4Gamer Interview with Yoshi-P!

[Kaurie]

Honestly the armory system can do just that with some limitations, it's just s matter of making those jobs different (brd and mch being the offender here). They could stand to do a bit more synergy between different jobs to encourage different compositions, rather than make drg and warrior optimal for any and all set ups.

I feel the Armoury system could work beautifully to provide the customization aspect we'd like. That said, I think that two things need to accompany that:
1. Less restrictions on gearing multiple jobs
2. More flavour in secondary stats, more horizontal gear choices and more reason to choose something other than your base stat with your 35 attribute points (I don't even see why give us this choice in the current design)

[Zojha]

Personally, I still wish they'd expand on that idea and give us more dual-job classes like Arcanist.

And I just wonder why, because the only thing you "gain" compared to having it as separate classes is the fact that if you someday want to switch, you need to level one less class. That aside, it's only hinders your freedom of playing all classes even more because you need to buy hymns in addition to gathering the gear.

[Velhart]

snip

As salty as I am with SE right now, he makes a point. I much rather have new jobs to play then making roles within a job. The point of the Job system in the first place is to make you excel in a certain aspect. If we were to go to a skill tree like system, it would basically be using the Class system again which we already have in the game. It did not work out as planned as you can see.

People do go to what is the best, and in doing so they do have to balance the content around what is technically the best. I can imagine that being incredibly hard to balance, especially if you have 20+ jobs in the future that this game will inevitably have. SE already does a nice job in offering different type of jobs in the same role. Try a different feeling job while in the same role. Are they well balanced? That is another topic.

Again, you put too much faith in the community. People who are relevant to end game are going to pick what is best, always. I wouldn't attempt to sugar coat it, that is the reality of people. They will find what is the best and go with it.

Not to mention, this is a game where you can switch jobs on the spot. In other MMO's, you are usually stuck on one class, but in turn gives you options to make them unique, which is still flawed since if you are taking end game seriously, people will expect you to go on the tree that has you performing at your best. I have done end game in FFXI, WoW, and this game. People expect you to go a certain route if you are taking end game seriously. That is just the reality of it.

tl;dr - Too much work on the developers end for little payback and more troubles.

[Kaurie]

As salty as I am with SE right now, he makes a point. I much rather have new jobs to play then making roles within a job. The point of the Job system in the first place is to make you excel in a certain aspect. If we were to go to a skill tree like system, it would basically be using the Class system again which we already have in the game. It did not work out as planned as you can see.


People do go to what is the best, and in doing so they do have to balance the content around what is technically the best. I can imagine that being incredibly hard to balance, especially if you have 20+ jobs in the future that this game will inevitably have. SE already does a nice job in offering different type of jobs in the same role. Try a different feeling job while in the same role. Are they well balanced? That is another topic.

Again, you put too much faith in the community. People who are relevant to end game are going to pick what is best, always. I wouldn't attempt to sugar coat it, that is the reality of people. They will find what is the best and go with it.

Not to mention, this is a game where you can switch jobs on the spot. In other MMO's, you are usually stuck on one class, but in turn gives you options to make them unique, which is still flawed since if you are taking end game seriously, people will expect you to go on the tree that has you performing at your best. I have done end game in FFXI, WoW, and this game. People expect you to go a certain route if you are taking end game seriously. That is just the reality of it.

tl;dr - Too much work on the developers end for little payback and more troubles.

To counter your points.

1. Not everyone takes part in end-game. Didn't they say like 1/3 players have beat Alex normal last they released numbers, that's nevermind Savage content. So that everyone will want the best is a bit of a stretch.
2. Some people, such as myself, find it fun to experiment with builds and come up with something that works best for us. I did this with Guild Wars 1 and 2, and never had any issues keeping up with content. I also do this with my rotations, I refuse to go on and read guides on how to play my job. I spent the first week or so of 3.0 playing with SMN and making my own rotation, and I do fairly well with it.
3. I think that job specs don't have to have a best/worst, and can be balanced the way the jobs are currently balanced. One aspect may provide more raw DPS, while another provides more Raid DPS etc. Perhaps not 1 job spec will always be better, but it will vary depending on your group composition.
4. I take part int he end-game community, and almost everyone says to play what you want. On the very cusp of progression, things are bit crazier, but that changes after a couple of weeks.
5. The switching jobs on the spot has actually turned out to be the most limiting aspect of this game. Not only can I not swap specs to adjust my gameplay as I please, but I can't gear more than one job. If I am a SMN in raiding content, that is all I will be. I could level an alt, but the story gating is huge. It's a lot easier to have alt classes in other games that can all take part in the various content and be appropriately geared up.

Here is a potential method for Specs on my main job Summoner:

Disease Master -> This summoner is most like the current one. Egi is not very powerful, most of the damage comes from DoTs and Fester/Bane.

Pet Master -> DoTs are either not part of this, or are significantly weakened. Job skills such as fester are not present. The Pet Master's job skills are all focused on Pet Management and skills. The Pet Master theoretically can out DPS the Disease master in a dummy parse, but is significantly weakened if their pet dies or the pet needs to move (like Ifrit's slow walking across the arena). In a sense, the Pet Master is like a BLM where movement can significantly drop their DPS, but the uninterrupted single target potential is high.

Flare Master -> This summoner focuses on AoE with skills such as Painflare, Deathflare and Shadowflare. Egi is not very powerful and DoTs are either not present or reduced in capacity.

Naturally, each of the jobs would need a few new skills in their belt, the above ideas are only supposed to provide an image of the focus of the job. Then, depending on what you like about SMN, you could focus on any one of them.

In this case, Pet Master would be the best on A1S, Flare Master on A2S etc. No one spec is always the best, but they are better in different situations. Disease Master would likely be the best in a dungeon run.

[Beskar]

Shame really but to be expected. I still do feel as though we need something else to work towards though, whether this be Alternate Advancement or something. Adding new traits should have been in the expansion as well in my opinion. They cant really keep on adding new and more skills unless they do something about the bloat. The only work around they could do is automatically put the combos onto the same button (like how Tera does it) to free up space.

[Xatsh]

I disagree greatly with Yoshida's views and such, but honestly this is what I expected. He worries way too much about balance. It is why perfect balance is as bad as no balance.

The game is shallow and it will probably remain that way, it is apparent from 2.0 to 3.1 this is not going to change at all.

This interview will probably make a good number of people I know quit the game, they were only here holding on hopes SE would fix the issues. Now it is confirmed he has no plans on doing it anymore.

[myahele]

I can't help but feel that they're slowly becoming more and more disconnected with the player base with their line of thing now.

True, they say they look into the forums and try to implement some of what we've asked ... but is that enough? I am thankful that they do listen to the players in that way, but still, they could do more. Especially since they seem to listen and take data more from the Japanese forum than western part.

They could do things such as surveys and polls.

Take for example LoV; nobody really asked, nor wanted that. While it's true that some wanted a minigame for minions, they could have executed it better. Instead of asking us what kind of future minigame for Gold Saucer we want they just seem to add whatever. Not sure how LoV is doing gin Japanese servers, but it's a big failure in the West

[BubblyBoar]

I'm glad he nipped this skill tree nonsense in the bud. While there are great things you can do with skill trees, there are also great things you can do without them. What's really important here is that the game is facilitated to work with whichever system is put in place. FFXIV works with an armory system without skill trees and it does well like that. I like, many others like it. If they didn't, there'd be far more complaining or abandoning over it.

The points he bring sup are good points. Yes, some people will like it. Some people enjoy it. But that doesn't change the fact that most people will do exactly what he mentioned. People are free to disagree sense there is no real wrong or right way to do it. If he wanted them, he could make them work as much as a developer could. But he doesn't want to. He does not want skill trees and would rather have more jobs to fill alternate roles. It is what he wants and that's that.

What about what players want? Since the 80s, gamers have proven time and time and time again that they don't know what they want. You may think "We'll I'm different, I actually do know what I want!" But that's exactly what every gamer thinks and the majority aren't correct. It has been proven. So rather than listening to a thousand differing opinions, Yoshi sticks to what he wants to do with the game (the armory system and being all jobs) while creating implementing what is reasonable for the playerbase.


Personally, I'm all for more jobs rather than specializations.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I'm glad he nipped this skill tree nonsense in the bud. While there are great things you can do with skill trees, there are also great things you can do without them. What's really important here is that the game is facilitated to work with whichever system is put in place. FFXIV works with an armory system without skill trees and it does well like that. I like, many others like it. If they didn't, there'd be far more complaining or abandoning over it.

The points he bring sup are good points. Yes, some people will like it. Some people enjoy it. But that doesn't change the fact that most people will do exactly what he mentioned. People are free to disagree sense there is no real wrong or right way to do it. If he wanted them, he could make them work as much as a developer could. But he doesn't want to. He does not want skill trees and would rather have more jobs to fill alternate roles. It is what he wants and that's that.

What about what players want? Since the 80s, gamers have proven time and time and time again that they don't know what they want. You may think "We'll I'm different, I actually do know what I want!" But that's exactly what every gamer thinks and the majority aren't correct. It has been proven. So rather than listening to a thousand differing opinions, Yoshi sticks to what he wants to do with the game (the armory system and being all jobs) while creating implementing what is reasonable for the playerbase.


Personally, I'm all for more jobs rather than specializations.

Well, EQ2 has almost 26 combat "jobs" AND specializations AND traits, AND God selections AND good and evil classes (Warrior of Light/Dark). Although you could argue there is no variety, there actually is and it proved it. So it just seems lazy to me. :P There are thousands of combinations of traits/talents in EQ2.

Why am I not playing EQ2? It is OLD, and my computer can barely run it now because it was made for 1 CORE, when I have several. Its models are so ugly now too.

However, old games can teach you a lot about new games.

[Kosmos992k]

Take for example LoV; nobody really asked, nor wanted that. While it's true that some wanted a minigame for minions, they could have executed it better. Instead of asking us what kind of future minigame for Gold Saucer we want they just seem to add whatever. Not sure how LoV is doing gin Japanese servers, but it's a big failure in the West

Actually people were pretty positive when it was announced, and I remember several topics in which people asked for a minion based battle/strategy game - which is exactly what we got. I think that the control scheme for controller users is a bit jarring at first and that turned off a lot of people. I haven't payed it enough yet, but I have at least got past that initial shock over the control scheme. It looks like a pretty good, fun, top down strategy game that blends RTS concepts with Tower defense and throws mini Morbols at it. I actually think that if people actually gave the game a little practice and time, they would come to like it.

You seem to on the one hand accept that they listen to players and fans, and yet you say they are increasingly disconnected from the fans and want even more listening to fans. OK, but think about this;

Hunts - explicitly requested by players asking for open world bosses and Notorious Monster type content - Reception by players - mass zerg hunting to farm the living shit out of it, followed by near constant whining on the forums about the zerg rush, the impact of so many players in one place on the game client, the speed with which people could gear up using Hunts, etc...
Two difficulty tiers in raids - explicitly requested by fans on this and many other forums, as well as in game I am sure. Reception of that by players - near pure hatred and negative feedback with an emphasis on Negative.
Open world content that we can farm for gear and other items - again requested by players numerous times in many different ways. Reception of Diadem by players - Exploit the living shit out of it then complain because a few non raiders suddenly had some ilvl 210 pieces (albeit with crappy stat allocation).

There are so many examples where listening to fan feedback has produced new content, but thanks to some people exploiting it, or not using it as expected, the content is received negatively, and people do *not* hold back on their negativity. It's an all or nothing thing, there's very little listing out the good bits and suggesting changes or additions to change or fix the bad bits. No, instead it's a vehement tirade of entirely negative ravings with a few more level headed people proposing changes - and even then the changes often benefit one group of players at the expense of the majority.

I'm actually of the opinion that the team should be working towards it's vision of the game and game content. Sure they can listen to feedback and change a few things based on feedback, but I don't believe that it's good for the game for them to develop new content in reaction to player complaints. There is no way for them to please everyone, if you pick one audience over another, you please one and annoy the other. So they should just build the best damn game that they can according to the vision they hold for the game.