The Problem with Yoshi-P | An Honest Critique by Ember's Arcade

[Kohashi]

I'd like to add Warframe to that list. It has both an excellent story and does a way better job at combining it with gameplay, although it is more of a lobby based game.

I think the vast majority of games that I did play had a better way of telling a more engaging story than FF14 has, except maybe WOW which is far worse..lol.

[CalvinDescoles]

I think the vast majority of games that I did play had a better way of telling a more engaging story than FF14 has, except maybe WOW which is far worse..lol.

to be fair, most of the engaging story that had FFXIV were shutdown du to "JP don't like it" (RIP Bozja, Gaius side story, Eureka...)

[Kohashi]

to be fair, most of the engaging story that had FFXIV were shutdown du to "JP don't like it" (RIP Bozja, Gaius side story, Eureka...)

Honestly, I always felt the side stories were always far above the MSQ. Every single one of them has been vastly more enjoyable than msq ever was for me.

Pandemonium- awesome
Eden= awesome
Ivalice= awesome
Weapons = awesome
Coils = awesome
VOID ARK= awesome

just to name a few and randomly..

[Kaliesto]

to be fair, most of the engaging story that had FFXIV were shutdown du to "JP don't like it" (RIP Bozja, Gaius side story, Eureka...)

Alright I wanted to respond to this because I absolutely agree that is another thing going on, why is it that everything we liked but the JP players did not like?

I really don't understand this cultural disconnect.

[SongOfTheWind]

Bozja and Gaius side story were terrible. I am surprised it is liked “here”

[Kahnha]

you didn't like the weapon story? the only thing bad abouyt it is square doesn't voice their side content.

you guys call Yoshi P the problem but you offer no alternative and if they were to throw the director out who's to say the next director will be magically better?
imagine them turning the game into a gacha game or something or going free to play

[Arohk]

A problem that results from the idea that even the biggest "DAU" must be able to finish every quest and dungeon on the first attempt, and making every single difficult challenge optional content, with little to no rewards in character progression(Only Savage provides gear upgrades)

[Chasingstars]

A problem that results from the idea that even the biggest "DAU" must be able to finish every quest and dungeon on the first attempt, and making every single difficult challenge optional content, with little to no rewards in character progression(Only Savage provides gear upgrades)

If the dawntrail gearing system is as streamlined as it was in endwalker and endwalker wasn't a fluke, technically most content that isn't the MSQ is optional in regards to gear upgrades. Even stuff like relic weapon grinds, normal and alliance raids, X.0 unlockable dungeons (I.E. Strayborough and Tender Valley), and crafted gear would be purely optional. At most needing to buy a tomestone ring because dungeon rings are unique, which even then the game supplies enough tomestones to buy 1.

[ElysiumDragon]

One thing that the Youtuber didn't discuss was the following:

I believe Yoshi P's design philosophy can be traced back to when he first took over FFXIV after its initial failure in 1.0. At that time, 1.0 had a convoluted, unintuitive and outdated design.

To address this, reportedly Yoshi P encouraged his devs to play WoW to understand its accessibility, its success, and how seamlessly casual players could join and enjoy the experience. This focus on accessibility and intuitiveness became central to his design philosophy, and became central to the success of A Realm Reborn's launch.

Since then, I think Yoshi P maintained this mindset, prioritizing ease of access and casual-friendly gameplay as his design philosophy, and that 1.0 trauma still hasn't allowed him to move on.

Now, it just feels like this approach has been taken too far, and permeates not only FFXIV but also influencing the design of other games like FFXVI. So what was once a balanced and thoughtful philosophy now becomes overdone and just diminishes the depth and challenge that players nowadays expect.

Not just 1.0, 3.0-3.1, what with Gordias Savage being what it was, has definitely shaped the overall state of this game. If they've overcorrected, it's because past precedent shows that unbalanced jobs, meaningless pain points, and raids with gear checks, seriously harm the overall experience for the entire playerbase. Wildstar crashing and burning likely only further contributed to this.

This is the truth 90% of the playerbase doesn't understand, because they literally weren't here for it, and don't have the necessary context or additional information.

[Tyintheron]

I mean, there's one major factor that makes XIV's streamlining so much more important: the fact that the entire quesline - including dungeons and trials - are baked into the world exploration process. You can't get into exploring "the bigger world" without also doing every single main story quest along the way.

In World of Warcraft you can get to max level and see the newest zones solo just by doing all the quests in a hub to level a bit, then moving on to whatever new zone interests you and repeating the process until you get to the zone you want to see. The only way zones are "locked" to the player is by level - not XIV's combination of level and story progression. There might be a pick-up quest that takes you to a new zone, but so long as you meet the level requirement, you can do the quest that gets you there and start exploring its expanded world.

In XIV the furthest you could get into exploring the greater world's zones without questing would be, what - the end of ARR? If you don't do every main quest leading up to Ishgard, that's it for you. You can't just say "I'm level 84, time to do FATEs in Garlemald" for the fun of it without also doing the hundreds of quests that let you go there to begin with.

That makes streamlining the player's route through the story content far, far more important to keep the playerbase at a healthy level. If a player new to MMOs buys Dawntrail but can't get through Heavensward because more experienced players complain that "things need to be more difficult" constantly, the playerbase will just atrophy - and not in the normal "long-term players get bored" sense, but in the "most new players won't put in the effort to learn difficult 14-year-old content to see the new 1-year-old zones they bought the expansion to see" sense.

That means that having that process streamlined is much, much more vital to XIV's long-term health - you can't easily be one of the types of players whose motivation is just "exploration" because the game actively locks you out of expanded exploration until you ALSO work your way through things that might not otherwise interest you due to their difficulty - dungeons and trials. I don't doubt they have internal statistics to show that every time the MSQ has had an "I failed that tough trial in Heavensward five times, but I bought the game to play Stormblood" difficulty spike, they also get a spike in players who put the game down and never come back.

It's a fundamental structural problem. I don't think it's a "wrong choice," but it's definitely a (possibly the?) primary motivator behind the way the game's difficulty is designed.