Ask Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XVI! (Exploring patch 2.3)

In regards to Ramuh EX drops, it is weapons and rings only. Will you consider adding earrings and bracelets too? Or are they meant for Shiva? If so, seems like there should be 2 future primals then: Shiva and.......?

While the new dungeons are great to play (Tamtara was amazing, big props to the guys behind that story and the bossfights!), imagine the rage when literally every boss chest of our first runs kept dropping stupid crafting mats which are easy to get with seals anyways. It is especially frustrating after the final boss fight. In levelling dungeons there was the tradition of giving a weapon or chest/leg piece and you felt like you achieved something. Why can't you turn off the crafting mats for the final chest at least, so it feels like an actual reward? Getting filtered water after fighting the Kraken is like the game laughing in my face...
Why not keep the mats in the Grand Company store and just have gear drop? Unneeded gear can be handed in and thus you earn extra seals. This feels like a much more rewarding route than the current frustrating state, not to mention with he removal of crafting mats loot tables finally get better chances so that you have a bit of a hope to get a full set of gear BEFORE the next patch. Yes I am still trying to get the full Shikaree and Fistfighter sets, and no I have had no luck at all.

EDIT: So I just got out of a Tamtara run with literally all boss chests dropping crafting mats. Seriously Square Enix, why do you even bother designing new armour sets when you don't want us to get them? I really want this to be answered, this is one of the things severely dampering my enjoyment of the new dungeons, as well designed they may be.

With The Hunt, every time an elite mark appears in a zone it is dead within seconds. Are there any plans to adjust or scale monsters HP, spawn times or spawn locations?

With the implementation of hunts, people who use third party software have again gained another advantage. This is detailed here, http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...r-Take-a-look.. Respectfully, Yoshida's response regarding third party tools has been disappointing. This continues to break the game for playstation players, and anyone morally against cheating, making it near impossible to get a claim on a mark. Right now casuals can't really get any marks, they can get about 5 marks for the day, compare to people getting 100-200 a day due to a group of them using radar.

First off, so that I don't sound like a completely ungrateful brat: I do appreciate the time and effort put into the patch. There's a lot of stuff here that we've been looking forward to, and a ton of new stuff to do, which helps keep things fresh. And there are at least some hints that the dev team is listening to us (ie: making Fates spawn more quickly - in theory - and making Primal fights that don't rely quite as much on latency).

But yes, there are a lot of problems as well that need to be addressed. Many of them people have already mentioned.

1) The Hunt is the biggest one. As it is now... I think everyone's main reaction that I've seen (including my own) is to shake his or her head and ask "what was SE thinking?" The mobs have WAY too little health, it's far too difficult to actually get a decent reward on them, and with SE pretty much turning a blind eye to 3rd party software, that just sticks the knife in deeper. The weekly mark isn't really even worth it.

Some possible fixes to at least help address the problem: Give the marks a lot more health. Make at least B ranks spawn more rapidly. Give more rewards, and/or make it easier for all participants (or most) to get the full or at least near-full rewards. Make the elite mark for the week not drop things for people without the bill for it. And be more pro-active about actually finding people using 3rd party software to find these things, and punish them severely.

The daily marks aren't immune to these problems: the rewards in marks are pretty small for the amount of time required for them, especially when you compare them to how many marks are needed to purchase rewards (as at least one other has mentioned). And the half-hour or so FATE mobs aren't... terrible, although they aren't my favorite thing, but making a daily hunt target a mob that only pops every multiple of hours? Seriously, who thought that was a good idea? It would also be nice to have a little bit of a nicer reward if you actually do all the marks on the bill, rather than have it be a sort of afterthought "oh, have a tiny bit extra since you went out of your way to do all of it!"

2) Please please PLEASE for the love of the Twelve stop forcing FATEs on us every update. I get that y'all invested a lot in your F.A.T.E. system, and were proud of the idea and all. But the implementation is, was, and remains, very flawed. And as much as you want us to like your Fates and embrace them, *forcing* us to do them with more and more content every patch isn't helping matters. Truly.

At the very least, work on implementing FATEs much better. Putting them in their own separate instance if a person wishes to participate, for example, would help with some things like causing area lag/90ks, level sync problems, interfering with people trying to do other things in the area, etc.

3)Chocobo raising is... well, it has potential if you do more with it, but as it stands it's pretty bland. The small amount of experience is practically not worth it. The materials used for it are linked only to FC and are going to be very limited, with the leaders having to divvy up what goes to who, which is pretty bad for individuals trying to raise chocobos and just asking for FC Drama. And like others, I thought that the actual raising would have a little more interaction than just sitting and watching one of a small number of cutscenes time and again.

4) Agreed on the small amount of actual loot in the dungeon chests, compared to the old myth items like potash. Yeah, it's nice enough to get those, but they should be a possible bonus, and especially not take up the one slot of the last boss chest. We already have to fight the RNG for the loot tables to actually get the specific piece in the specific job that we want, then lot against 3 other people - let us at least have a few more chances at equipment each dungeon!

Would it be possible to add some separated inventory slot to store all the tackles and baits for fishing? I like to be prepared to various combination when I'm out fishing on the fields but it's really annoying having to withdraw everytime all I think I could use from retainers and store it again when I finished.

Ooh yes, I've thought before that a "tackle box" would be a great idea - separate inventory so that bait doesn't take up so many inventory slots. Likewise, putting ventures and the quest items for beastmen quests someplace else would be extremely useful as well.

Private Chamber Gardening pots.

We recently started growing some krakka roots for members of our free company, but
the distribution to our members of these seems tricky to maintain.

So would it be possible for you to implement private gardening in our private chambers?
1 or 2 gardening pots for our private rooms would be nice.
(That way gardening wont be as restricted as it currently is)

Since the hunt questions are over running this, When do you plan to add the Sands of Time to the New Crystal Tower?

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Originally Posted by Maleha

Yes I am still trying to get the full Shikaree and Fistfighter sets, and no I have had no luck at all.

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Just want to note that to get full sets, you'll have to run all three dungeons. Some pieces only exist in one or two of the dungeons.
I have seen every piece of every set from the 2.2 dungeons and I didn't even run them that many times... Once per day for DR: Expert plus some few extra runs of each (not every day for the extra).

Wrong thread

I like the bear traps in Hullbreaker and the Spike Balls in Halatali Hard. Can you add more of these mechanics to regular dungeons. They really make me laugh when people walk into them on accident.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MsKirsten

In regards to Ramuh EX drops, it is weapons and rings only. Will you consider adding earrings and bracelets too? Or are they meant for Shiva? If so, seems like there should be 2 future primals then: Shiva and.......?

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Shiva is a girl. She'd have more than one accessory.....:P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ManaKing

I like the bear traps in Hullbreaker and the Spike Balls in Halatali Hard. Can you add more of these mechanics to regular dungeons. They really make me laugh when people walk into them on accident.

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This gave me a really bad concussions with spiked balls and cramped my legs by bear traps. :P Of course it made ma laugh from it.

I think the main concern about patch 2.3 has been The Hunt.

Some of what I'm asking has already been asked but I think there's a few other issues that haven't been addressed. I will post them in 3 lines\questions because they are all related.

- People using 3rd party programs to assist with hunting, giving them an unfair advantage (cheating) vs others. What will be done about this?

- People ignore small marks because the reward is too low in comparison to the weekly mark, B, A and S rank rewards. Is something going to be done about this as well?

- B, A and S marks are killed within seconds of their spawn, and people tend to "zerg" them down in big groups, so it's very difficult to get the maximum reward out of it, and honestly it doesn't feel that much like "hunting". On top of that the community is becoming quite toxic because of the hunts. Everyone complaints and sometimes insults others because "they didn't wait" when killing a mark or ranked monster, and it's quite saddening because one of the things that makes FF14 great is the community.

Will you add HP (Health) Scaling for The Hunt Mobs, please?

You have the systems and technology already: You fixed FATEs so that they scale / increase / last longer the more Players participate.

You learned your lesson at the end of 1.0 with Atmos (how the entire server would zerg Atmos, and you made adjustments).

Please fix Hunt Mobs HP so everyone can participate. Thanks!

The story line for Tam-Tara hard mode was Amazing! do you plan on bringing Edda back to expand on her story? :o

1. Are there any plans to introduce future dungeons with story lines as detailed at Tam-Tara Hard Mode?

2. There didn't seem to be much done to Scholars with the 2.3 patch except that many people have noticed the fairies are less responsive with the new update. This goes for Summoner pets as well. Are there any plans to fix this issue?

can we have more guild ( Free Company ) like PvP , questing as FC groups , speciall missions only for FC members that can participate inside their house and outside ?

inside the FC houses area many free company contest for interior design or mini games hide and seek , i dont know anything funny and stupid to do with FC vs FC thing in that area u got the idea XD lol

Is there any plans to add new levequests?

As it currently is levequests are mostly only used for leveling crafting and gathering, It would nice if there actually was new battle content for us to tackle with light or even full parties out of these.

Hunts

PC users use a plugin that tracks/radars the monsters and know where they are located and when they spawn. Console users can't even kill them, the monsters are never up..

Are you going to ban these users that are using 3rd party programs? How is this fair?

ive noticed with the hunts now no one reallly ques for df anymore. so i am in a spot where the hunts are dead to fast and hard to get to with noone callling out locations and already being a dps so those 20 minute df waits are now like an hour.

is there anyway this can be fixed or are we doomed to live int he hopes of randomly finding a grou in hunts and df lol.

Do you hate us PS3 users so much? Its bad enough that literally NONE of us can do Odin or Bahamut due to lagging (I can't even see them). And now we are EXCLUDED again for the S rank and sometimes A rank hunts. Forget about the S rank cause I can't even see them (like Odin/Bahamut) and most of the A ranks are "invisible" to me too due to lagging!!!

How many PS3 users do you have in your entire subscribers? And those are the ones that won't advance as quickly as the rest in terms of gear-wise since we are excluded from the Allied Seals drops from missing out the S and A ranks due to lagging. We will always be behind PC/PS4 users for exchanging Allied Seals to Oils/Sands/Alexandrite access.

Huge SIGH........

Is there any more information about what kind of mini games will be implemented? Personally speaking, I really hope to see some quality games that I actually want to play with friends here, not like what was thrown together in FFXI.

Also, please please please consider adding real-world copyright-free games to this (Chess, Checkers, tic-tac-toe). Hell even "another" clone of the puzzle games that are popular on smart phones would be nice.

"After the release of Patch 2.3, we have identified a number of players that have used illicit actions to complete certain content. On Jul. 14, 2014, 9 accounts that engaged in illicit activities have been given a temporary ban."

Temporary ban? RMT gets permanent for breaking ToS but people using ffxivapp/3rd party programs that have radar on it and other stuff only get a temporary ban? Why?

9 people out of how many? If you can only "temporary ban" users who get reported by saying something about the third party program, when they get a temporary ban that only means they won't say anything to anyone to avoid being banned again, BUT still use the third party program and ruin the hunt system for everyone else

Can actions be taken against this ffxivapp and other third party plugins that give PC users advantages over console users?

If you want hunts a success, make it a pop with a lot of ??? For each party like Abyssea in xi, can make the items purchasable with company seals

After witnessing The Hunt's arrival, is there something the development team wishes they'd done differently?

Do you have any intention of increasing the amount of allied seals gained from Daily Hunts?

It's very difficult for some players to do their weekly hunts because the mob is being hunted by the whole server. Do you have any plans to change the weekly hunt into something more similar to a leve mob so then players will be able to complete it without having to compete with their whole server?

In regards to the future of FFXIV: ARR, will we ever see an implementation of Depth of Field while in game? Perhaps with the DX11 client? Currently, the graphics options have DoF for cutscenes only and it would be a nice visual effect to see DoF while in game.

May I suggest increasing the drop rate for Alexandrite from FATES for those people that can't do Hunts due to lagging or has no radar (most of us). At this time, FATES farming for Alexandrite is too inattractive with the same drop rate as Atmas and we need 75 Alexandrite to 12 Atmas (do the maths!).

This question ties in with the recent addition of The Hunt, however the issue I'm wanting to bring up has been a long standing one.

During large scale fights, like The Hunt or large FATEs or world bosses such as Odin or Behemoth, often times enemies or even ones own party will not render due to overpopulation. Is there any way that you can implement a render order mechanic that ensures that party members and engaged enemies are given rendering priority?

I feel as though this is not only important for the existing content I've mentioned, but also for any content that the dev team decides to add to the overworld in the future.

Simply making the game engine render entities in an order such as (Party > Engaged Enemy > Party Pets > Enemy > NPC > Other Players) would sufficiently alleviate the problem from here going forward.

(I have a topic where I go into more detail about this issue here : http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...osses-Hunts%29 )

Yoshi-P mentioned in a previous Letter From the Producer that new Limit Breaks would be added to make jobs/classes stand out more. When will this happen?

So, we have Second Coil of Bahamut (Savage).
Any chance of seeing Savage Primal Mode, like Ifrit (Savage), or Ramuh (Savage)?

Hunts

Please consider putting a cap on hunt seals/nerfing hunt rewards. People are doing nothing but hunts and it's hurting other content in the game because the hunt rewards are too good.

Any plans to modify the uncreative/lazy design that is the ATMA Fate Grind, the subsequent FATE camp heavy of Animus, and lastly, the market crashing Novus?

None of those stages are catered to casual players. How you intend to fix this? What other alternatives are there?

FATES

Are there any plans to reduce spawn time and increase the number of FATES active on any given map? The spawn time and # of active FATEs should scale with number of players in any given zone.

ATMA/Alexandrite FATE grind is already a horrendously lazy and frankly, idiotic design. The logic here is that if you're going to gate content with RNG, at least allow your customers to do more FATEs in a period than what is available currently. The logic is to have more attempts despite the ABSOLUTELY CRAPPY DROP RATE. If the intent is to copy mechanics of successful Western MMORPGs, DO IT RIGHT. NEVER GATE QUEST DROPS BEHIND LOW BALL RNG. Asian games are horrible because of this. Don't be that.

In previous interviews, Yoshida-san had mentioned that a Mac client was being developed.
My question is when can we expect to see said client pushed to beta? My fiancee and I both play through bootcamp currently, but it's not really an ideal situation.

We have several friends that want to come over from other MMOs, but they will not do so until the game can be run natively in OSX. Help me give them some solid answers, please!

Please consider increasing the daily hunts' rewards. 1 measly Allied Seals and 2 for FATE mobs!!! No wonder no one is doing daily hunts!!! Please even out these rewards: increase daily hunts' rewards and decrease S ranks so that people that cannot do the S ranks or even A ranks due to PS3 lagging can at least get a decent Allied Seals from daily ones.

2 words.... TACKLE BOX!!!!!!!!!!

By now you've seen all the issues with Elite Hunt. What are your current plans to address this content.

With the release of patch 2.3, the blacklist command in the chat box command menu is gone. Was this intentional or a patch glitch?

In 2.2 you took tomestones of philosophy out of the game and as a result you added those crafting materials to the loot out the dungeons that came out in the patch as well. You did the same with 2.3. My question is are there any plans on moving those materials to the non boss chests in the dungeon allowing the boss to drop the armor and accessories to better facilitate players who are trying to gear up?

The current hunt system encourages cheating, hacking, harassment, bullying, anger, discord, and elitism. The hunts take many hours of focused grind to payoff if a player is lucky. Players have had to suspend their atma grind to spend that time on hunts. Players that only play during prime time are unable to get a suitable amount of allied seals. I suspect the hunts are not working out as planned. If there are changes being planned, what are they and when can we expect them? May I suggest a solution be found that tests our wits, doesn't have us compete with each other, and doesn't consume so much time?

Respectfully,
Bucy