4Gamer Interview: Yoshida responds to player questions/requests

[Sho]

While true there were many times where the balance of merits changed or could be altered for various content. It was a layer of depth just more shallow then most people remember it.

SAM was a big merit changing job depending on your STP needs or later the zanshin bonuses. It was also something to work towards after reaching the lvl cap.

I haven't played FFXI seriously in years but now they have Job Points for each job, benefiting people that love a single job. They are fixed bonuses going up to 2000 points I think.

And they also have Vorseals? which give bonuses for completing content. Like leveling a Chocobo gives you a bonus.

All of this just adds a little more depth to the job and game.

It would then turn into a game of changing ones skill trees/jobs every major patch to optimize for the current content. IMO it would just create another unnecessary slew of people complaining about a lack of in-game depth because X Skill Tree is superior to Y or Z. For a game that's already pretty balanced job wise, it create an unnecessary tight-rope for the dev team to walk. I do like the idea of some sort of meripo system regardless.

i'd rather have the illusion of choice than no choice at all and everything being boring and vanilla.

If you already know that you and everyone else playing your job would pick the same theoretical skill tree, what's the purpose of having it in the first place?

The idea of choice sounds good, but lets remember that we are playing a pretty straight forward and vanilla game right now in the first place. The dynamics behind fights will have to be changed from the bottom up and will have to conform around the additions of skill trees, to accommodate for the various combinations of theoretical skills across players. Not impossible, but at least for now the dev team is being pretty status quo.

[Thiefami]

The idea of choice sounds good, but lets remember that we are playing a pretty straight forward and vanilla game right now in the first place. The dynamics behind fights will have to be changed from the bottom up and will have to conform around the additions of skill trees, to accommodate for the various combinations of theoretical skills across players. Not impossible, but at least for now the dev team is being pretty status quo.

I think that's pretty much the point or at least hope. To give this game more depth.

[Hioki]

If you already know that you and everyone else playing your job would pick the same theoretical skill tree, what's the purpose of having it in the first place?

Expanding a class/job options is the main point I could think of from adding a skill tree. For example, allowing a paladin or whm to fill a dps role, a dragoon with a tank role, a ninja with a support role. Skill trees can get pretty sketchy when you keep the same roles for a job(choice between 2 dps trees) and suck at doing actual math to keep both in balance. The difference in these trees would need to be gameplay styles(burst vs dot, mobility vs glass cannon).

There is a misunderstanding that a skill tree has to have wrong options or less than optimal choices. Truthfully it can just be a straight path with branches being nothing more than utility.

[BaneTheBrawler]

That's the direction WoW has gone, as of Pandaria. Idk how they've done after Landfall patch but the idea was you'd simply pick your spec, automatically get all the usual must-have talents for that spec, then your actual talents were your utility skills. On Hunter, the first was a choice between three different evasion-related "skills" that either altered the way your current abilities performed or reduced their cooldown. something like that.

honestly in retrospect i think it worked better as a system than the original talent trees. the choices became less vital, and therefore more open to technically sub-optimal selections. I'm sure there are still optimal builds, but the difference is much less than it was before.

I still think they need to go back to what i suspect the 1.0 team had planned on doing with the job crystals. We had this fantastic framework for class customization that they've almost completely discarded.

Re-organize the class- and job-abilities so that the thematic and role-fulfilling abilities are Job, while the more general DPS and utility abilities are Class. Some classes, like Thm, will require reworking entirely. Change the class requirements for Job crystals to be DoM, DoW, or GLA/MRD/DRK. Lancer/Ninja? Conjurer/Scholar? Sure, why not?

[Lucavi]

Expanding a class/job options is the main point I could think of from adding a skill tree. For example, allowing a paladin or whm to fill a dps role, a dragoon with a tank role, a ninja with a support role. Skill trees can get pretty sketchy when you keep the same roles for a job(choice between 2 dps trees) and suck at doing actual math to keep both in balance. The difference in these trees would need to be gameplay styles(burst vs dot, mobility vs glass cannon).

There is a misunderstanding that a skill tree has to have wrong options or less than optimal choices. Truthfully it can just be a straight path with branches being nothing more than utility.

To Parrot what Bane said, WoW does that very thing in WoD. You receive all of you major abilities for your spec through natural leveling, and simply choose between filler and augmentative abilities with your talent ranks. That's not to say that filler is bad in this instance: on the contrary, its very, very nice, as all of the abilities have some use, with some being stronger for PVE and others being stronger for PVP, but your core identity as a spec is given to you as you play the game and you branch off into how exactly -you- want to tweak that identity through your talents.

The talents themselves come in sets of 3, with you choosing one of three at each level interval that they open up. They all follow a theme, such as defense, movement or AOE damage, and you can mix and match. Of course, some are better than others for specific scenarios, and there are "best" builds for specific roles: A raiding fire mage is going to pick different talents than a soloing PVE fire mage. Both of them are going to pick differently than an arcane spec mage doing PVE or PVP or raiding PVE.

Personally, I've been in love with specs and trees since Rift came out, and always hoped for them in 2.0. Having different focuses within each job would have been a lot of fun, even if it boiled down to one spec being the designated "PVP" spec while another was the "raiding spec". I don't have a problem with that. I have 0 issue with a raiding drg being all about physical dots with the highest overall DPS (because raid fights take a long time) and a soloing PVE spec drg being about high initial burst damage, but lower overall damage due to solo mob HP being nowhere near as high as raid bosses, and PVP drgs being all about movement and parrying and counterattacks, given the nature of the combat.

It'd certainly be more refreshing and exciting than this... sterile existence the game currently finds itself in. Choosing pure balance over enjoyment and freshness of combat is... eh. Well, its safe, for sure. If devs are doing it to stop people from complaining, though, heh, they're fools. Complaints are as natural to service-based businesses as shits are to bathrooms after dinner meal. You'll never stop that. Cauterizing any semblance of freedom for the sake of stability is lamentable.

Its absolutely shitty what they did to bard in the interest of "stability".

[Spider-Dan]

If you already know that you and everyone else playing your job would pick the same theoretical skill tree, what's the purpose of having it in the first place?

Everyone was picking NIN/WAR instead of NIN/DRK, until they weren't.
Everyone was picking BRD/WHM instead of BRD/NIN, until they weren't.

Freedom allows the ability to come up with innovative solutions. We have no idea what people might be able to come up with because there are no options.

It's not like SE is unwilling or unable to nerf anything that turns out to drastically upset balance (e.g. Firm Conviction THM tanks in 1.0).

[BaneTheBrawler]

Another thing they could do to use the existing armory system: Weapon sub-types could alter the way your skills perform. Naginatas vs Spears vs Lances, Cutlass vs Rapier vs Broadsword, Cesti vs Jamhadar vs Bagnahks, Longbow vs Shortbow vs Bowharp (with bowharp actually being used to play fucking songs jesus christ), Staff vs Wand vs Club, etc. I'm pretty sure each class already has at least three archetypes that could be used.

So maybe your attack speed is slower if you're using a club, but your heals apply Stoneskin. Something interesting like that (probably not that specifically, be OP)

[Kaisha]

They'd have to start with giving us more armoury storage in the first place since one mainhand per class in the game sits you at 24 of 25 available slots.

Having weapon variants with different damage types dealt (MNK's DK benefiting someone other than another MNK for starters) could be something worth a damn.

[haroldsaxon]

It would then turn into a game of changing ones skill trees/jobs every major patch to optimize for the current content. IMO it would just create another unnecessary slew of people complaining about a lack of in-game depth because X Skill Tree is superior to Y or Z. For a game that's already pretty balanced job wise, it create an unnecessary tight-rope for the dev team to walk. I do like the idea of some sort of meripo system regardless.

I've probably lost track, but are you talking about XIV here?

If you already know that you and everyone else playing your job would pick the same theoretical skill tree, what's the purpose of having it in the first place?

The idea of choice sounds good, but lets remember that we are playing a pretty straight forward and vanilla game right now in the first place. The dynamics behind fights will have to be changed from the bottom up and will have to conform around the additions of skill trees, to accommodate for the various combinations of theoretical skills across players. Not impossible, but at least for now the dev team is being pretty status quo.

The point would be to have traits that are situational - dependant on the fight and what jobs you are fighting with. Otherwise, yes, there wouldn't be much of a point, although having a bit more theorycrafting content would actually be more content than we had in 3.1. I agree that its impossible right now with the current status of the dev team.

[haroldsaxon]

Another thing they could do to use the existing armory system: Weapon sub-types could alter the way your skills perform. Naginatas vs Spears vs Lances, Cutlass vs Rapier vs Broadsword, Cesti vs Jamhadar vs Bagnahks, Longbow vs Shortbow vs Bowharp (with bowharp actually being used to play fucking songs jesus christ), Staff vs Wand vs Club, etc. I'm pretty sure each class already has at least three archetypes that could be used.

So maybe your attack speed is slower if you're using a club, but your heals apply Stoneskin. Something interesting like that (probably not that specifically, be OP)

I'd rather something like that be done with removable/recyclable materia - I'm not keen on having to run a sub-standard weapon stats wise just to get a desired effect.

[Alkar]

i'd rather have the illusion of choice than no choice at all and everything being boring and vanilla.

If that's all you want I guess the upcoming changes to materia will likely be more than enough.
Merits were pretty inconsistent: some jobs had a good variety of viable options (RDM) while others had very little choice (BLM). They were also added as an alternative to a level cap raise (which happened anyway but years later) in order to give us some sort of character progression. FFXIV is not there yet.

[Alisha]

its not because secondary stats are boring as shit

[haroldsaxon]

its not because secondary stats are boring as shit

When I get enough spellspeed to put 5 Fire IV's under Ley Lines in my rotation, it will be amusing for a short period of time.

[Ophannus]

It's difficult to accept this as a legitimate reason why we can't have variety when no one wants a PLD or an AST now.

If we really are supposed to view job change menu as a substitute for talent trees, then we already have sub-optimal trees: the shield tank and the card healer. And we've had plenty of sub-optimal trees in the past, too.

So why are we getting all the downsides of rigid rails with none of the upsides?

Nothing wrong with PLD. Again, remember tank dps is only a factor for attempting content at the minimal ilvl. Yoship said content is creates with an ilvl in mind, which does not take into account healer/tank dps outside of auto attacks and enmity combos. Then, the make an even lower ilvl than even that, for early attempts. SE never expects players to make healers and tanks dps, which is why they're constantly impressed that players win new content using the minimal ilvl, which is below the ilvl they developed it for. To that end, there's nothing wrong with PLD in meta and endgame, only weakness in dpsing during bleeding edge progression at minimal ilvls where tank dps is integral to make up for low ilvl dps when new raids are released. Since the paradigm designed by SE is to for example, ATTEMPT savage at i180-190 to learn mechanics, they never expected people to win savage at i180-190. So you cant say PLD is flawed because it can't put out dps enough to help an i180-190 group win content that was designed for i195-200, because that's not the paradigm SE developed, that's players' adaption. If SE strengthens PLD, they would need to buff raid difficutly to account for it, and nerd PLD's mitigation. WAR is spec'd for highest tank dps, PLD is spec'd for highest tank mitigation. DRK is the middle ground. If PLD's dps ever becomes as strong as DRK, they would need to shift things around to compensate. Keep in mind, PLD has an entire mechanic that neither drk or war have; the shield, which reduces significant damage. Sure it only works on physical, but then Hallowed Ground is stronger than LD and HG too.

tl;dr
Nothing wrong with PLD because attempting a clear at minimal ilvl is not SE's design plan. SE implements a clear ilvl without healer and tank dps in mind, then makes a minimal ilvl to attempt, which is 10-15 ilvl below that. That minimal ilvl is not minimal to win, it's just a courtesy to allow players to learn mechanics early.

As far as AST goes, think of that "skill tree" is the middle-ground/hybrid between focused healer and shield healer with your stances. Neither stance is as effective as the whm or sch, but the cards buffs can be quite powerful. Hybrid roles are never going to be better than a specialist unless some specialist abilities aren't helpful. DRK is a war/pld hybrid and it's more useful than pld only because pld's specialized mitigation is excessive in most cases and drk's dps is more useful. In ast's case, shields and regens are always useful, so its hybridity is seen as a shortcoming.

[Niiro]

PLD is flawed because minimum ilvl or not its extra mitigation is not useful (or in the case of A4S, nonexistent) and it does less damage than other tanks.

And HG being better than Holmgang or LD is tenuous at best, as an individual skill yea it nets you more breathing room, but the recast limits it to once per fight, which kills it in comparison.

[Eldelphia]

No doubt. I think FFXIV is the kind of game where you work to be most efficient. Do you think adding some more individualization will play any role in the game?

Yoshida: That's like a console game or MMORPG based on a skill system. With a leveling system, all the jobs need to develop side by side so it would be correct to say we won't be adopting a system like that in FFXIV.

Going back to this... I think we're going to end up specialising into further developments of existing classes. I'll happily be proved wrong but I think that's what's been happening with the story. Without going into too many details, we're given examples of where key NPCs have changed and given some very heavy hints about them. Don't click the spoiler if you haven't done 3.0 story.

Spoiler: show

A lot of fuss was made about how Y'shtola was different now and how she had to have new clothes. I admit that could be for plot reasons which are nothing to do with jobs/classes/specialisations. Then a similar thing happened with Thancred where it's pointed out that he's lost the ability to cast his magic but his melee skills have gone nuts. Krile seems to be a 'Seer' which could be a new class or a specialisation of WHM. I'm really not sure on that one. Especially as Y'shtola seemed to be a conjurer before and Krile uses an orb

If they don't want skill trees or similar perhaps they will let jobs branch off into specific specialisations or evolve further into them?

[Rocl]

Eh, it's been long enough since 3.1 I'm not tagigng spoilers but I think you're reading way too much into it.

afaik the promo art with Krile and her "orb" is Matoya's Crystal Eye, not an actual weapon; Scion redesigns didn't seem really indicative of "class hints" the way Yugiri and Thancred fucking up a Sapsa followed by green bandana rogues in 2.2 did. More than anything, I feel like their redesigns and restrictions (Y'shtola's blindness and Thancred's inability to use magic) are definitely more plot than hints.

[Hioki]

tl;dr
Nothing wrong with PLD because attempting a clear at minimal ilvl is not SE's design plan. SE implements a clear ilvl without healer and tank dps in mind, then makes a minimal ilvl to attempt, which is 10-15 ilvl below that. That minimal ilvl is not minimal to win, it's just a courtesy to allow players to learn mechanics early.

I'm going to have to disagree. In a complete vacuum PLD is fine. When compared to other classes it falls behind significantly. PLD does not have overwhelming mitigation. It's mitigation is fairly on par with the other jobs. The only thing that matters after mitigation is the results of DPS at that point.

PLD should be the class that excels at lower ilvls. The incoming damage would be too overwhelming for WAR to handle at that point giving way to more PLD/DRK compositions. As you gear up PLD starts(or should start) falling behind, eventually giving way to DRK/WAR or WAR/WAR. Your trading out mitigation for damage. However, if WAR or DRK never struggle at low Ilvls then the only trade off is damage.

This makes PLD innately flawed as the job balance will always have all tank jobs equal in tank mitigation. This only couples with trying to make a difference between magical and physical damage. PLD should be your ultimate defense tank regardless of the incoming damage type if the mitigation is not there it should start shedding defense to support the party further(ex. auras/bloodlusts). DRK should be your tank that starts giving up Defense for Damage. WAR should be your beast tank that takes hits and returns it in double. Trying to create a distinction in defense types is frankly bloody stupid.

[Niiro]

Eh, it's been long enough since 3.1 I'm not tagigng spoilers but I think you're reading way too much into it.

afaik the promo art with Krile and her "orb" is Matoya's Crystal Eye, not an actual weapon; Scion redesigns didn't seem really indicative of "class hints" the way Yugiri and Thancred fucking up a Sapsa followed by green bandana rogues in 2.2 did. More than anything, I feel like their redesigns and restrictions (Y'shtola's blindness and Thancred's inability to use magic) are definitely more plot than hints.

Yea I'd say reading way, way, waaaaaaaayyyyyyyy too much into it.

Any changes wouldn't even be coming until 4.0 if they were changing anything (which they almost certainly aren't).

[Ophannus]

PLD is flawed because minimum ilvl or not its extra mitigation is not useful (or in the case of A4S, nonexistent) and it does less damage than other tanks.

That's a flaw with content design, not class design imo, because PLD is overpowered as hell in Thordan EX.