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[Teknoman]

Full letter:

Hello again, all fans of FINAL FANTASY XIV!

June has arrived at the speed of light, bringing with it warmer days. But outside isn’t the only place where the mercury’s rising. Things are also heating up here on the team, on both development and—*gulp*—scheduling fronts. We’ve reached a crucial stage of work on 1.18, and as promised in my previous letter, today I’m going to give you a progress report on auto-attack.

Now, if a picture paints a thousand words, a video should paint several times that and then some. So before I launch into the main body of this missive, I’d like everyone to check out the video of auto-attack I’ve (had) prepared. Please keep in mind that this content is still under testing, and is subject to change. I repeat, this is a video of content under development!

I’ll release all the juicy particulars closer to the release date, but for now here’s a rough sketch of the changes that are in the pipes, organized into bullet points.

Auto-attack functionality will be prioritized in 1.18.
Attack motion diversification and fine-tuning are planned for 1.19.
Battle classes only will receive auto-attack.
The stamina gauge will be abolished with the introduction of auto-attack.
Recast timers will be adjusted for certain actions obtained via quests and guild marks whose action costs were managed solely through the stamina gauge.
Certain actions dependent on the stamina gauge will have their effects adjusted.
Characters will be made able to switch between passive and active modes while moving.
Multiple attacks during auto-attack is also being planned for the future.

In implementing auto-attack in 1.18, we’ll also need to make major revisions to enmity algorithms, tweak the motion of certain actions (as seen in the above video), and also rebalance a handful of them—just to list a few battle-related items. It goes without saying that all these will require a great deal of testing. Please pray with me that our lead battle planner Akihiko Matsui doesn’t collapse from exhaustion. */pray*

To touch on some other items under development, I’m happy to say that work on one raid area is complete, with the second hot on its heels. We just need to secure enough time for testing and optimizing balance…which, I’m afraid, will push the patch behind schedule. I’m very sorry for this, but given the tremendous size of the patch, I estimate that it’ll take two more weeks beyond the anticipated mid/late-June release date to deliver it to our fans. I promise you, though, that the extra time in development will be meaningful. The FINAL FANTASY XIV team is resolute as ever in its mission to bring about great and positive changes to Eorzea, and we ask for your continued understanding.

1.18 is promising to be a heavyweight among patches, and we expect to have plenty of details to share with you in the weeks leading up to release. Please bear with us in the meantime.

Thanks for reading! Catch you next time and/or on the forums!

So auto attack and two raid dungeons confirmed for 1.18...early July?

Seems like Guard is still a command. Pugilist armor looks different...unless I havent seen any high rank Pugilists. Seemed like he used blindside/sneak attack?

 

[Cmagus]

would be nice to see some raid footage.Kind of disappointing that there is yet another delay though.The outfits their character was wearing were pretty cool it would be nice if the next update had a few new outfits.Only time will tell but it better hit when they say this time.

 

[Londa]

they really needed to show 2 hand axe. I wanted to see its delay. lol

I'm not really excited for auto attack. I'm sure many disagree with me.

 

[Cmagus]

I personally could care less about auto attack I find no fun standing around letting the game play for me.I guess it all depends on your game play style though I personally move all the time in battle.

 

[Jinko]

I like the new timer circles, its a lot better visually than numbers. (would be nice if they gave the option to turn recast numbers off and just have the circle timer)

The new Lancer and Gladiator attacks look cool.

Sadly it is feeling/looking a lot like FF11's battle system just with an action bar.

Pugilist have lost a load of speed and I don't think that guna sit right with many who play that class.

 

[Gromph]

Maybe that rollbacks they mention and fix incomming.

At the following time, we will be performing maintenance on FINAL FANTASY XIV to implement patch 1.17c. During this period, FINAL FANTASY XIV will be unavailable.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding.

* Clients will update automatically upon launch after release of the patch.

* Patch download rates may vary depending on server congestion.

* Comprehensive patch notes will be posted on the Lodestone the day of the patch’s release.

[Date & Time]
Jun. 15, 2011 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (PDT)

* The completion time may be subject to change.

[Affected Service]
- FINAL FANTASY XIV

 

[Londa]

patch 1.17c

lol how many of these 1.17's can they put in?

 

[Rentahamster]

Video looks promising. I'm liking the new animations. Finally, lol.

 

[scotcheggz]

Pugilist have lost a load of speed and I don't think that guna sit right with many who play that class.

I raged! Going to sit tight and pray that that's just like that because it's in development. Also interested to see what they do with flurry. Time will tell!

 

[Rentahamster]

I raged! Going to sit tight and pray that that's just like that because it's in development. Also interested to see what they do with flurry. Time will tell!

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what kind of solution they came up with to transition over the other normal attacks.

Perhaps with stuff like Flurry and Full Thrust, they can implement some kind of stance switching mechanic, like how they were originally planning (it's pretty lol-worthy that when you go to the official ff14 website, it STILL shows the profile of the PGL as being able to switch stances and steal).

I wonder what will happen with Marauder's AOE moves like Broad Swing.

 

[scotcheggz]

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what kind of solution they came up with to transition over the other normal attacks.

Perhaps with stuff like Flurry and Full Thrust, they can implement some kind of stance switching mechanic, like how they were originally planning (it's pretty lol-worthy that when you go to the official ff14 website, it STILL shows the profile of the PGL as being able to switch stances and steal).

I wonder what will happen with Marauder's AOE moves like Broad Swing.

That's how I imagined it, regular stance could be akin to heavy strike, with a defensive stance being light strike and an offensive stance being flurry. I think that would be really fun, but I don't know if something like that would be possible or balanced at all. Probably would screw with balance at the very least.

Good to see other classes getting weapon skills that look as boss as simian thrash now though! Which is another thing, wonder if they'll mess with featherfoot or make simian thrash usuable without having to evade.

 

[Luigi87]

lol how many of these 1.17's can they put in?

If it's anything like DirectX logic, then maybe c will finally be the last one until the actual, hopefully good, stuff!

 

[Teknoman]

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what kind of solution they came up with to transition over the other normal attacks.

Perhaps with stuff like Flurry and Full Thrust, they can implement some kind of stance switching mechanic, like how they were originally planning (it's pretty lol-worthy that when you go to the official ff14 website, it STILL shows the profile of the PGL as being able to switch stances and steal).

I wonder what will happen with Marauder's AOE moves like Broad Swing.

Well guard, stab, and heavy slash still seem like useable moves for Gladiator, so i'm sure it'll work the same.

they really needed to show 2 hand axe. I wanted to see its delay. lol

I'm not really excited for auto attack. I'm sure many disagree with me.

Maybe since the delay is supposed to be faster, certain weapons will still have a delay property? Like certain size 2h axes being increased in strength, but slower, while others hit faster and are more accurate, yet weaker by comparison?

 

[Teknoman]

.

 

[Rentahamster]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...レベル表記に置き換えてほしい?p=179988&viewfull=1#post179988

こんにちは。

ご指摘の点、吉田Pと話してきました。
様々な改修を行う過程で変更点が多く、その中で混乱を招く度合いが強くなっていることから（現に吉田Pもよく言い間違えます）、フィジカルレベル廃止後は、

ランク→レベル
修錬値→経験値

に変更を予定しています。

地味ですが修錬値も修練値と間違われるのが一般的ですが、私たちもIMEを呪いたくなることが稀によくあります。

After the abolition of physical levels:

The term "rank" will be changed to "level"

"SP" will be changed to "EXP"

 

[Teknoman]

Said it before...but no wonder its taking so long. Its like trying to release another game altogether. Is that second bar in the demo video still physical level though?

 

[Ravidrath]

It's a bit of a shame that they couldn't make not-Auto-Attack work, but I'm looking forward to seeing this firsthand.

 

[Rentahamster]

Said it before...but no wonder its taking so long. Its like trying to release another game altogether. Is that second bar in the demo video still physical level though?

Yeah, the video still had physical level in. That sorta leads me to think that phys level won't disappear with 1.18. It might take a little while longer for it to go away fully. Or not. I dunno.

It's a bit of a shame that they couldn't make not-Auto-Attack work, but I'm looking forward to seeing this firsthand.

Indeed. I would have liked to see FF14 be a full-on action RPG MMO. I wonder if going in that direction would have been too difficult due to the horrible server lag and unoptimization.

But auto-attack can work too, I guess.

 

[Ravidrath]

I actually think the main problem with non-Auto Attack is that you... can't talk during battles at all?

 

[Rentahamster]

I actually think the main problem with non-Auto Attack is that you... can't talk during battles at all?

I guess some people might consider that a negative point. It didn't really bother me in Diablo II, but then again, that's not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

 

[notworksafe]

1.18 patch sounds great. I may have to reinstall this game. Will it be free after 1.18? And how do the servers run? Is the UI still laggy as hell?

 

[Rentahamster]

1.18 patch sounds great. I may have to reinstall this game. Will it be free after 1.18? And how do the servers run? Is the UI still laggy as hell?

Still gonna be free. They'd be insane to start charging so soon.

UI is still laggy, but it's better than launch.

Server optimization is one of their stated priorities, but god knows how long that's gonna take them.

 

[Luigi87]

They're getting rid of the physical levels?

... As one who hasn't been in the game long at all... Should I be excited about that?

 

[Jinko]

They're getting rid of the physical levels?

... As one who hasn't been in the game long at all... Should I be excited about that?

Physical levels are basically pointless so yea its a good thing.

 

[Riposte]

It still bothers me that whatever the game's battle system original intent is lost(e.g. stamina-based combat), since it was unique. But I guess since it was poorly executed then it isn't much of a loss. I still want someone to sit down with the former director and ask why FFXIV was the way it was.

Anyway, YoshiP wanting this to turn FFXIV into your typical post-WoW MMO Experience™ isn't very comforting because people would rather play a MMO that isn't so far behind for that experience(e.g. WoW). I think FFXI got away with a lot because it wasn't that. Maybe Companies or something like that will set it apart.

 

[Allard]

Noticed the new field music? Dunno if that was only a placeholder but maybe we'll have new music for different parts (hopefully re-designed) of the region? ..hope so!

edit: like tekno said lol

A bit disappointed about missing other stuff in the letter but i like the new moves.

As much as I would love for that to be the case (the music change) I'm fairly certain that is a placeholder. I'm almost certain that music is used somewhere else in the game. I know I have heard it before on the main site if nothing else. Also I am fairly sure the location is right outside bearded Rock and having a lvl 50 and lvl 60 gob there would seem a little too out of place.

As for the changes coming. Cautiously excited, but I think its going to be the smaller things that make or break this transition, specifically the pacing of battle without the stamina gauge and now abilities with longer recast timers.

Also they mentioned before that the auto-attack 'pace' and class diversity with it will come in Patch 1.19, I expect all classes to have similar delay to tp ratio, and only a couple jobs will look faster (PUG) because the attack animation is longer and thus gap between attacks seems shorter.

A couple small things I noticed that I am relieved over. Auto-attack doesn't seem to stop your character or root him in place to finish animations. It now behaves like FFXI where there is a momentary delay in the initial attack (Drawing the weapon and waiting 4-5 seconds before an attack goes off) but you can move around and not miss your attack and it won't stop you in the middle of it. Remains to be seen if such issues have been resolved for the normal abilities though but it at least seemed smoother in the PUG part of the vid (going behind the opponent after an ability and following quickly with another).

This + the animation/root lag from passive to offensive was perhaps my biggest issue with the last system. It slowed the game down and made it impossible to do anything tactical like move away from an enemy using a timely move because you might get rooted in the middle of using another ability and can't move in time (Curse you Puk Backflip!).

The other thing that is going to make or break the system is how the abilities behave with the new system, and also what abilities can and cannot be equipped on other classes now. This isn't something we can really see in a vid like this, but I hope we will an in depth answer from Matsui as we get closer to the patch release.

Also loving the new animations. They made Rage of Halone from something you would see with a normal weapon strike to something that actually looks powerful. Chaos Thrust is amazing looking as well, really exciting to see in action. A massive step forward at least on that front, and it certainly wasn't something I was expecting to see in this auto-attack vid.

Edit:

Community Rep on the FFXIV site

Hey everyone! We know this has been a very popular topic on multiple occasions and the dev. team wanted to let you know that they have began working on increasing the key mapping settings. This will include being able to set the camera controls to the arrow keys!

Much Rejoicing!

Also 1.17c was also confirmed to not be anything special as far as game features are concerned. So shatter the hopes right away if you had any

 

[Rentahamster]

Chaos thrust looks like a Musou move from Dynasty Warriors.

Hawt!

Please please please more smexy animations like that.

 

[Ravidrath]

They're getting rid of the physical levels?

... As one who hasn't been in the game long at all... Should I be excited about that?

Yeah, it's a good thing.

It wasn't properly thought out, and made it too easy to incorrectly spec a character. And then to dull that problem, they made the stats almost meaningless. Basically, it was just a giant ball of false choices.

It was also stupid because having one static set of stats in a game where you can change jobs on-the-fly made no sense.

The new system is the best of all worlds, IMO: you get standard stats for the job based on your level, and then bonus points to apply on top of that that is job-specific. So you can customize the job and make it better in certain ways without concern as to the effect on other jobs.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Chaos thrust looks like a Musou move from Dynasty Warriors.

Hawt!

Please please please more smexy animations like that.

Except that in Dynasty Warriors you unleash your Musou gauge and like 100 guys all around you instantly fly 50 feet into the air and land on the ground dead. There is no MMOG with the possible exception of Dynasty Warriors Online which is anything like that.

They can make the animation more glowy and shiny but they could also stand to make a lot of the rank level 50 moves not pure shit. Chaos Thrust and Simian Thrash stand out here. Archers didn't even get a level 50 move, they should have gotten Duodecim Shot or something.

Adding 2 whole dungeons and making 2 animations pretty isn't going to bring 99.99% of players back. Including me. If Squenix really thinks they have a year to make this game good, they've got another thought coming. Not with SWTOR, Tera, Guild Wars 2, and Diablo III all arriving late this year or early next year. I should note that NONE of these upcoming games are based upon any kind of auto-attack combat mechanic. It's because auto-attack is entirely obsolete. I guess if going backwards in time a decade to re-implement auto-attack makes the old-school diehard FFXI players happy, then that's great, I hope Squenix is looking forward to an eternal playerbase of 10-20k players, because that's the most FFXIV will ever have at this point. I don't know what their budget was for FFXIV but I don't think 10-20k players is going to cover it, they'll either have to rely on FFXI and this new MMOG they are announcing to carry FFXIV, or they'll have to shut it down anyways even after all the work the new team has put into it.

 

[Londa]

that video was very underwelming imo. I basically am waiting for more than just 2 dungens and a few animations with tacked on auto attack to be added before I plan to play seriously. I don't even want auto attack.

 

[meep!]

Hoi my fellow FFXIV-friends!
My account here on GAF have finally been validated after 1.5 years of waiting!

So how many of the old folks are actually still playing this?
I haven't logged on in ages, but I am checking lodestone and here regulary to see any updates to the game, unfortunately they are moving at snailpace. They have barely updated the game with new content at all since it's launch.

As Unkown said, it's a bit too late for SE with these changes. Auto attack will most likely not bring back a lot of people, especially with so many other good games on the horizon. And I agree that Auto-attack is becoming a thing of the past anyway with a lot of MMOs moving towards a bit more engaging combat.

It's rather sad to see this game that I (and many others) had so high hopes for become like this.

I am curious to see what their next MMO is going to be (FFXIV-2?), but I will think a second time before jumping onto that.


Anyway, it's great to finally be able to post on GAF, after reading it for over 6 years!

 

[Coldsnap]

lol Meep Moop welcome to the gaming age forums.

 

[Gromph]

Hoi my fellow FFXIV-friends!
My account here on GAF have finally been validated after 1.5 years of waiting!

So how many of the old folks are actually still playing this?
I haven't logged on in ages, but I am checking lodestone and here regulary to see any updates to the game, unfortunately they are moving at snailpace. They have barely updated the game with new content at all since it's launch.

As Unkown said, it's a bit too late for SE with these changes. Auto attack will most likely not bring back a lot of people, especially with so many other good games on the horizon. And I agree that Auto-attack is becoming a thing of the past anyway with a lot of MMOs moving towards a bit more engaging combat.

It's rather sad to see this game that I (and many others) had so high hopes for become like this.

I am curious to see what their next MMO is going to be (FFXIV-2?), but I will think a second time before jumping onto that.


Anyway, it's great to finally be able to post on GAF, after reading it for over 6 years!

Congratulations!!! Welcome to the forums

I think if SE brings the XI content and battle to a XIV equal level, will gain all the XI player base. (500k if i remember well.)

I enjoy the game as is now, but with the battle patch on the horizon, i focus on gathering/crafting classes, and that is seem is changing to.. but as always is like the snake who bit his own tail, i cant wait for all.

 

[Salaadin]

I let an friend of mine convince me to re-join FFXI again and Im loving it. What have I done!

I like what I hear about these XIV game changes. Sounds like they are bringing a lot of familiar XI elements into it. I hope they pull that off nicely.
If they can make Eorzea as interesting as Vandiel, then Ill be thrilled to start olaying this again.

Im trying to find some links but google is no help. Have they said anything more about the possibility of actually changing the areas, removing the copy/paste, etc?

 

[Munba]

Have they said anything more about the possibility of actually changing the areas, removing the copy/paste, etc?

Yoshi-p said something about it time ago but he also said it will be a very long task, after all the high priority fixes. (he used the word 'redesign').


Welcome meep!

 

[staticneuron]

The attack was never the issue for me. The content was. I don't really miss it as I take my break. I am finally clearing a backlog of titles though.

 

[Rentahamster]

Except that in Dynasty Warriors you unleash your Musou gauge and like 100 guys all around you instantly fly 50 feet into the air and land on the ground dead. There is no MMOG with the possible exception of Dynasty Warriors Online which is anything like that.

Yeah, I didn't mean to say that I wanted Dynasty Fantasy 14 or anything, I just wanted to point out that the new animations look pretty awesome after the shit animations we've had to deal with for the past 8 months.

It's a little something like this; I think Eddie Murphy says it best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0x_dFMnZVI




Hi Meep!

 

[Rentahamster]

In other news, the devs are in favor of adding EXP chains like we had in FF11.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-How-to-Fix-it?p=182501&viewfull=1#post182501

 

[Jinko]

My account here on GAF have finally been validated after 1.5 years of waiting!

LOL yea GAF is like a blackhole when you apply sometimes.

Welcome.

 

[Rentahamster]

dev post about the auto attack speed:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/showthread.php?p=181915#post181915

No new info, really. Pretty much reiterating what matsui said in the battle report: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/10879-Battle-Reform-Blueprint?p=138995

Paraphrasing -

Appearance of "slowness" is due to the character motions

Like Matsui said in his battle plan report, auto-attack will be implemented in stages.

1.18 is only the first step, which establishes auto-attack itself in a preliminary state.

After that, they will implement stuff like crowd control adjustments, action/skill balance changes. For stage two, auto-attack will be further refined by revising the algorithms/calculations and more clearly fleshing out the distinctions and characteristics of each weapon. After that is done, they plan to implement revisions in order to match the character animation more closely to the auto-attack timing.

The original animations were meant to be used with the original battle system, so that's why the intervals between attacks feels so slow. They plan to adjust the animations to make it feel faster.

 

[Rawk Hawk]

I let an friend of mine convince me to re-join FFXI again and Im loving it. What have I done!
I like what I hear about these XIV game changes. Sounds like they are bringing a lot of familiar XI elements into it. I hope they pull that off nicely.
If they can make Eorzea as interesting as Vandiel, then Ill be thrilled to start olaying this again.

Im trying to find some links but google is no help. Have they said anything more about the possibility of actually changing the areas, removing the copy/paste, etc?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Hello the Meep Moop!

For those interested, it seems that TheExodu5 is running a GAF Plays special on Diablo II.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=434055

Severely tempted to reinstall it...even though I have a backlog of unplayed games miles long. Sigh.

 

[Rentahamster]

Hello the Meep Moop!

For those interested, it seems that TheExodu5 is running a GAF Plays special on Diablo II.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=434055

Severely tempted to reinstall it...even though I have a backlog of unplayed games miles long. Sigh.

Yeah I saw that too. I am staying far away from that....lol. It would be the end of me.

 

[Teknoman]

So Matsui is also the battle director behind XIII-2 according to the most recent Game Informer. Had no idea you could free jump in XIII-2 as well...so we might end up seeing that in XIV. Not the sturdiest logic, but still.

Also all moves are being adjusted as well as strength, so I doubt they are just pasting flashy animations onto moves without changing how hard they hit/how they work as well. It's a battle system and base gameplay mechanics overhaul. Stats, equipment parameters, everything.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Yeah I saw that too. I am staying far away from that....lol. It would be the end of me.

I'm downloading D2 from my Battle.net account right now. I registered it on the "new" Bnet a long time ago, never thought I'd actually use the download game client feature on such an old game. Join ussssss......

 

[Kandinsky]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGmUoY7Gqzc&feature=feedu

Auto-attack Battle video.

Enjoy.

Always loved that Gladiator armor, it looks so damn cool.

 

[Teknoman]

Checked with the dev. team regarding questions about archers and their ability to auto-attack. Auto-attack as a system will initiate when the player is fighting an enemy in close range. While archers will be able to auto-attack enemies while in close range it won't be with arrows. New animations will be implemented to make this all happen!

What other weapons do Archers use?

 

[Rentahamster]

What other weapons do Archers use?

Nothing. They're gonna have to give them a melee weapon.

I'm downloading D2 from my Battle.net account right now. I registered it on the "new" Bnet a long time ago, never thought I'd actually use the download game client feature on such an old game. Join ussssss......

 

[Jinko]

What other weapons do Archers use?

If I read that right Wow that's so retarded, it is FF11-2 after all.

Just as well I don't play Archer.

Why the hell would they not give Archer auto attack LOL

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Nothing. They're gonna have to give them a melee weapon.

Makes me think of Asheron's Call 2, before that game went to the great MMOG Server in the Sky. Up close, Archers would have a melee fighting animation. The animation looked different but your chance to hit and damage were still dependent on the bow you had equipped at the time. It was funny watching you punch the mob when you were close to it instead of shooting arrows at it.

:3