Let Producer Matsui Know How He Should Catch Up on 2 Years!

[Hashmalum]

Hello, Producer Matsui. I hope you are in good health and haven't exhausted yourself already with all this reading you promised to do! I would suggest that if this sort of request for feedback, with a promise of all replies being translated and read, were normal instead of a special occasion, maybe there'd be less of a backlog of requests? Now, on to my main concerns. I'll try to keep this short, but I'm afraid it's still a lot.

First of all, we understand that FFXI is a very large and complex game, and development team time is limited. So, why not let us do some of the work for you? I don't mean necessarily 3D modeling, or story writing, but what about crowdsourcing requests for specific information? For example, a while ago you rejected revisiting the 15 minute NM ??? pop timers and making them shorter, because there were so many of them. Why not ask us to compile a list of every force pop NM ??? in the game, organized by zone and with the exact object ID number from the .DAT files (which we know how to read)? In order for us to do that, as well as to give proper feedback on other matters, please be as detailed as possible in your responses to us. Instead of saying things like "it would upset the balance", tell us what the scenarios are that you are worried about, so we can either argue our case or modify our requests. Or ask us for things like the exact .DAT file names that contain an issue of some sort.

Second of all, there have been a couple of quality of playing experience issues which have plagued the game for the duration of its existence that should be taken care of. One of them is the amount of time we spend in transition from one zone to another. This is especially harsh on those of us who use secondary characters for storage purposes--to send an item to our main character, we zone in to our mog house (with zone delay), log out, log in on the storage character (with zone in delay), leave the mog house (with zone delay), send the item, enter the mog house (with zone delay), log in on our main (with zone in delay), pick up the item from the delivery box, and finally leave the mog house (with zone delay). That's half a dozen or so long delays. Why so long? The client is downloading the same data over and over and over again: the character data, linkshell, maps, inventory, spells, job abilities and traits, the location of green-named NPCs and objects 90% of whom never move. This data should all be cached client-side. I know the consoles might not have the room to spare, but at least the PC should not be so handicapped.

The other longstanding issue is the issue of "phantom interrupts". You move into position, stop moving, ready a ranged attack or spell, and see it fail. You get the message "You move and interrupt your aim." But you didn't move! I suspect this happens when the packets arrive out of order. Even a 16-bit sequential number assigned to each packet would allow out-of-order packets to be detected and ignored when appropriate (that is, when they would move you in mid-spellcast or mid-aim).

Third of all, as a Red Mage, I welcome the recent changes to enfeebling magic, but they don't go far enough. Monsters like mantids, iron giants, Shinryu, and so on whose ordinary attacks are actually special moves make Slow and Paralyze useless. In addition, monster TP abilities have been getting more and more powerful, and are used more and more frequently. For the enfeebling role to be relevant again, we must have spells to help control the TP ability menace. Whether it is Amnesia, "Paramnesia" (Paralyze for special abilities), Plague, a sort of Addle or Slow for special abilties, Inhibit TP, Max TP Down, Confusion so the monster's special moves might hit itself, or even an ability to make a monster forget the last special ability it used for a little while, we need something.

I play this game as much for the story as much for anything else, and so I would dearly love to see any new spells and new abilities you create be earned by questing with the kind of storytelling that Square-Enix is famous for. I was disappointed to see things like Metor just being given out as random rewards from high level content. I did and enjoyed the quest chains that resulted in Warp II and Sleepga II and want to see more content like that.

Speaking of earned abilities, I'd like to see more "monster only" NM abilities be made available to players in some fashion, one suitably challenging of course. I mean things like multiple pets at a time like certain NM Beastmasters, or multiple elemental summons at a time like certain NM Summoners, or Utsusemi clones like certain NM Ninjas, or a Cosmic Elucidation skillchain like Tenzen's.

I'd also like to see more content like Trials of the Magians or the Einherjar therion ichor system that let you gradually work towards your goal, rather than relying on luck or money. In fact, both could use more content. What about adding some elemental shields that even non-Paladins can use, or some useful level 90+ ichor gear?

Finally, with content such as the hated 1500 Heavy Metal Plate trial, the RMT vermin have been given new life. And the new Nyzul Isle content has brought a new surge of cheating. The honest players want to see this sort of thing smashed flat. Never give up the fight against the RMT, both buyers and sellers. Never give up the fight against Nyzul Isle cheaters. I'm hoping to see many bans in the future.

There's more I'd like to ask for, lots more, but I won't burden you with it now. You're so busy already so I'll make my requests through the usual channels instead. Good luck and take care!