JP interviews [pre-6.5]

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Originally Posted by Heavenchild

I really hoped that they will save the Island... It has so much potential. But it seems like they will just let it die instead of making it great. Oh man, that's really sad.

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Par for the course, sad to say. This is how they handle just about every expansion feature in the game. Instead of keeping them active by adding more rewards, or improving what's already there, they just abandon it.

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Originally Posted by Heavenchild

I really hoped that they will save the Island... It has so much potential. But it seems like they will just let it die instead of making it great. Oh man, that's really sad.

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They've already said it'll get small updates at most come 7.0. So yes, they're leaving it to die. Which I do think is for the best in spite of the enormous waste of resources Island Sanctuary proved to be. There is just so much fundamentally wrong with its implementation—something Iscah has already outlined—that trying to salvage it would be little more than a sunken cost. The best we can hope for is they learned from how much it flopped and do better with their next attempt at "lifestyle" content.

please allow unsync for ultimates, it will increase player completion thus, objectively, make them better content.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

please allow unsync for ultimates, it will increase player completion thus, objectively, make them better content.

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I mean, I wouldn't be opposed, but I completely understand why they prefer to keep it the way it is. It's the hardest content in the game, and I think the devs want it to stay that way. That's fine by me, but again, I wouldn't be opposed to an unsync option.

The commentary about the Manderville relics really goes to show just how out of touch the devs are with the playerbase due to their obsession with participation numbers and statistics rather than engagement. But we've known this. The writing has been on the wall since forever. I remember expansions ago Yoshi was like: "we notice a lot of participation in the FATEs that we constantly cram down our playerbases' throats for pretty much everything. Therefore, the playerbase loves FATEs and we are justified in reusing it in future content."

https://external-content.duckduckgo....409&ipo=images



It's amazing. They add something new and put a bunch of different rewards behind it and call it a "success" when they see players at level cap (who are starved for content) run it for several weeks and see the initial influx of participation as the content being "successful and innovative." They are experts at creating their own self-fulfilling prophecies and using those as an excuse to not improve anything. The Manderville relic is no different, it seems. "We've noticed that this relic weapon that we basically give 1 away for free at patch release with these nearly-defunct tomestones that we drown players in just for functioning in any roulette or endgame content are seeing the highest numbers of 'participation' in, therefore it is a success and see no reason to change course." Like, you're damn well sure I'm going to spend 1,500 tomestones that I never use on anything else on a free near-max ilvl weapon, and when I cap out again in less than a week, I might as well get another, and so on. But don't act like that's not different from choosing to grind out a relic and just giving it away via osmosis.

There's some tone-deafness involved here too. I still remember during the Ivalice raids that the devs for whatever reason decided to remove "Need" on loot to the massive backlash of nearly the whole playerbase. They went ahead with it anyway because I guess it was too late to back out. Of course they reverted that idea less than a month afterwards, but the fact that they didn't even take feedback into account before implementing it speaks volumes to their hubris and general detachment from feedback.

Honestly, it's not surprising at all, but why don't they conduct a truly useful survey among players to see which types of opinions stand out more than others, instead of asking us pointless things like, 'Which city aetheryte are you linked to?
'or 'What's your favorite mount?' and so on.

It was really a golden opportunity for the game's 10th anniversary to understand what players think about the game and its current functioning, rather than having a developer's perspective that many people don't share at all,
and this applies to many of the game's changes. In short, there are both good and bad aspects to this interview.

The perspective on battle design and relics doesn't seem very encouraging for hoping changes in Dawntrail...

I know it's impossible to listen to all the players, but right now, they don't seem to be trying to listen or wanting to listen to our feedback on the state of the game,
because they convince themselves that it's good game design based on the participation rate..

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Originally Posted by Theodric

After seeing how Yoshi-P referred to himself as a former MMORPG player in a recent interview I really do think it would be best if we had someone in charge who is a current MMORPG player.

I'd like the game to be designed by someone who is passionate about the genre and willing to innovate, rather than increasingly tweak things to appeal to individuals who don't actually like MMORPG's all that much and simply want to treat it like a single player experience with some very light multiplayer elements from time to time.

If you advertise a product as one thing, encourage people to invest in it and then decide to take it in a completely different direction then it should not be at all surprising to see criticism arise as far as I'm concerned.

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Honestly at this point I think he is just a former WoW player that's now killing off all the stuff in WoW that made him quit playing it...

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Originally Posted by Cidel

There's some tone-deafness involved here too. I still remember during the Ivalice raids that the devs for whatever reason decided to remove "Need" on loot to the massive backlash of nearly the whole playerbase. They went ahead with it anyway because I guess it was too late to back out. Of course they reverted that idea less than a month afterwards, but the fact that they didn't even take feedback into account before implementing it speaks volumes to their hubris and general detachment from feedback.

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I don't recall the timeline of their announcement and release, but would it be likely that the patch was already "locked in" at the time they said they were changing the loot rolls?

It's also not that big a deal that they went ahead and tried it for a few weeks before reverting it. Zero long-term effects, and maybe people would decide that they actually liked it.

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Originally Posted by Cidel

The commentary about the Manderville relics really goes to show just how out of touch the devs are with the playerbase due to their obsession with participation numbers and statistics rather than engagement. But we've known this. The writing has been on the wall since forever. I remember expansions ago Yoshi was like: "we notice a lot of participation in the FATEs that we constantly cram down our playerbases' throats for pretty much everything. Therefore, the playerbase loves FATEs and we are justified in reusing it in future content."

https://external-content.duckduckgo....409&ipo=images



It's amazing. They add something new and put a bunch of different rewards behind it and call it a "success" when they see players at level cap (who are starved for content) run it for several weeks and see the initial influx of participation as the content being "successful and innovative." They are experts at creating their own self-fulfilling prophecies and using those as an excuse to not improve anything. The Manderville relic is no different, it seems. "We've noticed that this relic weapon that we basically give 1 away for free at patch release with these nearly-defunct tomestones that we drown players in just for functioning in any roulette or endgame content are seeing the highest numbers of 'participation' in, therefore it is a success and see no reason to change course." Like, you're damn well sure I'm going to spend 1,500 tomestones that I never use on anything else on a free near-max ilvl weapon, and when I cap out again in less than a week, I might as well get another, and so on. But don't act like that's not different from choosing to grind out a relic and just giving it away via osmosis.

There's some tone-deafness involved here too. I still remember during the Ivalice raids that the devs for whatever reason decided to remove "Need" on loot to the massive backlash of nearly the whole playerbase. They went ahead with it anyway because I guess it was too late to back out. Of course they reverted that idea less than a month afterwards, but the fact that they didn't even take feedback into account before implementing it speaks volumes to their hubris and general detachment from feedback.

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Everything you said, from the devs stance on things, this is what is known as lying with statistics. They can pretend that things are a success by using participation as the data despite the fact that it's lacking in the fun fact or any other metric. Cooperations usually do this when they are trying to present data in a positive light usually for shareholders or other business partners.

I also think that it's just crazy to believe that the EW relics would be a success just because of the participation.

Of course a lot of people got several of them, because it's no effort. You get enough tomes again and again just by playing when doing daylies and stuff. Most people I know have 2000 cap and do nothing with the tomes. And now they spend them for the relic, instead ignoring the 2000 cap. I am sorry to say that, but the EW relics feel and are completely worthless...

I started a new anima and shadowbringer relic instead. At least they are meaningful.

Seems like Yoshi P. finally got out of touch with the real players. :c

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I mean, I wouldn't be opposed, but I completely understand why they prefer to keep it the way it is. It's the hardest content in the game, and I think the devs want it to stay that way. That's fine by me, but again, I wouldn't be opposed to an unsync option.

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The sad part is that is only really true of TEA nowadays. UCoB and UwU have been power crept to hell and back—to the point we now have "DeathCob". Which is trying to see how many deaths you can have and still meet the DPS checks. Last attempt was a staggering 103 if I recall.

Don't get me wrong, the fights are still hard. They're just more last boss Savage levels. Put it this way, P8S was harder on release than UwU is now.

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Originally Posted by Noumenon

The Fall Guys collab will be limited time, periodic content and not a permanent fixture.

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/p...sized_6484.jpg
i really wanna quote a line from mt. gulg rn...

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Originally Posted by Noumenon

They settled on tomes due to looking at data for how many weapons were made by players in past relic content. Yoshi acknowledges though that: "However, there are some people who say that this reinforcement method is ``sloppy'', so it's difficult... Some people may dislike doing elaborate things like the old weapon enhancement content, while others may feel that the enhancement methods like this one are not enough. I think this is probably not compatible."

They settled on tomes as these days playing multiple jobs is much more common, and they think tomes being something that naturally accumulates as you play makes it best suit your individual playstyle.

The Manderville Relics have the highest completion rate of any relic so far. The more elaborate they make the relic content/grind, the fewer people make one.

There is an inherent conflict between people that "enjoy weapon enhancement as content" and people that "want a system that makes it easy to obtain weapons". Satisfying both is very hard.

They will take feedback into account for 7.x's relic series.

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please, just stop catering to these hyper casuals.. they cant seriously explect a BIS weapon for this little effort.. why are we setting such low standards for gear... yet making savage raiders work so hard...

im more confident now than ever 7.0 will be my break off point for this game... i cant continue supporting this

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Originally Posted by Noumenon

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Your op basically echoes all of my thoughts so there is little else for me to add to this discussion, besides expressing how thoroughly disappointed I am with this round of interviews. There is just way too much disconnect at this point, with no wake up call in sight. It just feels like too little too late.

I’m gonna be honest I don’t really understand the fixation on “casuals just want an easy weapon that’s comparable to savage”

Relics don’t become bis until so late that it honestly doesn’t matter. It’s not going to kill you that everyone can gain access to a BiS weapon long after the contents release.

What’s frustrating about the relics is that it’s just boring. “Lol fetch quest go see the guy conveniently placed next to the cities main aetherite and buy this shit from him with tomestones you farmed in advance and bring it back to me”

It’s just very lazy design

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

I’m gonna be honest I don’t really understand the fixation on “casuals just want an easy weapon that’s comparable to savage”

Relics don’t become bis until so late that it honestly doesn’t matter. It’s not going to kill you that everyone can gain access to a BiS weapon long after the contents release.

What’s frustrating about the relics is that it’s just boring. “Lol fetch quest go see the guy conveniently placed next to the cities main aetherite and buy this shit from him with tomestones you farmed in advance and bring it back to me”

It’s just very lazy design

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The entire thing to me reads like,
"Relics are made for casuals, not for hardcore grinders. Casuals are entitled to BiS gear as much as raiders who work harder for them. Raiders just get a jump start to get them earlier. Eventually we want the casuals to be able to be equal to your gear level though even for less effort."

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Originally Posted by Bonoki

The entire thing to me reads like,
"Relics are made for casuals, not for hardcore grinders. Casuals are entitled to BiS gear as much as raiders who work harder for them. Raiders just get a jump start to get them earlier. Eventually we want the casuals to be able to be equal to your gear level though even for less effort."

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I think this is a pretty accurate assessment of the intent of relic weapons.

I don’t need one since I raid, but I do appreciate that they make them look good (talekeeper is the best rdm weapon in the game and I will fight anyone who disagrees) so I usually will obtain them
For glam.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

I think this is a pretty accurate assessment of the intent of relic weapons.

I don’t need one since I raid, but I do appreciate that they make them look good (talekeeper is the best rdm weapon in the game and I will fight anyone who disagrees) so I usually will obtain them
For glam.

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I usually only do them for the grind and the story [little niblets of story!] as I raid also. But I loathe Manderville stuff so I've just not even touched them. I can't stands it!

Relic isn't just for raiding. It's about the effort to gain something special. A special shiny weapon!

It's more important for glamour then for the stats. Most raiders are loooong done with the raidtier, when the final relic is available.

The old relics are not 'hard' to get. You don't have to do something 'hard'. But you have to put effort into it. And so it feels rewarding in the end. The EW relics feel just meaningless. :/

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Originally Posted by Heavenchild

Relic isn't just for raiding. It's about the effort to gain something special. A special shiny weapon!

It's more important for glamour then for the stats. Most raiders are loooong done with the raidtier, when the final relic is available.

The old relics are not 'hard' to get. You don't have to do something 'hard'. But you have to put effort into it. And so it feels rewarding in the end. The EW relics feel just meaningless. :/

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I do agree with this, I haven't gotten the EW one yet because I'm still working on the other relics. I wish people would stop gatekeeping. I'm not a raider and I see the frustration they have but at the end of the day we all pay the same sub. I don't mind having to work to get a relic grind or not. It does feel sweeter when you work towards it. I also understand the need of this or any other MMO attracting the mobile game crowd too there is $$ to be made there. So where is the middle ground?

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Originally Posted by Snorky

I do agree with this, I haven't gotten the EW one yet because I'm still working on the other relics. I wish people would stop gatekeeping. I'm not a raider and I see the frustration they have but at the end of the day we all pay the same sub. I don't mind having to work to get a relic grind or not. It does feel sweeter when you work towards it. I also understand the need of this or any other MMO attracting the mobile game crowd too there is $$ to be made there. So where is the middle ground?

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A somewhat shorter grind or no grind after the first relic obtained. Devs have a really bad habit of just removing or abandoning content instead of adjusting in smaller increments. They step right over the middle ground every time.

Not sure why everyone needs to have every relic weapon when crafted gear and tomestone weapons are available. Maybe I'm an old school (MMO)RPG player where relic weapons signified a players commitment to their class/job after completing a long, difficult quest to acquire said relic. It gave players something to strive for and a sense of accomplishment while also rewarding them with something that influenced and strengthened their job/class. I remember how incredible it felt when I finished my Bard epic weapon in EverQuest.

At this point, they might as well mail out relic weapons to players for having reached max level with their jobs, then they can say they have a 100% completion rate for the relic weapon.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Not sure why everyone needs to have every relic weapon when crafted gear and tomestone weapons are available. Maybe I'm an old school (MMO)RPG player where relic weapons signified a players commitment to their class/job after completing a long, difficult quest to acquire said relic. It gave players something to strive for and a sense of accomplishment while also rewarding them with something that influenced and strengthened their job/class. I remember how incredible it felt when I finished my Bard epic weapon in EverQuest.

At this point, they might as well mail out relic weapons to players for having reached max level with their jobs, then they can say they have a 100% completion rate for the relic weapon.

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They could make it to where you sleep in your bed at the inn and get a relic weapon when you log in like they did at the end of 1.0 and people would applaud that

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Originally Posted by Bonoki

Everything you said, from the devs stance on things, this is what is known as lying with statistics. They can pretend that things are a success by using participation as the data despite the fact that it's lacking in the fun fact or any other metric. Cooperations usually do this when they are trying to present data in a positive light usually for shareholders or other business partners.

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At this point, it's quite clear CBU3 is showing absolute contempt for its players.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

The sad part is that is only really true of TEA nowadays. UCoB and UwU have been power crept to hell and back—to the point we now have "DeathCob". Which is trying to see how many deaths you can have and still meet the DPS checks. Last attempt was a staggering 103 if I recall.

Don't get me wrong, the fights are still hard. They're just more last boss Savage levels. Put it this way, P8S was harder on release than UwU is now.

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Gotcha. I've never participated in Ultimate, so I couldn't really speak on its difficulty.

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Originally Posted by Noumenon

At this point, it's quite clear CBU3 is showing absolute contempt for its players.

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If that's the case, what does that make you - who keep giving them money?

It's like whenever I beat someone in a competition and they just throw whatever random insult/name calling my way like ... "wahh you're just an idiot!". I rarely bother to argue, but just ask "yep, and you just lost to an idiot, what does that make you?" :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

If that's the case, what does that make you - who keep giving them money?

It's like whenever I beat someone in a competition and they just throw whatever random insult/name calling my way like ... "wahh you're just an idiot!". I rarely bother to argue, but just ask "yep, and you just lost to an idiot, what does that make you?" :rolleyes:

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"What does that make you?" is kinda irrelevant really. Unsubscribing is not going to fix anything just now, let alone making the devs acknowledge the issue now, will it? They might even use that data to double down on it.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Not sure why everyone needs to have every relic weapon when crafted gear and tomestone weapons are available. Maybe I'm an old school (MMO)RPG player where relic weapons signified a players commitment to their class/job after completing a long, difficult quest to acquire said relic. It gave players something to strive for and a sense of accomplishment while also rewarding them with something that influenced and strengthened their job/class. I remember how incredible it felt when I finished my Bard epic weapon in EverQuest.

At this point, they might as well mail out relic weapons to players for having reached max level with their jobs, then they can say they have a 100% completion rate for the relic weapon.

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It's because this weapon is supposed to be the non-raiding answer to an endgame weapon. It's not like epics in EverQuest where we had to do endgame raiding for pieces for our epics. It's intended to be something a non-raider can obtain and the long questline and grind was what previously balanced things out because the faster alternative is to raid for it. I felt great when I finished my enchanter's snake stick and druid's scimitar, too, but that's not the intention of those weapons in this game.

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Originally Posted by Doragan

Unsubscribing is not going to fix anything just now, let alone making the devs acknowledge the issue now, will it? They might even use that data to double down on it.

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It may it may not. The ironic part here is that I remember seeing either in this or the other dozen threads (since they're mostly the same anyway), the same people (aka - the one who complaining) said something to the effect of "SE doesn't care about fun, feedback any more, they just care about statistic like clear/acquire to measure success yada yada".

So let say I give it to these people that they are actually right, they have managed to divine the root issue ... But the ironic part here it seems they're also the one refusing to take the single action that will probably contribute the most to change the outcome. They already claim SE not gonna listen to feedback, yet they kept complaining. They claim SE only care about statistic, yet by refusing to unsub they're contributing to the most important statistic used to measure success.


Like ... when I tell people "if you don't like the game just ubsub", I don't mean it as a sarcastic or sassy way. I simply vote with your wallet, it's not just SE, your wallet is about the only thing any companies on the planet will pay attention to these days. As long as you keep your sub, you're part of SE's success, and why a company should change their "successful" way of doing thing?

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

It's because this weapon is supposed to be the non-raiding answer to an endgame weapon. It's not like epics in EverQuest where we had to do endgame raiding for pieces for our epics. It's intended to be something a non-raider can obtain and the long questline and grind was what previously balanced things out because the faster alternative is to raid for it. I felt great when I finished my enchanter's snake stick and druid's scimitar, too, but that's not the intention of those weapons in this game.

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You're right, it's supposed to be the "non-raiding answer to an endgame weapon". However, current relics are more along the lines of "congratulations, you logged in on patch day with some stocked up uncapped tomestones".
Relics should never be designed around being able to finish every relic while a step is current. It should always be a case of players being able to finish a few relics, while unaugmented tomestone/EX trial/crafted weapons fill in the gaps for the remaining jobs.

All they've done with Endwalker is create a secondary, uncapped version of the tomestone weapon.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

It's because this weapon is supposed to be the non-raiding answer to an endgame weapon. It's not like epics in EverQuest where we had to do endgame raiding for pieces for our epics. It's intended to be something a non-raider can obtain and the long questline and grind was what previously balanced things out because the faster alternative is to raid for it. I felt great when I finished my enchanter's snake stick and druid's scimitar, too, but that's not the intention of those weapons in this game.

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Just because relics are not earned in raids doesn't mean they should require no effort to get. Why is it so bad to want relics to take some sort of grind like they did in every other expansion rather then get them handed to you with capped tomes every new patch. They should take some form of effort to earn rather than doing what we do on a daily basis of roulettes and hunt trains. We're not asking for ff11 or everquest grinds at least give us the pre-nerf arr or heavansward era relics grinds.

So I guess Dawntrail is just going to be another EW. Thanks for saving me $40 and a sub fee yoshi.

I don't think its contempt from CBU3, but more like tone deaf to the problems around them.

Especially with FFXVI.

They need to learn from CBU1 because their games are going in the right direction, and especially in game difficulty.

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Originally Posted by poptarts12

So I guess Dawntrail is just going to be another EW. Thanks for saving me $40 and a sub fee yoshi.

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That isn't fair to say, at least Endwalker's base MSQ seemed to have some meat on it before the story decided it needed to take in generic anime elements like a 500 year old girl of despair and other things I never thought I'd have to tolerate in this game. Now DT is probably going to be as riveting as the beach episode from the FFXIV high school AU manga. Bonus points if they revive Zenos so he can join in on the adventure in the New World because at this point I do not believe anyone is capable of staying gone forever in this game.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Bonus points if they revive Zenos so he can join in on the adventure in the New World because at this point I do not believe anyone is capable of staying gone forever in this game.

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If they do that I swear I'm gonna skip every single cutscene for the rest of forever.

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Originally Posted by Aldath

If they do that I swear I'm gonna skip every single cutscene for the rest of forever.

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What if he came back as a Loporrit trying to beat you to death with a giant carrot?

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

What if he came back as a Loporrit trying to beat you to death with a giant carrot?

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Will he be a housing furnishing dangling from a wall hook stuck through an ear?

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Originally Posted by poptarts12

So I guess Dawntrail is just going to be another EW. Thanks for saving me $40 and a sub fee yoshi.

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I have the feeling they are actually going to try something new in Downtrail; but they would all end up like Island Sanctuary - i.e. disasters - and really put the nail in the coffin. Because at this point it's clear that the entire development philosophy is wrong.

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Originally Posted by Noumenon

I have the feeling they are actually going to try something new in Downtrail; but they would all end up like Island Sanctuary - i.e. disasters - and really put the nail in the coffin. Because at this point it's clear that the entire development philosophy is wrong.

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The fact that they really tried to pass off a spreadsheet island as "relaxing content" pretty much says it all.

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

Just because relics are not earned in raids doesn't mean they should require no effort to get. Why is it so bad to want relics to take some sort of grind like they did in every other expansion rather then get them handed to you with capped tomes every new patch. They should take some form of effort to earn rather than doing what we do on a daily basis of roulettes and hunt trains. We're not asking for ff11 or everquest grinds at least give us the pre-nerf arr or heavansward era relics grinds.

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Never said it should? I prefer ARR and HW questlines. I was responding to the poster that mentioned EQ epic weapons that required high end raiding to complete and sometimes even just start the quests. As I mentioned, the long questline and grind with XIV relics is what balanced them against a raid-obtained weapon. So there's some imbalance now without that longer questline and some manner of grind.

Also, Nezerius, it was entirely possible to finish all the relics if you had the classes leveled even in HW. People would grind them all out. I was happy with my couple for my main classes but I had friends who did them all. Steps were still a decent amount of work even if you were just working on a single one.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Never said it should? I prefer ARR and HW questlines. I was responding to the poster that mentioned EQ epic weapons that required high end raiding to complete and sometimes even just start the quests. As I mentioned, the long questline and grind with XIV relics is what balanced them against a raid-obtained weapon. So there's some imbalance now without that longer questline and some manner of grind.

Also, Nezerius, it was entirely possible to finish all the relics if you had the classes leveled even in HW. People would grind them all out. I was happy with my couple for my main classes but I had friends who did them all. Steps were still a decent amount of work even if you were just working on a single one.

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I would enjoy having arr and hw type grinds back where the grind lasted for almost the entire patch.