This is another interview by Famitsu that came out yesterday, but i skipped the first quarter of the translation because it is basically coverage of fans and fan meetings at gamescom. Game related questions from the recent Famitsu interview with my man Yoshida.
Q. We would like to get into the game related questions. Are you going to announce new info during the 14 hour live broadcast planned for August 27th?(in Japan)
Y. It'll basically be about patch 3.4.
Q. How much are you going to reveal?
Y. We'll be revealing every content that is planned to be released for patch 3.4, but we'll only be explaining portions of each of them, so showing the actual game play might be on a later date.
Q. So you're saying the 3.4 preview will be split in two occasions?
Y. Yes, that is what we plan.
Q. The last patch 3.3 showed us, what we can call a conclusion to the main scenario. How is the story moving foward from here on?
Y. To be precise, The "Heavensward story" started around patch 2.4 and ended as planned with the release of patch 3.3. Patch 3.4 will introduce a new chapter heading towards a new development of story. The warriors of darkness who have been foreshadowed in the recent main scenario quests will be the center and the trigger to shift the story to a new direction.
Q. New crafted gear will be added when patch 3.4 lands, but what is the crafting difficulty going to be like?
Y. Let me see (laughs). Difficulty can be interpreted depending on the person so it's hard to describe. Personally, i think it's easier in comparison to the crafted items from patch 3.2 so i'm aiming for people to keep massproducing them. That way, the price will reach a point where it stops going down at a certain point and it'll be easier for players who focus more on battle content to buy them. When people find out these items sell, people will follow and craft them as well and the supply will increase. Just like patch 3.2, we are aiming to create a flow where everybody buys crafted items and meld them with materia to challenge the next end raid content asap. By the way, the new crafted items will include weapons this time.
Q. wow! (Hype)
Y. Up until this point, we were scared of adding a weapon that is too strong as a craftable item. This time we'll be releasing craftable weapons as a mean of "testing" so i hope people swing these weapons around.
Q. Deep dungeon (Palace of the dead) allows you to level your classes, make money and aim for a weapon at the same time. It's a really convenient type of content for returners, but can you tell us the planned updates to this content?
Y. Regarding palace of the dead, patch 3.45 will be when we'll be releasing the planned floors. Up to (down to? don't hurt me) Floor 100 will have a relatively close difficulty to what we have now, but floors 101 to 200 will be content where it's totally for the challenge so i imagine only the hardcore players will be able to clear it.
Q. Are there achievements involved as rewards?
Y. We do have rewards you can show off. We'll also have score boards for each job, so i hope those who are interested dive in to aim for No.1 in the world (laughs)
Q. So it's more of an achievement you show off?
Y. Yes. The rewards from floor 200 isn't anything that has an impact on strength of a player. That's why we were able to tune it into a difficulty the true hard core players would want to challenge.
Q. I suppose it takes quite a lot of time to clear it?
Y. We have organized a scenario (story) up to floor 100 so those players interested in the story can enjoy it at their own pace.
Q. In a previous interview, you said you would expand Diadem after patch 3.4 but any changes to the release schedule on that?
Y. The content the devs are slowly but continuously creating isn't an update to the current Diadem, but instead a different type of exploratory content. This was developed with the feed back we recieved from players after releasing Diadem in mind and it's brand new content. It's totally different to the conventional Diadem but the size of the content has become so large, we are having trouble with the development...There are things like huge bossees too, but i'm sorry to say this.. We couldn't include it in patch 3.4 due to it not making it on time. We were intending to end Diadem's role by releasing this new exploratory mission, but as a result, the development time kept going on and we left Diadem untouched for too long so we'll have a few fixes implemented to the current Diadem when patch 3.4 releases.
Q.By fixes you mean?
Y. For example, the entrance will be split between those who wan't to fight monsters and those who want to gather items and the rewards will be replaced accordingly. We are also going to improve the rewards to a certain level so i'm hoping people try it out after patch 3.4. The totally new exploratory mission wll be released when patch 3.5 hits, so i'd like players to wait by playing the updated Diadem for now.
Q. In a previous interview, you said you've already decided the patch titles up to patch 3.5. Have you decided the title for patch 3.6?
Y. That's a good question (bitter smile). With Final fantasy XIV, we plan approximately 2 years ahead in time, so there are lots of aspects we have already decided including the next expansion. No matter how i answer this question, i'll end up spoiling all sorts of schedules so please let me keep it a secret(laughs)
Q. Are there are any changes to the concept of the next Savage Alexander raid tier that we should look out for?
Y. The overall difficulty be lower than the previous Savage raids.
Q. By that, you mean something anyone can enjoy?
Y."Anyone" can cause misunderstandings. Besides, that would defeat the purpose of the normal mode difficulty. The fact it's a high end raid will not change, but those players who were able to clear all floors of the binding coil of Bahamut( he means all 13) will probably be able to clear it around about the same time as back then. There are mechanics that are difficult, but the level 60 rotations are difficult to maintain DPS at a high level while doing mechanics and that is what is widening the gap between player skills. When i take a look at the players' logs, that gap is really obvious to notice.
Q. What do you mean by that?
Y.Players can do the mechanics correctly but most players are having a hard time doing the mechanics while they maintain their level 60 rotation where they need to make instant decisions (editor note: like not using GS on dragoon so you can keep your BoTD before a phase transition instead of just doing the template rotation where you lose your BoTD if the boss is gone)
Y.The DPS gap between players is extreme....Those who can do it can do it, but those who cannot find it very hard. The players who can instantly choose the right rotation depending on the mechanic have already cleared Midas savage but i think the bottle neck is "needing 8 players at the same time". Judging from the data, the item level has increased and that has been put on top of players' DPS but it's not looking good enough to get players break through their current situation.
Q. I see.
Y. That doesn't mean we can just switch and change all the level 60 rotations instantly, so this time around we are going through with the mindset to change the difficulty of the content where it doesn't require such a rough rotation. Learning the mechanics and actually dodging them, reacting to RNG aspects and on top of that, for example where would you use up your BoTD buff or where do you refresh your enochian earlier than your normal template rotation... that sort of players' instant decision making is what greatly influences the gap between DPS numbers.
Q. In other words, it relies to much on player skills?
Y.Yes. Basically, the 2.0 rotations were simple so it made it easy to maintain that rotation while you busted mechanics. To add to that, excluding monk, there weren't many actions where "If you drop or lose this buff, your DPS plummets". Back from those days, Greased lightning was the key for monks and that was what the job design was supposed to be like, but now almost every job has that sort of element. That space is left for contriving, but i think the difficulty was too high.
Q. Are you going to continue to make content easier?
Y. It's not fully confirmed, but i have a feeling the current rotation is too difficult for players, so the difficulty of jobs as a whole will be dropped by one layer. It's timewise impossible to implement those changes during the 3.x series, so we decided to lower/hold down the difficulty of the raid itself instead. Like i said before, it's a "high end raid" after all so there will be people who still struggle but i would like to solve that with the help of item levels.
Q. Difficulty out of the way, what can we look forward to?
Y. I would like players to pay attention to how the story of Alexander will end. As you know, the theme of the story is related to "time" so i'd like you to look forward to how " time manipulating" is shown in content in an MMORPG. The planners and designers in charge were pretty daring with what they did(laughs)
Y. Just showing Alexander's "time manipulating" element in the scenario isn't what you can call a true game experience. From Alexander's stand point who can manipulate time, there is no way he wouldn't curve space and time to get rid of the adventurers who are enemies. (Editor note: Incoming quarantine where players get sent to the jurassic age) "If it's not implemented properly as battle content, it won't be digested properly and will just be left there are a setting" is what the devs in charge felt.
Q. So devs go through the strain for the story to make sense.
Y. Everyone had high spirits and hype when it came to creating it so at least from my view, they didn't look like they were suffering. The designers were especially having a hard time implementing it to make it look good. The end is really flashy so i want players to pay attention to how we can somehow work around even if it's a server client type of game.
Q. How's the raid finder doing?
Y. Regarding the status of use, it's doing an extremely good job for turns 1 and 2 (he means A5s and A6s but people will call this butchering so i'll leave it as 1 and 2), but as expected, the matching for floors 3 and 4 drop quite remarkably. However, the number of players who challenge turn 3 are low to begin with and the difficulty is extremely high, so i think it can't be helped to an extent. Personally, with so many players using it for floors 1 and 2, i think the raid finder met the expectations of its initial role. I'm sorry we need you to wait until patch 3.5, but the cross server party finder function is coming so when that gets implemented, i think it's natural for players to start using the party finder instead.
Q. Let us hear the improvements you'd like to make in the future.
Y. The raid finder is a matching system where you can specify conditions, but we are planning to get rid of some of the conditions that players aren't using that often. By just having those conditions, the matching frequency is affected so we want the set conditions of each player to match as possible.
Q. In the EU region, is Germany the country with the most players?
Y. From the launch of Realm reborn to last year, Germany had the least players out of the 3 main nations of Europe "UK, France and Germany". Germany has a huge PC market and it's a country with an understanding of MMORPGs, but the presumption we made was "The number of players are going to be extremely lower than we expect". From there on, the staff from Germany held fan gatherings and stood steady with consistent PR activities and market measures and thanks to that, it bloomed at once when we implemented the EU data centers. It's doing pretty well in Europe, but now we have the most German players in the EU region. Even at this point, the players are increasing at a rapid speed. The office in Germany, the community teams' hard work and the EU data center fixing the latency issues all worked out together.
Q. So the effort of the Staff paid off?
Y. The German marketing team, staff from the PR team and community team did a really good job. They piled up steady work one by one and enhanced the community and thanks to that, the hype at gamescom is getting bigger and bigger each year.
Q. What are you careful with when it comes to maintaining the popularity in Europe?
Y. We basically don't have anything we narrow down to a specific region. When it comes to PR (public relations), each country and region has different tastes and atmospheres so having a different approach for each region is about all we have. (Totoro note: The japanese game package has more of an "anime touch" with an illustration of all the scions, while the EU and NA have a darker touch with Gaius alone)
Q. So you have awareness of the world as a whole.
Y. Right, but each region has their own colors, so we have a system where we hear ideas from staff from each region and say yes or no towards that or give them further advice. With all the regions putting in their hard work, i have a strong impression the team from Germany earned what they put in. Now i'm like "wait a minute, Germany over took you but is that okay with you?" to the team from UK and France (laughs). Originally, The Final fantasy brand is supposed to be most popular in France but MMORPGs as a genre isn't as big....but the community itself is a stronghold and we'd like to strengthen our bonds there.
Q. How's it doing in the UK?
Y. I inspire them by saying "SE's HQ is in London so it's like your home territory" but of course, each country is working hard on marketing and PR so now we need to narrow down the PR activity for each region and steadily enhance the community on top of that.
Q. Talking about home ground, how's it doing in Japan?
Y. There are a lot of new players coming in. When it comes to the persistency of players after they start playing, Japan has the longest and the average time they stay subbed is the highest in the world.
Q. So the loyalty is of course...?
Y. The highest. However, Japan's MMO market is outrageously small so if we don't welcome in players from the new generation, we'll end up entering the stable period. MMORPGs hold a fate where you can't run from getting bored, but Japan has the most players who have continued to play for 3 whole years. Our goal is to provide excitement that can satisfy those loyal players, increase the amount of players from the young generation and for those who are taking a break, we are aiming to make them think "It's so easy to get back into FFXIV so let's get right into it" when the expansion comes out.
Q. So why do you think new players have increased?
Y. The advertising we shot out during this summer were all aiming towards new comers. Also, we aren't limitting our target to gamers and we are expanding the range of PR so more people can take a look at FFXIV. After we joined up to have our Collaboration with Level 5, FFXIV had a chance to show up on media where it usually doesn't belong.
Q. That event was pretty challenging lorewise as well.
Y.Hino (CEO of level 5) and i who are hardcore gamers planned it out so we started with "Since we're doing this, let's do this seriously" Typical collaborations tend to limit the costs, because all it does is trade customers and profit between the two, but since this was a collaboration between 2 hardcore FFXIV players, it turned into an event that is usually impossible. Players are rushing in to collect their weapons so i think it was worth it. I just barely got my 7th weapon (bitter smile)
Q. Are you going to continue on with these types of Collaborations?
Y. If we're going to do it, it won't be interesting if we aren't serious about i'm not thinking about anything superficial at this point. If we find a partner, we'd like to go all out again.
Q. For example, any stories about a collaboration between FFXIII and FFXV? (he most likely means FFXIV and FFXV but i left it like the raw interview to prevent hatred for butchering it)
Y. I'm personally friends with Tabata san (Director of FFXV) so we do have conversations like " Let's do something" but i personally think it's better to have an event after FFXV comes out.
Q. WHY?
Y. It's definately more interesting to let FFXV come into FFXIV after people understand the characters and story from FFXV.
Y. IC
Y. FFXV is an unreleased title so it's natural for not having any players who understand the background properly. We'll steadily wait for the release and until we have enough players who love the characters and world of FFXV ( no pun intended). If you just thing about sales, it's better off to match the event up with the release date, but since they are both from the FF brand, i think that isn't a good idea. To fuse the characters and lore of two worlds, the players need to know both of them. Back when we had the lightning returns event, FFXIII and FFXIII-2 were already out and people around the world knew Lightning, so we turned it into a saga where Lightning visits Eorzea to connect the dots from FFXIII-2 and Lightning returns. So to have an event like i explained, I told Tabata san "let's get an event planned after FFXV is out and things have calmed down". Besides, if we're going to haven an event, we want Noctus and the others to come visit right? (laughs)
Q. Last but not least, send a message to everyone around the world.
Y. Coming August the 27th, the realm reborn version of FFXIV will reach its 3 year anniversary. 1.0 started back in September the 30th in 2010 (Editor note: The same date as the previous release date of FFXV..wonder why they changed it) so if you count from then, it's 6 years. When we reached a total of 5 years from 1.0, i had the feels but this year i personally feel like we're passing through a way point. The reason we were able to come this far is the support from the players, starting from the people who supported us back from the 1.0 old days. Even when it comes to a financial stand point, FFXIV has turned into one of the pillars inside Square Enix co,ltd., so we aren't just going to make profit, but we would like to return it to the players by using it for patches, developments costs for expansions, and also fan festivals (Editor note: Yoshi-p revealed it costs 1 million dollars per fan fest in his essay) and events like Gamescom. In the future there are going to be more big announcements and so players can stay hyped for that, we'll continue with our daily updates. I'd like you to continue your support and cheer for us.
Source below:
http://www.famitsu.com/news/201608/26114162.html
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Originally Posted by Faroth
Tikki tikki tembo, Usagi no Yojimbo, chari bari ruchi pip peri pembo!
Tikki tikki tembo, Usagi no Yojimbo, chari bari ruchi pip peri pembo!
