Famitsu Interview - YoshiP 3 Year Anniversary Interview

[Velhart]

You make Savage require full ilvl of the Normal mode from the patch before. Basically groups interested in Savage farm Normal to get the full ilvl from the tier and then attempt Savage. That was what SCoB had.

Edit: You wouldn't give higher ilvl gear for the Savage mode. Rewards would be cosmetic rewards like a mount, dyed versions of the normal gear, and titles.

On paper that sounds good, but you do need to put heavier incentives in to get people doing Savage. Sure the very hardcore will go at it, but what is influencing the midcore to try when they beat the normal mode? Better gear should be in Savage. Which is what I was actually asking before on the ilvl. That is why I think it is better to have Savage aligned with Normal. Honestly the only thing really holding raiding back from being balanced right now is the story mode. The developer's excuse was they only have the resources for two, which I still think doesn't make sense. Not sure how it is now, but they seem pretty intent on thinking Savage mode is the issue and not Story mode.

Also, always keep Savage on ilvl cap when we jump to the next tier to always keep it's challenge intact. Make the titles meaningful even a few years later.

[Kaiyoko]

On paper that sounds good, but you do need to put heavier incentives in to get people doing Savage. Sure the very hardcore will go at it, but what is influencing the midcore to try when they beat the normal mode? Better gear should be in Savage. Which is what I was actually asking before on the ilvl. That is why I think it is better to have Savage aligned with Normal. Honestly the only thing really holding raiding back from being balanced right now is the story mode. The developer's excuse was they only have the resources for two, which I still think doesn't make sense. Not sure how it is now, but they seem pretty intent on thinking Savage mode is the issue and not Story mode.

Also, always keep Savage on ilvl cap when we jump to the next tier to always keep it's challenge intact. Make the titles meaningful even a few years later.

According to the article, players in Japan feel obligated to do content if it has ilvl gear and YoshiP doesn't want that when it comes to Savage content while also increasing clear rates, it creates a tricky situation. That's why I say that cosmetic items should be the only reward. You reward people with something that can be showed off visually and rare for those that can complete the hardest challenges. Not items that puts others on a different level.

[Cherub]

I actually like the direction BLM went, I just wish we'd have more badass spells and more elemental variety mid rotation. I really REALLY don't want BLM to become braindead again. Enochian is a pain but it becomes second nature once you get used to.
...
I have a bad feeling for 4.0

[Sandpark]

Q. You've sustained the 3 month patch cycle for 3 years, but what was successful and what sort of probems did you find?
Y. The successful parts include all the staff learning to manage the work tasks and measures and planning the contents out by making sure we set an item hierarchy first, then observe the reactions from players to make small adjustments and capturing this work flow allowed us to provide players with a consistent chunk of content. It's not where leaders like me are the only ones doing the hard work, instead the dev team as a whole have their own pace and are able to submit their own ideas now. On the other hand we feel we need to have "changes" in the game. Especially those hardcore players tend to only focus on content after reaching level 60, but if you only have that top tier content, the game's state will move from the stable state and head towards the closure of the game. MMORPGs always have a closure, but i personally think it's the producer and director's job to push back this period. I'm not considering discerning that closure to be 2 to 3 years ahead and i'd like to continue adding content such as something you can only play in FFXIV and expand the horizontal entrance for new coming players.

I agree with Yoshi. If content is only upwards from level 60 without incentives/variations for progress across the entire game, the path to endgame is more goal focused or straight forward.

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.

I see even story MSQ some people don't take it easy, they'll eject or kick or scold a player. Are they right or wrong? Yes and no. The majority of players are casual to midcore, which implies that they won't research every nuance in gameplay or spend tens to hundreds of hours watching youtube guides. And even if they did, no matter how much you learn or hone your skill, most players have a reflex or memory limit. If it were solo circumstances you can get frustrated with no one but yourself.

But in a party setting, the problem is focused and becomes more increasingly frustrating as the groups get larger. So having encounters that require strict rotations and multitudes of dodge mechanics would make that gap between the researchers/swiftreflexes and light researchers/average reflexes widened.

If Yoshi wants raiding or group whatever to become more prominent then the margin for error has to be increased, as in less punishing to the group otherwise pugs cannot consistently progress, and if pugs can't progress, that is not casual or midcore content.

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)

I am totally on board with this. A UI is designed to give you ways to interact with the game, not so much designed to limit your interaction with the game. The feeling is that you are managing your car diagnostics more than watching the road and how others on the road interact with you.

An alternative would be make the rotations even more complex and reduce the enemy mechanics or increase the enemy mechanics and slightly simplify the rotations. I'd be fine either way but a combination of both mechanics and rotations being complex is not conducive to the skill level of the majority. I'd prefer both to be simplified slightly with a larger focus on group synergy in combining mechanics and mitigating enemy/environment damages.

Q. Now there are more moves where anyone can be targeted.
Y. People end up getting obsessed with their personal DPS but we look at the "power(DPS) of the whole party" when we balance content and when you look at above average (he didn't say this lol) groups that clear content or good at pvp, you'll notice they are strong as one brick. Rather than caring about who made mistakes or personal DPS, strong groups prevent dying and try to cover mistakes as a whole group. However, it's true each job has advantages and weaknesses depending on the content. For example, Nidhogg EX's battle begins with a situation where BLMs can't use up all their buffs before he flies away and i strongly understand that, but it's more important to win as a group. Even mechanics that capture players can be positively interpreted as "While i hold this guy down, i can count on my friends to keep attacking" and it's more fun thinking that way and that allows you to get closer to a clear.

An elegant and true comment about party synergy. /applause

Q. Now that you tell me, yeah"
Y. The same goes to melee DPSs. There is certainly a gap between players who keep their auto attacks hitting and those who don't, but we would like to put our hands on auto attacks in general. Please wait until we can tell you more about this.

I wonder what he meant by this?

[PArcher]

They need to keep both but they would be one button. The icon should change based on the positional.

The biggest problems with them for me is they have the exact same effect, just a different positional, and it's a random proc. Make them have different effects and have one proc off chaos thrust and the other off fill thrust and they can be two different skills.

But your idea is good if they stay the same.

[zosia]

Yeah, except no classes are fun in this game, because they are all the same.



Oh! My! God! How can one be such an idiot&! It has been month since every second post on this forum screams, that the gap is too small! That everything is too easy! Every single suggestion starts with "add different stats, horizontal progression ffs, where is exclusivity"!

Arghhh!!!

Because this dev team does not know how to service this game. They have missed the mark across the board in heavensward because SE can't gauge player interest, at all. Their next expansion might as well be set inside a machi coffin six feet under.

[MPNZ]

That's the problem. Some of the 50 level classes weren't fun. BLM, MNK plain boring.

All of the jobs have become skill-bloated and heavy, high-concentration rotation and buff management based at levels that are really opposed to dealing with the mechanics and dodging. I am so sick of just burning through bosses and dungeons, and the way that I'm forced to play is totally burning me out and counter to anything support related. I don't even have time to use wp without losing alot of dps and stopping my rotation, so it has a total negative impact on performance. It was all rotation, all the time after EA. And, I feel completely burnt out after 1.5 dungeons now. Seriously, how is this anywhere close to being fun. I totally don't get it.

[Critical-Limit]

The biggest problems with them for me is they have the exact same effect, just a different positional, and it's a random proc. Make them have different effects and have one proc off chaos thrust and the other off fill thrust and they can be two different skills.

But your idea is good if they stay the same.

I'm the opposite, I like something that's random reactable. I just about fall asleep at the computer as is when doing EZ mode duties. Having something for me to look out for and stay keen keeps me awake. Kind of like blood letter procs.

[Jynx]

I feel there needs to be more situational use of abilities and less rotation management.

If they do it smart they can still reward skilled play just the type of skill will move from rotations to smart use if synergies and ability use.

I can do a rotation just fine I just don't find it fun. I'd rather be looking to exploit the enemies than to follow my scripted rotation.

[Stanelis]

People need to understand that by pruning the rotation on the micro management level (which has to be done nonetheless, there is no point having 7 buttons to push merely to dish out DPS), they ll be able to add utility skills and add depth to the encounter and the battle system.

If you fully read the interview Yoshida says that people would think it d make the game easier, but in truth it isn't the case : the difficulty will not be the same one as what we have now (the one only a handful of players enjoy).