Ask Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XVII!

[StateAlchemist]

Third: Stop shafting Culinarian. There is only two uses for culinarian in this game, making food for gathering/crafting, and making turn ins for Artisan Spectacles (which coincidentally become Rose-Gold Nuggets 90% of the time, or I am just very unlucky). (although I suppose the exp boost is a valid use too...) I rarely see people use food in raids, and as far as PvE content goes, I haven't seen anything that can't be done without it. I don't see issues where people need accuracy food (aka mobs that can actually dodge enough to convince people to buy food) etc.

[StateAlchemist]

Fourth: Stop shafting Alchemist. While not as bad as culinarian, Alchemist falls behind the curve due to people not buying potions...crafted potions. The potions people tend to use are the ones dropped by the hundreds from everything, not the crafted ones. I feel the effectiveness of said potions (of anykind) are lack luster and the related cool-downs (both length and global) are counter-productive. This could use some looking into. Why bother including something in the game if it is not meant to be used, right?

[StateAlchemist]

Fifth: The new line of tools for crafting are ridiculous. The benefit they offer (which is really nothing as any maxed melded crafter with a tier 2 tool and food can hq 3 star recipes. It is actually not worth going for them. You made it so Culinarian was the gateway to the specs and goldsmith was the manufacturer of the majority of all fieldcraft III/mastercraft demimateria...due to this guess what we get? Well eventually I hope lower prices on those two items, but more importantly we get a flood of people all leveling Culinarian to get glasses, and a lot of people leveling gldsmthing desynthesis to get materia. Now we have a huge saturation of the two. This may benefit the few who brave leveling something else, but it is the only efficient way to do it (not the only way, just the most efficient). We need to promote crafting/desynthesis diversity. Do you plan on limiting max crafting levels like you did with desynthesis and crafting in FFXI? I think this could help with the problem.

[StateAlchemist]

Let's move on to gathering. I used to enjoy gathering. It was fun in a monotonous grind of spamming nodes kind of way. However, the fun is now just a memory. In it's place a ritual rotation of zones in which i get to hit one node once per hour then move on to the next, spending more time waiting for nodes to pop then actually gathering. Compound this with the ability to grow certain unspoiled botanist items negating the usefulness of gathering them when hq returns in the garden are higher, it makes using the class an inefficient chore.

[StateAlchemist]

Fishing is suffering too. Not just I but many others from the posts I have read on various sights are leading me to believe that somehow you broke fishing. People with maxed out stats and supra rods failing more then ever on fish they used to not fail on, the lack of use for fish...the 99% fine sand you get from every fish of every level, which is worth less then npcing the fish in the first place (ignoring shards, if you get any)...I will give you credit for giving us shards for desynthesis, however I still feel that fishing+desynth is still slower generation then other options. Not to mention getting water except for a few instances where i know you can get earth (sand fishing) wind (sky fishing) and thunder (specific fish and not guarenteed to get everytime)...there may be ice and fire but i havent gotten around to those locations (assuming the exist). I know a lot of people feel shafted on the fact that culinarian cant produce fieldcraft or mastercraft demimateria.

[StateAlchemist]

As far as battle goes: I feel sad that coil is not worth doing. I did some coil back when i90 was the highest gear and tomestones were still a big grind (pre solderity). It was fun, it was worth it. With second coil, the reward doesnt seem worth the time involved. Few people seem to be doing it since everyone is spamming ST and hunts. Endgame is a buffet right now and everyone is too busy stuffing their faces to appreciate any of it. You need to make endgame content identifiable, give it something to make people really want to do it. Hunts especially are killing the game. Between FATEs and Hunts you can literally run around from 1-50 with flash and level+fully gear out your character with endgame level gear and never know your job or interact with others in a challenging and constructive environment... it is just one big skilless grindfest that is too easy.

[Reivax]

Are there Plans to make classes a viable option?

[StateAlchemist]

Seriously, if you don't believe me, try it. 1-50 + endgame gear. Get flash, spam it in fates, then spam it in hunts. This just shouldn't be a thing.

Black Mage is stale SE. We throw fire at mobs and occasionally a blizzard, then more fire. You successfully created a one-hit wonder class of 0 skill. I still like BLM, but it very much bores me. BLM felt much more fun in FFXI, but here it feels like I am just...idk...no elemental wheel, no resistances to try to remember... fire hurts everything...even fire...it's illogical even for a fantasy game. Maybe try to spice up the class a bit... BLMs are falling asleep in the backline and still getting high dps right now...

[Reivax]

Without any specific detail, can you give us more information about the roles and styles that will be filled in future jobs/classes?

[StateAlchemist]

I can't speak much for archer/lancer/gladiator/archanist cause I dont have them maxe out yet so I will skip on that, but I hope if there are issues there someone will bring them up.

Combat in general: I have been wanting to say this for a while... EVERY SINGLE BOSS FIGHT DOES NOT HAVE TO TAKE PLACE IN A CIRCLE. Learn to polygon. There are a few exceptions and those are refreshing, but it's really convient how everywhere we go we have a perfect circle to fight in...bleh...