New Yoshi-P Interview

[Jeeqbit]

https://youtu.be/TwcWMwuliX0

• Difference between 1.0 and ARR, is 1.0 had no content, MB, DF, PF or classic FF jobs and slow combat
• -
• Gets feedback from reddit, the forums, social media regularly
• There's no magic bullet to solve all the game's issues, and he only came to that realization 1.5 years ago
• He believed he just needed to get things like the features and difficulty level balance in a perfect state but what he realized was no such perfect state exists
• When they release more challenging content they probably will get feedback of "we want more casual content"
• When they release more casual content they will get feedback of "we want more challenging content"
• This ebb and flow of feedback won't ever cease and will be mindful of that. This is what he realized in the end. That there is no perfect answer but will try to keep players excited and stimulated
• -
• The MSQ is long, but new players don't mind it because it's new content to them
• Says there are systems in place for veterans to play with sprout friends (unsyncing).
• He's regularly asked the media if when inviting friends to play, would they recommend they skip? Their answer is they'd recommend their friend experience the story
• That's why he doesn't need to add systems to skip or reduce MSQ or shorten the MSQ.
• The focus is instead on helping veterans be comfortable with their sprout friend's knowledge, such as by adding the more advanced Hall of the Novice.
• -
• Journalist revealed they were asked to review FFXIV by SE, after making a negative review about Shadowlands, and that's how they started playing.
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• Main goal of in-game collaborations is to excite the development team and inspire them with new ideas (obvious examples are Fall Guys, Monster Hunter and Nier)
• Helps them overcome potential stagnation that they know is a risk of the same team doing things for years
• They learn new techniques from the people they work with from these other companies they crossover with
• -
• Out-of-game collaborations are more about marketing FFXIV in the real world so they look for partners that would be proud to work with FFXIV. The goal is obviously that people who use those brands might see the collab and try out FFXIV.
• Was inspired to do these collabs because he walked into a shop and saw cups with WoW on them and wanted to see FFXIV on stuff in shops too.
• Many of these companies have active players of the game that rose through the ranks, so *they* approach Square Enix instead now, offering to advertise the game they love
• -
• Said Dawntrail was not delayed because *he* wanted to play Elden Ring. He was too busy doing the Media Tour, and developers were making adjustments until the last minute. But he knew others would be playing Elden Ring and gave them a week.

[Valence]

The first step is recognizing that after stepping back a little, that there is no easy answer.
The next step is recognizing that you still need to take decisions with actual direction after, not staying indecisive and "torn about everything".

[Turtledeluxe]

On the subject of content, I can see his point about casual and hardcore, but I just don't think it's the reality. The game doesn't produce enough content regularly for casual players. Perhaps even hardcore players too depending on the patch.

The conversation has shifted from the ratio of content difficulty to the patch cycle itself, the staleness of content and rewards, etc.

My point being I'm not sure he's seeing the feedback objectively. Most players who want midcore for example, are not asking for less Ultimates. I think we have a thread up about it that shows this.

It seems like a strategy to gaslight the base because I actually think this is one thing where casual, mid, high end players all mostly agree. The game in general has a content problem.

[Greyhawk]

Reddit for information, now there's a reputable source. The subreddit there for FFXIV will hang you if you say one bad thing about this game. Social media doesn't really cover issues and concerns - it's there just for hype, except the Youtubers lately seemed to have finally caught on about the issues. And then we have the forums. Raw. Unmoderated.

I think that trying to find the magic bullet is his problem, because he won't please everyone, but the SBI triggers go against the majority, triggering the minority. He believes it's the opposite, as does the minority. For someone who talks about balance, his content balance is way off. He can do both casual and challenging content. Lowest common denominator and all... and I'm a casual player, but even the rinse/repeat totally 'see it coming' aspect of dungeons are sore to do, even the ones I like. All because you know what's coming. If they created the encounters like Chaos, where every time you start the fight, it's a different rotation, that would at least make it somewhat more of a step in the right direction of enjoyable.

I may edit my post to add more thoughts, but I haven't slept and not enough coffee to keep going with the mind-numbing rhetoric.

[Larirawiel]

Reddit for information,

Yepp. Using reddit for information is so ...






Cheers

[CNitsah]

Yepp. Using reddit for information is so ...

Cheers

Reddit is not such a bad source of information, as long as you put it in perspectives with the other sources and the knowledge of the subreddit bias. The fact you can now criticize DT writing or the content drought in r/ffxiv tells a lot about how much they fucked up.

[AnimaAnimus]

Reddit is not such a bad source of information, as long as you put it in perspectives with the other sources and the knowledge of the subreddit bias. The fact you can now criticize DT writing or the content drought in r/ffxiv tells a lot about how much they fucked up.

That is shocking lol. During EW I replied to a post pointing out a few of the many flaws in the writing for that expac too and had over 1k downvotes within a couple hours. It got so bad I completely abandoned r/ffxiv and last I was on r/ffxivdiscussion was starting to have the same problem.

But I still say reddit is a bad source of information. Even knowing it's an echo chamber doesn't negate the fact that it's an echo chamber, making everything you read on it suspect. And most other sources, like twitter and even gaming news sites are usually echo chambers as well. Twitter gives you brigading if you disagree and news sites want clicks so they will nearly always give shiny reviews to appease the audience, esp ones that are, or at least were, as unhinged as xiv's online army if they are not flat out paid for good reviews by the companies making the games. Metacritic and other such sites are known to remove even legit reviews so thats not a good source. The forums are literally the only place you can criticise due to there not being a downvote system and the ability to report ppl directly to SE. And even though that creates another bias, its not nearly as powerful as the others making it likely the most reliable source of information.

If they want more accurate information, SE should literally just poll their audience and get back actual individual feedback, but that requires work and money, which they are not willing to put into the actual game, much less a poll.

[Daralii]

That is shocking lol. During EW I replied to a post pointing out a few of the many flaws in the writing for that expac too and had over 1k downvotes within a couple hours. It got so bad I completely abandoned r/ffxiv and last I was on r/ffxivdiscussion was starting to have the same problem.

But I still say reddit is a bad source of information. Even knowing it's an echo chamber doesn't negate the fact that it's an echo chamber, making everything you read on it suspect. And most other sources, like twitter and even gaming news sites are usually echo chambers as well. Twitter gives you brigading if you disagree and news sites want clicks so they will nearly always give shiny reviews to appease the audience, esp ones that are, or at least were, as unhinged as xiv's online army if they are not flat out paid for good reviews by the companies making the games. Metacritic and other such sites are known to remove even legit reviews so thats not a good source. The forums are literally the only place you can criticise due to there not being a downvote system and the ability to report ppl directly to SE. And even though that creates another bias, its not nearly as powerful as the others making it likely the most reliable source of information.

If they want more accurate information, SE should literally just poll their audience and get back actual individual feedback, but that requires work and money, which they are not willing to put into the actual game, much less a poll.

Both of them banned discussion of a certain DT character, but they're more willing to let people acknowledge the flaws at least.

[Shougun]

I would agree there will always, always, be a complaint, and they might not even be invalid, having infinite resources would be nice but isn't going to happen lol, but I would also argue the quality/quantity they produce for casual stuff isn't to the same level as non-casual.

I imagine this is a tool issue, in part, since they probably have a very robust battle design kit and so at this point it doesn't cost five arms and a leg, only two for a new high end content, and if you wanted to do one new unique casual content it would be 5, as there is no tool for it. I can imagine wrong, but it is my perception that when they do new casual/non content they use the systems they have existing and to be honest those systems 'feel' very specific in where their strengths are (can build intricate boss fights, can't make interactive quests, locations, or other pieces of content outside of some UI).

[Turtledeluxe]

Not to be that guy, but Yoshi P is making completely fallacious arguments when he implies something isn't worth doing because it will never be perfect, or that something can't be done because it would require infinite resources. Yoshi P has been telling the base this dumb bs for so long he actually believes it.

Is FFXVI also a victim of this? It had very similar critical and commercial feedback to XIV. It seems like there's a design philosophy at work here vs simply budget problems and players complaining.