Famitsu Interview - YoshiP 3 Year Anniversary Interview

[Velhart]

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.

The thing is, this is not a game for Japanese only. I am not saying that ilvl gear is the only way to go, but they do need to add something that gets people world wide jumping into Savage right when they beat Normal. ilvl gear is the most effective means. I don't see the problem either. People who did Normal on WoW didn't complain they didn't get gear from Heroic mode when a new patch came. I would like to hear how Japanese feel about that in depth because it is kind of silly.

That's my impression as well. We always have people here complaining about people being lazy or doing a poor job with their rotations, so maybe Yoshida decided to make jobs simpler in response.

I doubt they are going to take the rotation down to 50 level standard. You can't make but so much dramatic change from 60 to 70(assuming that is the new level cap). I would imagine they are going to make it so you don't feel like you are micro managing your character. Like make a buff a minute instead of 30 seconds, or a debuff 45 seconds instead of 30. Things like Wanderer's Minuet, Enochian, and other complex level abilities are not just going to go away. I can imagine they will make them easier to work with through traits that increase their ease of use. Not saying you do, but it is silly if anyone actually thinks they are just dumbing down the combat. It is just going to be more convenient ways of going about things. In turn the developers as Yoshi-P said, can take the enemies back to a more difficult level. The ease of the next Alexander tier compared to the first two is only a temporary measure for the state of lv.60 combat.

[Renius]

I understood him saying that he would like more "casual" or time limited players to be able to enjoy hardcore content for the game play and not get so frustrated trying to stay alive that they never go back to end game due to its massive damage and constant buff management required at the moment. I personnally would do more end game participation if I did not have to pray and hope that I get a decent enouff party a couple of times so that I can have time to understand the mechanics in my limited play time.

[Zojha]

That's my impression as well. We always have people here complaining about people being lazy or doing a poor job with their rotations, so maybe Yoshida decided to make jobs simpler in response.

And I have the eerie gut feeling that this will go the way of increased base values while keeping the max values intact. So a True strike from the rear would still be 180 potency while one from everywhere else would be 165 or something. Damage while using Enochian remains the same, damage outside of Enochian gets buffed etc.

I'm curious how it'll end up working out. Best case we get a Fuma/Raiton situation with rotations where sometimes one is better to use than the other, worst case it'll end up being a little less engaging. Either way, as Ninja, I feel rather safe that my gameplay won't change too much.

[Zumi]

I think it is good simplifying the rotations there were way too many buttons especially if you play with a controller, level 50 had the right amount of buttons.

[Nekodar]

The only problem here is that by making savage midcore the game will have no hardcore content.
I consider it quite a problem because the only thing that kept me subscribed since 2.1 were raids.

But you didn't have anything in 2.x that was hardcore, when compared to Gordias and Midas.

People loved coil and coil difficulty. And they hate Gordias and Midas difficulty. How can it possibly be a bad thing if next Alex is going down to coil difficulty again?

[Velhart]

But you didn't have anything in 2.x that was hardcore, when compared to Gordias and Midas.

People loved coil and coil difficulty. And they hate Gordias and Midas difficulty. How can it possibly be a bad thing if next Alex is going down to coil difficulty again?

Second Coil of Bahamut(Savage)

I would argue also that 2.0 did a better job working you into raids. 3.0 is you take on a ridiculously easy story mode, then take on a brutally challenging raid. No in between besides maybe one EX primal. 2.0 and 3.0's style is different. Its not so much about the difficulty, it is about how well you are worked into that difficulty. 2.0 made you take on Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan before going into Coil on their hard mode. First Coil worked you into Second Coil naturally and so on.

[Thayos]

Building on what Velhart said...

I agree. 2.x had a much smoother transition from storyline to raid content. And because the raid turns grew more complex with each turn, the eventual echo buff also made much more of an impact for those who needed the boost.

I wonder if the development team started off 3.x from such a relatively high position of difficulty thinking that "our players already ramped up through 2.x, so we don't need to build the level of difficulty again." I actually think we'd be better off if each patch was essentially a hard reset of the difficulty level, rather than coming at it as a continuation from the previous expansion. That would help more people advance through the raids and extreme primals with a more realistic learning curve.

Not everyone likes raiding, and many people won't raid simply for that reason. But might as well make raids as appealing as possible.

[Welsper59]

2.0 made you take on Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan before going into Coil on their hard mode.

Mmm I really wouldn't go that far to make it sound like the Primals were that huge of value. I mean it did make you have to do them, and they were good experiences for entry level play, but you really didn't need to master those fights to clear them... nor did you have to really farm them. People were going in with simple Philosophy gear and the easy to obtain Relic weapon (with some Myth gear as time went on) to clear turn 1. Likewise with turns 2-4. 5 was the only significant jump in difficulty and gear req between the turns.

I equate the stepping stones of the Primals to Void Ark and Nidhogg norm these days. Chances are that if you're seeing someone want to try Savage or even in the normal Alex raids, they've done at least one of those other HW raids. Not a whole lot has changed, given the fact that those intro mechanics are scattered all around now. It's not like we're not exposed to things, unlike during 2.0.

To be honest, I think the problem lies in how powerful our characters are now, rather than the mechanics themselves. This is a similar problem to what WoW experienced years ago (and still sorta does) with stat bloat and huge output potential. Actual resource management is practically non-existent and hasn't been for a very long time here.

[Thayos]

Mmm I really wouldn't go that far to make it sound like the Primals were that huge of value.

Keep in mind, though, that Titan HM was such a frustrating roadblock that it caused many players to quit the game. I'd say Titan HM was definitely more difficult than coil turns 1 and 2. I don't really remember T4 well enough to make that same claim.

[Welsper59]

Keep in mind, though, that Titan HM was such a frustrating roadblock that it caused many players to quit the game. I'd say Titan HM was definitely more difficult than coil turns 1 and 2. I don't really remember T4 well enough to make that same claim.

Titan was certainly the wall at the time. One typical reason however was lag or improper recognition. Initially, that really was a big problem for all versions of Titan.



Once we got used to it better though, and more people started using VPNs, it became less of a problem. That wasn't so much about learning a new mechanic as it was memorizing something you already knew but giving it an unnecessarily higher degree of priority.