gathering in nature

Im kinda not happy with the responses regarding alternative usage for gatherers outside of their traditional use. Aside from that, I didn't like to see they said there were no plans to further story related content to gatherers. My opinion(and that of what SE promised originally) was that every class regardless, had equal opportunity to progress in the world without the need of a battle oriented classes. It seems gatherers and crafters are becoming more and more sub par and not as useful as SE originally stated they would be outside of making gil =/

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Originally Posted by Eugenics

Removed due to Forum Rule violations.

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Nailed it.

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Originally Posted by SydeBeheln

Aside from that, I didn't like to see they said there were no plans to further story related content to gatherers. My opinion(and that of what SE promised originally) was that every class regardless, had equal opportunity to progress in the world without the need of a battle oriented classes. It seems gatherers and crafters are becoming more and more sub par and not as useful as SE originally stated they would be outside of making gil =/

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Yes, that is what was originally promised. Then the playerbase realized that this really meant that all the main storyline quests were going to be. . . underwhelming, to say the least. At this point, they've decided they'll get more value out of making the main storyline more action-oriented.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

Yes, that is what was originally promised. Then the playerbase realized that this really meant that all the main storyline quests were going to be. . . underwhelming, to say the least. At this point, they've decided they'll get more value out of making the main storyline more action-oriented.

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I completely agree with that, I would rather have action paced oriented content, but I don't think SE ever said they were straying away from that idea. Instead, they were going to give crafters, and gatherers alternative usage for those parts of the game. And now it seems like the basic route of that of what we have in ffxi is what is in store for xiv, and that means crafters / gatherers are nothing more than money makers, and just something to do on the side.

I mean i could be wrong about this, but the whole idea around making them individual classes seemed like a perfect idea for alternative more beneficial and story arching concepts. With just giving them nothing anymore, it seems like they are just as useful as the generic crafter.

Oh well, I guess if that's the best choice for SE then so be itttt

i feel very disapointed, it seems they have no plans or intentions as far as gathering classes go. What a way to put a dappener on my gathering leveling

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

"Are there factors such as Moon Phases, Time of Day, and Weather Conditions that affect the Drops Rates and Quality of items obtained through gathering?"

Similar suggestions have been brought up, but nothing specific has been decided.

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Hey Bay! Please let the Devs know that I appreciate the answer to my question.. This answer leaves me to think that the mechanics aren't "broken" but rather complex.. the mystery behind it cant be summed up with a simple answer.. In a world, there are laws and rules that govern that world.. and this answer follows the laws and rules of Eorzea.. if you question how many Suns and Moons there are in the Final Fantasy XIV Universe.. then this answer should have sent chills down your spine.. remember that Socrates was the wisest philosopher only because he continually asked why

I don't want crafters or gatherers to be treated as equals to battle classes. I want to do fun, challenging boss battles that the FF series is known for in it's stories. I don't want to be running around talking to NPCs and playing some slow, boring mini game that requires no skill.

I am never going to choose to do a story quest on my CRP or BTN when I can do it on my ARC or CON. That's crazy talk. I don't know a single crafter or gatherer who does not have a battle class ranked up. There may well exist a few but catering the game to these is not smart.

Story quests should ALWAYS require battle classes. Sure, let the gatherer sit and leach if you think you can handle that tough battle with one less player but don't get rid of the battle just so the gatherer or crafter can solo it.

What disappointed me most about the Q&A is the lack of plans for appropriate content for ranks 45+ with grade 6 nodes. It's the same for battle classes with behests and leves stopping at 40. They should have the 50s there already. People want to do content that's above their rank, not below it. There is no challenge or reward in doing content you're too high for.

I have recompiled the questions and consolidated into like-answers. I have paraphrased where I could for efficiency and accuracy.

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How do you feel about the leveling speed of gatherers compared to other classes?

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We have been looking into ways of increasing the leveling speed.

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Currently the highest node a Botanist/Miner can gather from is Grade 5 while Fishers have Grade 10s, giving them a huge advantage over Miners/Botanists for skilling up. Will we be seeing a balance to this in the future?

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In regards to fishing, we have been looking into lowering fishing spots Grade 6 and above to Grade 1.

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Will there be more DoL leves in the future?

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Adding other content takes priority over adding leves at the moment.

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The current DoL leves are few, and the time and SP rewarded for completing them is rather small. Are there plans to lengthen the leve requirements from say 3 logging points to 6?

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We plan on reviewing the rewards for all types of leves.

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When I hit a sweet spot I still get random items, why is this?

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We believe this may be because certain requirements (such as not being the proper rank) have not been met.

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Why can Wrist Flick stun level 60+ NMs (Uraeus, Great Buffalo, Dodore, Haughtpox Bloatbelly, Elder Mosshorn) with ease and consistency?

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While this does work for NMs, the effects will differ based on level.

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What does Mind do for mining?

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The higher the character’s Mind, the more items are gained.

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Will the gathering animations ever be reworked or redone through motion capture to improve the realism and fluidity of the animation?

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This has already been implemented.

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Currently for botanist and miner we have skills that say increased chance at certain crystals i.e. Byregot's Ward but these skills do not provide us with crystals at all. Are these skills mislabeled or is there plans to readjust them?

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It will not be 100%, but the chances will be raised.

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It was initially claimed that all disciplines (War/Magic/Hand/Land) would be of equal focus in regards to content/gameplay. Is this statement still accurate?

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It will still be possible to enjoy the game just as a gatherer, but the battle content and main scenarios to be added will make it necessary to obtain ranks and skills/actions for battle-related classes.

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*Currently there are very few gathering points on each map for botanist and miner, requiring more movement than compared to battle classes to skill up. Are there any plans to add more harvestable points per map square?
*Any chance we can have more mines for miners to mine at, more fishing pools for fishers, and more logging camps for botanists?

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We are seeing if this can be solved through adjusting the placement of these spots. [Not by altering the quantity]

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*Will you implement some kind of "party gathering" system in place? Right now, gathering is a very lonely activity.
*Will we ever be able to group up on gathering jobs to complete a fieldcraft leve or join up on a gathering node?

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Currently, gathering is meant to be played solo, but depending on the content we think it would be OK to allow gathering with other players.

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*The input lag between hitting enter and the cursor stopping is problematic, is this being looked into?
*The speed of gathering animations has increased greatly, but connection latency seems slow down gathering significantly. Will this be addressed and fixed?

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We believe this will be solved when the server adjustments are completed.

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*Will you please get rid of the +1 and +2 items in gathering? It is redundant and takes up too much inventory space.
*Most items that are gathered have no value due to supply being way higher than demand. Is there any plans to limit the supply of certain items like what was done with gold, gems and mahogany?
*Can the nodes for all DoL classes be simplified to contain only two or three different kinds of item? I want to be sure I have found an "Iron/limonite" node or a "Yew lumber/branch/swan feather" node.

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Along with fixing crafting-related recipes, we plan on optimizing the items obtained through gathering.

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*Can there be a feature gatherers can purchase with guild marks to scan for harvesting, quarrying, and spear fishing nodes?
*Will the mini games become different for each gathering class?
*Can we raise our Chocobo to excel in gathering, or perhaps a skill?
*Will we ever see actual resources at gathering points rather than only sparkling lights?
*Will gathering classes (and crafting classes) get their own storyline quests moving forward?
*Are there any plans for other gathering classes beside Miner, Botanist, and Fisherman?
*Are there plans to implement side quests for DoL/DoH?
*Will Chocobo's be involved with gathering classes in any way?
*Will gathering classes be included in the new job system?

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There are currently no plans for this.

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*If you have to keep Gathering Fatigue, would you consider a new activity like "Restoring" to let all Gatherers continue to gain Skill Points (SP) without gaining items?
*Why can we can fish in the fountain in town, but we can't fish in natural water sources like Sorrel Haven?
*Will you implement hybrid guildleves and quests that require a mix of Disciples of Land/Hand/War/Magic?
*Could a pop up be added after harvesting an item requesting "Would you like to keep this?" or "Toss it out"?
*Will we be able to select which item we are focusing on gathering?

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We'll keep it under consideration.

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*In the future, will I be able to fish up mobs on the ferry rides? If so, and I'm KOed (dang you, Anglers!), would I return to the last aetheryte I touched, or complete the boat ride?
*If a monster attacks a player while gathering, why can't we use our weapons instead of a stone?
*Can we manually mark the map with different types of icon as mining, fishing, and Logging point in the future update?
*It is very inconvenient for Regional Leves to share both gathering and battle leves. Will you give gathering leves its own category?
*Are there any plans to reintroduce FINAL FANTASY XI's Fishing mechanic of possibly fishing up monsters?
*Will there be gathering competitions (Ex. Who can catch the most or biggest fish!) ?
*Instead of BTN always destroying the landscape why cant we also mend and fix plant life?
*Will gathering jobs ever be needed for dungeon content? Example: clearing boulders or brush to an optional boss or an optional route which leads us to the end of the dungeon; or even fishing up an optional boss?
*Will there be specific factors made public such as Moon Phases, Time of Day, and Weather Conditions that affect the Drops Rates and Quality of items obtained through gathering?

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Similar suggestions have been brought up by the development team, but nothing has been finalized.

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*All items that can be gathered so far seem pretty common, will there be rare ores/logs/etc that can be crafted into great gear?
*Can you please allow the use of Eluder abilities on DoW/DoM? It doesn't make sense that they cannot use them.
*Gathering classes appear to have half the "useful" amount of guild mark choices when compared to battle classes. Will adjustments be made to provide useful abilities and traits that enhance the classes?
*Will you give gathering classes other activities to do besides gather with their main hand and off hand tools? For example: gardening for botanists (like in FF11), or aquariums for fishers.
*Harvesting gear is very limited. Are there any plans to add more/higher level harvesting gear in the immediate future?
*Are there plans to reward effort and innovation in gathering, just as in the battle design?
*Any plans to alleviate inventory stress for gatherers?
*Are there any plans of making the gathering jobs a lot more interactive and engaging with their own special abilities?
*Are there any plans to have Arbor Call, Lay of the Land, and Gulleye ping or mark the mini-map (and main map) with an arrow to follow instead of it indicating the location via text?
*Crafters currently have gatherers under their thumbs in terms of who holds most of the economic value in their relationship. Any plans to strengthen the economic power of gatherers?
*Are the current dungeons going to receive gathering points?

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We have plans for this, but no specific details or timeline is ready to be announced.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

I don't want crafters or gatherers to be treated as equals to battle classes. I want to do fun, challenging boss battles that the FF series is known for in it's stories. I don't want to be running around talking to NPCs and playing some slow, boring mini game that requires no skill.

I am never going to choose to do a story quest on my CRP or BTN when I can do it on my ARC or CON. That's crazy talk. I don't know a single crafter or gatherer who does not have a battle class ranked up. There may well exist a few but catering the game to these is not smart.

Story quests should ALWAYS require battle classes. Sure, let the gatherer sit and leach if you think you can handle that tough battle with one less player but don't get rid of the battle just so the gatherer or crafter can solo it.

What disappointed me most about the Q&A is the lack of plans for appropriate content for ranks 45+ with grade 6 nodes. It's the same for battle classes with behests and leves stopping at 40. They should have the 50s there already. People want to do content that's above their rank, not below it. There is no challenge or reward in doing content you're too high for.

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I dont expect SE to cater to the casual public. I am one of the people who have stood by for along time in hopes that this game would become more hardcore than it is. I am one who agrees that "time consumption < challenge". So Hardcore play style to me doesn't have to rely on how much time, but rather how skilled you are. With that said, I don't expect crafters/gatherers to leech story line content, but rather have beneficial usage within the party dynamics. This was a concept SE talked about from the start, so I don't see as to why this wasn't followed through(and I wish it would have been). It has been stated as an example where Miner had ability's to alter elemental weakness's or something of that effect.
Just because crafters or gatherers have a roll in the battle field has nothing to do with casual or underwhelming difficulty.
Seems like having them individual classes now has hardly any point to it since the whole reason was to have them played as separate more useful classes anyway.

So instead of providing higher grade zones for Mining and Botanist to make it less painful after R40, they will just f*ck with Fishing.. Good Job..

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Originally Posted by MHB3000

the mystery behind it cant be summed up with a simple answer..

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...and that simple answer is, "we didn't have time to implement anything like that because we weren't finished making the game when we launched it".

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

We received the responses from the dev. team to the questions that were brought up in our second round of polling the forums. We are going to be addressing the questions generated in the EN forum first, and then adding in the additional, internationally-gathered questions later today hopefully, but it might slip into tomorrow.

I do ask that you please keep in mind the format and style of this Q&A. We received a ton of questions and it'd be difficult to give huge, and in-depth answers to each and every one of them. It may come off kind of cold to have so many similar responses, but that was the style of Q&A we chose to do with such a large volume of questions.

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Thank you very much Bayohne. Your efforts do you and the rest of the Community Team much credit.

I do apologize for the mostly negative reaction of the player community. It is not due to the Community Team's efforts at getting them answers, I assure you. It is simply human nature to be upset when they get answers they do not like.

So keep up the good work and continue to relay our questions and constructive comments to the Development Team. Despite the current negativity, we do actually very much look forward to the information the Community Team provides to us.

Thanks again! :D

Disheartened to hear that there are no immediate plans to integrate DoL into party play. They seemed to make promises at launch of real integration with the DoL classes in party battle/quests etc. that would have been really innovative. Guess we can't be asking for innovation before the games fixed.

Ah well, as me pappy used to say, 'you cannae paint a picasso if you dun' kno' what a face looks like t' begin wif"

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Originally Posted by Eugenics

Removed due to Forum Terms of Service.

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OK.

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Originally Posted by Evil Sorel

Bayohne! You may have gotten away with providing wussy answers this time ... but next time we see you, you better have answers with implementation timestamps and code snippets!! Sorry-ass "explanations" won't cut it anymore!!! :mad:

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There. :p

To be honest I don't care that the answers that we got we're short and in some cases vague. What really annoyed me about this was the fact that the announced a Q&A on the most clearly lacking aspect of the game, implying they we're doing something with it, and then tell us they are doing nothing with it..

I mean people don't like the battle system, but they have things to fight and the ability to reach level cap. You have to be down right obsessed with gathering to get Mining and Botany past Rank 43.

And to tell us there is no plan to implement DoL/DoH into the new content is down right insulting. The least they could have done was tell us they will make new separate content for DoL sometime after the new Battle System changes. Don't let silence imply that your just abandoning an entire section of the game..

Again, how is saying that they're increasing SP gains, adding in new gear, making the leves more accessible, and adding in rarer items "doing nothing"? I'm really curious wth you think "doing something" is.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

The speed of gathering animations has increased greatly, but connection latency seems slow down gathering significantly. Will this be addressed and fixed?

We believe this will be solved when the server adjustments are completed.

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Later that day... it has been adjusted to last twice as long!

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Currently the highest node a Botanist/Miner can gather from is Grade 5 while Fishers have Grade 10s, giving them a huge advantage over Miners/Botanists for skilling up. Will we be seeing a balance to this in the future?
In regards to fishing, we have been looking into lowering fishing spots Grade 6 and above to Grade 1.

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In other news all camps above Rank 30 have been reduced to rank 1.. congratulations!! Have fun leveling!!

What a bunch of BS. I wish I had asked this question:

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All of the abilities gathers get only have a slight change of taking effect and they are all mutually exclusive.. can we please be able to use them all at the same time?

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Suspected answer.. "We have no plans for this."

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by a lot of these answers. It's pretty clear gathering-related activities beyond balancing the economy are a secondary concern right now. Let's see if the other languages' Q&A bring anything new.

In other news, if Mind increases number of items dropped at a node for miners, we can probably assume this also applies to botanist with Int.

There's actually a lot of information still missing from the English forums. There's 153 questions answered on the Japanese forums and I counted 54 on ours. Hopefully Bayohne finds time to translate the others.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

There's actually a lot of information still missing from the English forums. There's 153 questions answered on the Japanese forums and I counted 54 on ours. Hopefully Bayohne finds time to translate the others.

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but we can already predict the answers to them...

I'm a bit disheartened to see that Gatherers are being sidelined to some extent, however in general the answers were either as expected or what makes sense. Also, whomever said everyone should have combat levelled - were it not for the ability to 'main' Botanist I definitely would have quit this game and that probably wont change unless the Combat Revamp is rock solid and enjoyable. Rank 43 Botanist compared to 27 Lancer here.

At the same time I still think the Main Story should be for everyone, but have events such as Ifrit etc seperate. Example would be you see a group of Garleans and escape - mission ends but you can then get extra story and cutscenes by going back armed with a group, rather than telling craft/gather they are worth less.

I bet more people have quit because the story missions are so terrible than would quit because they can't main class as a gatherer. I've yet to even do the rank 47 mission and it's supposed to be the best. Just no motivation knowing it will just be more running around and nothing to fight. This game probably has a more boring story than FFX and that was awful.

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Currently the highest node a Botanist/Miner can gather from is Grade 5 while Fishers have Grade 10s, giving them a huge advantage over Miners/Botanists for skilling up. Will we be seeing a balance to this in the future?

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

In regards to fishing, we have been looking into lowering fishing spots Grade 6 and above to Grade 1.

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First of all, thanks Bayohne for the tedious work of grouping the questions and conveying answers from the very developer(s) in charge of gathering content who seem so lack of enthusiam to develop further, in contrast to Matsui-san who is believed to bring constructive changes to the fighter/mage battle contents.

Personally I feel mortified to read the "Gathering Q&A" threads on both the Japanese and English forums. Take example of the above quoted answer, seriously I don't see the logic of eliminating Grade6+ fishing spots instead of implementing some for mining and harvesting.

In FF11, we used to know the full name of the responsible developer for certain contents, like from dengeki/famitsu magazine interviews. I would also like to know the full name of the person(s) in charge of gathering contents and see if he's/they're courageous enough to admit "sorry, it's far too troublesome to define and associate new item lists for higher grade gathering points for the 2 classes than to simply duplicate existing grade 1 item lists for multiple fishing points" openly on magazines very soon.

Meanwhile I would love Bayohne from the customer rep team to help convey the message to the person/people responsible for gathering contents that "If you don't like what you do, please quit. You are merely disappointing those who still support this game when many others are harshly criticising it." :mad::mad::mad:

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Originally Posted by Tonan

[FONT="Verdana"]Personally I feel mortified to read the "Gathering Q&A" threads on both the Japanese and English forums. Take example of the above quoted answer, seriously I don't see the logic of eliminating Grade6+ fishing spots instead of implementing some for mining and harvesting.

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I understand why they are doing this. Grades were designed with target Ranks in mind. Which is why players get the surveying abilities for a particular Grade at a particular Rank.

Grade 1 = Ranks 1-9
Grade 2 = Ranks 10 - 19
Grade 3 = Ranks 20 - 29
Grade 4 = Ranks 30 - 39
Grade 5 = Ranks 40 - 49
Grade 6 = Rank 50

The presence of Rank 7+ fishing points is clearly a mistake on the part of the Development Team, as they should only be available to those of a Rank that is currently higher than the current cap.

The Development Team has two possible solutions.

1. Raise the Rank cap on Disciples of Land to 90, create Grade 7 thru 9 points for miners and botanists, and provide the appropriate survey abilities to all DoL classes.
2. Change the Grade 7+ fishing point to Grade 6 or less.

It looks like they are going with the second option.

I can't say I find fault with that, as the first option would take longer to implement, and cause some serious balance issues in the game.

As for the reason they just didn't explain this ... well they had a lot of questions to field. So it is understandable that they would just state what their fix is for the issue ... instead of penning a 20 line response like I did.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

Again, how is saying that they're increasing SP gains, adding in new gear, making the leves more accessible, and adding in rarer items "doing nothing"? I'm really curious wth you think "doing something" is.

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I would really like to see where your getting your information. What I read said they were looking into ways to make leveling up faster. That would be a good thing if leveling weren't already fast enough. You can take a job up to 43 in less than a month, it is only the last 7 levels that are impossible. But they specifically said there is no plans to change leves in anyway. And new gear does not change the class' role in game play in any way, shape or form. It simply appeases people who have no desire to see the jobs take an integral role in the world. Rarer Items is quite possibly the worst thing they can do. It will only serve to cause the 75% of people playing who hate a challenge to whine when they can't get them.

"Doing something" would be at the very least planning some way to add more depth to the classes. DoW/M get Hunting NM, Behests, Leves, Side Quests, New Dungeons, and a fairly in depth way to customize there character(until they remove that in the next patch). DoL get levequests they have to share with DoW/M and 250 successful gathering attempts a day. IMHO, they don't even need to integrate these classes into the main story or the new content they simply need to say "We will make these classes there very own specific content so people who thoroughly enjoy them will have something to do."

You get grade 5 leves at 35 so you should be getting grade 6 leves at 45. A player of 35 can target grade 5 fine outside of leves too and get 3 hits on the node. You just need more time and skill to find the nodes. Why shouldn't this be encouraged in the form of reward = effort? You get the scanning abilities at X8 so I should be able to scan for grade 6 at 48 and get 4 hits on the node. This is why it's so painful to rank up from the mid 40s. The SP formula is fine, it's the lack of grade 6 that's making it appear terrible when you reach the mid 40s.

It's the same reason rank 40 battle leves and behests start to suck by the mid 40s. Sure you can up the stars on the leves but sometimes that makes the leve hell with lots of death unless your party is big. Rank 50 battle leves and behests should exist from 43, not 50. Just like grade 6 should exist from rank 45. It's laziness on SE's part, nothing less.

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Originally Posted by Loony_BoB

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You can currently get multiple types of wood from a single tree. This makes no sense at all - would it be possible to simply add multiple types of trees to an area and have each tree contain different types of wood?

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Following on from the above - why can I get wood from a cactus!? Eorzea is pretty weird. ;)

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Adding text to make up ten characters.

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...I guess my questions were not good enough for an answer? :(

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Originally Posted by Xenor

You get grade 5 leves at 35 so you should be getting grade 6 leves at 45. A player of 35 can target grade 5 fine outside of leves too and get 3 hits on the node. You just need more time and skill to find the nodes. Why shouldn't this be encouraged in the form of reward = effort? You get the scanning abilities at X8 so I should be able to scan for grade 6 at 48 and get 4 hits on the node. This is why it's so painful to rank up from the mid 40s. The SP formula is fine, it's the lack of grade 6 that's making it appear terrible when you reach the mid 40s.

It's the same reason rank 40 battle leves and behests start to suck by the mid 40s. Sure you can up the stars on the leves but sometimes that makes the leve hell with lots of death unless your party is big. Rank 50 battle leves and behests should exist from 43, not 50. Just like grade 6 should exist from rank 45. It's laziness on SE's part, nothing less.

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Except for battle jobs you can kill normal mobs that are R50+ or do more stars on the R40 leves. With BOT/MIN those Grade5 nodes are the highest SP sources, and the SP goes downhill fast as you progress through the mid-40s. A fair comparison would be saying that no R50+ mobs exist at all and you have level up off of R40-50 mobs.

Its beyond lazy and ridiculous that Grade 6 nodes aren't in the game. Now SE is saying they'll gimp the Grade6+ fishing instead of putting in Grade6 nodes for MIN/BOT. Unbelievable.

DoL was supposed to not have to deal with hostile mobs as well but that didn't happen either. Tree Speak mining will regularly get you the Goblin NM on top of one of your nodes or Dwarf Diremites they scattered everywhere. There's practically no thought in mob placement/distribution, the thing I hate most about trying to rank up DoW/M is the horrible respawns coupled with rank distribution.

Hey gang. We have another set of answers here for your perusal. Unfortunately, this isn't the entire list as we're still going through and organizing/translating them. Sorry for the continued delay, and believe me when I say that this has been a learning experience for everyone involved (so many questions...) and we'll be working to ensure we smooth the entire thing out going forward.

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Is the feature that allows low-level gatherers to follow high-level gatherers around their leves and get more hits at high-grade nodes than otherwise possible working as intended?

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Yes, this was planned to work this way.

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Can you make a more efficient system for the consumption of harvested items? For example, a system where you can trade-in/exchange gathered items etc. It's not possible to get rid of them just by selling them, using them yourself, or by selling via retainers.

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While this is already part of the Guild Task series of quests, we will look into expanding it in the future as well.

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Will you be revamping skill effects/recast timers, as well as gatherer skills in general?

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We are looking into it.

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Please let us know the current direction of gathering classes.

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Along with crafters, we are defining it as a class that supports the battle classes.

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Are there any plans for the adding a visual notification of the limits of gathering (such as 0/250)?

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We do not have any plans for adding some type of visual notice/notification.

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Please increase the amount of times you can mine at a single node. It's incredibly boring having to move all the time.

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We are looking into it.

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Are there are members of the development team that are playing gatherer classes and enjoying it?

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There are actually quite a few dev. team members playing gathering classes!

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In the future, are there any plans to drastically change gatherers?

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We are planning to focus on adjustments and the addition of new elements.

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In regards to fishing, will you make it possible to rely on the fish you caught for skill points instead of the grade you're fishing at?

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We will look into whether or not doing so would have any adverse effects on obtainable items.

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Will it be possible to fish up fish of various rank while fishing on the boat (similar to FFXI's boat ride)?

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We are looking into it.

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How come the skills that gatherers can utilize in active mode are so limited?

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We are planning to add more abilities for them to utilize in the future.

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When will grades beyond grade 6 be implemented for Mining and Botany?

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We're planning on implementing this for gatherers who reach Rank 51 or higher.

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"Fatigue" for the Disciples of War is being scrapped, so will the gathering cap for gatherers also be removed?

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There are no plans for this at the moment.

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Please raise the gathering cap. It's something that all Gatherers feel is a burden on their shoulder. As we reach higher ranks, our gathering duration can become as short as 2 hours before we are unable to gather anymore. In addition, the SP we obtain can be less than 100 even at grade 5 when our rank is in the 40s. 15000 - 20000 per gathering is mentally tough. We really would like to receive more SP (including the release of higher grades).

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We're considering increasing the amount of obtainable SP via gather.

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Since obtainable SP is fixed by grade level, it doesn't feel right that obtainable SP is the same for gathering low and high rank items. Are there any plans for adjusting the SP?

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We're taking into consideration the possibility of SP being affected by the type of item that is gathered.

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Why does Arbor Call have no affect on lower grades while Triangulate does?

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This was done to avoid any confusion that may occur when gathering locations of different grades are present in the same area.

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Auto-attack is being implemented for the Disciples of War. Will auto-gather be implemented for gatherers?

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That might be a nice idea for an ability.

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I hope Botanists will be able to use the hatchet on their backs to attack monsters. It would be a lot more effective than throwing rocks.

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Similar opinions have been expressed from within the development team.

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Are there any plans to implement fighting abilities or the ability to avoid monsters for gatherers?

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We're currently brainstorming an ability to help gatherers avoid monsters.

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What are your ideas for the endgame content for Gatherers?

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We're brainstorming "content where gatherers will target and gather rare items."

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It seems like certain fishing baits are too effective, making all the other ones virtually useless. Are you considering making changes to them?

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We're considering making adjustments.

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Please give Gatherers more weapons and armor. Currently, gatherers of the same rank lack uniqueness because they all wear the same equipment.

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We’re looking into it now.

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What sort of affect do Elemental stats have on Gatherers?

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They affect the gathering of shards.

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Gatherers should be able to hold their tools like the Disciples of War. It just doesn't cut it when I'm taking a screenshot and gatherers are standing around like a log.

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We'll take it into consideration.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

Hey gang. We have another set of answers here for your perusal. Unfortunately, this isn't the entire list as we're still going through and organizing/translating them. Sorry for the continued delay, and believe me when I say that this has been a learning experience for everyone involved (so many questions...) and we'll be working to ensure we smooth the entire thing out going forward.

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Late night I see. I don't envy you, sir.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

We're planning on implementing this for gatherers who reach Rank 51 or higher.

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Not sure if this has been confirmed otherwise; and, although it was fairly obvious, this is the first time I have seen confirmation of the level cap being increased. Not really news though I guess.

Thanks again Bayohne! All these little tid bits go a great way to satisfying our daily thirst for information :)

Notice how this one has a lot of "We are" rather than "We will". Feels so much more satisfying, wonder if it's true. I'm actually a bit excited about reading the rest!

What I would give for a day at Square's and see how the work environment is... Really sounds like everyone is multitasking in full force, or the work force is 500 men strong.

Maybe I should go to that "So you get ONE wish" thread and make mine this one instead.

Hey reps, is it all chillin' at NA, since the software is worked in Japan? Or is there more to you guys in this side of the world than just trying to satiate our unquenchable desire to be spoiled?

Yeah, I noticed that too :)

But the question is when? I have a feeling this game will be a bit different than MMO's in the past. Meaning we might see an increase in lvl/rank cap without a major expansion. Possibly to coincide with the PS3 release, and the release of new high rank gear. ie you have to be rank 60 to wear it.

We should start to see a deluge of information next week.

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Originally Posted by Hiemdall

We should start to see a deluge of information next week.

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People said that last week.

And the week before.

We've heard nothing big for three weeks now.

Square Enix really knows how to starve their fan-base/players of information. At this point of the games failure, it does worse to stay so secretive than actually releasing concrete information. Is it really that much of a far cry to ACTUALLY be told what the Dev's are thinking about vs. vague/useless answers at hand picked questions.

I believe the different type of answers we see, at least on this first part of the international Q&A, has to do a lot with how the question were made. On the previous post for our Q&A, I indicated the it was not working and preferred something else. it seems the real problem was in how we formulate our questions in the first place that didnt leave much room for the dev team to answer properly.

This one is way better. Thank you Dev. team and Community reps

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Originally Posted by Xenor

People said that last week.

And the week before.

We've heard nothing big for three weeks now.

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Well three weeks ago we got the last Producer Letter, and we should get one any day now. The dev team has been working hard on things for months now and we will start to see the fruits of their labor in 1.18, and then the debut of the Job System, and maybe Materia System in 1.19. By the end of Summer we may be able to roam Eorzea while riding Chocobo's, or get a birds eye view while take an airship from Gridania to Ul'Dah. If not it will all come in due time.

Just be patient, this is just a very long open beta where your character won't be wiped. Take a break and play another game, SE's new upcoming (produced) game Wakfu is fun. I just finally got around to playing Portal 2.

Patience my friend :)

Interesting stuff. Doesn't seem like we'll get a lot of love, us gatherers, but I guess if they give me more fish to catch I'll be happy. Fishing is currently the only thing I really enjoy in game.

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Originally Posted by Hiemdall

and we should get one any day now.

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That would be nice, but I've pretty much given up on waiting for new letters.