Famitsu interview with Yoshida after NA's FanFest

[Duelle]

Levelling potion works in WoW but I honestly don't see it being a right fit for FFXIV, Blizzard is experienced with creating "tutorial" based content such as their honor grounds and they slowly introduce you to your class after you use the leveling boost. You're not dumped in with every ability, but a voiced instructor gives you an idea of the basics of doing somewhat decent at your roll and you do this for every character you boost. It works because at their core, WoW's classes are very simple with a complete ability set only taking 1-2 hot bars. WoW also has the excuse of older content being very dated and playing very differently to current content, FFXIV does not as it hasn't changed much since the beginning.

Sort of. WoW's classes have been designed to be easy to pick up, but mastering a class/spec still takes a bit (though mostly done if you read the tooltips and hit a target dummy to get a feel of how it all comes together). There is, surprisingly, less intuitiveness to WoW's classes than FFXIV's classes. FFXIV has combos and the mechanics are pretty obvious. I noticed this back when I used my complimentary legion boost to boost a rogue to lv100, and was very impressed with how the tutorial was structured; by the end I was a passable lv100 rogue.

That said, yes, we would need an actual tutorial for the gameplay aspect of a level boost. I'd suggest SE look at Blizzard's tutorials for boosted characters as a starting point, and then implement that Intermediate Hall to further teach people how to play.

So you people want the same silly repetitive quests which keep asking the same old things again and again? People were complaining that the game became boring and repetitive without risks and imagination. Yoshi decided to risk with Eureka. People crying before even they see what exactly is this then want the same old stuff again and again. Just lol

What people wanted was likely a return to the 2.0 relic quest instead of making a potential zone dedicated to relic progression.

I personally would have hopped back on the relic thing if it involved recent/semi-recent content as opposed to currency grinds. Or if the process was shaken up a bit with different steps. Since that very impressive starter quest (get item with materia, kill HM Ifrit/Titan/Garuda, get weapon), relics have been nothing but grinding old content and whatever random currency is being asked for. And that's the system's greatest flaw, IMO. Making Eureka relic-centered doesn't solve that at all; all it looks like it'll do is segregate relic progression to that zone alone, and I can bet dollars to donuts that it'll have either a specific cost of entry or a limit to the number of times you can enter.

raid difficulty, and not adding midcore content, but adding even more hardcore content?

I'll admit this part annoyed me. Instead of easing people into content, they seem to want to keep the current difficulty curve and just make stuff that's harder for the top tier guilds. I personally don't see this working without making savage "easier" (and that might be their aim without actually saying it). So you'd have normal mode, savage mode, and ultra-savage mode for the Lucrecias and Angereds of the world.

the increased details on what Yoshi meant by a revamped battle system and skill pruning?

The translation for this made little sense. Particularly the thing about tank stances. Can't comment on something that makes no sense, and I haven't had a chance to look at the article in JP to see if I can decipher it.

removing Parry and Accuracy, further reducing the number of secondary stats we have? (Yes, I want those stats gone too, but removing and not replacing them means we'll have even less choices on our gear)

This isn't really a problem per se. All classes pretty much have the stats they gravitate towards, be it BRDs with Crit/Skill Speed and so on, so nothing is changing on that front other than instead of having stat budgets wasted on accuracy, you'd have the same stats on every piece of gear, which does look like a problem without actually being one.

[Zumi]

There are marketing reasons behind why mmos would add level up potions. When you have a mmo with several expansions out it makes it hard for a new player to pick up the game or a returning player that has missed a few expansions to come back and try out the new expansion. For example Blizzard has been offering one free level boost with each new expansion that lets people level up to the old expansions cap. The whole reason behind this is that it gets new players or returning players caught up and ready to start the new expansion with the rest of the community or their friends. Otherwise they would have a huge grind of old expansions to do and probably wouldn't try out the game. This type of item really isn't meant for current players we already have are jobs at the current level cap.

I don't think the level up potions to the old cap are necessary a bad thing if it gets more people to play the game. Personally I wouldn't need any since I have everything to 60 already.

[Zumi]

FFXIV has combos and the mechanics are pretty obvious. I noticed this back when I used my complimentary legion boost to boost a rogue to lv100, and was very impressed with how the tutorial was structured; by the end I was a passable lv100 rogue.

If you remember back to the 2.0 launch many legacy players were handed every job at level 50 that played nothing like how they did in 1.0. We learned how to play the game by reading tool tips on the skills. People figured out how to play fairly easily after playing awhile. I don't think there would be that much trouble for people starting at 60 if SE decides to have a level boost for Stormblood.

[Yasuhiro]

Devs Panda to the ff11 players too much

I'd rather devs pander to fans of a Final Fantasy game than the WoW refugees who jump over to this game and complain.
Again, this forum, the NA side of it in particular is disturbingly hostile towards Final Fantasy XI.

[Belhi]

I'd rather devs pander to fans of a Final Fantasy game than the WoW refugees who jump over to this game and complain.
Again, this forum, the NA side of it in particular is disturbingly hostile towards Final Fantasy XI.

Such hostility is usually born out of people growing tired of former FF11 players who seem to think FF14 to become like FF11, particularly when aspects of the game they ask for are ones others don't like.

Honestly the reason I don't think they do 2.0 again is A) because its too quick to do for the intended function of the reward and B) it probably requires additional resources to produce things like the extra trials. Till we know more about Eureka I am holding my judgement on if I think its a good improvement.

[Neophyte]

You must be oh so fun at parties and movies, aren't you?

Where's the problem, if it's a conservative, overly formly and lame 'party' or a movie which you take as serious as Sharknado? Because that's the comparisions I would draw.

Aren't you the people yelling: "Stop having fun with that movie!!! You did not watch the prequel yet, so you shouldn't be allowed to enjoy this one. People who never watched the prequel can't enjoy and can't even understand this movie, anyway! Turn it off!"

[Dumbledoremd]

I'd rather devs pander to fans of a Final Fantasy game than the WoW refugees who jump over to this game and complain.
Again, this forum, the NA side of it in particular is disturbingly hostile towards Final Fantasy XI.

True at least its a ff game if i wanted to play WoW id log into WoW

[Dumbledoremd]

Such hostility is usually born out of people growing tired of former FF11 players who seem to think FF14 to become like FF11, particularly when aspects of the game they ask for are ones others don't like.

Honestly the reason I don't think they do 2.0 again is A) because its too quick to do for the intended function of the reward and B) it probably requires additional resources to produce things like the extra trials. Till we know more about Eureka I am holding my judgement on if I think its a good improvement.

Its the main reason for any hostility i have towards players here thread after thread of how FFXIV should be like 11 it had its time its over

[Stanelis]

Where's the problem, if it's a conservative, overly formly and lame 'party' or a movie which you take as serious as Sharknado? Because that's the comparisions I would draw.

Aren't you the people yelling: "Stop having fun with that movie!!! You did not watch the prequel yet, so you shouldn't be allowed to enjoy this one. People who never watched the prequel can't enjoy and can't even understand this movie, anyway! Turn it off!"

Usually the cinema company don't charge you to watch both a movie and its prequel and then offer you to pay an extra to only watch the new movie, if you re not interested in its prequel. That situation is exactly the issue with the jumping potions.

Its the main reason for any hostility i have towards players here thread after thread of how FFXIV should be like 11 it had its time its over

People don't ask for FFXIV to be like FFXI, but would rather like SE to look at their former work and to consider using again (or at least learn from) their best design elements.

As an example, each expansion storyline was independent in FFXI, and everybody was happy with that, and SE didn't have to sell XP potions. By saying that, I m not asking for the storylines of FFXIV to be the same as FFXI's.

[Duelle]

If you remember back to the 2.0 launch many legacy players were handed every job at level 50 that played nothing like how they did in 1.0. We learned how to play the game by reading tool tips on the skills. People figured out how to play fairly easily after playing awhile. I don't think there would be that much trouble for people starting at 60 if SE decides to have a level boost for Stormblood.

I don't think you're giving the intuitiveness of FFXIV's systems enough credit. Tooltips are part of the process but a lot of the gameplay has things built in to show you a sort of progression of skills. That's a feather in FFXIV's cap that WoW simply doesn't have, even now with the simplified specs and rotations.

Of course, considering that I've had to teach newbie tanks how to hold aggro because they don't bother to read tooltips and follow the bouncing ball, I see no harm in having tutorials. Especially for people who get boosted to 60.

I'd rather devs pander to fans of a Final Fantasy game than the WoW refugees who jump over to this game and complain.

Ignoring the "us vs them" thing, FFXIV was designed to appeal to modern MMO fans. That largely included WoW and those who played SWTOR and LOTRO. Not to mention that people who ask for FFXI things don't understand that a) FFXI is built around very different design principles, b) built around very different systems, c) that game's progression and gear design only work for that game, and d) the game is still alive and well. I don't even need to get into stupid design oversights like gear swaps mid-combat and the resulting inventory bloat from a trillion items built for very specific purposes.

As an example, each expansion storyline was independent in FFXI, and everybody was happy with that, and SE didn't have to sell XP potions. By saying that, I m not asking for the storylines of FFXIV to be the same as FFXI's.

The thing is that expansion storylines were mostly high-level content. Zilart was 50-75. CoP tried the disastrous level capped content. ToAU was all high level (the zones themselves had mobs that reinforced that). WotG story content is also relatively high level.

Of course, you didn't need to add level potions in FFXI because most of the expansion story content had only the game's lv75 cap to take into account. FFXIV doesn't have a static level cap that spans several expansions, so you're sort of comparing apples and oranges.