Thoughts on the Yoshi P AMA?

[Iscah]

Gameplay ranks low in a videogame? That's enough FF forums for today.

That's not at all what I mean. Rather, I think a lot of players only need to find the gameplay "enjoyable" without fussing over the minutiae of skill potencies and gauge management and optimal rotations. They may be content as long as skills are satisfying to use and the boss fight has cool mechanics.

[StarRosie]

That's not at all what I mean. Rather, I think a lot of players only need to find the gameplay "enjoyable" without fussing over the minutiae of skill potencies and gauge management and optimal rotations. They may be content as long as skills are satisfying to use and the boss fight has cool mechanics.

I mean...yeah, a game should feel enjoyable to just play. Overall I believe I get what you mean. But please correct me if I'm wrong here. It's a hard balance to find between base enjoyability and optimized enjoyability. If you lean too far into jobs being incredibly punishing if you don't obsess over being as optimally optimal at all times...you will see a player shift towards the easier jobs (Or just straight up quit.) But lean too far away and you get...sorta where we are now. Some jobs feel weird to play right now (Hello Astro, my beloved.), others just feel like confused messes (Hello Dark Knight.), and others just need a serious look at (Hello Dancer.) And for this next part, I'm going to preface that I do want jobs to gain some level of high complexity again. I do want jobs to make those who work to optimize their job to feel rewarded for it. I mostly play BLM when I DPS for a reason. Cause BLM requires a level of fight knowledge and positioning to get the most out of it. I feel punished when I mess up, and that's fine. But I don't feel overly punished if Enochian drops in the middle of a mechanics dance because I'm trying not to die and blank on using transpose or umbral soul. And that's also fine.

Jobs should aim to be enjoyable to play, even when not played optimally. Some folks do not want to run at 100% efficiency, full throttle, all pistons running, at all times. Sometimes, people just want to jog instead of sprint. Does this mean all jobs need to be really watered down? No. Does this mean we need to jack all jobs up to the level of "If you don't hit your positional, you don't get your combo." again? Also no. Again, it's a hard balance to find. I wish they would bring positionals back to a lot of melee job GCDs and make them enough of a damage increase that those who want to optimize all the time...CAN and feel rewarded for it. But not so much that they feel required by everyone 100% of the time. That'd be a decent place to start I think. But, I also think the job should allow the player to play it fine, even if not hitting every positional, or doing perfect gauge management, or perfect ability usage. And keep in mind, I'm talking in terms of more casual to midcore stuff. Savage or Ultimate should still demand 100%. Personally, if I picked up a job, I practiced and practiced to play it at least competently, maybe not 100% optimized but I can play something like BRD or RDM well enough to know that I'm not dragging folks down. But a job should aim to be fun first and then build to allow those who find optimizing said job to be fun, to have THEIR fun. But ultimately allow everyone to enjoy it. Is that a tall order...? Maybe? But we gotta hit somewhere around that ballpark I feel. Cause right now...things are weird.

[Iscah]

...

My point is though, even if there is room for improvement, is it at the front of your mind whenever you play? Is it the number one thing you want to launch into when you have a fleeting chance to say one thing to Yoshida?

And even if it is at the front of your mind, is it at the front of enough other people's minds that it should be expected that the question will get asked at an impromptu event like this?

[StarRosie]

My point is though, even if there is room for improvement, is it at the front of your mind whenever you play? Is it the number one thing you want to launch into when you have a fleeting chance to say one thing to Yoshida?

And even if it is at the front of your mind, is it at the front of enough other people's minds that it should be expected that the question will get asked at an impromptu event like this?

Aha, ok. Yeah, I get you. No, the average player is not gonna be thinking about that stuff in that situation. But I think that's kinda understandable why, but also kinda...deflating. Personally speaking....I wouldn't. Getting some armor sets I like to be dyeable would be at the front of my mind there. (Woad, Warg, Yaefimi Casting, list goes on.) Cause I love me some fashion. I think if folks got 3 questions to ask each, you might see more asking about this stuff. But that's also deflating because you'd need multiple chances to get that to pop into someone's head.

[Absurdity]

My point is though, even if there is room for improvement, is it at the front of your mind whenever you play? Is it the number one thing you want to launch into when you have a fleeting chance to say one thing to Yoshida?

And even if it is at the front of your mind, is it at the front of enough other people's minds that it should be expected that the question will get asked at an impromptu event like this?

It would be at the forefront for me, because it is by far my biggest issue with the game. It isn't the glamour system, the plates, the clunky menus for every little thing, the fact that my "bank" is split between 5 retainers that I need to access separately, the 100 different currencies that all take up inventory space.
Playing my job is a majority of what I do in this game, be it in basic roulette content, 24man, trials, extremes, savage or ultimate, and if that gameplay is lackluster, which I think it absolutely is, then I am simply not enjoying a majority of this game's content.

Right now it feels like there is barely any difference between playing my job well and just mashing buttons. It feels like no matter what content I'm doing I'm just going through the motions, motions I've learned 6 years ago and which have only become more mindless since.

It's why I can't even get any enjoyment out of savage anymore, the core gameplay is not fun to me and no amount of mechanics spam is going to fix that.


I've started a new playthrough of Monster Hunter: World recently after not touching it for like 2 years and while you can't exactly compare action combat to tab target hotbar combat it is such a breath of fresh air to play a game where improving at your "job" makes a tangible difference, not just in how fast you finish a fight but also in how different your gameplay becomes.

[AlucaDragonheart]

Playing my job is a majority of what I do in this game, be it in basic roulette content, 24man, trials, extremes, savage or ultimate, and if that gameplay is lackluster, which I think it absolutely is, then I am simply not enjoying a majority of this game's content.

Right now it feels like there is barely any difference between playing my job well and just mashing buttons. It feels like no matter what content I'm doing I'm just going through the motions, motions I've learned 6 years ago and which have only become more mindless since.

It's why I can't even get any enjoyment out of savage anymore, the core gameplay is not fun to me and no amount of mechanics spam is going to fix that.

Agreed, 100%. I've been playing WoW for the first time recently and that game has some of the most enjoyable tab target combat I've ever played, it just makes FF14 feel so slow and sluggish in comparison. How different each class feels from another is also something else that the FF14 dev team really should consider, because no one wants to play a role who's only difference is what weapon type you want to use, each Job should absolutely feel different from each other despite the role, because right now it just makes me dread engaging in the combat, because it's just so boring.

[Jeeqbit]

it just makes FF14 feel so slow and sluggish in comparison.

I don't personally like the concept of a 1.5 second GCD. Having time to actually think between GCDs is nice.

How different each class feels from another is also something else that the FF14 dev team really should consider, because no one wants to play a role who's only difference is what weapon type you want to use

They used to care about this and expressed so in interviews, but it all changed around the time of Shadowbringers' release and they stopped using words to the effect of "unique". What they aren't saying can be just as telling as what they are saying.

I think with so many jobs and complaints about balance, that they probably determined it would be easier if the differences were just about looks and animations. We used to have half as many jobs as we do now, so there is a certain amount of sense in 2 of every job playing the same.

[Sebazy]

I don't personally like the concept of a 1.5 second GCD. Having time to actually think between GCDs is nice.

I'd wonder if you were a minority on this one. I originally intended to move to FFXIV alongside a tight knit guild that had been together as far back as Velious in Everquest and onward through FFXI and WoW.

I was the only one who made it through the beta phases and actually rolled up on the live servers. The rest of them just couldn't stomach the slow GCD with the general opinion being that it made combat just feel too slow.

Personally I'm of the opinion that the 2.5 second GCD was a cost cutting measure rather than a 'by design' choice for the sake of gameplay or whatever. It simply meant less load on the servers (Which was a HUGE problem early on)

[Boblawblah]

Agreed, 100%. I've been playing WoW for the first time recently and that game has some of the most enjoyable tab target combat I've ever played, it just makes FF14 feel so slow and sluggish in comparison. How different each class feels from another is also something else that the FF14 dev team really should consider, because no one wants to play a role who's only difference is what weapon type you want to use, each Job should absolutely feel different from each other despite the role, because right now it just makes me dread engaging in the combat, because it's just so boring.

I know this is sacrilege for some, but I don't play mmorpgs for the combat, it's one of the lower things on my list of priorities. WoW feels like poop compared to a game Elden Ring, Prey, or Armored Core, that doesn't make it a bad game. Sluggish is something I've never considered FFXIV. That's like saying BG3 feels slower than BG2. It's just different.

What you're basically saying is "make FFXIV faster" and it's never going to happen.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I know this is sacrilege for some, but I don't play mmorpgs for the combat, it's one of the lower things on my list of priorities. WoW feels like poop compared to a game Elden Ring, Prey, or Armored Core, that doesn't make it a bad game. Sluggish is something I've never considered FFXIV. That's like saying BG3 feels slower than BG2. It's just different.

What you're basically saying is "make FFXIV faster" and it's never going to happen.

I would've furiously argued with you on this but when I realized that 80% of this game is just a visual novel, I decided that yeah...you do indeed have a point how combat is just...there