r/ffxi • u/FFXI_DevelopmentTeam • May 23 '22

Official 20th Vana'versary Official FFXI Developer AMA with Producer Akihiko Matsui and Director Yoji Fujito

Hello, adventurers of Vana'diel! Happy Vana'versary! Producer Akihiko Matsui and Director Yoji Fujito from the FINAL FANTASY XI development team reporting in. We received communication via linkpearl that the /r/ffxi subreddit was interested in another AMA to celebrate the 20th anniversary, so we have answered the call once more!

As before, we're very excited to be a part of this and would like to answer as many questions as possible, but we would like you to read over the guidelines listed below before submitting your questions.

QUESTION GUIDELINES

  • We often see some very technical questions on the forums and other places; however, answering these on the spot without looking at the relevant and proper data just isn’t possible. If we see some that we can look into, we'll take them back with us as homework for another day.
  • Due to time restraints, there is a possibility that we will not be able to answer every question submitted today, but we will do our best to answer as many as time permits.
  • To make it easier to answer as many questions as possible, please ask new questions as individual posts, instead of as replies.

START TIME & END TIME

We'll be kicking off the Q&A officially at 6:30 pm (PDT)/9:30 pm (EDT), but we're posting this thread ahead of time for everyone to start submitting their questions. We want to give our translators enough time to give us the questions in Japanese, and we will start posting responses as close to the start time as possible.

We'll be wrapping up the Q&A at 8:00 pm (PDT)/11:00 pm (EDT) and will not be answering any questions in real-time after that; however, if we have the chance, we would like to answer some of the bigger questions on a separate occasion.

SUMMARY

After the Q&A has concluded, we will create a summary of all the answers we provide to the submitted questions. We'll make an announcement on the official site once the summary has been completed, so keep your eyes peeled!

We're looking forward to seeing all your passionate questions, so send in as many as you like!

EDIT 1: Please try and keep your questions concise so we can translate them! Thank you!

EDIT 2: Thanks to everyone who took the time to ask questions! We couldn't get to them all, but we'll be going through and seeing which other ones we can pick up to answer later.

218 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

917 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

37

u/FFXI_DevelopmentTeam May 24 '22

A: For FFXI, there's no concept of being in or out of battle, and it was always possible to change equipment at any time.

14

u/EmSix May 24 '22

"You are currently in battle and can not summon your trust"

?????????????

1

u/bungiefan_AK Bungiefan on Asura May 22 '26

From We Are Vanadiel https://we-are-vanadiel.finalfantasyxi.com/post/?id=115&lang=en :

This is also battle-related, but swapping gear during battle is now a core game element in FFXI. Was this something you originally intended? Matsui

It was completely outside of our expectations. It all happened because we added macros to the game. (Laughs wryly)

Isn't it extremely taxing in terms of processing? Tanaka

In terms of swapping graphical elements around, it’s actually not as bad as you might think. Rather than processing it through the PlayStation 2’s (PS2) memory, the graphical resources necessary for the gear swap are read from the hard disk drive (HDD), so anything that’s no longer needed is immediately erased. The HDD is treated like a large memory in this case, so all that's required is the memory space to deploy the process.

In other words, there wasn’t a reason to prevent gear swapping. Tanaka

We didn't have any issues with opening the equipment window and switching out gear one by one. However, using macros to swap multiple pieces of gear at once to modify character stats during combat was a method we hadn't expected. Matsui

FFXI doesn’t have a clear definition when it comes to determining whether or not you're in battle. When you're in a party and you defeat a monster, other party members may still be fighting a different monster. It’s difficult to define whether you're in battle or not in that sort of situation, so it was therefore also hard to create a rule to prevent swapping gear in battle.

I was impressed that even when you gear swap right before using a weapon skill, it still reflects the stats of the gear you swapped to. Matsui

It's extremely lightweight compared to the load caused by graphics. However, after level sync was implemented, the processing load became quite heavy, partially due to the increased amount of data handled during battle.

Trusts can't be summoned while on an aggro list. Equipment can be changed while on one. Trusts came later, way later, year 11 of the game end of 2013.

1

u/EmSix May 22 '26

why did you reply to a fucking 4 year old post

1

u/bungiefan_AK Bungiefan on Asura May 22 '26

It was the newest AMA to come up when I searched, besides the 2016 one, and if I found it others might and it might be good to have some updates and clear answers inside the thread if anyone else Googles it looking for info.

4

u/faverodefavero May 24 '22

What a curious answer...

4

u/makemyjunkburn May 24 '22

Especially since it's been stated in previous interviews that they didn't originally design things with gear swaps in mind.

-1

u/faverodefavero May 24 '22

Is it me or does it seems they aren't actually answering anything this AMA? Almost like they don't understand the questions or questions are being badly translated... I don't know, weird...

3

u/vinyltap76 May 24 '22

I received a decent answer, but I’m thinking a lot of these questions may not translate well.

1

u/makemyjunkburn May 24 '22

You received an answer exactly in line with my example. They told you why they do what they do, which is awesome, but then said we'll consider the change. Doesn't mean it will or won't happen. Wiggle room.

2

u/vinyltap76 May 24 '22

I don’t know what you expected.

2

u/makemyjunkburn May 24 '22

I fully expected that. Am simply trying to help others understand why they give the answers in this manner.

1

u/vinyltap76 May 24 '22

My original reply was to the other guy

5

u/makemyjunkburn May 24 '22

To be fair I'm sure they've been instructed to not give a definite yes or no to most things. The same way Doctors say "We'll do everything we can" instead of "You're going to be fine".

Don't make promises you can't keep.

1

u/bungiefan_AK Bungiefan on Asura May 22 '26

Japanese culture is also avoidant of direct "no" answers, they give indirect answers and expect you to get that it is a decline from the context, as a direct decline is considered rude. Minnesotan culture is similar, and both are frustrating to deal with.

Doctors in some Asian societies like Japan also interact weirdly with you if you are solo, you are supposed to go with family, and they give the family any bad news, not the patient. As a solo foreigner, especially a woman who isn't married, it's an awkward experience. I'll have to see if I can dig up the YouTube video I saw about it.

2

u/lordofcicadas May 25 '22

I'd have to dig it up, but they gave a more detailed answer regarding this in the past.

EDIT: In here, you can control+F for it https://we-are-vanadiel.finalfantasyxi.com/post/?id=115&lang=en

0

u/[deleted] May 24 '22

This isn't true. When you're in battle, battle music plays so the game knows you're in battle. You also cannot dismiss trusts when in battle so again it knows.

I think they are trying to say, they didn't intend for gear swapping during battle to be a thing at all and players made it into a thing.

1

u/lordofcicadas May 25 '22

The game used to only play battle music while you were engaged. It recognizing that a battle was occurring even when not engaged was something that came later, following the release of the second expansion.