Letter from the Producer LXII

[Allegor]

He spoke about tank balance because main and off tank exist, but there's no such thing as an 'offhealer'. Take it as you may, I'm also a bit disappointed, but if this means WHM will get some love to compensate, I think it's worth the uhh...sacrifice.

[Tenil]

I completely disagree with your stance on the races and their explanation regarding them, because it seemed very reasonable to me.

It seems reasonable if you take everything he said as fact. In actuality, though, all races except roegadyn and lalafell share a body - they aren't unique. Even roegadyn share a body with hrothgar now.

Then there's this line: "FFXIV has around ten thousand equippable items already implemented, all of which must be manually modified by our designers". That's a blatant lie. A large number of items share models, and an even larger amount are racially universal, like accessories and weapons.

I'm not suggesting that no or little work goes into new races (even though this game has cut corners massively on races), but I don't appreciate being lied to about it being more work than it is. If the actual amount of work required is too much work, then just say it's too much work.

[MOZZYSTAR]

It didn't put to rest anything, in my opinion. It's basically the same stuff reiterated as before, they just went into detail of all the resources they'd have to go through (which was obvious to some, but not to others). For me, this letter just kind of put salt in the wound. I'm upset about no male viera, yeah, but I wouldn't have gotten nearly as upset as I did if Dancer (which was healer in FFXI) was a healer - or if we had any healer class honestly, and/or if BLU wasn't such a shitshow.

These were things I was really looking forward to, really hoping for, but my wish was just corrupted with excuse after excuse. I honestly think the excuses in regards to healer are the most offending ones. I'm not as mad about viera/hrothgar as I am about healer. Sure, there's only two range DPS, but we have like 30 something DPS all together (including non-job classes) and DPS class as a whole the only class type - minus newest tank - that has been added in the game in the past four years. As someone who mained heal since the game first came out basically, I tend to get burnt out of classes after playing them for so long. I've been maining AST for the past four years, WHM for the past two before that, and I play SCH on an alt. This past year, I've actually levelled up BRD to main cuz I am that burnt out of current healing classes.

That being said, I do plan on making DNC my new main class because ranged DPS is my thing and I still like DPS-Dancer's concept. I'm just massively disappointed in the impending six year wait for a new healer class. (If they need help with ideas for heals, they could host a contest... ha ha... ha... /would join and never joins contests.)

[Penthea]

I think they misunderstood what the actual request was.

No I have seen some threads here asking to be able to play characters who are clearly young teenagers or even younger. Chances are it happens in the other language forums as well.

I don't ever see SE doing this. They would have to increase the age rating because let's face it; the WoL is constantly killing people, not just unintelligent monsters. Sure these people are the bad guys but anyone who knows about the Garlean Empire knows a lot of their soldiers are also victims of their conquest. The WoL has definitely killed a lot of people who would rather be doing anything but fight under the Garlean banner. Then there's the fact that you find out that one of the scions is the product of rape. You meet more nps who allude to this sort of thing going on. It's just messed up to have a child be leading the charge in a story like this.

Don't get me wrong, it could make for a very interesting story especially if the msq changed a bit if you played a child. But the age rating would have to go up to reflect the wrongness and the tragedy of a child shouldering so much burden and having to mature far beyond their years to deal with it.

Never mind how SE had to crack down on some very inappropriate rp involving lalafells. It would only get worse if players could actually look like real children.

Also a lot of gear would have to be reworked for them. I don't think SE want children running around in bikinis or sexy bunny outfits.

[SannaR]

Yay they were able to make glasses work and thanks for the sneak peak to pld and sch ShB outfits if not just the tops and gloves of them. A little sad that not a whole lot of new info is in there since he's said those points in other interviews. I am glad he is aware of how problematic it would be to put in younger models.

[Kalise]

Talks about adding a 4th tank to help with the balance but then says cannot add a 4th healer for the sake of the balance.

Then talks about how there's only 2 ranged melee DPS so they feel they are doing good by adding another ignoring the fact that idk theres a ton of DPS!? Who cares if there's only two melee ranged, it's all under an umbrella.

My favourite part is how point 3 on the jobs, the point that's "The Present Balance Between Tanks and Healers", starts off with the wonderful:

"Since we currently have four melee DPS jobs, we decided to hold off on developing another and instead added a new tank."

Like, really. They were looking at the terrible balance of Tanks and Healers and then considered adding another mDPS meaning that we were actually close to getting another 2 DPS jobs for the second expansion in a row.

SE really, really, really, really need to hire someone who mains Tank and someone who mains Healer to work in the design/balance team.

The current group of DPS mains just have no grasp on the other roles at all.

[Iscah]

Yay they were able to make glasses work and thanks for the sneak peak to pld and sch ShB outfits if not just the tops and gloves of them.

I'm pretty sure those are both the Lv70 outfits.

[Fal_Kearst]

I do find there gender races decision very odd. trying to please everybody and instead pleased no one

I was surprised and pleased with the announcement of Hrothgar.

[Hash_Browns]

That picture makes me excited to go cat daddy.

[MrKusakabe]

I do not care about the new species (or "races" as people wrongly call them; races are more "Dunesfolk" and "Plainsfolk" while the species is "Lalafell"...) as I am already what I enjoy as my avatar/alter ego:
A noble and educated midget.
But I don't believe this "10,000 items have to be changed to fit" stuff. The game's models are all in a certain boundary. There are no super tall or super small versions of a species. There are no features out of a certain range. I am sure there is some sort of "formula" available to batch-stretch or batch-fix much of the stuff.

I mean, they can do it for "10,000 items" for already 5 species/"races", but a 6th and 7th is suddenly "absolutely super duper impossible" even with the "tremendous amount of money" we actually throw at the game via game purchases and expansion pack purchases, full-price subscription, high-priced cash shop and overpriced merchandise shop?

I don't buy that. Just my two scents, but I smell bullocks in that part.

Sincerely,