Famitsu Interview - YoshiP 3 Year Anniversary Interview

[Istaru]

No, not in the least.

But you don't want people to have to git gud for story content?

My git gud is different than your, different than anyone else's. So where do we draw the line? My version, your version or Tony's version over there?

I am sure you there is one person who wants that version, so what right do we have to gate them out?

[Nalien]

I really hope SE starts expanding upon these solo trials we've been getting... The Grand Melee, and our little fight with Regula van Hydrus have been very entertaining, if ridiculously easy... Give us some challenging content like that and you've got the perfect way to safely implement a "git gud" block... Steps of Faith for Heavensward, and Titan HM for the Relic Reborn before it, where not bad because they were a challenge, they were bad because they were a challenge that relied on other people... People with sh*tty latency made Titan harder than he should have been, and the rewards for Steps of Faith made it more logical to abandon it than to try, given it was both less rewarding and much slower than any other trial... Remove other people from the equation though, and you can easily start gating stuff behind a challenge... Give 3.55 its own trial as epic as Steps of Faith, but make it solo, and nobody is going to be able to go "I can't clear it because people abandon instantly". Instead they'll have to learn the mechanics and how to play to clear it...

[Bourne_Endeavor]

People not listening and totally ignoring tips and what each person role was is also an issue since everyone thought it would be face roll easy. Lets just keep blaming the vets though that works too

But let's presume each new player falls under this category, hmm? Regardless of the reason, people abandoned Steps almost every time it queued. You cannot have that when your entire expansion is gated behind completing it. Hence why they likely nerfed it.

[Kaiyoko]

But let's presume each new player falls under this category, hmm? Regardless of the reason, people abandoned Steps almost every time it queued. You cannot have that when your entire expansion is gated behind completing it. Hence why they likely nerfed it.

Nerfing it is fine, the problem is how quickly they nerfered it in relation to it's release.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Nerfing it is fine, the problem is how quickly they nerfered it in relation to it's release.

Then how much longer should they have waited? It'd be a PR disaster if word got out that no one could play an expansion they paid for because the final quest is too hard to pass.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Nerfing it is fine, the problem is how quickly they nerfered it in relation to it's release.

Right. You claimed "within two weeks" earlier. That isn't the case. 2.55 was released March 31st and the 2.57 adjustments came on May 12th. So we're looking at six weeks before being nerfed. Again, bear in mind this is six weeks where people were actively leaving trials whenever Steps popped. I guarantee that influenced the devs decision far more than people struggling. With their first expansion only a month away, I doubt they wanted to risk new players being gated.

[Kaiyoko]

Then how much longer should they have waited? It'd be a PR disaster if word got out that no one could play an expansion they paid for because the final quest is too hard to pass.

That's an extreme exaggeration of the situation considering Steps of Faith was nerfed 6 weeks after it was released. Players had 3 months to beat Steps before the expansion. Steps could have been given echo/nerfed mechanics 2 weeks before the expansion if it was a concern. SE had a knee jerk reaction to the forums and it set a precedence for what was to come with most of the 3.0 content.

[Ceasaria]

... Give 3.55 its own trial as epic as Steps of Faith, but make it solo, and nobody is going to be able to go "I can't clear it because people abandon instantly". Instead they'll have to learn the mechanics and how to play to clear it...

And give the choice between two-three difficulties because i have feeling even with solo challenging content, people will ask for nerf.
And in that case, with the possibility to choose our own difficulty, everyone could enjoy the content based on their skills.

[FinaSel]

Not reading 15 pages of this. Just responding to the OP.

There is a TED talk about how games can improve us as people by challenging us to try over and over again while revising a strategy and working together. The EX content and Raid content are good examples of things. Fail. Think about the cause. Try again. Fail. Examine what happened. Try again. Repeat until success.

This procedure helps us grow and helps us cooperate and improve analytical skills.

Yes making everything easier might close the gap and make the game more "fun" for some people, but think about what we are loosing.

That sense of accomplishment after hours of hard work, cooperation, analyzing the situation and devising a strategy. And never giving up until you succeed.
These are skills that carry over into the real world. And nothing compares to the sense of accomplishment after that.

Making the game easy not only closes a gap, but it makes it more mindless.

I hope they retain challenging content.

[enthauptet]

Not listening/learning is a problem as well.
I'm just saying in my experience people instantly leaving or quitting after one wipe was more common.

For the record I liked the original SoF but at the end of the day SE wasn't going to leave a story instance gating an expansion as a wall. We can't be surprised when SE nerfs story instances down to being doable in 1-2 tries if the community won't tolerate things taking longer.

I only completed this after heavensward and in my experience people still quit out of it and nobody ever explains anything in it to new players. It must have been really frustrating before. It's like nidhogg now is the same way, people quit right when they join the fight. I think most people don't like explaining things or helping people. I went into thordan ex with a friend in duty finder before and we got to the last phase teaching new people that queued in with us before the timer expired.