Below is my translation of the interview that Game Watch had with Yoshida at Gamescom in Cologne last week. Let me know if anything seems inconsistent or incorrect. I haven't gone through with a fine-toothed comb yet, so there will probably be some grammar or spelling errors until I do a full read.
Please reference the translation here with a link because it's possible that I'll be updating and editing over the next few hours.
Source: http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs...13_715888.html
Thanks to octopus for the heads up.
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The Square Enix PS4 / PS3 / WIN / Mac MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward was present at Gamescom in Cologne with a battle challenge booth, but some updates about 3.0 and, finally, 3.1 were also discussed. The article below is an interview with Naoki Yoshida, producer and director of FFXIV, from the Gamescom venue about the present and future of FFXIV.
Balance adjustments for astrologian will be implemented as soon as they are ready.
Patch 3.05 was just implemented the other day with some things originally planned for 3.0. Please give us a summary of your impressions so far.
Yoshida: Although we had a tight schedule, I think we were able to completely fulfill our original plan of having the Heavensward story be a complete stand-alone RPG experience. I met a lot of folks from the media at both Japan EXPO and Gamescom whose first words were about how great the story was. I want to say thank you to the development team for making a story that really felt like that of a Final Fantasy title. Of course, there were a few trouble spots with the schedule, but most of the small bugs have been cleared up with hot fixes. I know there were some complaints from all of the players, and we've been told that this isn't a perfect score so stones were thrown at the development team (laughs).
Is there anything in particular that was better than or not as good as you thought?
Yoshida: With respect to how a certain character's shield was handled, it was something that we wanted to include, but it was too late to meet the deadline. However, we're planning now for its implementation. I also think we didn't have enough time to test the Moogle side quests. It seems like hatred has been developing around the world for Moogles, so I regret that...
Perhaps there wouldn't be so much bitterness if they unlocked flight first.
Yoshida: Yeah.... That said, as you go through the quests there are so many where moogles get lost in the same situations over and over so I think people wouldn't even bother if it wasn't for the experience. We definitely didn't test it out enough.
Maybe they will turn into good memories one day.
Yoshida: No, I don't think so.
Now that the savage Alexander: Gordias has been implemented, I think everyone has been trying really hard to get the strategies down. Although it's been taking a while to clear compared to the Final Coil of Bahamut, is this about the speed you expected?
Yoshida: Even though we call it "savage," it wouldn't be any fun if it felt totally impossible, so we kept the first two sections at a certain level of difficulty. I think the battle team adjusted those well so that as long as you hang in there, sooner or later you'll get the clears. The real "savage" difficulty comes into play with the third and fourth sections. But the top three or so teams really are amazing, I didn't think the level could be high enough to get those clears yet (laughs).
So part of the development was that the strategies become progressively more difficult towards the top?
Yoshida: No, our development team didn't really plan the fights in that sense. Rather than making it just meeting certain requirements, we designed it more like a challenging sport. To develop the mechanics, the numbers are balanced based on a certain clear strategy, players' attack power and the damage of the party in each phase, and lastly we factor in the fact that players will make mistakes because they are human. It would be no fun if you had to do everything 100% perfectly without any mistakes at all to clear. Without lowering that number a bit, it would be impossible for players to recover from mistakes.
However, for the top players around the world, it's a little different. Through discussion and cooperation, by intimately knowing the characteristics of each job, not just how the job functions alone but in a party with other players on certain other jobs, they can come up with some amazingly powerful parties. On top of their reasoning, there's also a trial and error repetition. They look at the task and apply some logic, then do some hands-on testing, and repeat. We're happy with that competition to be at the top because it's really developed into a sport.
This time you added two different difficulty levels. What kind of reactions did you receive based on that?
Yoshida: The normal Alexander was designed to be at a level that anyone can clear. It's slightly easier than extreme primals. Once you learn the key mechanics for each part, it's designed to be able to be cleared by anyone with a bit of patience. We'd like to have raids on this level in the future as well. We'll continue to look at feedback as we keep this moderate difficulty raid as a way to let everyone see the story.
It seems like some people are not satisfied that they aren't able to see the whole story.
Yoshida: That wouldn't be good (laughs). I spoke with another interviewer today who said that he really wanted to see the end of the Final Coil of Bahamut raid, but it's difficult for him to clear it even now. It's a tough problem to address. I think it's better to have this set-up so everyone can enjoy the story.
So you're lowering the barrier to entry.
Yoshida: That's right. Also, I think because of that, the number of people trying to do "savage" has increased. There's been an effect like that.
The number of players trying "savage" has been going up?
Yoshida: It has risen quite high. But many people are stopped by Faust [[he calls him Faust-sensei in the interview, I lol'ed]]. But people have already been doing the third section using melded equipment, so little by little I think everyone will be able to clear.
So getting a complete set of melded equipment will get you further than you could otherwise get until now?
Yoshida: Yeah. Especially with Faust and the first and second areas of Alexander, as players' equipment builds up in strength, they should be able to clear more easily. With a complete set, it should be easy to meet those DPS checks. The cooperation required in the first and second sections wasn't designed to be so crazy. The third and fourth are tougher, but you should still be able to gradually get through them as you build up your equipment.
There were a bunch of balance adjustments that were implemented in patch 3.05. How has that panned out?
Yoshida: We're still working on astrologian. We talked about this the other day on the message boards, right now we are carefully considering adjustments. Astrologian is supposed to be a job that uses an element of luck to raise the overall capabilities of the whole party. Therefore, the healing capabilities were intentionally made lower than that of scholar and white mage. We don't just look at the damage or healing amounts, adjustments are made based on the overall utility of a job.
The number one thing we were afraid of before release was that a party with two astrologians would go on a card drawing spree and make an insanely strong party. If the healing power was the same as that of white mage or scholar, combined with their ability to strengthen the party, they would be too powerful, so we had to be really cautious. For those of you using astrologian as your main job, we want to make some specific adjustments. We've received many proposals from astrologians out there, and after taking a look at the battle log data for savage, we'll decide how we want to make adjustments to best improve the job while maintaining the balance. Please hang on a bit longer.
Will the astrologian adjustments be implemented in 3.1?
Yoshida: As soon as we test all of the adjustments, I'd like to get them implemented as soon as possible.
Anything for jobs besides astrologian?
Yoshida: For the three tank jobs, with melee and ranged burst DPS going up, we think holding enmity might be a bit tougher than anticipated, so we're continuing to watch the logs. In some cases, it seems tough even when players are equipped with the same item level, so we think it might be good to raise the enmity of the abilities a bit.
Because only a small number of top FCs have really been clearing sections of savage regularly, it's difficult to tell if certain jobs are too weak compared to others just yet. However, because there's still unevenness between jobs, we'll continue to make changes as we review the log. Additionally, since there's really no end to job adjustments, we'll continue to review your feedback and make the adjustments necessary.
On that topic, have there been any jobs which seem to be noticeably excluded from end game content?
Yoshida: Yeah. If you look at the teams that are clearing, the list of jobs is short. We'll continue to keep an eye on the situation to see if it becomes very biased. There will always be advantages or disadvantages to the characteristics of certain jobs based on the content.
In previous live producer letters you talked about adding experience value to certain 2.0 content. What's the plan for that?
Yoshida: It will probably be in 3.1. Right now we're focused on bug fixes and fine-tuning for savage, but we've also started to work on 3.1 content, so we're looking a bit more into developing that formula.
Is there anything else you can discuss about 3.1?
Yoshida: The new series of 24-man raids will begin there as well, but I can't really talk about the direction of any of that content as that's information we'll start to reveal at the 14-hour broadcast for the second anniversary. There will be a fairly large update for the Gold Saucer which will include quite a bit of new chocobo racing and Triple Triad content. We're also looking at increasing the payout of MGP and to allow players to buy multiple weekly lottery tickets. We don't know whether this will all make patch 3.1, but we're looking at a number of ways to increase the earnings.
Will you be adding to any of the existing attractions?
Yoshida: We will be. Another one of the items is balance adjustments for chocobo races. In addition to the Gold Saucer content, we're also working on implementing a totally new play style called "Sky Island Exploration," which is unlikely anything we've had before. However, we've always added three instanced dungeons in each patch before, but it will be two starting with the next patch. Instead of producing a bunch of similar type of content, we'd rather spread out the cost of our development to new types of content.
Will there be a new type of content in every patch?
Yoshida: The production cost of instanced dungeons is not that high, so we think those will continue to be included in every patch. We're trying to understand our workflow and overall schedule and upcoming new elements better so we can understand if it makes sense to pool certain costs from two patches and have one large update. We are planning to add a bunch of content in the 3.X series that's unlike what we've had before. Perhaps some of the content will fail, but at least we can say we're trying a bunch of new things. I think we developed a pretty solid foundation of gameplay with the 2.0 series, so now we're proposing new things we haven't done before.
You've been saying some of the things you're expecting to add for a while now, so what kinds of things are planned for the 3.X line-up?
Yoshida: We have things like the Grand Company platoon and content using Magitek armor, and we're looking at the calendar and carefully planning it out.
Will the content that uses the Magitek armor have anything to do with that mysterious arena in Ishgard?
Yoshida: Some things from previous updates will lead into it, so we've already made allowance for it. You might see some if you pay careful attention [[I think he references some specific area in Ishgard here, theological school or something, not sure of the translation]].
The main story in the 2.X series included lead-ins to the 3.0 storyline. Do you plan to do the same during the story of the 3.X series?
Yoshida: Like in the 2.X series, we'll continue to place hints towards the 4.0 series in the 3.X main scenario. I think it's been pretty serious so far in 3.0, but we were able to have some more joke material in the 2.X series, so we're doing our best to include that kind of content as well. With the favorable reception to 3.0, I think everyone's expectations of the story are rising, so we want to make sure that we maintain an interesting story throughout the 3.X series and further expand on that with 4.0.
What about side quests like the Delivery Moogle and Hildibrand ones?
Yoshida: We're already planning on Delivery Moogle quests to delve into some of the characters in Ishgard. For Hildibrand, maybe you'll find out where he flew up to (laughs).
In Ishgard, there are locations where there are no people. Will you be carrying letters to places like that?
Yoshida: Yeah. It would be a waste if we didn't use all of the field areas.
Will you even be taking letters to Azys Lla?
Yoshida: If someone were to send a letter to the one of the nodes there, how else would it get there? (laughs)
There have been some rumors floating around that Hildibrand is on the moon.
Yoshida: I don't know. It's just hard to predict his actions, you know? But he might not be as funny if he was stuck on the moon.
You're still not sure whether he'll be added?
Yoshida: The FF series has a history of having not only a serious side, but running gags as well, so I'm wondering if we could add more of those types of characters. As one example from the FF series, in FFVIII there was a lot of stuff related to the school. As we come up with new things, we're wondering if someone like Hildibrand should be involved with that.
So there might be something like XIV Academy?
Yoshida: There could be. [[Wonder if this is the Training Hall? Would be cool if there were story elements integrated with that and it wasn't plopped in.]]
You've been publishing short stories fo the second anniversary. Are you planning to develop any other media outside the game like novels or comics?
Yoshida: If the spread of players increased enough, it might be worth doing, but for now we're just focused on making things like collectors' items.
Those are intended for existing players?
Yoshida: Yeah. We also have to make sure we're doing the right thing for people who have invested in the game's devleopment. For example, of course there is interest in anime, but if you have a niche subject like a MMORPG and you try to take it to a main stage like animation, it's too easy to lose control of the content and focus completely on the profitability, so it could create a situation where there's a lack of confidence in the direction of the game. Since we're operating globally, not just in Japan, we want to make sure we keep everyone happy.
I was having a few drinks with Matsuno (Yasumi Matsuno, game designer) who wrote some of the side quests and we were talking about charging for game-related things like that. We decided that first we would need to check with gamers and the players to see if it was a good idea. The entertainment industry has developed a lot since the time of XI, so its inevitable that the idea of something like a novel would come up, but we would need to make sure it was profitable.
It Matsuno wrote the quests, it would be great if he could do it.
Yoshida: Yeah. Things like that would be good in moving the game forward.
Are you going to do it or are there plans in place?
Yoshida: Not yet, we're still having drinks over that topic (laughs).
So it's still in the "blue sky" conceptual stage.
Yoshida: It might move forward in the future, once we firm up our workflow and stabilize the update cycle. I think the development tools for FFXIV are pretty well aligned as far as development teams in Japan, but we'd like to continue incorporating new ideas to make things more efficient.
You've just started the community radio, but do you plan to have any other community activities this year?
Yoshida: First of all, and I give credit to the community management team for coming up with this idea, we're looking at starting a roundtable discussion with the 14-hour live broadcast. This will be something relatively new in Japan. For community sites overseas, at events like Gamescom, we usually make ourselves available for interviews from community sites. Representatives from the sites that have influence in the region come with questions from players and we give our responses. In fact, we've been doing things like this for four years, so we're familiar with a number of different people from community sites in each region.
Thanks to the increasing number of new generation players, it's been very interesting working with the community in Japan with things like screen shot contests and to see the writing the community has come up with, so we decided to try this out for the first time during the 14-hour live broadcast. We should have moved in this direction earlier, but we want to keep it going moving forward.
Community and development teams sometimes not getting along is a criticism outside of Japan as well.
Yoshida: I give a lot of credit to those who voice their opinions about what they enjoy and what they don't in a neutral way, so I thought it would be great if we could further enhance that relationship by collaborating more on articles or by talking to those people in person.
What about offline events?
Yoshida: First, we'll have one in Kagoshima, since that's where the dice seem to have fallen in the last community radio broadcast (laughs). We'll likely also decide the next one randomly, so we haven't yet decided (laughs). Aside from that we'll have events at Tokyo Game Show, around the turn of the year, and probably one at Niconico Super Conference.
Please leave a message for the fans in Japan.
Yoshida: One month has passed since Heavensward has gone on sale, and I'd like to thank you all for your support. There have been a number of maintenances to fix bugs, but we've been working on it as quickly as possible, so please pardon the interruptions. Although a whole lot of content was added with Heavensward, we've already started working towards our first major update, 3.1.
We've gotten a lot of feedback regarding balance with some of the jobs, and I know that those of you using those jobs feel that our reactions have been slow, but we're working on making adjustments as quickly as possible. Along with all of our players, we'd like to launch right into the 3.X series as we lead up to another big wave with 4.0. Thanks for everyone's encouragement now and in the future!
Thank you very much!