May 2019 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

With today’s version update, we’re excited to introduce a new short video series directed towards our Western players. Each digest going forward will cover the key features from the most recent version update. We hope you check out the video, try the version update, and leave a feedback based on your experience of playing the new in this thread.

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Glad you're finally putting in some effort to communicate with more than just the JP players.

Well isn't this a nice change for us NA players

Very nice update keep up the great work guys

Great stuff, thank you for the video!

Thank you for starting this video digest series, it is most welcome.

If possible can you update us on the issue of lag in Dynamis D since the introduction of the equipment rank point counters? This is the only part of the game where lag is seriously detrimental to playability on a regular basis, and seems to be server side lag.

It is possible this lag is only felt by the NA / European players to this large extent given that the network round trip is so much further from Japan. It is such an issue that players are having to adapt their play style around the delays (avoiding gear changes, not running too far without waiting for statues to load in front of them etc). I worry that the fact this issue has gone on for so long without corrective action is because either you are not aware of it, or are unwilling to fix it.

Please look into this as Dyna D is still the main event to keep us in the game currently, and I'm sure many are fed up with how it kills the enjoyment.

My first post, thank you for this video its very helpful.

That was a very cool video! I like the format and organization of the information. It was exciting to hear what is in the works, that’s not in the update. It shows you guys are working hard to maintain an enjoyable game for many if not everyone.

Hi Producer Matsui / Director Fujito, thanks for starting such videos. In my opinion, it definitely helps to engages the non-JP players more. I look forward to more interesting sharing each month for each updates! Cheers~ :)

It was a great surprise to see this when I woke up today! It was short and sweet but still contained a lot of important information for the update. Thank you for taking this initiative and your continued support for this game.

The extra effort to communicate future changes is much appreciated!

Reading on prompter screen , the same definition we got in news page doesn't bring anything at all..... Again a waste of ressource... what about news of Those wardrobes WE NEED....... more gears = NEED of SPACE.... more jobs = MORE SPACE

Thank you very much for doing this, it is indeed much apreciated and a lot easier to collect feedback on your end as well.

I like the more professional summary. It doesn't fix every grievance I have on the subject of NA player communication, but it is a good step.

This is a fantastic new addition =^.^= I appreciate the time and effort put into this endeavor, and look forward to the next FFXI Digest!

Thank you Matsui -san & Fujito -san

This is nice to see as a long-time players, we have always felt players outside Japan were always 2nd best!

I'd like to comment on this month's White Mage job changes. The change to Sacrifice and Esuna is not satisfactory as changing job stances in the middle of a hectic fight is not a reasonable request. Futher these abilities are still locked behind 60 second cooldown which makes even an attempt to change back and forth tricky.

Futhermore, Misery has always been a White Mage's melee /damage focused stance, and does not harmonize well with Solace's healing stance.
In particular a white mage on a healing stance of Solace will be relying on the stoneskin effect. Having to Switch to Misery to remove extra status effect such as Amensia with Esuna or to create a resistance to an absorbed statues with Sacrifice, seems counter-intuitive and creates a delay to the action.

The increase in Esuna MP cost and timer does not make any sense to me either.

Please adjust and reconsider these changes. One spell I'd rather see adjusted is the effect of Full Cure as no one I know uses it due to its MP cost.

Is there a version for English speaking players? I don't understand Japanese.

Extra effort? It was text only!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by esmrambo

Extra effort? It was text only!

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1) Go find a video on YouTube where people talk English to the screen for six minutes solid.
2) Transcribe it.
3) Key it to display the sentence-by-sentence overlay at the correct times.
4) Tell me how it was no effort and bear in mind you didn't have to translate it from Japanese.


I appreciate the video, if only that it recognises that the players outside of Japan aren't insignificant and that it reinforces that the game isn't going offline any time soon. Here's to new content in the future and some news about FFXI Mobile!

Thank you for making this! I look forward to July's video.

Thank you!
Excited to see what the new installer will be like!

More communication around FFXI is always welcome.

But it's just 2 ppl talking. It's been a trend for the last years that "video > all" so everyone make video for anything and everything, but it's just a waste. At least put some footage of the game.

Going to make a few replies, as it's been specifically requested that we split up our feedback.

Merit spells

I definitely approve of replacing merit spells with other options, and I really hope that you do this for other jobs (RDM BLM SMN). The Animus Solace merit in particular is nice, and I will be fully meritting that immediately.

Appreciate the efforts to increase communications with the western player base, I feel it helps us feel more connected with the development team. I look forward to future videos!

Afflatus Solace / Afflatus Misery

In intense fights I do not have time to swap between stances, so anything that encourages this kind of playstyle is of limited use to me. The entire point of Sacrifice and Esuna is saving time and immediate removal; if I have such limited time that they are necessary, swapping stances to Afflatus Misery is not always an option.

I do not want stance swapping to become an integral part of White Mage. It is clumsy and awkward, and I often do not have time. I do not want to play SCH.

Esuna

These changes are bad.

Esuna is now less useful. The original spell had rather niche uses, but in those specific uses was quite potent. Now it is just a duplicate of Sacrifice, a spell we already have. You have also removed the ability for WHMs without the Yagrush mythic weapon to reliably remove area of effect status ailments. Please revert this change as soon as possible.

For context, I say this as a WHM who has a Yagrush. All WHMs (particularly those without Yagrush) need better options for removing AoE status ailments. The existence of /SCH does not mitigate this requirement; we should not be locked to a single subjob for such basic operations.

Adding amnesia removal to Esuna in addition to the other changes is a poor choice. Esuna is trying to do too much at once, and simultaneously failing to deliver on anything.

If you wish to improve Esuna, perhaps consider the following, which has a similar theme but is actually useful:

• Revert Esuna to its original form, along with the enhancements on the Cleric's Wand, Piety Wand, and Asclepius.
  
  
• Allow Esuna to also be cast on a targetted party member. When cast in this manner only, it can remove a single status ailment from all party members in area of effect, prioritising ailments that match the casting WHM's bar-element and bar-status spells. Perhaps when cast in this manner the spell could incur an additional cost, if this is necessary for balance reasons, but it should be available in either Afflatus stance.
  
  
• Have Afflatus Misery now "remember" the two most recent status ailments that the WHM fully resisted and allow Esuna to remove them, once, if there are no other effects on the casting WHM. We should not have to deliberately eschew barspells and magic evasion equipment to use Esuna effectively; it encourages bad practice and is goes against everything we learn as White Mages.
  
  
• Have this "New" Esuna be renamed Panacea and replace the White Mage job point spell Full Cure, which in its current state is not used due to the obscene MP cost. Panacea would remove ailments independently of the Afflatus stances and refund 10MP for each ailment removed, to a maximum of 100MP refunded.
  
  
• Add Amnesna, with a more modest but still significant MP cost and recast time.

Sacrifice

Blocking absorbed effects is welcome. However, tying it to stances is bad, as detailed previously.

If you wish to improve Sacrifice, perhaps have Sacrifice never absorb (but still remove) status ailments that match the bar-status effect, and the elemental affinity of the bar-element effect, on the casting White Mage. This gives us control over what we block. Example: Barstone and barparalyze would block both slow and paralysis, but still remove them from the target.

I'm quite disappointed with these changes to Esuna/Sacrifice. I feel like something has been taken away, not given. The ability to remove Amnesia (at excessive cost, infrequently, and with stance restrictions) does not make me feel significantly better.

Thank you so much for taking your time to listen in on the other side of things!! I think the community overall has been very thrilled hearing about your team's commitment to continue to see FFXI thrive on for years. Creating short simple content, hearing your intentions, and creating a video really helps tie together our hope for a FFXI that not only lives on, but is molded to the player's around it.

With that said, I do feel we have a bit of work to continue to see the NA player-base grow, as it's contribution and commitment to long-term video game's in general is varied. I do see the player-base growing around me on a smaller server which is great!! I do often feel that they run themselves into a corner seeking a group and a bite of the amazing new content out, often they end up leaving quickly or leaving for another server. On the other hand I love when brand NEW players start playing, its astonishing that after so many year's people are seeking something entirely different then what is out there, and FFXI is clearly a standout game title!!

I only see a black rectangle
no "run" arrows
just a black rectangle

Hello Producer Matsui and Director Fujito. Thank you for taking the time to make this video, it is very appreciated.

I like the changes to Esuna. The previous version was clumsy and not very useful, except for a very few selected fights. Now we get a version that works more similar to the old FF concept of the spell, and it can remove Amnesia too! Amnesia went from completely unremovable, to removable, even if with some difficulty and some slowness. Thank you for this.

I was thinking that it is a shame that Esuna is not affected by WHM Mythic Weapon, Yagrush. Maybe it would be possible to have Yagrush giving only a chance to get Area of Effect Esuna? It would be a nice bonus and I feel like it would not be too overpowered.

Thank you for the changes to Protectra V and Shellra V. It is really good, and the new merit categories Animus Solace and Animus Misery are very good.

However, it seems that there is a bug with the new Protectra V spell. It only adds 205 to defense. Previously, if casted with 5/5 merits, and with Piety armor, it was 220 defense. Maybe an oversight?

The main reason that I do not play as much as before, is that it is extremely difficult to find other to for a party or alliance with to fight anything that gives higher end drops. I loved when Trust were introduced, but you can't fight anything high end with them...they are just too weak. I love the content, the story, and everything about the game, but somehow, you need to make it so that single players can fight the highest level mobs and win. Please consider this for future updates. This is the main reason that most of my frinds left the game, and I hope that it improves in order to bring some of them back, and retain the good players that are still on. Thank you!

This is a very nice bonus, thank you.

I have a suggestion: I do not like a lot the icon of the status effect. It is the "MP Refresh" icon - I understand that it is because it allows you to store Merit Points, but it's confusing.

Considering that this new status effect is very similar to Signet (the way it works, and the way it is obtained), maybe it would be better to have an icon similar to Signet and Sanction? Maybe with a different color.

Very nice. It makes the whole version updates seem more sincere. Looking forward to more of these.

Why is hardware mouse cursor a legacy setting?

Until you allow the game to be run at 60fps, this setting is needed because the software mouse cursor is impacted by the frame rate while the hardware cursor is not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sinners

Thank you!
Excited to see what the new installer will be like!

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Well, presumably it will mean (at least) that everything will be installed at once instead of installing each expansion seperately; and hopefully it includes more up to date game files to reduce the amount of time spent updating the game before first play.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by esmrambo

Extra effort? It was text only!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Haldarn

1) Go find a video on YouTube where people talk English to the screen for six minutes solid.
2) Transcribe it.
3) Key it to display the sentence-by-sentence overlay at the correct times.
4) Tell me how it was no effort and bear in mind you didn't have to translate it from Japanese.


I appreciate the video, if only that it recognises that the players outside of Japan aren't insignificant and that it reinforces that the game isn't going offline any time soon. Here's to new content in the future and some news about FFXI Mobile!

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Previously, we get a summary of their bi-monthly Freshly picked vana'diel VOD stream. Usually weeks later, so it's a bit like the Chinese whisper game where you hear something is coming from a friend of a friend online and you confirm it via the Freshly picked translation a few weeks later. Used to be we don't even get a summary and it was being done by fans on forums and it's always inconsistent.

This is AFAIK, their first attempt at doing a monthly overseas facing video where they share information directly to us. Yes, it needs to be translated, but it's way better than before. They need to be commended for it.

Thank you for the effort, I really appreciate it.

I also follow the Japanese FFXI Twitter account as well as the YouTube channel, so I'm aware of the longer Mogivana videos which usually precede the updates - the abbreviated Freshly-Picked translations are appreciated, but there's charm in seeing something new the international players can enjoy directly.

If anything, it would be nice to see more footage and slides/screenshot like in the Mogivana videos, to help illustrate the updates, but in the meantime I'm sure we can all still enjoy the sight of Matsui's colorful shirts.

I also really appreciate the update for the config program and the announcement of a new installer as well.

I've been really concern about the software infrastructure supporting FFXI, especially PlayOnly and its update system, so I hope these other updates help to do something about that in the future.

I wonder if this is now possible due to maybe FFXI doing well at retaining its players compared to SE's other online games...

If other infrastructure updates follow, like for example, more auction house slots, that would be great too, especially for the smaller servers.

Hello,


While like most I want to thank you for taking the time to make the digest. I'd like to cover some areas of concern the past 10+ years.


Graphics:

Lets face it, your competition has left FFXI in the dust. We are in need of a graphical update as soon as possible. HD would be a great start. A reboot of the game would be an even better step so long as the style an format we play in is kept as it is NOW.

You don't have the playstation as an excuse not to do something here, anymore.


Installer:

While I suggested improvements to the update & install processes years ago, your only now catching up. I hope this means we won't have to wait 10+ hours to "check files", "download files", "install files" from a clean install anymore. I'm looking forward to reviewing this.


Whitemage:

So you've made changes to this over the years, I will admit I am not current with whitemage as most others anymore. However.. I think the fact we are playing mostly with trust NPC's now means that 1 hour timer should be reduced to 15min. We need a spell that can deal with the matter of erase properly, one that can deal with removing weakness (even if that means having a 10min cool down). I will have to look into the updates you've made to comment further on this topic.


Pricing/Item Storage:

We have been paying a minimum of $13 a month or more depending on options for the life of this game without so much as a discount. I don't see why we don't have more perks for storage of anything item wise. I shouldn't have all my storage measures divided between multiple npc's and multiple tabs for wardrobes. We are strictly on PC now so whats holding this back?


Trust NPC:

I agree with another user here, not strong enough or not allowed into all areas. The english playerbase is suffering a shortage of human players. Either update the graphics an relaunch our game to bring in new people or do something to help us with being able to fight ALL the fights available in all areas of this game.


Items:

It seems like the moogle tied to the last story line being able to sell alot of nice things was a good idea but you stopped short of making this even better. You can expand upon this, there are far more items that can be sold food wise, potion wise, maybe even ingredient wise. Alot of room for improvement here.


Dynamis currency/other stuff to upgrade gear:

I don't feel like without spending 6 months of nonstop effort I can reach even one mythic or relic weapon, an besides its like 'do they even matter anymore?' in light of the Su5 equipment an other new stuff.. so whys all this still really hard? Don't we get a break at some point for being here this long? I've been playing since the games launch and still don't own one relic weapon let alone any other greater weapon of its nature.


Capacity Points:

At best i've seen like 300 points for a kill? and I need like what.. 60,000? 90,000? for a single point? an yet to reach the Su5 tier I need like 1,500? of these capacity points?? as if things weren't hard enough with dynamis relics an mythics.. you went an added this nightmare to achieve /sigh again when do the long time loyal players get a break? we've been cheated out of so much enroute to this point in time.. don't act like you players reading this post never were part of a Linkshell that didn't rob you or help you rob someone else of stuff in a quest to be a jerk to the rest of us. You know who you are. An you developers never stepped in to help alieviate this issue. Now we have to endure another ogoge? (300 movie reference) c'mon -.- an lets say there is a faster way to get these points.. theres no one sharing this information, an completing the last storyline to improve points isn't what i'm talking about.


Offensive names:

I can't tell you how many offensive names I've reported to GM's over the years only to see the same player running around town still. What do I have to do to put a stop to such things? Because I can't swear ingame but they can keep their sexual user/character names? give me a break!


Game Launcher:

Can we get an update to this that skips all the nonsense an goes straight to the game character selection screen? PLEASE?!?! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL GAMING!


Server Migration:

Could we please migrate the servers?? so more human players are on at one time.


Lastly:

I don't know anything about ambuscade to comment on it right now.
I might if there were more people to play it with.. maybe that server migration would help with this.. hint hint.

I will update this accordingly if I need to, but don't expect me to reply to trolls or the like. If you don't like my post oh well, this is my feedback, write your own?