4Gamer Interview with Yoshi-P!

Just a a few questions people had were answered in the interview job customization, PvP, old content brought up to lvl 60 etc should have a read and perhaps discuss it :)

Found on reddit and all credit to Slycer for translating it :D

I have to say im pretty sad about the job customization pretty much said no :( Also it was quite interesting how they design content.

https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/12...tions-requests

The 100% no to talent tree or further customization of each job kinda disappointed me.
I really would like having like 2 talent presets for different situations on BRD (1 for casual stuff like dungeons, 24mans, primals and 1 for savage) if we could save them and change them like gear sets..

The only customization there is for me is deciding on how much skill speed I will leave on my gear and how much I will replace with crit>dete.
Materia melding won't really change much as the stat weights will stay the same.

EDIT (My second reply here, gonna put it up here too):
Also if different content was easier/ better with different talents, people would actually have to use more of them rather than just one build.
If there is only one best build, it is the fault of game not giving you enough reasons to use more builds.

I haven't given it much thought so far but imagine having 2 talent sets, one would give me 15% single target boost (+ other stuff, this is just an example) the other would give me 15% AoE boost. If I was in dungeon, I would use the second one for trash and then the 1st one for boss. There is lot of stuff that could be in the talent trees, from DoTs duration/ potency to songs duration (for BRD), passive stuff like cooldown reduction (same as skillspeed +-). There could also be utility stuff like getting 2sec shield after being stunned etc.

Ofc that people with full talents would be stronger than fresh 60, but even now people that are 60 for a while are stronger (better gear, cross class skills etc.) but getting max amount of talent points wouldn't have to take too long.

Not shocked by no talents/specs. He's completely correct in his thinking, specs would ultimately be a waste of time unless they're completely different - and at that point you may as well just separate them and add a new job.

Would rather have resources spent on creating new jobs over branching existing ones. They just need to stop resorting to trying to make them all play the same. For instance BLM and SMN play differently to each other despite being casters, whilst BRD got shoehorned into playing like MCH at the expense of both jobs sense of identity.

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I want to play level 60 Titan!

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Ugh, people are insane... Just do unsynced without a full party, it is much more entertaining than they could ever make Titan (Savage)...

I'd honestly much rather have Titan (Extreme) drop an item that can be used to access a special trial against something different... Like, a Guildhest balanced for Lv60 with "endgame" difficulty, against some Kobold Priests/etc. (since a drop from Titan gets you in, anyone who played WotG, think the SCNM instances). I would find that much more entertaining than fighting a new version of Titan... The same system can also be applied to plenty of other pieces of content, like Coil and Crystal Tower.

I got the pleasant feeling Yoshida is aware of FF14's situation. It didn't always translate as such with the last decisions/patches, but I guess that's because they were planned months ahead.

Hopefully 3.2 will be a huge step in the right direction.

As Pence already mentioned, Yoshida is on point about the "talent tree". It's just a trick to make it look like jobs are customizable. I'd rather see interesting traits and procs so jobs feel more genuine to play. Also, let's get rid of 1.0 class system remnant. The no base class in HW goes to show it limited them in ARR job design..

I don't think they can completely remove classes as it would require modifying too much of the old game to make it work. Still I prefer not requiring classes for any of the new Jobs.

Pretty satisfied with what I read. Not really too bothered by the talent tree thing since his reasoning made a lot of sense to me though I know that some people will definitely be upset. I am curious how they plan to continue developing the jobs as levels progress. They cant simply add new abilities because frankly we already lack room on our hotbars and if they just add another 5 abilities the game will really start to suffer ability bloat. Something like talent trees or Job specialisation seemed to be like a way around that but clearly they aren't planning that.

Half-agree with the talent tree stuff... Merit points in XI we guilty of the problems he highlighted, but at least it kept EXPing relevant, I'm somewhat OK with certain things so long as EXP is involved. I think it is because they become more rewarding; Grinding Mark Bills in Heavensward for seals was not enjoyable for me. Grinding them for EXP and seals? A marked improvement. They became worth my time because I was getting two sets of rewards.

I'd certainly rather see new Jobs over new skills on existing Jobs though, I don't even think we need Lv70 for that exact reasoning. Jobs very much are the talent tree of XIV, I can completely agree with that. Still, having no customization because "people will just pick whats best" doesn't sit well with me, it's the same logic that gets us linear (boring) dungeons; "Speedrunners will just force everyone to take the quickest route", it's not that that isn't true, it's just that I don't like the idea of caving to a single group of players demands... This game is fairly guilty of building content around the lowest common denominator, we have times when the developers say "git gud", but for the most part they go to great lengths to make sure any Duty Finder group can clear it... It is not impossible to have non-linear dungeons, it just takes effort to design them well enough that speedrunning isn't the only real option. Slap something like a Treasure Map in a dungeon, or Hunt, and you've got an "optional" activity that can break up the current monotony of dungeons. People will do them if they're rewarding enough. You can have Path A and Path B, with Path A being worked out as the easier/faster of the two by the community, but if someone can spawn a Hunt in Path B, people will take it for that reason.

Likewise, with Job customization, if you work something like Final Fantasy IXs system into the game, you've got something which gives people something extra to work on and slightly customize with. If you work that correctly, stats like Man Eater (increased damage against humanoids) mean you've got a scenario where the optimal set up is situational. Just like taking Path B in a dungeon would be situational on someone spawning the Hunt monster, setting certain stats would be situational on what exactly you're doing. Doing Void Ark? Lots of Voidsent, Demon Killer (increased damage against Voidsent) would be absolutely useful. All you need to do is strike the right balance between how grindy it is to go out and obtain all the stats, and how powerful they are, and make adjusting your selection as easy as it was in Final Fantasy IX. The long term goal would be to unlock all the stats, because they're all situationally useful, long term goals being something this game lacks.

I'm sure some would hate the idea of such a grind, but IDK, we're getting stupid grinds anyway... I'd rather do FATEs for Atma and unlock stats in the process, than just do FATEs for Atma... We're doing dungeons daily. We're grinding the same raids over and over. I'd rather see their rewards have a slightly longer shelf life (since I'd want the stats off them) and have grinding that content work me towards unlocking said stats. I'd be happier doing Void Ark over and over again, because nothing I want ever drops, if just going through got me "EXP" on unlocking some useful stats, than I would be doing 10 runs for absolutely nothing.

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

The 100% no to talent tree or further customization of each job kinda disappointed me.

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Likewise. It doesn't have to be talent trees, but I think the game really needs some way to customize our gameplay. Our stats are the most boring I've ever seen in an MMO and with no talent trees, sub jobs, merit points, or any other similar system, we are all carbon copies of each other.

I understand where he's coming from when he says that number crunchers will find the optimum build, but that already happens with jobs too. If you wanted to build the ultimate raiding party, there would be jobs you leave out, but all of the jobs are played because we don't always care about being at the bleeding edge. Particularly in FFXIV where I would say the majority of the playerbase don't engage in serious end game content. We care about the lore of the jobs, how they feel, how they play. I for one would love some kind of choice in my job's gameplay.

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Originally Posted by WellFooled

Snip

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Also if different content was easier/ better with different talents, people would actually have to use more of them rather than just one build.
If there is only one best build, it is the fault of game not giving you enough reasons to use more builds.

I haven't given it much tought so far but imagine having 2 talent sets, one would give me 15% single target boost (+ other stuff, this is just an example) the other would give me 15% AoE boost. If I was in dungeon, I would use the second one for trash and then the 1st one for boss. There is lot of stuff that could be in the talent trees, from DoTs duration, potency to songs duration (for BRD), passive stuff like cooldown reduction (same as skillspeed +-). There could also be utility stuff like getting 2sec shield after being stunned etc.