjar points when nobody does einherjar anymore, alexandrite whene nobody has been doing salvage for 3 years). Salvage bosses should be dropping a pouch 100% and solo entry should be allowed for both salvage and assault (if needed make us consume 3 permits if solo). I'd like to point out that all mythics have been mathed out recenly, and they all suck, so there is no problem of unbalance.

* People have been complaining for dumb luck factor, so ajust this for stuff like nyzul (the event sucks as many have pointed out, and the nerf of embrava is going to make it even dumber).

* Legion needs to be added better drops to motivate people to build alliance to farm it. There has been suggestions about riftcinder/dross or metal plate. You can think of plenty of things (marrows..).


For nyzul all you have to do is change the random floor jump now (instead of next VU). Are you guys aware that it's nearly impossible to test a party event on the test server anyway ? For legion it's just adding stuff to the pool, this doesn't seem to hard of a work. And for salvage, it's already possible on the test server for NyzulII so it's probably easy. This will require you maybe 5 minutes of work and the reward is giving people stuff to do while answering the concern they expressed in the census.

all of my like to Sapphire's post

Please, don't start up any haste nerfs.

Happy Friday everyone!

I'm back yet again for more Producer Akihiko Matsui follow-ups!

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

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I saw the version update information on PlayOnline just before posting and I noticed that it listed "Job Ability adjustments: Perfect Defense / Tabula Rasa." Does this mean that the new special abilities will also be implemented at the same time? If at all possible, I’d really like these new special abilities to be implemented with the Perfect Defense and Tabula Rasa nerfs.
Also, I don't mind how you do it, but could you please give some kind of response to the Perfect Defense thread? There are over 1400 posts there and just leaving it be is not good. Also there are numerous threads talking about the same thing, so how about closing them?

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Sorry for the confusion.
First in regards to the new special abilities, the direction has pretty much been solidified, but there are still adjustments and fine tuning to be made, so we will not be implementing them in the upcoming version update. In regards to Perfect Defense and Tabula Rasa adjustments, we are aiming to have these implemented along with the content adjustments in the upcoming version update. We are currently making preparations to explain about this along with some other topics. We'll be informing you all early next week, so please wait for that for the time being.

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

To be honest, it's not that the development team and community reps do not play the game. They actually proactively play.

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You mean not on the Test Server, but on the actual servers mixed in with all of us players?

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Yes, we all play on the same servers as all of you with regular accounts. (Of course the staff conceals their identities and plays as a regular player.)

I believe I mentioned this before, but there are a lot of times when I actually play in static parties with my family. I try my best to do things like returning lost chocobos, but, while this is embarrassing, I'm only at the level where I can challenge the Maat fight.

However, there are a good amount of hardcore players amongst the staff (there are also instances where hardcore players have joined the staff), and they are hardcore into the recent end-game content.

I’m always hearing things at the office like "Man, the Odin’s Chamber II I created is tough to beat!" and "We just barely lost a win on that low-man Arch Dynamis Lord run."

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

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I've been playing this game for quite a long time now and this is just something I noticed.
One time when I quit for a while and finally came back, I had absolutely no idea about the objectives, what to do, or the difficulty for all the content that had been implemented in my absence.
External sites' strategy guides and Wiki information are pretty easy to use for people that have continued to play the game, but I feel like it's way too much for a person with no knowledge to study up on everything. With that said, I think it would really help a lot if there was some kind of system that would breakdown the content design and teach you what each content is about, what level you can play it, and how to start it. This is sure to come in handy for new players coming in.

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Thank you for the feedback.
Even I feel this as I just came back to the game the other day.
Up until now the stance for FINAL FANTASY XI has always been that the constantly varying trends, strategy, and other information are created from within the player community, but we didn't make it so all of the answers were on the official site.

This has continued for 10 years, and with the world and content growing massive currently, I really feel that it would be best to organize some form of instruction that shows "we recommend this kind of content at this level," "it would be good to get this kind of gear," etc. At this point in time this is really nothing more than a vague idea, so if you have any suggestions about what would be good, I would love to hear them.

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It's great that he has this more open communication with the players. Keep this coming. And yes creating official site with plenty of suggestion would be very helpful. I understand the "exploration and discovery" aspect. But let's face it, this is not 10 years ago. Be transparent, communicative and build relationship with your paying costumers. You are building a brand, not creating content for your heart desires. Make sure that it works for the majority of the players.

Hello Mr. Akihiko Matsui,

Do you play beastmaster at all?

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Originally Posted by bstdnc90

I've been playing this game for quite a long time now and this is just something I noticed.
One time when I quit for a while and finally came back, I had absolutely no idea about the objectives, what to do, or the difficulty for all the content that had been implemented in my absence.
External sites' strategy guides and Wiki information are pretty easy to use for people that have continued to play the game, but I feel like it's way too much for a person with no knowledge to study up on everything. With that said, I think it would really help a lot if there was some kind of system that would breakdown the content design and teach you what each content is about, what level you can play it, and how to start it. This is sure to come in handy for new players coming in.

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

Thank you for the feedback.
Even I feel this as I just came back to the game the other day.
Up until now the stance for FINAL FANTASY XI has always been that the constantly varying trends, strategy, and other information are created from within the player community, but we didn't make it so all of the answers were on the official site.

This has continued for 10 years, and with the world and content growing massive currently, I really feel that it would be best to organize some form of instruction that shows "we recommend this kind of content at this level," "it would be good to get this kind of gear," etc. At this point in time this is really nothing more than a vague idea, so if you have any suggestions about what would be good, I would love to hear them.

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Tactician Moogle

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...Moogle-WEB.jpg

Never cease to impress with your artwork King.

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Originally Posted by kingfury

Tactician Moogle

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Why has SE not hired you yet? D:

Excuses and pleas to wait longer while continuing to pay a very expensive subscription cost when the money is not being used on what I'm paying for are not enough for me (when FF14 was in as bad a state as FFXI is now they stopped subscriptions as a sign of respect, where is that here?), especially when it's coming from a company the size of Square Enix that is literally throwing money at FF14. I'm sorry but if the company cares so little for this successfull game and so much for a gamble that says it all for me. Money should not an issue for FFXI, staff should not an issue because if Square enix really cared they could do what they did with FF14 and put as much money and staff into it as was needed, or at least more than they are now. They don't because they don't care, as such the producer has to say these things to try to squeeze as much money out of us as possible before we finally give up and quit.

I read this and I have not only now unsubscribed after 5 years but I now see that this game for what it really is, finished. At best to SE this game is now fallback position incase 14 fails, this I believe is the only reason Adoulin was given the go ahead at all and they have done almost nothing towards it and will continue to do very little towards it until they see how FF14-2 is received.

In my 5 years playing this game I went from happy, contented and pleased to support the company with my money to in the last 2-3 years angry at the content drought (especially when I knew the cause of it), leading to sad acceptance that the game was near it's demise to where I am now of finally not caring anymore. I never thought I would say it but I no longer care if this game shuts down or not anymore and seeminly neither does the company. It's been left to stagnate for far far too long.

The player loss the last 2 years has been catastrophic and it's not due to boredom of the core game, it's due to boredom and anger at how the company has been running it for the last few years. With proper budget and content this game would be as popular as it ever was, the company killed it and now so many have moved onto other companies games it might be at the point of no return. In fact I know it is.

This post will probably be deleted but honestly I don't even care anymore, just my final act after 5 years support towards a game I once loved that has been ruined by and inept and uncaring handling.

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Originally Posted by Castanica

Excuses and pleas to wait longer while continuing to pay a very expensive subscription cost when the money is not being used on what I'm paying for are not enough for me [...]

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Well written.i know of and have spoken to many people thinking the same way, unfortunately.

I don't post on the forums much but i do tend to check them every day to see what is happening. Thank you for at least trying to read up on what people are saying and trying to answer them.
I usually read the Dev responses and community reps posts first since they have relevant info and player threads devolve into petty bickering.
Development on multiple fronts can be very difficult and time consuming so thank you for the work that you are doing and i hope everyone can be pleased with the end results.

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Originally Posted by Castanica

Excuses and pleas to wait longer while continuing to pay a very expensive subscription cost ...

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You lost me right here, and really can't take the rest of your post seriously.

Content Drought? What Neo-Nyzul, Voidwatch, Legion and Meeble burrows to name a few not to your liking?

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Originally Posted by Castanica

Excuses and pleas to wait longer while continuing to pay a very expensive subscription cost when the money is not being used on what I'm paying for are not enough for me (when FF14 was in as bad a state as FFXI is now they stopped subscriptions as a sign of respect, where is that here?), especially when it's coming from a company the size of Square Enix that is literally throwing money at FF14.

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I actually refuse to play any other square enix titles now. I have a lot of time / effort / money invested in my FFXI characters, but I will never invest in another game from a company that treats paying customers this way. It's crazy that they keep making these BS excuses.

I work for a nation wide insurance company. Can you imagine the fallout that would occur if the director of my company released a press release to paying customers saying "Oh hey guys thanks for being paying customers all this time. Sorry about all your hurricane losses, but we only have like 4 people working on your claims (and there are thousands of claims) because we rerouted all the money you've been paying us into building out a new program to provide insurance to astronaut donkeys, so just hang in there (or tread water) a few more years and be patient while we have a few casual meetings and think about stuff."?

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

I actually refuse to play any other square enix titles now. I have a lot of time / effort / money invested in my FFXI characters, but I will never invest in another game from a company that treats paying customers this way. It's crazy that they keep making these BS excuses.

I work for a nation wide insurance company. Can you imagine the fallout that would occur if the director of my company released a press release to paying customers saying "Oh hey guys thanks for being paying customers all this time. Sorry about all your hurricane losses, but we only have like 4 people working on your claims (and there are thousands of claims) because we rerouted all the money you've been paying us into building out a new program to provide insurance to astronaut donkeys, so just hang in there (or tread water) a few more years and be patient while we have a few casual meetings and think about stuff."?

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Lol really.

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Originally Posted by Teraniku

You lost me right here, and really can't take the rest of your post seriously.

Content Drought? What Neo-Nyzul, Voidwatch, Legion and Meeble burrows to name a few not to your liking?

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All of those events are seriously flawed in one way or another. Neo Nyzul is overly-random and even the best players feel the need to cheat at it. Voidwatch has a horrendous loot distribution system. Legion difficulty is over-tuned. Meeble Burrows access is too restricted by the nature of entry items. Bad or heavily flawed content is as bad as no content. The end result is the same.

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

Yes, we all play on the same servers as all of you with regular accounts. (Of course the staff conceals their identities and plays as a regular player.)

I believe I mentioned this before, but there are a lot of times when I actually play in static parties with my family. I try my best to do things like returning lost chocobos, but, while this is embarrassing, I'm only at the level where I can challenge the Maat fight.

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Well it's a start, but if that's as far as you've gotten you definitely don't have the perspective of a long time player who's lived and struggled through the various eras of the game. Be sure you keep that in mind when reviewing what you see here and on other sites. Don't let your team be so quick to dismiss us. Many of us have been around the block more than a few times.

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However, there are a good amount of hardcore players amongst the staff (there are also instances where hardcore players have joined the staff), and they are hardcore into the recent end-game content.

I’m always hearing things at the office like "Man, the Odin’s Chamber II I created is tough to beat!" and "We just barely lost a win on that low-man Arch Dynamis Lord run."

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This is actually more disconcerting than reassuring. It's like many of us have been saying for ages. Your guys really don't know what they're putting out until it's on the live server. Shouldn't they know what the NM they created is capable of? No one's perfect and mistakes are made, but should one really be that surprised about how powerful a NM they created is?

I'd say yes, it's perfectly fine to be surprised of what their NMs are capable of. However, shouldn't such surprises be happening on the test server, rather than on the live server?

If they all have accounts, why not just test server themselves, form an alliance, and fight the fights?

Eggsackly.

One thing though, is that developers often keep in mind that the other players of their games sometimes are much better than the actual developers, so sometimes, they need to make things that are too hard for the devs themselves in order to let it be a real challenge for some of the other players.

I'm glad that the Enmity system and TP gain from monsters is on the top of the problems that developers are looking into. From a top down perspective, that's probably the most vital point to start at because it applies to all of the other problems that are more specific.

The Enmity system :mad: is one of the things you need to address because so much of the game's imbalances rest on it. PLD isn't a functional job because of shortsightedness of the system. Neither is NIN or THF. Now the 'Tank' is just whichever DPS does the most damage. Generally the WAR or DRK. That really does take a lot of complexity out of the game.

Most people are very weary of having a job system that includes 20 jobs, and the only 2 you need anymore are WAR and WHM. All hybrids are penalized because they don't fall into the same potency categories as those 2 jobs, and the only real exception is BRD, which has always had a place since it is the only full potency support job. The enmity system in this game makes it so that the only thing important to the success of an outing is the DPS and the ability to keep those DPS up by healing them.

Actual Tanking is non-existent. Managing hate is non-existent. Debuffing is non-existent. Magical Damage is non-existent, unless the mob is physically resistant. Skill Chains are unneeded and so are magic bursts. The game lacks the complexity and finesse of previous years. Most of that has to do with Enmity system not being appropriate for the increase in gear or increase in levels that the game went through.

Eliminating actual tanking from this game allowed all tactics to go out the window as well. If DPS is all that matters, then that is all anyone will ever care about.

I am very bored of this current Enmity system being decrepit. It covers up how poorly ALL of the jobs are currently balanced. It lacks complexity and offers the player the lowest form of AI imaginable for spend their time fighting against.


The 2nd point that was brought up was TP gain from monsters. I agree that this is a problem, but I don't agree that TP gain from mobs is the top of the problem. TP feed is a problem because Tanking doesn't work, that is the most obvious issue. If tanks were taking those hits instead of anyone/everyone, we could actually manage this content and enjoy fighting bosses. The actual problem is that you make boring bosses that don't mesh well with the current state of the game and they are less interesting than previous bosses even in this game. The biggest problem with the TP gain against bosses, after the lack of people being able to tank them with actual tanks, are the bosses being implemented are very basic/boring AI, that the game speed has increased, and the general inequality between 2H vs 1H jobs.

If you haven't played Chrono Trigger or FF:Crystal Chronicles, I would highly suggest you look at how they presented boss battles. They are much more engaging and entertaining boss battles than FFXI. Neither are MMOs, but CT is a turn based RPG and FF:CC allowed for movement around the battle field and more position based combat, and thus are parts of what make up MMOs like FFXI. Both kinds of bosses had punishment as a part of their design. If you went all out and just attacked the bosses mindlessly, they would retort with super moves. Your job was to avoid damage that was going to be fatal to you, as you fought something larger and stronger than you. The difference between what FFXI has and what those games had, was that they warned you and made you very aware of where you messed up. We don't act as though we are fighting something more powerful than us, we don't have the same kind of reservation of thought or action. The currently enmity system only supports an all out zerg and because of that, we just keep attacking regardless of what the mob is doing. There is no actual advantage or tactic to doing otherwise, because all of those tactics stopped being viable years ago.

There are 3 main examples of good boss fights from CT and 2 good example from FF:CC that I would like you to consider. (TL;DR the italics and skip to the Bold Summary)

The first one from CT is the Masamune boss. He gives you a warning that he is building up power and will devastate your team very shortly after that warning. The way to dispel his aggression is to have Chrono use Slash on him. Other moves do significantly more damage, but using Slash dispels a huge AOE attack. Slash also uses resources, so Chrono can't go all out and afford to be incapable of performing Slash. If you decide to ignore this punishment mechanism, you can survive it once, so you can learn from your mistake. If the boss goes right back into it, you probably can't recover your team in time to take another. It is not viable to ignore the mechanism, even though it lowers your total DPS to do so.

You could easily require specific SCs to nullify NMs super attacks much like CT requires the use of Slash. SCs require at least some kind of coordination and tactics. They make the game more interesting for me, personally, but they aren't used currently because SCs can't get through a bosses unnaturally high magic defense and evasion to be able to contribute to damage VS 100% TP Resolution Spams. You could add some diversity to the game play by putting SCs back in the game. You could even require MBs to dispel effects.

The second example from CT is the Robot Guardian with its 2 Bits. You have 3 targets, a main one and 2 auxiliary. The main target's HP is the only one that matters for the completion of the battle. If you choose to attack the main target while the aux targets are alive the Guardian will unleash large AOE damage against your party. If everyone attack the main target for your first attack round, you probably wipe. You can destroy the aux targets so that you can attack the main target without retort. The main target isn't particularly difficult, but it will destroy you if you attack mindlessly. It also has the ability to regenerate it's Bits, so you have to start the cycles over a couple of times.

Compare this to any boss in VW with adds. You make a PLD tank all the adds and then zerg the mob down. Not only do you make the PLD do essentially nothing interesting, but you completely disregard the aux targets. If the mob didn't have adds, you wouldn't have brought a PLD. A better tactic would be for the PLD to be able to hold the main target as the DPS eliminates the adds. If PLDs could actually hold hate at all, then we could have more strategies.

The third example from CT is the Tyrannosaur. It tells you it's going to blow you up in a couple of turns. Get ready. It's going to hurt. You can't avoid this damage. For FFXI, it's the same as the Limbus Weapon fights. Because we can move out of the way, this kind of tactic is viable. The only complaint I have is that the mobs usually become stationary. I would prefer if they could continue to chase whoever was on their hate list so that a NIN or PLD could draw them off and once again have a use as a Tank.

The first example I have for FF:CC is the zombie dragon/undead in general for that game. They are immaterial by default and take significantly less damage from physical attacks. You have to hit them with Holy to make them capable of being physically beaten. There are mobs that change resistance and our undead also take additional damage from being hit by Banish, but the biggest thing to take away from this is that the undead physically change in appearance when their resistances change. Obviously that creates challenges for the Dev team, but they are the kinds of changes that would actually benefit the overall play of the game and make it so that players could realistically be warned of changes in the battle or increased threat from bosses.

The second example from FF:CC is something almost every Boss in the game has. They have slow moving, high threat moves that are meant to be avoided. Some of them are player seeking, other have patterns, others just move in a straight line. Obviously, this would also require development and would require better computers to play higher end content, but I think that 10 years later, people are willing to drop PS2 and actually put something current into this game. We know you can do the work required for these kinds of changes if we give you the time to do them, because those are both games made by your company. These aren't even new ideas, they are just better idea your company already developed but didn't think to apply to the most financially successful game they've ever made.

Overall, boss battle and tactics in FFXI lack anticipation. The mob just goes off on you. You don't think about what you are doing for the most part because it's not required. There aren't any good tactics to either respond with or preemptively execute because they aren't more effective than a Zerg or a modified Zerg. I would much rather mobs have longer anticipations to devastating moves that can't be stunned. Boss Mobs currently spam a large amount of pointless moves that have no tactics surrounding them and that needs to stop. The high end content of this game is not smarter content, just mindlessly harder. They need to have actual tactics and patterns associated with them that make them unique and stand out from each other. That way, different jobs could be more or less useful depending on the mobs, instead of just in a scale of pure DPS.

Another part of the reason mobs became mindless spam machines, outside of their AI and planning, is that equipment Haste became more prevalent. Everyone that is engaged on a mob probably has capped Equipment Haste. No player is going to be ok with you nerfing this because it makes it so that battle progress faster. FFXI is a slow game compared to almost any other MMO. Most of us have no problem with this because we like the speed it currently runs, aka with capped equipment haste. Because of how Haste works, we feed TP to a mob that is being engaged by 8+ people very quickly. While Haste is a part of the 'problem', I don't think it is something that you should consider nerfing because you will slow the game down and make people want to quit. Equipment Haste is also a system that you can use to balance jobs because it allows you to limit the gear that a job can effectively TP in.

Most people would like more job abilities to use so we did more than just auto attack, but for the most part, I feel like most people playing FFXI don't mind the overall pace of battle. What they do mind is super powered bosses that can instantly kill them without warning and have very few strategies to counter it. The game feels brainless and boring because 1 out of the 100+ super mobs that have been released since 75 cap will decide that you(or someone near you) should die, and thus you will. The lack of strategy is a big problem. It's why I'm all for your new SPs. PD and Embrava are boring and mindless. I believe everyone will be happier to be more engaged with more abilities that lead to a larger diversity of tactics in addition to fixing the Enmity system and tanking in general.

The last thing to put into perspective on Boss Fights is 2H VS 1H. 2H DPS is blatantly better in every sense of the word when it comes to boss fights. 2H weapons have better scaling off of stats. They WS harder, in general. They feed less TP to the mobs. Low delay jobs are almost completely phased out of the game now that they increased the max level to 99. THF only really exists to TH things. DNC has no practical use any longer. NIN can do decent output, but even with maxed Subtle Blow, you are still giving more TP than a 2H job that is probably doing more damage. I'm not against 2H jobs doing more damage, I'm against Dual Wield and 1H damage just being inferior. It would be greatly appreciated if you increased the cap on Subtle Blow for 1H jobs so that they wouldn't be so detrimental to the health of an alliance. Or do something to rectify it.

You didn't want specific jobs to work on so I'm trying to give you the broad strokes that are painfully unbalanced to all jobs in this game. Access to good 2H weapons is an inherent buff and thus an inequality that hasn't been adjusted to factor in non-2H weapon jobs. THF, RDM, DNC, NIN, PLD, BLU, and BST are all hurt by this to one extent or another. It's not surprising the the only job out of that list that is still in good overall standing is BST. BST has a pet in addition to it's own personal DPS so it has a big exception.

The inclusion of Fencer did very little to rectify 2H vs 1H since it doesn't apply to Dual Wield. There are a lot of dual wield jobs and jobs that use dual wield to increase their damage output and letting Fencer be some kind of exception and then not put it on PLD, which would have made at least some sense, is still mind boggling. I am very serious in my request for you to look at the difference between 1H and 2H DPS when looking at the problem of enmity gain on bosses. Making jobs intentionally inferior so that can't contribute the same DPS, is one of your biggest problems with overall job balance. If you wish to keep these inequalities, I would suggest you look very hard at what non-2H DPS jobs contribute to a meaningful boss fight. Currently, they contribute very little, since very little is important besides DPS.

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Please look into increasing the diversity of bosses that exist at higher end content. It is one of the games biggest failing points. Players are bored of not having to do anything to do besides sitting in PJ because even when they leave, they just fight cheap bosses over and over again. That is where a lot of your discontent comes from, at least from a top down view. I'd like to continue to encourage you to try new things to add diversity and tactics, much like you are doing with new SP abilities, because I honestly think this game needs some rather large changes to make it interesting again. Please try to make this game more engaging for it's players because that way we will be happier and more likely to continue playing.

I am completely serious when I say that re-establishing PLD as main tanks and making actual tanking viable again should be at the top of your list of things to do. If you attempt to change too much without giving players something to rely on, then you hand them a rocky, uncertain, and potentially very unsatisfying play experience. I don't want long time players leaving any more than you do. The easiest and most effective way to keep them is to give them something they can rely on.


(Please Like if you agree with the majority of what I posted)

A very long and comprehensive post that I actually read all of, and then plusoned.

Mr Matsui. Please read the NA boards and respond to an actual NA post.

I'm happy you read the JP forums, but I'd feel a lot better if I knew you ere responing to our concerns as well.

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Originally Posted by Nebo

Mr Matsui. Please read the NA boards and respond to an actual NA post.

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I agree, and I nominate Manaking's post to be one of them. Please translate Manaking's post, one of our board moderators; I feel that is something Mr. Matsui should really get a chance to read and digest.

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

The first reason is that since the schedule was released before the announcement of Seekers of Adoulin, the effects of the development load for the expansion were much larger than anticipated.

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The absurdity of this statement is overwhelming. Perhaps they would care to rephrase it? A schedule being release before a new expansion was announced would not alter anything as the workforce would have already known that the expansion was coming. I find this very lacking as an excuse and seek clarification.

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Originally Posted by Tsukino_Kaji

The absurdity of this statement is overwhelming. Perhaps they would care to rephrase it? A schedule being release before a new expansion was announced would not alter anything as the workforce would have already known that the expansion was coming. I find this very lacking as an excuse and seek clarification.

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Agreed, it made little sense, how exactly could it make the work any more or less after it has been announced?

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there's the concern with content and that the necessary content is not reaching the necessary people.

When thinking about the amount of content made thus far, it's not that the amount of content is skimpy by any means; however, I believe a contributing factor for this concern is that a lot of older content requires more than a party, but it has become quite difficult for a lot of players to do things with full parties these days.

Currently, due to the fact that there's a lack of low-difficulty and casual content, a majority of players are focusing on high-difficulty content, and there has been a lot of feedback that even though they log in they can't do what they want (nothing to do). Also affecting this is that things have become more complicated since adjustments have been made to drop rates and item stats.

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We just need another expansion as good as "Chains of Promathia" which i think the DEV team would fail to replicate or do better.

We don't need 'add-ons' or 'mini-expansions' or something for only end-gamers (which the new content rubbing elbows with old content). How can you take time out to explain EVERYTHING to new players/ returning players(who lack new content/ expansions or accessibility?)

CoP did it right! You couldn't access curtain content w/o completing or going through the story-line. It was linear and progressive until you arrive to the end-game areas then your world expanded.

Try to stick with this fundamental!

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

Agreed, it made little sense, how exactly could it make the work any more or less after it has been announced?

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Lost in translation, perhaps?

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

Development Plans

I'd personally like to see players that are below level 99 reach level 99 quickly (we will be looking into whether we can make adjustments so that the level 95 limit quest can be completed solo),

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I'm not sure whether this was an intended Nerf or not but given that statement, it seems worth mentioning for reaching lvl 99 quickly as possible. By now everyone knows of war's Fell Cleave party's. And Blu has their version with a Charged Whisker party. The main difference (for this point) is that Blu kills all mobs in one shot, where as war's take a few swings to kill them all.

Last time i was CW'ing on blu i noticed that no matter how many mobs were pulled and killed, i never got kill credit/xp for more then 10 mobs at once. Some people mention that it had been adjusted to that. Now as a whole, i could understand a decision to reduce overall xp gained from these types of parties. But this targets only Blu's. Since war's kill over a few swings, you still get full credit for all mobs. Where as Blu's are just screwed. (Its an even bigger blow since all RMT Pt's i see are all Fell Cleaver's, so you're helping them out)

It should either be adjusted so that effect works on all, or remove it completely. Their is no balance in that.

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Also, please dont forget to help that tarutaru's out!!!

Do not forget to help the tarutarus out.

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Originally Posted by Malthar

Let us, the player base with programming skills, contribute to development.

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um, no

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Originally Posted by Godofgods

... By now everyone knows of war's Fell Cleave party's. And Blu has their version with a Charged Whisker party. The main difference (for this point) is that Blu kills all mobs in one shot, where as war's take a few swings to kill them all.

Last time i was CW'ing on blu i noticed that no matter how many mobs were pulled and killed, i never got kill credit/xp for more then 10 mobs at once. ...

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There's no doubt RMTs will work around anything SE throws to prevent their operations. Restrictions I believe aren't the answer but more serious punishment to 'those guys' and not 'us' as true players.

10 mobs?? ...I do believe to be considered too much. Should be 5 mobs or an amount equivalent to the number of party members in a alliance. Farming in abbysea should be done responsibly.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

Eggsackly.

One thing though, is that developers often keep in mind that the other players of their games sometimes are much better than the actual developers, so sometimes, they need to make things that are too hard for the devs themselves in order to let it be a real challenge for some of the other players.

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See there's a problem too. The Dev team never ever has to go in Blind to a boss fight. Since they know the mobs tp moves what magic it can cast etc. They have an advantage that the first player group that goes through doesn't have, and it can skew the difficulty, because they may adjust the content according to their playthrough and not get enough player feedback to adjust it properly.

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Originally Posted by Psxpert2011

10 mobs?? ...I do believe to be considered too much. Should be 5 mobs or an amount equivalent to the number of party members in a alliance. Farming in abbysea should be done responsibly.

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THat is a terrible idea.