The entire Final Fantasy 14 community has been up in arms about a recent press release in regards to the Surplus XP system by game director Nobuaki Komoto . This Press release was not intended to be viewed by North American or European regions but rather has been translated by various communities and distributed via forums and Social networking. Many Gamers are outraged over the idea of the use of the system so much so that they are canceling their pre-order and telling others to follow suit.
Community leaders are currently not commenting on this and Square has yet to Post any response on the subject, avoiding conflict but at the same time allowing this rumor or fact to spread throughout the world. Some gamers are viewing this system as a positive for casual gamers with less then 15 hours a week to play, stating such things as ” I have a job, a family and other games to play I don’t care to dedicate more than 10-15 hours per week to this game.” The other side of this argument states that ” I’m paying for a service that should be unlimited, I used to play Final Fantasy 11 and it was unlimited so why change that system, you are only going to drive away your fans with this system.” Consumers state that since they are paying for the game and the service that they should be able to play as much as they want without some experience penalty that will in the long run destroy the community. Debate will continue to rage between both of the sides of the argument and its interpretation, and until Square steps in and clears the air with some clarity gamers will continue to lose faith in the game. We will continue to research this news and let you know if we can confirm or deny any of the current rumors or facts.
Below is a translated version of the release by community member Savalithos of the FFXIVCore.com:
We’d like to thank all the beta testers out there for their hard work and support! We’re applying all those ideas you’ve sent us to make for the best possible Open Beta test and official release.
Now we’d like to take a moment to answer the many questions we’ve received about character balance in the current B3 phase.
First off, the main concept behind FFXIV is allowing those players with little time on their hands to play effectively, and game balance is based off of that. Furthermore, it is being designed to not give those with more time on their hands to play an unfair advantage. Because of that, systems such as Guardian’s Favor (a bonus to Guildleves) have been implemented to make leveling in the short-term easier than leveling in the long-term.
To achieve this balance, the amount of possible skill/experience points earned after a certain period of time has a threshold. Think of it as real-life “fatigue” from working at improving your skills via battle *(aka. No one could train ad nauseam in the real world with no ill effects).
Within the first eight hours of play, you can earn 100% experience. The seven hour period following will see your possible experience gradually approach zero.
This system is on a weekly timer. After a week has passed since you began skilling that particular weapon, the timer will reset. It will start anew when you skill up again.
Any experience earned past that point is saved as “surplus.” There is surplus for each class, and if you begin to see it please consider playing another class and adjust accordingly.
However, experience points are not specific to any class and therefore the decrease in experience points is not affected by changing classes.
That’s how the system stands as of right now.
Also, this system wasn’t implemented just in B3 but was set in motion from the very start of beta. Despite this, we have received many opinions regarding it in B3. There are a few reasons why:
-B3 allowed for longer sessions in single sittings.
-In order to promote party play, skill/experience points earned were greatly increased.
-The skill/experience earned from weak enemies was lowered, but had failed to pop up on initial bug reports (and was later fixed via maintenance).According to the last bug report skill/experience able to be earned was above what had been planned, therefore people hit the limit much more quickly than hoped for. That is the biggest cause. Yet another problem was that we were unable to adjust guildleve experience and the experience-earned limit at the same time.
Our lack of explanation regarding all of this was a mistake, and we heartily apologize.
This all is still currently under development, and we have plans to make the limit more palatable in answer to all the tester feedback we received concerning this. In particular we would like to address the speed with which experience begins to drop off and are already looking into it.
Also, since experience points fatigue carries over despite changing weapons, we plan to make it not so harsh.At the very least, we promise to not have people hitting these limits in a short period of time, such as during the start of B3.
We would also like to make an announcement regarding something else.
The decrease in earnings when gathering is based on your actions taken with that class and is unrelated to the aforementioned limits. This is also currently under review and is planned for adjustment in accordance with many testers’ opinions.
Surplus experience is currently not being used. However, we have received many comments suggesting some sort of reward be put into effect regarding it, and we think that’s a pretty interesting idea. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, though, and we’re currently investigating the possibilities.
Open Beta will not just see changes to the issues stated above but will also see adjustments made to encourage party play even more (such as an increase to skill points), which the team is currently hard at work on adjusting. We hope you’ll all test it out when the time comes.
Finally, we would like to apologize for the lateness of any developer comments due to my attendance of Gamecom this past week. In my absence much fuss was raised over speculation, old information and some mistranslations on overseas fansites *(what?! /panic. Though I wonder what that’s in reference to in particular). I hope to avoid this from happening again by delivering developer comments as promptly as possible. Thank you all for your understanding.
And thanks in advance for your hard work to come in Open Beta!
Final Fantasy XIV director
Nobuaki Komoto
And Here is the North American Beta release post from The Beta page:
Once again, we would like to thank you all for your participation and support during the Closed Beta. We will continue to take your valuable feedback into consideration as we develop the game during Open Beta and even beyond the official release.
Now I would like to take a moment to respond to the many questions and opinions regarding the manner in and rates at which experience and skill points are obtained in Beta 3.
Firstly, the concept for FINAL FANTASY XIV was to design a system of character progression that offers meaningful advancement for those with limited time to dedicate to playing. We did not want to create a game that forced people to play for hours on end to see their efforts rewarded. To that end, in addition to the Guardian’s Aspect and guildleve systems, we introduced a means of apportioning swifter advancement to shorter periods of play.
In order to achieve this balance, we calculated a value for the amount of skill or experience points that could be earned in a one-hour period. This theoretical value represents an hour spent engaged solely in combat, levequests, or any other activities that earn skill or experience points, and sets a threshold delimiting how many of these points can be earned in a period of play.
Based on this, we have implemented a “threshold value” concept. These thresholds are regulated by a one-week timer that begins counting down the instant you earn skill/experience points. After a week has passed, the thresholds will reset, and the moment skill/experience points are earned again, the timer begins counting down anew.
For the first eight thresholds during this week-long period, players will receive skill/experience points at the maximum rate possible. The actual amount of time spent reaching these thresholds is not significant. That is to say, a player who exceeds eight hours of gameplay will still be rewarded the maximum amount of skill/experience points, so long as the total amount earned is below the eighth threshold value. For the subsequent seven thresholds, players will earn skill/experience points at a gradually decreasing rate, eventually reaching a rate of zero.
It is worth noting, however, that the reduced rate will also gradually recover while players are engaged in activities that do not yield skill/experience points. In this manner, it is possible for the threshold value to reset completely, even before the completion of the one-week timer.
Any skill points earned in excess of the threshold maximum—that is, at a rate of zero—will be stored as “bonus skill points.” These are specific to each class, so players limited to earning bonus skill points still have the freedom to change classes and begin earning skill points again at the maximum rate, allowing their reduced skill rates to recover in the meantime.
The experience point threshold, however, is unrelated to class, and switching classes will have no effect on the decreasing rate of earnable experience.
This is how the progression system currently works.
This system was not introduced in Beta 3, but has been in place since the beginning of beta testing. There are several reasons why many people believe that these features were only recently implemented:
– Leading into Beta 3, operation hours were extended, making it possible to play more often during the span of a week.
– To encourage players to form guidleve parties in Beta 3, skill and experience point rewards for guildleves were significantly increased.
– The process that reduced the amount of skill/experience points awarded for weak enemies attacking in groups was unintentionally removed at the start of Beta 3. (This issue has been addressed.)That last reason in particular was the biggest cause for players running up against the threshold penalty, with characters earning far more skill/experience points than we anticipated. We also faced an issue where we were simultaneously unable to adjust the amount earned for guildleves as well as the effects of crossing each threshold.
We sincerely apologize for the lack of explanation and our failure to make the necessary adjustments in the game.
The threshold values are being reexamined, and we plan to further adjust the different rates of earnable points based on feedback from our testers. One of the top issues we are looking at right now is fixing the excessively rapid drop after crossing the eighth threshold. We also plan to improve experience point reduction rates, even more so than for skill points, considering the threshold is unaffected when changing class.
At the very least, we can promise that players won’t be running into the threshold penalty in the same short time span as they did in the beginning of Beta 3.
We would like to take this opportunity to also explain the following issues.
The diminishing results experienced during gathering are a function related to that class alone, and have no connection to this progression system. We are in the process of adjusting this system, and plan to make changes based on tester feedback.
We are currently in the process of considering the means in which bonus skill points can be used. There have been suggestions for various types of incentives, but as encouraging people to play with that in mind defeats the purpose of this threshold system, we will be examining this issue very carefully.
These are not the only adjustments we have planned for Open Beta. As mentioned previously, we are looking into increasing the amount of skill points earned when fighting in a party, and we look forward to seeing your input on these changes.
Last of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in releasing a developer’s comment due to my recent attendance to Gamescom. The article based on my interview during that trip, coupled with conjecture, outdated information, and some misunderstandings on overseas websites, only added to the confusion. In the future, I hope to avoid similar problems by responding directly through official developer’s comments as often as possible. Thank you for your understanding.
See you in the Open Beta Testing!
FINAL FANTASY XIV Director
Nobuaki Komoto
Leave a Reply