Ask Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXXV! (Patch 4.0 "Stormblood")

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Reposted from the Official FFXIV Forums:

 

Greetings, everyone!

 

We're pleased to announce the next Letter from the Producer LIVE, Part XXXV! This next Live Letter will take place on Friday, April 28, 2017 at 5:00 a.m. (PDT) / 12:00 (GMT) / 13:00 (BST)!

 

In this thread we'd like you to pose questions regarding Patch 4.0 "Stormblood". 

* Please note: Information pertaining to job actions, action adjustments, and the battle system revamp is planned to be released during a Letter from the Producer LIVE scheduled for May. Please hold onto any questions related to those topics until then.

 

When submitting your question, we ask that you follow these steps:

• Please post your question(s) as a reply to this thread
  
• Please limit posts to your question(s) only and do not use this thread for discussion
  
• If another player already asked a question you had in mind, simply click the "Like!" button instead of re-posting the question
  
• Please post only one question per reply (of course you are allowed to post several replies!)
  

* For more information regarding the Letter from the Producer LIVE, please read the following: NA/EU

* Please note that once the event is over, we will be closing this thread.

 

 

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/322723-Ask-Questions-for-Letter-from-the-Producer-LIVE-Part-XXXV%21-%28Patch-4.0-Stormblood-%29

[Kilieit]

I pitched my question here:

 

Will swimming/diving in Stormblood be mandatory to progress the MSQ? Flying in Heavensward is a great advantage in terms of speed and maneouverability, yet while there are sidequests where it's necessary to fly to continue, it's possible to complete the Heavensward MSQ without it. Will swimming be the same - mandatory for some sidequests, but optional for MSQ - or will there be sections of the Stormblood MSQ where the player must swim or dive in order to continue?

 

I tried to keep the wording as neutral and non-leading as possible so's not to betray my terror to try and invite an open answer. >.>;;

[Kage]

* Please note: Information pertaining to job actions, action adjustments, and the battle system revamp is planned to be released during a Letter from the Producer LIVE scheduled for May. Please hold onto any questions related to those topics until then.

 

I was going to say something like who wants to bet that there's a ton who still do this.

 

Then I realized it was a stupid bet.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

* Please note: Information pertaining to job actions, action adjustments, and the battle system revamp is planned to be released during a Letter from the Producer LIVE scheduled for May. Please hold onto any questions related to those topics until then.

 

I was going to say something like who wants to bet that there's a ton who still do this.

 

Then I realized it was a stupid bet.

 

Pretty sure I saw some on the first page. It'd be a more interesting bet to make if there wasn't at least one off-topic question on every page. (I'm not reading them all).

[Kage]

Page 6 might qualify

[BumblingSeaBiscuit]

I added questions, too! 

 

Can an option be added to unsynched dungeons to remove the timer?

 

Can we have a glamour option for bare feet?

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I added questions, too! 

 

Can an option be added to unsynched dungeons to remove the timer?

 

Can we have a glamour option for bare feet?

 

I think they've answered both of these before! These are the answers I've seen for them. I'll try to link the official posts when I get a chance at work.

 

Dungeons need those timers to kick people out of the instance should they either fail to complete, go AFK, or for other session-related reasons. Without that dile kick, players could theoretically fill up all the available instances and then the Duty Finder would never be able to complete or might just crash.

 

RE:Bare feet, it's a character model limitation. If you look at the shape of our characters' legs, you'll notice that they all typically are raised to the same heigh regardless of sandal, shoes, boot or armor. Giving charcters bare feet would require adjusting the model (and height of the leg/character) that would also require changing its shape, which is why they've dismissed it previously.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/176921-Can-we-please-be-barefoot

Counter post: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/218920-Can-I-have-a-Augmented-Emperor-s-Boots?p=2767315&viewfull=1#post2767315 (Although we'd still have an issue where no shoes at all would look like floating)

[BumblingSeaBiscuit]

I added questions, too! 

 

Can an option be added to unsynched dungeons to remove the timer?

 

Can we have a glamour option for bare feet?

 

I think they've answered both of these before! These are the answers I've seen for them. I'll try to link the official posts when I get a chance at work.

 

Dungeons need those timers to kick people out of the instance should they either fail to complete, go AFK, or for other session-related reasons. Without that dile kick, players could theoretically fill up all the available instances and then the Duty Finder would never be able to complete or might just crash.

 

RE:Bare feet, it's a character model limitation. If you look at the shape of our characters' legs, you'll notice that they all typically are raised to the same heigh regardless of sandal, shoes, boot or armor. Giving charcters bare feet would require adjusting the model (and height of the leg/character) that would also require changing its shape, which is why they've dismissed it previously.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/176921-Can-we-please-be-barefoot

Counter post: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/218920-Can-I-have-a-Augmented-Emperor-s-Boots?p=2767315&viewfull=1#post2767315 (Although we'd still have an issue where no shoes at all would look like floating)

 

 

In unsynched dungeons, the reasons you posted don't really matter. I'm also not talking about the ten minute timer kick. I'm talking about the, "You only have 90 minutes to complete this dungeon," timer. In an unsynched dungeon, it's a little redundant unless you're attempting to complete a dungeon to test how fast you can, and in that case it'd just be nice to have an ability to toggle it off.

 

While barefeet has been addressed, so has countless ways that people have argued its implementation (including a mod, where your characters feet are bare, and you don't have ground issues). You can read some of them here. Not to mention, they've mentioned graphic updates with Stormblood, and I'd like to know if this will now be possible. 

 

./shrug

[Kilieit]

I added questions, too! 

 

Can an option be added to unsynched dungeons to remove the timer?

 

Dungeons need those timers to kick people out of the instance should they either fail to complete, go AFK, or for other session-related reasons. Without that dile kick, players could theoretically fill up all the available instances and then the Duty Finder would never be able to complete or might just crash.

 

 

 

In unsynched dungeons, the reasons you posted don't really matter. I'm also not talking about the ten minute timer kick. I'm talking about the, "You only have 90 minutes to complete this dungeon," timer. In an unsynched dungeon, it's a little redundant unless you're attempting to complete a dungeon to test how fast you can, and in that case it'd just be nice to have an ability to toggle it off.

 

./shrug

 

I think Mercenary was talking about from the server side. Let's say 100 people all decide to go into their own unsynced dungeon and turn the timer off. That's now 100 instances stored on FFXIV's servers that are tied up in people essentially just AFKing, taking screenshots, etc... indefinitely. There is no AFK timeout in FFXIV. They could sit in those instances for weeks, tying up resources that could be being used for those wishing to play the game to progress their MSQ, improve their gear...

 

Now let's say 1000 people decide to do that.

 

Now let's say 10,000 people...

 

It becomes a resource issue. The 90 minute time-out prevents that.

[BumblingSeaBiscuit]

I added questions, too! 

 

Can an option be added to unsynched dungeons to remove the timer?

 

Dungeons need those timers to kick people out of the instance should they either fail to complete, go AFK, or for other session-related reasons. Without that dile kick, players could theoretically fill up all the available instances and then the Duty Finder would never be able to complete or might just crash.

 

 

 

In unsynched dungeons, the reasons you posted don't really matter. I'm also not talking about the ten minute timer kick. I'm talking about the, "You only have 90 minutes to complete this dungeon," timer. In an unsynched dungeon, it's a little redundant unless you're attempting to complete a dungeon to test how fast you can, and in that case it'd just be nice to have an ability to toggle it off.

 

./shrug

 

I think Mercenary was talking about from the server side. Let's say 100 people all decide to go into their own unsynced dungeon and turn the timer off. That's now 100 instances stored on FFXIV's servers that are tied up in people essentially just AFKing, taking screenshots, etc... indefinitely. There is no AFK timeout in FFXIV. They could sit in those instances for weeks, tying up resources that could be being used for those wishing to play the game to progress their MSQ, improve their gear...

 

Now let's say 1000 people decide to do that.

 

Now let's say 10,000 people...

 

It becomes a resource issue. The 90 minute time-out prevents that.

 

I mean, while it could be hard on their servers, their servers are also getting major upgrades, and with those upgrades we may see more availability for that. At the end of the day, we don't have an actual answer (not that I've seen) for why we can't have a toggle for unsynched dungeons. And I mean, let's face it, I highly doubt thousands of people are going to use the feature. Unsynched dungeons, in general, have very little purpose. They were made to help friends get through content. There's very little reason to not have it as a toggle.

 

I'm going to keep both questions as I doubt they'll be addressed but I know lots of people who would appreciate answers to both with the adjustments they're making for Stormblood.

[Kilieit]

Honestly, if they have the server resources to spare, I'd much rather they put them into additional housing instances. >_> As far as I'm aware, housing is the other big load in the instance servers besides dungeons - so it's kind of an either/or thing there.

 

Maybe some kind of extender would work - if you're at keyboard, when it gets to 5 minutes remaining, a pop-up appears with the option to extend your instance another 90 minutes up to a maximum of 2 times (creating a maximum instance length of 270 minutes, or 4hr30).

 

I just don't think indefinite dungeon instances is something that's practical to ask for. It's got too much room for exploitation (because you can bet it'd take less than a week for someone with beef with FFXIV to try and attack the game by mass-occupying instances in a DDoS-style attack).

[Unnamed Mercenary]

The dungeon being synced or unsynced makes no difference in terms of server load.

 

Think of it as like, bathroom stalls or karaoke rooms or some other type of set-amount resource that a person or people can enter and then lock. If enough people do so, waiting happens. We already see it some of the time when a duty finder party is filled, but the window says "reserving instance." That means there are no available instances to enter. All the rooms are full/taken.

 

In the current setup (which is unlikely to change), there are safety checks in place to make sure that an instance not in use is added back into the list of available ones. Without those checks, a group (perhaps a large group because it's per-data center) could theoretically block all instances, which would require Square Enix to forcibly remove the players by manually kicking them out. (Server restarts / emergency maintenance).

 

But it doesn't even need to be actual people. Bots can and do do this already in a variety of other services. (In my line of work with event ticketing, we have have to block bots from grabbing all of our reserved seat tickets. Or nobody gets to go to their concert or sports game if it's popular. Assuming SE has some form of NOC, they probably get alerts when a certain threshold of content is "locked" in use.

 

--

 

So yes, it's not a big deal for a single player or a group who want to go in, take some screenshots and head out. But imagine if you had a 6 hour RP scene in Sastasha, or in a high-end raid. The 90/120 minute "maximum instance time" limits are there to not only send an inactive character back to their home world, but to also maintain good server health.

[BumblingSeaBiscuit]

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I feel like if other games are capable of not limiting dungeon times then XIV should be able to find a way. So again, I'll be keeping my question to at least see if it is possible or a potential. However, I do like Kilieit's alternative so I can add it as an additional. 

 

Quick edit: Added Kiliet's alternative as a suggestion.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

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I feel like if other games are capable of not limiting dungeon times then XIV should be able to find a way. So again, I'll be keeping my question to at least see if it is possible or a potential. However, I do like Kilieit's alternative so I can add it as an additional. 

 

Quick edit: Added Kiliet's alternative as a suggestion.

 

I'd find that alternative to be a fair compromise if it were implemented.

 

But this type of stuff isn't just decided out of nowhere. It's usually a core of the server architecture design and setup. Without knowing how other games are implemented, it's tough to say whether they handle instances in a similar manner to FFXIV. For all we know, they could have some type of force kick-out that just isn't announced. Or instances aren't -really- instances and players are actually occupying the same space. (FFXIV does do this! Inn rooms are not instances, but they are "private" areas where the client and server send only a limited number of data packets to each other!)

 

I could spend a lot of time drawing pictures and talking about hypothetical setups. ...but what I do know from network packet captures and reverse-engineered server specs, SE needs those timers or they'd run out of instances altogether.