Naoki Yoshida interview @Gamescom

[Khalithar]

What would you do differently or what do you want from ffxiv?

I never liked this kind of suggestion. It's not our job to suggest something different or come up with new ideas, that's the job of the professional game developers that make the game. It's perfectly valid to say the pattern of new tomestone -> two dungeons -> trial -> raid is repetitive and it's still the same model for character progression. I certainly don't know what they could do to change it, but I do feel the same pattern of content release gets rather dull.

[Vantol]

FFXIV has continued to expand on way more than just Ilvl gear and the next dungeon or raid.

Actually, no, the only relevant content after all those years is dungeons and raid, everything else is niche.

Seriously what MMO isn't constantly replacing gear with better gear?

FFXI. I didn't play many others MMO, but I'm sure there are a few to name.

Gear and even crafted items or 2.0 pvp gear or relics were hard to get at first, but made more accessable later.

And useless, so there is no point even in trying to get it.

Pvp, quality of life, gold saucer, mentors, holidays, animations and emotes, beast tribe revisions which leads me to mention the complete change to how materia is handled. Treasure maps and the Aquapolis, Orchestrian stuff and housing. There hasn't always been big fishing or notorious monsters or hunts.

PvP - dead.
QoL - yes.
Gold Saucer - dead.
Mentors - not content.
Holidays - brain-dead FATE grinding.
Animations and emotes - not content, but ok.
Beat tribes - brain-dead daily chore.
Materia - dead outside of raiding and crafting/gathering.
Treasure maps and Aquapolis - close to dead.
Orchestarion - one day feature, then dead.
Big Fishing - useless.
NM (Diadem you mean?) - dead.
Hunts - brain dead zerging, but usefull, I can give you that.

Reward structure and gear progression is bane of this game. I can't name a single game that would do it more horrible way.

And there are countless threads and posts about how to fix it. Not just ideas, but actual "How to" instructions, but alas.

[Renius]

Diadem was bad.

Palace of the dead lets people preview jobs and trains the community as a whole to be better players. It's random music and mechanics make it pretty fun compared to running a dungeon again. There's a lot of cool stuff with the items. You can clear it with 1 2 3 or 4 people and with any kind of make up. 4 healers, 4 tanks, 4 dps or any mixture. The rewards are very rewarding too.

What's not to like?

AND it does not take forever to clear a section which is nice if you are pressed for time and just wanna pick up a couple of tomes.

[Kosmos992k]

He is objecting against content "that is not FFXIV" so much that I think his perspective of "really new content" is...warped at best.

I think you're expecting something that you really should not expect in FFXIV. This is a Final Fantasy game, it incorporates ideas and theme from other sources as well, but at it's core it is an FF game. It has it's own flavor, and to be honest I am delighted that Yoshida and the team keep their eye on whether or not something is "FFXIV" or not. Part of his job is tpo be the curator of the game, he has nto look out for it, and defend it to ensure it maintains it's own self. Players who play and like the game should be thankful that at least Yoshida-san, and perhaps others - have this mid-set.

PvP - dead.

Suffers from players with "what have you done for me lately" tattoo'd to their forheads...

Gold Saucer - dead.

I love the Gold Saucer, it's a fun place to chillax.

Holidays - brain-dead FATE grinding.

Not all events are FATE driven, and those that are are pitched so as to be available to the majority of players, this is not a problem IMHO.

Beat tribes - brain-dead daily chore.

If you burn through them and treat them like chores, they will be chores.

Materia - dead outside of raiding and crafting/gathering.

Of course it's dead outside of raiding, raiders have the best gear already, why would they need it? It's pretty usefule elsewhere though.

Treasure maps and Aquapolis - close to dead.

Why? Because you're bored and burned out on them?

Orchestarion - one day feature, then dead.

I like mine, and change the music frequently.

Big Fishing - useless.

My son loves fishing, though sometimes the waiting is a problem.

NM (Diadem you mean?) - dead.

Because a particular segment of players played it to death and decided it's dead?

Hunts - brain dead zerging, but usefull, I can give you that.

It's only dead if you insist on running around in a party and call in a linkshell or two to zerg things down.

IMHO the bane of this game is people who play it like a job, play it more hours a day/week than is sensible and have a need top validate that time via the rewards in-game. But like everything you said, that's just a personal opinion.

[FoxyAreku]

I can't think of any other MMO that I've played, where you can accurately predict almost everything that is going to be added in a content patch months or even years before the patch is even implemented. This is because of the pattern that FFXIV follows and that pattern is what people are getting tired of. Failing to understand that and failing to add new content that breaks the mold is what will cause the game to be crushed in the end.

I can guarantee you, that no one expected Diadem, Palace of the Dead, or the Feast to ever exist months/years ago.

You're exaggerating.

Materia - dead outside of raiding and crafting/gathering.

Not really for or against your argument, but I do want to say this is a hilarious statement.

"Dead outside of 80% of the endgame." XD

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

I can guarantee you, that no one expected Diadem, Palace of the Dead, or the Feast to ever exist months/years ago.

You're exaggerating.

No I'm not exaggerating. I can guarantee that the expansion will consist of exactly 5 major patches, with some smaller patches fluff/QoL patches thrown in between. 4.0 will implement some new zones, new jobs, new skills, and raise the level cap (the usual stuff for an expansion). The level cap will be level 70, at which point you will have 2 expert dungeons which you will farm to cap your tomes each week, the weekly cap will be 450 and there will be an uncapped tome that you can hold 2000 of that will let you get some gear that is 10 ilevels lower than weekly tome gear. You'll have some new masterbooks at level 70 crafter which will allow you to craft the highest ilvl gear outside of raid and tome gear. In 4.1 you'll have a new 24 man raid with gear that is the same item level as tome gear that you can get on a weekly lockout. Probably about the timing of 4.05 there will be a new relic questline which will gradually allow you to upgrade your weapon ilevel to be equal to that of the current raid just in time for that weapon's ilvl to become obsolete. This cycle will repeat for 4.2-4.3, and again in 4.4-4.5.

This timeframe will cover about the next 2 years of the game at which time a new expansion will be released and you'll do it all over again. Yes there will be some unique side content added in as well, but those kinds of things usually serve as some sort of "catch-up" content which essentially means it's just fluff/glamour content. No matter how compelling or unique the content may be it does nothing to change the overall structure of the game's fundamental design.

When Yoshida says he doesn't want to make something that "isn't FFXIV" what he's actually saying is he's not going to deviate from this fundamental design structure.

The overall point I'm making is, if you enjoy the game now, you will likely continue to enjoy it years from now. If you don't enjoy the game now, you probably should not get your hopes up for things to get better down the road.

[Martin_Arcainess]

Diadem was bad.

Palace of the dead lets people preview jobs and trains the community as a whole to be better players. It's random music and mechanics make it pretty fun compared to running a dungeon again. There's a lot of cool stuff with the items. You can clear it with 1 2 3 or 4 people and with any kind of make up. 4 healers, 4 tanks, 4 dps or any mixture. The rewards are very rewarding too.

What's not to like?

Tots aggre, just because POTD was for some people doesn't make it a failure and from what I've seen it's the most positive thing to be added onto XIV and if it didn't get a positive reaction then we wouldn't be getting the 150+ Floors added to it in the next patch.



Another thing as well with regards to the adding something new to XIV or something not XIV like might put some or alot of people off.

I remember watching a MMO video and it was on about a Star Wars online game that people really liked but then WOW came out and it changed to be more like WOW and then that made alot of people stop playing the game due to the change.

[Kosmos992k]

Something I forgot to add to my reply before.

China Dress confirmed!!!

Finaland : You have started to add some exclusive items from the Korean and Chinese server. However, it’s only minions. Will you add the outfits and mount from these servers ? They are quite popular ! We want the flying supersonic cloud too !

Naoki Yoshida : We heard this feedback and because of this we’re trying to sell the China dress on MogStation for the Global version users like you.
If there are a lot of demands and requests, then we can look into it. So if you can write a lot of posts on forum then we can take that into account.

Who doesn't want that for their Miqo'te girl?

[Remus]

Time for a glamour people will wear for a week then disappear :^)

[SpookyGhost]

I mean look at how the game has changed from 2.0 to 3.3

run dungeons -> run 24man -> run raid -> get max gear -> repeat

has been this way since 2.1

"but what about this and this and this and this" yeah, cool side content, instead of doing any of that i could just i dunno play another game that's actually worth my time instead of trying to get gil to spend on nothing or random vanity items so that my character looks slightly less boring when he's doing paint by numbers fights.