Ask Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XVII!

[Mapleine]

Will you ever make adjustments to game content concerning alts? The combination of the FFXI job system and the now-traditional MMO lockout/point cap systems have give me precious little to do in a given week. This is needed, in conjunction with more meaningful battle content outside of a single four boss raid.

Also, will you ever ease the reins on scaling restrictions? The current level sync system is so clumsy and makes you feel so ridiculously weak. Currently it cuts my HP and damage output by over two thirds just to sync down ONE LEVEL because it also sync all of your raid gear to white. This is without even mentioning the needless removal of class abilities when sync'd. A big past time of MMOs is going back and steamrolling weak content, especially after expansions, that this will probably be blocked in this game is very disheartening.

[Livilda]

When do we get hairstyles currently exclusive for certain races / sexes applicable to more or all races / sexes?

[Kaisha]

Will the timing gap between AoE indicators and their attack animations ever get addressed?

It's rather silly that you can sit in dangerous looking attacks and take no damage, just because you dodged the ground marker a moment prior. It would also make the game feel less laggy as a result since it withholds damage dealt until the animation finishes, which is a problem with the way it operates currently with you waiting upwards of two seconds after the ground indicator fades to see if you got hit or not.

[Valthein]

any plans if there is enough support for a blitz ball pvp game?

[StateAlchemist]

This may be a long post so bear with me. Having played since 2010 I have witnessed many changes over the course of the game. Some good, some bad. As a fan of crafting let's start with that.

The crafting system is one of the best I have experienced across the MMO's I have played. Mind you that doesn't say a whole lot since I have only tried about 10-15 MMO's, however you can't really deny that the idea behind it is pretty solid. However I have a few issues with it that have probably been brought up many times.

First: Availibility of low level items from NPCs. I believe a lot of materials that (imo) shouldn't be available from NPCs are. This takes away from the gathering classes, and while it keeps crafting costs low, for those who bother to know which NPCs sell what...(I am talking to all of you who pay 38+gil each for iron ore when you can buy them from material supplier NPC for like 18...) but there are many other instances.

[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.