New Famitsu PAX East Yoshi P Interview - Thanks Slycer!

[Kiara]

Hi All,

For those that don't visit the BG forums, Slycer llerion was kind enough to translate the new massive interview that Famitsu (Japan's #1 Videogame Magazine) did with Yoshi P at PAX East.

The info was too good not to share and pass along. All credit and thanks to Slycer! Thank you!

Lots of great info, some thoughts:

* Potentially more Gear Options horizontally. (But I hope he slows down the vertical pace.)

* Sky Battles and Encounters. Not only just exploring w/ your own airships, but creating Battleships(!) and having random encounters. Also love that you can invite Friends that are *not* part of your Free Company to tag along.

* Why do they still want to keep the backwards pace of [End Game Raid (Alexander)] first and THEN --> [Crystal Tower Replacement / Lower iLevel Raid] --> Repeat. It was backwards in 2.0 because of unforeseen delays with CT. Why repeat that mistake in 3.0?

Great stuff overall:

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/125...29-Translation

Once again, thanks to Slycer for all the hard work.

Can't wait for 3.0!

Source: Famitsu's JP Interview
http://www.famitsu.com/news/201503/14074044.html

[Airget]

While it was backwards in 2.0 cause of unforseen circumstances I think it turned into a happy accident because by having the larger/easier raid come second it opened the door to a second means of gearing up for the main raid.

Basically the "backwards" way made the raid itself harder to progress through cause it would take longer to gear and then when the next patch rolls around the gear you get through the larger raid would be a means to gear slightly faster or ability to gear another job quicker.


It can be looked at like this.
3.0= 450 tome cap a week, possibly i150 raid armor
3.1=450 tome cap + 1 IL140 piece of armor a week, possibly i150 raid armor

It offers a better sense of progression since if they did reverse the above it would make Raids that much easier cause now x players are already at 140 cap before they enter 150 and all they have to do is get the 150 to beat said raid.

[Rufalus]

3.0= 450 tome cap a week, possibly i150 raid armor
3.1=450 tome cap + 1 IL140 piece of armor a week, possibly i150 raid armor

Item level estimates look a little low. The level increase in an expansion will be larger than a normal patch.

Just 3.0 would bring several new tiers of gear all at the same time, with the highest coming from Alexander hard mode.

It's like how 2.0 endgame progress had i55, i60, i70 and i90 tiers, then they filled in i80 in patch 2.1.

So I would guess that good gear will be around i200 in version 3.0.

[Kiara]

So I would guess that good gear will be around i200 in version 3.0.

I really hope they watch out for Gear Inflation / Numbers Inflation in 3.0. It'll get to a point where they may end up having to do what Blizzard did with WOW and "squash / crunch" all the numbers down to make it more reasonable again.

[JayCommon]

* Why do they still want to keep the backwards pace of [End Game Raid (Alexander)] first and THEN --> [Crystal Tower Replacement / Lower iLevel Raid] --> Repeat. It was backwards in 2.0 because of unforeseen delays with CT. Why repeat that mistake in 3.0?

Airget makes a good point, but I had a different theory on this that my raid buddies all tended to agree with.

I don't think it will be backwards this time around. With the comments Yoshi has already made about there being a Story and a Hard mode of Alexander that offer different item levels of gear, I think the potential is there for the odd-numbered-patches to bring in the 24man raid with item level gear right in between those two.

This way, people who are totally progression oriented and hell-bent on clearing that Hard mode raid before 3.1 still have their chance with Story mode Alex gear, but people who may not have as much time to spend on progression, or can't find a suitable static, or have other problems will gain a bit of an easier entry-level to Hard mode raid with the new 24-man gear.

So I would guess that good gear will be around i200 in version 3.0.

Yoshi already said that the current i130 gear you can get now, will not be upgraded on your path to player level 60. I135 weapon will be the best thing you can get before hitting level 60, so we will already be in our "leveling gear".

With raid not dropping until 2 weeks after, and no ETA yet on when the actual new tomestone will be available (can't remember where I read it, but I think it's in this article.....new allagan tomestone will NOT be available until even after Alex raid is out) I actually tend to think you have over-estimated the gear level in 3.0. I would be surprised if it was higher than i170.

[Kaze3434]

Item level estimates look a little low. The level increase in an expansion will be larger than a normal patch.

Just 3.0 would bring several new tiers of gear all at the same time, with the highest coming from Alexander hard mode.

It's like how 2.0 endgame progress had i55, i60, i70 and i90 tiers, then they filled in i80 in patch 2.1.

So I would guess that good gear will be around i200 in version 3.0.

no, it wouldnt. was already stated that i130 gear would still be viable at lvl 60.

[Zumi]

no, it wouldnt. was already stated that i130 gear would still be viable at lvl 60.

They never said that they only thing they said was that you wouldn't replace ilvl 130 at lv51 we have no idea about the rest of the levels

[Kiara]

I don't think it will be backwards this time around. With the comments Yoshi has already made about there being a Story and a Hard mode of Alexander that offer different item levels of gear, I think the potential is there for the odd-numbered-patches to bring in the 24man raid with item level gear right in between those two.

This way, people who are totally progression oriented and hell-bent on clearing that Hard mode raid before 3.1 still have their chance with Story mode Alex gear, but people who may not have as much time to spend on progression, or can't find a suitable static, or have other problems will gain a bit of an easier entry-level to Hard mode raid with the new 24-man gear.

Hey Jay,

Cool theory. That makes sense also. I hope this turns out to be the case, and thinking about Yoshi P's comment on a wider set of gear (Horizontal) before the top, this fits with your theory as well.

Thanks.

[HumsterMKX]

Doe this mean there will be gears like the Relic weapons?

Where you can add stats to it.

[BreathlessTao]

How will you bring "drama" to the community?

Lol, that's something I don't think we need help with. :'D

How diverse are the creation possibilities for Au Ra?
Y: By combining different colors and horn styles as well as different eye types, you can create a female character that can resemble anywhere from a beautiful woman to a succubus.
It sounds like there's more of a range available than there is for other races - was that your plan?
Y: I told the art team to add more personality to the facial patterns on the Au Ra for both genders. For the original races, the patterns are pretty similar with small changes between them, but the Au Ra change that up.
Will the horns unique to the Au Ra create issues with interference, like with helmets?
Y: The adjustments took time... it was a lot of effort from the character modeling team. It was important to us that the horns would be visible even with helmets on to maintain the identity of the race. There was a lot of talk between the art and character teams to make sure that interference with new equipment wouldn't occur because of last minute design changes. Of course, the new equipment took this into account, but we had to carefully go through adjustments for existing equipment to fit the Au Ra.

...so, Au Ra is the new baby. Once again (re: gender-locked gear) females sound like they have quite a wide range, with males not even mentioned. Also "more personality to the facial patterns" - I wonder how the others will measure up to that? Will we get additional things too, or will we be left to rot? And hey, good news, apparently they can redesign old equipment and pay attention to racial traits not being covered up. Huh....

Y: FFXIV has adopted the Armoury system which is quite different from other MMORPGs in that it allows one player to be anything. However, for crafters up until patch 2.5, rather than the system allowing you to be any of them, to a large extent for more hardcore crafters it required you to be all of them.
Y: We want to narrow down people's focus so that rather than wanting to do everything, they instead want to focus on really working on refining just one class.

...does it sound like he's missing the point there? I mean narrowing the focus seems to oppose the logic of the Armoury System in the first place. It's not "wanting" to do everything that's bad, that should be a given for a system like this. The problem has been the fact that they didn't "allow" players to do everything, but rather pretty much "forced" them to do everything.