Yoshida on "carrying" other people

[linayar]

https://www.destructoid.com/ffxiv-pr...ing-from-home/

Q:

I’m going to check in again on alliance raids. How successful are they still? I think the accessibility of these is one of the elements that sets FFXIV apart from the rest of the genre, but will you keep doing them until the game ends?

A:

I believe content like FFXIV’s alliance raids are great because it allows for players to have fun taking on challenges in a larger group of multiple parties, which lowers the amount of personal responsibility for each player for a more relaxed experience. It is also an opportunity for us as a development team to invest resources on a larger scale to create epic battles with grandiose presentations. Through this, players who aren’t as skilled at battle content can experience both story and battles, while also raising their gear item level through the equipment rewards from the alliance raids. This content is also meaningful for players that have been taking a break from the game for a little while, as it can help them get back in the groove when it comes to battle content, and also catch up on obtaining better equipment. Considering all of this, I would say that I feel that without a doubt alliance raids are a success. I think we’ll continue creating these until the end of service, but if we can think of good ways to evolve alliance raids, we may look to do so even further. (laughs)

It was actually the desire of the development team to take on a new challenge that led to us going in the direction of original content. They will be leveraging the knowledge, experience, as well as battle mechanic know-how that they have acquired during these past four years with our large-scale crossovers—namely the Return to Ivalice and YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse content—to tackle one of the largest mysteries of Eorzea!

Regarding the parts in bold, they're consistent with Yoshida's known hesitance to create "difficult" 4-player contents as they will have increased personal responsibility due to the smaller party size.

At the very least, certain contents in this game are meant for people to "carry" others. When the community at large is not able (or perhaps is refusing) to do that, those contents will get nerfed either via the echo or some other means.

Thankfully, that doesn't seem to happen that often, so I think they've gotten the difficulty tuned decently most of the times.

EDIT:

One reference on Yoshida's comment on difficult light party content (primarily dungeon style)

https://mogtalk.org/2021/05/07/inter...naoki-yoshida/

I think the chances of doing large-scale, challenging content is greater than creating high-difficulty content meant for smaller groups. It’s not that we are unable to create high-difficulty content for small groups, but currently I am a bit more hesitant with that direction overall.

In the case of a four-player high-difficulty dungeon, there is much less room for players to work with when it comes to party deaths or mistakes. If even a single party member is incapacitated or makes a mistake, it will invariably lead to a wipe, with not much leeway to save the run or come up with a creative solution. Another major reason is because our community continues to grow—naturally this is bringing in many casual players, and I believe that when looking at the bigger pictures, large-scale content will be easier for all players to get into.

[Nethereal]

*When hard mode expert dungeons skill floor is too high and being able to grab every single pack of mob leading up to the first boss creates a toxic environment*
*Makes multiple new boring expert dungeons that wall off almost every pack of mob and are essentially just a run way, all while being able put you to sleep and put dirt on akh morn's name*
*exists*

The biggest travesty yet using akh morn's name on that... that thing... that piece of literal trash that doesn't even hit harder than sub 60 casual content.

[Caurcas]

New gear to increase power is worthless without effort to make use of that gear.

[linayar]

New gear to increase power is worthless without effort to make use of that gear.

Gear has only passive effects in this game for the most part. Whatever effort is made will still gain an increased effect via increase in stats due to equipping better gear. And it will certainly make those who put in the effort be able to better "carry" as well, up to the level and ilevel syncs.

[Recon1o6]

at the very least it would be nice if alliance raids had tower or orbonne difficulty more often. Also twice come ruin from delubrum. That would incentive learning and doing mechanics more

many players dont improve because they have no incentive to improve.

[Garnix]

I think Yoshi-P is taking that in the good direction.
However, it would have been nice if the interviewer asked a different question like : "Delubrum Savage was kinda fun, can we get Myths of the Realm Savage too please?"

[MPK]

Truly disgusting. Sad we will never get savage 4man content.

[ZedxKayn]

I believe content like FFXIV’s alliance raids are great because it allows for players to have fun taking on challenges in a larger group of multiple parties, which lowers the amount of personal responsibility for each player for a more relaxed experience.

Until the stars align and you get an alliance of 19 clueless people and 5 people who know what's going on, and suddenly the last few people alive feel the weight of the world on their shoulders, I've personally experienced being one of the last ones alive way too many times to ever agree with a design philosophy that allows people who don't know the basics of the game to be carried. It's super thrilling to get some good healer action once in a while, but it doesn't feel fair regardless.

[Marxam]

I notice that the "carries" are starting to spill into extreme/savage content. It's getting to the point where if you don't get your savage clears on Tuesday, the quality of parties decreases substantially afterwards. Which is worrying at this point in a patch where most players are attempting that content is above 525 minimum doing savage content tuned to i510. Gear is ultimately redundant if you don't know your rotation and its ultimately giving newer players a false sense of achievement so when they do enter content that isn't MSQ or 8-man NM or 24-mans. It's just as bad for veteran players who see their gear and then expect them to perform at a certain level causing the friction you see in PF/DF. There's a reason why "trap parties" are prevalent in the NA PF/DF.

I'm all for accessibility in normal content, but don't give the players with less skill a false sense of achievement in making them think they can attempt higher difficulties because they "cleared" the normal content. Otherwise they're not gonna have a good time once someone calls them out for their sub-optimal playstyle.

[Fynlar]

*Makes multiple new boring expert dungeons that wall off almost every pack of mob and are essentially just a run way, all while being able put you to sleep and put dirt on akh morn's name*
*exists*

The biggest travesty yet using akh morn's name on that... that thing... that piece of literal trash that doesn't even hit harder than sub 60 casual content.

Sheesh, relax man, it's just an attack.

Besides, SMN made a "travesty" out of it first by literally copying the animation and calling it "Deathflare" instead

And if we want to get real technical, what most people (likely yourself included) consider the "original" user of the attack also wasn't even the real Bahamut anyway, just another fake primal copy like the one you're complaining about, sooooo

Aside from the flashiness factor there's really nothing that sacred about it. Plus Nidhogg and I'm pretty sure a couple of other fights also used it.