Message from Yoshi thoughts

So, after reading his thoughts http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/276368 <~~ from here, I find that it's somewhat lacking in actual depth. It seems to me that people are asking for one thing, but the development team seem to be dead set on going forward with the current system in place come hell or high water.

Personally, I feel like there was a lot of great things in heavensward. The dungeons were beautiful, the gear look gorgeous, and I could really feel the hard work and development that went into most of the game up to this point. Past that initial release, these patches feel bland, rushed, and without depth. People are crying for originality, a change from the monotonous ilvl treadmill, something that sets jobs apart from one another, and yet after reading Yoshi's thoughts, I feel like he's really concentrating on the wrong aspects of what people are crying out for.

These are just my personal thoughts, what are yours. Let's keep the bickering, white knighting, SE hating comments out of this and have some constructive, meaningful conversations about Yoshi's comments.

Not for nothing, but you can post in the stickied thread. Are you worried it will get deleted?

I do think horizontal could work if they used it with older content. Keep the new/fresh content as content you can do over IL required but then in future patches you add in new gear rewards from older content that FC can do to obtain unique drops from old "outdated" content.

I mean if you want to make Crystal Tower difficult make it where each tower is restricted to doing it at the lowest IL entry, I50, 70, 90, create unique drops that drop in the dungeon when you complete it under those restrictions as well as add items in older dungeons which can be used to add effects to abilities when in specific dungeons. The other thing that could be done is add the ability to obtain items which can be used within those "synced" dungeons that weaken the foe's power, eliminates certain abiltiies etc and you have a large quality of challenging content to look forward to to be honest.

I still say the reason why this game ends up being so easy, is because you are in essence going from i50 to bam i90, from i160 to bam i170-200 to 210, it's a huge jump in IL from hitting lv 60, to getting law tomes to 170-180, to getting esoteric, i200 to now being able to get a good amount to i210. If the game created a means of doing content in a challenging way while offering more reward this game would have a lot more to offer but with their current forget it after last patch mentality it will hurt them in the long run because they are neglecting a lot of potential content that could be fun if restricting your IL actually offered unique rewards.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Not for nothing, but you can post in the stickied thread. Are you worried it will get deleted?

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I didn't realize it was stickied, since I got to it from another direction.

Personally I'm more concerned about no nerfs for Gordias Savage, what if you need to clear it to do Midas Savage?

My thoughts:

Anima weapons: I'm thrilled that their longevity was specifically addressed, that was the ONE thing I wanted from this discussion. TL;DR - they'll be leap-frogged with raiding gear in 3.2 and then become on-par or better again in 3.25 or 3.3. I think lots of people may be upset with this because if you're on the bleeding edge of progession you won't be using your relic from like Feb-June. HOWEVER, for those of us filthy casuals who are taking the grind nice and slow, I love it. It totally relieved the pressure: I feel like I can work the grind until June and not have missed out on anything.

Housing: More housing availability in patch 3.2, Ishgard opens up after 3.3. That sounds good! I'm sure it won't fix all the problems, but it'll be an improvement

Raiding: Midas (Savage) will be less hard than Gordias (Savage). I think that will please all the people who couldn't clear A4S, unless an A4S clear is required to progress to Midas. In that case, why? They'll make raiding content easier for the people who cleared it when it was suicidally hard, but for the people who couldn't clear no dice. That development decision doesn't make any sense. It makes me think that, logically, an A4S clear won't be required...BUT that requires logic/gameplay > lore, and I don't think that's how this game's devs think...skeptical about this.

Diadem in future = less-zerg-rush more exploring focused/incentivized. Will be great, I'm sure, if it works as intended...All about the effectiveness of implementation on this point.

New Dungeon/Trials etc. New content always good! I like the sound of the Warring Traid Trial - lots of people asked for the WT to be a trial. Love the allusion to FFVI. And it kinda sounds like SCP Containment Breach....

PvP: The gil-based PvP wolves den thing looks like it has potential. I've played a little WD myself and (I'm the healer) I always get rekt in like the first five seconds. BUT if I was worth like 10% of the gil than the warrior on the team, maybe I could actually play/practice/get good so I don't get rekt all the time. I could possible break out of the vicious PvP noob cycle! Except...that I think people will still go for the healers first. Victory > Gil. Who knows...

That's everything I cared about. All and all, very pleased. IF it actually gets implemented like intended.

So the team felt that people would be more inclined to break their fingers if the items were 215 instead of 210? I wish 5 ilvl difference offered me such motivation....Motivation is set bonuses or something completely unique to the item to make it worth the effort, not a higher ilvl. But hey, maybe they'll get it by 4.0.

It took me a bit to understand where Yoshi was coming from on the Anima weapon--it seemed like he was ignoring people's biggest complaint, which was the sheer *magnitude* of this grind versus previous steps.

Then, I saw his alternate response in the Live Letter update thread. Basically, this step was so long and grueling because Alex Savage's iLvl was set too low. The Savage weapon is 210, which was not the right move on their part, so when the Relic came out as 210, they felt they had to make the grind longer to match the difficulty of getting a Savage weapon.

Moving forward, with the latest Relic step always slightly below the best raid weapon, this won't be an issue anymore. The explanation is fine, but there are a lot of things they could have done in the meantime when they realized this problem was coming. Raise the iLvl of the Savage weapons? Lower the planned Anima from 210 to 205?

The purpose of the small level difference is to make sure that doing the hardest content isn't outweighed by a weapon that doesn't involve the same content, its meant for those who enjoy the hardest content, and more of a incentive for them.

Imp pretty satisfied with what I heard. He addressed a lot of the concerns I have.

I too would look forward to more creativity and even possibly some horizontal progression if done right (done wrong and its as bad or worse than vertical). However any timeframe for that is going to be long term. Its not something they will rush into and just concepting such a change would take months since its pretty much dramatically altering the current model. I much prefer they take their time and not screw everything up than trying and bring in something quickly and brake the game. Honestly I wont expect much before next expansion.

In the end pretty good and a positive sign that they do actually pay attention to our concerns posted here and elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by Jican

It seems to me that people are asking for one thing

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the playerbase is so vast that it's never one thing that people ask for and what different players want are often directly contradictory to one another.

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Originally Posted by Jican

Past that initial release, these patches feel bland, rushed, and without depth

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these patches? we've only had 1.

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Originally Posted by Jican

People are crying for originality, a change from the monotonous ilvl treadmill, something that sets jobs apart from one another

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- that's what Diadem was for, it didn't work so they are tweaking it
- that's why they are changing materia
- not every player wants that but more importantly that makes it difficult for them to balance content if the jobs are too distinct

While I did not hear everything that I wanted to out of the live letter, where in life do you get everything that you want? I'm reasonably satisfied. Overall we got a frank, reasonable assessment of where the game is at, and it was made clear he has been keeping a sharp eye on player feedback here and other forums. Everyone can probably pick their one issue du jour to harp on, but what i sensed from the relic anger was not so much the problem with the relic grind itself but the environment it came in to. people were ready to hate it because there is such a high level of burnout on the game right now compared to previous content lulls. Yoshi-P's discussion talked about overall direction decisions that were made a long time ago that have led to where we are now, and talked about how they'll walk their way out of that. They are going to revert to some old things (looking back to Coil) and try some new things (melding raid gear, more relevant crafted gear) as well as fixing Diadem to see if they can fix some of these issues. The game doesn't need a Calamity, just a change in direction. I'm willing to accept that it may take some time to see the effects of this. Already 3.2 looks like it will be a MUCH beefier patch than 3.1 was and will come with hard content, midcore content, casual-friendly content, and new player content. I really hope this beginner's hall helps overall player skill. still withholding judgment and tempering excitement, but there's some good potential here.

I'm not quite sure why folks think he didn't address what people are upset about. he talked about raiding. he talked about relic. he talked about diadem. If i think something was lacking it was that we dont' have much of a roadmap going forward past 3.2. if its still about the relic grind specifically, then maybe I've been off on my presumption that relic was so poorly received because of its environmental context. In honesty i think a lot of the problem goes into the name "relic weapon" and the expectations that name brings from beyond FFXIV. But he still addressed the issues of item relevancy, why it was delayed, and was explicit that he views raid weapons as the weapon for people to go to if they want a weapon from "challenges."

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

Housing: More housing availability in patch 3.2, Ishgard opens up after 3.3. That sounds good! I'm sure it won't fix all the problems, but it'll be an improvement

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I thought it was 3.3 we were getting more housing and somtime after that ishgard housing?

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Originally Posted by raymon

I thought it was 3.3 we were getting more housing and somtime after that ishgard housing?

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I could be wrong on the timing. I honestly didn't triple check, I just posted my initial impression.

The point is that an effort is being made. And that's exciting because honestly any effort made into housing is likely to be an improvement over the current situation