possible oversight with the new ilvl system?

[Rwolf]

• Make item levels easier to see.

Instead of aiming for a perfect solution, I feel it would be best to put emphasis on making it better than it is currently.

Honestly, I think it would be wise to spend more time concerned with a total UI overhaul instead of some of these recent things no one really asked for. Which would not only fix a lot of current issues with the game, but allow you a broader scope of what you're capable of doing going forward.

If item levels are going to be the new standard, then the average level that is being calculated for what your con to an enemy needs to show up somewhere. I know it seems unrealistic, however the time you spend on building a better foundation, will make it better for everything overall.

• You said you would be adding more physical damage reduction equipment, but it doesn’t look like you did.

...the goal was to close the gap that was opening up between the defensively proficient paladin and other jobs.

...we are looking into alternative methods with jobs and items

We apologize for making you worry about there not being any physical damage reduction stats...

I'm more concerned about Rune Fencer. The amount of evasion, parrying and copious amounts of magic evasion is not enough. It cannot currently tank anything of value (needing a tank job) in Adoulin. All the photos of Rune Fencer tanking Naakauls, doesn't work. Even with higher resistance, it doesn't change they aren't mitigating enough damage. Evasion has a cap proc rate, same with magic evasion/elemental resistance.

Why did Ninja become a tank? Solely because of Utsusemi. Without it, it would be in the same position Rune Fencer is in now. Can't mitigate enough damage, not enough attack power to be anything else other than a tank. I understand it's a new job but seriously the time for that excuse has past. Given the current state of the game, it should have came in within a few months with gear on par with Paladin's magic defense capabilities and magic that can mitigate more physical damage.

The ability to area of effect mitigate magic damage through Valiance and One For All, is not enough to balance itself as a tank, not even as a support type job.

• How will you be enhancing magical accuracy for blue mage, dark knight, and ninja?

We will be introducing equipment with magic accuracy, but the main method of doing this will be by increasing magical accuracy and magic damage depending on the value of your "combat skill +" for the weapon equipped in your main hand.

This catch all with "combat skill +" is getting ridiculous. I'll stop beating the dead horse about expanding combat and magic merits (However, it's still ridiculous as it would eat up significantly less development time trying to re-balance weapons/armor for all jobs that equip it.)

I think it would be more beneficial and less confusing, now that they are including magic and pet levels, etc. to just change the name to something entirely different. For example: Axe Skill+188 to something like Martial Skill+188.

I will continue to point out that hybrid jobs just need their own gear, lump all the jobs that use a combination of magic and physical abilities and spells onto a gear set.

• Make the item level of equippable items the same for each job.

I apologize for there not being enough equipment variations.

Due to the fact that there are a large amount of items in content such as skirmish, delve, and coalitions, as well as content such as wildskeeper reives that have different types of equipment, it's difficult to always have the same exact item levels for every job at any given point in time, but we will be preparing a variety of equipment that can be obtained in a variety of ways, which will enable you to procure all of the weapons for that item level.

I have a problem with this. It's not difficult at all to balance this.

• You make all the Naakauls the same difficulty, so the rewards are similar.
• You make the Naakauls scale in difficulty as new ones are released.
• Best option: You spend less time making unique skins for reive gear which no one is really going to spend time on keeping around and convert those teams to work on a set of weapons split between each tier of Naakauls. To prevent taking forever to get the weapon you want due to the amount of weapons. Make it a universal item that could potentially drop among the other loot, which you trade to an NPC for your choice of weapon. Done and done.

[FrankReynolds]

If it seems that way, it's just my inadequacy and I will do my best to work harder on this.

You can start right here. Try responding to an English post. Even one sentence. Even if it's a lie. Just pop in a few of the hot threads and say "Hey guys, we read all this stuff...".

We are also looking into Gobbiebags, but as there are risks that these will cause other inconveniences such, as items not displaying right away when logging in or changing areas, we would like to closely investigate methods that have low risk and have a high possibility of realizing (including methods other than Gobbiebags).

You already know how to do gobbie bags. Give us a couple of those now and buy yourself some time to work on a more permanent solution. Give people the option to not use them if they don't like the load times.

We'd like to avoid the consequences of nerfing Ochain, and have selected to add stats to shields we introduce here on out so they can gradually get closer to the stats of Ochain. If anything is unclear with these intentions, please let me know.

It would probably be best if you could do this sooner than later. You might want to consider doing the same thing with the bard horns. Sitting watching the same guy shout for 3 hours for a paladin or a bard is just depressing.

I believe it looked as if red mage was left out of the equation with the question I answered yesterday that was phrased "How will you be enhancing magical accuracy for blue mage, dark knight, and ninja?"

Sorry about that.

The plan is not limited to only these jobs and we will be boosting magical accuracy based on the "combat skill +" added to weapons in general.

So to be clear here, if a weapon says "Sword Skill +188", it would also give magic accuracy +(of 188?) ?

There are still some things that make me a bit hesitant about introducing a system where you can separate the appearance from the stats of equipment.

For FFXI, the animation packs are read via your main weapon, so we aren't able to do this completely with weapons. Think of it as we would have to limit it to being the same type of weapon.

In terms of armor, of the MMORPGs I have played that had this system, it resulted in a ton of people looking like they were fighting without any gear on at all.

Also, as we need to decide our position on whether or not it's okay that front-line jobs wear back-line equipment (and vice versa), as well as the fact that classic FF artifact equipment could be worn by other jobs, so please let us look into this a bit more.

We are planning to add high level equipment using graphics of popular existing items as well as revamping job-specific armor.

Please don't tie this to a convoluted synergy system. Just let crafters make the gear in it's raw form like cursed gear and then allow players to trade the two pieces in to an NPC to have the two merged.


EDIT: Also, since it seems that you are hell bent on doing stuff that makes people want to quit the game, can we get some server merges? I logged in the other day and there were only 700 people on Cerberus. Probably more than half were AFK.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Other shields will not have a block rate that gets close to Ochain; however, there will be shields that have a higher damage reduction when blocking than Ochain.

This sounds like a continuation of what I feel to be a long-standing problem with shields. Stepping away from Aegis and Ochain territory, we have size 4 shields that "don't have a block rate that gets close to size 3 shields; however they have a higher damage reduction when blocking than size 3 shields." But when all is said and done, size 3 is always the best choice in all situations, from at most level 60 through to forever. The playerbase knows this; size 3 shields always sell better than size 4 shields. The developers know this; when was the last time you introduced a size 4 shield?

This stagnation makes me wonder why you bother with a fourth size to begin with.

Personally, I'd like to see some sort of opportunity to truly advance in the use of shields, beyond the age old cry of "Get an Aegis and an Ochain, n00b!" I actually got excited to hear about this bug until you burst this bubble.

I'm sure you know that there is a damage value cap for physical blue magic spells.

Any chance of getting stuff we "should" know compiled into the actual (outdated) manuals and documentation?

[Karah]

Also, since it seems that you are hell bent on doing stuff that makes people want to quit the game, can we get some server merges? I logged in the other day and there were only 700 people on Cerberus. Probably more than half were AFK.

I'm so saddened that I'm actually in agreeance with this... merging gilgamesh onto our server was in the top 10 worst ideas ever, but now, I could see the need.

You could even send all the gilgamesh to a different sever and re-merge with 2 new servers... Just sayin'

[FrankReynolds]

I'm so saddened that I'm actually in agreeance with this... merging gilgamesh onto our server was in the top 10 worst ideas ever, but now, I could see the need.

You could even send all the gilgamesh to a different sever and re-merge with 2 new servers... Just sayin'

Lol I bet Cerberus feels the same way about us people from Hades. They would probably be glad to get rid of us and merge with another server :P

[OmnysValefor]

Cerberus had to go home to Hades. After all, that's where he's from.

[FrankReynolds]

Cerberus had to go home to Hades. After all, that's where he's from.

LOL in all this time I never thought about that.

[Tennotsukai]

Tourbillion and Barbed Crescent do not work. All blu spells need checked. Many are bad and inefficient. Also, most tests with the Tamaxchi were done with heavy strike which is a lvl 92 spell. I do not think that spell has hit dmg cap yet. I may be mistaken...

[Doombringer]

"The plan is not limited to only these jobs and we will be boosting magical accuracy based on the "combat skill +" added to weapons in general."

that's all well and good, but it kinda misses the point. since all the staves and clubs in question all give "combat skill +" in ADDITION to magic acc. so the non-stave job still ends up exactly as far behind as it was before. the problem isn't really solved, it's just pushed up the "content tier" ladder.

the non stave/club jobs are still down a boatload of magic accuracy relative to the stave/club jobs.

[Rwolf]

that's all well and good, but it kinda misses the point. since all the staves and clubs in question all give "combat skill +" in ADDITION to magic acc. so the non-stave job still ends up exactly as far behind as it was before. the problem isn't really solved, it's just pushed up the "content tier" ladder.

the non stave/club jobs are still down a boatload of magic accuracy relative to the stave/club jobs.

This. ^

It also just seems overkill. That's a lot of magic accuracy. Like with Atinian Staff on the test server:

Atinian Staff
DMG:157 Delay:366
INT+12 MND+12
Magic Accuracy+180 Magic Attack Bonus+25
Magic Damage+195
Staff Skill+215 Parrying Skill+215

If they are making "combat skill+" equal magic accuracy. That's +395 Magic Accuracy just in the weapon slot. I'm more concerned of how this makes anyone able to stick anything with that amount. Yeah it's a piece of gear that won't be common for awhile but geez... Also considering we still have more Naakauls and a potential either "endgame area" or boss of the missions that might drop higher item level gear.