Famitsu interview with Yoshida after NA's FanFest

[Kaurie]

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.

Yeah it could. I really wish the difficulty progression followed a more linear path. It feels like (on a scale from 1=easy, 10=difficult) it goes 1-1-1-1-1-1.5-2-3-7-7-9-9. Kinda random, but the point is there.

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.

Tank stuff aside (as I don't tank and didn't read that part), it sounds like they are not pruning very much. They'll just revamp skills to make more sense (like Tri-Bind for Summoner in Heavensward). This does very little to combat button bloat which is currently a huge problem and will be a bigger problem with added skills. They also said they don't want to change the global cooldown, which disappoints me a fair amount. Ultimately, I am mostly disappointed as it seems like we are not really going to get much actual change with combat, and after announcing a revamped battle system, I was expecting and hyped for something fresh and exciting.

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.

All classes gravitate towards 2 stats is pretty much a problem, but even if that isn't, there is very little choice. You choose 2 of 3 stats. It's pretty boring in the most boring way. At least with accuracy, you needed to balance these stats while also meeting an accuracy requirement. They're basically taking one of the most mindless substat systems in any game, and making it slightly more mindless. While I support the removal of accuracy, I think the bigger issue is that the other stats need to be changed and more secondary stats need to be added.

[Ghastly]

How is not liking the story a good excuse to sell/buy potions?
If you don't like the game's story the chances you stay a subscriber are really low (there are exceptions).

Integrity is more important than a leveling potion

Yoshida, please understand that everything Wow does isn't always good.
Take a hint from the goddess herself, sophia. There are bad things in Wow, and leveling potion is one of them.

Right now it's possible for friends to run all the duties they need to run using level synch in dungeons. Real friends help friends, real friends don't tell friends to buy leveling potions.

[Kosmos992k]

All classes gravitate towards 2 stats is pretty much a problem, but even if that isn't, there is very little choice. You choose 2 of 3 stats. It's pretty boring in the most boring way. At least with accuracy, you needed to balance these stats while also meeting an accuracy requirement. They're basically taking one of the most mindless substat systems in any game, and making it slightly more mindless. While I support the removal of accuracy, I think the bigger issue is that the other stats need to be changed and more secondary stats need to be added.

Indeed. I really would like the secondary stats to be revamped to make them worth something and give sufficient complexity to allow multiple viable builds. I know this isn't the topic for this, but I think one way that SE could really shake things up is by changing the secondary attributes and traits up so that you can either focus on a build that maximizes your primary role (damage, aggro or healing) or one that maximizes your utility by strengthening the various buffs/debuffs you can apply (for example), or even linking some existing traits to certain stat values.

[Shurrikhan]

Indeed. I really would like the secondary stats to be revamped to make them worth something and give sufficient complexity to allow multiple viable builds. I know this isn't the topic for this, but I think one way that SE could really shake things up is by changing the secondary attributes and traits up so that you can either focus on a build that maximizes your primary role (damage, aggro or healing) or one that maximizes your utility by strengthening the various buffs/debuffs you can apply (for example), or even linking some existing traits to certain stat values.

With the removal of classes, it seems more likely however that even if secondary stats are made more balanced (e.g. high Skill Speed builds becoming viable), we'll probably only head further from multiple builds. I wouldn't be surprised even if they just change out all primary stats to role + ilvl.

I always just wanted to see the original system revamped a bit, wherein all 6 primary stats were in some way viable, be that in traditional or niche builds, for every class/job, and most gear wasn't so class-split. I just wanted to see that taken even further, and more visual and gameplay impact given to each.
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Separately, on the topic of leveling potions:

Merely leveling doesn't necessarily teach a damn thing. Reading one's tooltips thoroughly and actually thinking about how to apply them accordingly is a better indicator that you will soon do well than having spent 60 levels getting there (just as likely spamming Full Thrust). I don't think it's a good turn for the game, and denies us certain better options, but the idea that it's going to newly or uniquely cripple the skill-floor of our newly (pre-SB) level-capped seems a bit ridiculous.