Producer and director Yoshi-P here.

Recently, we've noticed a number of threads discussing the weekly limit on Allagan tomestones of mythology. I'd like to talk about the reasons for this limit, as well as changes coming in patch 2.1 that will affect their acquisition.

Progression in FFXIV

As you'd expect, there are many more factors to consider when designing an MMORPG like FFXIV, compared to a stand-alone console game. These factors heavily influence combat design and balance.

Each encounter in FFXIV: ARR is crafted with a particular difficulty in mind. As players grow stronger by increasing their level, they will be able to complete early encounters. However, upon reaching level 50, players who wish to become even more powerful and tackle the hardest challenges must instead obtain better gear, thus increasing their item level. The time required to do so is dictated either by drop rates, or by the rate at which tomestones can be acquired, depending on the gear being sought.

Progression can therefore be described as follows:

Players reach level 50 while clearing the main scenario.
Upon reaching level 50, players begin acquiring gear to raise their item level.
Players take on encounters appropriate for their item level, acquiring new gear.
Upon acquiring new gear, players raise their item level, allowing them to challenge more difficult encounters.

Our ultimate goal is to give players the freedom to advance at their own pace. Having said that, the current design has room for improvement, which is why we will be implementing changes with patch 2.1.

Expectations for Progression Until Patch 2.1

From the initial release of FFXIV: ARR, we predicted it would take roughly a month and a half for the most dedicated players to reach the Binding of Coil of Bahamut, and roughly two months for the general player population. Furthermore, we wanted players to acquire gear using Allagan tomestones of mythology in tandem with clearing the Binding Coil. This served as the basis for determining the rate at which tomestones can be earned, which is currently limited to 300 tomestones of mythology per week. With the release of patch 2.1, this limit will be increased to about 450 tomestones per week, for reasons which will be explained at the end.

The Two Paths for Player Progression

One unique quality of MMORPGs is that, depending on how much time they have to play, a disparity between players can easily emerge. For example, let's say player A plays two hours per day, and player B plays five hours per day. After a week, there's a difference of 21 hours, after five weeks a difference of 105 hours, and after ten weeks a difference of 210 hours. MMORPGs are designed to be played over a long period of time, and as such, this gap between players will only increase as time goes on. This inevitably leads to several problems:

It becomes difficult for new players to join.
Casual players are likely to lose motivation to play.
The community is likely to become fragmented.

In an attempt to combat these trends, and also to encourage users to continue playing, most developers of the first generation of MMORPGs decided that items should only drop a fraction of the time. Because the chance of obtaining items was so low, it took a relatively long amount of time to obtain gear, meaning users would play longer.

However, when considering the lifestyle of users in today's market, the freedom to play at a more leisurely pace is essential. With no option but to continue running through instances, with no guarantee that the desired can be obtained, users are more likely to become stressed and stop playing all together.

These concerns led to the birth of the token system, which we have adopted for FFXIV: ARR. The merit of this system is that, although there is a limit on tomestone acquisition, users are guaranteed to obtain desired items after obtaining a set number of tokens.

Because every duty in ARR offers a set number of tomestones, players can easily determine how many instances they need to clear and how much time it will take. They can then play at their own pace to acquire the gear they desire. Furthermore, the more difficult encounters also incorporate a more traditional system of drop rewards. This offers players two options:

Play through the Binding Coil of Bahamut and obtain gear from drops.
Collect Allagan tomestones of mythology to exchange for gear.

Although these methods are different, each allows for the acquisition of level 90 gear.

In short, players who have ample time to play are free to collect tomestones, or challenge the Binding Coil, and those who have less time can still acquire tomestones at their leisure. Despite the difference in time available to players, the game is designed so that everyone can potentially obtain item level 90 gear.

However, please bear in mind that high-item-level gear alone may not enough to overcome some challenges. Because of the armory system’s design, end game encounters have been balanced for players who have not only leveled one job to 50, but who have also obtained abilities from other classes. That being said, we have no plans to make multiple jobs a requirement.

Providing Additional Paths for Player Progression

There's one key problem with the encounters available in 2.0: the limited number of options leads to linear progression for battle classes, and essentially leaves crafters and gathers by the wayside.

To be more specific, players are being pressured to join a party to play through a limited selection of instances for tomestones; there are few, if any, options for those who wish to collect them leisurely, efficiently, or even alone. Patch 2.1 will serve as a means to resolve this problem, giving players many more options to collect tomestones and play as they see fit.

Here is an example of how the upcoming update will appeal to more players:

Beast Tribe Quests

- Learn about the beast tribes in daily quests and acquire tomestones.

Treasure Hunts

- Search for buried treasure with up to four players and obtain crafting material, consumable items, and tomestones.

Duty Roulette

- Join a duty at random and receive bonus tomestones and experience points.

Housing

- Build and furnish a home with the aid of Eorzea's crafters and gatherers, or use your own skills to do the same.

Wolves' Den

- Test your combat skills against your fellow players, earning fame and fortune.

Crystal Tower

- Challenge an ancient tower with 23 of your strongest allies and face the dangers within.

Pharos Sirius

- Explore an abandoned lighthouse to obtain new gear and tomestones.

Two Hard Mode Dungeons

- Face greater dangers to obtain new gear and tomestones.

Aesthetician

- Keep your characters fresh by changing their appearance.

Extreme Primal Battles and Good King Moggle Mog

- Confront a mysterious new enemy and three familiar foes to obtain new gear and tomestones.

New Main Scenario Quests

- Work together with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn for the sake of Eorzea.

New Side Quests

- Take part in additional side stories to learn more about the peoples and cultures of Eorzea.

As you can see, this upcoming update will add more options for adventuring alone or in a group; the means to challenge other players in PvP; more incentive to craft, gather, and collect items; and new chapters in the game's ongoing story.

Patch 2.2 will introduce the next section of the Binding Coil of Bahamut, and we highly encourage players seeking a challenge to prepare for the new dangers ahead. To those of you have obtained all available gear in the Binding Coil, we hope you'll give the Wolves' Den a try and see how you fare against your fellow dungeon runners.

Raising the Tomestone Cap in 2.1

As I explained previously, because there are only a few ways to acquire tomestones, players have had no choice but to run the same dungeons over and over. While there are those who are fine with the current state of affairs, there are others who dislike the limit, as well as those who feel obligated to hit the weekly cap.

A. Players who dislike the limit:

-> “Once I reach the weekly cap, there's nothing else to do. If the limit was raised or removed, I would have a reason to play more.”

B. Players who feel obligated to hit the cap

-> “If I don't hit the weekly cap, I’ll fall behind. But having only a handful of dungeons is boring. I just want it over with fast.”

If we were to increase the weekly limit before patch 2.1, players who fall under category B would increase significantly. To satisfy both types of players, we feel it best to prioritize giving players more options.

I realize patch 2.1 was originally scheduled to be released in November, but due to problems with server congestion, and the need for server and system improvements, we were forced to delay the release one month. However, I assure you that the wait will be worth it, as the upcoming patch will not only include plenty of new content, but also improvements to the user interface and additional system updates.

There have been several posts asking why we have not split patch 2.1 into several smaller updates, the answer to which can be found in a recent post here on the forum.

We're working to have everything ready in a timely fashion, and we greatly appreciate your continued patience.

The Operation and Splitting of Patches for FFXIV: ARR

This is Producer/Director Yoshida here. We’ve been receiving questions about the release date of patch 2.1 as well as requests to split patches into smaller installments. I’d like to take a moment to inform you about our policy for patches and the current status of patch 2.1.

Patch Operation and Cycle

It’s been three months since the launch of FFXIV: ARR. If you’ve have been focusing on a single job and leveled it all the way to the cap, there’s a chance that you’ve hit a dead end in content. We’ve envisioned a two and a half to three month patch cycle for FFXIV, with patch 2.1 originally scheduled for late November.

However, due to my inadequate planning for the massive congestion that occurred at launch, we’ve had to allocate nearly all of the server team’s resources to adding Worlds and data centers, and improving the stability of instance servers. As a result, we’ve fallen four weeks behind schedule.

The FFXIV team employs a “branch” method of development. Simply put, multiple versions of the game are being developed simultaneously. For example, the development team is currently working along the following development lines:

(1) Patch 2.05 Public Testing (Current)

-> The exact same environment as our players.
-> Bug reports you submit are verified in this environment.

(2) Patch 2.2-2.3/PlayStation4 Version Development (Future)

-> The forefront of development.
-> Includes patch 2.2 elements and PlayStation 4 version data.

(3) Patch 2.1 Testing (Near Future)

-> A separate line that includes elements from 2.1 through to (2).
-> Development of all content and systems for 2.1.
-> Debugging and balance adjustments for 2.1.

There are even more test lines than above, but it would get overly complicated, so I won’t touch on them.

Basically, development work on (1) flows into (2), but in order to ensure that 2.1 is properly tested and balanced prior to release, we’ve created a dedicated branch for it, that being (3).

When a patch release date draws near, we create a master branch for that patch wherein the final touches are made (2.1 has already been branched, by the way). In so doing, we prevent patches from going live with unfinished and unstable elements from future patches.

Work on 2.1 has been in progress since the launch of FFXIV: ARR. However, due to the large-scale measures we’ve had to implement to address issues in (1), the branching of (3) from (2) has been delayed.

Moving forward, we will endeavor to stick to our original plan of one patch every two and a half to three months, and commence a steady patch cycle.


Splitting Patches

In a large-scale game with simultaneous development such as ours, the meticulous management of content and programs is critical. The branch method of development allows us to prevent data from getting jumbled up.

For a single patch, 2.1 features an unprecedented amount of content, most of which will add depth and variety to the game. As such, we judged that it should be released all at once.

While it isn’t impossible to release a patch in installments, i.e. 2.1a, 2.1b, and so on, 2.1 doesn’t lend itself well to this. This is because many of the things being planned either require a long time in development, or affect a broad range of game elements. For example:

Housing system and related UI
The Wolves’ Den and related UI
Large-scale update for the Duty Finder
Full-fledged Party Finder system

If we were to release 2.1 in installments, the risk of unfinished elements accidentally finding their way in would be increased significantly.

It takes a number of days to cleanly separate a branch, and if you include the time needed for debugging and master testing, we’re looking at 7-12 days to prepare it for release. As a result, the time it takes to deliver all of patch 2.1 would be stretched out another 2-4 weeks. For this reason, we've decided to release everything in one batch—ultimately the shortest route in the long run.

Now, I’m aware of the requests to release minor tweaks first—improving existing functions and adjusting jobs, for instance. However, most of the functions being discussed are closely tied to the server code, and requires more work than it seems. And as for the jobs, time is needed to ensure that they are balanced, as well as test them in the context of new content. If we try to push these tweaks out too early, we risk disappointing our players.

Some of you have also expressed the concern that people will leave the game during this downtime. Naturally, we’ve also taken this risk into consideration, and have been monitoring the forums closely. But ultimately, rather than risk destroying balance by splitting the patch, we’ve decided to stay focused on the mid- and long-term enjoyment of our players. Releasing 2.1 in one batch, we believe, is the best way to do so.

2.1 will usher in sweeping improvements across the board, thus laying a solid foundation for the possibility of patch series in the future. We’ll continue to monitor the situation after patch 2.1 and review our operations policy as we go along.

2.1 is just a few weeks away, and we ask for your patience just a while longer. With countless additions and refinements to battles, crafting, and gathering, not to mention the introduction of PvP, housing, and new soloable content, I promise that it will live up to your expectations.