Yoshi-P on changes in next expansion: “I don’t want to take a conservative approach”

[Valence]

Currently, every dungeon/trial/raid has the same basic structure with the same unvarying attack patterns and phases. (Speaking as someone who doesn’t do Savage level content, though, so maybe things are different at that level).

Once you learn and memorize the script, the content experience is the same every time so eventually you’re just going on autopilot. I guess this makes programming Trust AI easier, but I find it quickly makes content boring. Especially when the game is built on running the same content repeatedly for weeks on end.

I get that FFXIV is often likened to a theme park, but modern theme park ride design incorporates small variations so that the ride experience isn’t the exact same every time. Like Rise of the Resistance at Disney or Bowser’s Challenge at Universal.

So I’d like to see dungeons with even small variations. Such as type and number of trash mobs and when/where they spawn, chest placements etc. Give players variable bonus rewards for clearing optional objectives like downing a boss in a certain amount of time or finding x# of hidden treasures that aren’t always in the same place. Basically take what they learned from Variant Dungeons, and tone it down so it’s applicable to mainstream content rather than just making it side content.

Maybe have trial/raid bosses be more unpredictable by not doing the same attack pattern every time but mixing it up from a set of predefined attacks.

Idk, I just feel like something needs to change to make the game feel a little less like a static game world and more like a living fantasy world.

What changes do you want to see in 8.0?

If you don't do savage/ultimate, believe me, it's a thousand times more scripted and static in those modes for the very reason that most mechanics are incredibly more rigid by nature of killing you or outright wiping the raid if done the wrong way, and they generally only accept a very small amount of variations if any at all. There is a lot less rng in savage because they want to make sure that those complex/intricate mechanics can be operable on their own without ending in forced failure states due to bad patterns. What normal modes tend to have is random or a certain number of baited or environment rng AoEs, and anything above from ex to ultimates doesn't have it with very few exceptions (first boss of Rokkon with the bullet hell similar to what we have in Vanguard right now, and M2S with attack pheromones). In fact, M2 is the perfect example of this, where the Beats phases in normal mode are filled with random AoE puddles everywhere, and less hearts to fill above your head than in savage, which is absolute chaos, but in contrast M2S Beats, even the first one, are highly scripted and the only (semi) rng elements are found in the towers in the first Beats (that have multiple fixed patterns overlapping with semi rng hearts above your head at the start). It does however retain the absolutely rng attack pheromones. I've seen people describe savage as basically DDR, and I do abuse the word myself because that's exactly what it is at the core, those days more than ever because there is nothing else left from the old days that wasn't feeding into that paradigm (job and party centric battle system mechanics).

Fact of the matter is, savage has always been a lot more scripted than anything casual for those reasons, and it gets even more compounded by the fact that those mechanics allowing a lot of leeway and randomness means that there is no real "hector strat" or anything of the sort for casual modes. People just wing it, and it results in different runs every time where people just "adjust". This is why those days in spite of being a pve raider I find that I still enjoy casual modes a lot more for this reason. But what tends to lessen the rng in casual is that nothing is threatening, so when a run is going smooth, it feels more of the same ultimately.

But you're definitely right in saying that yes, the global formula has grown incredibly stale, be it for the dungeon absolutely rigid structure, the boss script in general, etc. Unfortunately though, and you can probably call me jaded for this, but I do think that's what the devs and a majority of the population wants (else they'd be playing wow).

Yoshida's words are incredibly vague as well, as to what he would consider "new", whether this is going to push even further into that paradigm or veer away from it, especially considering that I've consistently hated everything new they have tried since HW (Deep Dungeon, Diadem, Eureka and Bozja), and as to what he would consider "required to be protected": this could very well be the dungeon formula especially regarding his earlier interviews onto it where he specifically mentioned he wants to keep it that way.

Edit: to add onto it, I do feel the game design of XIV does everything it can to turn every fight into spreadsheet simulator, where every encounter can be modeled through a spreadsheet and you just boot a duty like you'd boot a guitar hero music sheet. And worse, as we get less and less rng and variations within jobs themselves to make room for more complex DDR in encounters, then jobs also become exactly that: you can spreadsheet rotations and for jobs that don't loop every 2min properly on some of their parts (usually tied to gauges) then it essentially turns into a game of memorizing 10min long spreadsheets listing unchanging variations to adjust at minute 4 or 6. And this can change if an encounter has downtime, asking you to memorize another spreadsheet. This is even worse on casters or even melee DPS to a lesser degrees because you're also required to memorize different sheets of when to use mobility tools or swap rotational moving parts around depending on the fight. Add to this that a lot more mechanics those days rely on committing to memory visuals cues shown over the battle arena, and i'd say that yes, the game they want to design is literally being a memory game, and I do feel I'm not the audience for it anymore, and I also do feel that it's not going to change because it has found an audience, it's just not us.