Let me begin by wishing a happy new year to all players and fans of FINAL FANTASY XIV!

The last few weeks of 2010 were tumultuous times for us all, what with the announcement of the development team restructuring and multiple version updates. Still, I hope you are all enjoying your winter vacations and holidays, and had truly memorable Christmas and New Year's Eves and Days.

As part of the new direction promised, we here on the development and management teams have adopted four new keywords for FINAL FANTASY XIV: fun, live, reboot, and rebuild. Forgive our translators if these buzzwords seem a bit cryptic or cliché, but I am using these English words as-is in the Japanese, and insisted they use the same words for a global resonance.

To get things rolling right away, I am asking for your cooperation with our FINAL FANTASY XIV Player's Poll the First—a brief questionnaire being issued to give you the players another means by which to have your voices heard.

Well, I would be lying if I said I was writing only to wish you the best in the coming twelve moons. Truth be told, the realm is all aflutter just now—the air thick with anticipation and excitement. In fact, an ancient verse of prophecy was delivered to my person by a messenger from Eorzea not moments ago. But I've never been much of one for poems... Perhaps some of you will have more luck decoding it than I have.
Again, I wish all of you a happy new year, and ask that you all look forward to what we have in store for FINAL FANTASY XIV in 2011!








FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer/Director,
Naoki Yoshida

Got this in my e-mail immediately after new years. I made a post but I deleted and merged it since our Square Enix bot posted it once it appeared on the Lodestone.

Here's your chance to let them know what you want fixed most/first. A quick sample of the questions:



Link again: https://secure.square-enix.com/enqt/e/FF14EPLAYERENQ01/html

EDIT: Apparently this link doesn't work outside of EU. Someone else will have to post their link when they finally get the e-mail. But I'm guessing the NA version wont be sent until NA hits new year.

Found the US poll. Adding a reply here for the links:

EU: https://secure.square-enix.com/enqt/e/FF14EPLAYERENQ01/html
NA: https://secure.square-enix.com/enqt/e/FF14NPLAYERENQ01/html

I like the message "Thank you for your cooperation." after you finish the survey.

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[In Yarr we trust.]

That little bit of verse is kind of awesome and kind of nonsensical. The earth consuming the sun sounds like an eclipse. If the Moon and the sun are on opposite sides of the earth, you'd have a lunar eclipse though, so the sea would not reflect any moon, just the dark shadow it once inhabited.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

"FINAL FANTASY XIV: fun, live, reboot, and rebuild"

I Think im in love with Naoki Yoshida. Reboot and Rebuild are the key words I want to hear. I already have a ton of fun in FFXIV. Its just that its fun because of CKD, not because of the game play.

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COBRA KAI DOJO NEVER DIES
RIP Shiloh

This is so awesome that they are doing a poll. This is the right direction! Some of these questions clearly show that they understand some of the gameplay problems.
Here's what I submitted.


Which online games have you played before?
Dark Age of Camelot
Dungeons & Dragons Online
FINAL FANTASY XI
The Lord of the Rings Online
World of Warcraft

Which forthcoming online games do you wish to play?
DC Universe Online


The FINAL FANTASY SeriesHow many games in the FINAL FANTASY series have you played?
20 (I just guessed this)


FINAL FANTASY XIV ExperienceHow much time per sitting do you spend logged in with your main character?
1 to 3 hours (I wish I could say I played longer per sitting)

How do you spend most of your time in Eorzea?
Socializing

What is your biggest expectation for the newly restructured development team? An overhaul to fundamental gameplay aspects

Which of the following issues you would like to see addressed first?
Guildleves (We should be able to play solo buy just doing quests\missions and get sp from them)

Which of the following would you like to see implemented first?
More story-based quests/mini-quests

What do you find most appealing about FINAL FANTASY XIV?
World & lore

Which of the following would you like to see implemented into the Lodestone?
Posts by the development and operations teams (Posts on an official forum)

Would you welcome changes to FINAL FANTASY XIV that would drastically alter the rules already set in Eorzea?
Yes

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COBRA KAI DOJO NEVER DIES
RIP Shiloh

I had to think long and hard about some of my answers, mainly because we can't pick more than one thing per question, but also to try and decode exactly what each of the answers really mean.

In the end I decided that it's very likely that all of the things listed are on their list of things to do. Instead of assuming the option I pick means the other options won't get done, I just need to think about which one I think the game would benefit most from by being done first.

Though I'm sure lots of people will, I made sure not to pick Auction House. To be honest, as much as the market wards suck, they're livable for a couple months, especially with the new search thing. I'd much rather they fix some other stuff first. As I just said, I'm sure everything on the list is going to get done eventually.

I'm also glad to hear the pollis called "the first" -- hopefully they'll give us some more in the coming weeks about some mroe specific things.

I'm happy to see that the new team seems like they're prepared to completely scrap and overhaul core mechanics if it'll make the game better.

I'd really like to see the results of the poll too.

that last question was the big one

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

That's serious.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

What I find interesting in the last quest and how it is proposed, is that in that interview by naoki (nya-oki :3 ) he states that he believes that the "rules" of the game are too difficult to understand and feels that's where some of the enjoyment seeps from.
Then, soon following, the poll asks if the playerbase would be ok with them changing the rules.

What exactly the rules are, is unclear.

What kind of big change would you guys like to see?

MP REGEN!

Drop the LQ system! Give us story based questing like FFXI had, but reward us with xp when the quest is complete.

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COBRA KAI DOJO NEVER DIES
RIP Shiloh

I'll admit MP Regen seems like a very strange ommision, just make it regen slowly and only outside of combat like HP does. Yeah mages can get by with MP Siphon, but it stops them using big nukes and stuff often and really I don't want to go the way of FFXI where you're expected to have certain subbed abilities or be gimp.

I think the main thing that needs addressing is to make combat "fun". Right now all you do is spam actions on weak monsters until they die then rush to the next one. The fast pace of combat kind of ruins it. In FFXI you had time to plan out skillchains and execute them each fight. Annoyingly now you don't even get time to chat while you play, so parties tend to be complete devoid of any social interaction. I'm sure lots of people are against it but this is exactly why auto-attack should be in.

Guildleves were supposed to be this game's equivalent of WoW's "kill 10 wolves" and "collect 5 beast fangs" type quests. But the system misses the mark by making them individual and instanced and time wasting. The great thing about those quests was that you could pick up 5-6 of them and run around doing them all at once, all the while grinding some decent exp, then go turn them all in, and get a nice chunk of exp reward as well. FFXIV's guildleves make you waste a few minutes running to a certain spot, kill maybe 4-5 enemies, and then that's it it's over and you're back to camp with barely any exp for your trouble only to repeat it a few dozen times and maybe you'll be halfway through your level.

To be honest I really want to see some more things that need more people. Yeah you can solo your way through the game which is great and would have been nice in FFXI, but you can do almost everything solo. And the missions and quests so far are kind of laughable because they have to make sure even a crafter can solo them. I'm not saying we need to go to Chains of Promathia levels of bullshit but it'd be nice to have something like BCNMs, a story mission versus a boss, some raid/dynamis type stuff; just something that actually makes people play together, lol. Just don't do any level cap bullshit so anyone can help out and it'll be smooth.

I assumed that by "rules" they basically meant the way everything has been laid out, the rules of the eorzea universe such as the weapon=job strangeness, not exactly the weirdo shit game rules.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die