52 Minutes of Yoshi-P unleashed :D Here's my interview with our fearless leader

[Risvertasashi]

• Yoshi's favorite feature right now is Frontlines (He personally is a pvp fan and likes having 3 different factions battling); he likes that each round is unpredictable and different, and that players all over the world enjoy it. He's done over 250 frontlines battles, falling behind on the MSQ even.

• No new classes (besides rogue/ninja) before 3.0. 3.0 is coming very soon, probably sooner than players anticipate.

• Many surprises for the players in 3.0, many new fields, deep story line, new classes and jobs. But he wants to save specifics for later. He's bringing in rogue/ninja before then because he felt it was missing from the starting game. ninja/rogue will bring new strategies to both PvE and PvP (stealth tactics).

• If everyone's ninja, you'll probably lose your outpost in frontlines; you'll need a balance.

• Yoshi doesn't feel open-world pvp appeals to the Final Fantasy fanbase and FFXIV playerbase. However, if there's enough feedback from the community, he would consider a single open-world PvP server. (He personally likes the idea of openworld PvP)

• If the interviewers think there's no difference between the PS3 and PS4 graphics, Yoshi thinks that means the PS3 is still very good. He will let the dev team know that some people say that.

• It's not only about graphics quality, but also loading speed, number of characters that can be displayed on the screen, and UI limitations. However, he believes that the PS4 can provide a comparable gaming experience to a PC at a much lower price. (Note: He gave an example in yen, probably referring to Japanese prices)

• He can't disclose specifics about what % of players are on the PS4, but it depends on the country. In Japan, however, consoles are about 50% of the user base; there is not much PC gaming culture in Japan. In the US, it's around 25%. A lot of console players in Europe too.

• They're ready to go ahead with an Xbox port if MS agrees to cross platform servers. He thinks MS's strategy is to focus on new titles with the holiday season coming and is still focusing on beating the PS4, and after that might consider reaching out to the larger community. But Yoshi doesn't see MS agreeing to it this year.

• (Does Yoshi think MS just doesn't want Xbox players mingling with PS3/4 players?) Yoshi thinks MS wants exclusive content to build their community. He doesn't think MS wants content where people go, "Oh you can also play this on the playstation." Yoshi doesn't think gamers particularly care, and they just want to play with their friends; from this viewpoint, cross platform servers makes sense and, Yoshi thinks, would help the industry. MS wouldn't even allow Xbox & Windows cross platform when they asked.

• They are considering bringing in a character from a previous FF (They can't reveal which) from top to bottom; players will be able to do a cosplay of that character. What he can reveal: A character that lost their life in the previous series will not be returning. He doesn't want to ruin the memories player have of the original game, when the characters' lives (and deaths) are very dramatic. Aerith's posture might make it to the game.

• Yoshi personally particularly likes Shadow from FFVI. In the end of FFVI, you don't know if Shadow lives or dies... this excludes Shadow from appearing, since he doesn't want to spoil that mysteriousness.

• Other criteria for bringing a character in: They have to be able to return to their own world and the scenario writers have to be able to come up with something that makes sense. But no matter what, Yoshi understands some players will love it and some players will hate it.

• Yoshi's noted the popularity of Lightning's hairstyle and costume in the game.

• DX11 version is in progress. Yoshi thinks it looks pretty good, but hard to tell the difference unless you specialize in graphics (He doesn't think the average player will notice). The water looks especially good, however, and players that pay special attention to graphical detail will enjoy it.

• For players that think the PS3 and PS4 version look the same, he doesn't think it will make a difference.
  The graphics are done, but there's some coding that affects the performance that needs to be optimized and they're getting help from nVidia engineers. DX11 client will be ready at the end of year at the earliest.

• Yoshi has indeed read articles and such about subscription model MMOs being on the decline, but FFXIV is doing fine as a subscription game. He doesn't think F2P is the only future of MMOs and it's about making the right choice for the right games and business models. He has no plans to shift to F2P currently.

• He does not have any plans for a longer free trial or a tiered service where the lower tier is closer to F2P. However, Yoshi is getting feedback from the community that they would like to buy previous seasonal event items, so there is the possibility they will offer that in the future.

• Yoshi has noticed a tendency for players to prefer to pay for things they have enjoyed and know they enjoy now, rather than put down money for something they might enjoy.

• If Yoshi ever were to change the business model of FFXIV, it would be to bring in more players so more people could enjoy FFXIV. He doesn't think F2P and subscription are the only options. But whatever the business model, he wants to make sure fans can enjoy the game.

• (Very long question about hunts, community division issues, etc) 2.35 will make many adjustments to The Hunt.
  The intent was for hunts to be something for a different audience of players. For example, the B rank hunt wasn't meant to target "server players", but individual players, and give them a steady flow of seals. For S ranks, the expectation was for ad-hoc party forming through /shouts. And the A rank somewhere in between.

• They don't want hunts to be something you have to party up in advance for. They want it to be more for casual players. They believe this is not just because of Sand/Oil rewards, but because all hunts rewards seals and only the amount changes.
  Yoshi doesn't want to detail the changes before the patch because he worries that it might cause more conflict in the community now or after the patch is applied.

• Yoshi isn't planning to do an exclusive claim system because he is concerned (from what happened in FFXI) it will favor players will multiple accounts and lots of time and money disproportionately.

• Technically autoscaling most UI elements is not that difficult. However, because they support the PS3, PS4, and PC, each update pushes about 50,000 UI files. Although they use macros to assist with preparing the files, it still takes them a week. This makes it difficult for them to identify which elements would have the option of autoscaling and which would not. They are working on it, please bear with them. He will definitely make it happen and understands resolutions are getting higher and higher.

[Gardes]

• * He does not have any plans for a longer free trial or a tiered service where the lower tier is closer to F2P. However, Yoshi is getting feedback from the community that they would like to buy previous seasonal event items, so there is the possibility they will offer that in the future.

...Huh? Wha..?

[Risvertasashi]

...Huh? Wha..?

Basically, the game is staying a sub game, but they might offer microtransactions for seasonal items (for events you miss, not during the event) a la fantasia.

[Wildsprite]

• DX11 version is in progress. Yoshi thinks it looks pretty good, but hard to tell the difference unless you specialize in graphics (He doesn't think the average player will notice). The water looks especially good, however, and players that pay special attention to graphical detail will enjoy it.

correct me if I'm wrong but wont people who have DX11 capable video cards notice a performance increase due to things being done in hardware on the DX11 client even if they dont notice a lot of visual improvements?

[Zirael_Foxfire]

correct me if I'm wrong but wont people who have DX11 capable video cards notice a performance increase due to things being done in hardware on the DX11 client even if they dont notice a lot of visual improvements?

DX12 is coming...
http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/03/20/directx-12/

[Zyrusticae]

correct me if I'm wrong but wont people who have DX11 capable video cards notice a performance increase due to things being done in hardware on the DX11 client even if they dont notice a lot of visual improvements?

This is correct. DX9 does some things less efficiently than the DX11 binaries, so unless they go crazy with the new shaders you should notice an increase in performance with DX11 cards.

[MageBlack]

• Yoshi's favorite feature right now is Frontlines (He personally is a pvp fan and likes having 3 different factions battling); he likes that each round is unpredictable and different, and that players all over the world enjoy it. He's done over 250 frontlines battles, falling behind on the MSQ even.

• No new classes (besides rogue/ninja) before 3.0. 3.0 is coming very soon, probably sooner than players anticipate.

• Many surprises for the players in 3.0, many new fields, deep story line, new classes and jobs. But he wants to save specifics for later. He's bringing in rogue/ninja before then because he felt it was missing from the starting game. ninja/rogue will bring new strategies to both PvE and PvP (stealth tactics).

• If everyone's ninja, you'll probably lose your outpost in frontlines; you'll need a balance.

• Yoshi doesn't feel open-world pvp appeals to the Final Fantasy fanbase and FFXIV playerbase. However, if there's enough feedback from the community, he would consider a single open-world PvP server. (He personally likes the idea of openworld PvP)

• If the interviewers think there's no difference between the PS3 and PS4 graphics, Yoshi thinks that means the PS3 is still very good. He will let the dev team know that some people say that.

• It's not only about graphics quality, but also loading speed, number of characters that can be displayed on the screen, and UI limitations. However, he believes that the PS4 can provide a comparable gaming experience to a PC at a much lower price. (Note: He gave an example in yen, probably referring to Japanese prices)

• He can't disclose specifics about what % of players are on the PS4, but it depends on the country. In Japan, however, consoles are about 50% of the user base; there is not much PC gaming culture in Japan. In the US, it's around 25%. A lot of console players in Europe too.

• They're ready to go ahead with an Xbox port if MS agrees to cross platform servers. He thinks MS's strategy is to focus on new titles with the holiday season coming and is still focusing on beating the PS4, and after that might consider reaching out to the larger community. But Yoshi doesn't see MS agreeing to it this year.

• (Does Yoshi think MS just doesn't want Xbox players mingling with PS3/4 players?) Yoshi thinks MS wants exclusive content to build their community. He doesn't think MS wants content where people go, "Oh you can also play this on the playstation." Yoshi doesn't think gamers particularly care, and they just want to play with their friends; from this viewpoint, cross platform servers makes sense and, Yoshi thinks, would help the industry. MS wouldn't even allow Xbox & Windows cross platform when they asked.

• They are considering bringing in a character from a previous FF (They can't reveal which) from top to bottom; players will be able to do a cosplay of that character. What he can reveal: A character that lost their life in the previous series will not be returning. He doesn't want to ruin the memories player have of the original game, when the characters' lives (and deaths) are very dramatic. Aerith's posture might make it to the game.

• Yoshi personally particularly likes Shadow from FFVI. In the end of FFVI, you don't know if Shadow lives or dies... this excludes Shadow from appearing, since he doesn't want to spoil that mysteriousness.

• Other criteria for bringing a character in: They have to be able to return to their own world and the scenario writers have to be able to come up with something that makes sense. But no matter what, Yoshi understands some players will love it and some players will hate it.

• Yoshi's noted the popularity of Lightning's hairstyle and costume in the game.

• DX11 version is in progress. Yoshi thinks it looks pretty good, but hard to tell the difference unless you specialize in graphics (He doesn't think the average player will notice). The water looks especially good, however, and players that pay special attention to graphical detail will enjoy it.

• For players that think the PS3 and PS4 version look the same, he doesn't think it will make a difference.
  The graphics are done, but there's some coding that affects the performance that needs to be optimized and they're getting help from nVidia engineers. DX11 client will be ready at the end of year at the earliest.

• Yoshi has indeed read articles and such about subscription model MMOs being on the decline, but FFXIV is doing fine as a subscription game. He doesn't think F2P is the only future of MMOs and it's about making the right choice for the right games and business models. He has no plans to shift to F2P currently.

• He does not have any plans for a longer free trial or a tiered service where the lower tier is closer to F2P. However, Yoshi is getting feedback from the community that they would like to buy previous seasonal event items, so there is the possibility they will offer that in the future.

• Yoshi has noticed a tendency for players to prefer to pay for things they have enjoyed and know they enjoy now, rather than put down money for something they might enjoy.

• If Yoshi ever were to change the business model of FFXIV, it would be to bring in more players so more people could enjoy FFXIV. He doesn't think F2P and subscription are the only options. But whatever the business model, he wants to make sure fans can enjoy the game.

• (Very long question about hunts, community division issues, etc) 2.35 will make many adjustments to The Hunt.
  The intent was for hunts to be something for a different audience of players. For example, the B rank hunt wasn't meant to target "server players", but individual players, and give them a steady flow of seals. For S ranks, the expectation was for ad-hoc party forming through /shouts. And the A rank somewhere in between.

• They don't want hunts to be something you have to party up in advance for. They want it to be more for casual players. They believe this is not just because of Sand/Oil rewards, but because all hunts rewards seals and only the amount changes.
  Yoshi doesn't want to detail the changes before the patch because he worries that it might cause more conflict in the community now or after the patch is applied.

• Yoshi isn't planning to do an exclusive claim system because he is concerned (from what happened in FFXI) it will favor players will multiple accounts and lots of time and money disproportionately.

• Technically autoscaling most UI elements is not that difficult. However, because they support the PS3, PS4, and PC, each update pushes about 50,000 UI files. Although they use macros to assist with preparing the files, it still takes them a week. This makes it difficult for them to identify which elements would have the option of autoscaling and which would not. They are working on it, please bear with them. He will definitely make it happen and understands resolutions are getting higher and higher.

Thank you so much for this. I hope the OP will add this to his OP and the article, With your permission of course! Thank you for your work on this and Thank You Abriael for your interview. You had an opportunity that many of us wish we could have had, you met with and talked to YP himself. You rock!

[Edli]

• He can't disclose specifics about what % of players are on the PS4, but it depends on the country. In Japan, however, consoles are about 50% of the user base; there is not much PC gaming culture in Japan. In the US, it's around 25%. A lot of console players in Europe too.

Only 25% console players on US? I always thought it would be much higher.