Famitsu Interview - YoshiP 3 Year Anniversary Interview

[Kaiyoko]

I strongly disagree with that.

For leaving within 1 or 2 minutes with engaging the fight? Ok. Leaving after 45 minutes of wiping with no real progress by the group? It is uncalled for. If that person gets a bad group, the loss of their time is punishment enough.

I'm referring to the situation where people leave before even pulling the 1st mob. I should have clarified.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

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.

Yep. Even now, if I happen to get Steps and we wipe once, people will start complaining or drop out entirely. Of all the dungeons/trials I have done, that and Chrysalis seem to be the two people struggle with.

[Sandpark]

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...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...

I would love solo/duo versions of some of these dungeons. I would love to explore an area like Castrum Meridianum with magitek content and various goals.

The little arena for solo MSQ are ok. But yeah, in an open environment, these kinds of things could take some of those mechanics from the group ones and train you to get better all while enjoying story and exploration. Which seems even better than what guildhest are trying to achieve. Since those are not in context to a unique dungeon.

[Iromi]

Either way, I feel that no matter what is said here..Yoshida has already made up his mind and is mostly set in stone what is happening for 4.0.

I for one, would like to see a raid be an actual raid (Huge instance, where trash drops useful items, crafting materials, etc, rare things, multiple bosses along the way..etc) instead of a boss waiting in a circular or square room. Also the part about rewards? Did that person translate it right? Is he really saying people only do stuff because they feel they have to due to the rewards? The reason I DONT do savage raids is because the rewards are so mediocre. With anything else in life, you won't see me working for something unless I feel the reward is worth it.

As for rotations...yeah, some of them could use some work. I play SMN, BLM, DRK, AST, WHM, MNK just fine...but I do think sometimes its a bit crazy. For me its fun though, but whatever changes he wants to make he will make them anyway and will be interesting to see what happens.

[Nalien]

I would love solo/duo versions of some of these dungeons.

Don't even need that IMO, we've got the undersized party option... That's perhaps my favorite thing from Heavensward... To this day, I enjoy doing dungeons/trials/Coil alone or with one or two friends, far more than the new content SE is adding... If SE went back and added new stuff to dungeons and Coil... That would be amazing, little side passages with optional bosses, nothing hard to add, but it would add some new relevance to them... They've added some new reasons to go back to old content, like the crafted Coil settings, but they're not very compelling IMO... I'd quite like a system similar to Treasure Maps; Lets say you clear T5, it drops a special map, that lets you access something more up to date reward-wise. I'd really love something like that for Primals, could have an almost Guildhest style instance against some of the beast tribe, would have been a much more interesting way to implement the Primal themed minions than crafting recipes, IMO... You do Ifrit (Extreme), get a drop that lets you access a new instance against some Amalj'aa, then that drops the minion and some Lv60 relevant rewards like Eso/Lore...

[Velhart]

For the Steps of Faith argument. It is fine to put slightly more difficult content in story quests. What you shouldn't do is put complicated fights in there. Steps of Faith failed to explain to players how the fight worked and what needed to be done. NPC's screamed things but it was pretty vague for the most part. The complications is why people did not like doing DF for it. If you make something that is harder to some extent, but very easy to understand, then I think that is the balance of later story quests that you need.

I for one, would like to see a raid be an actual raid (Huge instance, where trash drops useful items, crafting materials, etc, rare things, multiple bosses along the way..etc) instead of a boss waiting in a circular or square room.

I agree. In particular I liked the first fight with the ADS and the snake in T1 of BCoB. Interesting platforms that were utilized and not just for show. SE's excuse is it is easier to make mechanics when in a circle/square platform, but now it simply lacks the creativity. Their team should take it up a notch on this. Look at Naxxramas or Ulduar from WoW for inspiration on making a very well made raid structure.

[Zojha]

NPC's screamed things but it was pretty vague for the most part.

"Ready the cannons!"
"Climb the tower and man the dragonkiller! Time your shot!"
"Prepare the snares!"

The only thing the NPCs do "not" tell you is where the tower/cannons/snares are and that Vishap dodges if you fire the second dragonkiller without the snares. I wager people simply didn't "read" the announcements in the heat of things. I know I didn't when I first did it. I was too much like "ermagerd dragon!".

[Lorielle]

For the Steps of Faith argument. It is fine to put slightly more difficult content in story quests. What you shouldn't do is put complicated fights in there. Steps of Faith failed to explain to players how the fight worked and what needed to be done. NPC's screamed things but it was pretty vague for the most part. The complications is why people did not like doing DF for it. If you make something that is harder to some extent, but very easy to understand, then I think that is the balance of later story quests that you need.

There was nothing complicated about SoF. The issue is people do not know how to put 1+1 together. All the mechanics were told to you by the NPC except one(Snare and Dragon Killer). Cannons have been in use elsewhere(Stone Vigil HM) as a means to kill adds(ohhai SoF). The game isn't complicated at all. People just need to...Well, get good. It only comes through trial and error. That is what this game is all about after all. But hey, if you want to remove the fundamental of your game away, have at it.

[Freyyy]

I was too much like "ermagerd dragon!".

[aesteval]

There was nothing complicated about SoF. The issue is people do not know how to put 1+1 together. All the mechanics were told to you by the NPC except one(Snare and Dragon Killer). Cannons have been in use elsewhere(Stone Vigil HM) as a means to kill adds(ohhai SoF). The game isn't complicated at all. People just need to...Well, get good. It only comes through trial and error.

You know...isn't Stone Vigil HM a side dungeon and MSQ. Is it possible that people are now running Steps of Faith before Stone Vigil HM in an effort to get to Ishgard? A solo duty as a tutorial introducing the stage and the tools would go such a long way towards discovering the mechanics while not under fire. Because you know...some people start to panic in that setting. :-p Try following NPC prompts during panic, some people start yelling "but I don't know what the snare looks like." 8 player PUG isn't the best time for trial and error except on day one.