Famitsu Interview - YoshiP 3 Year Anniversary Interview

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

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You are not looking at the cause and effect here. Not many are opposed to the idea of story mode itself. What is taken away in expense of it is what I have issue with. Fair enough to say we have not really had more than one raid type till 3.0. It is missed potential to keep content in a balance. It is more of the principle of the matter as opposed to numbers. To top it off, the only excuse I hear in defense is people need their story. I would find a more compelling argument from someone who says they like the difficulty catered towards their level of play.

I will fixate on story mode. Dev's said they could only pick two of the three versions. Don't be under the impression I hate story mode itself. I don't like it was chosen over what could of been. You can disagree with me, but I am very sure my suggestion would fix the midcore/hardcore scene which the game already is in a bad position with currently. If they came out and said "We got 3 modes now!", I wouldn't be here complaining about story mode.

What I say doesn't matter anyways, its argument for the sake of argument. They are intent in staying with this course.

Normal(story) mode was the worst design choice and it totally shows for majority of content in all of HW. Everything felt like fluff and it rewarded even the most laziest of players. At least most content during 2.0 felt like you were accomplishing something. Its a shame 4.0 will just be another faceroll and even more rewarding for no effort.

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Originally Posted by kupokage

This game for me is like that of being in a bad relationship with someone I once liked, but i don't wanna break up until I find someone else first. FFXV is that someone else.

The massive nerfing of Steps of Faith and allowing subpar players into HW to flood the DF with noob tendencies did it for me.

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Aww, you don't like it that the basic main story and game features are open to all players of the game. Too bad.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...rward_another/
More elaboration on topic.

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Q. Are there are any changes to the concept of the next Savage Alexander raid tier that we should look out for?
Y. The overall difficulty be lower than the previous Savage raids.
Q. By that, you mean something anyone can enjoy?
Y."Anyone" can cause misunderstandings. Besides, that would defeat the purpose of the normal mode difficulty. The fact it's a high end raid will not change, but those players who were able to clear all floors of the binding coil of Bahamut( he means all 13) will probably be able to clear it around about the same time as back then. There are mechanics that are difficult, but the level 60 rotations are difficult to maintain DPS at a high level while doing mechanics and that is what is widening the gap between player skills. When i take a look at the players' logs, that gap is really obvious to notice.

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Q. What do you mean by that?
Y.Players can do the mechanics correctly but most players are having a hard time doing the mechanics while they maintain their level 60 rotation where they need to make instant decisions (editor note: like not using GS on dragoon so you can keep your BoTD before a phase transition instead of just doing the template rotation where you lose your BoTD if the boss is gone)
Y.The DPS gap between players is extreme....Those who can do it can do it, but those who cannot find it very hard. The players who can instantly choose the right rotation depending on the mechanic have already cleared Midas savage but i think the bottle neck is "needing 8 players at the same time". Judging from the data, the item level has increased and that has been put on top of players' DPS but it's not looking good enough to get players break through their current situation.

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Q. I see.
Y. That doesn't mean we can just switch and change all the level 60 rotations instantly, so this time around we are going through with the mindset to change the difficulty of the content where it doesn't require such a rough rotation. Learning the mechanics and actually dodging them, reacting to RNG aspects and on top of that, for example where would you use up your BoTD buff or where do you refresh your enochian earlier than your normal template rotation... that sort of players' instant decision making is what greatly influences the gap between DPS numbers.

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Q. In other words, it relies to much on player skills?
Y.Yes. Basically, the 2.0 rotations were simple so it made it easy to maintain that rotation while you busted mechanics. To add to that, excluding monk, there weren't many actions where "If you drop or lose this buff, your DPS plummets". Back from those days, Greased lightning was the key for monks and that was what the job design was supposed to be like, but now almost every job has that sort of element. That space is left for contriving, but i think the difficulty was too high.

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Q. Are you going to continue to make content easier?
Y. It's not fully confirmed, but i have a feeling the current rotation is too difficult for players, so the difficulty of jobs as a whole will be dropped by one layer. It's timewise impossible to implement those changes during the 3.x series, so we decided to lower/hold down the difficulty of the raid itself instead. Like i said before, it's a "high end raid" after all so there will be people who still struggle but i would like to solve that with the help of item levels.

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Originally Posted by aesteval

Aww, you don't like it that the basic main story and game features are open to all players of the game. Too bad.

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No one wants to restrict players from attempting content, but there are plenty of players who want to have a sense of accomplishment when completing content. Steps of Faith and Normal Mode raids were nerfed to faceroll easy that almost any group can 1 shot it with little thought. When you're first attempting a fight wiping gives you a chance to evaluate what you did wrong and try to fix it. In the example of Steps of Faith you have a massive powerful dragon attacking Ishgard. Thematicly, the odds of winning should feel low and the situation should be grim, wiping should give players the sense the magnitude of the situation. Instead players feel they're entitled to win instantly and fights are no longer impactful.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

And story mode that doesn't last past a month for many players is that solution? Most beat it within 1-2 days, then only reason to go back in is to get gear that will be replaced quickly by tomestone/crafted gear. Well then again that midas gear item. Only needed to do A8 for that though.

Casual players already have plenty to work off of. Relic quest, Palace of the Dead, Diadem(or at least when they fix it), primals, hunts, Aquapolis, various story side quests, card collecting, and much more. Midcore/Hardcore? EX primal and four raid bosses.

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You can't really blend midcore with hardcore. Midcore don't have the schedule flexibility or practice times of a hardcore, so the statics mixing both don't work. That's why duty finder doesn't work for extremely difficult content.

Midcore need content that isn't faceroll easy, difficult but lenient mechanics, but still be puggable.

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Originally Posted by Kaiyoko

No one wants to restrict players from attempting content, but there are plenty of players who want to have a sense of accomplishment when completing content. Steps of Faith and Normal Mode raids were nerfed to faceroll easy that almost any group can 1 shot it with little thought. When you're first attempting a fight wiping gives you a chance to evaluate what you did wrong and try to fix it. In the example of Steps of Faith you have a massive powerful dragon attacking Ishgard. Thematicly, the odds of winning should feel low and the situation should be grim, wiping should give players the sense the magnitude of the situation. Instead players feel they're entitled to win instantly and fights are no longer impactful.

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I agree. Those failing attempts make the victory so sweet.

Showing up, mashing a bunch of buttons and winning first try because it's easy as possible so everyone can see the story without effort? Sucks.

The whining over the difficulty for some people to clear Nidhogg NM? He should not be super easy. He is the villain of the Heavensward story. He should be a bastard of atleast the difficulty level of "I should pay some attention while mindlessly mashing buttons".

If not, why even play the game? The story, without any effort or determination, it might as well be a movie instead. Just watch it on YouTube since the effort requirements are about the same.

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Originally Posted by Kaiyoko

No one wants to restrict players from attempting content, but there are plenty of players who want to have a sense of accomplishment when completing content. Steps of Faith and Normal Mode raids were nerfed to faceroll easy that almost any group can 1 shot it with little thought. When you're first attempting a fight wiping gives you a chance to evaluate what you did wrong and try to fix it. In the example of Steps of Faith you have a massive powerful dragon attacking Ishgard. Thematicly, the odds of winning should feel low and the situation should be grim, wiping should give players the sense the magnitude of the situation. Instead players feel they're entitled to win instantly and fights are no longer impactful.

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And there was a time period in which Steps was a challenge. However, at some point you just have to let people through so that they can continue the story and enter the expansion.

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Originally Posted by aesteval

And there was a time period in which Steps was a challenge. However, at some point you just have to let people through so that they can continue the story and enter the expansion.

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And they learn nothing of how the game is during "current" difficulties and complain they can't beat content.

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Originally Posted by aesteval

And there was a time period in which Steps was a challenge. However, at some point you just have to let people through so that they can continue the story and enter the expansion.

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Steps of Faith should be nerfed right this moment 100% because it is old content. However, SE nerfed Steps of Faith within 2 weeks of it's release that was 3~4 months away from the expansion and there are probably players within the time leading to HW that never got to feel the thematic magnitude of the Steps of Faith. If they wanted player to be able to hop into the expansion then they should have given echo / nerfed mechanics at HW's release.

I don't think Steps was nerfed because of new players not wanting to learn.
I think it was nerfed because of veteran players instantly abandoning it when it popped up in Trial Roulette making it difficult for new players to progress.
A bit of difficulty is fine so long as the community is willing to tolerate a few wipes and work through it.
Sadly many players don't have the patience. Just yesterday in Trial roulette I had a tank instantly bail from The Chrysalis as soon as they loaded in before we even made any attempts.

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Originally Posted by Istaru

If not, why even play the game? The story, without any effort or determination, it might as well be a movie instead. Just watch it on YouTube since the effort requirements are about the same.

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How about all the non-battle content in the game that is locked behind clearing battle content? Steps was the doorway to an entire expansion, you don't just keep part of your playerbase out of the basic components of an expansion because of git gud.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

And they learn nothing of how the game is during "current" difficulties and complain they can't beat content.

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So? Better option than keeping people out of an entire expansion that was locked behind it.

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Originally Posted by Moomba33

I don't think Steps was nerfed because of new players not wanting to learn.
I think it was nerfed because of veteran players instantly abandoning it when it popped up in Trial Roulette making it difficult for new players to progress.
A bit of difficulty is fine so long as the community is willing to tolerate a few wipes and work through it.
Sadly many players don't have the patience. Just yesterday in Trial roulette I had a tank instantly bail from The Chrysalis as soon as they loaded in before we even made any attempts.

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People not listening and totally ignoring tips and what each person role was is also an issue since everyone thought it would be face roll easy. Lets just keep blaming the vets though that works too :)

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Originally Posted by bass9020

People not listening and totally ignoring tips and what each person role was is also an issue since everyone thought it would be face roll easy. Lets just keep blaming the vets though that works too :)

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Why not? :) You can only do roulettes after having cleared the ones on its list, so it wasn't the new people abandoning it in seconds.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Yes but most people not listening were people new to the fight who didn't care to accept they actually needed to do things that were important to succeed. Most are so used to not having to put effort in so they assumed SoF would be the exact same. Oh and also they pay a sub fee so they can play how they want! I love that one.

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So you want people that do not have the perfect static or rotation to stay behind forever all because of a few bad eggs you met in df? Do you understand that trying to exterminate "the bads" is only going to take casual and new players with it as the game becomes unapproachable with difficult mechanics and difficult rotations?

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Originally Posted by aesteval

How about all the non-battle content in the game that is locked behind clearing battle content? Steps was the doorway to an entire expansion, you don't just keep part of your playerbase out of the basic components of an expansion because of git gud.

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You know what? You're right. You win.

Here is my solution:

Change all jobs to one button that does mad damage, like 999,999,999 damage regardless of gear or anything. Give all monsters, even bosses 1 HP. Lastly, turn them into statues, they don't move, they don't attack. They just sit there waiting for us to launch our death ray at them.

Happy now?

I got nothing else.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Why not, you can only do roulettes after having cleared the ones on its list, so it wasn't the new people abandoning it in seconds.

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Yes but most people not listening were people new to the fight who didn't care to accept they actually needed to do things that were important to succeed. Most are so used to not having to put effort in so they assumed SoF would be the exact same. Oh and also they pay a sub fee so they can play how they want! I love that one.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

People not listening and totally ignoring tips and what each person role was is also an issue since everyone thought it would be face roll easy. Lets just keep blaming the vets though that works too :)

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Not listening/learning is a problem as well.
I'm just saying in my experience people instantly leaving or quitting after one wipe was more common.

For the record I liked the original SoF but at the end of the day SE wasn't going to leave a story instance gating an expansion as a wall. We can't be surprised when SE nerfs story instances down to being doable in 1-2 tries if the community won't tolerate things taking longer.

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Originally Posted by Istaru

You know what? You're right. You win.

Here is my solution:

Change all jobs to one button that does mad damage, like 999,999,999 damage regardless of gear or anything. Give all monsters, even bosses 1 HP. Lastly, turn them into statues, they don't move, they don't attack. They just sit there waiting for us to launch our death ray at them.

Happy now?

I got nothing else.

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No, not in the least.

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Originally Posted by Istaru

Here is my solution:

Change all jobs to one button that does mad damage

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You realize that's most of what Steps was? All you need is 1 button to fire the cannons, that doesn't make the entire encounter faceroll easy.

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Originally Posted by aesteval

No, not in the least.

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But you don't want people to have to git gud for story content?

My git gud is different than your, different than anyone else's. So where do we draw the line? My version, your version or Tony's version over there?

I am sure you there is one person who wants that version, so what right do we have to gate them out?

I really hope SE starts expanding upon these solo trials we've been getting... The Grand Melee, and our little fight with Regula van Hydrus have been very entertaining, if ridiculously easy... Give us some challenging content like that and you've got the perfect way to safely implement a "git gud" block... Steps of Faith for Heavensward, and Titan HM for the Relic Reborn before it, where not bad because they were a challenge, they were bad because they were a challenge that relied on other people... People with sh*tty latency made Titan harder than he should have been, and the rewards for Steps of Faith made it more logical to abandon it than to try, given it was both less rewarding and much slower than any other trial... Remove other people from the equation though, and you can easily start gating stuff behind a challenge... Give 3.55 its own trial as epic as Steps of Faith, but make it solo, and nobody is going to be able to go "I can't clear it because people abandon instantly". Instead they'll have to learn the mechanics and how to play to clear it...

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Originally Posted by bass9020

People not listening and totally ignoring tips and what each person role was is also an issue since everyone thought it would be face roll easy. Lets just keep blaming the vets though that works too :)

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But let's presume each new player falls under this category, hmm? Regardless of the reason, people abandoned Steps almost every time it queued. You cannot have that when your entire expansion is gated behind completing it. Hence why they likely nerfed it.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

But let's presume each new player falls under this category, hmm? Regardless of the reason, people abandoned Steps almost every time it queued. You cannot have that when your entire expansion is gated behind completing it. Hence why they likely nerfed it.

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Nerfing it is fine, the problem is how quickly they nerfered it in relation to it's release.

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Originally Posted by Kaiyoko

Nerfing it is fine, the problem is how quickly they nerfered it in relation to it's release.

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Then how much longer should they have waited? It'd be a PR disaster if word got out that no one could play an expansion they paid for because the final quest is too hard to pass.

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Originally Posted by Kaiyoko

Nerfing it is fine, the problem is how quickly they nerfered it in relation to it's release.

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Right. You claimed "within two weeks" earlier. That isn't the case. 2.55 was released March 31st and the 2.57 adjustments came on May 12th. So we're looking at six weeks before being nerfed. Again, bear in mind this is six weeks where people were actively leaving trials whenever Steps popped. I guarantee that influenced the devs decision far more than people struggling. With their first expansion only a month away, I doubt they wanted to risk new players being gated.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Then how much longer should they have waited? It'd be a PR disaster if word got out that no one could play an expansion they paid for because the final quest is too hard to pass.

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That's an extreme exaggeration of the situation considering Steps of Faith was nerfed 6 weeks after it was released. Players had 3 months to beat Steps before the expansion. Steps could have been given echo/nerfed mechanics 2 weeks before the expansion if it was a concern. SE had a knee jerk reaction to the forums and it set a precedence for what was to come with most of the 3.0 content.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

... Give 3.55 its own trial as epic as Steps of Faith, but make it solo, and nobody is going to be able to go "I can't clear it because people abandon instantly". Instead they'll have to learn the mechanics and how to play to clear it...

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And give the choice between two-three difficulties because i have feeling even with solo challenging content, people will ask for nerf.
And in that case, with the possibility to choose our own difficulty, everyone could enjoy the content based on their skills.

Not reading 15 pages of this. Just responding to the OP.

There is a TED talk about how games can improve us as people by challenging us to try over and over again while revising a strategy and working together. The EX content and Raid content are good examples of things. Fail. Think about the cause. Try again. Fail. Examine what happened. Try again. Repeat until success.

This procedure helps us grow and helps us cooperate and improve analytical skills.

Yes making everything easier might close the gap and make the game more "fun" for some people, but think about what we are loosing.

That sense of accomplishment after hours of hard work, cooperation, analyzing the situation and devising a strategy. And never giving up until you succeed.
These are skills that carry over into the real world. And nothing compares to the sense of accomplishment after that.

Making the game easy not only closes a gap, but it makes it more mindless.

I hope they retain challenging content.

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Originally Posted by Moomba33

Not listening/learning is a problem as well.
I'm just saying in my experience people instantly leaving or quitting after one wipe was more common.

For the record I liked the original SoF but at the end of the day SE wasn't going to leave a story instance gating an expansion as a wall. We can't be surprised when SE nerfs story instances down to being doable in 1-2 tries if the community won't tolerate things taking longer.

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I only completed this after heavensward and in my experience people still quit out of it and nobody ever explains anything in it to new players. It must have been really frustrating before. It's like nidhogg now is the same way, people quit right when they join the fight. I think most people don't like explaining things or helping people. I went into thordan ex with a friend in duty finder before and we got to the last phase teaching new people that queued in with us before the timer expired.

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Originally Posted by Kaiyoko

That's an extreme exaggeration of the situation considering Steps of Faith was nerfed 6 weeks after it was released. Players had 3 months to beat Steps before the expansion. Steps could have been given echo/nerfed mechanics 2 weeks before the expansion if it was a concern. SE had a knee jerk reaction to the forums and it set a precedence for what was to come with most of the 3.0 content.

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As others have said, most runs collapsed before you could start cause people would rather eat a 30 minute penalty than to help new players clear the trial. If the devs went with your idea, most people would have already quit and not bother coming back regardless of a last minute nerf. It's damage control to nerf so quickly, but done to prevent a bigger problem.

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

And in that case, with the possibility to choose our own difficulty, everyone could enjoy the content based on their skills.

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And people then just pick the easiest and complain it's faceroll >_>

It's common practice in single-player games to have various difficulties of the game simply to make it engaging and accessible to players of varying skill and dedication levels. Skyrim has a simple slider, Dragon's Dogma, Ys, Divinity:Original Sin and probably most others different modes - and nobody complains about the lack of exclusive story, items or whatever. For some reason, when you do the same in multiplayer games, people complain about "muh effort" and how people playing on a lower difficulty should get less.

Yoshi has been saying that the FFXIV players are bad ever since the 2.0 warrior whining.

And he wants to cater to the largest part of the game population which are the ones making the big money so... Nothing new.

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Originally Posted by FinaSel

I hope they retain challenging content.

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That's only when viable solutions for players are available. And for many players they are often considering kicking or abandoning a party over examination, because they are not in a position to analyze to the degree required, or want to kick the player for failing. Going to the other direction only enforces hostility in the name of dps, and leaving people behind in the name of progression.

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Originally Posted by Istaru

But you don't want people to have to git gud for story content?

My git gud is different than your, different than anyone else's. So where do we draw the line? My version, your version or Tony's version over there?

I am sure you there is one person who wants that version, so what right do we have to gate them out?

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It's not our line to draw, it's the dev's line. What did the devs do? Nerfed it. There are plenty of practical things to criticize regarding the nerf, but the concept of allowing more players to enter the expansion isn't one of them.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

That's only when viable solutions for players are available. And for many players they are often considering kicking of abandoning a party over examination, because they are not in a position to analyze to that degree, or want to kick the player for failing.

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If that is the concern then give harsher punishments for leaving parties before the Duty finishes or for Roulletes they should eat the persons bonus for the day if they leave before the 1st pull so they can't just jump right back in until they get what they want 30min later. Then if a player is griefing new players in Trial Roulette then they should report them.

Kicking has a delay already in the game, so players can't just kick new players immediately either.

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Originally Posted by aesteval

It's not our line to draw, it's the dev's line. What did the devs do? Nerfed it. There are plenty of practical things to criticize regarding the nerf, but the concept of allowing more players to enter the expansion isn't one of them.

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For one, I never said that keeping players out of an expansion is a good concept.

What I am saying is that epic fights SoF, FSoF, things like those should not be difficulty level 0.

I still believe this to be true:

Main villains should be atleast the difficulty level of "I should pay some attention while mindlessly mashing buttons".

Like maybe, just maybe, do more than 500 dps at i230-something and it would be nice if you can pay enough attention that when the Diresaur is looking directly at you and winding up a haymaker for like an hour, you know, like move.

And you are correct, it is the dev's decision and right to adjust the difficulty of content.

You know what else is true? We are allowed to come here and voice our displeasure if we think they have gone too far.

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Originally Posted by Istaru

For one, I never said that keeping players out of an expansion is a good concept

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You may not have specifically stated that, but my entire discussion began and has been about that one concept and nothing else.

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Originally Posted by Kaiyoko

If that is the concern then give harsher punishments for leaving parties before the Duty finishes or for Roulletes they should eat the persons bonus for the day if they leave so they can't just jump right back in until they get what they want 30min later. Then if a player is griefing new players in Trial Roulette then they should report them.

Kicking has a delay already in the game, so players can't just kick new players immediately either.

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I strongly disagree with that.

For leaving within 1 or 2 minutes without engaging the fight? Ok. Leaving after 45 minutes of wiping with no real progress by the group? It is uncalled for. If that person gets a bad group, the loss of their time is punishment enough.

We've got bigger problems than DPS rotations, I hope thats not what he is banking on. /stare scripted boss battles