Test Smn

[Arcon]

For those who care, there's been a fix (two, actually) to this:
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/106...=1#post4915153

People make way too much of a fuss about this. Screaming racism because of a bug. Get over it.

[Alhanelem]

Just wondeirng: Is anyone else getting a crash when you go to the main menu and select Status then go to Profile?

People make way too much of a fuss about this. Screaming racism because of a bug. Get over it.

Agree there.

So yeah; Camate: Let it be known-

The reason these things don't work is there are missing files that were not included in the test server version update.

after reading the above linked thread and downloding their stopgap fix, I went into the Final Fantasy XI Test Client/ROM/181/ folder and found that the file is not simply there but full of '.'s, but rather is completely missing. I see:
... 69.DAT, 70.DAT, 71.DAT, 73.DAT, 74.DAT ...

The problem seems to be simple: The 72.DAT file was missing from the version update file list.

[BenJuli]

Hello.

This will be a bit of a technical post, so for random readers on here, I apologize if you are not able to follow. Also, I am unsure if I am allowed to be posting this information on here, so if it's not allowed, I'm sorry, and please delete this post.

Anyway, with that out of the way. The actual problem here is that the dat file for the English Job ability names and descriptions have not been updated. (I can provide the exact file that's the culprit here if necessary, but I am refraining from posting it so that people don't try to modify it themselves.) All of the equivalent files for the other languages include the new names and descriptions, so there are no problems there.

So, because the files aren't updated, all of the new abilities are still using the blank placeholder "." name. Since this is the placeholder name for blank, unusable abilities, players are unable to actually use them, probably because the game is programmed to not allow you to use such blank abilities. (I assume. Or because /ja "." <t> errors out due to all of the blank abilities also being called ".", and it not knowing which one you're referring to.)

The easy way to fix this is to just update that one file with all of the names for the new abilities, so that they are usable. And for reference, this has been a common occurrence for all english files in the past few test server updates. Items are not translated, tons of quests, key items, pretty much everything, is untranslated. I realize some of this is due to constraints on your side, and that you want to get the content out for testing even though it hasn't been fully translated yet, but with abilities, it is a really big issue because untranslated ability names are not usable. (Although, this may actually not be intentional, because it seems that most of the time, the german and french files are all also updated at the same time, but the english ones aren't.)

Again, I apologize if this sort of information isn't supposed to be posted on here, and if it's inappropriate, please delete it. I am only posting this to help everyone out. You guys at SE, and all of the players trying to help test your new content.

-Julian

(I was actually going to post this in a new thread, but decided to just stick it in here. )

[Alhanelem]

Oh please, don't crap up another thread. Shock and horror, it wasn't me this time!

Legitimate complaints are dismissed with 'working as intended

That's because they ARE working as intended. The problem does lie in the fact that we might not have liked what was intended, but it's not like they're telling a lie or something.

On this specific issue, it was clearly an error made when the file list was sent to the content server for us to use to download the update files. Someone just made an error, and it was understandably difficult to find. Even if you knew it was a file missing (Many missing files cause crashes, the fact that this one didn't made it harder to catch), it would have been hard to trace down what file is missing, where it's located, etc. because most people wouldn't even think to look for a missing file. I must laud the efforts of the people who found a workaround.

But really Tarage: Are you just trying to get banned or something? Acting as you are and posting your anger in every thread you get your hands on is not any more of an effective way to express your current position than posting normally and allegedly being ignored. There is no racism. If they were really that racist they would never have released the game outside of japan in the first place.

BenJuli: Beat you to it, and a little more consisely. But at least for me, the file was just plain not there, rather than present but full of '.'s.

[BenJuli]

If those files weren't there for you at all, then there must have been some kind of error in your installation, because they were definitely included in the test server installation package. As for actually modified by the recent updates, probably not.

-Julian

[Alhanelem]

Downloading that file still fixed the problem for me.

The test server is going down now, so maybe they caught the problem finally.

[Rakshaka]

After the update this morning, the blood pacts are working correctly.

Heavenward Howl:
I tried this at 21% moon. My assumption would be that the buff given would be a "hp/mp drain" buff, and that the chance of HP absorption would be higher closer to full moon, and the chance of MP absorption would be higher closer to new moon. I buffed myself with it and proceeded to thwack crabs in Qufim. The only type of drain I ever got was MP drain. When I put the buff on myself, I got a single buff, but couldn't tell what it did because of there being no flavor text for the buff. It seems like the buff that I got wasn't an "hp/mp drain" buff, but just an "mp drain" buff because of the low moon phase. I can't be certain, but if this is the case then I think it's better than having a "hp/mp drain" buff that randomly drains either one; this would allow me to better plan when to use it. On the other hand, the MP drain side of this ability is worthless. I was getting 8-10 mp back per hit at 497 skill. I can only think of one job that would benefit from mp drain, BLU. PLD has enlight, and you cant have 2 enspells active. DRK has endark, the same thing applies. These jobs would prefer to have their enbuff over enaspir. BLU is the only job with mp that melees that doesn't have an enspell. It's the only job that this would be useful for in endgame situations (I'll say this so no one throws melee mage jobs at me as a counterargument). I would suggest removing the MP drain part of this ability completely, it's not strong enough (you'd think at 497 skill you'd get a decent return seeing as how ifrit's enfire does about 44 damage with that skill level), and it's not useful in endgame situations.

Pavor Nocturnus:
Aka Death. My first thoughts on this are that it's awsome, and a long time coming, especially after how Odin's 2hr death is lackluster (e.g. blow a ton of mp only to have another mob walk in the way, screw with his accuracy and end up missing the mob you were targeting initially). The great part about this ability is that we now have useful offensive ward pact (sorry Somnolence, you just aren't cutting it), so when it's time to pick a ward pact to use, and nothing else seems useful, we can slam this down for a chance at a KO. I havent tested it on NMs yet, but I need to stress this: this needs to be able to kill lower level NMs. I'm not talking about abyssea pop NMs, or HNMs. I'm talking about the dime-a-dozen worthless fodder mobs that are considered NMs in salvage, einherjar, etc. Either that, or stop labeling fodder mobs as NMs. It's annoying when you can't use Odin against lower level NMs in tough situations, simply because they're labeled as "NM"s.

[Camate]

Thank for you patience everyone. As some of you may have already noticed, the bug where these abilities and weapon skills were only listed as "." has been fixed and you can now test them out

[Cabalabob]

hmm, i'm still having some trouble, the abilitys are now appearing but the ability description is still a '.' when i use pavor nocturnus it has the animation but the sound effect is of whirl of rage and it misses, heavenward howl has the animation and the sound effect but the effect says 'gains the effect of (none)' and the status for it says DEBUG: please report.
I'm also still only getting the '.' in the description bar for the weapon skills

[Rakshaka]

The dev team originally said that the description and everything else like that aren't final yet; these things are to be expected. The issue was with the abilities being unusable.

Heavenward howl will provide a buff that also has these issues. I'm assuming from testing that this is either an "endrain" buff or an "enaspir" buff seeing as how (so far) the buff has only let me drain MP (assuming that any moon below 50% is enaspir, and anything above is endrain)

Pavor Nocturnus is death with a low accuracy, so you'll see it miss sometimes. The sound effect for it is the sound of the Death spell. I agree this is similar to whirl of rage, but it is indeed the death sound effect.