4Gamer Interview with Yoshi-P!

[Nalien]

Half-agree with the talent tree stuff... Merit points in XI we guilty of the problems he highlighted, but at least it kept EXPing relevant, I'm somewhat OK with certain things so long as EXP is involved. I think it is because they become more rewarding; Grinding Mark Bills in Heavensward for seals was not enjoyable for me. Grinding them for EXP and seals? A marked improvement. They became worth my time because I was getting two sets of rewards.

I'd certainly rather see new Jobs over new skills on existing Jobs though, I don't even think we need Lv70 for that exact reasoning. Jobs very much are the talent tree of XIV, I can completely agree with that. Still, having no customization because "people will just pick whats best" doesn't sit well with me, it's the same logic that gets us linear (boring) dungeons; "Speedrunners will just force everyone to take the quickest route", it's not that that isn't true, it's just that I don't like the idea of caving to a single group of players demands... This game is fairly guilty of building content around the lowest common denominator, we have times when the developers say "git gud", but for the most part they go to great lengths to make sure any Duty Finder group can clear it... It is not impossible to have non-linear dungeons, it just takes effort to design them well enough that speedrunning isn't the only real option. Slap something like a Treasure Map in a dungeon, or Hunt, and you've got an "optional" activity that can break up the current monotony of dungeons. People will do them if they're rewarding enough. You can have Path A and Path B, with Path A being worked out as the easier/faster of the two by the community, but if someone can spawn a Hunt in Path B, people will take it for that reason.

Likewise, with Job customization, if you work something like Final Fantasy IXs system into the game, you've got something which gives people something extra to work on and slightly customize with. If you work that correctly, stats like Man Eater (increased damage against humanoids) mean you've got a scenario where the optimal set up is situational. Just like taking Path B in a dungeon would be situational on someone spawning the Hunt monster, setting certain stats would be situational on what exactly you're doing. Doing Void Ark? Lots of Voidsent, Demon Killer (increased damage against Voidsent) would be absolutely useful. All you need to do is strike the right balance between how grindy it is to go out and obtain all the stats, and how powerful they are, and make adjusting your selection as easy as it was in Final Fantasy IX. The long term goal would be to unlock all the stats, because they're all situationally useful, long term goals being something this game lacks.

I'm sure some would hate the idea of such a grind, but IDK, we're getting stupid grinds anyway... I'd rather do FATEs for Atma and unlock stats in the process, than just do FATEs for Atma... We're doing dungeons daily. We're grinding the same raids over and over. I'd rather see their rewards have a slightly longer shelf life (since I'd want the stats off them) and have grinding that content work me towards unlocking said stats. I'd be happier doing Void Ark over and over again, because nothing I want ever drops, if just going through got me "EXP" on unlocking some useful stats, than I would be doing 10 runs for absolutely nothing.

[Fevelle]

"However, we often use zero in the calculation for damage required from healers."

Can we close all the healer DPS threads now?

Personally, I'd like all jobs to have base classes. Seriously, it's not hard to do since all they need to do is create a new skill profile and put normally acquired level 1 to 50on the skillset.

[Nalien]

"However, we often use zero in the calculation for damage required from healers."

Can we close all the healer DPS threads now?

That actually really worries me... Mostly because it means we're not getting a unique healer...

They cannot, for example, give us a melee based healer (Dancer), because that kind of healer will contribute damage no matter what, but they work these things out with healers doing nothing... Something like Dancer would then be incredibly overpowered, because White Mage, Scholar, and Astrologian deal 0 DPS in their minds.

I cannot be the only one sick of this kind of set up, can I? I'd love to see Red Mage as a DPS mage, that sits in melee range with a sword. I'd love to see Dancer heal its allies from the front line. I'd love to see an entirely spell based tank, rather than yet another heavy armor user...

game isn't going to have melee healers because of all the abilities like Nisi and Searing Wind. lots of fights are designed so that healers are not stacked on top of people.

True, still a shame though... Although I can't imagine it would be too hard to change mechanics such that they work based on a deeper definition of role. Currently they target the healer role, wouldn't be too hard to have them instead target ranged roles, though then you have the issue of the 4~5 DPS not always having ranged...

[SendohJin]

game isn't going to have melee healers because of all the abilities like Nisi and Searing Wind. lots of fights are designed so that healers are not stacked on top of people.

[Eisen-Zorn]

"However, we often use zero in the calculation for damage required from healers."

Can we close all the healer DPS threads now?

Personally, I'd like all jobs to have base classes. Seriously, it's not hard to do since all they need to do is create a new skill profile and put normally acquired level 1 to 50on the skillset.

I also love that when the interviewer pressed him on Healers doing damage, he basically responded with: "Well, if you're DPS isn't good enough, the Healer may have to help with damage."

Paraphrasing, of course.

[bs3311]

So glad this hasn't turned into a flame war yet. Love it when I see comments like, "I may disagree, but I see your point." Responses.

I originally disagreed with Yoshi's statement on multiple builds, stat trees, etc. Until I re read it a second time. The statement from Y.P. on how the system the interviewer was mentioning is just like a single player/mmorpg tree/custom build system made me think, "Yeah, for a game that is already being ridiculed for taking so many things from other mmo's or single player games. Why do we need another one besides just new stats?" The job system though a part of final fantasy's history, is the one of the only things this and FFXI were able to stand out slightly from other MMO's. It would be even more boring if a single job of mine would have paths for different builds and stat effects, which would not only slander the point of us being able to play any job (Not cap in ilv or reach max performance, PLAY!) but the job system as a whole. If I was bored with DRK for a bit, I would play WAR, and if my FC needed someone other than WAR, I would be PLD. All with different themes and play styles besides stances. Having them all in one would give us less jobs and limit what my character could be. The job shouldn't be a jack of certain trades. My character should be. I'm a jack of tanking. Sure, my dps jobs are behind. But I can just lv grind with friends too 60 and then do raids with them to get the loot I need.

Also if different content was easier/ better with different talents, people would actually have to use more of them rather than just one build.
If there is only one best build, it is the fault of game not giving you enough reasons to use more builds.

But what if some players didn't want to have multiple builds? Builds and talents are and should be minimal at best. Yet certain players will always find the best build even if its minimal. The devs have done this with the cross class system, and it resulted into a check list for skills you MUST need for a specific job or you wont be included or at your peak. Its the fault of not only the game, but the player base.

If you work that correctly, stats like Man Eater (increased damage against humanoids) mean you've got a scenario where the optimal set up is situational. Just like taking Path B in a dungeon would be situational on someone spawning the Hunt monster, setting certain stats would be situational on what exactly you're doing. Doing Void Ark? Lots of Voidsent, Demon Killer (increased damage against Voidsent) would be absolutely useful.

That's the thing though. Its not going to be mandatory for your build since its only going to show up for the patch of the month. Even if everyone uses it, the devs would have to scale the reward for the dungeon. And when everyone is onto the next one, and new players who don't use the skill clear it with minimal reward due to previous players, then the content will dry up faster. Resulting in devs scaling it higher again. And then old players will hop back to it for reward grind with the situational effect. Its a waste of time.

[KarstenS]

"However, we often use zero in the calculation for damage required from healers."

Can we close all the healer DPS threads now?

Not only that. For tank damage they only count the damage dealt by doing the standard emnity rotation.

So we could say, nearly every damage dealer is not bringing the 85-90% of their max DPS on the table, which they are considered to do in the encounter design.

[Alahra]

While Yoshi's probably reluctant to introduce more customization right now, I suspect it's something they'll have to add to the game eventually. It's incredibly rare for MMOs to lack customization to the degree that FFXIV does these days (even FFXI has two separate tracks for it now at 99). What form it will take is anybody's guess, though.

[Kaurie]

I posted this response on reddit, in regards to

We got several posts from players who wanted to be able to customize not only their character's appearance but also their skills and equipment for a particular job so that they could show some more individuality. This is a topic we've seen come up since the initial release of A Realm Reborn.

Yoshida: Right. So, if we did something like add mode A and mode B for dragoon, eventually people on the internet would examine them and choose which one was stronger. Then, when we created new content, the content would have to be based on whatever was strongest. There would be a lot of discussion about the job states like "that job is too strong" or "that job is too weak" and people would always choose what they felt was best. That's not to say a skill system like that would be negative, but the armoury system itself already allows you to play all of the different jobs. Since we already have that system in place, I'm not expecting that we'll make branches for jobs for the time being.

It irks me so much, it's also not very logically sound.

• I mean you could, for the sake of argument, say that all melee DPS are just melee and each job is a specialization of melee DPS - yet all of them are perfectly viable in statics.
• Further, if you have two sets of DRGs and you know one is better, so you balance content for that one, why wouldn't you - say - balance the weaker DRG spec?
• To say that discussions of "that job is too strong" or "that job is too weak" are not already happening would be naive.
• Then he goes on to say that the armoury system itself already allows you play all different jobs, but fails to mention that you can't actually play all of them at the top level - which is what his entire premise was about

To be honest, what bothers me more is he completely ignored this half of the question

customize ... their character's ... equipment

As in, more interesting stats/horizontal progression etc. etc. Just didn't even acknowledge that aspect of the question.

All of that said, there have been some great replies to me on Reddit arguing against what I said above. Ultimately, it comes down to two people being presented with the same evidence and coming to two very different conclusions. It's pretty clear from the other people responding to me, and to Yoshi, that I'm not going to change their mind. I'm fairly certain they are not going to change my mind. So I've got two choices really.

1. I can suck it up and keep playing this, because even though it's bland and I hate this aspect of it, there are plenty of things I love about it.
2. I can unsub and go play something like Guild Wars 2, or World of Warcraft. I'm actually strongly considering bumping to WoW with Legion, the Artifact Weapons look particularly interesting to me.

On another note, I am also displeased with this..

Yoshida: First you'll select a rank, and then you'll play for three minutes. The training goal is to have enough DPS to defeat it at that rank.

So it won't actually show a DPS number.

Yoshida: Right, it's not a numbers competition. The idea is more like you could specify "people who have defeated XX rank training" via party finder. Working on your skill rotation will be important to defeat them, so by working through this content, you should be able to put out enough DPS to beat content that you couldn't previously clear.

I think this is a very half-assed way of addressing the problem, and will result with all the negatives and exclusions forseen with a DPS parser without actually giving people the tools they need to properly improve themselves in real dungeon and raid settings.
That is:

1. with this you cannot see, real time in a dungeon, how your DPS is comparing to other people. "Ah, I am doing 1400 DPS and the other DPS is doing 1450, it looks like I am in the right ballpark." vs "Oh no, I am doing 900 vs the 1450 of that DRG, maybe I need to figure out what I am doing wrong or ask for tips." Instead, we'll get, "Hey, I completed S rank dummy, so shut up and do your job" when someone may be giving tips.
2. you will not be able to see how your DPS varies - ever so slightly - with slight changes to your opener / rotation / gear changes. These little things can add up over time, and can be the difference between a 1% enrage or a clear.
3. you won't be able to see how your DPS varies on fights. Maybe on an S rank dummy you can clear NP, but go in to Savage and your DPS drops by 60%, because you're dodging AoE's etc. With a real time parser, you could see that change and adjust accordingly. "Oh maybe I need to stutter step or work on positioning better." vs "Hey I defeated an S rank dummy, I think I can handle A1S."

[Velhart]

snip

As salty as I am with SE right now, he makes a point. I much rather have new jobs to play then making roles within a job. The point of the Job system in the first place is to make you excel in a certain aspect. If we were to go to a skill tree like system, it would basically be using the Class system again which we already have in the game. It did not work out as planned as you can see.

People do go to what is the best, and in doing so they do have to balance the content around what is technically the best. I can imagine that being incredibly hard to balance, especially if you have 20+ jobs in the future that this game will inevitably have. SE already does a nice job in offering different type of jobs in the same role. Try a different feeling job while in the same role. Are they well balanced? That is another topic.

Again, you put too much faith in the community. People who are relevant to end game are going to pick what is best, always. I wouldn't attempt to sugar coat it, that is the reality of people. They will find what is the best and go with it.

Not to mention, this is a game where you can switch jobs on the spot. In other MMO's, you are usually stuck on one class, but in turn gives you options to make them unique, which is still flawed since if you are taking end game seriously, people will expect you to go on the tree that has you performing at your best. I have done end game in FFXI, WoW, and this game. People expect you to go a certain route if you are taking end game seriously. That is just the reality of it.

tl;dr - Too much work on the developers end for little payback and more troubles.