Letter from the Producer, XVII (09/01/2011)

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Originally Posted by Rinsui

Believe me: it was ^.^
Looks like they are having problems with shuffling around roles and squeezing Archers into the Bard blueprint after all ^.^

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You mean after 1.20. They never out right said jobs coming in 1.20. I wish I could find the post.

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Originally Posted by Holland

Sonic_the_Hedgehog, that's what I've been thinking these past few days after seeing the threads of the person you quoted and thinking the resemblance they have. They may be or not the same person, but is funny still to think about it like that xD

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Well I was first to sniff him out as Vesperia, so maybe I'm right again. Of course he didn't make it too hard this time with his stupid username.

EDIT: He's gifthorse, he pretty much admitted it in another thread. I'm 2 for 2 now.

I love this game but there are two lingering issues that bother me the most. Party search and AH.

Party Search
This game is going in a heavy instanced direction for its end game. We can all see the writing on the walls. Unless you have a LS it is impossible to try and find a pug group. SE needs all the help it can get attracting new players and I think this would help.

Auction House
I can't even get a retainer in the market wards at ul'dah to sell anything to even make money. When the materia system is released the economy is going to boom but part of us won't even be able to participate because we can't sell anything.

I'm not trying to bash but we needs these two and I can't even find them on the list unless I glanced over them.

Sorry I'm just curious. Out of all the things wrong with the UI, the most important thing slated for it in the future is the implementation of a UI window containing titles earned from achievements? Umm...

Pop-up help -NEW-
Implementation of pop-up help windows

YAY YAY YAY :D

very disheartning that the only end game content that keeps coming up is INSTANCE RAID INSTANCE RAID ADDING ANOTHER INSTANCE RAID..

Please SE don't just do Instances.. Give us Sky, Sea and other great end game events like FFXI had..

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Originally Posted by Royal

Auction House
I can't even get a retainer in the market wards at ul'dah to sell anything to even make money. When the materia system is released the economy is going to boom but part of us won't even be able to participate because we can't sell anything.

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There are two more market wards ingame. Nobody use them because the long travel time between the cities (if you don't want use anima). With the airships in 1.19 this should not be the problem anymore.
Now the market wards are like a meeting house with 3 rooms, but all people use only 1 room and complain about the little space ^^

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Originally Posted by Felis

There are two more market wards ingame. Nobody use them because the long travel time between the cities (if you don't want use anima). With the airships in 1.19 this should not be the problem anymore.

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I hope you are right. But even in FFXI, for the longest time Jeuno was still the central Auction House that you would sell on because that was the most populated city. Even with airships and chocobos, I'm not sure if this is going to change. It's just way too convenient to gather in one city, so you can get your gear repaired and find groups faster. Granted with airships, it will be much more likely someone will take the time to go check the other city Market Wards than it is now, but still... Honestly, I wish they would just somehow link all the Market Wards together, but... they'd have to completely redesign the actual zones to accommodate more people.

I believe as long as the markets are not linked, there will always been a dominant MW. Why would a person even bother looking at other wards, when Ul'dah always has what they need. They will most likely look in Ul'dah first and then consider checking the other two. Yes airships makes checking Grid/LL easier but it still will be a second choice. This is just my opinion.

I think the whole "Airship Issue" is a double-edged sword, really. They wanted to add alternate modes of transport, but if the ride took a while, people would rage because "anima is faster". As a result, we get a quick ride but nothing interesting to look at or interact with during the flight. Once the other modes of transport have been fleshed out, they really need to abolish the anima system. There will be a never-ending stream of bitching until it's gone, people will always compare each new mode of transport to the efficiency of anima.

there is a reason they dont have you look from the airship to the ground, have you scene the map.

there is also the possibility that the tops of certain terrain and buildings are not animated.(they had this problem with the last wow expansion, they had to ad graphics to the tops of everything cause of flying mounts)

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Originally Posted by Archadius

I think the whole "Airship Issue" is a double-edged sword, really. They wanted to add alternate modes of transport, but if the ride took a while, people would rage because "anima is faster". As a result, we get a quick ride but nothing interesting to look at or interact with during the flight. Once the other modes of transport have been fleshed out, they really need to abolish the anima system. There will be a never-ending stream of bitching until it's gone, people will always compare each new mode of transport to the efficiency of anima.

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i don't know why people insist on abolishing anima, no one makes anyone use it. The whole game is supposed to be about playing your own way. I think there should be an npc that can rid you of all you anima permanently, and never be able to get it back for all the people that don't like anima. Well see how many actually use it.

as for the airship rides.. considering they plan on redoing the world maps...with land marks...why make it so you can look down at the current world design? maybe they will add it later once the maps are done.

People lets just not compare each system of transportation to another and each one to be good for everything. Anima is great for every location and a quick party group. Chocobos will be great for short distant from city to nearby locations. Airship will be great to transport to city to city saving anima. They are trying to cover each mean of transportation. Definitely they are room to improvement but so far they are coming alone.

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Originally Posted by syntaxlies

there is a reason they dont have you look from the airship to the ground, have you scene the map.

there is also the possibility that the tops of certain terrain and buildings are not animated.(they had this problem with the last wow expansion, they had to ad graphics to the tops of everything cause of flying mounts)

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The simple solution is making the airships it's own "Zone" like XI it's not like you were actually looking at the ground players were on. Making a "Skybox" for the ground...would be fairly simple compared to somehow making the airship actually fly through the zones.

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Originally Posted by Sephr

Also, we were given warning aaaages ago that at first they were just adding it this way without the 'middle' section of the flight. We knew about it.

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Even so, I'm going to join the ranks of those 'complaining' about it.

For one, I'm still disappointed anyway.

For another, I'd rather the reaction to the lack of an actual airship ride (as opposed to a glorified teleporter) be as loud as possible, even knowing they warned us before. At least then, hopefully, the developers will keep it and accompanying content in mind for the future, rather than thinking 'meh, nobody wanted it anyway' and not bother to expand it at some point down the road.

Besides, it'd also have the knock-on effect of subtly warning them against just quietly deleting the ferry's sea voyage and all, rather than iterating on it and putting some content in there.

Why are people so upset that the airships are going to take a few secs, with a cutscene?

When I want to go to Grid, I don't want to take a 10 minute ride there, crafting the whole way. I want to get to the place I'm looking to go, so I can do the things that I want to do. Immediately.

The only thing that would really justify actual travel by the airship, to me, is content along the way, such as shops on the ship (with items you can only get there), crafting bonuses to wind-aspected stuff, or monsters that randomly pop and can be fought behest-style on the deck. Or maybe Garlean or pirate attacks... or maybe a random airship crash every now and then that drops ya in a dangerous or inaccessible zone.

They could go a lot of different ways with it. But getting me to grid so I can do my bizness there is by far more important.

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Pop-up Help.

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Thank. Fucking. Jebus.

You want to attract new people to your game? Always make sure to provide excellent ways to bring them up to speed on its mechanics.

Also, on the subject of making people move from city to city as opposed to sticking in Ul'dah, they don't need to link the Market Wards together. What they should do is create certain types of content that just aren't accessible in other cities. I'm totally cool with Ul'dah being the place to be for a mega-economy. It makes sense lore-wise and it's convenient for players. It's cool to be able to say "man, I've gotta hit the Las Vegas that IS Ul'dah if I want the good stuff."

Limsa Limsa is a huge port town with a powerful navy. If they introduce ship-to-ship combat PvP, only allow access through Limsa. Ul'dah has the Colosseum. Wanna do standard PvP mano a mano or against monsters? Hit Ul'Dah. Let's say that they release chocobo racing, and each city has its own type of themed track. If you want that tricky forest path with logs everywhere and such, gotta go to Gridania. They don't necessarily need to take any of these suggestions, but I think the idea of creating unique and compelling content for each city will eventually lead to market wards, while not as extensive as Ul'dah's maybe, coming back to life in each, which will lead to more players around. The additions of air routes will also make things much easier to access said cities quickly, so win win in my book.

...But seriously, give me a chocobo track in Limsa in which I have to navigate around stone pillars and rickety wooden walkways.

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Originally Posted by Cycloptichorn

Why are people so upset that the airships are going to take a few secs, with a cutscene?

When I want to go to Grid, I don't want to take a 10 minute ride there, crafting the whole way. I want to get to the place I'm looking to go, so I can do the things that I want to do. Immediately.

The only thing that would really justify actual travel by the airship, to me, is content along the way, such as shops on the ship (with items you can only get there), crafting bonuses to wind-aspected stuff, or monsters that randomly pop and can be fought behest-style on the deck. Or maybe Garlean or pirate attacks... or maybe a random airship crash every now and then that drops ya in a dangerous or inaccessible zone.

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I definitely agree with your point, but I think that just the idea of seeing some pretty scenery, listening to some nice music, and playing a game of Triple Triad is enough for a lot of people, myself included.

Garlean air raids or mobs like Doomgaze popping up from time to time would be cool though.

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Originally Posted by Cycloptichorn

Why are people so upset that the airships are going to take a few secs, with a cutscene?

When I want to go to Grid, I don't want to take a 10 minute ride there, crafting the whole way. I want to get to the place I'm looking to go, so I can do the things that I want to do. Immediately.

The only thing that would really justify actual travel by the airship, to me, is content along the way, such as shops on the ship (with items you can only get there), crafting bonuses to wind-aspected stuff, or monsters that randomly pop and can be fought behest-style on the deck. Or maybe Garlean or pirate attacks... or maybe a random airship crash every now and then that drops ya in a dangerous or inaccessible zone.

They could go a lot of different ways with it. But getting me to grid so I can do my bizness there is by far more important.

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I agree with this. I'd rather the airship ride just be cutscenes unless they had some sorta battles while on the flight. Of course, I don't know how they would balance such a thing for all levels of people riding it. :/ In FFXI, I'd just go afk for 13 minutes or ever how long everything took, so this is a nice change for me. Again though, if they had some sorta interesting battles on board the airship, I wouldn't mind the extended trip. =)

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Originally Posted by syntaxlies

i don't know why people insist on abolishing anima, no one makes anyone use it. The whole game is supposed to be about playing your own way. I think there should be an npc that can rid you of all you anima permanently, and never be able to get it back for all the people that don't like anima. Well see how many actually use it.

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Oh please... That is a tired excuse. Everyone knows that people naturally take the quickest, easiest way of doing things that is available to them.

No one wants to wait for you while you walk outside LL to the Airship platform, wait for it to arrive, board, get taken to the Grid platform, and run into town to meet your party members. They would rather tell you "just use anima to teleport to us so we can get going faster".

Do you understand?

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Originally Posted by Perrin_Aybarra

Yeah but where did they say 1.21 will come out in 3 months? 1.19 is late september, 1.20 should be 3 months after... 1.21 3 months after 1.20 so that makes it 6 months? Unless they churn those patches faster i don't see 1.21 as being ready for release anytime soon.

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The difference between 1.18 and 1.19 is about 2 months. They've already said they expect patch releases to speed up now, so I'd expect 3 months from the release of 1.19 to not be that unreasonable.

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Originally Posted by Sephr

The difference between 1.18 and 1.19 is about 2 months. They've already said they expect patch releases to speed up now, so I'd expect 3 months from the release of 1.19 to not be that unreasonable.

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I'm expecting 1.21 out before Christmas or that comment they made about "patch frequency will speed up after 1.18/1.19" was just a PR crock of crap.

Well 1.21 is the implementation of the job system I think. I would expect delays before that one. That is going to huge patch. The QA before release alone will probably be a nightmare.

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Originally Posted by Archadius

Oh please... That is a tired excuse. Everyone knows that people naturally take the quickest, easiest way of doing things that is available to them.

No one wants to wait for you while you walk outside LL to the Airship platform, wait for it to arrive, board, get taken to the Grid platform, and run into town to meet your party members. They would rather tell you "just use anima to teleport to us so we can get going faster".

Do you understand?

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Why is that a problem though? If you're short on time and your group wants you there, you no longer have to wait an eternity in Yhoator because the dipshit DRG decided that he was going to miss the airship to Kazham. Again.

The airship is more for that sense of exploration you can get when wandering around with friends or people who don't mind waiting around, but if you gotta be somewhere you gotta be somewhere, and that's what anima is great for.

I'm happy for the airship ride.
In my personal experience in FFXI, after the novelty of travel wore off, all I wanted to do was just f***ing GET THERE. But that's just me and I can understand some people wanting to enjoy the experience of travel.

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Originally Posted by Skyuen

horsebird...

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Is that like a winged pony?

hasnt anyone learned
the people who want the 10 minute are are ff11 nasaligiasts

they should have an air ship that takes you on a tour and then returns back to were it took off for all the people who want to enjoy an airship ride. Im one of the few who are glad they made this a fast method of travel. I just hope i dont have to wait 15 mins for the thing to show up before i can get on.

What the hell is wrong with everyone?

Listen to yourselves for f sake man.

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Originally Posted by Cycloptichorn

When I want to go to Grid, I don't want to take a 10 minute ride there, crafting the whole way. I want to get to the place I'm looking to go, so I can do the things that I want to do. Immediately.

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That's what your Anima is for.

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Originally Posted by Malakhim

Why is that a problem though? If you're short on time and your group wants you there, you no longer have to wait an eternity in Yhoator because the dipshit DRG decided that he was going to miss the airship to Kazham. Again.

The airship is more for that sense of exploration you can get when wandering around with friends or people who don't mind waiting around, but if you gotta be somewhere you gotta be somewhere, and that's what anima is great for.

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You're missing the point lol. The point is that maybe I don't have any anima left, or maybe I'm trying to conserve some because I know I'll need it tomorrow for an LS event, etc. People will get pissed because you're not using the absolute fastest possible method NOW NOW NOW because it's all about ME ME ME. No one wants to wait for anyone else because it inconveniences them, regardless of circumstance. So even if the airship ride itself is only a few seconds, you still have to wait for that player to run to and from the platforms.

It enrages me to no end how people are so lazy and would seriously love unlimited anima and fast travel. For the love of all things holy there needs to be some sort of restrictions on transportation.

Otherwise we might as well strap jetpacks to everyone and explain thats how they can warp to any <pos> on the map. because...you know it's more convient that way.

Just add 100 gil to the price of the ride for people want to get their faster or something... I want to see the world from above when i fly on a airship.. but I can also see where some people want to get there bc of short play time for the day or what not

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Originally Posted by Jynx

That's what your Anima is for.

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Not necessarily. Even with airships instantly taking you to the next city, anima is still the fastest method of travel. So why put more time on airship travel? Ultimately Anima is the fastest route, but at a cost.

I only look at Anima as a way to join the party quickly. I always try to stay within a certain amount used a week. What I say is, if you are not in a rush to get there, don't use your anima. If you are at Ul'Dah, and your party is at Camp Iron Lake in LL and you need to catch up quick, yes Anima is convenient.

Thanks dev team for all your hard work. I appreciate the long hours and work on the weekends. The game is shaping up nicely, and will only get better over time.

/thumbs up :)

Job system delay from patch 1.20 into 1.21 yay!... T_T *sad*

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Originally Posted by Jynx

It enrages me to no end how people are so lazy and would seriously love unlimited anima and fast travel. For the love of all things holy there needs to be some sort of restrictions on transportation.

Otherwise we might as well strap jetpacks to everyone and explain thats how they can warp to any <pos> on the map. because...you know it's more convient that way.

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Exactly. People have no patience these days. That's why anima was a bad idea to implement as the first (and only) mode of transportation for so long. Now everyone is so brainwashed into thinking "anima speed or gtfo" that no NEW transport system will ever work as intended.

well maybe they'll add the trip after releasing more zones and when they repair the server, i liked from XI to see the whole trip but well, the thing i really wanted to have was jobs for 1.20 and wont be until 1.21 at least they wont rush stuff anymore, thats the good thing

Whatevs, we get chocobos and airships!!! SWEET! I'd take a hit in anima any day for that trade off.... As for the travel thing, yes it's nice to see where you are going however it took a while in XI and eventually most stopped using the airship as soon as they could warp other places.

I personally like the long travels, but cutscenes are fine too.

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Originally Posted by Alise

Job system delay from patch 1.20 into 1.21 yay!... T_T *sad*

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They never said "Job system in 1.20" they said at the earliest it will be in 1.20. 1.21 is being very generous, they could wait to patch 1.22 which would be Spring 2012... :P

Although I'm disappointed I won't get to look around the airships as they fly the first two times, I'm not sure they did it to cut corners.

After a while, with various other transportation methods working together to become more convenient in FFXI, people stopped taking airships at all. Every once in a while it would happen if you were out of items that teleported, needed to get back to a specific one of the cities, and had an extra 15 minutes to burn while AFK. Usually your destination wasn't a city, and even if it was it was faster to teleport to an outpost and ride your chocobo, or you could use one of the many event items that teleported you directly to a city. Eventually they had the moogles that would do it on a lucky week.

I think the near-instant travel, while boring at first, will make it so airship travel is still viable in the future of FFXIV.