New Letter from the Producer, XII

[AlphaLion]

Being a fan of FFXIV, and currently enjoying the game, even if it has limited content, I'd like to add my 5 cents.

At the launch of FFXIV we joined old MMO friends from FFXI (old LS mates), WoW (friends of friends), and other MMO guys into a nice social LS doing weekly guildleves together and SP party to lvl our chars.

Some of us also have been crafting and gathering and also one or the other solo guildleve, if Guild Marks so required. All fine with that.

The problem now, and it is both induced by the latest letter from Yoshida, as well as the outlines for the game changes:
- where is the group play going?

Yes, we will get raids, all good. Leve-linking of the same 4 guildleves is boring, and we all prefer interesting SP partys to group guildleves.

But there are major problems with SP party grinding at the moment, and none of this has been addressed so far:
- there are only 5 types of mobs that are suitable for party: efts, eyes, peiste, raptors (all 150 base SP), and drakes (200 base SP) - see http://ffxiv-invictuscodex.com/forum_threads/752024 for more info
- add in some fast-killed mobs like buzzards
- still there are only very few party camp locations:
=> 27-29: Antlings in lower Copperbell Mines (pretty slow SP)
=> 29-33/34: Efts and buzzards at Nine Ivies (4 camps)
=> 33/34-39: Efts at Treespeak (1 good and 1 bad camp)
=> 39-44: Efts at Silent Arbor (3 camps)
=> 45-50: Raptors at Boulder Downs (1 full party fills out all camp), and Ever Lakes (max 2 parties)

Soooo, atm Lindblum server is a good place to level, there are very few ppl playing actively. I except (and hope) this to change once the games gets on track. But with the removal of the leve-link reward and the desire of many (probably most people) to socialize and play together with their friends (duo/trio/party whatsoever). WHERE ARE THE SP CAMPS?!

My suggestions to resolve this:
- add more camps with the same mobs as now
- increase base SP / kill time of other mobs and group them to SP camps
- increase the repop time / make the repop time stable - atm it varies a lot,
that is a major problem with SP parties, since u will lose the "flow" often

I have no problems with casual players not playing often to have their stuff to do. But there is not enough focus on group play, I am very likely losing my online friends if this wont be fixed. We have no other game to go to, since all the other major MMOs have the same solo-focus. That is sad and it might be a big mistake, if not addressed quickly.

[TheVedis]

why is everyone in here bothering with arguing with gifttroll?
hes already had several accounts banned for a reason on here

[Ashthra]

Prosper? I've seen nothing but systematic destruction of the MMO Yoshi was supposedly put in charge to help save.

Job system? LOL. Wrong game yoshi you fool. At least make it work within the confines of the armory system instead of replacing it!

Who put these ignoramuses in charge?

They don't even have the courage to delete the armory system that they obviously hate so much. They hear some people want jobs so they try to fit an incompatible system on top of another.

You want to hear about mangling an MMO, look no further than Yoshi P.

Im not saying Tanaka is good. Im saying Yoshi has no freakin idea.

I hear taking a job system that is bland and uninteresting, and adding another layer to it for those who enjoy a more specific style of play, is completely removing that bland and uninteresting system point blank. Because Final Fantasy has never had advanced classes before. Nope. Yoshi has TOTALLY JUMPED THE SHARK, MAN. >

I hear that overhauling a lag-prone and unenjoyable battle system that promoted mindless spamming and replacing it with something that makes more sense (and would be more forgiving to people with higher latencies -- like pretty much everyone that isn't in Japan) is ruining the game.

I hear that wanting to add things that even free to play MMOs wouldn't be caught dead without is a decision that only clueless knuckle-dragging troglodytes would ever think of.

I hear that wanting to change overly large, lifeless maps that serve absolutely zero purpose beyond trying to make the world look bigger than it actually is into places you would actually want to go is a terrible idea, and whoever thought of it should be fired.

I hear that trying to save a game that was DoA before it even left open beta -- a game that is now a litmus test for just how badly a major, AAA-title can fail -- by continually trying to jam the square peg into the round hole while screaming, "IT WILL WORK BECAUSE I SAID SO DAMN IT," is clearly the course of action, here!

But hey, what do I care? SE isn't charging me a monthly fee because the game currently sucks. Nope. This MMO was totally fine before that damned Yoshi got his hands on it!

True story.

...Okay, I think I just pulled something from that amount of sarcasm I just maintained there. I'm going to go get something to eat and hope the headache wears off.

Typical, just typical. You guys still think FFXI and WoW are the games to emulate in 2011. Get with the times.

News flash, these games are old generation crap and are getting replaced by newer games that offer much much more. Meanwhile, over at Squarenix, SE are falling further and further behind trying to copy games that are already past their expiration date.

Failure.

As opposed to FFXIV, which tried to be NEW AND INNOVATING OMFG and fell flat on its face because it didn't even have amenities that those "old generation crap" games had from the word go? There's a recipe for success, there.

[Wolfie]

Glad Tanaka got the boot so early on, when the game is still skeletal. Yoshi can work with a skeletal game. If this game saw another year, year and a half under Tanaka, it would have been FUBAR.

[giftforce]

Your argument was that Yoshi is bad for the game. I countered that saying that he's adding in features to the game that have become genre standard. Your counter argument to that is that Tanaka was an innovator and his novel ideas were good for the game and/or genre. I'm asking you to back up those claims.

Irrelevant. Being a director and/or producer means nothing in terms of innovation or the good of the game/genre.

Regardless of who designs the features, it is someone's job to decide whether or not to implement them. Yoshi decides to implement crap all besides crap.

The armor system has been bashed up and down by everyone because it creates homogeneous, bland classes. It's impossible to create any sort of class distinction in it, when its basic premise is that you can equip abilities from any class unto any class. To create distinction, you need to have abilities that are unequippable by other classes -- which is going in the opposite direction of the armory system.

Oh as if. It is probably the one selling point of the game. And I don't know how long you've been on these forums but plenty of suggestions have been bandied about to create definitiveness within the armory system.

Also has been bashed up and down because of the monotony involved with crafting, the ridiculous interdependency between crafting jobs, stupidly rigid recipes, and the fact that crafting classes are considered viable main classes (meaning that all main story line quests or content that the devs want everyone to see need to be easy boring snoozefests).

Oh no, heaven forbid crafting classes rely on each other for recipe components. This is an MMO, FYI, some degree of social interaction is expected. The interdependency between crafting classes is not ridiculous. It is an asset to the game and facilitates social interdependency. FFS.

You mean, guilds? Whooo boy, really innovative here.

Implementation matters.

Yes they are.

Ten years ago.

[Fuzball]

You know Japanese? I translated this. You just translated SECTION of the the whole sentence.

Example: I ate a hamburger, but I didn't like it - you just took the part "I ate a hamburger" and assumed that person likes it.

Senyou Map-ga atte choujikan no sora no tabi wo otanoshimi itadaku... to iu youna shiyou niha narimasen.
Enjoying the long travel in the skies... it's not that way

Don't mislead people with crap like that, learn that Japanese language sentence structure is different from English.

というような仕様にはなりません - It doesn't become a specification. (From Excite Translator: http://www.excite.co.jp/world/english/)

Here try the whole sentence in Japanese into that excite translator:
Had to reply to this one, kind of ticked me off...


ALSO it's not NAKA JIKAN, learn to read the JP right if you going to say someone is wrong.
It's CHOU JIKAN - LONG TIME.

sowwies ;_;

[Fuzball]

^ they never taught me how to deal with ellipses in japanese

[Petori]

why is everyone in here bothering with arguing with gifttroll?
hes already had several accounts banned for a reason on here

Because everyone takes a game way too personally. Giftforce included. If he didn't care he wouldn't be here. Like those who argue with him care too much for an individual's opinion.

[Richard]

Regardless of who designs the features, it is someone's job to decide whether or not to implement them. Yoshi decides to implement crap all besides crap.



Oh as if. It is probably the one selling point of the game. And I don't know how long you've been on these forums but plenty of suggestions have been bandied about to create definitiveness within the armory system.



Oh no, heaven forbid crafting classes rely on each other for recipe components. This is an MMO, FYI, some degree of social interaction is expected. The interdependency between crafting classes is not ridiculous. It is an asset to the game and facilitates social interdependency. FFS.



Implementation matters.




Ten years ago.

you were obviously not hugged enough as a child.

[RedAffinity]

I actually really enjoy 1 character, 1 inventory, 1 progress, multiple roles. To be quite honest, this is the main reason I prefer this system over that of WoW. Not quite sure how many other MMO's do this so I can't credit SE for innovation here but regardless, the simplicity (once refined) of changing roles on the go makes for an exciting game, one that allows me to grow attached to my character, not multiple toons.