4Gamer Interview: Yoshida responds to player questions/requests

[Slycer]

Edit (1/12/16): I know people are reading into this translation quite a bit, some as far as deciding to quit the game based on the content, so I want to include a disclaimer of sorts. I tried my best to preserve the original tone of the interview and avoid any of my opinion bias spilling over into the translation. Remember, however, when you are trying to distill a lot of meaning out of one or two words that this is a translation and these are the English words that I chose to represent what I felt Yoshida was trying to express, not Yoshida's original words. Concepts and big ideas will come across fine but nuances of meaning or expression can and often do get lost in translation.

If anything sounds unclear or open to interpretation, please give me a shout via PM and I'll check into it. Thanks, read on.

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I did this a little at a time over the course of a few days, so I feel like there may have been some stuff that I intended to go back to and flesh out that never happened. If anything sounds unclear, let me know, and I will take a second look.

Although Yoshida tends to fall back on a lot of stock answers which we've seen before in these interviews, the format of this one was interesting as the publication solicited questions from readers and then asked those questions to Yoshida rather than coming up with questions of their own.

Of course, there's that disclaimer at the very end that certain questions couldn't be asked and a certain questions couldn't/wouldn't be answered.

Original source: http://www.4gamer.net/games/278/G027835/20151224179/

Enjoy.

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On November 27, 2015, 4Gamer published an article in planning for this interview with Naoki Yoshida, producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward, soliciting reader feedback and questions.

As a result of that, we received nearly 800 posts from readers. The contents of these responses varied widely. The editorial department spent a considerable amount of time sifting through the responses to try to aggregate them. From that, we carefully summarized our list of questions and prepared for the interview, but with the limited amount of time available it was not possible to address them all. Therefore, we focused on asking the ones that seemed to be of the most interest to readers and took those questions in a few different directions with Yoshida. We posed questions that ranged from how end-game content difficulty is adjusted to what makes Yoshida the happiest as a game developer.


How do you adjust the difficulty of end-game content?

Thanks for being available to meet with us today. This time we want to discuss a variety of opinions and requests that we've received from readers with you. The answers may be tough, but we appreciate your effort.

Yoshida: Yeah (laughs). Please be kind.

Let's get right into it - we've seen many posts from readers relating to end-game content. When you go through development, how do you decide how to set the difficulty? For example, the amount of DPS required for each particular content.

Yoshida: When we make battle content, first we determine a minimum assumed item level required to clear. Then, we determine the total amount of party damage required to clear, taking a minimal amount of damage from tanks and healers into account during this calculation.

What do you mean by minimal?

Yoshida: Basically it's the damage from tank auto-attacks and the basic skill rotation used in order to maintain hate. We add this to the party damage needed. However, we often use zero in the calculation for damage required from healers. In other words, we only take into account the amount of damage necessary to perform as a tank or a healer and we don't take them into account as actively participating in attacking. For the clear assumption on DPS, we calculate the 100% value for the item level and we reduce that by 10 to 15 percent for the amount required to clear.

But it's often actually the case that healers do participate in attacking.

Yoshida: Well, the calculations are based on the item level assumed during development.

Ah, and that's different from the minimum item level required to try the content.

Yoshida: Yes. So if you try to clear it at a lower item level, it will be necessary for tanks and healers to participate in attacking. The difference in skill levels for DPS players will be a factor. If you're below the 85 to 90 percent damage assumption, you'll have to fill in the gap with DPS from tanks and healers. If the DPS work together and think about total party damage, it may also help to break through.

So healers may need to participate in the attack if there wouldn't otherwise be enough. Well, even if there is, healers may also attack just to provide a margin.

Yoshida: Yeah. Especially in Savage because it is difficult to deal damage while handling the mechanics I think there is some opportunity there.

It may be difficult to deal DPS close to the 100% result. By the way, we also got some posts asking if the members who worked on developing the battles had cleared the end-game content themselves during development.

Yoshida: So like asking whether or how we tested the end-game content and performed balance adjustments?

I think that's the gist of it.

Yoshida: For high difficulty battle content like the extreme battle series, Bahamut's Coils, and the savage version of Alexander, we begin by performing adjustments to the mechanics from an invincible state. Since members of the planning team are practicing the fights for the first time just like players do, if they had to wipe repeatedly there wouldn't be enough time to make adjustments. The priority in this stage is to make sure the mechanics are understandable and hinted at.

By looking through the whole fight in an invulnerable state, you can still repeat with trial and error but it takes less time to get used to the mechanics.

Yoshida: Well, since we're doing adjustments we're starting from a "rough" state of the final fight, so it's a bit different. By implementing the mechanics roughly and testing them in an invincible state, we can make larger adjustments for the mechanics and get a feel for each phase. Once we've made the primary adjustments to the mechanics, we apply a different version of the invulnerable status.

What are the differences?

Yoshida: The HP gauge will drop from damage as usual, but instead of falling when it hits 0, it gets refilled to max. Finally, we remove it and we see whether it can be cleared normally with no changes.

I see. And this applies to the highest difficulty content like the fourth section of Alexander savage?

Yoshida: For the third and fourth parts of Alexander savage specifically, we tested each phase. The FFXIV battle team is made up of some pretty good players, but these aren't world class players. It would have taken longer to perform adjustments if we tested as usual, so we tried to shorten it a bit.

So the release would be delayed if they tested until they could clear.

Yoshida: Since the development cycle is limited we had to proceed with the development of other content. You could sort of say we've cleared it completely through (laughs).

If you could easily clear it then it wouldn't really be fitting as the most difficult end-game content.

Yoshida: That's right. The battle check members of the development team look at FFXIV players and take samples of log data from the hardest battle to compare. The DPS values for the world-class players is really amazing....

I'm sure the first parties to clear will have those kinds of players. At least in the stage immediately after release, the concept behind savage was not that just anyone could clear it.

Yoshida: A number of parties cleared the first and second parts in the first week, but I think the item level wasn't high enough yet for the third and fourth parts. However, the DPS check is also too severe for the third and fourth battles so as a result I think the difficulty was too high.

Why was the difficulty increased so much?

Yoshida: After the Binding Coil and Second Coil, we got a lot of feedback like "it's too hard!", so we had a good idea of how we wanted to make Final Coil, but then we got a lot of feedback like "it was easy, make more challenging content!"...

Ah, not what you had planned.

Yoshida: Because of that, for Alexander we added the normal version that anyone can clear and we implemented the higher difficulty savage version to keep challenging content at the same time. However, we got a lot of feedback that the DPS check for the third and fourth parts was too strict. In the end, everyone is looking for a level of difficulty that they can just barely clear, but have the ability to clear. This time we went a bit too far over that.

I understand that feeling (laughs). Also, you see opposing feedback from different people saying the same content is too easy or too hard, so it must be almost impossible to set difficulty adjustments to meet all of those requests.

Yoshida: Well, we do our best to meet those requests because it's our job. I just hope we also see the feedback from players who thought the difficulty was set well for them. It would be difficult with our current staff structure to provide three or more different difficulty levels. If we had to make three, we'd have less time to make difficulty adjustments and we wouldn't be able to guarantee balance. We have a lot of staff, but only a limited number of them can make battle content at that level.

It sounds like it would be difficult to provide something to satisfy all players at once. Of course, all players want something for themselves at the time of the updates. You also spoke about making the difficulty of the next portion of Alexander a bit gentler, can you speak on that?

Yoshida: We've already set up the mechanics planned for the next release of Alexander in patch 3.2. Right now we're talking through the last few compromises, but we have lowered the DPS check.

It will be a little more lenient?

Yoshida: We already have some very skilled players who have been raiding for a long time. So rather than referring to it as making the fights easier, we'll be gradually adjusting the difficulty of completing them by loosening up the DPS check. In a nutshell, it will be less severe than the third and fourth battles of savage Alexander Gordias. There will also be things that change up the formula in patch 3.2 such as the new materia specifications and changes to crafter-produced accessories with respect to tanks. So we feel like the flow of clear progression will change a bit, although that shouldn't much change how long it takes to get through all the sections.



Changing the image of Astrologians

Along with the questions about content difficulty, we also received posts about job balance. In particular, we saw feedback about astrologian that it is not a job that is often recruited and that the enmity rises too quickly. Will you be making adjustments to address either of these?

Yoshida: We'll be making adjustments for the balance of all jobs, not just astrologian, in the future. Specifically for astrologian, I think there's still a considerable difference in skill among players. It's been said that scholars provide better stability in fights like the Thordan battle. However, I've encountered some very good astrologians myself while farming the fight, so we'll be carefully considering adjustments.

With the different stances which require judgment to select, I think it's definitely a tough job to master.

Yoshida: Indeed, there are many good players who have not yet become accustomed to the job. It will take some trial and error for astrologians to get used to clearing the fights, but they can be formidable in battle when combined with a stable white mage or scholar.

What needs to happen to dispel that image?

Yoshida: Well, not just for astrologian, but for FFXIV in general to avoid classes becoming overpowered I think it's best to not make hasty adjustments. Although we could change the image more quickly by making it necessary in certain content, that would have a large impact, so we believe the only way to change the image is by continuing to make adjustments gradually over time.

I think in many cases, and certainly for new jobs, you would make changes after evaluating the job's performance and stability in the game after release. For astrologian, we also saw a lot of feedback asking if it would be possible to make it so the same card cannot be drawn when using Shuffle.

Yoshida: We have seen a lot of feedback about this on the forum, but the parameters of the card performance are set taking the possibility of drawing the same card into account. If we remove that card from the possibilities, we would also need to reduce the yielded effect. Even though it might be annoying to draw the same card, it will also be tough to make an adjustment. However, since we will continue to make adjustments, please be patient for a little longer.


Raid matching beyond data centers?

Now we'd like to focus on the posts about party recruitment for end-game content. You mentioned that there was some consideration given to the ability to recruit raid groups beyond world boundaries.

Yoshida: The population interested in starting savage Alexander Gordias isn't necessarily proportional to a world's population. There are worlds where recruitment is low despite the high population, so the focus is to make it so anyone who wants to try savage can do so in any world.

In other words, if a server has a large casual player population, recruitment for end-game content can be tough.

Yoshida: With the difficulty this time, it's true that many players transferred to worlds which like raiding more such as Chocobo and Bahamut. However, these have become overpopulated at peak times, and recruitment suddenly decreased in other worlds, so the raid isn't fully integrated in some worlds.

The fundamental solution is that more people need to try end-game content.

Yoshida: It can be difficult enough right now to find eight people motivated to challenge the raid in one world, let alone getting roles and jobs to work out. In order to solve this, we could either make a system like a "Raid Finder" dedicated to matching players beyond worlds, or to make it clearable for everyone by lowering the difficulty.

You could lower the difficulty but then it would reduce the range of the challenge.

Yoshida: Well, that feedback is subjective. Just because you cannot clear a certain content, doesn't mean other people are the same. For the raid finder, although it may take time, I still think it's necessary but as of right now I'm just formulating the specifications in my mind. People feeling that they need to move to other worlds is too much, though, so we have to do something.


The return of Haurchefant? Who's writing the story?

The story for Heavensward was quite popular. The character Haurchefant was a hot topic and we got a lot of feedback and requests related to him. There were many questions asking if he might appear again.

Yoshida: I think his destiny was fulfilled so I don't think he will suddenly be returning. As far as he goes, since he was involved with other characters in the main story and people will not forget him, it's possible that we could have a flashback.

So he may reappear if the players demand it.

Yoshida: Just because there is a lot of feedback, we would still have to think about why he would reappear.

By the way, when in the development process did you decide on Haurchefant's fate?

Yoshida: Around the time of patches 2.2 - 2.3. At that point, we had already finished the main plot through patch 2.55. It was a suggestion from me that Haurchefant was withdrawn from the main story in patch 3.0. So, in order to provide a good background for him, we made his dialogue and role quite detailed in the second half of the patch 2.X series.

You wanted players to pay attention to Haurchefant?

Yoshida: It's not that we wanted him to be particularly noteworthy, we just wanted him to be a character that remained on people's minds. To do that, we had to solidly convey Haurchefant's character to all players. Otherwise he would just be one of many characters who leaves the story.

Yeah, it wouldn't be the same if he left less of an impression.

Yoshida: With regards to Alphinaud, Haurchefant, Estinien, and Ysayle, we paid thorough attention to what they spoke about and what scenes they were involved in to make sure they would be well-received by players. We wanted to maximize the shock of certain scenes with the storytelling so that the impact would be memorable for players.

Which is because of the story foundation that was set.

Yoshida: Yeah. As the son of a scion, Alphinaud is bouncing back from his failure as a leader as he grows through the storyline, Estinien plays the big brother role supporting things from out of the spotlight, Haurchefant helps his companions in trouble with his friendship and chivalry, and you finally get to truly understand Ysayle.

Alphinaud in particular seems to have changed quite a bit from his trip to Ishgard. By the way, we also got a lot of feedback that the job quests were quite good in addition to the main story quests. In particular, we got some questions asking if the staff behind the dark knight quests would be writing any other story.

Yoshida: Including Maehiro (main scenario writer, Maehiro Kazutoyo), about 4-5 people write the job quests. The people behind the Crystal Tower series, dark knight quests, and rogue quests are the same. After that, the ones in charge of writing the ninja quests and Hildibrand quests are the same. The people in charge of writing the dark knight quests are popular (laughs).

The end of the Crystal Tower scenario was also quite a surprise.

Yoshida: Fray became quite a popular character after the dark knight quests. The staff in charge of development on the battle side had some proposals for the team in charge of the job quests as to how fighting would be involved, and the story team had some ideas for the battle team. There was a good synergy between the staffs for that.

But it began with an idea from the battle team.

Yoshida: I won't say which member of the team it was, but he has my praise because it really motivated everyone on the staff to give input which things they did or didn't like.

We got a lot of posts about people looking forward to new story, but we also had a few questions from people who wanted to know the age of the main characters in Heavensward. In particular, they were interested in the characters from House Fortemps and the knights of the Heavens' Ward. Has the age of the characters been defined?

Yoshida: It's been set. However, the knights of the Heavens' Ward have proved quite popular. We'd like to release a full-fledged book so maybe we will have the opportunity to discuss it at that time.

Oh, that will be fun.

Yoshida: The scions are getting older, though, it might be a problem if it takes too long (laughs).

They've actually been aging quite a bit.

Yoshida: It's been five years since the seventh Calamity of the old FFXIV, and the past visions that appeared in the old FFXIV were from 10 years before that, so the members that appeared there...

Ah, now that I think about it...

Yoshida: It's written on the description of the minion in the game, so you might have seen that Papalymo is 42 years old.

Well, it's hard to tell from appearance since he's a lalafell. His voice sounds young, though (laughs).


Customizing characters besides just appearance?

We got several posts from players who wanted to be able to customize not only their character's appearance but also their skills and equipment for a particular job so that they could show some more individuality. This is a topic we've seen come up since the initial release of A Realm Reborn.

Yoshida: Right. So, if we did something like add mode A and mode B for dragoon, eventually people on the internet would examine them and choose which one was stronger. Then, when we created new content, the content would have to be based on whatever was strongest. There would be a lot of discussion about the job states like "that job is too strong" or "that job is too weak" and people would always choose what they felt was best. That's not to say a skill system like that would be negative, but the armoury system itself already allows you to play all of the different jobs. Since we already have that system in place, I'm not expecting that we'll make branches for jobs for the time being.

The flow of the game is to keep collecting higher performance equipment and challenging more difficult content, so of course you'll certainly want to figure out what works best. Some people only play their favorite jobs and in the end wind up playing whichever they feel is the most efficient.

Yoshida: We're working to get rid of those differences, but I wonder if it would be better to add a new job to make more people happy.

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.


What can you do in the Hall of the Novice?

Many of the posts we received were asking about what specific kinds of content would be included in the Hall of the Novice.

Yoshida: The Hall of the Novice is content that we've been developing to release with patch 3.2. This is content really for first time MMORPG players, to teach tanks how to take hate, healers how to recover the tanks and other party members, and for all jobs how to avoid enemy attacks. It's content to teach the roles and basic mechanics for each role.

I see. So it won't have built in tutorials for specific content. If you go somewhere like Sastasha (the first dungeon), you may still see some novice players who are learning their role.

Yoshida: Right. The Hall of the Novice can be started just before Sastasha. You hit a button to select your target and enter the content. NPCs will join you and the training will begin. There's a simple battle using a NPC party which serves as a final exam before you can graduate. Once you complete it, you'll graduate and you'll obtain some nice equipment that you can use in the dungeons. I think people who were afraid to tank because they didn't know how to take hate until now and didn't want to practice in dungeons will find this helpful to practice.

By the way, where is the Hall of the Novice located?

Yoshida: The Hall of the Novice will be in La Noscea but you'll have direct access to it via NPCs at various locations in the cities. It will also include a guide which talks about various terms used frequently in online games such as DoT (damage over time). It's just included for reference.

It will be good to have a glossary of terms. There are a lot of FFXIV-specific terms also, so you may want to keep adding more (laughs). These seems tailored to new players, so what will be around for existing players?

Yoshida: It is like that. A lot of people have been focused on measuring the amount of DPS they can put out, but we prepared this separately from the Hall of the Novice. In development, we're calling it "DPS Scarecrows" (laughs).

[*In the December 23 producer letter, this was announced as the "Stone, Sky, Sea" striking dummy training mode.]

We've been waiting for something like that. How will it work?

Yoshida: First you'll select a rank, and then you'll play for three minutes. The training goal is to have enough DPS to defeat it at that rank.

So it won't actually show a DPS number.

Yoshida: Right, it's not a numbers competition. The idea is more like you could specify "people who have defeated XX rank training" via party finder. Working on your skill rotation will be important to defeat them, so by working through this content, you should be able to put out enough DPS to beat content that you couldn't previously clear.

Will this like the dummies as outdoor furnishings?

Yoshida: No, it's instanced. I understand that some people want to teach others, but I think there would be some concern about other people watching and being embarrassed so we thought we'd make it less visible.


Obtaining previous collaboration event items that you missed

With regards to items, there were several posts from players who wanted to obtain items that were available in past events. There was demand from players who were not playing at the time the collaboration events happened. For example, the Snow and Lightning equipment that was available in the FFXIII collaboration event, or the huzzah emote that was available from the anniversary festival in 2014.

Yoshida: We got a lot of feedback from players around the world about Lightning and Snow equipment, so we're considering it as far as whether we can try repeating the events.

I think it's already been held three times?

Yoshida: Yeah. If we implemented it, we're wondering if we would make it available as an optional item. We're still discussing the details, so we'd appreciate your patience.

[*It was noted in the Lodestone forum on December 25 that these would be added as optional items.]

Understood. Aside from that, players were also interested in obtaining imperial equipment that enemy characters like Gaius wear.

Yoshida: I think it might still be a while before that happens.

Because we're still fighting the empire (laughs).

Yoshida: Yeah. It would be confusing from a world perspective to have imperial looking people wandering about. There might be some people who don't mind, but the people who follow the story and view the world seriously might not think it's so cool, so I don't think it will be any time soon.


More flying mounts!

One desire that some players expressed was to not only have new flying mounts, but also to make some of the existing mounts able to fly. For example, the Fenrir mount that you can obtain from Gold Saucer, and some other interesting proposals like strapping a jetpack onto the goobbue.

Yoshida: For Fenrir, we also think it would good to make it fly because it's so rare and expensive (1 million MGP), but it might be too late for patch 3.2.

So it will fly eventually.

Yoshida: Yes it's already on the list. For those that have already been in development, like the promised Adamantoise, they will fly in patch 3.2.

It's a turtle! I how it flies will be a hot topic of discussion.

Yoshida: It's cool, isn't it? (asked to Toshio, also in the room)

Toshio: It's cool.

The implementation should be fun (laughs).

Yoshida: It might be a good idea to start collecting MGP right away (laughs).

After that, you might also get demand for the tank-specific mounts to fly.

Yoshida: We thought it would be better to skip those for now because we'd have to implement flight for all three at the same time.

Well, things like lions and bears... people might be talking about what would bears be doing flying?

Yoshida: Well, it's still on the list of flying candidates. However, it takes some fairly detailed work to make all of the dedicated animations like take-off, landing, and the way they cut through the wind, plus setting the riding position of the character and the specific sound effects.

I was surprised that you changed the magitek mount to allow flight (laughs).

Yoshida: We thought that would be a good one (laughs). It has a good reputation and a lot of people wanted to use it again, so we decided on the magitek mount. That said, we want to make new mounts as well, so we'll be gradually implementing flight to existing mounts with about four to five mounts each patch. Hopefully you look forward to the new ones coming as I want as many of them to fly as possible.

Understood. Regarding mounts, there was some demand for a mount from the extreme Thordan fight like the ones from the past extreme primals.

Yoshida: We have no plans for Thordan the moment, but starting with the next series of primals we have plans for something like the horses.


I want to play level 60 Titan!

With respect to battle content, there was a lot of demand to allow for level 50 battle content which appeared in A Realm Reborn to be playable as level 60 content.

Yoshida: It's not that we won't do it, but right now we want to spend as much time as we can making new content instead of bringing back old content. When it comes to refreshing the old content, we wouldn't just want to adjust the balance for level 60, as it wouldn't be interesting if we didn't also add some new elements. For example on Titan, we could make the arena another step smaller, or make a landslide that goes in all directions with adjusted hit detection for dodging so that you have to hide behind one of the gaols to avoid the landslide.

So you would wipe if you inadvertently broke the gaol...

Yoshida: Yeah (laughs). We have good ideas that I'd like to do someday, but priority is given to the ongoing work. I'd like to make one kind of content as a series of battles with Ifrit, Garuda, Titan, Leviathan, Ramuh, Shiva, and Bahamut where you clear each one while inflicted with a debuff. However, the question goes back to who will make it.

You have finite development resources so...

Yoshida: Yeah. You might think during the course of development that it would be fun to do something but eventually you need to determine who will make it. We have a lot of staff, but there aren't so many who can design the specifications for battle content. For those who think they would be a good fit, please submit an application.

You're looking to recruit? (laughs).

Yoshida: Yeah. (laughs)



I want to spectate Wolves' Den!

On February 14, 2016, there's going to be a Wolves' Den tournament organized by e-sports MaX which will likely be around the timing for patch 3.2. There were some concerns that the specifications might change for balance because of the implementation plan for Wolves' Den II in patch 3.2.

Yoshida: It will be okay because the specifications won't be changed until the e-sports MaX tournament is finished.

Setting aside Wolves' Den II for a moment but still in terms of PvP content, will you be implementing a spectator function?

Yoshida: We've already implemented a spectator function with camera switching for the official tournament, but it hasn't yet been published for players.

Where will you be able to use the spectator feature? Will it be within the game?

Yoshida: Spectating for the official tournament will be done with a live stream. We've prepared a camera for the battle stage with a switch to be able to view it from different angles. In some modes it might be better to watch players, so we'll be looking into that as soon as possible but please wait for a follow-up.

As far as a spectator mode goes, the demand wasn't limited to just Wolves' Den, but also for instanced dungeons and end-game content as well to watch pros play.

Yoshida: For PvE, I think there would be cases where people would not want their strategies exposed, so we would have to allow spectator mode to be permitted or disabled.

Yeah, certainly there would be players who don't want to be spectated.

Yoshida: For Wolves' Den, it would be more like the stage of a show so we'd like to implement the spectate feature to include certain angles. For end-game content, you'd probably want to see it from each player's point of view. There are already a lot of live streamers and videos that get uploaded, so I'm not sure that'd we would need a separate spectator feature for that. For now, the priority is to implement the spectate function for Wolves' Den.



Less common questions and requests for Yoshida

Getting away from the game content of FFXIV for a moment, I'd like to address some questions which were directed to you specifically. Please tell us about what makes you the happiest with your job of making games.

Yoshida: For standalone games, getting to the release date and actually seeing players go out and pick up a copy is the moment that makes me the most happy.

Yoshida: Yeah, it's fun to watch from the shadows (laughs). It makes me happy to watch people pick up the game like "oh! that person took it!" and "oh, so did he!" On the other hand, for online games, there are two things. The first is people actually getting into and playing the game, and the second is meeting those players in person and hearing feedback about how they truly enjoy it which makes me extremely happy, that's happiest I could be in the course of my work.

It's good to get direct feedback from players. Although you need to be quite courageous to go through all that.

Yoshida: Another one is immediately after a patch. We get on the server a bit before all the players log in and when the maintenance ends and all of the players log on at once, it still makes me happy to see everyone who was looking forward to the patch running around and checking out the new content. After that, the barrage of "Yoshidaaaaa" starts (laughs).

Does that make you happy? (laughs)

Yoshida: It makes me happy, I'm thankful. The scolding is a form of encouragement, I think.

Last year when you spoke with Mafia Kajita, you mentioned you wanted to create a super cutting edge MMO. We saw some feedback that wanted you to leave as the producer of FFXIV and make that game. The feedback also said to wait about 10 years.

Yoshida: It would be great if we keep this going for 10 years (laughs). I've said that I want FFXIV to continue for 10 years because a MMO doesn't make it there easily. Even if we started working on something new right now, we'd have to get the staff to do it and then it would take at least three years from the start of production.

Yeah, even MMOs overseas have a significant amount of time between their announcement and their release.

Yoshida: Or maybe if I have to wait 10 years I'll have changed my thinking. It's possible another developer may already have made a MMO like what I have in mind by then.

On that note, there was some discussion about providing a server where player killing was possible if desired. Is that no longer a plan?

Yoshida: No, we might consider it if the demand is really huge.

How much feedback would that take?

Yoshida: The thought was once you hit level 20 and join a grand company, you could be targeted out in the world by members of the other GCs. We got quite a bit of demand for that from overseas.

Personally, I think that would be cool to implement.

Yoshida: We'd have to disable attacks near an Aetheryte to prevent people from being teleport killed, and there'd be other special rules we'd have to implement so it wouldn't really be easy. We'd have to also do things like load test to see how it would work to have PvP possible in all the field areas, so I think we'd have to work on it little by little.

So you're still a bit hesitant about it. Would there be something where people who want PvP can gather to do the load test?

Yoshida: Yeah, I think we would make one world for that. If it seemed like it was getting too crowded, we could make additional PvP servers.

That said, with the Japan players tend to interact, I think they particularly tend to shy away from PvP content.

Yoshida: I think it would be interesting. You'd have to keep GC rookies out of trouble (laughs).

It would be dangerous if you didn't defend your GC.

Yoshida: What about trying to level up alone using the hunting log alone (laughs)... once you broke off solo you might immediately get attacked by another GC.

That would probably even happen at monster hunts.

Yoshida: Monster hunts could just turn into players killing each other. Although on some worlds maybe there would be some local unspoken rules like players not attacking each other during monster hunts.

And then as soon as it's defeated, the next battle begins...

Yoshida: Or someone would cast Flare and start a riot and eventually everyone would kill each other (laughs).

Or I could imagine a white mage inadvertently hitting others with Assize.

Yoshida: It would definitely be interesting to put this out.

However, the players would have to have a mutual understanding on a PvP server.

Yoshida: Yeah, we'd have to have some kind of mandatory warning when you first select that world (laughs). "We don't take any responsibility... are you sure?"

From that point on the world would be responsible for itself (laughs). To change the topic, we also got feedback asking how the game will change as players grow older.

Yoshida: I'm not planning any particular relationship between the game content and the age of the players. I could see something like that for a brain training game or a FPS where your reflexes might fall.

I see. I feel that way as I've been gaining years.

Yoshida: In terms of changes, I think games have already been changing.

How so?

Yoshida: In a short time, social games have popped up as a genre with just simple operations that you can play and smartphone games which work on the concept of "time is money." I think games as we think of them have evolved with those two new types.

I see.

Yoshida: On the other hand, what's going on with console games? It's something totally different. The representation of game properties on smartphones has been catching up to console games. In the end, if people have to buy a set-top box and the quality of the graphics is the only thing that pulls them away from their smart phone, I don't think they will survive. So I think console games are going to change considerably, and persistent online elements are a part of that.

To survive, it has to give an experience that you can only have on a TV.

Yoshida: Yeah. And there are people now whose first experience with games are social games and have then gone on to play console games. Because many of these people are fairly young, I don't think it's necessarily true that gamers as a whole are an aging population.

From console to social, the fact that games themselves have survived is the most important. We got a variety of other requests from readers, but I'd like to focus on a particular few. First, saw some more about the service to create a figure of your character using 3D printers.

Yoshida: Not that we couldn't do 3D printers, but we're just now starting to put out a lot of FFXIV goods and we'll continue putting out a variety in the future. Overseas MMOs do things like make figures modeled off user's characters in partnership with a figure maker, not a 3D printer, and that seems to work well. It's something we might look into some day but that's probably pretty far off.

I expected that. Would you even be able to output the data from the game for a 3D printer? It would be cool if players could take a pose of their characters and get it ordered and manufactured on their own.

Yoshida: For FFXIV, it might be difficult because the modeling is quite complex. We'd have to have a way to export the dedicated data, and right now it's not something we're looking into.

Well, that's something I think players hope to see someday. Also while we're on tech talk, what do you think about the game's relationship with VR, like PlayStation VR?

Yoshida: It's very cool and very interesting to experience, but it seems difficult to justify from a business perspective for an online game like FFXIV.

Of course it would be tough to use somewhere like in end-game content, but we got some feedback that it would be cool just to look at their characters in FFXIV.

Yoshida: Well, it's possible we could make it (laughs). I think we'd have to charge separately for it. It would take a lot of work to increase the framerate to the point where it would be workable, you need to fix it to at least 60 FPS so you don't feel like you're drunk.

How was it at TGS 2015 where you showed the Titan primal battle on VR?

Yoshida: Even though FFXIV is multiplayer, the original framerate of the game is variable, but we had to fix it to 60 FPS. It would actually be better if we could raise that up to 120 FPS, but that would have taken a lot of work that we didn't have time for.

So it's necessary to do extra work for VR.

Yoshida: We could prepare a place like the Hall of VR. To enter the Hall of VR, please pay a separate monthly fee (laughs).

Players might do that for VR Miqo'te.

Yoshida: But if you want to call your favorite Miqo'te, it requires a separate nominal fee (laughs).

No, that sounds like a completely different shop (laughs).

Yoshida: All jokes aside, though, when I think about what I'm trying to achieve with a MMORPG, it's not all about the business. But we wouldn't be able to provide some VR-exclusive fun without a reasonable associated cost. If players are OK with this, we may look into it.

So it could happen if you get a lot of desire for it.

Yoshida: That's right.

It sounds pretty tough, but I think it would be fun.

Yoshida: The experience is definitely awesome, but it's still tough. Of course, I'm not flat out rejecting VR as third party manufacturers have invested a huge amount into the tech. That's why we tried it with FFXIV (at TGS) to see how the gaming experience changes in VR.

It's actually been created now, but it's still a few years ahead of its time.

Yoshida: Yeah. Right now, I think it offers the kind of experience that you might pay 500 yen to play once. If these were put out in game centers for everyone to enjoy, I think gamers would willingly pay to try out these games.


Catching up as an ex-FFXIV player

We received a lot of questions from people who haven't yet played the game but had read our review about how to catch up if they start right now. Another group of readers seems to have stopped along the way and is asking about how they should catch up, but I think that may be a slightly different answer.

Yoshida: As one of the main features in FFXIV, the story is probably the easiest way of quickly catching up by raising the level of one of your jobs as you move through the scenario. Additionally, you should be able to quickly catch up your equipment strength with item level until you get close to the forefront of what's available.

When Heavensward (patch 3.0) was released, the experience value for quests in A Realm Reborn (patch 2.X series) was increased to enable players to reach Ishgard more quickly. How quickly do you think players can get to Ishgard?

Yoshida: It's still about the length of a stand-alone RPG. It should take about 18 hours to get through A Realm Reborn to level 50, and then about 10 hours to get through patches 2.1 to 2.55. As the quest rewards from those will bring you up to item level 115, you'll then be immediately ready for Ishgard.

So you can get to Ishgard in about 30 hours, about two weeks if you play 2 or 3 hours a day. Well, that's assuming you don't mess around with any other classes like gathering or crafting.

Yoshida: From that point, I think it's about another 20-30 hours to get through the story of Ishgard and catch up to the latest story.

And then even longer to start collecting Law and Esoterics to get through the latest equipment and battles.

Yoshida: It should take about 10 hours after you hit level 60 to obtain equipment which would allow you to get to the higher end of the battle content, so if you're interested in playing, I really would not worry too much about how long it takes to get started.

If you say MMORPG, I think people think about EverQuest or FFXI where you spend a lot of time growing your character. This is a bit different for an online game where you can so quickly level up and catch up to the forefront.

Yoshida: Yes, we try to carefully keep that in mind. Of course, you'll also see some comments on the web indicating that things can be a bit strained...

Ah... (laughs)

Yoshida: People and communication are a big part of online games so there will be those situations. It's definitely not the norm though, and I think it will happen less frequently as people realize that it's a game for everyone. Hopefully the more senior warriors of light are friendly to beginners and can support them in getting into the game. For example new players get the wakaba [[young leaves]] mark (icon which indicates play time of the character is less than 40 hours) which will hopefully indicate to other players to be gentle, so please come to join us in FFXIV.

Somehow, that feels like a good place to wrap up (laughs). There are still plenty of questions that we'd like to ask you, but we've spent a ton of time, so thanks very much!


[Questions which were of a more opinionated or demanding nature (for example "add more Roegadyn to the main quest," "the UI is small on a 4K display," etc.) were not asked in this interview but were passed along to Square Enix, including some of the more harshly worded ones. There were also some questions which were not answered by the company as they are planned for future announcements.]

[Rocl]

my nigga slycer

gook

lol'd

[Slycer]

fixed, lol

[Obsidian]

Well, not just for astrologian, but for FFXIV in general to avoid classes becoming overpowered I think it's best to not make hasty adjustments. Although we could change the image more quickly by making it necessary in certain content, that would have a large impact, so we believe the only way to change the image is by continuing to make adjustments gradually over time.

"Fuck you, PLD," in so many words.

[haroldsaxon]

Yoshida: It's not that we won't do it, but right now we want to spend as much time as we can making new content instead of bringing back old content.

Yoshida: Yeah (laughs). We have good ideas that I'd like to do someday, but priority is given to the ongoing work. I'd like to make one kind of content as a series of battles with Ifrit, Garuda, Titan, Leviathan, Ramuh, Shiva, and Bahamut where you clear each one while inflicted with a debuff. However, the question goes back to who will make it.

Yoshida: Yeah. You might think during the course of development that it would be fun to do something but eventually you need to determine who will make it. We have a lot of staff, but there aren't so many who can design the specifications for battle content. For those who think they would be a good fit, please submit an application.

Its kind of sad that he's only realised this in more recent interviews.

[Silenka]

Thanks as always Slycer!

I read this interview and I feel like Yoshi is less out of touch than we think. He seems to realize and acknowledge many of FFXIV's issues and limitations here. And honestly there are some good ideas from him in there (like the chain of primal battles, I so want to do that, it would be hella fun). But it seemingly all comes down to staff and perhaps the staff having priorities in the wrong place sometimes. For example, I still don't really know why they're trying to do an eSports thing with the current implementation of the shitty PVP when a properly implemented PVP server and/or a PVP spectator mode like what they talked about in the interview would certainly do much more for excitement towards PVP in the game.

All the dashed good ideas for lack of staff are really sad. I wonder if we will ever actually see a cross-world raidfinder feature or if it will go the way of addons.
At least the details about the Novice Hall give me so much hope, but people have to actually use it and want to get better at playing for it to be a gamechanger and who knows how many will actually take the opportunity vs riding their shit status forever. I think it is going to be a rude and hilarious wakeup call to a lot of people who try it out and find they can't pass the higher stages, if that is indeed how it gets implemented (and if the dps thresholds are high enough).

AST can hold its own in everything but perhaps Alex savage (haven't done it, can't say) so idk why all the bitching about it. There are a lot of terrible AST but that's not any different than any other job really. I feel the "can't change it to draw a different card when using shuffle" line is complete BS however - there's enough times I pull a different card using shuffle, in fact I hardly ever get the same card in a row - and it's certainly not gamebreaking.

Well, hope some people apply to adjust battle content! lul

[Kaisha]

For example, I still don't really know why they're trying to do an eSports thing with the current implementation of the shitty PVP when a properly implemented PVP server and/or a PVP spectator mode like what they talked about in the interview would certainly do much more for excitement towards PVP in the game.

I feel this may be something the folks higher-up are pushing onto the team to do.

[Silenka]

Oh, yeah. I remember reading that.
Typical misguided SE thought process again. I don't think they understand what drives eSports gamers. I'd wager XIV's PVP doesn't have enough depth to satisfy those people. "Here play our not-so-good PVP for serious, I'm sure it will increase our XIV subs".

There's always gonna be those couple of guys out there who have to be the absolute best at even the shittiest games, but aside from them I don't know who this is going to speak to...

[Prothescar]

Oh, yeah. I remember reading that.
Typical misguided SE thought process again. I don't think they understand what drives eSports gamers. I'd wager XIV's PVP doesn't have enough depth to satisfy those people. "Here play our not-so-good PVP for serious, I'm sure it will increase our XIV subs".

There's always gonna be those couple of guys out there who have to be the absolute best at even the shittiest games, but aside from them I don't know who this is going to speak to...

p much. MMO PvP in general, especially XIV's, is poorly suited for eSports in almost every way. you're not going to capture a large demographic with it, focusing on it is pointless. XIV's biggest strength over other MMOs is nostalgia bombs. if they were to increase the quality and breadth of PvE content and keep the IV drip of nostalgia flowing (while mixing in new themes), they'd be fine. trying to appeal to an eSports audience made up of like 5 people isn't reasonable. you'll get a couple of people who disagree with these sentiments because "XIV's PvP is super healthy and in depth", but catering to those few won't be doing SE any favors.

[SamanosukeShiva]

MMORPG e-sports is just not that fun to watch, shit, Hearthstone e-sport is more fun to watch than any other MMORPG e-sports available right now. Even WoW pvp e-sport is just dying right now, let alone FFXIV's very slow pace combat, and barely any job customization, it's a total snoozefest.

[lilbubbles]

And 14s combat system, with its weird turn-based combat would totally suck for serious competitive play.

Whatever upper management is pushing that idea must be reading Dilbert as a how-to guide instead of a how-not-to guide.

[Destinye]

And 14s combat system, with its weird turn-based combat would totally suck for serious competitive play.

Whatever upper management is pushing that idea must be reading Dilbert as a how-to guide instead of a how-not-to guide.

Wish they'd push them to make better content.

[lilbubbles]

And another thing... Talking about this whole thing with the dev team not actually clearing savage a3/a4 like a player would I feel like they missed something huge in the process.

It's easy to get caught up in trying to balance it to keep it from being too hard, or too easy, but by making yourself immune to mechanics during testing you fail to test the most important part of all.. is it fun?

Wish they'd push them to make better content.

Not once in any Dilbert comics did the management suggest they make the product better.

[Spider-Dan]

Yoshida: Yeah. It would be confusing from a world perspective to have imperial looking people wandering about. There might be some people who don't mind, but the people who follow the story and view the world seriously might not think it's so cool, so I don't think it will be any time soon.

Think again.



Remember, Yoshida is not only the director, he also plays this game.

[Evane]

Think again.

Spoiler: show

Remember, Yoshida is not only the director, he also plays this game.

Go get em tiger.

[Kaisha]

So when are one of these interviews going to bring up the long, long, long delayed add-on support and actually get a response about it anyways?

[lilbubbles]

I say addons are here, work, but the ps3 doesn't have the memory to support them. IF we get them, it won't be until ps3 support is dropped.

If I am wrong on this, I will eat a piece of paper with a cock drawn on it.

[Thiefami]

I say you're likely never to see them. It'd be optimistic to say they would ever to publicly address the issue again

[Kaisha]

derp. reposted instead of edited

[Kaisha]

I say addons are here, work, but the ps3 doesn't have the memory to support them. IF we get them, it won't be until ps3 support is dropped.

They stated eons ago (wish I could find a source) that for add-on support, it'd be for PC, and then they'd take any popular community add-ons made and integrate official solutions for the PS4 version. PS3 wasn't getting them in the first place.

I say you're likely never to see them. It'd be optimistic if they were ever to publicly address it again

I'm waiting on 3.2 before making a stink about it on OF in a manner that won't get me banned.