Message from Yoshi thoughts

[Cwestcott18]

The purpose of the small level difference is to make sure that doing the hardest content isn't outweighed by a weapon that doesn't involve the same content, its meant for those who enjoy the hardest content, and more of a incentive for them.

[Belhi]

Imp pretty satisfied with what I heard. He addressed a lot of the concerns I have.

I too would look forward to more creativity and even possibly some horizontal progression if done right (done wrong and its as bad or worse than vertical). However any timeframe for that is going to be long term. Its not something they will rush into and just concepting such a change would take months since its pretty much dramatically altering the current model. I much prefer they take their time and not screw everything up than trying and bring in something quickly and brake the game. Honestly I wont expect much before next expansion.

In the end pretty good and a positive sign that they do actually pay attention to our concerns posted here and elsewhere.

[SendohJin]

It seems to me that people are asking for one thing

the playerbase is so vast that it's never one thing that people ask for and what different players want are often directly contradictory to one another.

Past that initial release, these patches feel bland, rushed, and without depth

these patches? we've only had 1.

People are crying for originality, a change from the monotonous ilvl treadmill, something that sets jobs apart from one another

- that's what Diadem was for, it didn't work so they are tweaking it
- that's why they are changing materia
- not every player wants that but more importantly that makes it difficult for them to balance content if the jobs are too distinct

[shepardcommander]

While I did not hear everything that I wanted to out of the live letter, where in life do you get everything that you want? I'm reasonably satisfied. Overall we got a frank, reasonable assessment of where the game is at, and it was made clear he has been keeping a sharp eye on player feedback here and other forums. Everyone can probably pick their one issue du jour to harp on, but what i sensed from the relic anger was not so much the problem with the relic grind itself but the environment it came in to. people were ready to hate it because there is such a high level of burnout on the game right now compared to previous content lulls. Yoshi-P's discussion talked about overall direction decisions that were made a long time ago that have led to where we are now, and talked about how they'll walk their way out of that. They are going to revert to some old things (looking back to Coil) and try some new things (melding raid gear, more relevant crafted gear) as well as fixing Diadem to see if they can fix some of these issues. The game doesn't need a Calamity, just a change in direction. I'm willing to accept that it may take some time to see the effects of this. Already 3.2 looks like it will be a MUCH beefier patch than 3.1 was and will come with hard content, midcore content, casual-friendly content, and new player content. I really hope this beginner's hall helps overall player skill. still withholding judgment and tempering excitement, but there's some good potential here.

I'm not quite sure why folks think he didn't address what people are upset about. he talked about raiding. he talked about relic. he talked about diadem. If i think something was lacking it was that we dont' have much of a roadmap going forward past 3.2. if its still about the relic grind specifically, then maybe I've been off on my presumption that relic was so poorly received because of its environmental context. In honesty i think a lot of the problem goes into the name "relic weapon" and the expectations that name brings from beyond FFXIV. But he still addressed the issues of item relevancy, why it was delayed, and was explicit that he views raid weapons as the weapon for people to go to if they want a weapon from "challenges."