Yoshida-san - What's Your Philosophy for 2.0 Max Level Content?

[Kiara]

To: Yoshida-san & Combat Team,

Now that the major Combat System revisions are now in and "complete," can you comment on what your Core Philosophy is going to be for "Max Level Content"?

Specifically, is the pattern we're seeing now the past few patches, in line with what you believe Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 is going to be like? Things like the way our Dungeons (Cutter's Cry, Aurum Vale, Dzemael Darkhold) and Primal Fights are currently?

Do you imagine future 2.0 content is in a similar style, with "Self-Contained Systems / Experiences"? For example, Dzemael, Aurum Vale and Cutter's Cry are all stand alone Dungeons (Systems / Experiences) that have a variety of Finished Equipment Drops that you can get with very low drop rates (for Darklight gear).

Can we expect a similar pattern for 2.0, where we get a New Dungeon / Raid every few months, where we repeat the Dungeon to finish collecting the desired Equipment that's contained in that Dungeon?

Or are there Long-Term Goal Oriented Systems coming online to tie in and prolong the experience?

I know Yoshida-san, you commented on Level Cap Increases happening every... 12 - 18 months(?) (I can't find the post right now).

What are your thoughts on how Level Cap Raises will affect current "Best Equipment" in the game? Do you imagine they'll be invalidated, or do you imagine having an Upgrade System?

I hope that most of the content we see now (Primal Fights, Dzemael, Cutter's Cry, Aurum Vale Dungeons) are *not* indicative of Final Fantasy XIV 2.0's Max Level Content, and that we'll have Long Term Goal Oriented Systems in place, or more involved, engaging Systems / Content (e.g., stuff like Tu'Lia (Sky) or Dynamis, etc.).

I know in your latest Producer Letter, you mention *upgradeable* AF Weapons (which sounds hopeful). And Crystal Tower listed as a "large-scale Instanced Raid" sounds (and looks) exciting also.

So how do you imagine the Gear Progression to happen long-term?

Do you imagine each new Dungeon having a New Set of Gear that is more powerful / better than the last Dungeon?

Right now, seeing Dzemael and then the Beastmen Stronghold Gear, and now the Darklight Gear, is this the type of upgrading you'll be pursuing?

Many people have brought up a variety of ideas to help promote longevity on the forums. Some examples (from a variety of people) include:

• Allowing Unique / Untradeable Equipment to be Materia Meldable / Convertible.

• Having Unique / Untradeable Equipment create Rare Materia.

• Creating more Interesting / Engaging Dungeon Scenarios that incentivize Replaying Dungeons (instead of just grinding the same route / same experience over and over). Whether that's Alternate Routes, other Drops besides the Gear itself, interesting Puzzles, Challenges, Different NMs / Goals, etc.

• Upgrade System for Equipment (e.g., Relic Weapons (tying into Dynamis, Currency, getting Attestations, etc.) or getting Abjurations to upgrade previously Great Equipment to make them even better).

• Having *Special Rare Materials* drop from Dungeons & Primal Fights that help in a Recipe to create a Unique Item, so that you can tie in multiple NMs, Battles / Dungeons to create Great Equipment (which would then involve Combat Players & Crafters).

• Having a Point System (for Dungeons) so that you're always progressing towards a long term goal (to know you're working towards earning some rare drop).

I think understanding your Long Term Philosophy on this type of content is something many players care about, and would like to know.

Lastly, I remain hopeful and am excited for 2.0 regardless, with the amazing World Redesign and seeing exciting battle areas like the Garlean Empire Citadel and Crystal Tower and other areas.

Final Fantasy XIV Version 2.0 World Map Art (thanks Starlord!)
http://aniverse.net/attachment.php?a...3&d=1318757548

http://aniverse.net/attachment.php?a...4&d=1318757561

http://aniverse.net/attachment.php?a...5&d=1318757639

http://aniverse.net/attachment.php?a...6&d=1318757654

http://wdl.square-enix.com/ffxiv/dow...0_Specs_EN.pdf


I know I'll be glad to enjoy the *Journey* of exploring all these beautiful lands, enjoying New Jobs, and just tackling New Content / Battles that make *use* of the "Best Gear" we have acquired (so each new patch doesn't have to be only about "New Gear").

But I hope we also get an answer to know what to expect for general Gear Progression and how you imagine we'd get long-term playability & replayability for Max Level Content.

Thank you!

[Dragon]

Good topic, I'd like to know myself.

[Kiara]

Good topic, I'd like to know myself.

Hi Dragon,

Yah, it would be great to know if what we're experiencing now with the type of 5 Chests, self-contained Dungeons are the style of content Yoshida-san wants, or is this just a temporary measure?

I really hope for more in-depth, engaging content for future Dungeon / Raid content.

[Denmo]

If i recall, his vision for the game was "Theme Park."

[Airget]

• Allowing Unique / Untradeable Equipment to be Materia Meldable / Convertible.

• Having Unique / Untradeable Equipment create Rare Materia.

• Creating more Interesting / Engaging Dungeon Scenarios that incentivize Replaying Dungeons (instead of just grinding the same route / same experience over and over). Whether that's Alternate Routes, other Drops besides the Gear itself, interesting Puzzles, Challenges, Different NMs / Goals, etc.

• Upgrade System for Equipment (e.g., Relic Weapons (tying into Dynamis, Currency, getting Attestations, etc.) or getting Abjurations to upgrade previously Great Equipment to make them even better).

• Having *Special Rare Materials* drop from Dungeons & Primal Fights that help in a Recipe to create a Unique Item, so that you can tie in multiple NMs, Battles / Dungeons to create Great Equipment (which would then involve Combat Players & Crafters).

• Having a Point System (for Dungeons) so that you're always progressing towards a long term goal (to know you're working towards earning some rare drop).

The bullet points in question caught my eye since I've thought of how they could implement said ideas without ruining the ecosystem of the classes.

With the First part on rare/ex gear what they could do is create materials gained through the same dungeons that allow crafters to create an essence that allows the target to spiritbond/materia the piece of gear. The difference with this however is when you decide to transform your bond with the rare/ex into materia you don't lose the piece of gear but at the same time you can't turn it into materia unless you go through the process of having a crafter add said essence to the gear.

If a crafter happens to fail at adding essence to the rare/ex gear they only lose the materials but also gain a small penalty from attempting to add essence to a piece of gear for a 3-5 mins, the same as a weakness duration.

The idea in mind is to prevent this, if you allow rare/ex gear to turn into materia or meld materia into it, you run into this issue.If the gear is lost then people who have already gotten the gear will want to get it again and those who haven't had the chance to get it yet may miss out on getting it because a greedy person got it in their loot pool. -
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With dungeons I wish they would go back on the idea of actually allowing DoL/DoH into them. Rather then think of it as limiting the party of 8, why don't they just have it where a party can be composed of 8 fighting members adn 2 of DoH/DoL. With those DoH/DoL they can use their knowledge and ability to unlock hidden passages or even find ancient workshops to learn new recipes. While they most likely won't incorporate it into the dungeons we see now I can only hope that they do have some sort of plan to involve DoL/DoH into dungeons. Since when I think of DoL/DoH I think of them as the people who seek the help of others to explore an area because they are unable to fend off the beast in the area. However the reason why they need said fighters by their side is because they have knowledge of the location and wish to analyze what they've heard to find hidden treasure or knowledge.
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Rather then an upgrade system I'd like to see something along the lines of a vanity system, where you can set two pieces, one that's your statistical gear and the other that's your outward appearance, so in that essence there wouldn't really be a need to create an upgrade system if the concept behind it is to allow one to wear gear that they want to wear.
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When it comes to rare materials it's a hard mistress to fight. If you think of it as a gatherer is it really fair that from what I've seen the most expensive material in the game comes from a mob drop, the Dodore Wing which turns into Dodore leather, which I've seen go for 1mil on the Market Wards. DoH is suppose to be the supplier of materials, but if the best material come from fights then it pretty much negates the usefulness of those classes. If you want said idea to work it has to involve all the classes you can't leave DoH out of it, there has to be some way DoH can be involved in acquiring these materials.

Ok here's an idea, let's think of the fights with the Primals as the astral world. Let's say that gatherers can enter the astral world using the same inferno tapers as DoW/M do to fight Ifrit, except when gatherers use it, they go into a domain in which they attempt to extract materials from the region. Now the limit would be this. Hm, what if instead of Inferno Tapers, the "item" they needed was obtained through a new ability "Astral Collection" in the same essence of "fingerprint of the god" when active it would allow the gatherer the chance to obtain astral materials that would allow them to enter the primal's domain to obtain materials that could be used to create rare pieces of equipment.

It's just if you want rare materials to exist DoL HAS to be involved in some way.
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As for the dungeon point system, a system like that puts an expiration date on dungeons since people could just use numbers to determine when they will be done with the dungeon, however there is a way for said system to work.

The simple idea is this, the point system could be used to allow you to skip parts of dungeons if you just want to fight a certain NM for their chest drop. However when you do use said item you won't obtain any points for that dungeon run. Also it would be required that everyone has a "Hall Pass" to go along with the "Dungeon pass" kinda like this.

I haven't really experience many full dungeons but under the idea that there are 3 NMs let's say this I think it's antlion, chimera and I"ll make up a 3rd NM, the Liger. So let's say the introduction of these boss fights come as Liger-Antlion-Chimera
So say you have saved up 1k dungeon points. you could do the following
Bypass Start=200
Bypass Liger=400
Bypass Antlion=600
Hall pass=50

So basically the person with the Bypass would have to initiate the dungeon and everyone would have to carry said "Hall Pass" to follow along. When the person uses the Bypass the part is sent to the area just before or after the boss fight based on the Bypass they used. When using Bypass Start it jumps you to the area before you fight the Liger. If you don't feel like fighting the Liger then you use the Bypass Liger which jump you to after the fight with the Liger, If you don't want to fighter the Antlion then it pops you in right after antlion fight. Then from there you could charge through to the chimera, but the general idea would be to save time for those who may grow tired of the same exact flow of the dungeon just to fullfil some speed run requirement. But if their main goal is just to get the chest from x mob then let them
use the Bypass.

But ya, that's just off the top of my head, I'm not sure how well it wuold work in execution but I would imagine if people just wanted to fight a certain NM they would be able to or even this. The Bypass could be used to practice on an NM that may be giving you trouble, rather then only have 15 mins left in a run you would have a full hour to play around with strats and figure out what works best for your group.
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I'd like to think some of these ideas could work, but it's hard to say what needs to be fixed until we see everything in action, especially the DoL reform, that one doesn't seem like it'll take place til after 2.0 but I do have hopes that hamlet will offer something to empower the gameplay for gatherers and give them loot that is both rare and sells for a decent amount.

[Visch]

What is this a troll thread?

You know his plan:

Update happens
2 weeks later all the good players have every new item
3 months later the badds catch up

play a different game until next update.

[Dragon]

What is this a troll thread?

Did you even bother reading the OP? Of all possible threads, this is definitely not a troll thread.

[Visch]

Did you even bother reading the OP? Of all possible threads, this is definitely not a troll thread.

He already answered this in an interview forever ago.

[Dragon]

He already answered this in an interview forever ago.

He answered to a question about the game's general/overall philosophy, not endgame/max-level content itself.

Edit: even if he did, I think now is a good time for an update on the philosophy in terms of endgame/max-level content.

[Dragon]

Obvious troll is pretty obvious

Yes, you are an obvious troll, and not a good one either.