Hey everyone,

If you’re a regular reader at Final Fantasy Rebirth, then you might remember us reporting that a Final Fantasy XI clan attempted to defeat the Pandemonium Warden boss; but had to retire after eighteen hours of hardcore game play. In responce to this, Square Enix have released the following statement; basically saying that they acknowledge that the Notorious Monsters (Pandemonium Warden, Absolute Virtue and Jailer of Love) are too difficult to defeat - responding to the controversy, Square Enix have decided to reduce the “degree of difficulty” of these Notorious Monsters.

That’s definitely a kick in the nuts to anyone who wasted a day of their life playing the game, on the flip-side though; at least their actions have gone down in history!

The past two weeks have seen considerable feedback from players regarding the amount of time required to combat the Pandemonium Warden, a recently implemented Notorious Monster (NM). Discussion has spread significantly throughout forums, and it has become apparent that this is indeed an issue of major unrest in the community.

We would like to assure players that the development and management teams place a high value on their feedback, and the issue has since been taken under serious consideration. Together with Absolute Virtue, it has been deemed that the combative techniques for weakening these NMs are too difficult. As a result, some players have engaged these enemies using unanticipated methods which led to extended battle times. It is by no means the desire of the development team to see players involved in encounters that require an excessive amount of time and effort to complete. It was for this reason that previous measures were put into practice which prohibited NMs from being held in battle for prolonged periods. In response to these events, we have determined that further alterations are required to prevent such battles from exceeding a certain predetermined length of time.

Included in the version update scheduled for early September will be modifications to the degree of difficulty of Pandemonium Warden (and associated pets), Absolute Virtue (and associated pets), and Jailer of Love. The aim of these changes is to create battles where a decisive outcome may be reached within a shorter period of time.

The development and management teams would like to take this opportunity to express their commitment to a healthy and wholesome game environment for players everywhere to enjoy, and to thank them for the continued feedback.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Final Fantasy XI. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.