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

[Hallarem]

Soooo the interviewer says all the things that Yoshi-P should be saying, about quest design, dungeon design, everything.

And Yoshi-P says: "Yeah, we're gonna shake things up, trust me bro" I'm kinda growing weary of the vague PR talk, would be nice to hear some solid goals and plans.

[Derio]

Job design is key. Outside of the new jobs, current job design and MSQ are bringing down this expansion.

[Valence]

Knowing the devs' record so far, we'll get presented with done deals once everything is done just before 8.0, and to hell if the feedback is mild or outright horrible, there will not be any time for adjustment or changes anyway, therefore fulfilling the same usual 2 year long prophecy cycles.

For Mao, rights now BLMs is hot mess. AOE been nerfed, mana regen been nerfed, rotation been made rigid and crappy with mediocres Flare Star. Some changes been reversed or adjusteds, like puttings back Ice Paradox and movings Umbral soul down to 35. Is still nots enough though. EW BLMs MUCH more flexibles than DT BLMs. Is maybe one case of where goings back to EW version might be betters. Mao worried that to has wait for 8.0 to gets properly fixed mights be too long a wait. BLMs nots filling any niche that other jobs nots filling betters. People might just start walkings away altogethers from BLMs if no longer needed and not as much funs as EW BLMs. Devs way too conservative by takings thems time. Mao found outs little whiles ago that MCHs been sufferings for even longers. Mao wonderings why is so easy for Devs to wreck a job and so hard to make it betters.

From a pure MCH perspective (and also because that's the job I know the ins and outs the most, I've even theorycrafted on it in SB/ShB), the way it felt to me is that the devs identified that the job suffered from some issues and people had complaints about the job, and then chose to outright delete and remove bits that nobody had problems with (ammo, procs, raid buffs, big burst profile), and instead keeping the problematic bits (rapid fire, flamethrower), and I feel this is just an example among many.

Not only do they identify the wrong problematic bits, but also favor a systematic approach where they'd rather delete than repair. To add salt to the wound, they also do not add new things after deleting, which has been the whole crux of the matter of how homogenized and bland the whole battle system has become after the Shadowbringers reworks. Everything is about damage, everything has become 2 dimensional and can always be measured within the same metric (damage), leaving little room for anything else. How can we even be surprised that this results in atrociously homogenous job designs that lack identity? How do you design 2-3 full hotbars of unique abilities when the only thing that they can act upon is damage (or healing)? If anything, I'm amazed DPS jobs still have that kind of shallow diversity left to them. In fact, if we even want to consider job identity (like in pvp), the sine qua non preliminary condition that will need to be attained is the reintroduction of different metrics to the whole battle system and going back to varied mechanics from before Stormblood that relied more heavily on the battle system and jobs themselves rather than where you stand and DDR to solve them.

I don't feel this is even possible anymore. What would become of the older content? How can we even rework everything or add such meaningful changes not only within a single expansion, on 21 jobs when at best they did 3 new ones per expac, and also expect them to literally make the game something entirely different? I just feel people (including myself) have way too grand hopes for what those changes are going to be, and in reality we'll just get the usual "reworks", just more wide spread. And possibly going with some kind of half baked system to veer away from having to go past lvl100 (which don't get me wrong, they definitely need to find other models).

[Mioooh]

"I don't want to take a conservative approach" ...

And then we get "Look we have a new type of arena: an oval!"

Irony aside, I just believe substantial changes in this conservative approach when I actually see it, simply because they are really conservative even when they want to go out of their box.

In my opinion, the new content was definitely a step up. Yes I liked the new dungeons and fights in general. And yes, I think the devs were given more freedom in designing the fights, they are more fun and engaging and some of them are even more difficult. That being said, I totally agree with you. As much as I like the changes, all of them still happen just within their very strict formula, which basically counts for everything else in DT too. There is no exciting surprise element, no sense of wonder.

The dungeons are beautiful, the bosses are cool, but you still have wall - wall - boss, repeat 2x for every single one of them. This also goes for when they come up in the Story. I don't think anyone was surprised that we got a dungeon every odd level + a final dungeon at lvl 100, narrated by the main-villain, followed by an encounter with said main-villain which leads in to a final cs and then to the credits. Thats just too predictable, in my opinion at least.

So if anything, then changing the formula would be the most important I think.

[ReynTime]

Speaking as a healer I want at least a little bit of randomness in boss fight patterns, like the party being unable to tell for certain who will be targetted by certain mechanics. And I want that in MSQ dungeons and alliance raids. Not just savage.
I need the content that is done daily to be more engaging. And what content is that one that gets done daily? Not savage or ultimate.

People need to learn to separate dungeon design from boss design. The dungeons in Dawntrail aren't any better or worse than the boring dungeons we had since 3.1. Their design direction is literally the same. Only the boss fights improved.

[Valence]

Only the boss fights improved because that's only what they care for. And even then, without them making healers half irrelevant like they did, we'd get so many abandons in Dawntrail just because a healer would die repeatedly on the same boss mechanic... I just think they're focusing on the wrong things by doubling down on the base lego bricks of their current design and difficulty rather than breaking the formula yes.

I went through the series of guildhests we still have in the game recently. It's enlightening if you want to see how content was designed back then. Some of them have healers in trash mobs that you need to focus down first else they heal their allies for example.

[Kes13a]

wait until he "next expansion" is at this point.... I dont know. was told that for 7.0 and got a couple lackluster jobs. yeah, one is OP and the other was neutered before pre-release was over. so... not holding out much hope for a new direction and less conservative.

if he is going to shake things up then things better be shook up. not like re-released gear in different shades, not the same pig with lipstick.

if he wants to put a new coat of paint on the house.. better do some massive renovations as well, otherwise....

as it sits now, I am less inclined to believe him, and more inclined to not be pre ordering 8.0.

[Sensui]

I want a new gear system. I grow tired of the 3 gear dump cycles per expansion.

I would rather have gear that I have to choose for a slot as BiS not just based on base STR and substation. But also more interesting augments to class abilities or traits. Gear is too temporary and easy to get. Also why are the ultimate fights just for glamours? Really unattractive to dump time into (my opinion)

Like what FF11 had..

Haste: x% increase to auto attack (reduce auto attack delay)
Occasionally attacks 2-3 times (On top of normal crit and DH)
Occasionally nullifies damage

So i chave to choose a build for speed, raw damage, a little of everything, more magic defense or physical, depending on the fight.

Stuff like that. Battle system needs an overhaul and so do the fights. The scripted dance is meh.

[Raikai]

In my opinion, the new content was definitely a step up. Yes I liked the new dungeons and fights in general. And yes, I think the devs were given more freedom in designing the fights, they are more fun and engaging and some of them are even more difficult. That being said, I totally agree with you. As much as I like the changes, all of them still happen just within their very strict formula, which basically counts for everything else in DT too. There is no exciting surprise element, no sense of wonder.

The dungeons are beautiful, the bosses are cool, but you still have wall - wall - boss, repeat 2x for every single one of them. This also goes for when they come up in the Story. I don't think anyone was surprised that we got a dungeon every odd level + a final dungeon at lvl 100, narrated by the main-villain, followed by an encounter with said main-villain which leads in to a final cs and then to the credits. Thats just too predictable, in my opinion at least.

So if anything, then changing the formula would be the most important I think.

Oh yeah, I defnitely don't take away that, for example, fights are really good right now, both normal modes and high end. I might be naive, but based on everything that was advertised pre-release, and even the fact that job design would remain unchanged from EW just for the players to get used to the new encounter design... I honestly thought we'd see things really outside of their comfort zone and even at an experimental level.

What we got is simply their formula executed really well, which is obviously an improvement from Endwalker, but not quite where I expected it to be. People are coping with the fact that more meaningful additions are coming just on patch content because people would be too shaken if it was on launch. I want to see it to believe.

[CNitsah]

Yeah, it's good to talk about what's gonna change in 2 years, but if they want to still have a healthy player population by then, maybe it's time talk about what they are gonna do to try make the game better in the next few month...