4Gamer Interview with Yoshi-P!

[Velhart]

The classes by themselves add almost no depth to the game though, not unless they actually rework it from the ground up. All it's really done is made you require XYZ levleed up for cross skills, rather than baking in those "essential" cross skills (things like provoke, invigorate) to the individual jobs.

Come 4.x though, I think it would be ideal to do the job overhaul alongside new abilties and traits. There's too many buttons for most jobs to be able to add anymore, and traits by themselves are "meh" and have very limited framework. Jobs like BRD (if they intend on keeping WM) and SMN (for the "pet" aspect, unless they intend on doing that for MCH, but that's a long road with what we have now) need to be given another look before they continue on adding new abilties.

I would agree if it wasn't easy to level those jobs to get those abilities. Maybe not ideal, but certainly not a big deal either. It does get you on other jobs for better or worse.

[Velhart]

snip

That is an assumption. I have played a wide variety of MMO's including GW1 and 2. The ones I put a long time dedication into was FFXI, WoW, and this game.

Also, why would developers take time to develop a skill tree system for people not even going to take it seriously? It is a waste of time in that regard.

Yoshi-P said in this very interview that it is more work than needed on the developers to make specs within a job.

[BubblyBoar]

Actually, that is how science works to test theories. It's nearly impossible to prove something is true, but it only takes 1 example to prove something is false.

Then I guess since current science is pretty much worth jack all on a subatomic level, all or science is just wrong and cant be used for anything right? But what's that? The class of physics an an exception and we still use the what we had before? Man, one of us must be SUPER wrong. And that's without mentioning the difference before a scientific law and a rule.

SWG after CU (NGE) had about the same Jobs as FFXIV and talents/traits/armor customization and the ability to also freely change jobs with respec system and semi-action combat, each class was unique and played completely different as well. Although I liked PreCU/CU a lot better since it had a multiclass system its the same argument. Lazy.

There are many (exceptions), they are just old games.

I don't know what SWG or CU are, but you kind of missed half my point in what FFXIV was designed for and what the development team wants to do. Yoshi P explicitly said he rather make a new job than a specialization. Yes, they could do it, but they rather to something different. It has nothing to do with laziness since a new job requires the same, if not more effort than a specialization.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Then I guess since current science is pretty much worth jack all on a subatomic level, all or science is just wrong and cant be used for anything right? But what's that? The class of physics an an exception and we still use the what we had before? Man, one of us must be SUPER wrong. And that's without mentioning the difference before a scientific law and a rule.



I don't know what SWG or CU are, but you kind of missed half my point in what FFXIV was designed for and what the development team wants to do. Yoshi P explicitly said he rather make a new job than a specialization. Yes, they could do it, but they rather to something different. It has nothing to do with laziness since a new job requires the same, if not more effort than a specialization.

Yet there are so few jobs and classes with little variety between them. Its pure laziness by the money this game is making compared to ones that made it work.

The quests in this game have barely any lore, they focused way too much on a story then the lore of the races and classes. We barely know much of anything about them.

You have to admit, FFXI was a lot better at some things.

Dark Knight and Paladin for example are "different" jobs, but they might as well just be specializations because they play VERY VERY similarly....

[BubblyBoar]

Yet there are so few jobs and classes with little variety between them. Its pure laziness by the money this game is making compared to ones that made it work.

The quests in this game have barely any lore, they focused way too much on a story then the lore of the races and classes. We barely know much of anything about them.

You have to admit, FFXI was a lot better at some things.

Dark Knight and Paladin for example are "different" jobs, but they might as well just be specializations because they play VERY VERY similarly....

I don't think you even understand what laziness is or understand how much work goes into implementing a job, much less three at the same time. It's not like we are only getting 1 job an expansion, we got 3! We even got a job between release and the first expansion. Maybe you should go back and do some reading about how small the FFXIV team is and how Yoshi P is desperately in need of staff. There have been job openings for the team that have been up for months and a year + that still haven't been filled. They need more people and they aren't getting them.

But all that aside, again, the reason for refusing skill trees isn't because they are too lazy to make them, but the effort going into make them would rather be placed in making new jobs.

There's plenty of world building and lore in quests. Maybe you should read over things you've missed.

Your PLD/DRK example is EXACTLY why we get new class and not skill trees. That is how they want to do them and personally, I prefer it.

[Kosmos992k]

For sure, I didn't mean any offense and was just legit curious. I remembered you being a 53 paladin from a debate we had way back in the summer, and to see it again i was just confused. I'm sorry to hear about your wife, and hope that she is doing well.

Many thanks, and no offense taken at all. I appreciate the time you took to ask, I would have wondered about it too.

I think cultural differences and language barriers may be a huge issue. It's possible there is a lot 'lost in translation'. However, based off most of his live letters/interviews, it mostly seems that he just has a vision and wants to stick to it. He then listens to the feedback and tries to incorporate that feedback into his vision, and then things get distorted through to implementation.

Yes, indeed. When you consider the player feedback comes in several different languages from different cultures, there is a translation/interpretation of the original comments, then of course something will be lost when the comments are collated together, the feedback then gets reviewed, and of course different people take away different things, then they apply their vision for the game and the feedback together, decisions are made and instructions for implementation are given, which are then interpreted by the developers into an eventual implementation. Given all the steps that the feedback goes through between the original source and the implementation of change, it's a miracle that anything makes it through the process. Lol, I think I just described corporate software development, and believe me when I say that it's by far the exception when the final product of a project comes remotely close to what the requesting team envisioned...

[RiceisNice]

I would agree if it wasn't easy to level those jobs to get those abilities. Maybe not ideal, but certainly not a big deal either. It does get you on other jobs for better or worse.

It's certainly not a big deal, but it's still arcahic in design and arbitrary compared to giving each job abilties to manage their own TP. There's homogenization and there's straight up copying abilities, one way to look at it is if we didn't have 5 cross skills, it'd be 5 job skills exclusive to that specific job, giving them more room to work with.

[Kaurie]

Then I guess since current science is pretty much worth jack all on a subatomic level, all or science is just wrong and cant be used for anything right? But what's that? The class of physics an an exception and we still use the what we had before? Man, one of us must be SUPER wrong. And that's without mentioning the difference before a scientific law and a rule.

I.. don't know what you are on about?

That is an assumption. I have played a wide variety of MMO's including GW1 and 2. The ones I put a long time dedication into was FFXI, WoW, and this game.

Oh I'm sorry, you mentioned that you played WoW and FFXI, so yes I made that assumption. How did you find the GW1 build customization?

Personally, I dabbled in WoW but have a lot more experience in GW1, GW2 and FFXIV.

Also, why would developers take time to develop a skill tree system for people not even going to take it seriously? It is a waste of time in that regard.

I am not sure why people won't take it seriously, I believe I've made the argument that I would take it very seriously. Further, there is a lot of stuff in the game that people do not take seriously, are they all wastes of time?

Yoshi-P said in this very interview that it is more work than needed on the developers to make specs within a job.

Indeed, that is what Yoshi has said, and that is why I am aggravated. I think it's a horrible response. "We understand that you'd enjoy this, but that's like a lot of work, so we're not going to do it." That's not a very good response to feedback. Could you imagine this response given to feedback in almost any other industry?

[Felis]

It would already help if they free the cross-skills from their restrictions, like they were during 1.x.
It was possible to equip most of the learned skills with every class.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I don't think you even understand what laziness is or understand how much work goes into implementing a job, much less three at the same time. It's not like we are only getting 1 job an expansion, we got 3! We even got a job between release and the first expansion. Maybe you should go back and do some reading about how small the FFXIV team is and how Yoshi P is desperately in need of staff. There have been job openings for the team that have been up for months and a year + that still haven't been filled. They need more people and they aren't getting them.

But all that aside, again, the reason for refusing skill trees isn't because they are too lazy to make them, but the effort going into make them would rather be placed in making new jobs.

Your PLD/DRK example is EXACTLY why we get new class and not skill trees. That is how they want to do them and personally, I prefer it.

I did not say they were lazy for making them. I said the laziness altogether is on the sky.

You say there is 3 more jobs? I see a Paladin with a Greatsword and a few different moves, not exactly a new job. Just how you look at it really.

Meanwhile in EQ2, which also has a very small team make a specialization that changes the class and gives it new and different abilities, pretty much one out of 26 classes with the same amount of differences. Sure there are balance concerns for them but at least they are giving out a lot of variety.

Dark Knight could of been a new class, with a different playstyle but they decided to play it safe and make it play similar to the other classes. That is why I said lazy.

EQ2 had like 9-10 people I think working on classes and now only 2-3.

SE should be hiring more people, the game got popular! It is just silly in my opinion.

You say: Oh! Well it is harder to balance those classes and some classes are better then others and specializations are better too!

Oh... well then look at Paladin/Dark Knight/Warrior. Warrior is so much better of a Job, why are the other jobs even played?

So, even the balance isn't an excuse. You can say we have the ability to switch Jobs, but leveling in the game is such a chore and honestly why even have jobs if one job is just going to be better then the others?

Specializations at least give each class and job a powerful "spec" or move that makes them viable and not put on the shelf over other classes.