Interview: Face-to-Face with FFXIV's Naoki Yoshida - Article on MMORPG website

[Mimilu]

It's weird that he talks about wanting to create content with longevity in this interview but in the interview with PSU, he says:

...but when creating content for FINAL FANTASY XIV, we don’t envision anything we make as “content we want people to continue playing for an exceptionally long time.” We have designed the game in a way that entices players to strive for high item level weapons or equipment, or enjoy the aspect of leveling up with our content updates. Since there is a level cap in the game, coupled with the fact that we increase the item level on equipment with our updates, it really is hard to imagine content existing that can played for an extended period of time.

Is Eureka going to only last 1-or-2 patches or is it going to be content people do for a long time?

[Shurrikhan]

How would Benediction make Living Dead even reasonably comparable to Hallowed Ground?! The one and only advantage it have is the cooldown being shorter, but at 5 minutes, it's still far more than necessary to take advantage of it in any fight which you have reasonable chances of winning.

With Benediction, Living Dead can create a slightly longer potential period of time in which the healers do not have to worry about the tank. Even if Living Dead isn't activated immediately, there's no need to heal during that time because, at worst case, it will merely turn into Walking Dead. Since Benediction can be within the last second. If Living Dead is cast just at the very brink of (would-be) death, however, then this becomes irrelevant, or (with enough healer or tank latency) even favors Hallowed Ground again.

This sentence in particular got me thinking about an old quote from Ghostcrawler the old WoW dev, to paraphrase he said something along the lines of "it's amazing what players will go through for even a theoretical 1% dps increase" and it's most definitely a sentiment I agree with.

But when I read about the concept of "builds" I wonder what exactly do they mean in context for this game? I think there needs to be some establishment of what exactly people mean by that before any real meaningful conversation can take place. The only sort of "build" we have right now is "how do you meld your materia?" Do they mean they want secondaries to be more meaningful so that something like direct hit is as good as skill speed for every job? Or do they mean different ways of playing the same job, such as having the option of making a smn that forgoes DoT's entirely in exchange for higher potency ruins and having both be competitive?

Currently, materia and tweaking whatever are your best secondaries with the right gear (augmented allagan vs genji) are the only sort of "build" there is with everyone following the same model to maximize their dps. That brings me along to another question, are people saying they want more options than the "maximize your dps for every role" that is so popular now? Now all of these are subjective of course, but unless we can define what people mean by saying "more customization in builds" I feel that this conversation won't go very far.

A very good point, though I'm afraid I can only guess at part of an answer for now, as putting the concept wholly in context would require it to be fully complete.

At present, XIV has the least customization of any game I know. Because of the modular math (essentially CD-stacking) involved in good play, it has slightly more complexity than certain classes (or specs therein) of certain MMORPGs I've played, while less than many others, and I do not think it can support much more enjoyable complexity so long as so many buttons are caught up in bloat (complication for complication's sake, almost, rather than creating new points or paths of decision). As such, it's hard to determine what complexity would be added and what portion of that would make sense to streamline into mutual exclusives via customization (do you want this narrower but therefore much more cohesive toolkit, or this other one).

That said, because we have virtually no customization beyond our Role Skills, of which 90% of all possible decisions are basically predetermined -- the choice of Anticipation vs. Awareness in a physical-based, high-attack-rate boss fight, second protect/esuna or Rescue -- and our gearing (both the base piece and our materia attached thereto), for which our stats either have very little gameplay effect (det/hit and crit outside of Bard/Monk) or suffer from obvious scaling issues (skill speed, and to a lesser extent spell speed), pretty much anything is possible.

If customization were to be a thing in this game, I feel like the first thing to consider is its purpose.

If the RPG aspect of this game is intended only to be nominal -- a way to excuse grinding before the "real" (end) game begins -- then customization is just a way to siphon excess complexity (which, again, we do not have yet) for multiple and more cohesive gameplay products in place of just the one original as to increase the breadth of players to whom that job is attractive or the depth of that attraction (essentially, to improve job gameplay), in so far as those multiple choices are generally and situationally balanced within a margin covering all but the most hardcore players.

If the RPG aspect of this game is intended to be pivotal -- a way to deepen the experience in our immersion therein -- then customization is more of world-building tool, such as by interlinking skillsets insofar as they are interconnected in the lore or underlying mechanics of the game world and encouraging player-experience-specific additions and alterations. Now, that can be a growth system more so that a true customization system, whereby tapering rewards allow further opportunity for your job, so long as the baseline capabilities aren't overly nerfed to compensate for them -- meaning that class progress can continue beyond level cap outside of mere gear, or it can simply increase the spread of situations into which a job is applicable (e.g. selfish DPS Bard, point-support Bard, broad support Bard, just sings stuff Bard). But this, too, requires general and situational balance in order not to feel like an elaborate lie, and the best way to achieve that is usually to create enough content and content-nonspecific difficulty (e.g. tactics that take a long time to get down with a set of friends, but can be reused for many different kinds of fights) that while balance may remain highly situational, there are too many situations, or there is too little foreknowledge of those situations, to make worthwhile account of each individually. Think auto-generative, mechanics-heavy content, for instance: you wouldn't know going in what exactly is going to be finely optimal, so you take a party that you trust to react to the breadth of situations that are expected. You might take a BLM for nuke AoE damage, a mobile ranged to taxi it and to regenerate resource, a Dragoon for point-burst, a Summoner for battlefield manipulation and widespread DoT-and-kite. Inn the face of the unknown, each compositional choice, and customization options therein, actually mean a lot more; inversely, it is very difficult to maintain semblance of general balance, rather than everything being fight specific, if there is relatively little content or if the shape of that content is unaffected by chance.

[DarkDedede]

As for the glamour part, with me being a glamour addict, I'm one excited gal. Looking forward to that Live Letter event

I say Yoshi-P should do that particular Live Letter wearing the Amon's set (or at least wearing Amon's Hat).

[kikix12]

With Benediction, Living Dead can create a slightly longer potential period of time in which the healers do not have to worry about the tank. Even if Living Dead isn't activated immediately, there's no need to heal during that time because, at worst case, it will merely turn into Walking Dead. Since Benediction can be within the last second.

It's actually irrelevant at all times. You need to use Benediction in order to make that last-moment save (and again, it's a very limited option since PING WILL cause a last-second cast to fail in certain circumstances, which you never know apply to you). It is hardly different than that Benediction being used in place of normal healing when the tank does not use their ultimate. It's a matter of less than a second difference. The same second that you lose out on casting Benediction before the Living Dead runs out so as to actually save the tank. No matter the situations, you will always come out worse with Living Dead than Hallowed Ground. Always. The only positive aspect is Living Dead having a lower cooldown, so in long fights with hard hits that are spread apart a lot, it may be possible to use it more than Hallowed Ground. However, even then, it's not better. It just lets you have an easier time maybe one more time over the course of the fight. A very situational and very limited skill that is strictly worse at every other time.

And you still lose TWO "ultimates" (Living Dead and Benediction) for the same outcome that Hallowed Ground can do on its own.

[CaTi]

It's weird that he talks about wanting to create content with longevity in this interview but in the interview with PSU, he says:


Is Eureka going to only last 1-or-2 patches or is it going to be content people do for a long time?

Look at it this way. Eureka isn't really the content, the Relic gear is. And the relics will likely be designed so that most moderate effort players will be able to progress to the next step each patch. So assuming Eureka is 100% for the relics and the relics are 100% developed inside Eureka, Eureka will be content that lasts the whole expansion but likely won't be something you can throw yourself at hard and get anything significant out of it for the entire patch.
Don't be fooled by the launch patch either as you'll likely be dealing with 4.1 and 4.2's Relic steps combined.