Famitsu Interview - YoshiP 3 Year Anniversary Interview

[Velhart]

snip

You are not looking at the cause and effect here. Not many are opposed to the idea of story mode itself. What is taken away in expense of it is what I have issue with. Fair enough to say we have not really had more than one raid type till 3.0. It is missed potential to keep content in a balance. It is more of the principle of the matter as opposed to numbers. To top it off, the only excuse I hear in defense is people need their story. I would find a more compelling argument from someone who says they like the difficulty catered towards their level of play.

I will fixate on story mode. Dev's said they could only pick two of the three versions. Don't be under the impression I hate story mode itself. I don't like it was chosen over what could of been. You can disagree with me, but I am very sure my suggestion would fix the midcore/hardcore scene which the game already is in a bad position with currently. If they came out and said "We got 3 modes now!", I wouldn't be here complaining about story mode.

What I say doesn't matter anyways, its argument for the sake of argument. They are intent in staying with this course.

[bass9020]

Normal(story) mode was the worst design choice and it totally shows for majority of content in all of HW. Everything felt like fluff and it rewarded even the most laziest of players. At least most content during 2.0 felt like you were accomplishing something. Its a shame 4.0 will just be another faceroll and even more rewarding for no effort.

[aesteval]

This game for me is like that of being in a bad relationship with someone I once liked, but i don't wanna break up until I find someone else first. FFXV is that someone else.

The massive nerfing of Steps of Faith and allowing subpar players into HW to flood the DF with noob tendencies did it for me.

Aww, you don't like it that the basic main story and game features are open to all players of the game. Too bad.

[Sandpark]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...rward_another/
More elaboration on topic.

Q. Are there are any changes to the concept of the next Savage Alexander raid tier that we should look out for?
Y. The overall difficulty be lower than the previous Savage raids.
Q. By that, you mean something anyone can enjoy?
Y."Anyone" can cause misunderstandings. Besides, that would defeat the purpose of the normal mode difficulty. The fact it's a high end raid will not change, but those players who were able to clear all floors of the binding coil of Bahamut( he means all 13) will probably be able to clear it around about the same time as back then. There are mechanics that are difficult, but the level 60 rotations are difficult to maintain DPS at a high level while doing mechanics and that is what is widening the gap between player skills. When i take a look at the players' logs, that gap is really obvious to notice.

Q. What do you mean by that?
Y.Players can do the mechanics correctly but most players are having a hard time doing the mechanics while they maintain their level 60 rotation where they need to make instant decisions (editor note: like not using GS on dragoon so you can keep your BoTD before a phase transition instead of just doing the template rotation where you lose your BoTD if the boss is gone)
Y.The DPS gap between players is extreme....Those who can do it can do it, but those who cannot find it very hard. The players who can instantly choose the right rotation depending on the mechanic have already cleared Midas savage but i think the bottle neck is "needing 8 players at the same time". Judging from the data, the item level has increased and that has been put on top of players' DPS but it's not looking good enough to get players break through their current situation.

Q. I see.
Y. That doesn't mean we can just switch and change all the level 60 rotations instantly, so this time around we are going through with the mindset to change the difficulty of the content where it doesn't require such a rough rotation. Learning the mechanics and actually dodging them, reacting to RNG aspects and on top of that, for example where would you use up your BoTD buff or where do you refresh your enochian earlier than your normal template rotation... that sort of players' instant decision making is what greatly influences the gap between DPS numbers.

Q. In other words, it relies to much on player skills?
Y.Yes. Basically, the 2.0 rotations were simple so it made it easy to maintain that rotation while you busted mechanics. To add to that, excluding monk, there weren't many actions where "If you drop or lose this buff, your DPS plummets". Back from those days, Greased lightning was the key for monks and that was what the job design was supposed to be like, but now almost every job has that sort of element. That space is left for contriving, but i think the difficulty was too high.

Q. Are you going to continue to make content easier?
Y. It's not fully confirmed, but i have a feeling the current rotation is too difficult for players, so the difficulty of jobs as a whole will be dropped by one layer. It's timewise impossible to implement those changes during the 3.x series, so we decided to lower/hold down the difficulty of the raid itself instead. Like i said before, it's a "high end raid" after all so there will be people who still struggle but i would like to solve that with the help of item levels.

[Kaiyoko]

Aww, you don't like it that the basic main story and game features are open to all players of the game. Too bad.

No one wants to restrict players from attempting content, but there are plenty of players who want to have a sense of accomplishment when completing content. Steps of Faith and Normal Mode raids were nerfed to faceroll easy that almost any group can 1 shot it with little thought. When you're first attempting a fight wiping gives you a chance to evaluate what you did wrong and try to fix it. In the example of Steps of Faith you have a massive powerful dragon attacking Ishgard. Thematicly, the odds of winning should feel low and the situation should be grim, wiping should give players the sense the magnitude of the situation. Instead players feel they're entitled to win instantly and fights are no longer impactful.

[Sandpark]

And story mode that doesn't last past a month for many players is that solution? Most beat it within 1-2 days, then only reason to go back in is to get gear that will be replaced quickly by tomestone/crafted gear. Well then again that midas gear item. Only needed to do A8 for that though.

Casual players already have plenty to work off of. Relic quest, Palace of the Dead, Diadem(or at least when they fix it), primals, hunts, Aquapolis, various story side quests, card collecting, and much more. Midcore/Hardcore? EX primal and four raid bosses.

You can't really blend midcore with hardcore. Midcore don't have the schedule flexibility or practice times of a hardcore, so the statics mixing both don't work. That's why duty finder doesn't work for extremely difficult content.

Midcore need content that isn't faceroll easy, difficult but lenient mechanics, but still be puggable.

[Istaru]

No one wants to restrict players from attempting content, but there are plenty of players who want to have a sense of accomplishment when completing content. Steps of Faith and Normal Mode raids were nerfed to faceroll easy that almost any group can 1 shot it with little thought. When you're first attempting a fight wiping gives you a chance to evaluate what you did wrong and try to fix it. In the example of Steps of Faith you have a massive powerful dragon attacking Ishgard. Thematicly, the odds of winning should feel low and the situation should be grim, wiping should give players the sense the magnitude of the situation. Instead players feel they're entitled to win instantly and fights are no longer impactful.

I agree. Those failing attempts make the victory so sweet.

Showing up, mashing a bunch of buttons and winning first try because it's easy as possible so everyone can see the story without effort? Sucks.

The whining over the difficulty for some people to clear Nidhogg NM? He should not be super easy. He is the villain of the Heavensward story. He should be a bastard of atleast the difficulty level of "I should pay some attention while mindlessly mashing buttons".

If not, why even play the game? The story, without any effort or determination, it might as well be a movie instead. Just watch it on YouTube since the effort requirements are about the same.

[aesteval]

No one wants to restrict players from attempting content, but there are plenty of players who want to have a sense of accomplishment when completing content. Steps of Faith and Normal Mode raids were nerfed to faceroll easy that almost any group can 1 shot it with little thought. When you're first attempting a fight wiping gives you a chance to evaluate what you did wrong and try to fix it. In the example of Steps of Faith you have a massive powerful dragon attacking Ishgard. Thematicly, the odds of winning should feel low and the situation should be grim, wiping should give players the sense the magnitude of the situation. Instead players feel they're entitled to win instantly and fights are no longer impactful.

And there was a time period in which Steps was a challenge. However, at some point you just have to let people through so that they can continue the story and enter the expansion.

[bass9020]

And there was a time period in which Steps was a challenge. However, at some point you just have to let people through so that they can continue the story and enter the expansion.

And they learn nothing of how the game is during "current" difficulties and complain they can't beat content.

[Kaiyoko]

And there was a time period in which Steps was a challenge. However, at some point you just have to let people through so that they can continue the story and enter the expansion.

Steps of Faith should be nerfed right this moment 100% because it is old content. However, SE nerfed Steps of Faith within 2 weeks of it's release that was 3~4 months away from the expansion and there are probably players within the time leading to HW that never got to feel the thematic magnitude of the Steps of Faith. If they wanted player to be able to hop into the expansion then they should have given echo / nerfed mechanics at HW's release.