While working from home, the development team
lost the opportunity to look through these physical letters that come to the office, but hearing
those voices on social media helped to motivate them to work towards quickly adapting their
development environment for the players.
I wish SE would check here on the forums more than Twitter.
Endwalker will see the end of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark story arc that has been in motion since
the beginning of FFXIV, and unlike previous expansions, this plot will come to a close in 6.0,
leaving 6.1 through 6.5 to begin building towards the next story.
We already do have an initial plan for the overarching flow of 6.1 and beyond, including the
future expansion packs.
"Packs"? That's at least 6 years planned!
The final Ultimate for Shadowbringers was delayed due to difficulties caused by the pandemic
this last year—specifically organizing the eight individuals most qualified to test this content. In
a recent interview, you mentioned perhaps revising the way Ultimate content is developed. I
was wondering if you could elaborate on what changes you’d like to make to the development
of this content in the future?
In my mind, it would be ideal to have core members of the development team also be able to
play at the highest of levels. I think one good example of this is Blizzard, a company I’m sure you
know that I am fond of.
FFXIV players hated that.
work on other content that needs to be developed in tandem, so the higher the difficulty of the
content, the higher the amount of dev resources required to play test and make adjustments
will become.
To alleviate this, generally speaking, there are only two options. One is to divide the
development staff and play test staff and have the play test staff provide detailed feedback to
the development team, which in turn is implemented. Alternatively, we could extend the
development schedule and delineate a specific adjustment period that can be done outside of
when the content is being developed.
This is not limited to only Ultimate raids—I’m sure you know that the breadth of content in
FFXIV has increased greatly when compared to A Realm Reborn. When thinking about
continuing development and service in the long term, I feel we’ve come to a point where we
need a new method to assess resource costs and schedules, instead of relying on our existing
project management methods. If I go into more detail, it will be quite long winded to the point
that I could write a full book, so allow me to stop here. Either way, I am giving it a lot of thought.
So, making content easier is not just an issue with the community not being able to complete it, but the devs not having enough playtesters; playtesters at a competent level?
While new housing is planned with Ishgard in 6.1, I was wondering if any considerations have
been made to enhancing apartments as well? For example, spending some gil or completing a
quest to increase the size of the apartment.
so if we start making apartments with varying sizes, we will need to reassess the
fundamental systems.
This is not to say that we won’t be doing something like this in the future, but there are other
tasks of higher priority for housing, so we’re working on those first. This is because it’s of higher
priority to provide more available plots of land to the players.
Doubling down on housing plots, as is, rather than better, instanced housing then?
In Save the Queen content, the FATE system was reworked into multiple categories, such as
Skirmishes, Critical Engagements, Duels and Sieges. Has there been any consideration to adding
any feature like these to Endwalker’s open world areas and FATEs?
Skirmishes repurposed the FATE system mostly as-is, so the content we incorporated there
could potentially be repurposed for new FATEs for open world areas. However, Critical
Engagements and Duels are created in the same way dungeon bosses and raid bosses are. To
put it simply, we are developing each of these fights one by one and put in a lot of resources and
time into it. Even if we do have these systems in place, it would still require sizeable resources
to design new content, making it quite unrealistic to create and scatter them across open world
areas.
Save the Queen content works well because it’s confined to a limited space. I personally love
Critical Engagements, so I am continuously thinking of how to leverage or expand on it one way
or another.
Unfortunate. Very unfortunate. It's the same problem from earlier. Not enough playtesters, or battle designers to create this content. This was probably the best aspect about Bozja.
The Monster Hunter collaboration in Stormblood was quite exciting! With Monster Hunter Rise
being released recently have there been any thoughts on a follow up collaboration with the
franchise?
Currently, we are focusing on the development of 6.0, so there are no current movements on
any upcoming crossovers. (laughs)
Thanks, Yoshida!
In Patch 5.3, A Realm Reborn was revamped to shorten the time it takes for new players to
complete it. The game does still continue to grow, so are there any plans for how to tackle other
expansion story quests in a similar fashion?
No, we don’t have this sort of plan currently, although we are planning to make adjustments to
things like Aether Currents (among other things). If you’re just trying to play through the main
scenario, everything from Heavensward and onward is designed to be fairly user friendly and
not overly difficult. Additionally, we will continue to make adjustments to the EXP received from
quests and the overall pace of leveling at expansion launch timing, similar to what we have done
with past expansion releases.
The problem isn't exp gain though. It's the sheer amount of quests required to reach endgame, not level 80.
Originally Posted by Axxion
Reply With Quote
