Komoto explains Final Fantasy XIV’s fatigue system

Final Fantasy XIV director Nobuaki Komoto has stepped up and responded to recent complaints of the upcoming MMORPG’s ‘fatigue’ system. This follows producer Hiromichi Tanaka’s recent statement claiming talk on the system was nothing but “fabricated remarks”. According to Komoto, it’s all about balance.

“First off, the main concept behind FFXIV is allowing those players with little time on their hands to play effectively, and game balance is based off of that. Furthermore, it is being designed to not give those with more time on their hands to play an unfair advantage. Because of that, systems such as Guardian’s Favor (a bonus to Guildleves) have been implemented to make leveling in the short-term easier than leveling in the long-term,” Komoto said on the Japanese Final Fantasy XIV beta site.

“To achieve this balance, the amount of possible skill/experience points earned after a certain period of time has a threshold. Think of it as real-life ‘fatigue’ from working at improving your skills via battle.”

Your time to earn experience is limited, however, it’s a greater amount of time than originally rumored. Rather than have your fatigue rise fifty percent within two hours, it’ll instead run on a different timer.

“Within the first eight hours of play, you can earn 100% experience. The seven hour period following will see your possible experience gradually approach zero.”

“This system is on a weekly timer. After a week has passed since you began skilling that particular weapon, the timer will reset. It will start anew when you skill up again.”

“Any experience earned past that point is saved as “surplus.” There is surplus for each class, and if you begin to see it please consider playing another class and adjust accordingly. However, experience points are not specific to any class and therefore the decrease in experience points is not affected by changing classes.”

Fifteen hours a week doesn’t really sound like my cup of tea. I’m not a heavy on MMORPGs, but I’ll need at least twenty. Think they’ll change it anytime soon?

“That’s how the system stands as of right now.”

Alright, then.

Thanks, FFXIVCore.