Yoshida fanfest interview

[CNitsah]

r/ffxiv has translated the interviewgiven during the fanfest. Some of the question have been partially discussed over the last days, as Dengeki and Famitsu published it, but here is the full transcript.

I'll just go about the questions that I found the most interesting, but don't hesitate to talk about the others.

Question 15 is particularly interesting. It seems to imply that the trial series will be back as its own entity. If that's what it mean, this is huge. That would mean that we'll get at least one true FFXIV side story, but also that they'll unbloat the patches storyline. Being forced to have a dungeon AND and trial made the whole storytelling stiff, with some dungeon being useless filler (isle of Haam being one of the worst, it's the dungeon where you go for a fuel run. The one before Zelenia, while not as bad and good fanservice, is still basically useless). So if trial series are back, I'm all for it. (I'm even for them not being limited to trials, but swap dungeon and trials between the series and the msq depending of the need. You could have 2 trial and a dungeon in the serie, for example). If that's what it means, the place of this announcement was in the keynote. But there is a world where he just basically said "hey, msq is FFXIV original content" and...duh! Seeing the convoluted way they sometimes say things, chances that's what he meant are far from zero. This might also be a translation issue.

Now for the "all of the crossover content are integrated in a manner that is based on the world view of FFXIV" part, I'm still unconvinced. You can do all the efforts you want, you're not gonna do an Eva crossover without showing an Eva. FFVII has more chances to be integrates (as city of 9th, for example), if they do something similar to what they did with Fran, but overall, I'm not convinced.

Q14 mentionned that fierce is aimed to bridge the gap between normal and extreme. Yoshi-P said "this will mean it’s designed so that players can take on the challenge after witnessing the base mechanics in Normal", which sound good. Since they announced that new difficulty level, my fear has been that it needs PF and organisation, and if that's the case, I think Fierce will be a failure, because it would just be "another content that needs PF/discord to run", and I don't think that's what most FFXIV players are asking for.

But this question also show that SE sees midcore content as a difficulty level (interview litterally call it that, saying FFXIV didn't have midcore content until now - which should end the extreme is midcore content debate, for SE it's high end). This is not a good sign. I think midcore is more about investment and accessibility (that's I tend to see relics up until ShB as midcore content as long as you decide to make many of them), and difficulty is only one of the tools to make that. But overall, I'm slightly relieved about fierce.

[Yodada]

r/ffxiv has translated the interviewgiven during the fanfest. Some of the question have been partially discussed over the last days, as Dengeki and Famitsu published it, but here is the full transcript.

Question 15 is particularly interesting. It seems to imply that the trial series will be back as its own entity. If that's what it mean, this is huge. That would mean that we'll get at least one true FFXIV side story, but also that they'll unbloat the patches storyline. Being forced to have a dungeon AND and trial made the whole storytelling stiff, with some dungeon being useless filler (isle of Haam being one of the worst, it's the dungeon where you go for a fuel run. The one before Zelenia, while not as bad and good fanservice, is still basically useless). So if trial series are back, I'm all for it. (I'm even for them not being limited to trials, but swap dungeon and trials between the series and the msq depending of the need. You could have 2 trial and a dungeon in the serie, for example). If that's what it means, the place of this announcement was in the keynote.

Now for the "all of the crossover content are integrated in a manner that is based on the world view of FFXIV" part, I'm still unconvinced. You can do all the efforts you want, you're not gonna do an Eva crossover without showing an Eva. FFVII has more chances to be integrates (as city of 9th, for example), if they do something similar to what they did with Fran, but overall, I'm not convinced.

Q14 mentionned that fierce is aimed to bridge the gap between normal and extreme. Yoshi-P said "this will mean it’s designed so that players can take on the challenge after witnessing the base mechanics in Normal", which sound good. Since they announced that new difficulty level, may fear has been that it needs PF and organisation, and if that's the case, I think Fierce will be a failure, because it would just be "another content that needs PF/discord to run", and I don't think that's what most FFXIV players are asking.

But this question also show that SE sees midcore content as a difficulty level (interview litterally call it that, saying FFXIV didn't have midcore content until now - which should end the extreme is midcore content debate, for SE it's high end). This is not a good sign. I think midcore is more about investment and accessibility (that's I tend to see relics up until ShB as midcore content as long as you decide to make many of them), and difficulty is only one of the tools to make that. But overall, I'm slightly relieved about fierce.

Of course Fierce will be an failure. Its balanced by Ozma.

[Ilisidi]

"Isle of Haam", also known has "Hi Thancred, Bye Thancred".

"Since they announced that new difficulty level, may fear has been that it needs PF and organisation, and if that's the case, I think Fierce will be a failure, because it would just be "another content that needs PF/discord to run", and I don't think that's what most FFXIV players are asking"

Same

[OdrN]

I'm sure Evangelion raid series will fit into the XIV's universe like a glove...

[Gortys]

The Nier raids did NOT fit into XIV's universe IMO, but also? It's a raid series, it was fun, great music, so I really don't care. EW's AR's fit very much into XIV's word and people disliked them.

[CNitsah]

The Nier raids did NOT fit into XIV's universe IMO, but also? It's a raid series, it was fun, great music, so I really don't care. EW's AR's fit very much into XIV's word and people disliked them.

Yeah, that's because EW AR don't tell anything. It's basically, you find the gods, you know you'll have to beat them all, and they stall between the raids because the whole thing holds in one sentence : "The gods have to return to the planet to replace Haedelyn now that she is out of the picture, but they want a fight with you before that". That's it. They try to create a state of emergency while trying to make you believe they want to destroy you, but the whole structure, 4 fight every 8 month destroyed that sense of emergency. Nothing interesting happens. Stakes are the lowest of all AR. Plus IIRC, the fight were liked when they released, but the ilvl creep got them so badly we don't see much of their signature moves anymore, to the point they're nearly as bland as CT at this point.

And let's be clear I'm not against having crossover raids, but I also want to feel something about what's happening. I like the FFXI raid well enough, but everytime I do windrust, I can't shake that feeling Prische and Azdaal live an aventure I was invited to but lacks half of the context. I mean that moment when they begin talking about a city siege always get me, because it feels that it comes out of nowhere, and in the end doesn't matter anyway.

[Valence]

Yeah, that's because EW AR don't tell anything. It's basically, you find the gods, you know you'll have to beat them all, and they stall between the raids because the whole thing holds in one sentence : "The gods have to return to the planet to replace Haedelyn now that she is out of the picture, but they want a fight with you before that". That's it. They try to create a state of emergency while trying to make you believe they want to destroy you, but the whole structure, 4 fight every 8 month destroyed that sense of emergency. Nothing interesting happens. Stakes are the lowest of all AR. Plus IIRC, the fight were liked when they released, but the ilvl creep got them so badly we don't see much of their signature moves anymore, to the point they're nearly as bland as CT at this point.

And let's be clear I'm not against having crossover raids, but I also want to feel something about what's happening. I like the FFXI raid well enough, but everytime I do windrust, I can't shake that feeling Prische and Azdaal live an aventure I was invited to but lacks half of the context. I mean that moment when they begin talking about a city siege always get me, because it feels that it comes out of nowhere, and in the end doesn't matter anyway.

Can someone remind me why we had to beat them up in the first place? My mind kinda glossed over it

Also the Vanadiel raids were the most boring raids I've had the displeasure to go through as someone that never played XI. Nothing made sense and the XIV integration felt so rushed and rubbish just for the sake of having them in XIV.

[TeresaFortell]

Q2. Is there any specific learning from Dawntrail that you considered especially important for Evercold's development?

A: This time we are putting in serious consideration on the sense of tempo, back at Dawntrail we were being really careful in depicting new lands, new cultures, new encounters and this greatly slowed down the pacing on story progression. The fact that this did not align with player’s motivation of keep moving forward shows shortcomings on my part as the director.

Really? I must be playing a different game altogether, because I felt not enough was being shown on these new elements. In fact, this expansion didn't even use a whole decade of Blue Mage lore-building.

[TeresaFortell]

Can someone remind me why we had to beat them up in the first place? My mind kinda glossed over it

The twelves have a lot of aether concentration, so WOL must fight the twelve gods to drain their aether so that they can dissipate into the lifestream. I think that was the gist of it.

[CNitsah]

Really? I must be playing a different game altogether, because I felt not enough was being shown on these new elements. In fact, this expansion didn't even use a whole decade of Blue Mage lore-building.

When I see that kind of answer (the Yoshida one, not yours), I always feel this corpo talk at its highest level. I feel Yoshida can't say "Yeah, with shat the bed with the story", so they go for one of the minor problems. Here it's the tempo, because the whole first part was a bunch of nothing and the second one ended being rushed because of that. From a certain point of view, there is a tempo problem. It's just the consequece of the writing, not the cause of the problem. But they can't say that without pissing off the people that actually liked the story.