Mogtalk interview with yoshi p

[Tridus]

Blitzball, ideally, needs to be interactive. In it's raw, original form with maybe a few tweaks.

Triple Triad carried over fairly well, after all. I'm worried about them killing Blitzball at launch by making it into a 'menu' game. Squadron missions aren't exactly the epitome of engaging play.

With the slow speeds of XIV, would Blitzball in its original form even work? I don't think so.

A manager style of game akin to Football Manager could work given the framework that's in place already, even if it's not the game people are looking for.

[RiyahArp]

A tournament won't work because the PvPers in this game don't like to actually play in teams. They begged for light party feast to have the same rewards in 3.3 or so, and when SE did it, no one bothered to do light party feast. This is despite LP actually solving a lot of the mode's problems, like poor matchmaking or people yelling at each other in chat.

As for hard dungeons, yeah, I really wish they'd do them just to shut up the people who want difficulty when they wipe dozens of times in them because there is zero margin for error with a 4 man party.

[TheDraco4011]

Calling it now. Blitzball will just be a pallet swap of squadrons.

[Zojha]

With the slow speeds of XIV, would Blitzball in its original form even work?

It probably would - IIRC, all but movement was done in menus where you could take all the time you need. And I vaguely remember that even movement had an automatic option.

Personally, I find neither the thought of a carbon copy nor the thought of a menu game very appealing. When I think of Blitzball in FFXIV, I'd imagine something like an underwater swimming area where you swim around and the ball gets passed along via vector based skills that shoot a certain distance in the direction you're facing. Trick shots might fly in a curve, power shots might bypass players, missed shots might be picked up by getting near the ball, tackles maybe as active time event? Something like that.

But that's just me, there's probably a bunch of other good and better ideas on how it could work.

[Ayer2015]

I mean, they could limit in combat rezes and make healing more demanding.... just a thought.

I'm aware this will never happen, but one can dream

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I mean, they could limit in combat rezes and make healing more demanding.... just a thought.

I'm aware this will never happen, but one can dream

You could accomplish both through nerfing healing potency across the board. If MP was more of an issue, healers simply wouldn't have the mana to continuously raise.

[Cabalabob]

If they do just one mode then blitzball will inevitably be short term content.

Do it all!

Have a system similar to squads where you recruit a team and can have them do matches to learn skills and boost their stats or you can personally go in with them to actually play a match and earn skills yourself. Have NPC teams representing the cities to play against in a league or tournaments as a kind of single player mode where you can earn rewards like glamours or special techniques. While also having a free play mode where you can play against other player’s saved NPC teams or even pvp against another player and their team.

[BillyKaplan]

Calling it now. Blitzball will just be a pallet swap of squadrons.

What if it IS your squad? e.e Selling your second in command some rubbish about how this'll be good to raise squad morale, build camaraderie and to diversify the physical activities of the squad.

[Genz]

The answer about blitzball is worrying.
Blitzball itself isn't important ; the problem is Yoshida's mindset. Why does he want to add blitzball? Because some players asked it, and because he wants to make a fan-service FF. Not because he actually has a good idea. He looks unmotivated to actually make it, and hopes to get away with a cheap shortcut, but a squadron-bis is unneeded, since we precisely already have squadrons (and you can actually play with your squadron)
And what the **** is "MMORPG-like" in managing a team of NPC through a menu?! It's impossible to take him seriously when he spews such bs.

The game needs a fun mini-game that can be done casually with friends and guild members, like chocobo races, except current races are trash and the unneeded leveling of the chocobo makes it hard to play with friends since everyone has a different chocobo level. Update races first to show you can actually make a decent mini-game, and think about blitzball later.
And the fetishism on rewards needs to disappear. Bigger rewards doesn't make the content better, so if you think you need to put tomestones on blitzball, something is wrong.

[kikix12]

Instant-death mechanics are not needed. There are already debuffs that decrease the healing potency (Infirmity or something like that). There is nothing stopping them from adding debuffs that prevent healing over time completely. Then there's also HP debuff. Something that this game already have, but for whatever reason doesn't seem to use. The more health the characters have in comparison to damage, the greater the ease with powerful healing. On the contrary, the less HP the less relevant the healing potency, since it will need to be used frequently anyway.

There is so much that can be done with relative ease to increase difficulty, that instant death mechanics are absolutely unnecessary, especially since no one ever said that "difficulty" means "ability to finish it". What is a problem with a boss that you can do without wipes without flawless precision, so long as you just pay that basic bit of attention, but have it take significantly longer instead? Saving considerable amount of time is perfectly fine in promoting and rewarding skill in comparison to doing it half-assed, especially if there would be rewards tied to duration of the battle that would give access to a larger pool of rewards (like minions or crafting materials) only if the fight took less than X time, giving just the basics otherwise.

Instant-death should be used mostly for high-stake battles. Stuff like Ultimate, some extreme trials, a boss here or there in a raid. Not just about everything outside of standard dungeons, and even some of the standard dungeon bosses.


As for blitzball, I do not understand the worry that Yoshida have. Players will play it once and be done with it?! Then what he plans? We have Fifa and similar sport games that are released EVERY SINGLE YEAR for YEARS now. And those games sell FAST when they are released. The same people buy them time and again and spend hundreds of hours on them. And they are exactly what a blitzball would be. A team-based ball game. Only the rules are different.
Just make sure the play is smooth, the rules are clear, the characters are reasonably balanced and that there is a ranking of sorts, and there may be people playing nothing but blitzball whenever they log into the game. Heck, if they put actual effort into it, there could be people that would buy Final Fantasy XIV ONLY for blitzball. Seriously, sport games are the very first kind of multiplayer games in human history. It is the exact thing that is PERFECT for an MMO. And he worries that it's not suitable?!