Discussion for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XX

[BlaiseArath]

Agreed - a 50-hour campaign is very substantial. I hope its a very entertaining campaign... at that!

Yeah, a 50-hour main story is NOTHING to complain about. I'm thrilled when an rpg lasts that long, and usually they require tons of sidequesting to get there. Don't know what that guy's smoking.

Its not about Quantity its about Quality... Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if 25 hour of that was Running from point A to point B to click a spot and "Wait" to be told to return back to Point A with almost no progression made. Though I actually enjoy the story when actual story is happening so I can't complain. it was entertaining and I'm certainly not disappointed. But good god there was a lot of "Go to this spot so nothing can happen and you can return" filler quests.

[Wildsprite]

That explains so much.
Aside from boss encounters, a lot about the game feels like it was designed on paper and no one in testing was listened to, in addition to the developers clearly not having a fixed direction for content.
Say what you will about the idea of HW following directly from ARR and requiring it, at least you're told exactly where to go and have reason to be there.
In FFXI (and some older MMOs, like EQ1) expansion content is plopped down on top of the existing content, only really activating when you seek it out. During my recent return to FFXI, the only reason I even figured out how the WoG zones work was because I wanted to unlock Dancer, which requires it.
There are pluses and minuses to both, but the lack of direction in FFXI definitely says it was born in a committee meeting without thought to how it would feel.

anotherr fine example of things not thought out fully was the Colibri in the ToAU areas, most parties completely shunned Black mage because of these insidius little pain in the back side. even if one of the devs was sadistic enough to come up with something like that. the fact that it made it into the game as is shows it was not designed with the players using it to level up in mind. I'll give you a fine example of this. party has a PLD tank and a DRK in the DPS with me as healer. I warned the DRK not to use his magic damage spells against it but he did not listen. he cast one of the nastier spells a DRK can do. the Colibri then turned around and used that exact spell and killed the tank with it.

[Korbash]

I'm happy about the new infos about the expansion, but what happened to the Q&A for ARR?

[Callinon]

Its not about Quantity its about Quality... Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if 25 hour of that was Running from point A to point B to click a spot and "Wait" to be told to return back to Point A with almost no progression made. Though I actually enjoy the story when actual story is happening so I can't complain. it was entertaining and I'm certainly not disappointed. But good god there was a lot of "Go to this spot so nothing can happen and you can return" filler quests.

Certainly possible and complaining about that would be legitimate. But since we don't know, I choose to believe that Heavensward's story will follow along the same level of quality as the last few patches. Which is absolutely fine with me.

Let's not complain about a story being bland until we see it.

[Kotemon]

So new jobs start at level 30... going to be some teething issues as people learn the new rotations and abilities, but it's better than having to start from 1.

Makes sense since its a job. But If they use a soul crystal like other jobs then does that mean, Drk, Mak, Ast can walk about with out the need to equip a weapon? If so what base class is required for the new jobs. Or will they have their own pre lv 30 skills?

[Wildsprite]

If so what base class is required for the new jobs. Or will they have their own pre lv 30 skills?

this is a question on my mind as well

[Callinon]

Makes sense since its a job. But If they use a soul crystal like other jobs then does that mean, Drk, Mak, Ast can walk about with out the need to equip a weapon? If so what base class is required for the new jobs. Or will they have their own pre lv 30 skills?

Odds are they'll have their own set of skills and not be tied to any class (elsewise they would start at 50 for a lot of people, which is not a thing). My assumption is that they'll be controlled by the equipped weapon like everything else is and just won't involve a soul crystal. They'll basically be treated like classes except they'll be called jobs.

[kyuven]

Makes sense since its a job. But If they use a soul crystal like other jobs then does that mean, Drk, Mak, Ast can walk about with out the need to equip a weapon? If so what base class is required for the new jobs. Or will they have their own pre lv 30 skills?

It'll most likely work like Tera and WoW's added classes. They'll start with a number of skills about equal with the classes.
They will not use a soul crystal. There's no mechanical reason for them to exist for the new jobs, and SE would jump at the chance to save adding more unnecessary inventory slots.

[Kotemon]

XI use to be great, they have changed it too much from what made it memorable but then again it that don't have the big enough player base nor current day gamers mindset to keep that format going anymore.

While it was good in the past, it was never intended to last as long as it had. At best the original main story was meant to overlap through or up to Chains of Promathia. It was the only known thing to me to sell a Hard drive for the PS2. By then Sony already had began to phase in the slim PS2. The lack of support by/for the ps3 ultimately doomed the title to being stuck in time. The Mini expansions was a cost cutting move to buy time because they were not planning to keep it running as long as it has after WoG.


A lot of folk said to kill off the PS2 support and just remake a whole new standalone expansion that upgraded the game to the modern era. Both Wow and Everquest did that, they're still in service. By the looks of FF14 and its original concept, they tried to do that but went with a standalone title that was only loosely based on FFXI for logistical reasons, the PS2 framework in FFXI.

The game field has changed and FFXI has sort of become a brick wall where all you have to dig through is a pair of chopsticks. Unless you invest the excessive amount of time to far and ilevel a shovel. How ironic they mildly tried to include or beta test concepts from FFXIV in FFXI to act as a new coat of paint on a realy old house with signs of dry rot.. (I level, pulse weapons, level sync, field/grounds of valor to name a few)

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I think people complain about things in FFXIV because they think it'll make it more for the hard core elitist that had filled FFXI, or make it to streamline and mind numbingly simplistic for people who played a lot of MMORPG's. Getting over the Job class issue, I just think a lot of it has to do with how it was partially carried over from 1.0. Despite not working out as intended. (should have looked more to tactics and maybe FFX for skill/class trees and the like)

that being said I wouldn't mind seeing versions of some of the end game content added to XIV.

I'd actually would like to see the inside of Atomos from Wings of the Goddess as a big M.C. Escher (think Relativity or that castle in Labyrinth) inspired zone or area for multiple raids. It seems like inside of Atomos for FFXI could have been so much more with the various Walk of Echo's. Heck the concept of it eating bits of realities can make it into fan-service for raids of featuring various place and bosses from the franchise.

But Aside from that I'd like to see the Pulse weapons (alternative to the current glow effect) and some of the Adoulin weapons like runes Great swords, Great Axes, daggers, Oat, and so on.. It might be lower resolution on XI's skins but the designs looked really great for the most part on some of them. At very least the Naakuals alone would be a great 30 minute fate battles at the least.

[Windklinge]

new raid loot system. THANK GOD YOSCHI. hopefully they get rid of the rng factor or atleast reduce it. normal mode raid has no weekly lockout either. good to know. hardmode coming 4 weeks later than launch. and weekly caps aswell. good. more time to gear that DRK up.

he said he will show more details of new raidloot on a later letter. looking forward to that. current system needs to go. its just wrong to reward people 100% based on luck than effort.

unlimited playable content can stay random loot. idc. but weekly locked needs a change.