Thread: 1UP.com's new interview with Yoshida regarding 2.0

@ravidrath
i dunno calling it dead is pretty much ignoring all the people that support the game right now, the servers are lively at any time of the day, i wouldn't call that dead, you don't need millions of subscribers to be considered "alive" in my opinion

looks like i misinterpreted that exchange in the interview i am sorry, that's how it looked to me, which of course doesn't mean that's what happened and by no means was it meant as a personal attack

Originally Posted by Efrye

My respect for Yoshi-P just grew even more.
If he hates Parley as well, he must be a good person with good taste!

If I know Jesus, and I'm pretty sure I don't except from his TV specials, hating parley is the fastest path to heaven. However, pirate Jesus would disagree me thinks.

Originally Posted by Icecylee

Even in a theoretical world where everything was perfectly balanced, the sort of people that 'force' you to play on a certain job would still be doing it, since without everything being mechanically exactly the same (and then what would be the point of having the illusion of choice?) there would still be certain combinations that were fractionally better and have slightly better synergy than others and they'd leap on it. Or it just suit their play style better and see everything else as inferior.

When the difference is miniscule enough, people stop caring about that sort of thing and will take anyone they can so long as the roles are filled, and in the case of big raids, the required buffs and debuffs are also filled. The top end raiders are a different story altogether, but that's not the crowd I'm worried about.

Note: As far as ostrasizing before the dungeon run, it wouldn't really happen because at that point the raid leader is thinking of the raid comp they're going to take. This is why I mentioned reasonable parameters for dungeon design, so that you take what you need and not have dead weight (going back to the fictional dungeon that has 6 fights in which only one requires 4 tanks whereas all others require one or two).

Originally Posted by Jynx

You do however need to make money, with our paltry numbers I doubt that this is happening.

i doubt that we are so few that it doesn't make a difference at all,
but all this is pure speculation since we don't have an official number of active subscriptions right now.

back in ffxi on the then closed bahamut server, a while before they opened it again after years, THAT was the taste of a truly dead game, same faces everywhere, only people leaving and no new people coming in, which is just not the case with XIV right now
at least on masamune since its open again

We're getting a bit long winded here so I apologize if we skip over any points.

Originally Posted by Duelle

Meh, it eliminates "Duelle, you suck because you like playing PLD more than DRK and don't even carry a DRK set. Our needs should be more important than your in-game enjoyment" entirely, which isn't a bad thing. Take it from someone to who got burned with dual specs in late WotLK/Cataclysm.

I understand and agree with the philosophy, but you're not going to get around that without some sort of compromise.

For example, if you're group is supersaturated on Paladins, and you refuse to go on Dark Knight on a Job locked run, your group is either forced to rotate Paladins (not likely in long dungeon runs) or you pretty much get the axe for that run until you find some group that agrees specifically with every stance you have.

With a class locked run, your class preference isn't compromised, and you can alter roles in balance with personal preference and group needs. This is also reflected on more in depth below.

Timers are] really something that can be applied to lots of dungeon elements, from hostages that need to be rescued to avoiding some event in the instance that would affect the battles past that point or simply just saving someone who would get captured if you arrive too late.

I disagree as far as something that is tied to a loot system, at least for the overall goals of a dungeon. They can be helpful if applied correctly, but the mechanic itself is toxic and should be dealt with great care. Right now, it's harming the game's overall health.

I disagree, because again any character could cover vital spells provided you took the time to teach them the right spells (stat modification through espers naturally came with teaching said spells and were not entirely separate processes). Mash could do healing as well as Edgar could, as well as Gau could as well as Relm could. Not to mention VI had enough jobs with good damage potential to cover that part of the equation with little trouble.

Mash? There was no character called Mash in FFVI my friend.

But you continue to overlook the primary point of what FFVI did right and how it can translated over - namely, role redundancy.

Its not the fact that every class could have access to the same spells - but that as a result of that (for some characters, others like Mog, Gau, Strego, and Gogo bypassed the entire need for the Esper system.) everyone could fit every role.

This to a certain degree can be duplicated with the Class/Job system, especially as more jobs begin to allow certain classes more diversified role.

XI's group structure is the last thing I would ever want to use. What I'm trying to avoid is player trends developing where people are expected to have multiple classes/jobs geared and leveled because the dungeon and encounter design demands it.

What FFXI did wrong was bottleneck important roles such as healer and tank into very few jobs. What FFXIV can do to counter that is properly saturate each role with multiple viable alternatives spread out among different base Classes. With that met, Class locking and split dungeons will become both functional and enjoyable, while other more straightforward group events can be far more accessible to players.

...Being able to say "my character is this job" and being able to play as such in the content that matters without social expectations and dungeon/encounter mechanics getting in the way greatly increases enjoyment of the game, believe it or not. It's largely why I support performance equality between jobs over niche gameplay, too.

I both agree and feel the same way. But I believe this can be achieved by allowing a class to assume multiple roles through multiple job sets.

Through this the players who want to strike an identity still get that identity by saying "I am a Lancer"(Self example.) And while they have preference to say Dragoon, like I do. They still maintain that base identity when having to switch jobs (and therefore roles).

It matters less to me to have to switch to Templar if I need to tank then it would telling me to jump onto Paladin. And while it's going to be a lot of work for the SE crew to balance, I do believe that is the course they are headed with this system and I support it.

Difference for the sake of being different hasn't let to much good in the MMO genre.

I agree, and I also agree that this should be a system that is used sparingly. But I'm stating difference not for the sake of being different, but difference for the sake of variant, and therefore deeper game-play. One or two of these split dungeons in the lineup will actually add some good flavor to the current lineup and make great use of the system that is currently developing.

eh, I think you're brave for stepping forward. Either way, it was a good interview, and perhaps one of the most informative articles of all the stuff that's come out of e3.

I'd just like to step in and add my support as well. Good on you for both coming forward and giving what I think was the most impacting interview of the bunch. Thanks for that.

Originally Posted by Hyrist

I understand and agree with the philosophy, but you're not going to get around that without some sort of compromise.

For example, if you're group is supersaturated on Paladins, and you refuse to go on Dark Knight on a Job locked run, your group is either forced to rotate Paladins (not likely in long dungeon runs) or you pretty much get the axe for that run until you find some group that agrees specifically with every stance you have.

Which I'm fine with. I've willingly sat out of raids in WoW if they were full on DPS (if I was playing on paladin) or tanks (if I was on my warrior). That's not exactly a bad thing. Specially in the latter because everyone needed a tank for something.

I disagree as far as something that is tied to a loot system, at least for the overall goals of a dungeon. They can be helpful if applied correctly, but the mechanic itself is toxic and should be dealt with great care. Right now, it's harming the game's overall health.

There's a reason I said "something nice". In the case of the example I mentioned (Culling of Stratholme), what you got for clearing the 25-minute objective was an extra badge you could use to trade for gear (in a model where you were trading 70 or 80 badges per piece of gear) and a Bronze Drake mount. That's it.

Mash? There was no character called Mash in FFVI my friend.

He was renamed to Sabin in the US version of VI. >.>;;;

This to a certain degree can be duplicated with the Class/Job system, especially as more jobs begin to allow certain classes more diversified role.

When you have limited MP pools and variances in potency, this is not really the case unless point allocation for classes gets reverted to what it was when the game launched and traits become spread out again.

I both agree and feel the same way. But I believe this can be achieved by allowing a class to assume multiple roles through multiple job sets.

Through this the players who want to strike an identity still get that identity by saying "I am a Lancer"(Self example.) And while they have preference to say Dragoon, like I do. They still maintain that base identity when having to switch jobs (and therefore roles).

Story time: I was on the #11 guild on my server in WoW during WotLK. I was able to get away with focusing my class (Paladin) into the DPS spec of that class (Retribution), which I chose solely because I liked hitting things with a light-imbued 2-handed hammer. This was fine and dandy with my guild because respeccing cost money and on any hybrid it was a total pain. Dual specs came in (basically what you're suggesting), and it became the blessing and curse of the hybrids, because my guild started subtly asking me to pick up offspec gear for tanking and healing. I got them to shut up when I decided to pay the 10K gold for dual spec, then specced myself into the very hated and very useless shockadin set up, making them say "yeah, between that shockadin spec and your DPS spec....just come as DPS". And so I was happy again.

I come back for Cataclysm and every hybrid is suddenly expected to have two specs for raiding and keeping them geared. Sure, between justice points and PuGs it is feasible, but I hate healing and hate the pally tanking model. It was harder to get people outside of PuGs to leave me alone for focusing on DPS. There's been arguing over that in and out of the game because I certainly wasn't the only one who liked one aspect of a class and wanted to focus on it, but there you have it. It echoes too much of the BS from FFXI where you instantly sucked for not leveling X job (in my case it was NIN), but forced into the narrow margin of class.

The moral of the story is that flexibility, while nice, needs to be kept on a tight leash.