Keiji Inafune talks about Japanese Games: how it relates to XIV

[Jinko]

Noone plays them wrong jinko ppl just use what works best and kills fast.

Oh you mean like stacking BLM in this game ?

It's kind of like you said before how people don't appreciate FF13 because they just use auto attack, I see it the same way when people just press X X X to attack.

You can't complain a game is boring and monotonous if all you are doing is the same attack attack attack, when you have other options available to you.

Meaning the fault lies with the player not the game.

[OJtheLIONKing]

Oh you mean like stacking BLM in this game ?

It's kind of like you said before how people don't appreciate FF13 because they just use auto attack, I see it the same way when people just press X X X to attack.

You can't complain a game is boring and monotonous if all you are doing is the same attack attack attack, when you have other options available to you.

Meaning the fault lies with the player not the game.

The fault lies with the game. Players, with rare exceptions will always find the most efficient way to play a game. It's up to the game designers to make sure there are a variety of ways to play that aren't necessarily more effective than others. Same with MMOs--players may be the ones stacking BLMs in this game, but in the end it's the designer's responsibility to incentivize them to shake it up. I've played lots of other MMOs, including the 800 pound gorilla I won't name, and I've never seen the job elitism I've seen in FFXI or this game because they make sure to design jobs and fights specifically to avoid that. There are shades of it, sure, but things like content party finders and no ranged safe zones in fights help keep things balanced.

Now FFXIII had the auto-battle system, but you certainly could completely ignore it and input commands manually. I know a few who did just that. What FFXIII did which I think was brilliant, however, was basically incorporate the tendency of the vast majority of players to just mash attack through most random encounters and make that the baseline amount of time to attack, nuke, debuff, whatever. When you do that, people actually start thinking about the most efficient paradigms to use and actually start using the more technical jobs. I found that system much more engaging than the old ATB system, especially the way it made buffs and debuffs practical to use in an average battle where I would often skip them even in boss fights before.

By the way, I do like a good turn based game. FFT is one of my favorites of all time, and of the ATB styled games FFX is my favorite because it doesn't pretend to be real time and has a more methodical feeling. I'm also a fan of the Total War series and 4X games. The thing is, the JRPG style of turn based game is just slow without requiring tactics to win, and combine that with random battles and you get some seriously bloated games. In most fights, you're just attacking, maybe reacting to an attack, or in a rare case like a boss fight using a plan. You can do all of those things at a much quicker pace, as FFXIII showed, without really losing much. If something's turn based, I think things like terrain, direction of attack, the weather, etc should be factored in to justify the extra time you have to think. FFX is the exception since it had things like aeons, much more powerful management of elemental resistances than most games and the ability to deliberately plan out your turns because you could see who was going in advance, like FFT.