Questions for Mr. Fujito

In the new producer announcement, Mr. Fujito commented that we can pose questions to him about the future of FINAL FANTASY XI and he will try to address what he can in a future Freshly Picked Vana'diel or FFXI Digest. I have a few questions that I would like to ask.

1: Will the new Master Trials be used as a sort of "limit break" for master levels to allow us to take them past the current cap of 50?

2: With the increase in subjob level from master levels, will we see them rise to the level of 99? With a level 99 subjob, the freedom of job selection really opens up new possibilities for strategy in tackling different events.

3: With the addition of Empyrean +3 armor, we have a nice boost to our jobs; however we are lacking in some of the job specific enhancements from the artifact and relic pieces. Macroing in the Artifact or Relic pieces causes us to lose the defensive properties of the Empyrean. It also makes some of the older pieces quite useless. You mentioned that you elected to downscale the scope of the Development team; so I don't know if what I am about to ask is something too big to handle or just a small copy and past on a set of armor.

I would like to see a way to merge Artifact, Relic, and Empyrean +3 sets. My suggestion to do this is as follows:

Required items needed to trade to the NPC: Artifact+3,Relic+3,Empyrean+3 pieces and 500 job points of the job you wish to merge the armor piece for. You are then given a choice of Artifact or Empyrean set bonus or Relic augment. Then choose which piece it will be modeled after.

If you take the highest stats currently available on each piece and add the job specific bonuses; the resulting piece would not be much higher then what is currently available and not effect game balance too much. The name of the piece will change, depending on which set bonus or relic augment you chose, to facilitate storage on a storage slip. This allows for you to choose which piece you want to use, depending on the content you want to do, and keeps current content alive for a long time.

I will give an example of ninja:

Head
DEF:131 HP+71 STR+33 DEX+41 VIT+33 AGI+34 INT+32 MND+32 CHR+32
Accuracy+61 Attack+62 Ranged Accuracy+61 Magic Accuracy+61
Evasion+89 Magic Evasion+119 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+61 "Magic Def. Bonus"+7
Parrying skill+20 Ninjutsu Skill+17 Haste+10% "Subtle Blow"+9 "Dual Wield"+7
Ninjutsu damage+21 Weapon skill damage +10% Damage Taken-10%
Innin: "Double Attack"+13%
Augment: "Enhances Yonin and Innin Effect"

Body
DEF:163 HP+98 STR+40 DEX+47 VIT+36 AGI+43 INT+36 MND+34 CHR+34
Accuracy+64 Attack+87 Ranged Accuracy+64 Ranged Attack+79
Magic Accuracy+64 Evasion+95 Magic Evasion+129 "Magic Def. Bonus"+10
Haste+4% "Dual Wield"+10 "Subtle Blow"+9 Critical Hit Rate+8%
"Migawari"+16 Damage Taken-13% "Utsusemi" spellcasting time-14%
"Daken"+10 Physical damage: "Shock Spikes" effect
Set: Increases Accuracy, Ranged Accuracy, and Magic Accuracy

Hands
DEF:121 HP+57 STR+30 DEX+55 VIT+40 AGI+26 INT+27 MND+40 CHR+27
Accuracy+62 Attack+79 Ranged Accuracy+62 Ranged Attack+48
Magic Accuracy+62 Evasion+79 Magic Evasion+103 "Magic Def. Bonus"+6
Throwing Skill+14 Haste+5% "Subtle Blow"+9 Magic burst damage+15
"Futae"+28 Elemental ninjutsu damage+18% "Daken"+10
"Ninja tool expertise"+38
Set: Increases Accuracy, Ranged Accuracy, and Magic Accuracy

Legs
DEF:143 HP+82 STR+44 VIT+27 AGI+36 INT+45 MND+27 CHR+21
Accuracy+63 Attack+64 Ranged Accuracy+63 Magic Accuracy+63
Evasion+87 Magic Evasion+135 "Magic Def. Bonus"+9 Katana skill+33
Haste+8% "Subtle Blow"+9 "Store TP"+6 "Dual Wield"+10
Weapon skill damage +10% Damage Taken-12% "Yonin": "Counter"+18
Set: Increases Accuracy, Ranged Accuracy, and Magic Accuracy

Feet
DEF:103 HP+45 STR+28 DEX+39 VIT+25 AGI+54 INT+20 MND+22 CHR+40
Accuracy+60 Attack+76 Ranged Accuracy+60 Magic Accuracy+60
Evasion+120 Magic Evasion+135 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+23 "Magic Def. Bonus"+9
Ninjutsu Skill+23 Haste+5% Enmity+8 Magic burst damage+10
"Critical Parry"+26 "Utsusemi"+1 Weapon skill damage+12%
Dusk to dawn: Movement speed+25%
Augment: "Increases Ninjutsu Magic Accuracy and Magic Attack Bonus"

The whole point of having different kinds of gear is making decisions, if you just combine all the best stuff into one then there really isn't any decision to make. The game was never really designed for us to have all the best everything at all times. Sure, the more hardcore among us started using crazy amounts of macros and gear sets and external tools to perfectly optimize everything, but this isn't normal otherwise. Some people have the gall to even suggest the game is impossible without doing these things.

If you just create these magical items that are the best at everything, there isn't any reason for anything else to exist.

I imagined doing that for multiple jobs and glazed over. I don’t really like these ideas. Master level sub to 99 would be a crazy amount of exemplary points; merging gear would be painful too with many of the pieces not even worth +3ing in the first place.

They said 50 was the maximum for ML. If they want to continue forward progression they would invent a new system rather than extend that one.

An example of why the Devs/Director never gets asked good questions. It's always some wild fantasy of someone wanting random changes for their favorite job or something. Like they are a pretend Dev. Walking up to a canvas and throwing paint on another's picture.

We be better off asking other questions that have a remote possibility of being addressed or part of the ongoing process. Like "will there be new content for further enhancing Prime Weapons" , "Can you provide more details on aspects around virtualizing the hardware?", "Will there be an advanced warning if the game receives an end date?" or "Is there any further information around master trials you can share?"

The whole "hey, I want to pretend I am a Dev" type posts are never going to be viable.

are job adjustments outside the scope of future plans? or is the current paradigm what we can expect for the rest of the life of the game?

meta is the word I think you're looking for, not paradigm. And nothing has been specifically confirmed or ruled out. They did not say there would be no updates nor did they specify the nature of any of those updates.

Who in their right mind would want master levels to go above 50? The point requirement for 49 to 50 is already over 3 million.