Proposed Freedom of Eorzean Information Act

The Final Fantasy XIV Development Team, hereby referred to as "Team Yoshi-P," has made it very clear that they are taking fan-input very seriously when it comes to future development of the game. As a member of the original closed-beta, I felt that we were, for the most part, ignored, so it gives me faith for Eorzea's future that Team Yoshi-P is giving this game a true testing ground.

However, one thing I've noticed from the fans is an outpouring of requests to do away with features that we have little-to-no information on in the first place. I am fearful that we might be getting ahead of ourselves in demanding the destruction of mechanisms we know little about because we could end up facing a system we like even less when all that was really necessary was a re-tweaking of the algorithms by which the original features functioned. DEX barely gives any noticeable bonus what-so-ever, but are we demanding for the abolishment of Dexterity? No. It needs to be fixed is all. Communication is key at this time.

What I am requesting is the freedom of information regarding the game mechanics we know little about. Under normal circumstances, these calculations would be left to the player base - but these are not normal circumstances. we stand waist deep in an unofficial "Charlie Testing" stage and our "player base" is ...well, look at these forums. Before we do away with certain features for good, let's hear how they work.

SP Fatigue
Surplus is officially recognized and has clear indicators in-game. It also has many players on edge and pissed off. I'm one of them, of course, who are you to tell me I cannot focus on one goal at a time? However, before we demand its destruction and leave ourselves open to the possibility of future "Astral Burn" proportions of legal game mechanic abuse, let's hear how it works EXACTLY. When does each tier rise, how long does it take being logged out to drop one tier? How long does this tier-drop last? How much faster is it if we spend time on other classes? In the end, we may still all agree that we'd rather deal with people flying ahead of us through loopholes than have our own efforts to succeed hindered by the game itself - one we will eventually be paying for the privilege to play.

Phantom Fatigues
This information should have been available from the start. It seems that every action of the game has a possible fatigue attached to it with no clear indications in-game aside from a frustrated and failing player. We need exact information on how the following mechanisms work - so that we may give appropriate feedback on hos they must be tweaked (or destroyed) so that honest players with an extreme work ethic will not be hindered by the attempt to weed out the forces of abuse by for-profit agencies. The following are the possible fatigues I have noticed:

Gathering Fatigue (also known as "break fatigue," and "phantom fatigue," where a gatherer begins one-hit-failing all attempts to procure items)

Crafting Fatigue (a drastic decrease in stability and success rates)

Drop Fatigue (A rumoured anti-monopolization mechanism by which farming one area for too long causes drops to cease)

What triggers them? How long do they last? Can class-swapping speed their recovery?

Gear Restrictions
A hot-topic right now is whether or not to restrict gear by class and/or rank. I'm of the personal opinion that I don't need to be a Rank 50 Gladiator to know how to put on a pair of armored pants instead of my mage's kecks - thought it might help in making the most of them. If a player wants to wear less effective gear, it is a sign of their ignorance or willingness to sacrifice. Abolishing the open system is not necessary for obedience and class identity IF WE HAVE INFORMATION about the future.

The Beetle Harness was able to be equipped by 16 of 22 jobs - does that take away the identity of those sixteen classes? Of course not. When the game expands and caps are raised - will THAT gear be restricted to class as was the case in XI? If so - is the reworking of lower gear truly necessary? Give me more information that I may respond apropos.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I'm frustrated with the immature fear of change and hatred of anything mildly inconvenient. If I wanted to play FFXI, I'd go back and reactivate my account. Let's make XIV something new, but something that works. If the players understand by what mechanisms they are hindered, they will not be so frustrated in their attempts to plan ahead when it comes to getting the most out of their efforts, and in turn will be less likely to attack anything that doesn't immediately benefit them.

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. In order to give appropriate feedback to the developers, the playerbase need more information about the things they are commenting on. I feel that SE isn't 100% open with these important game mechanics. Being a crafter, it pisses me off to no end as to why I would suddenly fail 3-4 synths in a row after a few successful ones. It just didn't make sense to me.

The system about you are what you ware is not new. Mabinogi don;t have classes in the sence that i pick rng. I make my character into a rng bu using bow and arrows and gear that is not too heavy or light. Mabinogi allows to add enchantments to gear which do various things. Like up stats. Also each ability passive or action adds stats for said type. Like cure increased hp stats bow skill increases rng like abilities. Various spells add skills to better those spells. I made a true red mage in mabinogi. I had medium armor had a sword skill and a few elemental skills and cure + bandage. And you was never stuck with these builds. One day i lrvel my character as a arch next day i level her up as a red mage, day after I was a ninja.

pretty much mabinogi allows mages to have heavy gear if they wanted to. Just add enchantments to the gear which add to you spell casting.

This ffxiv could do with this system, but I agree getting rid of stuff for the sake of ignornce is silly.

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Originally Posted by Benediction

Being a crafter, it pisses me off to no end as to why I would suddenly fail 3-4 synths in a row after a few successful ones. It just didn't make sense to me.

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Because the system is not based on 'skill', something else (the random factor) needs to be added to make sure that everyone doesn't pop out HQ's over and over again or no one will ever fail a synth. MMO's will never come down to 'skill' either, especially for a feature such as crafting, so the random factor is not going anywhere anytime soon.

It is certain that there are features that are not explained well enough but this is not one of them. Especially the changes that are coming can be interpreted in many ways (how they will implement auto-attack, what kind of endgame events they are talking about etc.) so giving appropriate feedback is hard.

SP fatigue is going to be adjusted, not eliminated. And the feature is not fully implemented. It has been stated that in the future when you hit fatigue you will earn points towards something else in proportion to how fatigue you. It is a goal AFTER leveling that not all will be able to take advantage of. A benefit for the hardcore players.