To Yoshida-san: Patch 1.20 – Thanks! And Thoughts for Future Improvements~

[Kiara]

To: Yoshida-san (and All),

I just wanted to say “Thank You!” for the many good changes and updates for Patch 1.20.

Ostensibly, it seems like we didn’t “get much” for this patch, but looking at it after a few days (and I’m sure more revelations will become apparent as time goes on, and as we see it dovetail into Patch 1.21), this was a pretty major patch, critical to helping Final Fantasy XIV reach an eventual 2.0 (reborn) state.

Here are some thoughts on Patch 1.20 so far:

• New Boss Fight - Good King Moggle Mog XII – This is probably the most visible new addition to 1.20. In the line of Ifrit, we’ve gotten another Boss Fight.
  
  And? It’s a GREAT fight! (^_^)
  
  Unlike Ifrit, or, say Dzemael, I’d say the Moogle Fight is a real blast in that it’s really varied and allows multiple party setups to thrive and do well (note: We completed Dzemael and Ifrit with “less than optimal” party setups that seemed to be all the rage when those patches launched, but in this Moogle fight it seems to be flexible enough to really allow any Class to be played without too much prejudice).
  
  I love how interesting the fight is, with different game plans and strategies available to the player. And the “Good King Moggle Mog” Song has been burned in my brain, haunting me forever, LOL.

• However, as has been noted, the prerequisites (collecting the NM Key Items) for the fight are a bit tedious. I *loved* trying it the first time (minus the seemingly random linking / add deaths), carefully treading amongst the Treants, but the linking by other mobs to aggro the Treants, and having to collect 5 Key Items every time you win, is a sad way to create a new Time Sink. It’s clear we don’t have enough content to keep us busy until 1.21, but allow *the players* to choose how they want to spend their time, instead of forcing us to jump through hoops (boring hoops), just to try the Moogle Fight again.

• I love the Treants though! They are very expressive, very distinct, very cool-looking creatures that are a bonus to the world of Eorzea. I hope we see more interesting monsters like this as we work towards 2.0!

• I like the additions to the Grand Companies: The Promotions (Ranks), New Quests (Legatus story continues! So good! (^_^)), and New Company Items.
  
  I hope we get more cinematically-driven, interesting Story Missions / Quests like this one. Great job on cool cinematics and a hint of a grander story.

• The Loot System (Treasure) "Fix" for the Good King Moggle Mog (and Ifrit) Fights are still horrible. It’s very clear Yoshida-san, that you’re making a Time Sink to stretch out content. It’s a little insulting to say the reason you added this “Forced Untradeable Drop Into Someone’s Inventory” is because you were afraid of… Ninja Looting. (~_~)
  
  Honestly, it was *never* a rampant problem before patch 1.19 (Ifrit), and most players got their Dzemael Darkhold drops just fine (having the Loot drop into the Loot Pool and people Pass it to whoever needs it). I know you say you’re adding a “Need” or “Greed” System like WoW for 2.0, but this Forced Loot System you put in now (even with Totems / Nuts to collect (which are also rare)) is a joke and a total Time Sink to buy time.

• Thank you for adding more camps for Mobs throughout Eorzea! I realize 2.0 will revamp the entire world (so this is throwaway work), but it’s good to redistribute and add more mobs here and there for EXP Parties.

• We can ride Chocobos from directly out of town (from the Rental Chocobo Stall) – Joy! A small addition, but welcome.

• Class Reforms – Awesome! – Weaponskills, Traits, Abilities, Spells changing. This change alone is fundamental and a huge amount of work that I greatly appreciate. Sure we lost some Spells, we lost some Abilities and Weaponskills, but we had too many haphazardly dumped on us in the old system (e.g., with the old system under Tanaka, Conjurers suddenly learned all 6 (SIX) Ancient Magic Spells automatically during 1 level up?! Huh? There was no build up, no pomp and circumstance with learning some of the more famous spells from Final Fantasy. We just got 6 Ancient Magic just dumped on us at once (and they were terrible)).

• The key part that some players aren’t seeing is that these Class changes are only part of a “whole” which works with the new Final Fantasy Job System that you’re giving us in the next patch (1.21). So while some of the Classes seem a bit limited, seeing them in light of the new Job System should provide all of us with the true vision of what you intended. For example, right now Raise, once used, has a recast time of 5 minutes, but with the White Mage Ability 1 (Eliminates cast time of next spell), that will make the White Mage Job specialization that much more valuable and distinct. If nothing else, it’s making each death more precious and makes players think about playing better (or have to wait for Raises).
  
  Or the Paladin Ability 2 (Grants a Healing-over-Time effect on all party members within range when a healing spell is cast on you). I can’t wait to see how the Paladin, Warrior, Dragoon, White Mage, Bard, Black Mage and Monk fit into the Class layout now! (^_^)
  
  Another key thing I like is that you’re making many Abilities Exclusive, with all Traits Exclusive. This really makes each Class feel *distinct* from each other (versus the old method of just mapping anything to any class).

• The Individual Combos (Self-Combos) are fun! I love how they add some meaningful depth to combat. The old method of standing near a mob and just spamming “1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 1, 1” (Basic Attack) was tedious and made all fights boring. With the Class adjustments and Combos, it’s made each of the classes I’ve been playing so far feel interesting and distinct now.

• And tied to that are the UI updates! It’s subtle, but it’s SO much better now with crisper icons and buttons, and icons that light up during Combos makes it intuitive and *inviting* to play for newcomers and veterans alike. It’s starting to look like an finished, quality UI experience. (I know naysayers may say, “Well we should’ve had this from the start” (and it’s true, we should’ve), but at least we’re seeing these great improvements go into the game now, for us to use).

• Partial Point Allotment Customization – Thanks! This is also a welcome return, in the way you promised us from our Player Poll #2 way back when. We still get the Automatic Point Switching (when we switch classes (good)) while allowing us to have *some* customizing with Stat Points. It’s the best of both worlds, and allows you to balance out Statistics correctly (whereas in the old system, Tanaka was allowing players to reassign HUNDREDS of Stat Points at once, which made Stat Point Bonuses on equipment meaningless in the old setup).

• And thanks for revealing to us what each Stat actually means (STR, VIT, DEX, etc.), but a little more transparency for the relation of Attack Power vs. STR, or Accuracy vs. DEX, etc. would be nice.

• Thank you for the Action Queue (/aq on) again! (^_^) Makes it feel much better for combat.

• HQ Item Reform – Thank You! For generously grandfathering in ALL of the old +1, +2, +3 items into the new “+1 (HQ)” Tier status. Some of the older items that were “only” +1 were still a challenge to make (with numerous sub-parts), so having them be counted as “HQ” in the new system is nice.

• New Colors – While it’s not comprehensive (all colors, all gear), you’ve explained to us that we’re getting a real Color ID System that allows us to really customize our gear to be any of 32(!) Colors. And these color options you’re giving us now is throwaway work on your end, but still appreciated to give us some customization / happiness while we wait for 2.0. It’s appreciated.

• I love that you can Color your Gear without the possibility of losing HQ status (or blowing it up).

• Repairs – While I appreciate that it’s faster, it’s now too fast and unnerving. You *can’t* see the Repair on your screen if someone fixes your items, and when you do it yourself, your character is abnormally rushed through the process and your crafting table doesn’t even draw. It seems this is one case of trying to make it “more convenient” is really just making something “ugly / buggy-looking.”

• Achievements – These are fun little targets that have become industry standard norms these days. While I don’t normally go out of my way for them, it’s a popular, almost expected feature, with most gamers growing up with X360, PS3, etc. these days. They help improve the new Final Fantasy XIV experience.

• I *am* bummed and sad that you couldn’t track and give us credit for Previous Crafts we’ve done before this patch. For Crafters or Gatherers that reached Rank 50 before this patch, it’s just tedious to have to think about doing another ~5,600 Synths, etc. to get the Achievement. (Which I'll probably never do now (^_^;

• I haven’t used the new Seach Command yet, but it looks very robust and far more helpful than what we had before this patch.

• /snowball – Greatest new Emote yet! (^_^)

Going forward, I hope you remove the silly, artificial Time Sink of the Ifrit / Primal Loot System, and the 5-step Prerequisite for Moogle, each time.

If you really want a Time Sink to draw out content longer (not that I'm advocating unnecessary ones), look at the setup for SKY / Tu’Lia (トゥー・リア) and Kirin. (Note: I’m not talking about Drop Rates, just the layout and setup ideas.) You had Kirin as the main NM Boss to fight (forced spawn, so partially instanced), but before that, you can explore this GORGEOUS area Tu’Lia that looked like something out of Miyazaki’s Laputa: Castle in the Sky, with sub NMs that were actually interesting and involved you going to different parts of the beautiful land.

You had Steam Cleaner, Zipacna, Faust, etc., and then also Suzaku, Genbu, Byakko, Seiryu. All these NMs and “Mid-Bosses” and then Kirin, and different drops and equipment you could get. It was at once Open World, but also Instanced for the Bosses themselves. That’s how you can make a Time Sink more interesting than just “walk and kill 5 creatures next to the Moogle entrance” (and risk getting 1 shot by accidental aggro).

Overall, while there aren’t a lot of Max Level Activities to do, this was definitely an important patch for laying down some fundamental, instrumental changes on the way to helping Final Fantasy XIV reach 2.0 status. Many of these changes here make the whole experience more inviting and on par to something acceptable (or getting to be good), and I’m certainly excited to see how this ties into the next patch 1.21, with the debut of the full Final Fantasy Job System, 2 New Raid Dungeons and a new Primal fight (Garuda)!