Yoshida's latest interview, Comic Exhibition Taiwan 2025

[Jeeqbit]

Yoshi literally considered a new starting point for new players. Dawntrail can be followed without much knowledge about the prior world building. Also, you can buy story skip. So, it's not like prior MSQ was ever required for anything.

It's required if you don't buy anything from the shop. That's what I mean.

And although I am sure that he pondered this, he said that journalists come to him and say how much they loved the MSQ. He was saying that they did not view it as some sort of hurdle, but rather something they enjoyed. That wouldn't happen if said MSQ was not required to begin Dawntrail.

That's why the people who ideally need to skip are those being rushed by a friend to get to endgame to raid with them. Or who don't have the attention span for stories generally and would not be the type to watch Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

However, making prior MSQ optional wouldn't make sense from a business point. It gives the players a reason to subscribe to the game and play through the expansions for months or longer.

While true, I really do not think Yoshi-P cares about that (based on every statement he has ever made). If he did care about statistics and numbers, he would not be so relaxed at how the player numbers have crashed since Dawntrail.

It's not just a couple of elements, though, if we are being honest.

It's not, but my point is it's never just been a couple of elements and that going through the game seeing all these references, then suddenly having a problem with it in Dawntrail is a surprised pikachu moment.

Now, since you disagree, please elaborate which part of the MSQ was absolutely mandatory to understand Dawntrail.

It's not about what is required but that it is functionally required to do one quest to get to the next.

[Hallarem]

Sorry, but they can't have Raha act like a rational adult that's over a century old more than once or twice per expansion, it would get in the way of him being the WoL's goofy fanboy.

Yeah, the goofyness was apart of Endwalkers legacy too, isn't that where they introduced all the anime boing boing sound effects and character assassinated Y'shtola so much that Yoshi-P actually had to intervene before they turned her into a magical anime girl?

[Auro_Seldaris]

I could see that working but again I’m not sure, I mean garlemald as a sympathetic nation never really resonated with me (entirely personal opinion) so in my mind I’d struggle to be engaged with a garlemald + thavnir + maybe corvos expansion as an example which was kinda the original point I was making I might just have sounded authoritative than I meant to sound



Dawntrail’s quality doesn’t factor into the conversation because this is about short EW vs long EW. Your belief that they rushed EW specifically to reach DT has no foundation, the interview specifically said they sped up EW, not they did it because they wanted to tell DT

I’m simply saying from my perspective nothing in EW’s plot threads engaged me enough to keep it going for two expansions, that point is entirely seperate to whether I think a hypothetical 2 expansion EW is better than DT (even ignoring it might still be followed by DT anyway)

Yeah let's just say you should have made it a bit clearer that was your opinion and not objective fact. And you're entitiled to that opinion, I just disagree with your premise.

Garlemald could have been given a chance to change your mind. For example, initially I had NO interest in going to the First, especially since the conflict with Garlemald was heating up and there was an actual frontline war occurring on the Source. I wanted to stay and deal with that , not traipse off to some place I didn't know about and deal with things I didn't know or care about. And yet, by the time Shadowbringers ended, I came to love the First and actually didn't want to come back. You can't say you wouldn't have cared about Garlemald in the end, when you didn't even get the chance to try.

Yoshida has stated several times that he felt "burdened" by the story left over from 1.0. He's stated several times he prefers "simple adventuring stories". He's stated in the wake of COVID and FFXVI that he no longer wishes to tell "complex, sad stories". He's very heavily implied that, now that the entirety of 1.0's plot has been thrown in the trash can, the dev team can now focus on the stories he wants to tell. And , when presented with their first storyline that is "unburdened by what has been", Dawntrail, it doesn't fill me with much hope for interesting, complex, nuanced, or emotionally deep storytelling. Dawntrail is the same simplistic, simpering "Be Happy, Happy Good" plot from start to finish.

Japan is highly conformist, and culturally obsessed with "JUST SMILE", even when smiling isn't the right response, emtionally or logically. It's used as a way to deflect criticism and blame, and demean anyone with serious problems. That's why mental health groups in japan lashed out at Endwalker's initial message of "Dont' be sad or else you'll turn into a monster and ruin everything". This is why they had to retcon it in the Omega quests and say, "Well Venat's assertion that anyone who was a Sad Lad would turn into a Meanie Monster was incorrect", because it painted a horrible picture of mental health issues and they got the backlash they deserved for it.

That's why the final boss was literally based on the Twitter logo. They view any form of going against the communal consensus as bad, especially when it's negativity, and that's what Twitter allowed - it allowed Japanese people to freely express their feelings, independent of cultural pressure to conform, to "go along to get along."

Anyroad, my point is, Dawntrail's "JUST SMILE" is simpering and childish. It's a serious step down in this game's maturity and storytelling.

[Hallarem]

It's required if you don't buy anything from the shop. That's what I mean.

And although I am sure that he pondered this, he said that journalists come to him and say how much they loved the MSQ

You mean journalists that are incentivized to treat the game softly so they get repeat interviews and can get further jobs and passes? Doesn't sound like a really biased source of information to me.
Not saying that a journalist should bash the game in front of Yoshi P or critique it, as much as I hope the journalists asked more hard hitting questions. But they are hardly a measuring pole for the game.

[Auro_Seldaris]

Sorry, but they can't have Raha act like a rational adult that's over a century old more than once or twice per expansion, it would get in the way of him being the WoL's goofy fanboy.

I like him a lot more when he acted more like The Doctor from Doctor Who , and less like the Adoring Fan from Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

EDIT: Also you forgot mandatory BORGAR CAT moment once per expansion :P

[Underscore]

Honestly it's sad how the raid stories don't connect more vividly to the world and are just treated as pump and dump one-off's that slowly fade to the backround as well. Could've guessed it from the moment Gaius was in the Sorrow of Werlyt that we'd never hear of him again. It's why we will probably never see Dalmasca as an area.

But if they acknowledge characters and events from side content in the MSQ, they might confuse the non-existent demographic of 'people who are invested enough in the story that such confusion would bother them, but who also deliberately skip important story content like raids and alliance raids'.

It'd be terrible if they did that! It's not like the one time they did make a character from side content central to the MSQ and acknowledge the raids produced the best expansion story ever, or anything.

Oh wait.

[All_Nonsense]

I like him a lot more when he acted more like The Doctor from Doctor Who , and less like the Adoring Fan from Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

EDIT: Also you forgot mandatory BORGAR CAT moment once per expansion :P

Honestly idk what the issue was with him being the Exarch. Why did he have to become this uwu anime boy when we brought him back, as if he didn't lead the entire world through its destruction and towards a place where it had a future. The man who sacrificed everything he had, degrading his body for a century until he crystalized completely, unsure if he would ever be revived, all for a world that he wasn't native to, all so he could prevent a calamity on his home world that scorned him, and one he (at the time) could never return to. Knowing the grief he put his adoptive daughter through, the uncertainty that it would throw the world into, just to stop a threat that was beyond the understanding of almost everyone he was trying to save. All of that development and character potential thrown in the trashcan so he could be shy anime catboy coomerbait. If he retained his dignity and all that stuff and was still mature, and had a "borgar cat" moment, that would be fine. All of the silly shit would be fine, why not. But erasing his identity has always sat poorly w/ me

[Auro_Seldaris]

And although I am sure that he pondered this, he said that journalists come to him and say how much they loved the MSQ.

Yeah, let's not put too much faith in access journalism, here. More than one content creator has said they regret not pushing back against Yoshida a bit more, or not asking some tougher questions of him when given the chances. Besides, "We're FFXIV guys, of course we don't care about the story"! After all, the cope after DT's main quest finished was, "well, achksually the MSQ is only a small part of the overall experience, you do everything else a lot more than you play through the story, so who cares what quality it is?"

So you know, somehow the MSQ is both the main reason to play, while simultaneously not being that important at all...

The point is, don't fully trust access journalism.

[Kohashi]

That's why the people who ideally need to skip are those being rushed by a friend to get to endgame to raid with them. Or who don't have the attention span for stories generally and would not be the type to watch Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

I know plenty of people who chose to skip on their own simply because hardly anyone is doing old content, unfortunately, and because most fun you have is at max level, like most MMOs. In addition, most classes are designed to work best at level 100 as well, and they feel very weird at lower levels.

For all the jankiness and weird design choices ARR and HW had, at least you had more buttons to press. Now at level 50 and 60, you have 2-3 buttons and half of a rotation. I wish they gave you a weaker version of the spells, which upgraded/transformed every X or so levels than having 3 buttons to press.

Maybe I remember wrong, but I believe he mentioned in the past that they wanted to appeal to a different age group/player base with DT. That's why you have Smile playing when you build a "bomb" lol. I hope they have learned not to alienate the vast majority of the playerbase next time.

[Hallarem]

I know plenty of people who chose to skip on their own simply because hardly anyone is doing old content, unfortunately, and because most fun you have is at max level, like most MMOs. In addition, most classes are designed to work best at level 100 as well, and they feel very weird at lower levels.

For all the jankiness and weird design choices ARR and HW had, at least you had more buttons to press. Now at level 50 and 60, you have 2-3 buttons and half of a rotation. I wish they gave you a weaker version of the spells, which upgraded/transformed every X or so levels than having 3 buttons to press.

Maybe I remember wrong, but I believe he mentioned in the past that they wanted to appeal to a different age group/player base with DT. That's why you have Smile playing when you build a "bomb" lol. I hope they have learned not to alienate the vast majority of the playerbase next time.

I believe Smile was specifically requested by Ishikawa. And thus we have the "Gospel Train Bomb" and everyones jaws collectively dropped in disbelief.
SE chases trends far too much, it's even more visible from all the outside of FF references. It dillutes their own world most of the time.

Don't get me wrong "stealing" from other MMO is what made WoW so popular, not because they 1 for 1 copied things, but they copied something and made it better. While FFXIV struggles to even make an INITIAL VERSION of something let alone improve something on arrival.