Development Q&A - March 2020

[Smokenttp]

Matsui: We'll look into this! It may be included as part of Empyrean gear upgrade, but would you be fine with this? (By having it a job-specific gear, it'll allow us adding features more freely.)

Are you asking for the possibility of a new set being added for that?, if so i would rather have 2 sets then one as long as they are both meningfull and creative, if no other sets are in planned with those status in mind then it would be a good starting point.

Matsui: If you mean by adding various characteristics to the pet, such as making your pets take a role of tanks or attacker, then it won't go against the characteristic of the beastmasters' job, so we could consider this. If you feel beastmasters are lacking in this aspect, we'd like you to share your feedback regarding this.

However, please note that we consider the performance of the master and the pet as one, so having it take multiple roles will never outperform other jobs who's specifically made for that specific role.

i feel that this already kinda happens with the job due to innate pet traits , like tufflaire damage reduction or job abilities like killer instinct and snarl however the way those abilities work right now is not enough to make full use of then by being situational abilities only (killer effects needs to have the right pet even if the said pet is not a great damage dealer, snarl needs to have enmity on master, while i love snarl the way it is i still feel that if we need to tank on pet we need an extra ability to acomodate for party enmity as well, maybe something along the lines of thf Accomplice, that way we can provide for party as well, also something like a beastmaster version of bloodpact damage equipment might be an easier way out of the damage limbo the job has been in, however those could shift the damage entirely to the pet so i do not think this goes along with the team vision of master and pet working along with each other, so maybe we need an ability less situational then killer instinct to account for that, or even something different like increases pet skill chain/magic burst damage if they are opened by the master, or a "stance" job ability that allows the pet and the master to get strong by being together).

Matsui: We currently have no plans to utilize additional locations or add more variety of enemies for Apex. Would you like us to add a bit more?

Yes please,if possible consider it even outside of audolin , i have seen alot of people missing that aspect of the game of exploring new experience camps locations so having more options for those will be welcome, even if it is in old zones for nostalgia sake.

Fujito: Systematically, this is possible to add additional Mog Wardrobes. However, doing this will require additional data communication to occur; therefore it would be impossible to do. We're currently looking into ways to expand the amount of storage; however, we cannot answer when this would be possible at the moment.[/QUOTE]

this is a very welcome addition for people who levels multiple jobs specially those jobs who needs to acomodate for a variety of roles like rdm , bst, pup , sch.

I know we should try to keep the questions clean but i kinda have to ask those anyway, if a question was not answered would you guys still pick then up in a futre thread? like should i make then again in a future post or something?

[Selindrile]

Thanks so much for the information about treasure hunter!

[Ethalio]

Matsui: We currently have no plans to utilize additional locations or add more variety of enemies for Apex. Would you like us to add a bit more?

I'm currently working on WotG missions and thought it'd be nice to have Apex mobs in remote locations in the past areas, e.g. the area in front of movalpolos in North Gustaberg (S).

[Frodnon]

Matsui: What color would you like to see added?

Personally? I want blue. But just having more colors would be great. I want a bunch of taru running around in them. Blue, red, green, purple, white...

[Ozaii]

Are there plans to add armor similar in quality to the malignance set from the lilith htbf for other jobs. With high meva and dt as well as fantastic offensive power with its hight stp and high physical damage limit + it would rock if we had gear like this for other jobs.

[Smokenttp]

Since i canot edit my previous post i would like to dive a bit deeper on the empyreal armor around bst question. Right now in a "macro scenario" i feel that jobs gravitate towards 6 major types of equipments, even mage ones:

Full defense (focused entirely on damage reduction + evasions + hp).
Hybrid ACC/utility + Defense ( focused on trying to survive while having enough acc to still hit monsters).
Full ACC (focused entire on acc to deal with high evasion monsters).
Ideal TP set (x-hit builds, wich focus entirely on getting high amounts of tp as soon as possible).
Full damage (focused on things like weapon skill damage/ magic attack bonus).
Hybrid ACC+Damage (an hibrid between damage pieces and acc in order to hit evasive targets).

While the game acomodate for more statuses like attack bonus, those are often delt by suport jobs in party situations. The game does present you with different scenarios so either you have enough acc/ damage to use your ideal/strongest sets or the game forces you to enter an hybrid set , if even in a hybrid set you are having a hard time you are pretty much forced into a full defense/full acc set, wich comes with a couple of issues. If you are in a full acc set you are in high risk of dying and if you are in a full defense set you are most likely just surviving without hitting anything.

The issue i see with pet equipment and why bst is not able right now to perform well according to the developers vision of fighting alongside the pets is that they are lacking equipment that fullfills some of those categories for both pet and master at the same time, so while malignance set (wich is a great exemple of hybrid defensive + acc gear) is on beastmaster it does not affect pets, therfore it creates the following scenario where either i change to a defensive armor for pet and die as the master or let my pet die and enter a 5 minutes cooldown timer this is not exactly an uncommun scenario either, take neak as an exemple and a chainspell meteor can easily spell death for either pet/master or both.

Lets say i am trying to solo neak, by the first chain spell all trusts are dead and if the pet dies as well this means pretty much a game over (wich is completely fine in neaks case as it is suposed not a soloable monster despite some well equipped jobs and great players already proved the contrary). However in a party scenario i cant justify my loss of dps/tanking pet and ask the party to wait 5 minutes untill i get a new pet , sure we have super revitalizer and bestial loality wich does work for short fights or fights where we can wait/ delay it, however in situations like dynamis divergence this spells an high period of time where the master will be without pets, and in a timed event this could spell pretty much a failure. So what bst lacks in terms of equipment is full defensive and/or a strong hybrid acc+defense sets that works for both pet and master at the same time, this would allow us at least to keep the pets for longer without becoming a dead weight for our party.

As for ways to make bst want to play close to pets i did mention the skillchain thing before but now i realized why, this is mostly for the time i spent playing pup , speedloader helped alot automatons when their damage was low mainly because the skillchain bonus on it was so high that making skillchains with the pet was actually worth it, despite the horrible damage output from the automatons at the time, so that may be a way of geting players to work together with the pets (in pup scenario since attachments can cover for pet defense you are free to have an defenseive gear to focus on master only thous it suffer way less from the problem ai mentioned earlier then bst), however other things could be interresting solutions as well, like the most recent job ability added for drg could be pretty usefull on bst with some adjustments (making damage taken to master transfer to pet), so there are a couple of things that could be done in that regard (and please consider my sugestion of an accoplice like ability for bst while at it so the pet can steal 50% of the enmity from a party member, this could also create an interresting niche for bst to fill in as well).

[Boxta]

Firstly Thank You for the hard work the team have continued to put into the game, I've played since launch and don't plan to stop any time soon. See my comments below on your Q&A.

New Apex Mobs and Apex Mob Areas:
- This would hugely enhance game play experience by allowing players to face new mob types, experience difference zone areas for combat again and experience zone music that they haven't had in a long time. I imagine this might help with server loads by spreading people out as well.
- This is great to help with camp congestion
- I'm not sure from memory if Ionis works with Apex mobs but I believe it does, by putting mobs in other areas you could use Signet, Sigil and Sanction to get crystals and relative points for conquest etc. which is a nice bonus
- In my opinion you should try to match any mobs types to the area that you use, in that vein, some zone suggestions: 1. Movalpolos 2. Castle Zvahl Baileys 3. Pso'Xja 4. Alzadaal Undersea Ruins 5. Mamook 6. Mount Zhayolm 7. La Vaule (S) 8. Grauberg (S) 9. Vunkerl Inlet (S)

[Urmom]

And bst still the red headed step child.

[Niooo]

I think this is my most sought after issue I would like resolved. Space! I would even consider a trade off- Make the wardrobes interchangeable. Example:
If we could disable waredrobe 4, and enable mog safe 1 . I would take something like that! Of course, dream scenario is wardrobe 5/6.

[Enochroot]

Very sad indeed about Monstrosity. After years of on-and-off play, I'm still only at 5595 levels out of a possible 6336 levels with the available species. Such great content - no need to worry about gear, next to impossible to die, just cruise along and wipe out some mobs, collect some crystals, knock out some daily RoE's. Relaxing.