Yoshi-P on Character Growth

[HungryHippo]

It wasn't a success from a gameplay perspective! You'd be hard pressed to find a single person that truly liked the interactive movie feel, and the combat and gameplay is often touted as one of the worst systems in the entire series to date!

I didnt like how closed FF13 was, the battle wasnt bad but I would say 12 one was better. However, story and how linear it was just made it worse. Old hardcore FF fans loved the amazing sidequest etc.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I simply think of it as a way to progress your character without necessarily going upwards in absolute strength (i.e. ilvl)

I really dislike that term. In actuality, everything in the game is an illusion of choice, and illusion of choice spreads into one's daily life. That is, there is almost always a best choice, but the great thing about living in free countries in today's society is that we get to make choices - whether they are the best ones or not.

In terms of the game, sometimes one may make a suboptimal choice in order to improve their enjoyment of the game. In WoW at the moment, I am running a sub-optimal talent on my mage, because the optimal one is incredibly frustrating to use and ruins my enjoyment of the class (it's basically ley lines in FFXIV). Choices like these are great, and no one in WoW has said anything to me about it and my DPS is still competitive with everyone I group with.

While the 'best' ones may be required by top tier groups, they are not required by the general playerbase. Having no choice puts major limitations on how one can enjoy the game.

And how exactly does this make the game more interesting? I can run a good portion of the content with Mind allocated and DEX gear. You're essentially asking for a complete character development overhaul despite fully acknowledging it is fundamentally pointless because at top tier content, you will be expected to optimize or you won't be taken. Why waste all their resources on something that doesn't actually accomplish anything? If they ever consider a similar direction, I would it to be impactful, not something I could (and likely would) ignore almost instantly.

[Reynhart]

You'd be hard pressed to find a single person that truly liked the interactive movie feel, and the combat and gameplay is often touted as one of the worst systems in the entire series to date!

No, you wouldn't. And your "often" is from "the few vocal people that took time to share their opinion on the game".
Most of any playerbase is silent. Any opinion you heard of is irrelevant to the general opinion. Personally, I loved FF XIII, it's one of my favorite. But I don't try to enforce this opinion as a "majority".

A video game is a product. If it sells, it's a succes, if it doesn't, it's a failure. That's the only objective measure you'll find.

And how exactly does this make the game more interesting? I can run a good portion of the content with Mind allocated and DEX gear. You're essentially asking for a complete character development overhaul despite fully acknowledging it is fundamentally pointless because at top tier content, you will be expected to optimize or you won't be taken.

So, why not making every item the same with the same stats ? BiS is already a strong candidate for discrimination. Besides, "top tier" concerns less than 10% of the playerbase judging from Alex Savage clears...not a big deal.

[Kaurie]

And how exactly does this make the game more interesting? I can run a good portion of the content with Mind allocated and DEX gear. You're essentially asking for a complete character development overhaul despite fully acknowledging it is fundamentally pointless because at top tier content, you will be expected to optimize or you won't be taken. Why waste all their resources on something that doesn't actually accomplish anything? If they ever consider a similar direction, I would it to be impactful, not something I could (and likely would) ignore almost instantly.

I don't understand what your MND and DEX gear comment is about?

I did not acknowledge that. I acknowledged that world firsts will go for the 'best', but anything after that doesn't need it. This is the same as, say, group composition. However, once you pass the world firsts, any combination of 4 dps, 2 tanks and 2 heals is really viable in this game.

I do acknowledge that it would take a lot of overhaul to change fundamentals of the game to be the same as WoW. It doesn't need to be the exact same as WoW. I just used WoW as an example of why the "illusion of choice" is an idiotic term.

I think that the game developers could use their current system and provide choice, on-going progression beyond max level and/or horizontal progression without being the exact same as WoW and without having the issues that Yoshi mentioned in the interview and without forcing players to swap gear in combat.

They actually already have some of the systems in place, for example they could expand on both the cross class abilities and class -> jobs. When I first came here, I considered jobs to be "specs" of the classes. Then they abandoned it. They could go back to that, as the system is in place, and provide more jobs from classes. We could get our sword wielding DPS from a gladiator etc. Further, they could open up more abilities that can be cross classed, and actually have them be a decent choice (vs now which fully embraces the illusion of choice).

There is also the added materia which grants some level of horizontal progression, but in the most dull way possible. Perhaps materia could be added to be a bit more interesting and really change how things are played (instead of +crit, you have materia that changes skills, cooldowns or playstyle changes). Obtaining materia also feels rather grindy, more-so than it really needs to be/should be.

[Remedi]

You might want to refrain of the overstatements a bit, don't you think ?

For you, asking for changes is akin to wanting to play an RTS ? Yeah, sure...Oh, and by the way, did you...hmmm...played Lords Of Verminion ? Tell me how great it fits in the J-RPG genre...

As for the recent FF, despite what your personal opinion is, FF XIII was a huge success. It's the 4th game when it come to sales. So yes, stepping out of their comfort zone was a good idea.

I expressed myself wrongly, I think this games needs some changes yes, like better dungeons, more bosses on raid, make hunts beign a bit more interactive like FFXII but some I don't agree that we need an overhaul of the system again
that's what I meant with the genre thing and probably I shouldn't have used the term whine so if I offended you I'm sorry.
Also I like FFXIII, no actually I like all FF, ask me my favorite I won't be able to answer you, that said I can see that a chunk of the fanbase is criticizing the newer FF for beign too outside of the formula. If you want my personal opinion I would say that FF made it's fortune by beign something different each time so I would say they are wrong, yet I can see their reasons

[Bourne_Endeavor]

So, why not making every item the same with the same stats ? BiS is already a strong candidate for discrimination. Besides, "top tier" concerns less than 10% of the playerbase judging from Alex Savage clears...not a big deal.

Because people like meaningful progression. Different leveled gear has a noticeable upgrade, thus it feels good. Adding character builds that serve no purpose other than to let you muck around with numbers isn't going to revolutionize the game. It'll only matter in progression content, where you will either need to optimize or groups won't take you.

[Iromi]

I don't see where this fear of exclusivity comes from. On our current system you either have the gear or you're excluded. You can't get any more exclusive than that.

Yeah...it is worse now if anything lol. Lot of raid groups expect you to have some really top tier gear, and people making farm PT for stuff run parsers all the time watching your damage...and you can have all the skill in the world in this game and still have crap DPS if you don't have a relevant ilvl. So many people I see in my various linkshells how they got kicked out of a PT because of their gear..or removed from a dungeon.

So yeah..I'd rather go back to what we had before, some choices but everything worked if the group would be slightly open minded.

Again, I don't know who they played with or what server where people were acting like that..but I easily defeated Garuda with my gimp PLD back in the day and a buncha random people who had AF. One of each job..etc. I cleared every dungeon/ex fight/raid, etc easily. Lmao I did ifrit in a simple cowl..haha.

[StrejdaTom]

SNIP

This is a bit OT but I don't agree with you on one thing. OFC there is a high difference between lets say iLvl 220 and 240, but a player who can play his job well can still outDPS average player.
And it actually happens quite often.

I was reacting to this "and you can have all the skill in the world in this game and still have crap DPS if you don't have a relevant ilvl."

But if you meant iLvl 150 etc., then yeah that's how MMOs work. Gear will always be the 2nd most important thing, it will always make good players even better and bad players atleast a bit useful.

[Zojha]

I acknowledged that world firsts will go for the 'best', but anything after that doesn't need it.

Yes and no. You need to keep things performing within a tolerance threshold in order for them to be accepted. People will accept a monk over a ninja in their raid composition, but what about an arcanist in full STR gear with melee cross-class skills (Death Blossom, Fracture, Feint etc) that uses those skills instead of his class ones? An arcanist "as such" would already run risk of being kicked frequently. An arcanist that uses a bad build on top? No deal. The team is doing a pretty good job at keeping the jobs somewhat balanced with all the limitations, but I'm not sure how well they'd manage if they added builds on top. At least not if they were to add them for many jobs at once...

As for more class-based jobs - this actually reduces the amount of progression, because they no longer have separate levels. If you progress as scholar, you automatically progress as summoner in terms of level - it's only through gear that the two become separate and thus horizontal progression paths.

[Alahra]

It wasn't a success from a gameplay perspective! You'd be hard pressed to find a single person that truly liked the interactive movie feel, and the combat and gameplay is often touted as one of the worst systems in the entire series to date!

FFXIII is in my top five Final Fantasy titles of the main series. There's your single person. :x