Naoki Yoshida interview @Gamescom

[Welsper59]

No.
They money made by the Cash Shop is probably not going into this game development nor any SE title development for that matter.

Yoshida is the only one who could call more than half his player base "baddies" (which aint a lie btw, i lol'd at it) and still get away with it, he straight out evaded the question regarding the predictive nature of patching by basically threating us of "oh, but you would love it if we stopped updating" (WTH) and got away with it. Seriously, smokes are high, the whole "savior of XIV", "sucessful reboot" went to his head.

But again, there is people here who would defend him even if he were to wipe the progress of all accounts, people would come to this forum and say "hey, is a chance for all of us to start again!" or something like that.

Well he is kind of basing it on our inevitable reactions and some folks' short term wants, which just like this games content, is entirely predictable lol. Can't fault the man for logically using the tools he has to keep the game how he wants it, for better or worse.

[Velhart]

No.
They money made by the Cash Shop is probably not going into this game development nor any SE title development for that matter.

Yoshida is the only one who could call more than half his player base "baddies" (which aint a lie btw, i lol'd at it) and still get away with it, he straight out evaded the question regarding the predictive nature of patching by basically threating us of "oh, but you would love it if we stopped updating" (WTH) and got away with it. Seriously, smokes are high, the whole "savior of XIV", "sucessful reboot" went to his head.

But again, there is people here who would defend him even if he were to wipe the progress of all accounts, people would come to this forum and say "hey, is a chance for all of us to start again!" or something like that.

Pretty sure they said one time the cash shop went towards further development on the software and hardware side. Namely one contributor to the EU Data Center unless I am wrong on that.

I mean, he isn't wrong. A large portion of the player base have a pretty low skill level. More of the issue is that SE attempts little to nothing to motivate players to get better because almost all the content does not require you to get better. Even worse he breeds and caters to them by making difficulty of relic a complete joke. The only casual content I have seen lately that requires you to get off your ass a bit is Weeping City, which is a difficulty direction the team should really look into for other content. I will see what their definition of challenging is once Floor 100-200 of PoTD is released.

I doubt people would defend Yoshi-P on the action, but brand loyalty would keep some people in. Wiping character data to start anew is pretty much MMO suicide, but I know you are exaggerating to make a point. People right now are at least weary of the structure, and it is going to get more aggressive likely as the months go on. We have seen in interviews that people are getting tiresome and starting to call Yoshi-P out on it, and seems like he is having a harder time answering it. At least answering it that makes people understand. I personally think he is a great producer/director, but he seems misguided right now and cares more about getting people into the game more than trying to hold a retention of players. Something like "go play another game" is not something I usually hear from a MMO developer. Not so much that he is wrong, but developers should always be focusing on getting the maximum amount of retention they can get. Of course it is quite difficult to hold people's attention but so long (even WoW struggles with this), but not really the ideal thing you should be saying. If I was him, I would of gone, "I understand your concerns and the team is always trying to find ways for players to feel engaged to the content each time they log on." or some PR crap like that.

I am realistically fine with the pattern we receive content. I care more about quality of standards, something interesting within the pattern, and whenever something new comes up, it holds weight unlike previous content given to us (Diadem). I am a person who cares deeply about quality and principles of design.

Sometimes i see white knights....

Out of jokes, there is no assumptions in the interview that Yoshi-P wants to maintain the real playerbase, the dedicated raiders. Vanity,diadem,PotD,Gold saucer minigames,etc are their priority.

Tanaka with FFXI made a more focused game with a deep system and still the game lives today. The life of FFXIV won't be the same in this way. The raiders will only come back 1 month after every expansion and the story repeats itself.
Why they only put effort when the things goes bad like before ARR? Now with more money they become more lazies

Ehh FFXI was misguided in it's own way, but I will always compliment how well structured the variety of challenges there were. Not saying the game was bad, I loved it from 2003-2010, but the game had its own mix of good and bad. I would like to see some of the good aspects of FFXI and of FFXIV to mix, but that is for another discussion.

[Sandpark]

@Velhart
Matt Firor from ESO sees the metrics the same way. Most updates lately have been made to make the game more accessible rather than meaty. Account wide Champion, mounts, One Tamriel. Yoshida is not blind, even if we don't like everything he does.

The glory days of huge barriers to entry and long deep content are numbered in the industry.

[Myleus]

Sometimes i see white knights....

Out of jokes, there is no assumptions in the interview that Yoshi-P wants to maintain the real playerbase, the dedicated raiders. Vanity,diadem,PotD,Gold saucer minigames,etc are their priority.

Tanaka with FFXI made a more focused game with a deep system and still the game lives today. The life of FFXIV won't be the same in this way. The raiders will only come back 1 month after every expansion and the story repeats itself.
Why they only put effort when the things goes bad like before ARR? Now with more money they become more lazies

[Brannigan]

Remember when we got an Odin extreme primal battle that didn't drop a mount and yet his horse just happened to end up in the cash shop?


That was p r e t t y cool. I love playing my wallet instead of playing the game .

[Myleus]

Odin mount was a cheap shot^^

[Hakuro89]

I like how every time they ask about any of the problems with the current system and note solutions, he responds with "no because that's not FFXIV."

[Magic-Mal]

Remember when we got an Odin extreme primal battle that didn't drop a mount and yet his horse just happened to end up in the cash shop?


That was p r e t t y cool. I love playing my wallet instead of playing the game .

Didn't the mount come out waaaaaay before the trial(which came out in 2.5)?

[Brannigan]

Didn't the mount come out waaaaaay before the trial(which came out in 2.5)?

Probably. However, Odin's trial was almost certainly in development well before then (since we saw a version of it at Fanfest). The cash shop is BS in general. Since 90% of the rewards in this game are only cosmetic, putting cosmetic stuff in the cash shop devalues content.

[Mraj]

It's fun to get some small things between big patches!

So tell me why every month i have to see new optional items instead of a new [ content ] preview?

I love playing my wallet instead of playing the game .

Would that there was some content to be paid for during catch up patches. In between long, listless periods of game inactivity where the chief features are pointless gearing* and working on relics - which involves spamming static, dated content in a multi-stage grind designed to keep players bored but busy.

(*unless you raid. Dungeons / trials don't require current patch gear )

Worse still is FFXIV's inability to make any group happy. The Raiders have motivation issues and 6 months of 4 one-stage raid arenas. The PvPers find that due to restrictions on game modes and matchmaking the already small community is fragmented further. The Housing enthusiasts either can't get a house or find that FFXIV's housing setup still lacks basic personalization features ( like weapon racks, mannequins, more item variety ). The glamour enthusiasts are by far the happiest, but even they face the challenges of limited inventory space ( unless you sink additional monthly fees into FFXIV to purchase more retainers to hold all those glamours )

Extremely casual players may never even hit a content wall because between afking and casual chat, they might not do any content at all besides the daily cactpot. Ironically enough, the hardcore players - having finished all available content - have roughly the same options available to them.

I've heard YoshiP talk on how the dev team is working their hardest - and let's assume that the main patch attractions take all their time and effort to roll out on schedule. If those fail, the game stagnates because every other system besides the main patch attraction has been left neglected...sometimes for periods spanning over a year. It's not hard for any type of player to list numerous systems that they'd like to see updated - if only a little - between main patches. YoshiP, forget not being able to find complex battle system designers - get a few interns to delegate tasks to so that we can see something on the horizon other than cash shop updates.

To list a few things to slip in between major / catch up patches:

* Regularly update Gold Saucer rewards so that MGP isn't just another useless currency. Something as simple as a new npc outfit, weapon, hairstyle.

* Updating current systems like GC's, FC perks, airships, Treasure maps, levequests, guildhests, Hunts, older PvP maps.

* More quality of life changes in general. Give the housing people more furnishings. Give the glamour people a few more glamour rewards to work towards. Give the crafters some new recipes or ingredients.

This sort of upkeep assures your subscription players that the game isn't just a boom-and-bust cycle model with frequent content drought periods. Even the most minor additions and quality of life updates outside major patches lets the players know that the game is healthy and worth paying for, even when there isn't a major update out. On the other hand, when players continually log in to cash shop updates, it only reinforces the message that SE doesn't really care about player experiences outside of what they're expected to release during major patches.