GamerEscape

Here’s the second part of the Q&A that Final Fantasy XIV Producer/Director Naoki Yoshida held on different Japanese servers, answering questions directly from the players.

You can find the first part about jobs, raids and gear here.

Story:

Q: Is there a reason why Gaius doesn’t show up in Deep dungeon? Don’t tell me he isn’t dead!?
A: It’s not like every dead character shows up there, so you can’t say Gaius isn’t dead just based on that.

Q: You know that party in front of Sastasha (HM) that is like another version of Edda and her party? Is that story going anywhere?
A: Edda’s popularity exploding was unexpected, so we turned it into its own story. If something similar happens with different characters, we might do something.

Q: Don’t let Estinien go…
A: Estinien is a loner.

Q: You see aether flowing around when the WoL teleports, but it’s not blue, which represents light (Astral). Is there a reason why it’s purple. which represents darkness (umbral)?
A: It’s probably because they tried to make it looks as close to the teleport effect in 1.0.

Q: Will Ishgard fully recover? I still see soldiers, who are tired, and broken buildings.
A: We need to think about players coming in late, so that’s a hard question. Let’s just say the NPCs are working hard to stitch things up…

Additional comment:

• Something related to a certain Au’ra is under development (possibly referring to Magnai).

PvP:

Q: I heard you’re going to fix the “everyone go to the center” problem in Rival Wings, but are you also considering fixing the north side of the map being easy to protect/difficult to attack?
A: We are planning a lot of changes to Rival Wings, so please wait for those changes.

Q: We don’t have much we can buy with Wolf Marks. Any plans on adding something?
A: Please wait a little longer.

Q: Hurry up and fix Rival Wings. The Blue Team is too disadvantaged.
A: We are working on it. Including changes to the center generator.

Q: Each role in the FEAST has an enormous gap between each other, when it comes to how much weight they carry and it’s weird how all roles are on the same ranking board. Are we always going to be on one ranking board?
A: I see. It’s a bit troublesome. We are prioritizing balancing PvP as a group, and as soon as that is done, I’ll have discussions with the team in charge.

Q: Rival Wings is really popular (still under 5 minutes queues in Japan), so I want you to expand on this mode! Like new maps!
A: We would like to adjust RW and also create another map for the mode in the future.

Q: Can we have local (LAN) PvP matches?
A: Definitely not (laughs). Without the game server, the battle calculations cannot be done.

Additional comments:

• “We won’t have GvG (guild vs guild?) for a while.”
• “We are planning a new map for Seal Rock, but it will take some time.”
• Regarding how strong healers are in Rival Wings, nobody will want to play as a healer, if they aren’t that strong.

System:

Q: Can you allow us to set field markers by specifying the axis?
A: We do want to make ground targets and markers placeable with macros of that sort, but there’s a lot we have to prioritize first.

Q: Now that we have shared macros, can you allow us to have “share HUD layouts?”.
A: It would help, if you to use the copy/paste feature instead.

Q: I want to save the filters and lighting settings for the G-pose feature.
A: If that’s saved on the client side, maybe. I’ll tell the UI team later.

Q: I want you to allow us to move hotbars from PC to PS4 and vice versa.
A: We are currently planning PC, PS4 and net cafe adaptations, so please wait for further news.

Q: Any plans on improving the targeting system for PS4 (controller)?
A: When it comes to game pads, unfortunately that’s the limit. The only other way out is allowing players to have more options, like precisely setting the “range you choose targets from”.

Additional comments:

• “We are planning on allowing players to have more “favourite crystals” for teleporting after doing something.”
• The reason why you can’t customize the position of pop up texts and system texts is, because we don’t want players to miss it when they need to see it.
• “We cancelled the idea of merging datacenters and shuffling them, because we have more players now.”
• “We do have the technology to show videos in game, but we couldn’t get streaming to work. If someone develops a great way to allow it, we’ll ride on that wagon.”

Housing:

Q: Is it a difficult task to be able to change how the ceilings look?
A: The original system wasn’t designed to be able to customize the ceiling and the lights, so…

Q: Please add more housing items we can place on tables. For example, bottles for toppings and daily items.
A: We have to gradually expand on housing items, so please give us some time.

Q: Please…please! Please add a ton of housing plots.
A: We will be adding quite a lot of housing plots, so please wait.

Q: Only 20 slots for your garden is too little for a small house. Can you lift the limit?
A: Regarding the slots, we will create an opportunity to consider it, after the housing plot problem as a whole calms down, so please give us some time.

Q: This is a question regarding housing, but can you allow us to remove chocobos from the sable, when the owners haven’t logged in for a while?
A: Now that you tell me. I’ll tell the team.

Q: How are you going to sell the new plots for housing?
A: We cannot say it yet. You’ll find out right before the patch releases.

Q: Will you ever fix the problem where furniture disappears, when you place too many of them?
A: That’s probably because your PC runs on Win32. If possible, I’d like you to change it to a 64bit OS and then they will stop disappearing.

Q: (Adding onto the question above) Maybe he’s talking about furniture with gimmicks? You can only place 40 of them now, so I want you to lift the limitation.
A: Ah! Well, those cause a lot of stress and it’s difficult…

Q: I want an Isgardian housing area.
A: Our current priority is changes to the housing system and adding plots, so opening a new housing is difficult right now.

Q: I want a mannequin as furniture.
A: We do have plans, but we haven’t gotten to it yet, because of other priorities.

Q: Can you make stands for us, so we can leave messages?
A: It’s in one of the tasks.

Additional Comments:

• Allowing players to return inside your room is difficult, because of system restrictions.
• “We will be adding Azim Steppe themed furniture in the future.”

Mounts, Minions, Emotes:

Q: Is the bike mount idea you talked about gone now?
A: No, it’s still in the garage. We would like to do something with it, when the time comes.

Q: /blowkiss emote where hearts actually fly…hurry…hurry…[sic]
A: Seasonal emotes and items from the past will be added to the Mogstation after a year or so.

Q: Any plans on adding the cutscene specific emote “surprised” as a player emote? (note: the one where you are over the top and spread your arms)
A: Some of those cutscene only emotes will be added in patch 4.2.

Q: Will you ever allow us to use the “sleep/wake up” emote we can already see in the Inn?
A: Not for a while, because of the “SS problem”.

Note: There was an issue in Japan, involving players taking/uploading screenshots that were lewd and GMs had to tell them to delete them. They used the “play dead emote” and push up emotes and such to take Screenshots, even though the dev team warned people before they implemented those emotes.

Q: Will you allow us to eat while we’re sitting?
A: We’re working on that now.

Q: Can we have a minion of our own character?
A: That’s a tough request, but it will be nice if we can provide a service where you can use a 3D printer to turn your character into a figurine.

Q: Why don’t SCHs and ASTs have mounts…? It’s unfair that only WHMs have one (note: CNJ to be accurate).
A: I’ve written down your request.

Q: Can you make it so players can’t roll on minions they already have?
A: Players aren’t on their original server during instanced content, so we would have to make the server check if each player has it or not, which makes it difficul

Additional comments:

• “We have plans on having a dodo mount.”
• The fat cat is actually a kitty cat, but it won’t grow anymore.
• It’s difficult making mount decorations “shake” properly.
• Facial emotes/expressions will continue to be added.
• “I’ll tell the team your complaint on how ‘When a Male Roe rides a mount with the Coeurl Beach Briefs on, his thighs get sandwiched’.”
• “If we create lore on how it contains juice instead of alcohol, we might be able to add a “shaker” emote.”
• “We are still testing the umbrella mount.”
• “Please look forward to the future for mounts over 3 seats.”

Source: Reddit, via ff14net.2.chblog.jp

Translation: CarrieRofLlight