New Letter from the Producer, XII

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Good, FFXI did not stand the test of time very well.

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Final Fantasy XI – 350,000 (mid 2010). Despite what anyone says XI is still in the top 10 as far as subs go.

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Originally Posted by Tiss

Kind of a disappointing letter, things we already knew and 1 nerf to leves that was needed imo. I would rather he talked more in depth about jobs, auto attack and dungeons, airships, chocobos, anima etc...

How about in a game that mainly only offers leveling, at the moment, you take out the fatigue system that limits leveling like you said you would already? There are so many limitations leveling laterally is the stupidest credence and the worst part about this entire game.

The only content is leveling and leveling to get to nms yet there's a huge huge limit on leveling. I have seen soo many people quit simply because they cannot get immersed in the game or are tired they are being told they cannot play the job they want to. Yet another letter that disappoints and hugely does not address the main issues with the game, how many times have we seen this.

I wouldn't be as angry about this and the 1.18 patch if they actually came out with patches regularly, the release cycle is way too long. I would rather have 2 week incremental patches with large patches and content more spread out. Considering 14 will probably be the game that they soak up subscriptions on for the next 7+ years the growth is severely stinted.

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Tiss,
Most of us (Japanese players) shared your pain and anger, but FINALLY we get two long interviews (talking about what you want very much, see other threads) released these two days, with a promise to introduce "one new feature per week until patch goes live". So we are happy now.

The new features in patch 1.18 are not only fixing problems but the revamping of a whole subsystem (mainly Battle system in 1.18), so it costs lots of time, but from the features revealed now it seems very promising.

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Originally Posted by Tiss

I wouldn't be as angry about this and the 1.18 patch if they actually came out with patches regularly, the release cycle is way too long. I would rather have 2 week incremental patches with large patches and content more spread out. Considering 14 will probably be the game that they soak up subscriptions on for the next 7+ years the growth is severely stinted.

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That's a logistical nightmare that would slow them down even further. Of course you don't realize it, but the truth is more often than not different from what's in front of you.

It was already stated several times that the fatigue is getting the axe in 1.18. How many times do you want him to repeat himself? If you're not even listening don't accuse him of not saying anything.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Good, FFXI did not stand the test of time very well.

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It's 9 years old and I still play when I have some time, horses for courses etc.

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Originally Posted by Kristina_Farron

Tiss,
Most of us (Japanese players) shared your pain and anger, but FINALLY we get two long interviews (talking about what you want very much, see other threads) released these two days, with a promise to introduce "one new feature per week until patch goes live". So we are happy now.

The new features in patch 1.18 are not only fixing problems but the revamping of a whole subsystem (mainly Battle system in 1.18), so it costs lots of time, but from the features revealed now it seems very promising.

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Good to hear things have settled a bit your end, as they have here (somewhat). It is of course a shame that people can't appreciate all the work they're doing.

Can I ask what the japanese playerbase's thoughts were on Yoshida's comments about their 'overly negative' opinions on the forums? Surely they're not as bad as the english ones...

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

That's a logistical nightmare that would slow them down even further. Of course you don't realize it, but the truth is more often than not different from what's in front of you.

It was already stated several times that the fatigue is getting the axe in 1.18. How many times do you want him to repeat himself? If you're not even listening don't accuse him of not saying anything.

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i think they mentioned pushing it back to 1.19 in the long version of one of the recent interviews

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Originally Posted by Tiss

Kind of a disappointing letter, things we already knew and 1 nerf to leves that was needed imo. I would rather he talked more in depth about jobs, auto attack and dungeons, airships, chocobos, anima etc...

How about in a game that mainly only offers leveling, at the moment, you take out the fatigue system that limits leveling like you said you would already? There are so many limitations leveling laterally is the stupidest credence and the worst part about this entire game.

The only content is leveling and leveling to get to nms yet there's a huge huge limit on leveling. I have seen soo many people quit simply because they cannot get immersed in the game or are tired they are being told they cannot play the job they want to. Yet another letter that disappoints and hugely does not address the main issues with the game, how many times have we seen this.

I wouldn't be as angry about this and the 1.18 patch if they actually came out with patches regularly, the release cycle is way too long. I would rather have 2 week incremental patches with large patches and content more spread out. Considering 14 will probably be the game that they soak up subscriptions on for the next 7+ years the growth is severely stinted.

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man u really need to learn how to read. all the information is out there, and the letter is in itself, a letter. not upcoming patch notes.

surplus is gone, airships/chocobos are being added soon, autoattack was in the last letter AND they had a short clip showing it. what else do u want to know? u automatically attack.

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Originally Posted by Physic

i think they mentioned pushing it back to 1.19 in the long version of one of the recent interviews

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Link or it didn't happen.

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Originally Posted by Physic

i think they mentioned pushing it back to 1.19 in the long version of one of the recent interviews

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actually no, they didn't.

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Originally Posted by Richard

not even sure you understand your own question or it is even correct English, so I'll ignore it.

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haha I think you misunderstood what Victor was saying, he was basically saying the same thing you are to the person he quoted that said blame all the people that failed leves.

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Disciples of the Land will benefit from the addition of a stealth skill to their arsenal

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The age old question has been answered! Disciples of Land unlock ninja, thief, and...! Uh. Some other stealthy job.

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Originally Posted by RabidSquirrel

The age old question has been answered! Disciples of Land unlock ninja, thief, and...! Uh. Some other stealthy job.

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only DoM/DoW have jobs associated with their classes. /clap

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Originally Posted by Richard

only DoM/DoW have jobs associated with their classes. /clap

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someone obviously missed the joke

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

someone obviously missed the joke

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I didn't find it funny :/

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

someone obviously missed the joke

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^ What he said.

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Originally Posted by Richard

actually no, they didn't.

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hmmm, might be wrong, maybe i confused things, did a quick look and didnt find it. we ll see soon enough i suppose

Didn't read all pages..but, little dissapointment though. After the patch were pt's went from 15 to 8 (which is hell when you've 9 members for an event), now he talks about reduced exp on leve links and more for solo players...

"In light of guildleves’ repositioning as solo-oriented content, leve link bonuses will be reduced. To make up for this reduction, skill points will be added as a new reward for the benefit of solo adventurers."

i'm a little dissapointed on that. I'm really hoping to see some large group stuff coming, bc that's where the fun is. I guess it's wait and see.

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Originally Posted by Richard

I didn't find it funny :/

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There's a reason I'm not a comedian.

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Originally Posted by Minidrax

Didn't read all pages..but, little dissapointment though. After the patch were pt's went from 15 to 8 (which is hell when you've 9 members for an event), now he talks about reduced exp on leve links and more for solo players...

"In light of guildleves’ repositioning as solo-oriented content, leve link bonuses will be reduced. To make up for this reduction, skill points will be added as a new reward for the benefit of solo adventurers."

i'm a little dissapointed on that. I'm really hoping to see some large group stuff coming, bc that's where the fun is. I guess it's wait and see.

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if large group stuff ever comes it will be in the form of large scale PVE content. Not leves.

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Originally Posted by Richard

I didn't find it funny :/

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it wasnt, until you missed the point :D

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

it wasnt, until you missed the point :D

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I still don't find it funny :/

I reckon patch 1.18 will be July 18th. 1.19 mid August, 22nd.

Which makes 1.20 late September; the game will be 1 year old.

Mmm

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Originally Posted by kurokawa

I reckon patch 1.18 will be July 18th. 1.19 mid August, 22nd.

Which makes 1.20 late September; the game will be 1 year old.

Mmm

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I have 1.5M riding on it being either the 11th or the 18th! I'm with you!

AWESOME!!! no new ideas!!! lets make this game into another solo-mmorpg (why online... hmmm).
I would love to have more party camps, more mobs to grind on. I don't play an mmo for solo questing only...

If i wanna do that (which i don't) i go play rift. If they go on that way they won't be any different from other mmos, except the fact that a lot of people can't even play it due to hardware reasons.
The letter didnt say much but the few things pretty much pointed out that its casual (and easy mode) > hard and challenging. Why do they think that people wanna come home from work and play a game that offers no challenge at all?

I don't get it. They are leaving the niche they could have been in, and will now have to fully compete with rift, aion, wow... lmfao... great job :) Before changing the recipes of crafts, they might change their recipe to fail first...

Hmm he didn't lost a single word on the new flasy animations we're getting >_> or at least supposed to get... I hope they coming with 1.18 or I'm gonna be dissapointed once again ~_~
On the other hand I'd really like some informations about the new jobs and when they're going to be implemented (me wantz mah blue mage! XD ).

Chocobos are getting pushed back once again, that's sad. They should change the anima cost then once again. Haven't they said, they want to decrease the return cost to 0? Oo

And I'm still waiting for a change in crafting. Some people do like it actually. But I think it's boring ._. crafted for 1 1/2 hours yesterday and it was so tiring at some point :( Oh well... maybe I should grind a 1-2 Weeks so I can hit 50 and be done with it.. but ooooooohhh hell.....

I hope the dungeons will have some huge replay factor. In the translated interview they said there going to be different routes to choose from and so on. That will be interesting.

Oh and one last point........ WHEN ARE WE GETTING THE CAMERA BIND ON ARROW KEYS? T_T

As mentioned by people already, i'm pretty sure changes to guild leves will bring overall less sp then what it is now, but some ppl are forgetting on top of leves, side-quests will also give sp now and so will doing a dungeon run so if at the end of the day, i'm overall making the same amount of sp then i'm happy. While leves are better then raptor grinding, leves tend to get boring too when it gets dragged by doing multiples of the same leve and repeating it every reset. Having the option to make the same or similar sp while doing different things is a bonus for me personally. I'd rather choose 1h of dungeon, and do leves at a faster pace, solo without having to wait on afk ppl, Instead of a 3-4h leve party with 16 guarantied leves with 8 ppl, +4-5runs for doubles.

Where do they think their casual audience is supposed to come from?

According to their own poll most players are XI players or FF players. All FF games are 30-60hrs of gameplay, not that casual.

XIV requires absolutely state-of the art PC to run at reasonable frame rates. How do these aspects reach an average casual player again?

If I hadn't followed the FF series very closely for the past few years I wouldn't even know XIV exists let alone what kind of game it is.

This is probably just me but I feel like they're trying to reach an audience that just isn't there to benefit from and while doing so they're turning against their old fans who given the state of the game are the only players they have left at this point.

Casual games are usually played on the web-browser or as apps while waiting for a bus. It's not deep enough to hold interest of players for years while paying a monthly fee for that kind of service.

Just like Wii, are people still playing Wii Sports resort after few tries?
What about Monster Hunter 3Tri? A game so hardcore the controls alone take almost 10 pages of the manual and most game features aren't even mentioned because there's so much of them. The European Servers alone are full of players especially considering how niche title that is usually thought to be.

I for one welcome the changes; Since I'm in college and working, I hardly have time to get on, but on weekends my time is kinda freed up a little, so it seems like this will work out well. Leves during the M-F week and pt content on the weekends. I bought the CE of this game and knew what to expect, but I haven't been too dissatisfied. I know it will just keep getting better.

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AWESOME!!! no new ideas!!! lets make this game into another solo-mmorpg (why online... hmmm).
I would love to have more party camps, more mobs to grind on. I don't play an mmo for solo questing only...

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They aren't making everything soloable. Way to overreact.

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The letter didnt say much but the few things pretty much pointed out that its casual (and easy mode) > hard and challenging. Why do they think that people wanna come home from work and play a game that offers no challenge at all?

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The entire post was about levequests. The whole focus on XIV is not going to be the leveling but the character progression.

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I don't get it. They are leaving the niche they could have been in, and will now have to fully compete with rift, aion, wow...

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From a purely marketing standpoint SQEX can't survive in that niche anymore. XI survived 7 years of it and then finally went the way of the casual gamer because that is where the money is.

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Chocobos are getting pushed back once again, that's sad. They should change the anima cost then once again. Haven't they said, they want to decrease the return cost to 0?

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Chocobos never had a timetable. This is the first time they've confirmed when they are going to work on the mount system.

Don't act like they can't provide content for both hardcore players and casual players.

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Originally Posted by Seif

Where do they think their casual audience is supposed to come from?

According to their own poll most players are XI players or FF players. All FF games are 30-60hrs of gameplay, not that casual.

XIV requires absolutely state-of the art PC to run at reasonable frame rates. How do these aspects reach an average casual player again?

If I hadn't followed the FF series very closely for the past few years I wouldn't even know XIV exists let alone what kind of game it is.

This is probably just me but I feel like they're trying to reach an audience that just isn't there to benefit from and while doing so they're turning against their old fans who given the state of the game are the only players they have left at this point.

Casual games are usually played on the web-browser or as apps while waiting for a bus. It's not deep enough to hold interest of players for years while paying a monthly fee for that kind of service.

Just like Wii, are people still playing Wii Sports resort after few tries?
What about Monster Hunter 3Tri? A game so hardcore the controls alone take almost 10 pages of the manual and most game features aren't even mentioned because there's so much of them. The European Servers alone are full of players especially considering how niche title that is usually thought to be.

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so the way you see it is that casual gamers cant afford high end PC? Fathers and Mothers and students cant afford a 1000.00 PC? You sir are ignorant. I have maybe 5-6 people in my LS alone who are older and have a casual schedule and own a better PC than I do. They bought it specifically for this game.

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From a purely marketing standpoint SQEX can't survive in that niche anymore. XI survived 7 years of it and then finally went the way of the casual gamer because that is where the money is.

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Originally Posted by Richard

so the way you see it is that casual gamers cant afford high end PC? Fathers and Mothers and students cant afford a 1000.00 PC? You sir are ignorant. I have maybe 5-6 people in my LS alone who are older and have a casual schedule and own a better PC than I do. They bought it specifically for this game.

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Lets not also forget the PS3 which is surely a large chunk of the Japanese consumer base. If I'm not mistaken Japanese prefer consoles over PC's correct? PS3 sounds fairly casual after a hard day of overtime as a salary man.... if you get to come home that day.

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Originally Posted by Spellbinder

Lets not also forget the PS3 which is surely a large chunk of the Japanese consumer base. If I'm not mistaken Japanese prefer consoles over PC's correct? PS3 sounds fairly casual after a hard day of overtime as a salary man.... if you get to come home that day.

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You'd be surprised. Japanese Console gamers are pretty hardcore when it comes to their MMOs

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Originally Posted by Richard

You'd be surprised. Japanese Console gamers are pretty hardcore when it comes to their MMOs

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This is true. Just goes to show there's an untapped market there, and hopefully FFXIV is up to snuff to get a piece of that market.

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Originally Posted by Seif

Where do they think their casual audience is supposed to come from?

According to their own poll most players are XI players or FF players. All FF games are 30-60hrs of gameplay, not that casual.

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Eternal Sonata was 32 hours max and excluding the ending section of an OPTIONAL dungeon, it was as casual as it gets. I think a lot of people (including you) don't know what casual mean.

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XIV requires absolutely state-of the art PC to run at reasonable frame rates. How do these aspects reach an average casual player again?

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Poor Optimization. A lot of casual gamers have a pretty good setup for their PS3/360 including a decent HDTV and sound system.

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Originally Posted by Spellbinder

This is true. Just goes to show there's an untapped market there, and hopefully FFXIV is up to snuff to get a piece of that market.

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Yup. This quote really speaks volumes about their goals:

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Originally Posted by Yoshida in Famitsu Connect-Con Magazine, August 2011

PS3版の発売こそが起死回生の"最終タイミング"だと思っている。
そこに向けて想像を超えるぐらいガラッと変えようと準備しているものがある。
They treat the relaunch of PS3 version as the "final chance".
They are prepaing to deliver huge changes over our expection.

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From a purely marketing standpoint SQEX can't survive in that niche anymore. XI survived 7 years of it and then finally went the way of the casual gamer because that is where the money is.

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i have to disagree, since the games who keep failing all over again, are exactly the same games, without unique ideas, the easy-mode wow clones (who are usually far worse then wow in the end).

A niche in this HUGE market doesn't have to be 300k players (even though ffxiv won't probably see the 300k ever) max.
It can have millions of players. There is a shit load of players out there.
If the same recipe about wow cloning would work out so well, there would be a lot of 1 mio+ subscription based mmos out now, A LOT. But there aren't.

FFXI has a niche but it was too limited and well its just old now. But it did damn well compared to most other mmos, and it was a niche game.

People are tired of the same old concepts. no matter if its the pure grind or the mindless solo quest- click- go there- click - reward system.
People won't stay with an mmo like this for long. F2P might work for these games but not a monthly subscription.

And SE is way too slow to roll out all these fast-paced content updates that are needed to please the easy-mode masses. But well, some people just keep thinking that a niche has to be small. In this big market it can mean millions of players.

A lot of very successeful games of the last years didnt try be all average. And it payed out very well. The market doesnt need more of the same games.

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Originally Posted by Anty

i have to disagree, since the games who keep failing all over again, are exactly the same games, without unique ideas, the easy-mode wow clones (who are usually far worse then wow in the end).

A niche in this HUGE market doesn't have to be 300k players (even though ffxiv won't probably see the 300k ever) max.
It can have millions of players. There is a shit load of players out there.
If the same recipe about wow cloning would work out so well, there would be a lot of 1 mio+ subscription based mmos out now, A LOT. But there aren't.

FFXI has a niche but it was too limited and well its just old now. But it did damn well compared to most other mmos, and it was a niche game.

People are tired of the same old concepts. no matter if its the pure grind or the mindless solo quest- click- go there- click - reward system.
People won't stay with an mmo like this for long. F2P might work for these games but not a monthly subscription.

And SE is way too slow to roll out all these fast-paced content updates that are needed to please the easy-mode masses. But well, some people just keep thinking that a niche has to be small. In this big market it can mean millions of players.

A lot of very successeful games of the last years didnt try be all average. And it payed out very well. The market doesnt need more of the same games.

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Originally Posted by Anty

i have to disagree, since the games who keep failing all over again, are exactly the same games, without unique ideas, the easy-mode wow clones (who are usually far worse then wow in the end).

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The games that keep failing are ones with little content, poor developer practices, unresponsive community reps, tons of bugs, boring or otherwise uninteresting world and lore, etc.

RIFT is a WOW clone through and through and it's doing VERY well. So there goes your whole argument.

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Originally Posted by Richard

so the way you see it is that casual gamers cant afford high end PC? Fathers and Mothers and students cant afford a 1000.00 PC? You sir are ignorant. I have maybe 5-6 people in my LS alone who are older and have a casual schedule and own a better PC than I do. They bought it specifically for this game.

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lol, way to back up my example there...

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...I think a lot of people (including you) don't know what casual mean.

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to me it seems as causal = easy mode in mmos. the comment about having the mobile in one hand and a drink in the other and well.. have perhaps "a bot" playing?... well i dunno. that's not what i expect of an mmo or any other game.

No matter if you call it casual or not. I know a lot of "casual" gamers but the time they have they wanna have a challenge. Why can't we get that? i don't think people are gonna play to get bored or press one button while playing a free handy game which offers more challenge?...

Im all for hard content that doesnt mean grinding forever but... i don't wanna play a game that is so easy or mindless that i can play or even have to play (so i dont fall asleep) a mobile game in my other hand ...