Naoki Yoshida interview @Gamescom

[Sandpark]

No, accessibility is a great thing. It is one of FFXIV's strengths. Accessibility does not mean easy. It means the content is more available to you. I like that I can log in and do instanced content with my group as opposed to dealing with those annoying, time wasting barriers MMO's of the past did.

What is an issue is lack of challenge in the content itself, not how you access it.

Accessibility is a great thing. But though I prefer depth which implies interesting systems with complexity. The farther you go into complexity, the harder it is to make content globally successful.

Which is why when I see people asking for raids to become more prominent than they already are, I get confounded. Raids are the most complex system in this game currently. That flies in the face of accessibility. Hence you see the low participation and completion rates.

This game needs something more midcore, something like Abyssea, Sky, or Sea. It can have some interesting gimmicks, but not so many or harsh that doing content with duty finder is not feasible. Perhaps make the open world sections of it with slightly less gimmicks being replaced with various other methods.

I would like to see raids become their own thing since they are designed to be hard and require high group skill. Maybe make normal mode more of a public dungeon area with eased mechanics. You can go in solo or duo and accomplish some things. But some things require parties and some things require alliances. The zone instance would cap out at 24 players to keep content fluid enough and allows interesting mechanics. Though the joining numbers vary on player preference or need.

[Velhart]

This game needs something more midcore, something like Abyssea, Sky, or Sea. It can have some interesting gimmicks, but not so many or harsh that doing content with duty finder is not feasible. Perhaps make the open world sections of it with slightly less gimmicks being replaced with various other methods.

I think Diadem is trying to be that, maybe. It would be neat if there was an instanced area similar to Sky your group can travel in, figure out puzzles, obtain items to pop a boss in a specific area, defeat it, and continue on till you get everything needed to pop the big boss and get good gear for a midcore group. Something that can be helpful in raids.

The only real problem with this is it may not be friendly to DF groups unless you can only access via a pre-made group similar to raids, but not sure the development team would be up or that if it was on the casual/midcore side. Also, keeping up with making this content or keeping it relevant is hard in itself. If developers work around those woes, then I don't see why we can't have something like Sky/Sea/Abyssea.

[Zojha]

Accessibility is a great thing. But though I prefer depth which implies interesting systems with complexity. The farther you go into complexity, the harder it is to make content globally successful.

Moreover, complexity does not equal depth.
Fun little article on that note: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DanFe...y_vs_Depth.php

There are probably many more, but it gets the point across nicely. Personally, I like depth, but I prefer my depth as simple as possible. It's quite unfortunate that you can't really create depth without some kind of complexity, but...yeah.

[Velhart]

Moreover, complexity does not equal depth.
Fun little article on that note: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DanFe...y_vs_Depth.php

There are probably many more, but it gets the point across nicely. Personally, I like depth, but I prefer my depth as simple as possible. It's quite unfortunate that you can't really create depth without some kind of complexity, but...yeah.

Funny thing is, a lot of the times, keeping a system simple does allow more depth in content. Yoshi-P even expressed this in wanting to jump back to lv.50 level difficulty in rotation. So the team can go back to more harder levels for Savage. The difficulty decrease in Alex: Creator is only because he believes the lv.60 rotation is too much. I always think of Super Mario Bros. when I think of simplicity with a lot of depth. You get run, jump, and can go left or right. This in turn allows for more imagination on creating stages. Mario Marker proves this.

Now that doesn't mean make FFXIV's combat just a few buttons, but keeping a easy to learn, hard to master mentality is a good way to develop a working system and also allows developers to be more creative with dungeons and boss fights.