Producer Letter LIVE VIII English Translations: Phase 4 8/17Follow

The hyperbole is strong with you.

Let's take a look:



Nope, no hyperbole here. Actual hyperbole would have been a billion million times more obvious.

Edited, Aug 9th 2013 6:41pm by Aasher

That summoner quest still haunts me. I had 5-6 classes at cap in the 6 years I played ffxi, and in that entire time not ONCE did I see that carbuncle's ruby drop... and that's with well over 500 leech kills... RNG hated me in that game.



I don't plan on being hardcore in FFXIV, but I still plan on contributing to the community and helping to organize things. I plan to make guides, help players learn the best way to play their class, etc. I don't think it requires being "hardcore" to accomplish those things you mentioned and I suppose it ultimately depends on your definition of hardcore, as reading this thread I think there are many. I think it requires a dedication to wanting to help people and to improve the gaming community, but that and being hardcore don't necessarily have to go together. I haven't really been hardcore since I played FFXI, but I've still strived to play the best I can and be successful while helping others, and I think I've achieved that in all the games I've played.

I don't think the game would suffer all that much without the hardcore players, in fact I think it would make players far more independent; instead of only trying to achieve that "cookie cutter build" or "1400 DPS" because otherwise you suck. I'm not saying I want all the hardcore players out of the game, as I do understand they have a role in figuring out THE best strategies to win fights the quickest, but I also wouldn't mind being forced to figure it out with my own Free Company, even if it's not necessarily the most efficient or fastest. I guess what I'm saying, is that I want the toughest content to be tuned towards the "midcore", the players that still contribute and help determine strategies, formulas, etc... but the ones who also have lives and aren't required to raid 5-7 nights a week.

I realize that sounds selfish, but hey, it's just what I want. It's not what I'm expecting or demanding the game to be like. It's just what my ideal game would play like.

Edited, Aug 9th 2013 7:54pm by BartelX

A couple places are saying the Unicorn Mount is only obtainable by the White Mage Class.

White Mage on Unicorn Mount Screenshot here:
http://synergyxiv.guildwork.com/forum/threads/5203b912c16e4d7b0c7ed901-letter-from-the-producer-xviii-notes

Also a second translation of the Live Notes is included at this site.

Further discussion in the forum reveals that the quest to unlock some mounts will be Class/Job specific. After you complete the quest , it will be available to all your classes.

Hey Thayos, it's good to see you're still around man. Are you going to play ARR and if so, what server? I agree with your post too. The dubious "duplicating trick" of FFXI that led to massive bans by SE was proof that the elites don't always share info with the normal player base. It was karma that caught up to them for cheating so much. :P

This whole casual vs hardcore argument drives me batsauce crazy. I'm a skilled gamer. I don't have 87 hours a week to dedicate to a raiding schedule. Where does that leave me?

I feel opening up the raids to the DF will allow raiding FCs to fill gaps in the roster and I would be happy to fill one. But I can't commit to a nightly raiding schedule. It's not fair to my family.

How in the hell are you supposed to get exposed to the content and excel at it if you don't have the opportunity to experience it? Allowing DF groups access to the raid areas means that they can become more skilled at that content without devoting hour upon endless hour. There aren't a finite number of drops in there right? So what does it matter how many people try it out? If you don't wanna be teamed up with some dirty casual then don't open the DF.

Sorry about being snippy...my company laid off 5,000 people today with 4500 more coming (thankfully i kept my job) and I'm feeling a bit abrasive toward entitled dbags.

I dunno, I'd consider tripling your drops a significant advantage for future battles (Like Usu MNKs, the Salvage job of choice), as well as those who merc'ed gear out to line their pockets with gil for other ventures like relics. And while I have plenty of beefs with Salvage as an event, saying casuals couldn't do it is just more perpetuation of the over-glorification of certain players. Might they do the perfect clear? Hard to say, but they were still quite capable of targeting specific NMs, barring RNG-based ones like early Mad Bomber or Rampart NMs.

Otherwise, there's certainly lots of tips and strategies I've given to other players over the years. I was probably one of the earliest people to identify the minimum barspell duration level and its subsequent scaling. I certainly rode SE's *** on the OF when the initial iteration of Temper and its DA% sucked. I posted sources of new items when I found 'em and people were still stumped. I got a hell of a laugh when we had an elite BG-regular RDM who made it his life's work to tell us quite frequently how much we're wrong about the job and its theme went on to swear up and down that DoTs wore the moment the RDM died. I have no delusion that someone else would have done the same if I wasn't around, though, even among the melee RDM crazies with all the min/max'ing that went on there and fighting with the pro-backline trolls like the earlier mentioned. And this just scratching the surface of my XI "career". I know it's a blow to the ego to think yourself replaceable, but as long as these are coded worlds with coded rules, knowledge is finite, and all the hypothetical perfect vacuum parsing in the universe can utterly fall apart the moment you enter an actual in-game scenario. And if there's one thing I've learned, sometimes being too mathematically precise to the uninitiated can actually scare people off. So more often than not I tend to paint in broader strokes (and in phases before only having the best) unless the situation demands it. Gotta start somewhere, which is a fact too often forgotten.

Not enough red pills going around, it'd seem.

Edited, Aug 10th 2013 2:02am by Seriha

Will we have any capability to group with friends across servers? I didn't see anything in this letter that mentioned it.

The people using the Salvage duping "mechanic" kept it all hush hush as long as they could. I think that's a pretty good sign that they knew it was an exploit that would eventually get patched. They might not have ever thought that the punishment was going to be as severe as permanent bans. But they knew they were engaging in risky activity.

I am a hardcore gamer in a casual gamer's life.

Edited, Aug 11th 2013 12:04am by Gnu