/r/ffxivdiscussion: YoshiP comments on regrets over making FF14 too stress-free

[Absurdity]

I think if we just take alliance raids for example...

They are mechanically well-constructured, but they have over-telegraphed them to a point where you know exactly what the mechanic is doing on your first time, so there is no real threat if you don't tunnel on your rotation.

In the case of alliance raids it's not just overtelegraphing, it's also the ramp up...which is basically nonexistent.
Whereas previous alliance raids would show you a basic mechanic maybe once or twice before combining them or throwing them at you faster, the Endwalker alliance raids take until the boss is almost dead before they even start ramping up.

[Supersnow845]

And now that you outgear the raid you don’t even see that tiny scale up, you just kill them right around when they are about to start scaling up

Aglaia has been so hilariously outscaled it’s actually pathetic

[OdinelStarrei]

No. I'm not going to believe this. I'm not going to get tricked again. This is the same thing when they say dungeons are going to be "really hard" this expansion or that TOP is going to easier than DSR. I don't even think Yoshida knows how much weight and re-quoting and re-parroted his statements become, so he says things like this flippantly.

Am I to understand that they want to backtrack some of the design decisions I disagree with? Doubtful. What does he even mean by "stress", anyway? Was making it so that every time someone was out of position in every fight that required a modicum of effort instantly destroyed the entire party and any chances of recovery not stressful? Was making some of the hardest and most punishing content the game has ever seen, yet still managing to make it unfun fundamentally through the destruction of several jobs not stressful? I thought we were all aboard on the 24 mans being "too stressful" by nerfing TG Cid, and making this current 24 man a bore. By not actually working on things like a proper ilvl sync so we wouldn't trivialize every piece of content in the game that wasn't released that patch. That's what the "silent majority" wanted, no? That's what is the most "accessible", no?

Square Enix have the finesse of a drunkard. When solutions require a scalpel, they use a sledgehammer. There is no trust from me, and you shouldn't trust a word they say either. Look at the precedent. Stop disappointing yourselves. If they played their own game, understood the feedback that was given, and maybe talked to us without having to translate all of these stupid interviews like a really cursed game of telephone, there would be no need to regret. We would've all been on the same page the whole time, instead of the game being what it is now.

This is another "hope" to add to the pile. "A lot of jobs are going to have new rotations!" "The game is going to bring back more MMO and co-op content!" Really. I'll believe it when I see it, and not a moment sooner. I'm not going to get my "hopes" up again.

[Mosha]

snip

Nice armour bro.

[Saraide]

Considering how vague the interview is I think it's perfectly reasonable to not crack open the copium supplies just yet.

[CNitsah]

Oh, he realizes that now?

Thank goodness.

I think the messages got to them a while ago (probably when critics began to rain around 6.2/6.3), but now is the moment to talk about it. One of the biggest problems with FFXIV is their lack of flexibility. They chose a direction for EW, patches, and went with it until the end, despite all the critics. There is no room to slightly change the plan if something go wrong. That we saw with EW, 2 years of drought because how they chose to make anything they added one time only, and did barely nothing to change that situation. Best example is Variant dungeons, the tweaks were minimals, and none of them dealt with the core problems.

If they talked about that a year ago, that would have been even worst, because people would have gone "wait, you admit it, but do nothing? Are you kidding?". Now is the time to talk about it, every EW content is out, so it's the perfect time to say "it will be different". It's PR strategy. They've probably taken that into account since early in the DT planning, and whatever they chose, good or bad, we're stuck with it until the next expansion.

The real question is how much did they understand of the complaints and how it will be tackled.

[Colt47]

When Yoshi P. says something that implies he wants stress in the game the assumption is that stress = difficulty. So effectively, he is saying he wants there to be difficulty or challenge in the content that is released.

If content is of higher difficulty and that difficulty is emphasized in the need to be coordinated in a group, how would this impact systems like duty roulette where disorganized individuals are grouped together to tackle the content?

If content is released that requires a high degree of coordination and can only be done by an organized group, what does this mean in terms of the contents life expectancy if the contents difficulty also comes strictly from unique puzzles that only exist in that encounter or have to be deciphered before they can be linked to something more general?

It isn't so simple as the two minute meta is bad or that savage is too difficult. It is more about mastery of the game being too heavily linked to memorizing ability names from bosses and figuring out what the hidden death zones are from attacks. Do veteran players who clear savage take people who are skilled but haven't done the fight yet to a reclear group? Of course not, because having significant playtime in the game does not even equate to being capable of doing the bosses unknown mechanics. Too many things are disconnected from one another and the primary way difficulty is achieved in this game is rug pulling and breaking player expectation.

And then people wonder why the average new player is nervous about entering an extreme trial and/or savage. How many people have told others they need to go watch a guide before doing savage or even an extreme trial, let alone ultimate?

[Oizen]

Its normal content thats so easy and mind numbing I stopped doing it.

And the biggest issue I see is that literally every single dungeon is 2 packs of mobs, a wall, do it again, a boss, repeat that 3 times. And as of lv 82, I don't even think anyone who isn't a tank even needs to DO anything.
Like FFXIV has the worst dungeon gameplay I've ever seen in gaming, and its surpising to me that its the overwhelming majority of content with it being so bad like this.

Every pull is the same, every dungeon is trivialized by an overtuned tank mitigation, its boring.

[strawberrycake]

Too vague, Typical Yoshida now a days. I'll wait and see like always.

[SieyaM]

Great, that means even more instant death and body check mechanics coming up because that is the only way they can think of to add "challenge" to the game.