More cheating bullshit QQ as Matsui speaks again...

He spoke today on a number of subjects (largely the PD/Embrava nerf), and I can't think the BG Brigade is going to be happy on it.

Matsui began with a discussion on:

Pros and Cons of Adjustment and Timing
 
In the midst of my efforts to catch up on the two years that I’d missed, this was the first thing I took notice of. I was apprehensive that this would become a situation following in the footsteps of Utsusemi, so I spoke to the development and operations team and made a quick decision to make these adjustments knowing that there was little time.

While the development and operation team members understood this and agreed with me, we were unable to properly convey our thoughts on the forum, and since this work was taking place in the middle of our already limited time, I would like to apologize to all of you for causing concern.

This is linked to the canceling out of any other battle strategy decisions, and also looking ahead to the development work for the jobs and content that are to be implemented in Seekers of Adoulin, I believe that these adjustments are necessary. (Especially for Embrava.)

1) I'm not sure he understands how limited his time actually is on working on a lot of things, especially Seekers content.

2) One of the problems is that the whole situation on PD/Embrava HAS followed the footsteps of Utsusemi, as it became a player-led change to fundamental strategy, which the developers, etc. have declared illegitimate and in need of immediate repair before the release of Seekers, or even before a lot of the Seekers content was being made.

3) Again, and this is in tandem to the other letter Matsui just did:  The basic admission that much of this elite  content is not meant to be beatable (at all unless you take the "Azure Underwear School of Secret Ninja Techniques", and that too needs to be addressed, and certainly even dicier now under that School) as presently designed.

Matsui:

Can’t you just strengthen the other special abilities without weakening Perfect Defense and Embrava?
 
When comparing these to other special abilities, they have such extensive effects that I do not think it would be realistic to adjust all of the special abilities to match them.

Also, in the case that we were to create content and monsters with the current Perfect Defense and Embrava in existence, it would result in brute-force behavior that nullifies or erases these abilities, so scholar and summoner’s position in the battlefield would not remain the same as it is.

There is a difference between only having content and enemies that can be enjoyed by dealing huge amounts of damage with continuous weapon skills, versus having this type of content and enemies as well as other content and enemies.

Basically, an admission to the power of the two SP's.

The thing that people will definitely complain about is:  With the temporary-item strategies in Voidwatch, "brute-force behavior" is about the only way to win most of the fights in the game at that level to begin with.

What Matsui is talking about, more and more, is variety of content.  The problem is, the whole company needed this years ago.  As one FFXIAH reader I've already scanned has said:  It's a matter of trust -- can we trust him to do the right thing, even if it appears as if he's being transparent enough to want to.

Are you getting rid of all battle strategies that are advantageous for players?
 
Regardless of whether it is advantageous or disadvantageous, as long as we feel there is a balance-related problem we will make adjustments. The big issue I see is that we are weakening these abilities despite the fact that it has been around for such a long time untouched.

I really understand everyone’s feelings, and that you hate this since you all did your best and endured hardships leveling up and gathering equipment. Not everything we do is perfect, so when we make a mistake we would like to rectify it and we promise to make the adjustments and fixes right away.

This gets back to the crux of the players' feelings toward this, plus questions like the legality of Windower (and SpellCast, etc. and so forth).  The fact is that, before anything else can be done with this game, situations like that need to be answered FIRST.  If you don't allow Windower, except with a nudge and a wink, then those who test the product using it are going to skew the relative difficulty and the adjustments toward the Windower crowd.

State what level of "gear" is legal and what level is not and force everybody to test to that level.  Of course, you'll also have to address those who have made a "living" on that illegal set of programs, but answer the other question first.

Effectively, that is the same concern as is here, and I sense that Matsui, with PD/Embrava, is saying "Howinthehell did we let this stand for so long?".  And I think no small part of it is the company's at-least-partial acceptance of the BG pieces of shit.  This is one of the reasons I do believe Camate and Bayohne need to be reevaluated and probably removed as conduits from the company to the game community.

Again, though, they really need to answer many other questions FIRST, on the same thought processes as to what "adjustments" may need to be made.

And then Matsui throws a curveball that is REALLY going to get the QQ Factor up:

Why the delay?
There are three reasons.

1. Lack of communication
2. By implementing these adjustments, the content that can be enjoyed by players coming in after the fact will be lost
3. The impact from other adjustments would be large

In regards to the first reason, I feel we need to continue to improve this and time to do so is necessary.

In regards to the second reason, while I feel that providing new content and in-depth adjustments is the ideal route to go, this would be at minimum the next version update (the one after the December version update), so we decided to implement only the content adjustments ahead of time.

However, for the new salvage only, we will be addressing it slightly irregularly by making it so that the effect of Embrava becomes what was planned for adjustment. While the new salvage was not balanced on the basis of Embrava, if it can be used as-is, then battle strategies will be formulated based on its use. There were quite a few posts that were concerned about how the adjustments would affect the new salvage, and many were commenting that the implementation should be pushed back. However, since pushing back implementation would reduce the amount of content that could be played we decided to adopt this method of adjustment.

In regards to the third reason, this is the first time mentioning this, but we will be fixing the bug where ability effect duration timers can be stopped when talking to NPCs since QA testing has concluded as of yesterday and implementation is now possible.

This was originally a counter-measure to prevent being killed while in a cutscene, but it was utilized in a different way and by allowing this it would completely eliminate the meaning behind abilities with strong effects in exchange for short effect durations. Additionally, similar to the adjustments to Perfect Defense and Embrava, with development work continuing on Seekers of Adoulin, we decided it was necessary at this point in time to fix this.


First reason is something that Matsui appears to be taking very seriously at this time.


Second reason:  Again, the content was never meant to be won under proper and legal strategies, and I begin to wonder if Neo-Salvage is largely under the same boat.


But it's the third reason, and the announcement of the fix of an exploit (it's not a bug -- it's a fucking exploit that these cheating pieces of crap have been using for a long time) that's needed to be fixed:  You used to be able to lock timers to allow things like Primeval Brews and the like to have effectively infinite timers.  This is the definition of an exploit and needs to be punished as such.


But it's being addressed.


In closing
I’m sorry that we’ve been so wary about posting on the forum until now.

Also, since yesterday’s post, I started seeing comments to hurry up and make the adjustments, and I once again feel that adjustments that everyone agrees on are difficult.

In addition to the development and operations team and I increasing our efforts to understand both individual players and everyone as a whole, we will be making adjustments as necessary and appearing on the forums more. Thank you all very much.

Translators (and agent in the field) said this is possibly an effort to address whether Windower is legal or not, and, as I said above, it needs to be answered, whether that answer is that it's legal or that it is not.