New Letter from the Producer, XII

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

Actually, Yoshi-P said this:



Which means to me that they want to start focusing on other leveling options, such as SP gained in dungeons and quest-based leveling, not just straight up grind parties. IMO, it's a huge step in the right direction.

Edit: DOH, Wolfie beat me to it.

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It might be hard to produce enough content for a game where players can level multiple classes.

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Originally Posted by nRosenberg

You have to return to the counter to get more leves.

So I assume you are from the PS3 playerbase?

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No, I play on PC. How is that relevant to being able to obtain leves from aetherytes (or guards in camps etc)?

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Originally Posted by Ceons

No, I play on PC. How is that relevant to being able to obtain leves from aetherytes (or guards in camps etc)?

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lol nevermind my post I mistook it as a question because of the "?" haha

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Originally Posted by normalforce

Would it be a bad thing to also get leves from the guards stationed around the camps?

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They should have made them like FoV so you could grab them from there respective camps, then have special Guildleves like NM hunts available in town.

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Originally Posted by giftforce

It might be hard to produce enough content for a game where players can level multiple classes.

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in the end it will most likely be monotonous (XI had tons of ways to level even though 1/2 of it was on Robber Crabs) but the fact that there will be so many different options to leveling will break up the monotony. As opposed to doing Dunes and Ranine x8 each reset.

With guildmarks more likely to be earned in the cities in which the guilds are located, AND the reduction in exp from leve linking, hopefully people will have more reason to stay in LL or Gridania.

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Originally Posted by Richard

he is not making the game more casual he is optimizing it for casual players. there will still be the party based leveling through grind camps + xp chains + quests. More options = better game. The fact they are also going with a more sideways content progression vs. upwards leveling progression = AMAZING.

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You mean like FFXI camps? where you pick a area and fight? or more like pick up a quest and do it with players?

The letter sounds promising. I am glad that Guildleve's will become a crappy form of EXP for party formats as I hate it as a system anyway, and I love the idea of making the other city states important again.

But I do with we'd have gotten a date for 1.18 :(

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Originally Posted by AlexiaKidd

They should have made them like FoV so you could grab them from there respective camps, then have special Guildleves like NM hunts available in town.

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I would have loved that!

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Originally Posted by Zenaku

You mean like FFXI camps? where you pick a area and fight? or more like pick up a quest and do it with players?

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If they are talking about implementing XP chains then yes that should be the general idea. Players would be able to:

a) get a light/full party together and run an instance, behest or find a mob grinding camp to get XP. The incentive to do this is that the faster you kill, the more XP bonus you get.

b) solo leves for XP or do them in a party to complete them faster. Remember Yoshida said REDUCTION of bonus not REMOVAL. The XP will not be as great as before but I doubt it will be so drastically reduced that leves will never be worth your time.

c) pickup sidequests or (hopefully daily/repeatable) quests at frontier hubs for XP. They may also optimize some for party play.

Nice news. I like it!

I was getting bored of doing static leves. If i can have more ways of level i'll be happier.
Dungeons will own for sure. And good thing they will have multiple paths to go so we dont bored doing the same thing all again and again.
Variation is a must and a plus. Continue like that SE, you are doing just fine :)

"When FINAL FANTASY XIV was launched last September, it was stated via official channels that guildleves will form the heart of the game. Today, I’d like to officially retract that statement.

Guildleves will no longer be central to FINAL FANTASY XIV."

While it's simply a statement of intent, its so... so very beautiful to hear.<read> :D

Hmmm. Well I'm all for more quests other than guild leves as a form of gaining SP. Surprising changes to make Guildleves mostly for the benefit of soloers though.

One things for sure, anyone holding their breathe for cutscenes for these new regional quests is likely to collapse. Don't come back to the forums raging there are no cutscenes. That's just not feasible for them at the pace and quantity they are likely working at.

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Originally Posted by Hippo

With guildmarks more likely to be earned in the cities in which the guilds are located, AND the reduction in exp from leve linking, hopefully people will have more reason to stay in LL or Gridania.

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I don't mind staying @ LL or Gridania as long as I have mail system. @ my server, not sure about others, ONLY Ul'dah Market are full, others are empty.

So mail system, {Can I have it Please?}

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Originally Posted by Greed

* Lose sp from linking .
* Gain sp from completing leves.
If you want to blame someone than blame the people who fail their leves.
( 4~6 People linking dune only to fail it before the last mob.)

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They arent doing this as a punishment for failing leves.... This is a much needed upgrade/change to leves. I'll be happy to finally get away from ugly thanalan and return to La Noscea where water is all around and the grass is green.

and 4-6 links? I guess youre new to partying or something. people who know what theyre doing dont go past 3 links.

Well it's really like instead of making levequest a catch all, which was in the failed tanaka era vision, they are going back to the idea that levequest is casual friendly, short solo stings(weekday), and other, perhaps more traditional(go out and kill stuff, explore the world) grind for the hardcore/weekend things.

So it is basically a mimic of WoW like thinking with a more modern twist. You do stuff in solo times and do stuff in party times...hopefully not as pronounce.

I think the rethink has a lore more merit, then the tanaka era. The tanaka era thinking was just pure foolishness to think you can have one thing completely funnel into some cheap features (retainers rings a bell).

I LOVE YOU YOSHI-P!!!!

I'd like to take this opportunity to throw it out there that this letter, combined with everything I read in the new 4Gamer interview, make me feel very confident about the direction XIV is headed in, or at the very least the hands it's in.

Yoshida-san seems to be hitting all three bases here: He's got his head on straight as pertains to priority, he's got his team's eyes all focused in the same direction, and he continues to logically and objectively interpret the feedback (with the help of you reps of course, big thanks all around) of a playerbase he hasn't neglected to keep in contact with. I like where this is going; even news that makes me nervous at first tends to become something I'm excited for after the big picture comes into view.

We've got a long way to go, sure, but it looks like the travel is shaping up to be quite the adventure. Been a pretty smooth ride since that initial trainwreck, at least. Keep up the good choices and thanks for the dedication, Team Yoshi-P!

If the instances are content meant to mold into the 'more casual friendly' content by being content designed to be done in an hour or less, I am eager to see the longer, more hardcore content.

With the guild marks change it looks like there trying to get people into Limsa and Grid and stop clogging up U'ldah :) I like the leve change, solo play gets leve's and group get the 2 raid dungeons for now, hopefully much more to come in later patches!

I'm excited about the levequest changes.

For one, this may finally push people out of Ul'dah. Linking won't be as appealing and the thought of looking at the reward can also try to inspire others to go to a different region.

And I shouldn't have to constantly see shouts like "Leve link party? Do you need it? Dunes, Levin, Ranine (must have this)", take it far away and bury it in a hole.

I'm a casual player and I'm glad leve's are taking a backseat from the only source of EXP. Sometimes I want to play with others (when I have the time of course) and EXP-Grind.

O god, i can die happy now.No more leve grinding

Good letter.

I like the deemphasis on leves. Due to their unweildy nature, they're better of as solo-centric content.

The situation at launch, where party content was open-world grinding while leves were used to fill in the time with faction point, gil, and items acquisition was a pretty good mix, IMO.

Hopefully the bonus rewards for success will outweigh failing them, or people will still fail the same leves :(. They arent doing reballancing of battles yet in this patch.... will see the same amount of monsters, so maybe develits best friend will still be the most horrible leve in the world.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Good letter.

I like the deemphasis on leves. Due to their unweildy nature, they're better of as solo-centric content.

The situation at launch, where party content was open-world grinding while leves were used to fill in the time with faction point, gil, and items acquisition was a pretty good mix, IMO.

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Do you think leves will stay as the only method for earning guild mark points or will they allow people to earn them in ground-centric content?

Good changes on the leve system. It seems designed to cater to a solo player in overall innate design, anyway -- running leves shouldn't constitute group content. If they're relegating it to solo stuff, hopefully that's because they're giving groups genuine group stuff to do, rather than steamrolling randomly spawned mobs for a quest a few times every 36 hours.

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Originally Posted by normalforce

Do you think leves will stay as the only method for earning guild mark points or will they allow people to earn them in ground-centric content?

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they arent the only method now...

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Originally Posted by normalforce

Do you think leves will stay as the only method for earning guild mark points or will they allow people to earn them in ground-centric content?

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I dunno, he never said anything that would hint to an answer for that.

However, due to guildmark rewards being more targeted, (if you want BSM marks, go to Limsa, etc), they should, theoretically, be "easier" to get since it won't be so random anymore.

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Originally Posted by producer letter

Levequests yielding guild marks will be limited to city-states hosting the corresponding guild only. In compensation, we will make it easier for players to amass the guild marks they desire.

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I don't quite understand how so many people get comforted by Yoshida's empty words of self praise and foreshadowing. Everytime this guy mentions his "super duper amazing" patch and praises himself he provides so very little information about it. As it is the patch is being delayed and now we're closing in on the dates that mark the beginning of the new release date window and we still have nearly nothing to go on. He thinks this letter was a wall of text? He barely even told us anything, all he keeps doing is babbling on and on about his vision for the next patch and the one after that without giving any kind of details.

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Originally Posted by Ashthra

Good changes on the leve system. It seems designed to cater to a solo player in overall innate design, anyway -- running leves shouldn't constitute group content. If they're relegating it to solo stuff, hopefully that's because they're giving groups genuine group stuff to do, rather than steamrolling randomly spawned mobs for a quest a few times every 36 hours.

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Yeah. This wasn't specifically stated in detail, but I am hoping that this is the implication.

And yoshi ties another carrot on and waves it infront of the players.

Awesome letter. Just what I wanted to hear.

Having guildleves as the main focus of the game was one of the biggest mistakes they made.

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Originally Posted by Blitz0309

And yoshi ties another carrot on and waves it infront of the players.

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except the string starts to end in 1-2 weeks? What are all you trolls gonna complain about when all of this stuff is finally implemented?

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Originally Posted by Richard

except the string starts to end in 1-2 weeks? What are all you trolls gonna complain about when all of this stuff is finally implemented?

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that it still isnt as much stuff as what wow has, thats what they will claim

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Originally Posted by Blitz0309

And yoshi ties another carrot on and waves it infront of the players.

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Considering we've been sitting on a garbage heap for a while, carrots look good.

Like sex.

I'm pretty excited for 1.18 now :B

Once again I got really mixed messages from his writing style. First he says how leves will no longer be the center of XIV which makes me feel absolutely ecstatic because it truly sounds too good to be true. Then the rest of the letter is all about how they are working on leves? Leve's are my most hated aspect of this entire game but what will there be to replace them? Only time will tell. As is always with SE it's better not to assume absolutely anything until we see these changes in action. I can't help feeling a glimmer of hope with this sift of focus but I hope they realize that currently NPC quests are exactly the same as leves if they don't do something about it.

My reactions to this letter is little bit mixed. I was a expecting a rehaul to the battle system and some parts of the game. A restructure of pretty much everything, I was not. Lots of it I like, a little bit I don't, but overall it looks good.

The main thing I'm not that happy with, is upping the exp on the guildleves. As a primary soloer, I don't want my leveling experience made easier. But from a business perspective, this move makes sense I guess.

On that note, this line looks enticing,

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Light parties can exploit the versatility offered by classes to conduct forays into beast tribe settlements, something that a lone adventurer would find grueling.

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Oooo please, please, pretty please, sign me up. ^^


I'm glad to see that DoH and DoL will not be put on backburner or swept under the carpet. Having these matter and be a cornerstone part of the game is something I always thought was a really nice aspect of it.

I also like that the guildleves will start offering city orientated rewards. I think this is a really nice move, and will help distribute people throughout Eorzea. I just hope they don't up the guild marks too much.

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We still have some ways to go, but FINAL FANTASY XIV will gradually shift from being a grind-centric game to one that offers enjoyment for all playing styles and circumstances with its ever-expanding variety of content.

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This is what I'm happiest to read of all. I believed with the structure of FFXIV, this could be done, and it's nice to see the plans for it.

To sum up my thoughts overall... you guys have sure been busy, Yoshi-P-tachi. Keep up the good work. :)

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

that it still isnt as much stuff as what wow has, thats what they will claim

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I'll play the worlds smallest violin for them on my new Bard lulul