Twinfinite Interview

This was quite enjoyable to read! http://twinfinite.net/2017/03/ffxiv-...view-pax-east/

I can imagine the first question on the second page causing an uproar one way or another >.>

I feel as if just because there are players that don't understand stats or gear, doesn't mean there shouldn't be options in equipment with special traits or resistances. I mean...it's kinda the point of having options to reward those who are actually paying attention.

Bullet points for the lazy:

*There were always gonna be two DPS in Stormblood
*Samurai was decided on a long time ago, and it was always going to be a melee DPS
*It took them a very long time to settle on Red Mage
*Something similar to Oracle almost made it in instead of RDM
*To Tank and Healer mains: They need to balance the existing jobs before adding new ones
*They will not add a job mid expansion like Ninja. Ninja was supposed to be at the start of ARR anyway but got delayed due to time constraints
*Gear will be even more simplified going forward
*The ilevel of the Diadem weapons wasn't supposed to matter in comparison to the Anima's customization
*There might be a brand new (to the franchise) job in 5.0
*Ishgard housing may be considered after Shirogane is completed
*Colorblind mode is almost ready to launch. Just working out compatibility issues

Some pretty neat stuff in there actually!

So now they want to make gear EVEN more simple with stats? Just take out all stats and call it attack power at this point!

How in the world can they make gear even more simplified?
Most jobs only need to focus on two / maybe three substats currently. every single piece of gear in the game is functionally identical to it's role-appropriate wearers ; no two pieces of gear every truly do different things (besides having different main / substats, which isn't really significant enough to make one piece seem like it's doing something different than another).

I like that they want to keep it simple but it seems to me like they're doing it to the detriment of the game now. Why ever bother going for stronger gear when it does the exact same as your current gear but with slightly higher numbers that only matter if you're doing cutting-edge savage speedruns and trying to shave a few seconds off? Doesn't that make higher-level gear redundant? If there's nothing to differentiate it from old gear except small substat changes, but your current main/substats are enough, then gearing up sounds like it'd just be a waste of time to me.

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Originally Posted by Connor

How in the world can they make gear even more simplified?

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The first things that come to mind:
- Removal of Accuracy
- Re-Removal of Melding Slots (Those were introduced to standard gear with 3.2 I think?)

Truth be told, though, if they wanted they could simplify their stat system to only 4 stats: Power (Weapon Damage, Main Stat, Determination), Survivability (Health/Defense), Speed (Skill/Spell Speed), Luck (Critical Strike Chance/Accuracy). Maybe a 5th for Piety.

That's how shallow it already is.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

So now they want to make gear EVEN more simple with stats? Just take out all stats and call it attack power at this point!

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Make it like in Deep Dungeon, one attack stat for weapon and one defensive stat for armor and call it a day so new/returning players weren't scared of 'complexity'. Also make it one universal set for all jobs, with stats autoadjusting when switching jobs, at least I'll not see dps wearing wrong accessories anymore.

I thought the comment about ishgard possibly not being so cold and snowy anymore in the future was the most interesting thing in this article.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

This was quite enjoyable to read! http://twinfinite.net/2017/03/ffxiv-...view-pax-east/

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Thanks for link. Am still curious about when going from lvl 60 to 70, will we get 2, or 5 new skills?
Also, he expects tanks and healers to lvl their mains first, but they'll start from lvl 60, while new RDM, and SAMs from 50...?

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I’ve mentioned this on stream on several occasions before, looking at the data all throughout the 3.0 series, people who have been playing as a tank or healer whenever a new expansion is introduced, they will first try to level their main job, and we did introduce the Dark Knight and Astrologian as tank and healer respectively. The player population didn’t seem to change too drastically…

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Yoshida, that's because you started them at such a low level. Drk/Ast/Mch should have started at 50. Sam/Rdm should start at 60. Period.

Cool, interesting gear? In an MMORPG? Screw that, throw some mounts (that never get used because there is no reason to be in a zone in which they can be used) at raiders. That's what they really want.

Gotta keep chasing those new players at the expense of the veterans.

Even zelda starts adding gameplay altering effects on gear. It's unbelievable to see how SE is out of touch in regard to game design currently, especially taking into account the company used to design such effects on gear in the past.

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Gotta keep chasing those new players at the expense of the veterans.

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I really wonder who they re really chasing at this point, because if people complained about something in RPG, it was never about effects on gear.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

Cool, interesting gear? In an MMORPG? Screw that, throw some mounts (that never get used because there is no reason to be in a zone in which they can be used) at raiders. That's what they really want.

Gotta keep chasing those new players at the expense of the veterans.

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Most raiders don't care provided whatever gear they can acquire is BiS. That's partly why they don't add effects and whatnot. Yoshi even specifically mentioned the min/max philosophy people have. Don't get me wrong, I'd like something a bit more unique than Crit > everything else but putting multiple sets of the same ilvl sprinkled around the map isn't going to get people to care. Hell, that's precisely why they stuffed a 280 weapon in Diadem. They were afraid a 270 or 275 one wouldn't attract the raiders.

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Originally Posted by Stanelis

Even zelda starts adding gameplay altering effects on gear. It's unbelievable to see how SE is out of touch in regard to game design currently, especially taking into account the company used to design such effects on gear in the past.

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Zelda is a single player game. It can do whatever it wants because you aren't competing against other players. Blade & Soul has a whole skill tree outline. Guess what happened when Jaesung, the best PvPer in the game, released his preferred setup. They copied it.

Lol the gear part makes me really wonder, what I'd love to see is some more fair choice / build options (would promote horizontal play) and less stuff like accuracy. I find accuracy to be a very boring stat, get so much until you don't anymore and then you avoid it like the plague as it is basically just a gear killer and for those who don't pay attention to it just a very annoying combo killer (tl;dr, try to pay attention to accuracy until you don't, and all it offers is that you do something that everyone takes for granted already ~ lol). Enemy evasion should be based on mechanics only, imo. Like blind changed from % chance to X number of times, dodging being a mechanic and not a chance, can leave it alone against monsters though (player spells onto monsters).

I'd like to see accuracy nixed entirely, but I'd like to also see some stuff like in FFXI & even WoW, or heck Diablo 3 lol. If they don't want to make horizontal ilvl growth they could make it so the special abilities on items can be extracted, just add a few more QoL to materia system and that shouldn't be too worrisome (and make it so only one ability effect per item so you couldn't take an ability from three other items and materia it into one item that already has one). I think it's silly that there are many contents where you have to run it but you want none of the gear they offer (except for glamour/log) because the next step invalidates it all, like the next step 10 minutes away - I'm not talking big level jumps and stuff that of course makes sense.

WoW has sets (special effects), items with abilities, gem relics (materia with abilities basically), and enchanter (some abilities, some pure stat enchants), as well as trinket slots that are dedicated to this idea of items with abilities (so multiple opportunities to see "special effect" stats). FFXI obviously had special effects even. D3 is a harder comparison (different game style) but the legendary are pretty fun, albeit you quickly go from 500 options to 3 once you get near the end game / difficulty level (better than 1 imo, but you can't do whatever at the end - easily can do whatever in casual content though and it's a lot of fun).

Of course meta can narrow down some of the usefulness of effects but usually only matters in the harder tiers (like savage you'll need more specific answers, but a normal mode dungeon could be more free).

Still praying they'll make instanced housing.. Of course would like to see an Ishgard theme but you could do that in another system too and allow players to be more creative/wishy wasyhy friendly. I want snowflakes today and rainbows tomorrow! The current system makes you have to bleed yourself out before you could switch, and that's as they add hundreds more houses to servers that don't need them and missing many thousands of houses on bigger ones. There's no balance xD.

Boots of +12.
Jacket of +20.


Can't wait.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Zelda is a single player game. It can do whatever it wants because you aren't competing against other players. Blade & Soul has a whole skill tree outline. Guess what happened when Jaesung, the best PvPer in the game, released his preferred setup. They copied it.

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League of legends is a pvp game in which item have effects and where you're competing against other players. There are several builds for a single character.

Furthermore, item effects can be deactivated in PVP.

Also, the fact the game is a MMO doesn't imply the game design should be poor.

I'd love to see acc removed.

gear sets with added bonuses don't work in mmo. People will math out which is the best gear to get. My gf said ff11 had tons of that gear and people just math'ed out what was good, and players had to get th gear or would be "bad". We see that enough in ff14 with how people play their class. We don't need to had more player made rules.

sry but i rather not have a random joe insult me because im not banging my head on content i don't have fun with just for that "must have"item.

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Originally Posted by BigRed5392

gear sets with added bonuses don't work in mmo. People will math out which is the best gear to get. My gf said ff11 had tons of that gear and people just math'ed out what was good, and players had to get th gear or would be "bad". We see that enough in ff14 with how people play their class. We don't need to had more player made rules.

sry but i rather not have a random joe insult me because im not banging my head on content i don't have fun with just for that "must have"item.

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/Whatever you want to do/ sets don't work, but they absolutely do work seeing as FFXI and WoW both made them work. You just had to actually think about them, can't build your gear like high on popotos and people will be okay with it. I think that's the hardest part for people to understand, just because it has an effect doesn't mean you can wear it without thought - you still have to think about your build.

FFXI was a bit strict but in both WoW and FFXI there were multiple options and the change to core mechanics you've been using for a long time is very refreshing. D3 has it similar, you could drunkenly build yourself for all of the game until you get to the later end torments then you go from like 500 options to 5 max or less but the game would be so much more boring if you only had one option.

"Omg, I need to use this ability now, the effect is so cool!" and for the next 10 hours how you play the game changes, its awesome. She's right people will narrow your choices down real fast, but she'd be wrong that they can't work or there will only ever be one path.

Also consider that if we had effects but kept our linear growth, in that each set is always better than the previous but each set has unique effects - this still changes up the play slightly and adds refreshing touches to core principles you've been using, while never actually having to consider if its better or worse because the answer is simply (is it a higher or lower ilvl?).

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Originally Posted by Stanelis

League of legends is a pvp game in which item have effects and where you're competing against other players. There are several builds for a single character.
Furthermore, item effects can be deactivated in PVP.

Also, the fact the game is a MMO doesn't imply the game design should be poor.

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LoL is a moba, which is an entirely different type of game. I don't follow LoL, but I'd hazard a guess they have a similar min/max philosophy. Keep in mind, FFXIV's version of custom builds is being able to play every job on one character.

Then what's the point? Why ask the developments to focus on something that will or can be deactivated? Speaking of PvP, we can actually customize those skills. Every guide I've looked up on the subject advises the same handful of skills to prioritize because they're simply better.

I never said the design was good. Just that asking for a bunch of special effects isn't going to arbitrarily make it better. Say one piece of gear increases the damage potency of Blood for Blood while another the duration of BotD. No matter how they attempt to balance that, one will inevitably be superior, and thus, favored.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Most raiders don't care provided whatever gear they can acquire is BiS.

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Speak for yourself. My sample size of my group pretty much despises this game's gear at this point. The reason they don't add effects - or any variation at all - is because the dev team is afraid of players feeling rejected because they don't have specific pieces of gear. This has been stated in the past.

The question to ask raiders isn't "would you like an interesting piece of gear or a good piece of gear," but "would you enjoy acquiring items more if they weren't so boring?" Getting cool stuff is exciting. Getting 2% more damage isn't, especially when you've been getting that same exact upgrade since 2014. Putting gear that's actually cool into the game might motivate people to go do the content where it drops and might actually help with player retention.

Also, making gear interesting doesn't necessarily mean giving it a unique effect. Something as simple as less MND than other pieces of its ilvl, but more VIT on a piece of healer gear is enough to make that item stand out from the endless march of Main Stat, VIT, one high substat, one low substat

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

LoL is a moba, which is an entirely different type of game. I don't follow LoL, but I'd hazard a guess they have a similar min/max philosophy. Keep in mind, FFXIV's version of custom builds is being able to play every job on one character.

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LoL is a moba based on RPG class design. Also, no, ffxiv's version of playing custom builds isn't the class system, it is something totally different and you can have one and the other.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Blade & Soul has a whole skill tree outline. Guess what happened when Jaesung, the best PvPer in the game, released his preferred setup. They copied it.

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Everyone copies everything, how many people can honestly say they figured coil and alex out for themselves with no use of guides?
Getting interesting gear is fun, it's still fun even if you're getting it to copy someone elses build rather than create one of your own.

So people raze Hell because the diadem weapons are a higher ilv.... and think they are right and that Yoshida doesn't understand.

Yosida says the lower ilv Anima is better due to control of stats... and he thinks he is right and the players don't understand.

Perfect fix!!! NERF THE HELL OUT OF ALL THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS!!!!

New gear drops for 4.1 guys, "Tank Gear 4.1" <- (Actual name of the gear.)

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

Speak for yourself. My sample size of my group pretty much despises this game's gear at this point. The reason they don't add effects - or any variation at all - is because the dev team is afraid of players feeling rejected because they don't have specific pieces of gear. This has been stated in the past.

The question to ask raiders isn't "would you like an interesting piece of gear or a good piece of gear," but "would you enjoy acquiring items more if they weren't so boring?" Getting cool stuff is exciting. Getting 2% more damage isn't, especially when you've been getting that same exact upgrade since 2014. Putting gear that's actually cool into the game might motivate people to go do the content where it drops and might actually help with player retention.

Also, making gear interesting doesn't necessarily mean giving it a unique effect. Something as simple as less MND than other pieces of its ilvl, but more VIT on a piece of healer gear is enough to make that item stand out from the endless march of Main Stat, VIT, one high substat, one low substat

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And my sample size argues otherwise. I am in a lot of raid discord channels and the overwhelming consensus tends to favor BiS. The only time that healer piece with more VIT and less MND will even factor into the equation is during progression. And even then, only if you're attempting it at close to the minimal ilvl. For example, plenty of raiders meld VIT to their accessories during prog but immediately ditch it the moment they start jumping ahead of the ilvl. In essence, you've merely replaced melding with whatever method required to obtain this VIT focused set.

Putting three sets of ilvl 270 chestpieces behind A12S isn't going to make most raiders care to continuously run it unless they are already motivated to bump their numbers on FFlogs or do speed runs. Once they have the best of whichever three sets, the other two become irrelevant. Case in point, you can push 651 Skill Speed on Dragoon to more easily push for that one extra GCD-- somewhat useful in A12 to pull off two Geirskoguls-- yet the vast majority follow the standard 626 because Crit is higher, thus resulting in higher damage overall compared to a situational benefit. I am not saying they couldn't liven things up a little but adding a second gear set that favors VIT over STR/DEX/INT will be near virtually ignored for DPS jobs unless it's easier to get than the better damage stat equivalent.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

Everyone copies everything, how many people can honestly say they figured coil and alex out for themselves with no use of guides?
Getting interesting gear is fun, it's still fun even if you're getting it to copy someone elses build rather than create one of your own.

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That wasn't my point. Having to balance around multiple builds puts a massive strain on the developers since they now have to contend with however many builds are added. And to what end? For people to inevitably copy whatever raiders or popular youtubers do. They're already struggling to balance healers and tanks so people don't ignore one. Adding skill trees and what have you only increases their workload. I'd prefer they focus on actual content, personally.

Meh would like to see what they really are up to with stats than some empty words

Edit: Although I'm still shocked that no1 asked him why he lied on zurvan's difficulty

Y'know, thinking about it, them simplifying stats may well be a boon for something like horizontal progression.

Right now, there'll always be gear that has what basically amounts to "Junk Stats", causing there to be an undeniable BiS setup. But since they'll certainly still have the same spread of options for acquiring gear: tomes, raids, dungeons, etc., simplifying the distribution of stats may well make contemporary gear more equally viable.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

I am in a lot of raid discord channels and the overwhelming consensus tends to favor BiS.

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They favor BiS over what, exactly? The bad pieces? Well, no shit. There's only two choices in the game right now. If they were asked the question "would you prefer if gear had more variety and interesting stuff on it," I think you'd get some different results.

Also thanks for providing an exact situation where a random high vit low mnd piece would be good. Does only being good during progression (which is usually performed close to minimum ilvl) somehow invalidate its existence? What about a situation in which your healer is just a fucking baddie who gets hit by more AOEs than usual? He might opt to wear higher VIT pieces.

This is why the "everyone will just use the cookie cutter build" meme is so retarded. These games have so many different situations and types of people playing them that one build can't possibly always be the best for every individual. If it is, that's called being overpowered. Even in like WoTLK-era WoW you'd have a lot of little tweaks to the cookie cutter talent and gear builds to accommodate the little quirks of individuals and their party setups.

Yeah, there'll always be a configuration that is mathematically superior when played by a robot, but that doesn't mean devs should boil everything down to this simple garbage we have now. How is that any fun?

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Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

I thought the comment about ishgard possibly not being so cold and snowy anymore in the future was the most interesting thing in this article.

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for me it was the most disappointing. i want ishgard housing especially because i want to live in the snow... _._

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

They favor BiS over what, exactly? The bad pieces? Well, no shit. If they were asked the question "would you prefer if gear had more variety and interesting stuff on it," I think you'd get some different results.

Also thanks for providing an exact situation where a random high vit low mnd piece would be good. Does only being good during progression (which is usually performed close to minimum ilvl) somehow invalidate its existence? What about a situation in which your healer is just a fucking baddie who gets hit by more AOEs than usual? He might opt to wear higher VIT pieces.

This is why the "everyone will just use the cookie cutter build" meme is so retarded. These games have so many different situations and types of people playing them that one build can't possibly always be the best for every individual. If it is, that's called being overpowered. Even in like WoTLK-era WoW you'd have a lot of little tweaks to the cookie cutter talent and gear builds to accommodate the little quirks of individuals and their party setups.

Yeah, there'll always be a configuration that is mathematically superior, but that doesn't mean devs should boil everything down to this simple garbage we have now. How is that any fun?

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No, you would get the exact same answer because damage reigns supreme in FFXIV. Look no further than back when STR tanking was a thing. Near everyone gradually adapted to damage over HP even down to the non-raiding content. Why? It was widely considered better. Likewise, why do you think healer DPS has become so prevalent? Because everything inevitably revolves around how much damage you do. "More interesting stuff" would devolve into the same "is x better than y" dichotomy we have now.

You mean like the system which already exists? It's invalidated because we can already meld VIT materia to the only tier of gear where it's more a factor. Crafted gear literally serves the exact purpose you're asking for. Once you upgrade to 260 though, very few players ever look at VIT again.

They boil down to it because most people follow the min/max philosophy. Do you know how frequent complaints are in the raid community because everyone tries to copy MrHappy, Mizzteq or Xeno's guides exactly despite not playing at their level? They'll do the same when those three or any other guide maker tosses up a video outlining what is better. The devs have to weigh whether the enormous workload would prove beneficial. I sincerely doubt it would. Can they do better? Yes. The Mastery stat from WoW has some potential. If they made the rotations a bit less rigid, Skill Speed could be more useful. There's things to improve. So don't mistake me for agreeing with their belief of streamlining further. But it's still a fine line what you can do that people will actually embrace.

They think gear is already too complicated??? Speaks volumes about their view of the average intelligence of their player base. Then again.....

I'm just going to take a quick moment to express my joy that the dream of Ishgardian Housing is not quite dead just yet.

These interviews gives me very little reason to continue healing roulettes.

The only gear stat "complexity" in the game right now is accuracy since nothing explains it ever and when you first see the accuracy stat the game just gives you the ball game butt pat then tells you to get going. It would be one thing if accuracy requirements were placed on dungeon details but that was too hard I guess so we got the "Find the proper accuracy" game instead.

So heres hoping that gear simplification is just removal of accuracy.

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Originally Posted by Elim

I'd love to see acc removed.

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I would actually like to see them change "Accuracy" to "Crit Hit Chance" and "Crit Hit" to "Crit Hit Damage". That way we won't have to worry about missing, but think about how to optimize the chance of getting a Critical Hit and the amount of damage that comes with it. We would still be "Min-Maxing" our gear to get the most out of it, which would give good reason to add more variations of gear of the same Item Level (Tome, Raid, Diadem, etc).

Why have stats, just have ilvl and be done.

Man SE underestimates their audience thanks to those who are very vocal. If these people who don't understand stats actually took the time reading up on them that they spend complaining on the forums there would be no issues.

Stats are haaard. Buttons are haaard. Doing stuff is haaard. OOOO PRETTY DRESS GIVE ME NOW
/facepalm

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Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

I thought the comment about ishgard possibly not being so cold and snowy anymore in the future was the most interesting thing in this article.

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Me too! Give me the old 1.0 Coerthas please!

I'm irritated by this but I guess I can't blame the DEVs to much, I mean whenever they add any complexity at all the forums do this....

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...5790741402.gif

If people would stop losing their minds over a little difficulty it might not be so bad.

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Originally Posted by Aldora

I would actually like to see them change "Accuracy" to "Crit Hit Chance" and "Crit Hit" to "Crit Hit Damage". That way we won't have to worry about missing, but think about how to optimize the chance of getting a Critical Hit and the amount of damage that comes with it. We would still be "Min-Maxing" our gear to get the most out of it, which would give good reason to add more variations of gear of the same Item Level (Tome, Raid, Diadem, etc).

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Actually I like this idea. Honestly I'd be happy with it removed, changed or added to healer gear. :/

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

Stats are haaard. Buttons are haaard. Doing stuff is haaard. OOOO PRETTY DRESS GIVE ME NOW
/facepalm

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Nice shire gear.

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Originally Posted by Ririta

These interviews gives me very little reason to continue healing roulettes.

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Any particular reason for this? Or is this referencing the "why we [SE] chose not to make any new tank or healer roles this go-around" part?