Reddit Interview with Yoshi-P and Yusuke Mogi

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/pax_2020_interview

this particular answer satisfies me immensely. esp the last paragraph.

Reddit: Players are still interested in difficult 4-player content. We've seen the expansion of very large scale difficult content through Baldesion Arsenal, but is there any plans to take it the other direction and give us some hardcore 4-man content perhaps similar to Mythic Dungeons in WoW?

Naoki Yoshida: Right now, we are developing a raid that is similar in format to the Baldesion Arsenal, but we have not started work on any high-difficulty four-player content.

I feel there may be a disparity between the number of people actually voicing their desire for this type of content and the number of people who would actually play it. While implementing this isn’t out of the question, I will say I’d like to be very careful in our considerations of how we’d make this a reality.

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While implementing this isn’t out of the question, I will say I’d like to be very careful in our considerations of how we’d make this a reality.

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I would like to say please consider keeping the current full clear design of dungeons, and if you are implementing Mythic+, please at least remove the timer aspect.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Naoki Yoshida: Right now, we are developing a raid that is similar in format to the Baldesion Arsenal, but we have not started work on any high-difficulty four-player content.
I feel there may be a disparity between the number of people actually voicing their desire for this type of content and the number of people who would actually play it. While implementing this isn’t out of the question, I will say I’d like to be very careful in our considerations of how we’d make this a reality.

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The only reason there would be a disparity between the two groups (people asking and people that would play) is because very few people want hard content for the sake of the content just being hard. There needs to be a carrot to go along with that stick, and the team has shown that they are not good at creating a reward that will entice people for more than a month or two before other rewards outpace those offered by the hard content; and then it falls into people simply not wanting to do it because they're not going to get anything out of it.
People didn't hate the original harder ARR 4-man content because it was hard, they grew to hate it because (A) Other dungeons gave better rewards (B) it found its way into the roulette and only offered the same roulette rewards as the other substantially easier 4-man content that existed.

I mean, take the Mythic+ from WoW (as this was mentioned in the framing of the question to Yoshida; The mythic dungeons become progressively harder the further you go on from the base mythic dungeon, adding in extra dungeon-wide mechanics you need to worry about (etc...) in addition to mob strength. Now, I found these fun, but at the same time they could be frustratingly hard if you're pushing the edge of what your gear could handle; but after you finished the dungeon, you got a suitable reward that allowed you to keep progressing.
Now, you can argue on how WoW has become systems ontop of systems, and the reward structure was a problem in itself at times; but you can't deny that you had a reason to do them outside of just wanting to do something difficult. You normally got something that could aid in the progression of your character.
The dev team here doesn't design things that way. They make one reward for the content, and thats all there will ever be; and when you outpace that reward, no matter who you are, you're not going to punish yourself (and friends) by wasting your time on something that gives zero benefit.

I suspect the disparity they think there is is in part due to the monster hunter trial. That isn't touched anywhere near as much as the rest of the content. I can feel for their concern.

Another interview, another day where healers aren't mentioned. I would like to know if they've even acknowledged the bugs SCH's been having to deal with.

I found Yusuke Mogi's comments about the design intent towards new characters very interesting:

"...Relatively new characters (introduced in Stormblood and beyond), there would be cases where I would receive some basic ideas for the character and draft a design, and from there a story was added to provide more flavor."

Very interesting from a creativity standpoint.

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Originally Posted by frostmagemari

no matter who you are, you're not going to punish yourself (and friends) by wasting your time on something that gives zero benefit.

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Ultimate?
Ultimate gives you nothing but a title and weapon with no benefits other than to look pretty. It has the same ilv as the raid weapon and just adds I think extra mat slots which isn't much unless you like to parse and even then, it's not gonna give you a huge edge over people that just cleared savage.

They chose my question:

Reddit: It's been mentioned Viera and Hrothgar will likely be the last races added to FFXIV. In the place of new races can we expect to see more variety of options to existing races instead? Players are really interested in facial hair options such as the one showcased by the Warrior of Darkness in the Shadowbringers trailer. Additionally, can we expect to see future helmets and hair styles added for Viera and Hrothgar?

Naoki Yoshida: The Hrothgar and Viera are designed with very uniquely shaped heads, which allows for them to preserve their race’s identity. As previously mentioned, this is the reason we are not able to re-purpose the hairstyles of other races.

However, we are working on adding more hairstyles for these two races little by little, but your patience is appreciated as we work to create and release these. In regard to facial hair, we attempted implementation, but ran into some issues, so it's on hold while we work to fix these problems. We are not giving up on this, so again, your patience is appreciated.

Well, since my main desire in the game at the moment is the stubble I'm glad they're not giving up on it.

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Reddit: Players are still interested in difficult 4-player content...

Naoki Yoshida: ...we have not started work on any high-difficulty four-player content.
I feel there may be a disparity between the number of people actually voicing their desire for this type of content and the number of people who would actually play it.

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I'm a little disappointed by this answer, as I was hoping they might introduce harder content for smaller groups. However, I'm wasn't hoping for Ultimate difficulty but something more around the level of the ex-primals.

This game lacks of mid-core content. Ex primals are great fun and challenging but they don't last that long, once they're down, there is nothing similar for mid-core players to do. New content with a similar level of challenge would be a good addition to the game in my opinion.

It would probably just be another dungeon, except with more vulnerability debuff + one shot from debatable designed gimmicks, so not different from savage, thus it would be more or less the same players doing it.

FFXIV gameplay is too poor to create a wide range of difficulty.

Am sad about the 4man content answer. Its much easier to get a group of four together for me, and would love content specifically made for groups like that, even if we only got one per expansion.

I hope they're not basing the want for this kind of content on the numbers of people engaged with deep dungeon and rathalos. Because both of those contents were more gimmicky than something comparable to an extreme trial.

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Naoki Yoshida: FFXIV's content release schedule is packed

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Oh boy, I can't wait for the new dungeon. /s

Apparently a technical limitation now counts as “keeping races unique.” lol I love FFXIV and the dev team, but come on...

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Originally Posted by Nandrolone

Apparently a technical limitation now counts as “keeping races unique.” lol I love FFXIV and the dev team, but come on...

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Bodies for Viera are quite literally copy of Elezen, Hrothgars have human feets, so only new parts are heads. And they can't port old hairstyles or adapt new ones, oof.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

I feel there may be a disparity between the number of people actually voicing their desire for this type of content and the number of people who would actually play it.

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This goes for so much in game. The OF may be loud but in game I see little to none of the same level of requests. And so many people avoid voicing their opinions because of the community here.

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Originally Posted by xxvaynxx

Ultimate?
Ultimate gives you nothing but a title and weapon with no benefits other than to look pretty. It has the same ilv as the raid weapon and just adds I think extra mat slots which isn't much unless you like to parse and even then, it's not gonna give you a huge edge over people that just cleared savage.

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Those are benefits. You get a unique title and a weapon; And then after you get those benefits, you stop doing them. People don't do the Ultimate fights just because, they do them to get those rewards and then leave the content alone once they've gotten those rewards.
Ultimates are exactly what i mentioned.. do a thing, get your stuff.. then stop doing the things entirely.

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Originally Posted by yukiiyuki

Bodies for Viera are quite literally copy of Elezen, Hrothgars have human feets, so only new parts are heads. And they can't port old hairstyles or adapt new ones, oof.

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Yeah, it is very easy for people who lack knowledge about 3D model designing to make fun out of it.
Anyone who have experience with Fallout 4 mod will know you can simply export a hair part and forced it on a different character model.
You are either making face disappearing or body looks disfigured. (A lot of time you will broke the original file and need to reinstall again)
Just be patient, there are too much involves with 3D modeling such as skeleton, etc

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

Yeah, it is very easy for people who lack knowledge about 3D model designing to make fun out of it.
Anyone who have experience with Fallout 4 mod will know you can simply export a hair part and forced it on a different character model

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Just go and see how modders did SE job. Not a group of modders, but a single person managed to do that. Nice try though.

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Originally Posted by Nandrolone

Apparently a technical limitation now counts as “keeping races unique.” lol I love FFXIV and the dev team, but come on...

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So, wait Viera are just going to be left out of new glamour content such as Y'shtola's hair & lightnings? that's abit... bogus
But I'm also drawing conclusions

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Originally Posted by yukiiyuki

Just go and see how modders did SE job. Not a group of modders, but a single person managed to do that. Nice try though.

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Most mods don't work with everything (boots, haand items). Many just don't look good especially when it comes to hair let alone other items.

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Originally Posted by yukiiyuki

Just go and see how modders did SE job. Not a group of modders, but a single person managed to do that. Nice try though.

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Do you even realize most of those so called mod only modify one piece of gear and often doesn't compatible with other gear combination?
Go play around with those Fallout 4 mods before you are claiming it is an easy job to modify the entire gear database of FF14.
Those mods often conflicting with other mods either create character distortion or worst crash the game.
There is one time my game keep crash when entering Sanctuary Hill then only realized it is a hair mod that caused game to crash because of the conflict
Fallout 4 is a single player with a moddable engine is already have this issue, you can just imagine how difficult it is going to b with FF14's engne as mmorpg

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Do you even realize most of those so called mod only modify one piece of gear and often doesn't compatible with other gear combination?Go play around with those Fallout 4 mods before you are claiming it is an easy job to modify the entire gear database of FF14.

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Muh Fallout 4, we're taking about hair here, go and try, your game wont break.

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Originally Posted by yukiiyuki

Muh Fallout 4, we're taking about hair here, go and try, your game wont break.

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The skeleton is different for these two new races, which part of it you don't get it?

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I suspect the disparity they think there is is in part due to the monster hunter trial. That isn't touched anywhere near as much as the rest of the content.

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Heres a fight in an MMO that follows 0 MMO rules, makes one archetype almost completely useless 50% of the way through the encounter, and is almost impossible to do if someone is having latency issues. The only things of note from it are that it unlocks mentor roulette and has a really ugly mount.

"Why arent people playing this?!?!?!?!?!?!"

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Ultimate gives you nothing but a title and weapon with no benefits other than to look pretty

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Sparkly stuff is a reward in a game where the only sparkly stuff is relics and ultimates.

I would do a whole hell of a lot for a set of armor that had twice (or more) the surface space glow of the Hydatos tank armor. I would do SIGNIFICANTLY more than if you gave me gear with more stats, because if you arent a crafter, stats in 14 are as meaningful as the points on whose line is it anyway.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Oh boy, I can't wait for the new dungeon. /s

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Did you forget the design contest winner entries being implemented, gear design overall, YorHa, and compensating for the 'rona? And next tier of Eden? Some including voice acting. In how many languages? 5??

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Originally Posted by EaMett

I suspect the disparity they think there is is in part due to the monster hunter trial. That isn't touched anywhere near as much as the rest of the content. I can feel for their concern.

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People don't do the MonHun trial, because it's a shit trial.
It also isn't actually challenging - just tedious, annoying and not really following the trinity properly, while somehow also trying to enforce it and failing to do so, given the most efficient way is to cheese it with 4 tanks, despite only the shitty add being actually tankable. They could've simply given us a normal boss without cast bars and AoE markers - it's not like there aren't enemies that work like this already, even if only for a couple of attacks - but instead they tried way too hard to make something that doesn't actually work in XIV's engine, while discarding anything the game is good at.

If they're using Rathalos EX as a measure of how interested players are in "difficult 4 man content", then I guess we've got as much hope of getting it, as for tanks and healers to get fixed.

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Originally Posted by xxvaynxx

Ultimate?
Ultimate gives you nothing but a title and weapon with no benefits other than to look pretty. It has the same ilv as the raid weapon and just adds I think extra mat slots which isn't much unless you like to parse and even then, it's not gonna give you a huge edge over people that just cleared savage.

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Ultimate is done mainly for challenge, but it's also actual THE hardest content in the game - which comes with certain prestige. EX/Savage level difficulty dungeons wouldn't carry this much weight, so they'd need to put some sort of rewards behind them.

I don't think it would hurt to get extra way of obtaining gear though. Especially if they'd be implemented in the catch-up pathes, together with ally raids, then they could serve well for obtaining something like savage-level gear for alts. They could put some sort of a weekly restriction of these as well and they wouldn't be making savage irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by frostmagemari

Those are benefits. You get a unique title and a weapon; And then after you get those benefits, you stop doing them. People don't do the Ultimate fights just because, they do them to get those rewards and then leave the content alone once they've gotten those rewards.
Ultimates are exactly what i mentioned.. do a thing, get your stuff.. then stop doing the things entirely.

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This is not true. Most players willing to tackle Ultimate do so for the challenge of defeating a very difficult fight. Would as many people clear it without rewards? No. But you'd still see a good chunk of the people running Ultimate still doing it for a clear.

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Originally Posted by Barraind

Heres a fight in an MMO that follows 0 MMO rules, makes one archetype almost completely useless 50% of the way through the encounter, and is almost impossible to do if someone is having latency issues. The only things of note from it are that it unlocks mentor roulette and has a really ugly mount.

"Why arent people playing this?!?!?!?!?!?!"

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When the best strategy for that fight is running four Warriors, it's not exactly a good selling point.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

This is not true. Most players willing to tackle Ultimate do so for the challenge of defeating a very difficult fight. Would as many people clear it without rewards? No. But you'd still see a good chunk of the people running Ultimate still doing it for a clear.

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You have an extreme minority being willing to tackle Ultimate now, even with its rewards. You wouldn't see a chunk of anyone running Ultimate for a clear if it was simply a fight and no reward from it; you would see a tiny fraction of the community try for it.
It would be similar to the one player that did a solo sam run of all 200 levels of PotD; sure, you'll have that one guy, but that's it.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

The skeleton is different for these two new races, which part of it you don't get it?

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That's nice and dandy, still people manage to port old hairs to Viera heads, replacing some slot, because they can't create new one. And oh god, it works completely fine, not all hairstyles for sure, but still more than SE gave us. But you're like a broken tape, if you created something for Fallout, you can download program name and test it for yourself. I can't help you with that because modding is restricted by ToS.
We're talking here about billionaire company that don't provide funds to port old hairstyles to new heads, 3d modeling might be hard, but it's not a rocket science and if you have money, you can find people who'll do the work.

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Originally Posted by frostmagemari

You have an extreme minority being willing to tackle Ultimate now, even with its rewards. You wouldn't see a chunk of anyone running Ultimate for a clear if it was simply a fight and no reward from it; you would see a tiny fraction of the community try for it.
It would be similar to the one player that did a solo sam run of all 200 levels of PotD; sure, you'll have that one guy, but that's it.

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That's a poor comparison since PotD/HoH isn't remotely the same as raiding, thus it isn't going to attract the same players. There aren't any mechanics. People play harder modes in single player games where the only reward is an achievement saying they beat it.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

That's a poor comparison since PotD/HoH isn't remotely the same as raiding, thus it isn't going to attract the same players. There aren't any mechanics. People play harder modes in single player games where the only reward is an achievement saying they beat it.

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I would say its rather apt, really. The player's type of preferred content isn't important, its that the player is willing to do punishing content for zero reward.
You claimed "Most players willing to tackle Ultimate do so for the challenge of defeating a very difficult fight. Would as many people clear it without rewards? No. But you'd still see a good chunk of the people running Ultimate still doing it for a clear." and i likened the circumstance to that 'that one guy' that will do something punishing for zero reward, but that will be all.
Right now, Ultimate participation is below 1% of the total population of the game, and that's with the rewards and possible prestige; remove the rewards and you won't have a handful of people willing to do it.

Damn it YoshiP, talk about the damned healers already!
Why did you butcher us?