Game Watch Translation - Yoshida Pre-Heavensward Interview (6/18)

[Slycer]

This is one of at least three interviews Yoshida did to be released today (6/18) just prior to early access starting. Let me know if anything looks to be missing or skipped in the translation. Not much new information here (not much information at all, really), just general hype. I'll check out the other interviews also. The Dengeki one at least mentioned the token system for Alexander normal.

Source: http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs...18_705472.html

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Starting tomorrow, June 19, early access will finally begin for Final Fantasy XIV's first expansion pack, Heavensward. Many players have already completed their preparation to participate in early access and are counting down the time until they can play. For those of you who just can't wait, I'd like to pass along this interview which was previously held with producer and director Naoki Yoshida.

The last interview which was carried out in France primarily focused on new actions for new and existing jobs; this time, we took care to touch on topics that cover the entirety of Heavensward. From the current story to the future schedule, I think there's information here that players will surely want to know.


An emphasis on the huge scope of Heavensward

Early access is finally about to begin. How is development progress going?

Yoshida: It's going well, but we're hustling at the last minute. We're working on getting out all of the bugs, and once we open up the content we'll see whether we have to do Hot Fixes to further address any.

Will there be a very large patch when Heavensward early access begins?

Yoshida: The large-scale patch updates will be delivered as soon as maintenance begins before early access, so as long as you're patched up to 2.57, you shouldn't get any large patches once early access begins. If you purchased the download version for Playstation 3 or Playstation 4 and you download the client in advance, you might have about 30 seconds of additional patches.

You've mentioned that the overall look of heavensward is darker than A Realm Reborn, was that really emphasized in this patch?

Yoshida: In the updates over the past year and a half, we created a foundation of a newborn world in A Realm Reborn. We aren't totally changing the concepts of this foundation or becoming a new game.

I think there are many people in Japan, especially in the younger generation, for whom FFXIV is the first MMORPG they've played. For them, it will be their first experience with an expansion pack, but for people who player Final Fantasy XI, for example, they'll be comparing to the expansions from FFXI. The major emphasis is that this is like playing a new RPG title. This is why the pack has separate pricing, and our goal is to make sure the enjoyment you get out of it is worth that price.

Does that also affect the scale?

Yoshida: Yeah. The growth of the characters and the story are the most important points in a RPG. Of course, since the different maps, enemies, and dungeons are also part of the overall fun you'll have with an RPG, we've added a lot to focus on those elements as well.

In A Realm Reborn, your adventurer grows to become a heroic "Warrior of Light." Will there be a new growth story in Heavensward?

Yoshida: It's often a mystery to the heroes themselves why they are the "Warriors of Light." for example, we've added elements little by little to show why the warriors of light are chosen by Hydaelyn. Also, the story and characters around the player will develop from the actions of the player. We tried to further express the emotions of the characters around based on the influence of the player's behavior.

So you're no longer just a bystander? For example, when Alphinaud was doing his thing, the adventurers really only heard about it on the side, so wil you be more actively involved in the story?

Yoshida: Since the player is more than just a hero, our story policy in FFXIV is that the will of the players should not be selfishly motivated. Speaking about Alphinaud in particular, although everyone probably understands his story a little differently, we separated much of his story so you wouldn't be engaged in this selfish behavior. For example, the players aren't always going along with the crowd and often set out on their own path, avoiding selfish intentions as much as possible.

So the emotional expressions will be more deliberate?

Yoshida: For example, when you're expressing feelings of anger, the expression is intentionally and not selfishly motivated. It's similar to "Dragon Quest" in that regard. However, with A Realm Reborn, we got a lot of feedback asking to show a little more emotion and to make the story more moving. For example, we actually received a lot of negative feedback about how during the final chapter of Crystal Tower, the supposed villain Nero essentially takes a bullet for everyone when he tells you to go on ahead, and the player character then bolts off without even turning back. It wasn't something that bothered us when we checked the cutscene, but we got a lot of feedback that this hero, after saving the world, was just thinking about himself. While we took a look at the overall situation, we reflected on feedback like this. We've tried to express other emotions besides the character just smiling in a situation like this, and this is a trend we hope to build on moving forward with the 3.X series.

The character will show more emotional involvement then?

Yoshida: As we've made our final adjustments we've tried to push things as much as possible in that direction.

Although some Ishgardian NPCs like Haurchefant and Aymeric were shown in the Dragonsong trailer, will there also be new central story NPCs introduced in the future?

Yoshida: New characters will also appear. But characters introduced in A Realm Reborn like Aymeric, his assistant Lucia, Pope Thordan VII, Ysayle, and others from Ishgard will still appear. They will play an important role in the scenario of Heavensward as we move forward. There are some things that we've left out on purpose, but they will be central to the storyline. Additionally, the player, Alphinaud, Tataru, Haurchefant, Estinien, and Ysayle are also important characters. We have some ideas about where characters end up that will develop with the 3.X series, but most of it will be settled in the scenario of 3.0.

Will you need to wait until level 60 to complete the main scenario?

Yoshida: Yeah. It'll be similar to the ending cutscenes and credits that play after defeating Ultima Weapon in A Realm Reborn. The amount of cutscenes with voiceover is also much higher than in A Realm Reborn. I think people should expect to put in several tens of hours for the story.

You've said earlier it will be more of a dark fantasy, so it sounds like the story will be more mature. Can you give us some of the highlights?

Yoshida: There are several threads to the story. The one our PR has been focusing on until now is the Dragonsong War which has been fought throughout the areas surrounding Ishgard for the past 1000 years. You'll find out why the war is happening, and see the effects the bloody battles have had on each of the camps. From there, you'll see the impact the Warrior of Light will have when he goes there. If the Warrior of Light hadn't come to Ishgard, the war would have continued at a stalemate. You'll have to uncover the truth and who is truly right as you hear what both sides believe about the Dragonsong War and the founding legend of Ishgard. The war and the stories around it are the main focus of the storyline.

Additionally, the reason the Warrior of Light has come to Ishgard in the first place was to escape the three city-states of Eorzea because of the changed political climate primarily in Ul'dah. The previously quiet empire is getting prepared to invade once again. Problems also continue to develop with the beast tribes, so really there are at least three main threads to the overall story. After a certain milestone, the situation will quickly change in the three city-states and you'll be able to go back, but things will continue to move along on the Ishgard side as well.

So it won't be just things to do in Ishgard, some of the quests will involve the three city-states as well?

Yoshida: Yes, that's right. Since much of our PR was focused on the Dragonsong War, we might have lost some of the focus on the political change in Ul'dah, but that will also come to a proper conclusion, and it's something you'll want to look forward to seeing.

I was worried that my friend Raubahn was trying to become a dark knight (laughs).

Yoshida: It seems that many have suspected that (laughs). Please check it out yourself to find out whether or not he has fallen into darkness.

Are there any love stories involved? Many people like things like that.

Yoshida:It would vary from character to character and be difficult to have just one NPC for that. Since it's a MMORPG, it's tough to have a love story develop with the player character. For another kind of game, the ending could leave it up to your imagination, but it's something we'd need to continually develop in a MMORPG because it's also a story-driven game which could prove difficult and unpopular.

That's why the staff and I have decided that rather than focusing on love stories, it would be stronger for us to focus on human growth. Also, a lot of us are shy old men, so it's hard for us to show young people in love (laughs). I guess we could ask the younger members of the development team like our junior writers to work on such elements (laughs).


Bismarck and Ravana primals are designed for casual play; however, for the extreme...

How battles work with the new actions will likely be different. Do you have any planned changes such as the design of roles or combat balance?

Yoshida: Keeping balance in mind, we haven't greatly changed the overall battle system. If a party of eight members of particular jobs worked better than other jobs, certain jobs would become less desirable, and our job is to make sure this doesn't happen as much as possible, so in that regard, the policy is the same.

With the addition of new actions, we've tried to equalize each job's overall contribution to the party. Moreso than before, we have the idea of having a certain utility to each. Now that A Realm Reborn has been running for over a year and a half, we have a lot of information about how players use jobs and information about the job characteristics. For example, since the INT debuff on MNK is so powerful, there were times where people would say a monk was required for Final Coil, so we were even more careful this time around.

Occasionally I play with some players from overseas, and it feels like the way that Japanese players take on some fights is markedly different than the way other players do. Do you struggle during game design with the differing play styles in each region?

Yoshida: Not so much. There are a lot of new and returning players overseas, and there isn't much difference in the rate of content being cleared. In Japan, it seems like the culture is less about getting completely prepared prior to a fight, but more about learning from experience and wiping.

Does any aspect of the strength or design take the regional differences into consideration?

Yoshida: At least for the high difficulty raid, since it's supposed to be difficult, we don't make it with a certain clear rate in mind initially. We want it to feel approachable so we don't make the enemies so strong that it feels hopeless, but on the other hand, if we have it too easy to clear, it would be tough to later update it to increase the difficulty, so we tune the enemies to be strong based on underlying calculations.

So rather than tailoring them to players, it's more in the form of being presented to players and daring them to try to clear it.

Yoshida: Well, "daring" players to try it implies that we don't know if it can be cleared, so it's not quite like that. Since they are numerically designed to always be clearable, that's not what we have in mind. In the beginning a certain percentage of parties trying will be able to clear it, and we add the Echo in the future because we want more people to be able to experience the clear. That said, since understanding of certain mechanics can be tough, we also make adjustments on the mechanics side as soon as possible for mechanics which are far too difficult. One example of this was the Twister mechanic from Turn 5 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut; however, we were pretty amazed with the North American BG FC was able to clear it the day before we made the adjustment.

The groups who are first for clearing content are really amazing.

Yoshida: Yeah. For example, the Lucrezia FC did a live stream of the world's fastest clear of turn 5 of Binding Coil at the minimum required item level. The development team assumes an expected item level for the clear and sets HP about 15% lower than the maximum total DPS for jobs besides healers based on that equipment. By taking advantage of that 15% margin and pushing DPS with healers, food, and medicines which we don't take into account, they were able to clear it below the lowest expected item level, so it must have felt really great.

They could only survive Death Sentence by making full use of Stoneskin, Galvanize, Cover, and Inner Beast. Player proficiency wasn't at this level at the time players began clearing Turn 5 of the Binding Coil.

When Second Coil and Final Coil were added, since players were getting quite good, they were able to take advantage of that margin from the mathematical calculation to get to just the right number needed to clear, which was quite cool to watch. Then they could go back and defeat Twintania within four minutes with the higher level equipment. I think players are used to this as the norm as it's the idea behind the item level system.

For the new Alexander raid where you go through the different parts of Alexander in order, will the total number be the same as with Bahamut's Coil?

Yoshida: I can't talk about that yet to avoid spoilers. Alexander will start moving the moment 3.0 starts, but it won't be possible to take on the challenge at first, so we don't want to take away any of the fun of experiencing it. The first set is called [[something like Alexander Starting Edition, I'm sure the name will be entirely different in English like it was for the coils]].

Well, it certainly won't end after one battle. Will it have the same four part structure like the coils?

Yoshida: Yes, it's configured as four parts. Due to all of the tuning required, it would be quite tough to do much more than this. Further, since we're making both normal and hard modes, even though they use the same assets, the battle team actually has to work on eight different fights.

Is it set up so that you have to clear normal to try hard?

Yoshida: Clearing normal will be a prerequisite. We want as many people as possible to try out the normal one. There's a lot of different content to try this time around, so I hope people get a chance to enjoy all of it.

Will Alisaie be involved again?

Yoshida: Alisaie is not involved, there are new characters.

Alexander itself is a huge primal, so will it come into play during the main scenario?

Yoshida: Finding out who summoned it and seeing what they are trying to do will not be a mandatory part of the main scenario. It will be something on the side and there will be new characters involved.

Speaking of primals, Ravana was shown in a recent letter from the producer. What kind of primal is this?

Yoshida: For the Ravana battle, we've made a lot of adjustments for an 8-person party so we've brought the difficulty down quite a bit. I think it's true for both of the primals that you should be able to clear them pretty casually.

So how is the difficulty? Are they different from the primal battles before?

Yoshida: Yeah, they're always new. Primals have emerged throughout the story to be cleared by a party after wiping maybe once or twice. This is also the start of the 3.X series, so the development team just wanted to offer a taste of the experience from something like hard Garuda or hard Titan. In part it's because we don't want people getting stuck in the story, so we made balance adjustments up until the last minute.

So it should feel fairly easy.

Yoshida: Well, I'm not sure what the exact DPS values are, but it should be very trivial for a good FC to clear them and maybe a little tougher without that. Among the development team, if we took four experiences players and four comparatively casual ones, we struggled a bit with DPS shortage or where people weren't playing their main job, so it might b a bit tough. The extreme versions are designed to be quite challenging.

Will it be as crazy as extreme Titan was from before?

Yoshida: You'll find out when you get there (laughs).

How is the Bismarck primal fight?

Yoshida: Bismarck is quite a bit different from primals before. Rather than talking about it too much here, I'd like players to try it out and enjoy it for themselves.

It's stronger than Ravana, isn't it?

Yoshida: Which is stronger or weaker will probably defend on the point of view of the people fighting.

Will you fight the primals during the story?

Yoshida: Yes. It's the fourth major story thread in addition to the three we talked about earlier with the Dragonsong War at Ishgard, the issues with the three city-states, and the return of Garlemald.

Will they start to appear around the middle of the story like with A Realm Reborn?

Yoshida: One is towards the middle and the other is in the second half.

For instanced dungeons, will you have any bosses which have types of attacks that have not appeared before?

Yoshida: Yeah, quite often. We've designed it so you won't get bored of it too quickly. There are three types of bosses in the dungeons. One type is completely new bosses. The second type is one that uses gimmicks similar to those found in earlier raids. For example, we've added simplified versions of mechanics from raids like Final Coil so that even players who don't participate in raids get a chance to experience those mechanics. The last type is story-based. If you've been playing up until now, you should enjoy seeing the tweaked mechanics from coil coming back. But generally speaking, those are the three kinds we have.

In Stone Vigil (Hard) there was a boss which would choose random targets. Do you have any more experimental elements like that?

Yoshida: We added some that choose random targets.

Which one is your favorite boss from testing?

Yoshida: Since it's one that you'll meet in the second half, I'd rather not say.... It's pretty interesting, though. This includes raids also, but we have bosses that change form and morph mid-combat, so it should be quite interesting.

With The Hunt, the rewards available were limited to the different city states. Will there be a Hunt of Ishgard?

Yoshida: Since The Hunt will also launch on the Ishgard side, you'll also be able to obtain currency to exchange for items, and the items that you can exchange for will be changed up, although it will include those which you were previously able to exchange for. S-rank marks remain dormant for a few days after the start of service, which was deliberate to reduce large-scale congestion.

So you had server load in mind.

Yoshida: Yeah. While leveling up it would be difficult to beat these and too many players would have to gather up to fight it. Although the chaos that ensues immediately after launching a MMORPG is fun, we obviously want to avoid having the servers go down, so we'll open content up as we keep an eye on the state of things.

Will there be daily quests to defeat monsters?

Yoshida: Although these will of course be available, there will be different degrees, Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced, which will become unlocked as you clear side quests. You can clear the side quest for Beginner from level 53, so you can start receiving the daily marks at that point.

So you can't play certain content until you get to the appropriate level.

Yoshida: It's like that, since it's separate on the Ishgard side.

You can't join Ishgard?

Yoshida: With the war ongoing, there is nothing like a Grand Company there.

So the Dragonsong War will have to end first?

Yoshida: That's right. Actually, I don't know whether you'll be able to after it ends either (laughs).


4.0 could launch as early as next summer? The development schedule is exhausting.

During the E3 interviews at 2013 before the beta for A Realm Reborn began, you had talked about trying to add flying to the game. When did you decide to add it in 3.0?

Yoshida: We were actually also thinking about underwater adventures also when we decided to add flying mounts. Just before patch 2.1, we decided that we wanted to implement flying mounts so we began thinking about the system. On the rendering side, since the rendering is divided into different steps, when we would fly over areas it would look quite ridiculous with the limited draw distance, so we began to develop a new rendering system based on our long term plan. Of course, we hadn't completed any of the new fields at this time, so as we were implementing updated with A Realm Reborn, we were just working on checking and developing the conditions for objects as part of the flying specifications, while the level design team separately worked on the design of the field areas.

So you were suffering flying on your own for about a year.

Yoshida: Yeah, I was suffering.

So now that 3.0 is here, are you already thinking about 4.0?

Yoshida: Yeah. Visual Works has already approached us about ordering the opening movie for 4.0 since it takes a long time to develop. We only have an outline at this point so I was just able to give them a general overview, and we'll probably hand over some material later on. I'm guessing around August or September we'll have a follow-up where we actually order the trailer work.

Patch 2.57 which ended A Realm Reborn was about a year and a half from launch. Will the period following Heavensward be about the same length?

Yoshida: We've already completed our plan for implementation of content through the whole 3.X series, but we have a bit of a shorter cycle to get to 4.0 so it will be a little tough. It took us a long time just to develop the flying mounts, so you can see that it takes a long operation cycle to develop an expansion pack with a lot of content. I think everyone would be happy with a shorter cycle, but then it would be difficult to introduce major changes.

If we are going to keep the title goign for a decade, rather than releasing extremely large expansions, we'd like to try to release annual expansions to add content which hasn't been the case so far. We'd like to adjust the volume of the expansions to come out once a year. As a producer, we could get a better life cycle for the game if we could get content out faster, but on the creation side, it will be more difficult.

One year does seem short.

Yoshida: It seems really short to us (laughs). Since the updates are quite substantial, the update cycle has us putting one update out about every three and a half months. So if you just stop to think about it, that time goes by in the blink of an eye. Since we have plans that are completely packed, you have to expect there to be some deviation from time to time. For other titles, a delay of one month may not mean so much, but in the case of a MMORPG it could create a lasting negative impression. If we have very short cycles, we have no slack time to absorb delays, so we have to take that into consideration.

Do you have any elements like flight from this expansion that you'd like to introduce in the next expansion?

Yoshida: Yeah, I want to go to the moon, but I'm not sure how (laughs). It's not yet concrete, but you shouldn't necessarily expect a pattern like that.

Will you have any updates in response to the release of Windows 10 this summer?

Yoshida: We're doing some basic verification of operation, but I think you should be able to play normally. We'll have some further checks.

Square Enix has announced a tech demo for DirectX 12, so do you have any plans in the future to further evolve the graphics of FFXIV?

Yoshida: I don't think we'll be adding any features for DirectX 12 until at least 4.0. There are also certain elements which we cannot use in DirectX 12 which is one nice thing about DirectX 11. So there are both pros and cons, and although DirectX 12 was already announced when we said we would add DirectX 11 support, we're still a bit anxious about performance. That said, if the tech demo is good, we could still consider it. So right now we don't see any corresponding benefit for DirectX 12 over DirectX 11, but as DirectX 12 compatible graphics cards become more common, we'll keep an eye on the situation.

Also to keep the quality up, it takes some period of time to properly develop the grpahics resources needed. Given that just after the release of an expansion pack is not the greatest time, we'll be looking more at how to evolve into DirectX 12 in the future, but I don't really have any timing for it.

Are you thinking at all about anything for VR headsets like Morpheus or Oculus Rift which will be released over the next year?

Yoshida: I love new technology myself, so I'd like to test it out. But it would be funny to see players complaining about things like tanks moving because they're using an Oculus Rift (laughs).

It's also not conducive to gameplay since the viewpoints would be different and the interfaces would have to be different. That said, it's interesting to show at an event, so I'd like to try to have a demonstration of an experience like that if we had the chance to do so.

VR is definitely an interesting technology, but games should be made specific for it. Trying to move in existing games can create a motion sickness. Even operating at 60 frames per second, people might get sick. I think it requires at least 120 frames per second, but it still might be tough. In the case of FFXIV, I think it might be really fun just to talk around, but I think battle would give you a headache (laughs).

Do you have any message in closing to the readers?

Yoshida: Although we had this interview earlier, I bet that early access will begin tomorrow! (laughs) I think that there might be a lot of congestion at first, so please keep that in mind and be gentle as you get started. If players get caught up in queues or server limits, the development team and management team will be working together actively to solve those problems so everyone can enjoy Heavensward. There should be another upswing in access on the 23rd at official release as players who purchase the all-in-one pack who have never played before get to try it out for the first time. Please enjoy it!

Thank you very much!

[Taint]

Thanks!

[Lonely]

Thanks Slycer, I always enjoy these reads.

[Sho]

Thanks Slycer bro.

[Burningthought]

Thanks for the translation Slycer, keep crushin' it.