Letter From the Producer IX.

[Kiara]

Quests hubs and low level dungeons? The more and more they do, the more I lose hope for this game. Seems they ARE going to the direction of WOW clone, I'll just have to wait and see. Low level dungeons and quest hubs is not something this game needed at all, it only needed these things if they wanted it to be a WOW clone -_-

I look forward to the battle changes, but now I'm more scared than ever for this games future, sigh.

Instead of stupid copy/paste "dungeons" from WOW they could've added a new chain of missions(or deleted old ones and added these) that are group based and make us explore muytuy, cassie, mistbeard cove, copperbell mines, etc etc. If you've actually been to the higher level dungeons you'd see how they're actually really cool and look awesome deeper in. They also could've made them bigger, and made the missions have us fight to something that would pop a NM/multiple nms,(or BCNM doors) and have a story behind it with cutscenes. The fights could've been EXTREMELY CHALLENGING as well, COP difficulty. Would've been more FF like and just as good, have the missions also give rewards or something, maybe even unique crafting mats to make unique armor, maybe special skills only available if you complete the missions, idk.

To those worried (or complaining :P) about Patch 1.18's Dungeons:

Just wanted to provide a little perspective to those already bashing Yoshida-san for NEW CONTENT (for Mid-Level and High-Level) before you've even seen it...

Seriously, at what point did Yoshida-san say, "I'm making a WOW clone"? Yes, he said it may be something that's "*probably* similar to dungeons in other MMOs" but if you read the rest of the context of the interview it's far from him saying it's a 'WOW Clone.'

Yoshida-san has mentioned in multiple interviews that he wants to recapture the FINAL FANTASY FEELING. How you can start bashing him is beyond me. Here are some specific quotes from Yoshida-san in various interviews. On the Battle System:

Yoshida: "We're not looking to copy what other MMOs are doing...

And with that, we want to get back to the roots of the original Final Fantasyesque jobs like Dragoons and White Mages. So we're trying to figure out how to get that to that new type of system."

He then goes onto to talk about the Instanced Dungeons, and the quote you're overreacting to:

Yoshida: "It would be tough to say which it will be closer to, but if you had to say one, it will probably be similar to dungeons in other MMOs. But right now because we're working on the changes to the battle system at the same time, we're going to make something that can follow the progression--the evolution--of the battle system. Those instances will change over time as well.

Because a lot of this stuff is going to be high-level, end content, we want to make sure that the battles all have situations where you have to plan out the battle, have the tactics to defeat it--not only defeat it, but pop it as well. It's something that will be the high end, the hardcore content."
(From: http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/30254...ida-interview/

How does this sound like it's going to be a "WOW clone" that you're complaining about? The very core of the game is being heavily looked at to be "More Final Fantasy" like. The Dungeons will FOLLOW the Combat System and be designed around that (i.e., the core of the game is more Final Fantasy like and the Dungeons will be, too).

And he states he wants TACTICS to the fights, yet you're complaining already (without having even seen it) about lack of difficulty and challenge? Huh?

And for those that bemoan that it's all instanced, all the time, that's not true:

Yoshida: "We're going to make a lot of bigger battles, where lots of players will be involved in these large-scale battles. In these large-scale battles there will be multiple parties on the field. If you have a system where only one party can claim something, then other parties won't even be able to come in and help. Or to get them to come in and help, you have to have another special system to allow them to come in and help, and it just becomes to complex. So we want to have a system where it's easy to have another team to come in and help someone that's maybe in trouble."

Here's another quote from Yoshida-san from another interview he did with Gamasutra:

Yoshida: "So, our top priority is making the game that is very Final Fantasy, something that we can be proud of and something that the players will come in and they will love this Eorzea. It's an Eorzea that we can be proud of and the players will enjoy."
(Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/featur...he_.php?page=3

I started a thread on asking Yoshida-san and the team where the major changes were and high level content last month (so I'm not just stating this as a "rabid fan"). This new Letter from the Producer IX is just AWESOME! It's giving us brand-new content for Rank 30 and Rank 50 players, covering the majority of the player base, new Quest Hubs that NONE OF US KNOW what it's going to be like, and the first major changes to the core Battle System, which as quoted above, Yoshida-san says he wants it to be more "Final Fantasyesque."

We don't know what the Quest Hubs will be yet. We don't know what the Dungeons will be like, but let's try and stay POSITIVE before you call for his head and just incite a flame war claiming he's making a "WOW clone"?

If you want to stay pessimistic, more power to you.

I'm always hoping for the best, and this new update / letter has given me renewed hope.

I can't wait to see the new content soon!