New Yoshi-P Interview

https://youtu.be/TwcWMwuliX0

• Difference between 1.0 and ARR, is 1.0 had no content, MB, DF, PF or classic FF jobs and slow combat
• -
• Gets feedback from reddit, the forums, social media regularly
• There's no magic bullet to solve all the game's issues, and he only came to that realization 1.5 years ago
• He believed he just needed to get things like the features and difficulty level balance in a perfect state but what he realized was no such perfect state exists
• When they release more challenging content they probably will get feedback of "we want more casual content"
• When they release more casual content they will get feedback of "we want more challenging content"
• This ebb and flow of feedback won't ever cease and will be mindful of that. This is what he realized in the end. That there is no perfect answer but will try to keep players excited and stimulated
• -
• The MSQ is long, but new players don't mind it because it's new content to them
• Says there are systems in place for veterans to play with sprout friends (unsyncing).
• He's regularly asked the media if when inviting friends to play, would they recommend they skip? Their answer is they'd recommend their friend experience the story
• That's why he doesn't need to add systems to skip or reduce MSQ or shorten the MSQ.
• The focus is instead on helping veterans be comfortable with their sprout friend's knowledge, such as by adding the more advanced Hall of the Novice.
• -
• Journalist revealed they were asked to review FFXIV by SE, after making a negative review about Shadowlands, and that's how they started playing.
• -
• Main goal of in-game collaborations is to excite the development team and inspire them with new ideas (obvious examples are Fall Guys, Monster Hunter and Nier)
• Helps them overcome potential stagnation that they know is a risk of the same team doing things for years
• They learn new techniques from the people they work with from these other companies they crossover with
• -
• Out-of-game collaborations are more about marketing FFXIV in the real world so they look for partners that would be proud to work with FFXIV. The goal is obviously that people who use those brands might see the collab and try out FFXIV.
• Was inspired to do these collabs because he walked into a shop and saw cups with WoW on them and wanted to see FFXIV on stuff in shops too.
• Many of these companies have active players of the game that rose through the ranks, so *they* approach Square Enix instead now, offering to advertise the game they love
• -
• Said Dawntrail was not delayed because *he* wanted to play Elden Ring. He was too busy doing the Media Tour, and developers were making adjustments until the last minute. But he knew others would be playing Elden Ring and gave them a week.

The first step is recognizing that after stepping back a little, that there is no easy answer.
The next step is recognizing that you still need to take decisions with actual direction after, not staying indecisive and "torn about everything".

On the subject of content, I can see his point about casual and hardcore, but I just don't think it's the reality. The game doesn't produce enough content regularly for casual players. Perhaps even hardcore players too depending on the patch.

The conversation has shifted from the ratio of content difficulty to the patch cycle itself, the staleness of content and rewards, etc.

My point being I'm not sure he's seeing the feedback objectively. Most players who want midcore for example, are not asking for less Ultimates. I think we have a thread up about it that shows this.

It seems like a strategy to gaslight the base because I actually think this is one thing where casual, mid, high end players all mostly agree. The game in general has a content problem.

Reddit for information, now there's a reputable source. The subreddit there for FFXIV will hang you if you say one bad thing about this game. Social media doesn't really cover issues and concerns - it's there just for hype, except the Youtubers lately seemed to have finally caught on about the issues. And then we have the forums. Raw. Unmoderated.

I think that trying to find the magic bullet is his problem, because he won't please everyone, but the SBI triggers go against the majority, triggering the minority. He believes it's the opposite, as does the minority. For someone who talks about balance, his content balance is way off. He can do both casual and challenging content. Lowest common denominator and all... and I'm a casual player, but even the rinse/repeat totally 'see it coming' aspect of dungeons are sore to do, even the ones I like. All because you know what's coming. If they created the encounters like Chaos, where every time you start the fight, it's a different rotation, that would at least make it somewhat more of a step in the right direction of enjoyable.

I may edit my post to add more thoughts, but I haven't slept and not enough coffee to keep going with the mind-numbing rhetoric.

I would agree there will always, always, be a complaint, and they might not even be invalid, having infinite resources would be nice but isn't going to happen lol, but I would also argue the quality/quantity they produce for casual stuff isn't to the same level as non-casual.

I imagine this is a tool issue, in part, since they probably have a very robust battle design kit and so at this point it doesn't cost five arms and a leg, only two for a new high end content, and if you wanted to do one new unique casual content it would be 5, as there is no tool for it. I can imagine wrong, but it is my perception that when they do new casual/non content they use the systems they have existing and to be honest those systems 'feel' very specific in where their strengths are (can build intricate boss fights, can't make interactive quests, locations, or other pieces of content outside of some UI).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Greyhawk

Reddit for information,

---

Yepp. Using reddit for information is so ...


https://i.ibb.co/2yDzmtx/double-facepalm.jpg



Cheers

Not to be that guy, but Yoshi P is making completely fallacious arguments when he implies something isn't worth doing because it will never be perfect, or that something can't be done because it would require infinite resources. Yoshi P has been telling the base this dumb bs for so long he actually believes it.

Is FFXVI also a victim of this? It had very similar critical and commercial feedback to XIV. It seems like there's a design philosophy at work here vs simply budget problems and players complaining.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Not to be that guy, but Yoshi P is making completely fallacious arguments when he implies something isn't worth doing because it will never be perfect, or that something can't be done because it would require infinite resources. Yoshi P has been telling the base this dumb bs for so long he actually believes it.

Is FFXVI also a victim of this? It had very similar critical and commercial feedback to XIV. It seems like there's a design philosophy at work here vs simply budget problems and players complaining.

---

To quote a random JP comment on one of the other recent interviews, "Don't take away Naoki's bravado and lies or he'd have nothing left to say".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daralii

To quote a random JP comment on one of the other recent interviews, "Don't take away Naoki's bravado and lies or he'd have nothing left to say".

---

For all the rainbows, lollipops, holding hands and kumbaya singing NA believes them to be, I love how blunt and vicious the JP forums can get compared to ours. Almost makes me wish I knew Japanese.

Well, it's not working because nothing is stimulating me. 7.1 is an absolute joke of a patch.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Not to be that guy, but Yoshi P is making completely fallacious arguments when he implies something isn't worth doing because it will never be perfect, or that something can't be done because it would require infinite resources. Yoshi P has been telling the base this dumb bs for so long he actually believes it.

Is FFXVI also a victim of this? It had very similar critical and commercial feedback to XIV. It seems like there's a design philosophy at work here vs simply budget problems and players complaining.

---

What are you talking about? FFXVI received critical acclaim, nominated for numerous awards and is generally well-regarded by fans. So, not sure what you're getting at here.

I see we're still in the plugging his ears part of the cycle with yoshida, hopefully he actually gets the feedback at some point and desn't just continue with his "the beatings will continue till morale improves" sitaution where they push certain characters to the front, load up on high end content, and then shut down any criticism and pretend like everything is all according to keikaku.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

What are you talking about? FFXVI received critical acclaim, nominated for numerous awards and is generally well-regarded by fans. So, not sure what you're getting at here.

---

DT is the worst rated expansion and XVI has scored worse than several of its contemporaries (87 MC isn't awful it's just not competitive with the best) along with not meeting even the bare minimum sales goals that considered console exclusivity.

Which is going to be your next argument.."well the MC isn't 0"..."well XIV isn't offline yet". No one's arguing any extremes as such so please don't.

And again, it's only to be expected because Yoshi P himself invokes extremes to defend the team doing nothing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

DT is the worst rated expansion and XVI has scored worse than several of its contemporaries along with not meeting even the bare minimum sales goals that considered console exclusivity.

Which is going to be your next argument.."well the MC isn't 0"..."well XIV isn't offline yet". No one's arguing any extremes as such so please don't.

---

That's because Yoshi P and CS 3 have become the Michael bay of video games. All flash and no substance. Noone will argue they hand in polished effects and well put together products, but the gameplay has no depth.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ath192

That's because Yoshi P and CS 3 have become the Michael bay of video games. All flash and no substance. Noone will argue they hand in polished effects and well put together products, but the gameplay has no depth.

---

I was actually going to elaborate on this but yes, the consistent negative feedback about XVI runs very similar to XIV. Overly streamlined combat with a lack of RPG elements, hit and miss quest quality, poor pacing with high highs and low lows, etc. Obviously you can't compare them 1 to 1 because XVI is a console game...but it does feel very CS3 is some respects.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

I was actually going to elaborate on this but yes, the consistent negative feedback about XVI runs very similar to XIV. Overly streamlined combat with a lack of RPG elements, hit and miss quest quality, poor pacing with high highs and low lows, etc. Obviously you can't compare them 1 to 1 because XVI is a console game...but it does feel very CS3 is some respects.

---

XVI and XIV have almost identical quest structure, so I don't think comparing them is unfair. It shows that a lot of the design issues apparent in XIV are rooted in CS3 and not engine limitations or time constraints.

Man, if you're between casual and hardcore, then you're pretty much busted, as they keep swinging to the one extreme to another.

Infinite budget? It's not that, we just need the money we pay to be reinvested into the game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ath192

That's because Yoshi P and CS 3 have become the Michael bay of video games. All flash and no substance. Noone will argue they hand in polished effects and well put together products, but the gameplay has no depth.

---

I still can't get over that other reddit post, but after fordism and toyotism, all hail mcdonaldized gameplay, and it can't exactly accept having much RPG gameplay systems walking around like that.

I love him but its easy:

You HAVE to make hardcore and easier stuff AT THE SAME TIME. No ifs or buts, you need more, if you cant do that, you need a bigger team.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Not to be that guy, but Yoshi P is making completely fallacious arguments when he implies something isn't worth doing because it will never be perfect

---

That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying he came to the realization that there is no perfect design that will make everyone happy and any time the devs make a choice there will always be people who want the opposite, so that's just something they have to take into account when making decisions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CidHeiral

That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying he came to the realization that there is no perfect design that will make everyone happy and any time the devs make a choice there will always be people who want the opposite, so that's just something they have to take into account when making decisions.

---

I agree that he's saying that, but if you break it down a logical conclusion, all I see is excuse making at worst and redundancy at best. Yoshi P is saying it's inpossible to please everyone. But players are not asking for that, and even if they are, it's the product maker's obligation to interpret it sensibly. Everyone knows there's no magic patch cycle that will please 100% of players-- redundacy. It's extremely possible to deliver a patch that satisfies a range of player concerns and preferences-- he's just making excuses here to defend their egregious lack of accountability for delivering updates and content that reflects the all time highs Endwalker delivered.

And what I mean when I say that, is that EW delivered them immense critical and commercial success, extreme sales, but DT is well agreed upon to reflect the same (low).investment.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

he's just making excuses here to defend their egregious lack of accountability for delivering updates and content that reflects the all time highs Endwalker delivered.

---

more like an excuse for being lazy, sticking to the same formula for the past 10 years and not think about a solid gamedesign. what's more crazy is : they probably won't shake that formula for the years to come at all cost even if it mean killing the game (not saying the game will die but you got the idea)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fatch38

more like an excuse for being lazy, sticking to the same formula for the past 10 years and not think about a solid gamedesign. what's more crazy is : they probably won't shake that formula for the years to come at all cost even if it mean killing the game (not saying the game will die but you got the idea)

---

I think its both tbh. Yes, it's true that issues are ongoing regarding the patch cycles. But I think part of why there's so much criticism now as far as "is the sub worth it" is born of the financial gain SE garners from XIV, particularly hitting an all time high of subscriptions, sales and perhaps most importantly, player good will with 6.0.

And that's not to say they're doing nothing. I think it's nice they're working on more midcore content-- too bad it's at the end of the expansion life cycle. I think it's nice they are looking at job updates-- who knows when we will see those ("wait until 8.0").

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuroka

I love him but its easy:

You HAVE to make hardcore and easier stuff AT THE SAME TIME. No ifs or buts, you need more, if you cant do that, you need a bigger team.

---

Exactly this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

For all the rainbows, lollipops, holding hands and kumbaya singing NA believes them to be, I love how blunt and vicious the JP forums can get compared to ours. Almost makes me wish I knew Japanese.

---

The EN forums are plenty blunt and vicious if you ask me. I know some Japanese and occasionally lurk on the JP forums. The sunshine and rainbows impression is only because it’s way more heavily moderated over there and they’re pretty aggressive about quickly deleting/locking offending posts/threads.

But at least it shows that somebody from SE is actually reading posts on JP forums, unlike the crickets we always get over here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

I agree that he's saying that, but if you break it down a logical conclusion, all I see is excuse making at worst and redundancy at best.

---

That is because you're twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to find things to be mad about. The game isn't without issues but this armchair game dev tin foil hat nonsense is a waste of time to discuss.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CidHeiral

That is because you're twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to find things to be mad about. The game isn't without issues but this armchair game dev tin foil hat nonsense is a waste of time to discuss.

---

Yoshi P himself has commented on lack of a budget and outright said they have a lack of qualified hires that they would need to execute work. Not that you need his statements, you'd have to be completely naive to think they don't absolutely pad the hell out of their content purposely.

They do it because they know there's a baseline of subscribers who will happily accept it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

I see we're still in the plugging his ears part of the cycle with yoshida, hopefully he actually gets the feedback at some point and desn't just continue with his "the beatings will continue till morale improves" sitaution where they push certain characters to the front, load up on high end content, and then shut down any criticism and pretend like everything is all according to keikaku.

---

the feedback he'll listen to is the mass unsubs that will eventually happen

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuroka

I love him but its easy:

You HAVE to make hardcore and easier stuff AT THE SAME TIME. No ifs or buts, you need more, if you cant do that, you need a bigger team.

---

it's what's needed but will never happen, they're stuck taking away and replacing things in the place of what's taken away, but never ADDING to the content.

He talks like this is his second year on the job and not the 10th of one of the most popular MMO out there and SE's money maker.

I don't think anybody pays attention to "just get more budget and make 4x more content" feedback. Even if it probably is a reasonable expectation given the games financial success, expecting any sort of fairness from corporations is not how reality works.

The issue to me is so much side content that's released is poorly designed, there's no consideration made for keeping it playable after the subsequent patch release.

Blue mage? Dead
Bozja? Dead
Variant dungeons? Dead
Island sanctuary? Dead
Eureka orthos? Dead
Unreal trials? Dead because they literally scrap them the next patch (Unsub whenever you want but also make sure you keep repeatedly resubbing or you'll miss out).

Even the baseline content in roulettes has become boring thanks to an overpowered item sync breaking most of the remaining content (bosses are skipping phases entirely, dungeons are a face roll).

If yoshi-p can't decide on which audience he wants to keep and appeal to I will argue it should be the ones interested in the game as advertised.
I want a fantasy adventure that encourages socialisation and cooperation with other adventurers that is styled after classic final fantasy games while paying homage to those titles.
I do not want to be mindlessly solo grinding mobs, sitting in limsa for 1 hour waiting for my party finder to fill or to be afk beeskneeing with modded TOS breaking catgirls in a cyberpunk themed clubnight.

Quote:

---

Gets feedback from reddit, the forums, social media regularly

---

Maybe try adding a poll for players to take as they log in instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Larirawiel

Yepp. Using reddit for information is so ...

Cheers

---

Reddit is not such a bad source of information, as long as you put it in perspectives with the other sources and the knowledge of the subreddit bias. The fact you can now criticize DT writing or the content drought in r/ffxiv tells a lot about how much they fucked up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CNitsah

Reddit is not such a bad source of information, as long as you put it in perspectives with the other sources and the knowledge of the subreddit bias. The fact you can now criticize DT writing or the content drought in r/ffxiv tells a lot about how much they fucked up.

---

That is shocking lol. During EW I replied to a post pointing out a few of the many flaws in the writing for that expac too and had over 1k downvotes within a couple hours. It got so bad I completely abandoned r/ffxiv and last I was on r/ffxivdiscussion was starting to have the same problem.

But I still say reddit is a bad source of information. Even knowing it's an echo chamber doesn't negate the fact that it's an echo chamber, making everything you read on it suspect. And most other sources, like twitter and even gaming news sites are usually echo chambers as well. Twitter gives you brigading if you disagree and news sites want clicks so they will nearly always give shiny reviews to appease the audience, esp ones that are, or at least were, as unhinged as xiv's online army if they are not flat out paid for good reviews by the companies making the games. Metacritic and other such sites are known to remove even legit reviews so thats not a good source. The forums are literally the only place you can criticise due to there not being a downvote system and the ability to report ppl directly to SE. And even though that creates another bias, its not nearly as powerful as the others making it likely the most reliable source of information.

If they want more accurate information, SE should literally just poll their audience and get back actual individual feedback, but that requires work and money, which they are not willing to put into the actual game, much less a poll.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

That is shocking lol. During EW I replied to a post pointing out a few of the many flaws in the writing for that expac too and had over 1k downvotes within a couple hours. It got so bad I completely abandoned r/ffxiv and last I was on r/ffxivdiscussion was starting to have the same problem.

But I still say reddit is a bad source of information. Even knowing it's an echo chamber doesn't negate the fact that it's an echo chamber, making everything you read on it suspect. And most other sources, like twitter and even gaming news sites are usually echo chambers as well. Twitter gives you brigading if you disagree and news sites want clicks so they will nearly always give shiny reviews to appease the audience, esp ones that are, or at least were, as unhinged as xiv's online army if they are not flat out paid for good reviews by the companies making the games. Metacritic and other such sites are known to remove even legit reviews so thats not a good source. The forums are literally the only place you can criticise due to there not being a downvote system and the ability to report ppl directly to SE. And even though that creates another bias, its not nearly as powerful as the others making it likely the most reliable source of information.

If they want more accurate information, SE should literally just poll their audience and get back actual individual feedback, but that requires work and money, which they are not willing to put into the actual game, much less a poll.

---

Both of them banned discussion of a certain DT character, but they're more willing to let people acknowledge the flaws at least.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuroka

I love him but its easy:

You HAVE to make hardcore and easier stuff AT THE SAME TIME. No ifs or buts, you need more, if you cant do that, you need a bigger team.

---

I'm going to continue dying on this hill but... Criterion Normal should have been easier! (While still being a challenge)

Seriously. I have no idea why they pulled a 180 on that content and made two hard modes, one that is little more than a glorified achievement. Had Criterion been scaled down a little difficulty wise, not only would it add some much needed water to the barren wasteland that is this game's midcore scene but they could have built in the relic grind, thus solving to two birds with one stone: i.e., Criterion's abysmal rewards. Don't stop there though. Make said grind interesting but allowing far more customization like set bonuses. Just limit them to Criterion and use Savage to balance around that additional power spike. Heck, toss some of the Lost Actions in there and it might actually have been a success. There's so much they could have done but just... didn't.

If not for korean/chinese mmorpgs being p2w bs I would've dropped ff14 long ago. Need a cheap time sink a shame the cartoon graphics of wow isn't appealing to me.

they really need to remove all these trolls from the forums they are a cancer to any resepectable feed back from players

Kinda interesting that they seem to be walking back on the idea of a 'new starting point' for the MSQ. IF so, they should continue to make adjustments to the MSQ, and while they did make improvements, I think ARR is still a little janky.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by undull1

The issue to me is so much side content that's released is poorly designed, there's no consideration made for keeping it playable after the subsequent patch release.

Blue mage? Dead
Bozja? Dead
Variant dungeons? Dead
Island sanctuary? Dead
Eureka orthos? Dead
Unreal trials? Dead because they literally scrap them the next patch (Unsub whenever you want but also make sure you keep repeatedly resubbing or you'll miss out).

---

That's just the nature of MMOs. You see it in every game.

It's okay for content to have a shelf life. Keeping content relevant forever is bad. Even the best dungeon/raid/explorationzone/whatever gets boring eventually. You eventually have to let players move on to something new.

Did any FFXI players really like doing the same few Dynamis zones, and killing same few gods and HNMs over and over for years? Or did they just do it because even 6 years later the relic and god armor was still that good?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

I'm going to continue dying on this hill but... Criterion Normal should have been easier! (While still being a challenge)

Seriously. I have no idea why they pulled a 180 on that content and made two hard modes, one that is little more than a glorified achievement. Had Criterion been scaled down a little difficulty wise, not only would it add some much needed water to the barren wasteland that is this game's midcore scene but they could have built in the relic grind, thus solving to two birds with one stone: i.e., Criterion's abysmal rewards. Don't stop there though. Make said grind interesting but allowing far more customization like set bonuses. Just limit them to Criterion and use Savage to balance around that additional power spike. Heck, toss some of the Lost Actions in there and it might actually have been a success. There's so much they could have done but just... didn't.

---

And they didn't try to tweak it or anything, they just... Let it rot? Why?
As I keep saying here, everything in XIV is live or die, nothing is nurtured.

If it fails royally or if it just missed the mark by a hair, it's "Oh well, there's nothing we can do, bye"