Letters from the Players to the Producer - Volume I

[Ecks007]

Dear Yoshida-san and Dev Team,

First off, thank you for bringing FFXIV back to life and making it better than it was before. I have been enjoying the game again ever since the 2.0 beta and cannot wait for Heavensward.

However, I feel there are a few issues that do need some kind of resolution in the game right now though and I'm sure I could think of more if I really sat down and thought about it even longer.

One that comes to mind is inventory space and how the game will handle inventory space as inevitably more Jobs will continue to be added in the future, which in turn increases the amount of gear we are going to be carrying if we are to switch between jobs on the fly (which has been a staple of FF MMOs). Even with 4 retainers inventory space can become limited, though I will say that with the new jobs starting at level 30 I was able to clear up a lot of space with removing lower level gear that I wouldn't be needing to hold onto. (though I am still a little unsatisfied that the new Jobs are starting at level 30 instead of lower than that, that is a different issue)

Secondly and most importantly the current concern is how rampant RMT have flocked to our game. While obviously accounts do get banned and actions are taken against RMT, the sheer amount of them and the fact that they still exist in huge numbers on every server is highly concerning. For a game where one should be able to chat unhindered with friends and fellow players, we are forced to limit our chat options (and other options) by using /busy status to avoid receiving tells and friend requests from RMT. In doing this we limit what we can do ourselves as the busy status disables us from being invited to parties, and receiving tells from players we would like to talk to. Not to mention the sheer annoyance of the RMT themselves. If it's not tells and friend request spam, then they also take to main cities and shout spam which must blacklisted.

This brings me to another issue that's often complained about here on the forums, our blacklists. If one wishes to forgo using the /busy status then we must blacklist every RMT character that interacts with us to prevent the disturbance to our gameplay from reoccurring by that individual RMT character. The problem is our Blacklists fill up far too incredibly fast and the whole system of individually removing older blacklisted names takes too much time and isn't always effective since some of those character accounts may not have gotten banned.

It's painfully obvious that the way the RMT situation is being handled is ineffective in deterring them away from our game. Honestly I wish I had a good suggestion for getting rid of them altogether but I do not. Merely I wish they would all just up and leave us alone because it's aggrivating, annoying and altogether unpleasant seeing them "work" in our game that we are trying to enjoy. It wouldn't be so bad if there were fewer of them to deal with, but there are just so many that it's ridiculous and something more drastic needs to be done because they are hurting FFXIV and they need to be stopped.

Ahem. (sorry for that tangent)

A minor thing that bothers me is about the glamour system. When 2 jobs share equipment you can't have each job have it's own individual look. This is fairly frustrating when you'd prefer one job to look one way but can't because you want the other job that shares the gear to look a different way. Perhaps more gear in the future that specializes on 1 individual job rather than being catered to be shared by others. I hear this is something we might see in Heavensward, but as of yet I haven't exactly seen any evidence of it. Unfortunately, so many gear sets would quickly fill up our Armory.

Which leads me to ask, will the Armory ever be increased? The addition of new jobs practically demands that players need a larger armory, and yet the last information we have received was basically an answer that it would not be changed. This is something that will need to be increased specially if Horizontal gear progression is ever considered (which it should be, for the betterment of the game as a whole).

Another thing is dungeons. While I have enjoyed the direction that the new dungeons have taken, I feel that Hardmode dungeons need some rethinking. I know they are essentially rehashed areas using mostly already existing parts of the original dungeon, this is where I feel that in some ways it hurts the experience. Just as an example, Haukke Manor Hardmode could have been so much better in my opinion. The mansion itself is huge, and yet we merely went through the same halls and rooms that were in the original dungeon rather than exploring unexplored portions of the mansion. The original Haukke Manor dungeon does not (or rather, it really should not) encompass the entire huge mansion, it's far too small and if anything only makes up for about half of it.

That said I do realize that those hardmode dungeons were likely already near completion (if not already complete and finalized) at the time the game relaunched and that you and your team were working with limited time. I would just hope that in the future, if this hardmode dungeon trend continues, that perhaps we could have different maps with new structures and layouts, minimizing the amount of reused original dungeon parts as much as possible to give the Hardmode version perhaps a similar style to that of the original, yet completely different execution. They should feel like a new dungeon, yet still have the similarity to the old one, or explore more of a section or delve deeper into parts that were scratched in the original.

For example, if The Lost City of Amdapor were to get a hardmove version, surely with the city as large is Amdapor there are new sections to explore in the mold covered overcity, not to mention the eery depths of the sub city that reach who-knows how far down into darkness. Those are options for exploration, where new areas can be made yet it still is a part of the same over all dungeon area. Old dungeon rooms do not need to be used again or connected in odd ways, or blocked off entirely as much of the way Hardmode dungeons have been presented in layout. Blocking an area off and making a new route, only for that new route to just be a rehash of an original dungeon area is not good.

With the success the game has received I would think that your dungeon developers should now be afforded the time to create new maps rather than rehashing old ones.

Another thing is open world dungeons. Currently we have nothing like this, although I am hopeful that this changes in Heavensward all I can do for now is hold out hope. That said, open world dugeons would go a long way to add a real sense of exploration and danger to the world map, which is something that this game can definitely use. While currently there are many great looking areas in the game they don't truly feel like you're exploring them when you walk/ride/run around. Again, this is hopefully something that changes in Heavensward and from the videos shown it seems that it might be possible to see something like this which makes me happy. I can only hope that is the case.

Thank you for taking the time to read this,

Ecks

[Coombah]

Dear Yoshida-san and Dev Team

I was wondering if Square Enix planned on making a future Final Fantasy MMO? The recent news of FFXI and the initial launch of XIV got me thinking about it.

Thank you for your time.

[PapaSteel]

To Yoshi,

I'm not a guy prone to sentiment, but I think you should know that the very first video game I ever played was the original FINAL FANTASY. I never beat it, because my party was three red mages and a thief, and I was barely ten years old. But it changed my life in incredible ways - the people I'm friends with, the woman I fell in love with, the career that I hold...all these things were influenced by the fantastical world that I had stumbled across, and decided I wanted MORE of in my life.

When 1.0 failed and there were announcements made that Square would be returning to their roots and producing mostly cheap mobile games, I was scared. It was the end of an era for me - I'd have memories of Chrono Trigger, Deus Ex, Secret of Mana, sure, but nothing more. No chance for a return to those worlds, or getting to look forward to exploring new ones.

And then you came along, made MMO history, and changed everything.

FFXIV means a lot to me. You have my subscription until the day the last flickering light goes out on the servers.

- Steel

[Archadius]

snip

Onion Knight indeed. Way to bring a tear to the eye, bruh.

[Rumpelstiltzkin]

Fun initiative! Keep it up

[Tarixian]

Thanks for an amazing game!

A few things I would like to see:

1. The ability to send mail to players in your Free Company without them being on your friend's list. I understand why this is designed for not mail-spamming random players. However, I do think that this would help a little bit.

2. The ability to purchase/unlock more Free Company Chest space. I believe that with the expansion soon upon us, this is the perfect time for us to be able to acquire additional slots for free company chest. To keep from hindering the market from solo players, I would think Rank 8 or higher should be the standard to unlock this function.

3. Players want more space; Account/character based storage for gatherable materials. This would be something that is highly desired. Shards already have their own space. If everything in our gathering log and/or fishing log could be condensed to one window where these items could be stored at 99 per slot.

Thank you for reading!

[Mazora_Espeon]

Thank you to everyone who have written letters in this thread. However, could we please keep the letters situated around showing appreciation and thanks instead of it being a two part letter please? Obviously, there are many things that I would like seen changed or features that can be added into the game, but that aside, I'm just glad this game has become a success than how it was in 1.0 and I thought it would be nice for us to write something to Yoshi-P and the DEV team to tell/show them that. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding! - Raltz Waltz

[Rynia]

Dear Yoshi-P and Dev team,

Thank you for such an amazing game! Never before have I played a game where I love the content as well as the people enough to stay for an entire year. You've done a great job, congratulations ^^ Yeah, I might not agree with all the decisions you make (chocobo racing/breeding was a huge disappointment for this chocobo fanatic) but I know that you do what you do with the best of intentions.

Just please remember that you have a fanbase outside of Japan, okay? Don't wait until something affects Japanese players to do something about it ...

I know you'll keep making things better!

Rynia

[Ecks007]

Bumping a good thread.


Curious to know if any of the devs have read this. Is it possible to have some confirmation in that regard? Love this game and hope to see it's success for the next 10+ years, but it would be nice to know.

[SubZero_DeZigns]

Dear Yoshi-P and Dev team,

Sorry, I'm not going to kiss your a** or the Dev teams a** like some ppl are doing. Quite frankly I'm alittle upset how some things have not been addressed and or ignored.

1. Changing the mobs melee distance from 5 yalms to 25 yalms.
   You ppl inserted this to circumvent players from standing on top of structures while killing mobs.
   Question: Now that 3.0 will introduce flying are you going to increase this more? LAME!
   Suggestion: Return the Melees distance back to it's original 5 yalm distance.
2. Ignoring dungeon mechanics that had gotten broken on a prior release patch
   One dungeon comes to mind and I'm sure there's more. Pharos Sirius: Bird Eggs. This has been broken for along time. Announce a fix? No. Did you know about it? I'm guessing you do. Ignoring such things? My guess is, Yes.
3. The ability to have FRIENDS only chat.
   Chatting has been around for more then 2 decades. Being able to turn off chatting to only friends is a must. With the rapid rise of RMTs it's quite ridiculous. The Busy should have been a temporary fix, not a solution!
4. The ability to TURN OFF friends requests.
   Again, This is part do to the above statement.
5. The very low(And I mean very slim) drops rates of certain quest items.
   One comes to mind: The Zodiac quest items. I know for a fact you ppl lowered the rates since the initial release. Lets look back at some of the things that made 1.0 fail and move forward not regress back. Making these such a low rate of drop isn't going to make ppl spend money on subscriptions every month. Quite frankly it's starting to piss me off. Gaming is suppose to be fun and exciting. Not frustrating and down right retarded!
6. Ignoring the percentage rates on Crafting.
   I've crafted countless HQ items out of 0% Condition. Is this a problem? Maybe not but, one has to wonder about the percentage rate in question. I've also failed HQ out of 96% condition upto 6 times in a row. This so far is my record. 6 times in a row to fail HQ from 96%. What kind of BS is that?

These are only what I had on top of my head at the time. We've now seen 2 major patch releases that solely focused on Coil ECHO. Sorry to say but, BIG WHOOP! Not everyone plays Coil. I for one feel cheated.

I've been playing since 2.0 beta. The game got me hooked from it. It's a beautiful game. At times, it can be down right retarded! I'm glad I never heard of the game till 2.0 beta cause this letter would most definitely be longer. I heard 1.0 was a nightmare. Lets move forward in making this game more enjoyable. Not make it into a chore. Grinding countless hours in one dungeon isn't fun it's just retarded.

BTW, While writing this my friends request counter stands at 6. 2 of the RMTs have already been deleted and remade. Only to send me more friends requests.

Insert sarcasm:
I love you Yoshi-P and Dev team. Keep up the good work