Naoki Yoshida interview @Gamescom

[Alexander_Dragonfang]

The cash shop is just fine. It is money in SE's pockets to make content and people who actually find value in it are happy.

No.
They money made by the Cash Shop is probably not going into this game development nor any SE title development for that matter.

Yoshida is the only one who could call more than half his player base "baddies" (which aint a lie btw, i lol'd at it) and still get away with it, he straight out evaded the question regarding the predictive nature of patching by basically threating us of "oh, but you would love it if we stopped updating" (WTH) and got away with it. Seriously, smokes are high, the whole "savior of XIV", "sucessful reboot" went to his head.

But again, there is people here who would defend him even if he were to wipe the progress of all accounts, people would come to this forum and say "hey, is a chance for all of us to start again!" or something like that.

[Welsper59]

No.
They money made by the Cash Shop is probably not going into this game development nor any SE title development for that matter.

Yoshida is the only one who could call more than half his player base "baddies" (which aint a lie btw, i lol'd at it) and still get away with it, he straight out evaded the question regarding the predictive nature of patching by basically threating us of "oh, but you would love it if we stopped updating" (WTH) and got away with it. Seriously, smokes are high, the whole "savior of XIV", "sucessful reboot" went to his head.

But again, there is people here who would defend him even if he were to wipe the progress of all accounts, people would come to this forum and say "hey, is a chance for all of us to start again!" or something like that.

Well he is kind of basing it on our inevitable reactions and some folks' short term wants, which just like this games content, is entirely predictable lol. Can't fault the man for logically using the tools he has to keep the game how he wants it, for better or worse.

[Velhart]

No.
They money made by the Cash Shop is probably not going into this game development nor any SE title development for that matter.

Yoshida is the only one who could call more than half his player base "baddies" (which aint a lie btw, i lol'd at it) and still get away with it, he straight out evaded the question regarding the predictive nature of patching by basically threating us of "oh, but you would love it if we stopped updating" (WTH) and got away with it. Seriously, smokes are high, the whole "savior of XIV", "sucessful reboot" went to his head.

But again, there is people here who would defend him even if he were to wipe the progress of all accounts, people would come to this forum and say "hey, is a chance for all of us to start again!" or something like that.

Pretty sure they said one time the cash shop went towards further development on the software and hardware side. Namely one contributor to the EU Data Center unless I am wrong on that.

I mean, he isn't wrong. A large portion of the player base have a pretty low skill level. More of the issue is that SE attempts little to nothing to motivate players to get better because almost all the content does not require you to get better. Even worse he breeds and caters to them by making difficulty of relic a complete joke. The only casual content I have seen lately that requires you to get off your ass a bit is Weeping City, which is a difficulty direction the team should really look into for other content. I will see what their definition of challenging is once Floor 100-200 of PoTD is released.

I doubt people would defend Yoshi-P on the action, but brand loyalty would keep some people in. Wiping character data to start anew is pretty much MMO suicide, but I know you are exaggerating to make a point. People right now are at least weary of the structure, and it is going to get more aggressive likely as the months go on. We have seen in interviews that people are getting tiresome and starting to call Yoshi-P out on it, and seems like he is having a harder time answering it. At least answering it that makes people understand. I personally think he is a great producer/director, but he seems misguided right now and cares more about getting people into the game more than trying to hold a retention of players. Something like "go play another game" is not something I usually hear from a MMO developer. Not so much that he is wrong, but developers should always be focusing on getting the maximum amount of retention they can get. Of course it is quite difficult to hold people's attention but so long (even WoW struggles with this), but not really the ideal thing you should be saying. If I was him, I would of gone, "I understand your concerns and the team is always trying to find ways for players to feel engaged to the content each time they log on." or some PR crap like that.

I am realistically fine with the pattern we receive content. I care more about quality of standards, something interesting within the pattern, and whenever something new comes up, it holds weight unlike previous content given to us (Diadem). I am a person who cares deeply about quality and principles of design.

Sometimes i see white knights....

Out of jokes, there is no assumptions in the interview that Yoshi-P wants to maintain the real playerbase, the dedicated raiders. Vanity,diadem,PotD,Gold saucer minigames,etc are their priority.

Tanaka with FFXI made a more focused game with a deep system and still the game lives today. The life of FFXIV won't be the same in this way. The raiders will only come back 1 month after every expansion and the story repeats itself.
Why they only put effort when the things goes bad like before ARR? Now with more money they become more lazies

Ehh FFXI was misguided in it's own way, but I will always compliment how well structured the variety of challenges there were. Not saying the game was bad, I loved it from 2003-2010, but the game had its own mix of good and bad. I would like to see some of the good aspects of FFXI and of FFXIV to mix, but that is for another discussion.

[Sandpark]

@Velhart
Matt Firor from ESO sees the metrics the same way. Most updates lately have been made to make the game more accessible rather than meaty. Account wide Champion, mounts, One Tamriel. Yoshida is not blind, even if we don't like everything he does.

The glory days of huge barriers to entry and long deep content are numbered in the industry.