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  1. #1
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    Yoshida Interview (August 19): Dengeki at Gamescom

    Thanks to the heads-ups from Sho and Cecil75 about the new Dengeki interview which was done with Yoshida at Gamescom in Germany and published a few days later on August 19. Here's the original link:

    http://dengekionline.com/elem/000/000/910/910080/

    My translation is below. I think I got everything but I kind of skipped around a bit so I might have glossed over something and not come back to it. I'll take another look later, but let me know if anything sounds discontinuous. It's pretty short, but there's some interesting info and hints at things moving forward.


    The first anniversary since the start of A Realm Reborn's service is coming up at the end of August, can you tell us how you're feeling about it right now?

    Honestly... I don't even have a feeling about it. Until the assistant producer reminded me that we needed to start getting ready for the first anniversary, we hadn't even realized that the anniversary was coming up. Then we all had to start making preparations in a hurry (laughs).

    The first year of a MMORPG is really only the starting line. I always tell the development team that we need to carry the momentum that we build in the first and second years forward into our future operations, and we're only a fraction of the way there. That said, since we already have four years of history including original FFXIV, I'd like to thank all of the development and management team who have been along for the ride so far.

    Also, a lot of foreign media have asked me about our goals for the future, and the answer I always give is that we don't have any particular figure which we are trying to target as a future goal. Up until now, our goal has been to regain the trust of all of our players, and we won't forget this in the future, but rather than settling for some number in particular, we'd like to challenge ourselves to go as far as we can.

    A Realm Reborn has services available in Germany, so what's the current situation here?

    Germany has the largest market of PC gamers in Europe. Of course, there are already many players enjoying A Realm Reborn, but the PR team tells me that they aren't satisfied with the numbers. On the whole, Germany appreciates MMORPGs, but the ranking of worldwide games tends to be different compared to elsewhere.

    There is a tendency for players to want more hardcore games. We took a look at the "Final Fantasy" IP to see if it's weak in Germany and we built from there. Rather than designing the PR in Germany to promote A Realm Reborn as the latest game in the Final Fantasy series, we made the decision to promote it more as a large-scale, hardcore MMORPG with great content.

    Of course, a great community formed around this with a lot of players who support each other, so we'd like to promote this by actively supporting events where players can meet up with each other in the hopes of attracting even more players.

    Tell us about what you're working on with future development and operations.

    For MMORPGs, we feel that the most important things are the amount and quality of the content. There are a lot of MMORPGs out there, and many have come out since A Realm Reborn's service started but have struggled with content updates, while A Realm Reborn has progressed steadily with its volume and frequency of updates, so we want to keep things moving forward in this direction.

    It might seem obvious that keeping quality content coming out on a regular basis would be par for the course, but it's actually quite difficult to achieve. On top of that, we want to continue providing unique surprises to FF fans and our players in the future. Now that the old FFXIV has become the new FFXIV, we have a lot of surprises in store with the amount and kinds of content now in development for 3.0, so there'll be no shortage of news updates moving forward.

    Next I'd like to focus on specific game content. Tell us about the highlights and main content for patch 2.35 which is coming soon.

    For additions and changes in patch 2.35, the main focus is on the addition of the Beast Tribe quests for the Ixal tribe. Unlike the Beast Tribe quests so far, these quests focus on crafting rather than battle. It was thought up for those who had never experienced crafting classes before so that hopefully they become more interested in crafting after partaking in these.

    Also, if you develop your relations with all of the Beast Tribes to Trusted, you can enjoy additional story content. Rather than one quest, there will be some continuous quests, and one will serve as a culmination of all of the Beast Tribe quests with NPCs from all of the Beast Tribes showing up, so please enjoy it.

    -The Hunt adjustments are focused on B ranks.

    We need to make adjustments on the whole for Monster Hunt content, but I'd like to wait for making any more announcements until a later date. We're aware that there's a problem today with the way people are fighting elites being quite different from our intent when we implemented it where people are killing all of S, A, and B rank monsters in groups.

    S ranks were intended to be monsters which people would find and then shout to other people in the area to try to gather up people to defeat them. B rank monsters were intended to be more for people who aren't hunting in large groups, but rather something people could do every now and then without help on their own time. A ranks were supposed to be somewhere in the middle.

    The adjustments we're making should put things closer to the state which we originally assumed. We also mentioned previously that we can't just increase the HP of monsters, since that would just change a fight where 200 people show up to one where 500 people show up since the battle goes on a bit longer, and things wouldn't change.

    For S ranks, although we wanted to set it up to be something that people would team up and defeat as a large group, right now it's too easy to have hordes of people show up. I think it might have been overkill to have Allagan Tomestones available.

    So while the current situation for S ranks isn't too far from what we intended, I think the one rank that needs to change the most right now is B rank since the current status is entirely different from what we had originally planned. I think most people will either be happy or at least understanding once the patch is implemented. Of course, we'll continue to consider adjustments based on the state of Elites in future patches.

    -Melee DPS has been slightly enhanced in PvP.

    Next is PvP. We needed to make adjustments for PvP-specific job actions for Wolves' Den and Frontline. The adjustments were to reduce the large range on some abilities, along with some other refinements. The main goal was to strengthen melee DPS a bit.

    For melee DPS, in PvE, since a tank is generally fixing the enemy target to one position, it's easy to maximize DPS around the target, but the other party may always be moving in PvP, so it's trickier. We also have to consider different player skill levels, but we've made adjustments to actions for these classes. We'll continue to make adjustments as we get more feedback.

    So you're trying to eliminate some of the job inequality.

    Some jobs can have strong tactics indeed. Rather than just focusing on adjustments to strengthen jobs themselves, we're also carrying out adjustments while considering that job as an enemy as well.

    With Unidentified Allagan Tomestones dropping from Syrcus Tower, we feel like there's a different amount of effort required to get the item level 100 weapons. Do you plan to make any adjustments to this?

    When you refer to item level 100 weapons I imagine you're talking about Zodiac and Soldiery weapons, but even at item level 100, the nature of each weapon is different.

    The soldiery weapon will have no further upgrades after item level 110, but the Zodiac weapon was designed with the assumption that it will continue to get stronger in the future. Also, Novus weapons are the only weapons which have secondary stats which can be adjusted right now, which will factor into their next upgrade. The difficulty of obtaining the Zodiac weapons was adjusted with the future strength of the weapons in mind.

    Also, even with the Unidentified Allagan Tomestone dropping in Syrcus Tower, it still takes about three weeks of Soldiery to obtain the item level 100 weapon, so you can't just obtain it immediately.

    However, for players who are just getting into the Zodiac weapons now, it might seem like a mountain of effort ahead starting with the Atma collection. For those players, we'll continue to make adjustments as time goes on.

    So the drop rate for Atma won't be increased just yet?

    Correct. I've said it before, but I'll repeat it, the drop rate of Atma really isn't that low....

    Well, when you're going after the Unidentified Allagan Tomestone, you're also obtaining mythology and soldiery, and in Syrcus Tower, you might also go for a piece of armor. On the other hand, if you're going after Atma, you're doing FATEs with that sole purpose, so there's definitely a different amount of motivation required.

    Well, that's because those players have Atma as their only objective. The quests were designed with difficulty based on getting strong weapons at the expense of getting other items. Trying to force your way through it quickly now can be painful, so it might make more sense to instead work on it more slowly and get a Soldiery weapon for now. Once patch 2.4 comes out, you can keep going since new weapons will be added and the item levels will continue to increase.

    Since the situation with mythology has been relaxed, there has been a flood of myth. Do you have any plans to relax the acquisition amounts of Soldiery?

    For now, we don't have any plans for relaxing acquisition of Soldiery until patch 2.4.

    In patch 2.2, Allagan Tomestones of Philosophy were eliminated and Soldiery was implemented. Will a new Allagan Tomestone be implemented in patch 2.4 to replace Mythology?

    You could think that based on what's happened before. Also, you should expect the economy to change completely again in patch 2.4.

    If Allagan Tomestones are added, where will we be able to get Mythology equipment?

    We haven't yet decided yet whether it will remain. It's tough to see it suddenly become a direct drop from dungeons, but it would also be annoying if they just became items exchanged for something else.

    Since I like Allagan equipment, when I do a new job and I want to get item level 90, I try to set myself up with Allagan gear. If mythology equipment became a straight drop, the motivation to get Allagan gear would go down even more. I still wonder if we should have put a 5 level difference to keep it useful.

    With Soldiery and High Allagan equipment, this was reflected in the difference in item level. Since we are also players ourselves, we have some idea of what things need to be improved from the players' point of view. We also try to be highly conscious of the fact that the motivation to get items changes when we make adjustments to how items are obtained.

    This time, we added the Oil and Sands of Time to strengthen the Soldiery equipment, and there were pros and cons to this mechanism. We won't necessarily follow this system again, but we will continue to keep the system in the future where we develop Tomestone exchange items and items dropped from high level content so that there's a certain period of time involved with developing your equipment performance.

    You've mentioned that the series of Bahamut's dungeons will be completed in patch 2.4, but with the end of that content, what else do you have in mind? Also, can you give any guidance on the content direction for easier content in the future?

    Basically, we will maintain the idea where we have high-end content challenged by eight players and alliance raid content taken on by 24 players. Also, we want to add community end-game content which Free Companies can participate in.

    The Bahamut dungeons will be finished in the next major patch, but we're already planning the next high difficulty content and we'll continue looking forward from there. First, players should aim to complete the final coil in patch 2.4.

    Will the scale of each turn be large?

    While there will be some other battles, the format will basically be the same with the challenge being the boss fight. It's possible that we could come up with some additional things to prolong the journey, but we aren't really thinking about it. It's common in recent MMORPGs that you'll arrive at the boss and then spend your time trying the boss repeatedly, so we didn't want to waste too much money on the rest of it (laughs).

    In various events and live producer letters, as the producer, you're consciously coming out to provide new information to us, but there seems to be high risk associated with that.

    I've played a lot of foreign MMORPGs where the players and management teams are in very close, honest communication. The players want their own say, but they also develop a certain respect for the management and development teams.

    On the other hand, around the time when I joined Square Enix, with FFXI, it was more like players versus the development and management teams. There was no forum for players to exchange their opinions with the teams behind the game, and there was no path for members of the development or management teams to easily express themselves to the players.

    After the launch of the original FFXIV, Square Enix fell back into the groove which had become commonplace, and the fans' affection for Square Enix flipped into intense anger since they felt that Square Enix wasn't listening to what they had to say.

    Wada, who was president at the time, said that if we didn't start by apologizing, we were past the point of no return. So we went back to the start to regain and develop a relationship of trust with the players.

    While we originally refused interviews with the media, we decided that it would be better to do them as much as possible. However, to really change our image, we decided that all of our communications would be useless if we didn't actually put ourselves out there at the table, face-to-face with our fans like we do now.

    That's basically why we decided to do the live producer letters. Since there are some adjustments that we can't avoid, we apologize for those, but we'd rather provide an honest impression of our direction for future content implementation than to leave things unclear.

    In some cases, this communication with the development team about what's good or bad has led to our decisions with what we do or don't do with content in development. We also want to develop a feeling of fellowship with our players, which I think makes everything more fun. Additionally, we also want to discuss why we do certain things.

    And if the content we put out is different from what all the players are asking for at that moment, we want to be able to tell players what our intent is. It might sound good to make one decision now to please players in the short term, but this might throw off the balance months later if we don't make a different choice. To me, the biggest problems with players leaving are a result of the game's balance getting messed up. I think one of my roles as producer is to tell players when we can't do something.

    Do you have any last message to players and readers?

    Since one year has passed, I'm glad to have been able to meet so many players who continue to play. So, first off, I'm really happy, and thank you!

    Actually, four years have passed since the release of the original FFXIV, so we're getting close to half of those 10 years that we were aiming for.... (laughs). But yeah, it's been one year since we've become the new FFXIV. You can kind of think of us as still being a toddler after just one year, but we're trying to offer a gaming experience which is fresh to MMORPGs.

    So, as we continue to develop and operate this latest Final Fantasy, as always, thank you!

  2. #2

    Thanks Slycer.

    Was a rather lame interview imo. General information one could have simply interpolated.

  3. #3
    Can you spare some gil?
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    Honestly... I don't even have a feeling about it. Until the assistant producer reminded me that we needed to start getting ready for the first anniversary, we hadn't even realized that the anniversary was coming up.
    Easy to forget about your 1 year anniversary when you're touring the world and showing off your game and only going back home to do your live letter and then back out touring the world some more.

  4. #4
    YOU BLACK, MIDNIGHT, EVIL MOTHERFUCKERS!!! BLACK MAGIC, DARKNESS!!! YOU RAW, DARKNESS!!! YOU, FUCKING, DELIRIOUS MOTHERFUCKER!
    You were cold as ice.

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    Thanks for the interview translation, Slycer my mans. I updated that patch thread with the info here.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shenrien View Post
    Easy to forget about your 1 year anniversary when you're touring the world and showing off your game and only going back home to do your live letter and then back out touring the world some more.
    If he didn't tour the world, I could promise you this game wouldn't have done as well as it is doing so far. He's the producer and director so he took his own path on fixing Tanaka's mistakes. He even explained it as politely as possible as well in this very interview. The fact of the matter is, he had to gain a deep understanding and satisfaction with his player base, which he did literally by traveling and meeting players as well as his Producer Letter and Letter LIVE. I guess the bonus side effect of it all is that be became a celebrity with his fans, lol.

  5. #5
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    Correct. I've said it before, but I'll repeat it, the drop rate of Atma really isn't that low....
    for what we actually get, it's insanely awful. all Atmas do is give us the right to start the real quest.

  6. #6
    Pens win! Pens Win!!! PENS WIN!!!!!
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    He also seems to think people do hunts mostly for myth

  7. #7
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    To be fair, I was using all my myth on maps for alex, and I got about 40 alex out of it in the time that it took me to get all the sand and oils I needed for alts. I also made about 6mil off the emery market when they first came out so he has a minor point.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Deader2818 View Post
    He also seems to think people do hunts mostly for myth
    To be fair, there's still a lot of people doing it for myth first and sands/oils second.

  9. #9
    You wouldn't know that though because you've demonstrably never picked up a book nor educated yourself on the matter. Let me guess, overweight housewife?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Deader2818 View Post
    He also seems to think people do hunts mostly for myth
    I do it for both. Myth and notes both can get me alex.

  10. #10
    RNGesus
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    If anything I do it for Sands first then convenient soldiery cap. I'm on the FUCK NOVUS train so FUCK MYTH.

  11. #11

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrath View Post
    I'm on the FUCK NOVUS train so FUCK MYTH.

  12. #12
    Mithra Ero-Sensei
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    I haven't really bothered with hunts yet ;/ with the flood of myth items on the market, was busy making tens of millions.
    Thinking the new ixtal quests within a week or 2 will drive prices down a lot though...

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by layoneil View Post
    for what we actually get, it's insanely awful. all Atmas do is give us the right to start the real quest.
    Casually went about my second set of Atma for lolnin when it comes out. Took about 4 days of random dicking around? Less than 2 hours a day, some took more than others but wasn't terrible.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shaano View Post
    Casually went about my second set of Atma for lolnin when it comes out. Took about 4 days of random dicking around? Less than 2 hours a day, some took more than others but wasn't terrible.
    i've done way more than 8 hours of FATEs. only have 5 Atma and 2 of them are the same.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shaano View Post
    Casually went about my second set of Atma for lolnin when it comes out. Took about 4 days of random dicking around? Less than 2 hours a day, some took more than others but wasn't terrible.
    Well it's a good thing it takes the exact same amount of time for everyone.

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