Mark of Tanaka

[Mireille]

The key is to have a committee designing a game...
Tanaka + Yoshi and some others would be epic.

Tanaka created a lot of content in XI, so it would be hard to say that he wasn't responsible for its success with the players. It's funny but now that he is back in XI he is being blamed for killing the very content, Abyssea, that drove so many of its die hard players away. I'd like to see Tanaka develop content for hard core players in XIV. I think he would come up with some great stuff.

I'm not sure I agree completely with Yoshida-san's idea that hard core players are defined by being the first to complete something even though they usually are. I think its more a question of hard core players complete things early in their life-cycle when the content hasn't been figured out or dumbed down to make it accessible. Hard core players are more defined by their desire to face extreme challenges, and being number one out the gate is a secondary consideration.

In XI the events were very challenging, and required leadership skills on the part of the organizers as well as dedication on the part of the participants. Those of you would showed up at every sky/dyna/limbus/salvage your linkshells did know what I mean. Yes we all complained bitterly about the drop rates and kept showing up anyways. I really would like to see events like that in XIV, and if it takes Tanaka to do them then bring him. I'm not suggesting removing Yoshi-P as producer. He's done a great job, and he will continue to do a great job, but his theme park needs more than one vision when it comes to designing the rides.

[Bahn]

I'm not sure I agree completely with the Yoshida-san's idea that hard core players are defined by being the first to complete sometime even though they usually are. I think its more a question of hard core players complete things early in their life-cycle when the content hasn't been figured out or dumbed down to make it accessible. Hard core players are more defined by their desire to face extreme challenges, and being number one out the gate is a secondary consideration.

To be fair to not-so-casual-or-hardcore players like me, I define hardcore players not only those who are willing to play this same game every day for hours on end, but also those who are willing to deal with bad game design decisions and overcome or get around them. What you call "dumbing down" (which IMO is a very bad misnomer) is my "fixing it to what it should've been". Remember the early days of FFXIV with the way SP worked? Then eventually they fixed that to make it so it's per kill. I hardly think that's considered a "dumbing down" of a mechanic, but rather a very bad game design decision that was fixed to be more in line with what other games NORMALLY do.

And to be fair, I think it's the other way around - their number one is to be the one "out the gate" and "do it first (and try to make it look good in the process)" - this is pretty evident with the way posts appear after stuff like Primal fights were introduced. After they get it out the door, they then learn how to take that extreme challenge and optimize it to make it better and more "efficient" for themselves. The good guys share that knowledge with the rest of the community (stand on the shoulders of giants) while the selfish ones keep it to themselves.

Another case in point for me is the crafting mechanic - after I realize within the first few months that the crafting system is one of the most inaccessible parts of the game (in terms of time spent vs reward/me not falling asleep), I gave up on it after a few months. I come back several months later and 1.19 completely fixes it up to a point where it makes sense and IMO is sane. Everyone who endured crafting and manage to get SEVERAL crafters to 50 before the 1.19 "dumbing down" are those who I consider "hardcore" (or dedicated), because they were willing to put up with the system, despite its flaws, and get to 50 regardless.

But yeah, like Orcishgrappler says, I think the dev team sometimes seems to "forget" why FFXIV was panned worldwide by critics. That's what we're here for, to remind the team that if they do make these bad game design decisions, they will simply run the risk of pulling another XIV launch fiasco when 2.0 comes out. I'm sure they're aware, but I think like I said in many posts before, we need to keep reminding them to avoid such decisions. Making the game extremely "hard" will make your hardcore base happy, but it's going to piss everyone else off - casuals and some-where-in-the-middle and most importantly new subscribers who came from possibly other games alike. But at the same time I think there's plenty of room for everyone, no one should be excluded, and I think Square has the resources and the budget to be able to do this.

Because of these occasional bad design decisions by Yoshida's team that are reminiscent of launch date XIV, I've pretty much given up trying to put "labels" on some of these things. Thanks to the (might I say rather civilized) discussion in this thread, instead of calling one of Yoshida's bad game design decisions "Tanaka-like", I think I'll just call it what it is - a bad game design decision. Period - that they did. Neither producer is better than the other, and at this point I don't care who's at the helm. They just need to make sure the current and new game they produce are accessible by all types of players and not just one or other exclusive group.

[Mireille]

To be fair to not-so-casual-or-hardcore players like me, I define hardcore players not only those who are willing to play this same game every day for hours on end, but also those who are willing to deal with bad game design decisions and overcome or get around them. What you call "dumbing down" (which IMO is a very bad misnomer) is my "fixing it to what it should've been".

You're making assumptions about what I mean by dumbing down. A craft system where you have to get weaver to level 35 to do leatherworking leve, and you have to get leatherworker to 35 in order to do weaver leve is broken. A system where you need 6 different trainings that can't be gotten till level 20+ in order to make level 1 items is broken. I got crafts to 50 before 1.19, and I still do leve post 1.19. I still see a lot of room for improvement in crafting, but most of what they have done and are talking about doing really is a fix.

Back in FF XI giving people an experience points reward for helping others with the Chains of Promathia Missions in order to encourage people to redo really challenging fights is a fix. Removing the level cap is dumbing it down. I remember the first time I set foot in Lufaise meadows because it was so hard getting there. I beat airship and Tenzen when they had a cap and that was exhilarating. Everyone had to know their job and do it well to beat those fights. Now a single 99 samurai can destroy Tenzen for the remaining 5 people in the party while they stand around watching and get them access to Sea. That's what I call dumbing it down. I'm all in favor of them making it so you don't get randomly wiped by passing easy prey mobs while doing the moogle NMs, but I am totally against them removing the walk, the spiggans, the linking, or the 5 fights themselves. Yes a lot of people don't agree with me on that but navigating a maze while abiding by certain rules is what makes the quest a game. Running to a ??? before you redo the fight is at best a time sink. The people you see standing nekkid clutching a moogle weapon at the entrance to Ul'dah aren't that proud without reason.

Making all the content for casual play would be as much a mistake as making it all for the hard core player. They game needs a mix to succeed. That and the fact that Tanaka is very good at making that type of content is my point.

There are plenty of people who would happily to ride a helicopter to the top of Mt. Everest so they can enjoy the view, and then there are people who want to make the climb because that's where the real accomplishment and bragging rights lie. I'm sure mountaineers would cringe at the analogy, but hardcore players are the same way for the most part. Honestly I don't mind not being the first to get something, but please don't make it a walk in the park or its no longer going to be fun.

BTW if Orcishgrapper is the same person who used to play XI on Carbuncle tell him Hi from Mireille, and ask him to say hi to Pandorous for me. I miss that little guy

[Lienn]

Tanaka created a lot of content in XI, so it would be hard to say that he wasn't responsible for its success with the players. It's funny but now that he is back in XI he is being blamed for killing the very content, Abyssea, that drove so many of its die hard players away. I'd like to see Tanaka develop content for hard core players in XIV. I think he would come up with some great stuff.

I'm not sure I agree completely with Yoshida-san's idea that hard core players are defined by being the first to complete something even though they usually are. I think its more a question of hard core players complete things early in their life-cycle when the content hasn't been figured out or dumbed down to make it accessible. Hard core players are more defined by their desire to face extreme challenges, and being number one out the gate is a secondary consideration.

In XI the events were very challenging, and required leadership skills on the part of the organizers as well as dedication on the part of the participants. Those of you would showed up at every sky/dyna/limbus/salvage your linkshells did know what I mean. Yes we all complained bitterly about the drop rates and kept showing up anyways. I really would like to see events like that in XIV, and if it takes Tanaka to do them then bring him. I'm not suggesting removing Yoshi-P as producer. He's done a great job, and he will continue to do a great job, but his theme park needs more than one vision when it comes to designing the rides.

I agree. But, in respect for Yoshida (and 2.0) i would rather seeing what Tanaka had planned to FFXIV as another game.

I believe that now that they decided the 2.0 is "the FFXIV" then it would be a desmoralization to Yoshida having Tanaka back in charge, even if co-ed...would be like "Hey...we gave you his position but after an year we noticed it was a mistake so the old director is back."...and this would be bad to both Yoshida, that would be labeled as incompetent, and SE itself since this kind of decision would reflect lack of vision of who decided this.

This is why i support the original FFXIV making a return as a spin-off game. It would protect Yoshida and SE and would also reflect the respect SE has for both Tanaka and the players who liked the orriginal FFXIV but didn't like the way the current FFXIV is going...after all they already are different games and when maps change the only similarities between them would be the very same between FFXI and FFXIV...some models.

[Mireille]

I believe that now that they decided the 2.0 is "the FFXIV" then it would be a desmoralization to Yoshida having Tanaka back in charge, even if co-ed...

I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm suggesting that having Tanaka-san develop content like HNM, Dungeons, etc... would result in some great content for the game. I don't think it would be backtracking for SE either. He is already VP in charge of software development, so its not exactly a leap for him to directly involve himself in the project.

[Ilean]

Errr all tanaka can ever create is mobs with overpowered AoE and crap drop rates. Let's leave him out of this game as much as possible.

[Kailea_Nagisa]

Errr all tanaka can ever create is mobs with overpowered AoE and crap drop rates. Let's leave him out of this game as much as possible.

Now that is not really fare, I loved what he did with FFXI (mostly) and after he left to do FFXIV, Abyssea was created and ruined it for me. At the same time, I did not like where he was going with FFXIV, it seemed like he was trying to do to many things at once, and in the long run half of it did not work out. Yoshi doing 90% of the game, and Tanaka thinking about events and dungeons, that would yield some interesting results.

[Lienn]

I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm suggesting that having Tanaka-san develop content like HNM, Dungeons, etc... would result in some great content for the game. I don't think it would be backtracking for SE either. He is already VP in charge of software development, so its not exactly a leap for him to directly involve himself in the project.

I understood. What i meant is that it would actually turn out to be an inconvenience to dev team and a bit of discredit to SE having him back to FFXIV after he already left, not because he's better or worse than Yoshida, but because it would hurt Yoshida's credibility.

Imagine a basketball team...you had a team and they lost the 2 first games...the fans started bashing the team and the owner replaced the coach and some players...a while after, even with the new team they aren't winning as it was expected. In this situation, bringing the former coach back, even if co-ed with the new one, would actually cause more issues than solutions because, even with an hierarchy, interest conflicts should arise.

Now that is not really fare, I loved what he did with FFXI (mostly) and after he left to do FFXIV, Abyssea was created and ruined it for me. At the same time, I did not like where he was going with FFXIV, it seemed like he was trying to do to many things at once, and in the long run half of it did not work out. Yoshi doing 90% of the game, and Tanaka thinking about events and dungeons, that would yield some interesting results.

I also think Tanaka did an awesome work in FFXI and the issue at FFXIV was actually just time. The former dev team had no time to actually finish the game...this was the real issue of original FFXIV...the game never was finished because Yoshida took over before the "retail patch" that was meant to complete FFXIV for release was live...

I don't like the idea of them co-ing tho...if Yoshida actually kept the original FFXIV going and just improved it, it would be perfectly plausible, but by the time he decided to replace the game with another one i don't think it would be good to neither SE, dev team nor the gaame itself they working together in it. Just look at Abyssea...it's what happens when a director actually does not fully understand the concepts or share the view of the former director.

That's why i'd rather have Tanaka and Yoshida following their own paths in different games, even if Tanaka one is spin-off (would have to so he can keep eorzean lore...would also be good to create a seal similar to Ivalice Alliance one, allowing lore to be fully shared between games), because i'm sure Tanaka's FFXIV would be great.

And, for those who don't like the "Tanaka way" of dealing with stuff, there would aways be the Yoshida's 2.0 for them. Having they both running different games would actually add options to players, being healthier to SE, FF brand and to the players.

[darkstarpoet1]

That's why i'd rather have Tanaka and Yoshida following their own paths in different games, even if Tanaka one is spin-off (would have to so he can keep eorzean lore...would also be good to create a seal similar to Ivalice Alliance one, allowing lore to be fully shared between games), because i'm sure Tanaka's FFXIV would be great.

i'd love to see tanaka get a spin off where he finished his original vision of the game. i'd be there in an instant to get my copy of it.

[Lienn]

i'd love to see tanaka get a spin off where he finished his original vision of the game. i'd be there in an instant to get my copy of it.

So would i ^^ I would buy Tanaka's FFXIV again without thinking twice, just like i did the first time. ^^