Famitsu Interview - YoshiP 3 Year Anniversary Interview

[Kaiyoko]

This interview was posted on reddit and was fan translated:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._needs_to_ask/

Note: I did not translate this, this was translated by totoro572 on reddit

The overall tone of the article is the game has too large of a skill gap between the top and the bottom. He believes low clear rates in Alexander Savage is related to how complicated classes are to play and buff management.

Here are a few notable quotes from the interview:

Q. Now let's get into the "We need to ask Yoshida this" questions. The hall of the novice was introduced and tutorial for each of the jobs are there, but there is nothing that helps new players grasp rotations that are useful in combat, so sometimes i see people who use wierd rotations. Can't you provide a system that covers these players who want to polish their skills mate?
Y. Basically it's a game so there is no right answer, so i have a root feeling where i think players should be able to play as they like, so i think being able to do the basic rotation or not isn't a factor people should be blamed for. Also, getting grumpy over that everytime you encounter them is meaningless and in my case, i have a mentality where i try to work hard to cover what that person lacks and clear the content as fast as possible. If that person is using the same job as me, there are times where i give them advice. In japan it might be a little hard to use your words, but since it's a game you play with others, i'd like it to be the take it easy type of atmosphere. However, we understand the rotations to pull out the full potential of the jobs have become substantially higher and the gap in skills between players has rapidly expanded and we think that is a problem. With that said, the difficulty of each job will be hugely changed when the next expansion releases. A lot of the 3.x rotations require instant judgements during combat and i felt that was space for improvement, but we regret the gap became too large.

Q.After the level 60 actions were added, some jobs change quite a bit where it seems like a different job, but is that how much the jobs are going to change when 4.0 hits?
A.We are considering going back to the basics. Jobs from FFXIV at the moment require you to look at all your buffs and manage them and i feel we went too far. As a hardcore gamer stand point, "It's definately more fun when there's more you can do" and the team in charge of the battle system all have this idea in common and we think we accomplished that. But we made the Ceiling high and overdid it, so 4.0 will have less factors to manage and we want to straightly push out the characteristics of each job. The top tier players may think "this has become to easy boss..." , but we would like to closen the gap between hardcore players and casual players a little more. This is just an image so please take this as "Hmm, so it's becoming easier?" (laughs)

Q. So the current level 60 actions themselves are going to get changed and it might not feel the same?
Y. There may be some jobs that see changes at the current level but we'll go into detail as we release the new info on the expansion.

Q. Tbh Alexander savage is too difficult. Tell us about the future raid content.
Y. Firstly, the DPS checks for Gordias were too high so we shifted the difficulty of Midas by "making the players dance" and we overdid that too. Regarding Midas, Let's just say the level cap was still 50 and you could use the level 50 rotations. I think the clear rates would have been way way higher. After checking the data and logs, we noticed "Understanding the mechanics,judging,dodging and maintaining the level 60 rotations on top of that" is what created the enormous gap between players. There are a lot of buffs you need to manage and maintain and not only that, but the phase transitions or enemy mechanics disturb that rotation. This led to requiring players to flexibly judging in certain situations. Back in binding coil of Bahamut, there were some harsh mechanics, but the difference in rotations directly slashed the gap in difficulty. It's too late to change the rotations during the 3.x series so we'll lower the difficulty of the final tier of Alexander instead.

Q. So stats are also going through big changes in 4.0?
Y. Yes. To make sure it doesn't get over complicated and to keep the gap between top players as small as possible are the 2 concepts we are being careful about. I can say the changes won't be as extreme as level 50 to 60 where it felt like a different job.

My thoughts:

Let me be clear that I come from the perspective that I've cleared every raid tier since the release of 2.0 1~2 months after it's release date ( except T5 because of the Twisters bug ).

I realize clear rates are extremely low and something needs to eased up on the raiding environment for more players to complete the Savage raids. Common complaints are DPS checks are too high and there are too many mechanics. I agree that for a lot of players this is probably the truth. I personally have no issues with the DPS check, but I could see how players are left out that have bad latency or are not preforming optimally on their job have had trouble trying the content on fights. There is also the mechanic vomit or extremely difficult mechanics in some fights that even the most dedicated players have issues with. Examples are A4S Nisi debuff + Nisi balls, A8S intermission 2, and A8S final phase. Most groups used the Nisi sac strat because the mechanic was ridicules even for hardcore raiders because of the outgoing damage ontop other mechanics going on. Even the general strat for the final phase of A8S utilize a sac strat to completely ignore the most complex mechanic vomit in the fight. There is obviously a problem if most of the players clearing try to find ways to completely avoid mechanics that have been designed for a fight. So if the Dev team is looking to increase clear rates they should definitely re-examine and lower the mechanics and DPS checks for Alex.

I, however, do not agree with the job adjustments that have been outlined. Currently, how jobs are set up they have a basic rotation from the 2.0 series that is straight forward and then in 3.0 they layered on complexity with buff management for most of the jobs. The buff management should be looked at as the class being played at a more advanced level. Players should be rewarded for playing the job optimally and mastering their rotation with the buff management on top of their rotation. It feels good as a player when you're able to weave every ability together correctly. Based on this interview, it seems YoshiP wants to remove / reduce that from the game completely. I don't understand why it is a problem for players to be good at this game. Players should be able to stand out in their job for preforming it well and be able to present that to others to help them learn. Yes there will be players out there who use it to brag, but there are plenty on these forums, Reddit, other places in the community who actually spread information for others to learn and get better. If this issue is because of DPS checks alone then reduce the bar on DPS checks not the bar on how well a player can play their job.

Finally, they should consider reverting to the Second Coil of Bahamut format with the current Normal mode being turned into a Story Mode. The initial patch would have Story + Normal with normal being a similar difficulty to the Coils or maybe even a little easier if the Coil contents clear rates were too low for SE. The midway patch should contain Savage so you can still have this highly tuned content for players that want it with rewards of the same-ilvl dyed gear, a mount, and titles. Right now the midway patch has nothing for hardcore raiders. With the SCoB format where we received Savage in the midway patch between tiers we were given another group of fights to do as a challenge till we were given the next tier. This would tide over most players long as it is incentivised.

That being said, what is everyone's thoughts on this interview?

[loreleidiangelo]

So basically, instead of doing something about the BS synchronized swimming one-shot mechanics, they're going to prune rotations so that faceroll content gets even MORE faceroll for those who don't raid. Awesome.

Actually happy to hear that they're considering altering or doing away with "stack management" like BotD, GL, Aethertrail Attune etc though.

[Keramory]

Cool. People complain already the games too easy. So what they doing? Taking the one thing that isn't foolishly easy and making it foolishly easy.

Oh! While making our jobs even more bland and like one another then they are now.

Nice.

[Fevelle]

"Also, getting grumpy over that everytime you encounter them is meaningless and in my case, i have a mentality where i try to work hard to cover what that person lacks and clear the content as fast as possible."

I like how Yoshida has the EXACT SAME vision as me when it comes to adressing people not playing their best rotation. Make up for it and clear that content baby! That's what I do too!

[AutumnsHollow]

How disappointing.

[Kallera]

I think I get the job changes, or what he is trying to address with the job changes.

Because the "playing on an advanced level" is very high and based on "snap judgements" amidst rotations, the content is being tuned to meet the numbers the advanced play produces, which results in unreachable, overtuned content for the average player. As they continue to base raiding on the most advanced play's numbers, which the typical player does not do, the raiding scene suffers from being inaccessible as the typical player loses interest out of the sheer difficulty of the managing job mechanics, dps and all under an unforgiving array of instant kill moves and debuffs that might as well be instant kills as they screw the party's chances before they even know it.

In other words, they were out to get Lucrezia again, and they need to stop if they want more players to attempt their raid tier content, much less appreiciate its continued attention.

[StrejdaTom]

You cannot simply expect whole playerbase of MMORPG game to be on the same level.
You will always have people who try-hard, research, learn, experiment, improvise, people who ask, people who settle for average and people who simple don't care and bash 1 skill.
Forcing all of them to the level of the weakest point isn't the brightest idea of the year.

For 4.0 I think I can say that most of the people knew we couldn't just get 5 more skills, that wouldn't work. People had different expectations. I for example expected deeper improvement of the jobs while keeping the same amount of skills. How?
Traits, adding more stuff to the existing skills, maybe adding skilltrees, maybe rehauling stats, maybe adding a bit of horizontal progression.

What I didn't expect?
Dumbing jobs to their boring level 50 rotations, making (now almost non-existing) stat choice even less possible and probably getting rid of accuracy.

This interview made me extremely pessimistic. Of course I will wait for more informations before making some important steps, I am atleast going to clear A12s before deciding to cut it, but I really hope for some more clear explanations of what to expect in 4.0 job-wise, because that will be a huge deciding factor for me if I should stay for another year or go.

[Istaru]

My thoughts?

They intend to focus on what they think their core audience is. The very casual player. I am not attacking or mocking or talking down casual play styles. Only stating that instead of rewarding the time and effort to "git gud", they are changing the rules so everyone can be good regardless of any amount of effort or dedication.

How does that make me feel? I'm not sure at this moment. I think disheartened may be appropriate. I know in my heart that until a new Final Fantasy MMO is released, Eorzea is my home. I don't care about any other MMOs and quite frankly, I don't want to.

I like the glamours, the mounts, the story, many things actually. I think if anything, I am getting tired of the same exact routine all the time from the progression part of the game. The only difference is that the numbers get bigger, there is nothing interesting or requires any thoughts whatsoever. Higher ilvl? Yes, please!

Just wish my home wasn't so plain and boring.

[loreleidiangelo]

Cool. People complain already the games too easy. So what they doing? Taking the one thing that isn't foolishly easy and making it foolishly easy.

Oh! While making our jobs even more bland and like one another then they are now.

Nice.

To be fair, hotbar bloat is definitely a thing in this game, and SOME rotation/button pruning was absolutely needed. In every other MMO I play (WoW, SWTOR, TERA, Wildstar, Blade and Soul, a few others), I can fully keybind all my abilities using the left-side keyboard buttons and shift+ those buttons, and 1-4 of the mouse buttons on my Logitech gaming mouse. In FFXIV, all of my keyboard buttons are filled, I use NINE of the buttons on my 12-button mouse, AND I still have to click things from time to time. That's just absurd.

[Kaiyoko]

I think I get the job changes, or what he is trying to address with the job changes.

Because the "playing on an advanced level" is very high and based on "snap judgements" amidst rotations, the content is being tuned to meet the numbers the advanced play produces, which results in unreachable, overtuned content for the average player. As they continue to base raiding on the most advanced play's numbers, which the typical player does not do, the raiding scene suffers from being inaccessible as the typical player loses interest out of the sheer difficulty of the managing mechanics, dps and all under an unforgiving array of instant kill moves and debuffs that might as well be instant kills as they screw the party's chances before they even know it.

In other words, they were out to get Lucrezia again, and they need to stop if they want more players to attempt their raid tier content, much less appreiciate its continued attention.

They just need to tune it for the player base that they're trying to target when looking at DPS checks. They can still reward players for being able to play at advanced levels and allow more complex rotations that deal more damage. If their target is a wider audience for the content that they are producing then lower the bar on the fights themselves and not the players capabilities.