Slycer on BG forums posted the first part of the Gamewatch interview.
This link will take you to his interview, he is currently editing.
Part One
This link will take you to his interview, he is currently editing.
Part One
Quote:This is my translation of the first half of the Game Watch interview. You'll see there is a ton of overlap with the Famitsu one, but I'll still finish this up as there are some details which were further discussed here or not at all in the other interview.
As it's not complete and/or may be heavily edited over the next few hours, please link back if you're copying in part or whole.
Source: http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/int...27560.html
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As previously reported, "As Goes Light, So Goes Darkness" Patch 3.1, the latest update for Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, will be implemented on November 10. With the longer than usual four month wait since the expansion's release on June 23, the update has become quite packed with content enhancements. When this article is released, expectations should be at a high as the update will finally be only a few days away.
We conducted this interview about patch 3.1 implementation with Naoki Yoshida, producer and director of FFXIV, from Hiroshima before the live producer letter was held. As we had not yet seen the producer letter and were not sure about the direction of the patch, we asked a number of questions of interest to core players about content direction such as for savage Alexander and Seal Rock.
We also discussed a large amount of information about patch 3.1 that was also released after the live producer letter was broadcast. It's all summarized in this article, so please read on.
The FFXIV Development Team takes their first long vacation, but what does the future hold?
Producer and director Naoki Yoshida discusses the first update since the expansion's release, patch 3.1 "As Goes Light, So Goes Darkness," to be implemented on November 10.
"As Goes Light, So Goes Darkness" patch 3.1 will finally be implemented on November 10.
Yoshida: If we were able to release 3.1 this week (October 19) or last Tuesday (October 13), it would probably feel like about the normal pace, but we've deviated by about 3-4 weeks from that pace, although I think players feel that it's been much longer. We've really kept you waiting. This patch will extend the 3.X series and begin the gradual path to 4.0. Starting with 3.2, we'll be returning to the usual three and a half month period between patches.
You had been saying that you wanted to increase the amount of breaks for the team - did the development team get a rest?
Yoshida: Outside of the summer vacation which was already set by the company, we gave the team about a week off. There was a considerable amount of planning work that still needed to be done, but there was so much tension after 2.55 getting to the release of 3.0 that we wanted to avoid anyone getting burnt out and we thought a bit of time off would be better for the future.
Did you get a break?
Yoshida: I was devoted to making plans for the 3.X series and 4.0, but I did rest for about four days. I was glad to get a chance to play a lot of FFXIV (laughs).
This break was there for the development team to take after 3.0's release, but do you plan to have any policy changes for this in the future?
Yoshida: We decided earlier that we would add one more stage to the workflow so we aren't going crazy at the last minute. As FFXIV is a very story-driven MMORPG, the main scenario drives a lot of our focus. For example, increasing the story requires more cutscene and VFX work, additional post-recording, and new sounds which all have to get in just before the patch release. By doing a study of our workflow, we were able to set the scenario firmly earlier on, which allows us to produce more scenes and quite significantly change things from the way they were before.
We've completed the plot for the patch 3.X series already and we finish up the text for the scenario way ahead of time. After that, we spent a lot of time reviewing player feedback to decide on system adjustments to incorporate in patch 3.1. For example, previously it could be difficult to get a good idea of where all of your party members were on a map. So starting in 3.1, we'll be displaying the direction in which each of the party members is located at the border of the navigation map, and there are a lot of fine adjustments like this. There will be a lot of convenience updates. The patch notes reading might be tough compared to usual because there are so many system changes.
Are you already planning for the future?
Yoshida: Yeah. The roadmap is pretty much complete and I've already started working on the specifications for 3.2. I'm still getting 3.1 and 3.2 specs mixed up in my head right now (laughs).
Last time we spoke, you mentioned that you would be meeting with Visual Works by August to start working on 4.0. Has that happened yet?
Yoshida: Yeah. Actually we also had another meeting to start planning character content. We started breaking things down at that meeting and we've already began art production. We'll start working on animation soon, and we'll probably be ready for motion capture not long after that.
So parts of 4.0 production are already underway.
Yoshida: The cutting edge work has already started (laughs).
Considering new mechanisms for Alexander different from 3.0. How will it evolve?
First question about savage Alexander Gordias - will you be adjusting the difficulty?
Yoshida: We won't be changing anything in particular at patch 3.1 release.
Due to the high DPS requirements in savage, it takes a good balance of party members and requires high player skill - how do you feel about the balance right now?
Yoshida: As players earned more Esoterics equipment, we expected more players to get through the third area of savage. Although the number is certainly going up, it's not quite where we imagined it would be. Previously in the coils of Bahamut, you could have a good team of six and even if the other two people made some mistakes, you could still clear. However, because of the degree of difficulty with savage Alexander, every one of the eight players needs to be on point or you won't be able to clear, and I think that's really the challenge. Another part is that even if you're able to deal with the mechanics, you also need to be able to maintain your damage rotation at the same time, so there are cases where DPS drops too low to keep up.
In 2.X we got a lot of feedback from players asking for more difficult content, and so we made this content to meet those requests. This is difficult content where a fully equipped party is needed. However, since we also had the "normal" difficulty, there was a huge response.
Already people who never tried the raids before have cleared, and as of mid-October, more than half of all players have cleared it, so that's really good. Of course, we've heard all the feedback saying that while savage is too difficult, you want something in the middle. We've been discussing all of this in great detail among the development team as we work toward patch 3.2.
So you'll be implementing a medium difficulty in the future?
Yoshida: It's a tricky problem. We don't have the staff to make so many different levels of raid. We've been discussing whether it would be good to drop the difficulty of the savage version instead of making a medium difficulty. We also talked about perhaps having a six area structure instead of four, where the first two areas are relatively easy, the third and fourth are tougher, and the fifth and sixth are really difficult. However, with the current development period and the number of people on the raid development staff, I'm not sure if we can make that a reality.
Since the next Alexander will be added in 3.2, I also want to hear from players about it. We'll look at the feedback and of course we'll also look at the clear rate. There are many voices on the other side saying that they are happy with the difficulty and asking to leave it as is. It took a while for the world's first to clear this time, and there was a lot of excitement around when it happened. Once we determine the policy, we'll let you know, but I don't think it will remain the same as it is now.
So it will continue in a different direction from now.
Yoshida: That's right. If our resource allocation remains as it is now, we may do something like instead of lowering the difficulty of savage in general, make it so that just the fourth section is extremely tough and make it somewhat easier to get through the third part. That's not to say we've made any final decisions yet, but it's something that we thought would be good.
It seems like players have actually transferred to other worlds from some worlds where fewer players try to clear it.
Yoshida: I don't think it's good to have a situation where players feel they need to transfer worlds to find a party. It's great that people really want to clear it and are so passionate about the raid that they're willing to transfer worlds, but it's regretful that it has to come to that. I wonder whether or not we could have something like a "Raid Finder," it's not totally unlikely.
Would that be like a Duty Finder for raids that matches players across worlds?
Yoshida: Because of the way the Party Finder system is designed to recruit players across an entire world, it took about a year of development to implement. By having a "Raid Finder" separate from Party Finder, we'd have to set fine participation conditions, and it would be something that pulls people from within the same data center to participate in raids. It's really just something in my head at the moment, so I'm struggling with the details.
But basically it would be something that makes it easier to form a raid party.
Yoshida: Looking at something like savage, the first hurdle is getting a group of eight skilled players together. In that regard, I think that Party Finder recruitment would be more prevalent if the difficulty was lower. Even if we add something like a "Raid Finder," when difficulty drops, Party Finder recruitment would go up and the matching rates would go down, so we need to make decisions looking at the big picture. We're thinking about a variety of options and trying to figure out which way to go. And we've already started work on production of the raid in parallel. To make something like this, it will take about six months.
Can you comment on the next bosses for Alexander yet?
Yoshida: That's not going to happen (laughs).
Regarding job balance in savage, it's been said that Dark Knight and Warrior are the most advantageous. Are you planning any Paladin adjustments for the third tank job?
Yoshida: We'll be making some fine-tuning adjustments to certain Paladin actions, but it won't be in the direction of strengthening their DPS.
So what kind of direction will it be moving in?
Yoshida: Things such as TP depletion, etc. The best characteristics about Paladin where it excels compared to the other tanks are its defensive ability and easiness to handle. If we also allow it to put out higher DPS, the job performance would be too high and we feel that it would break the balance to make any significant strength changes. As we've said, the advantages or disadvantages are relative to the content, so we carefully considered adjustments but we don't want to make them focusing exclusively on savage Alexander.
Have you been looking into the less effective new skills like Clemency?
Yoshida: Yes, with Divine Veil as well we feel that they aren't quite as effective, so please stay tuned with future content.
Can you comment about the inability to add more VIT to accessories for PLD?
Yoshida: We'll be changing the materia specifications for crafted accessories in 3.2. While non-accessories on the left side are already at max stats, it required melds on accessories to reach the maximum since accessories only have one main parameter. We plan to make changes to this.
Instead of being able to do forbidden melds with the main parameters STR / VIT / DEX / INT / MND / PIE, we'll be raising the base performance of crafted equipment higher than before. The secondary parameters will stay as usual, so the forbidden melds can be used to increase the amount of secondary parameters.
With the current progression, crafted accessories in subsequent patches with forbidden melds are incorrectly becoming the strongest pieces. This caused a number of problems. Players would go through great pains to clear a difficult raid and obtain equipment which has weaker performance than items they already had. Tanks would specifically feel the need to perform forbidden melds more than any other job, which also created situations where their performance was relatively higher than other jobs. When we change the specifications simultaneously with adding the new raid, we'll continue to add new accessories. The performance of these will be higher than before with their main parameters, and you'll be able to work on progressing through the raid early by adding secondary parameters.
So the accessories that drop from the raid will be the strongest ones.
Yoshida: It will be like that. With this change in specifications, the value of materia will change. Since raid drop and Allagan tomestone equipment will also have materia slots in 3.2, we're working on some major adjustments to the stats. We're thinking about increasing the value of materia right now. Since we'll be changing this so much in 3.2, there will not be any new accessories implemented in 3.1. If we added them now, they would be the strongest at the start of 3.2, so we want to avoid that and have time to discuss this and come to a conclusion.
Seal Rock will remain as is. Balance adjustments coming with "Wolves' Den II"
Let's talk a bit about Frontline in Seal Rock. Right now summoner is very strong and the number of participants has increased, how do you feel about the current balance?
Yoshida: I'm a bit concerned about this, but like with the raid, there won't really be any changed made in patch 3.1. We have had a lot of reports come in from people doing Seal Rock. Their burst damage certainly is large and easier to perform than on other jobs, so we're looking at the situation.
So it will remain as is for patch 3.1?
Yoshida: Yeah. We could do something like change recast timers, but our intent is to avoid any large discrepancies between PvE and PvP rules. Even if we did extend the recast time during PvP, it wouldn't change much, just things that you could do once every 30 seconds would only be once every 60 seconds, for example, and it wouldn't really fix the problem.
Since casters have the ability to use Sprint, could you make Sprint MP-dependent to even the playing field?
Yoshida: Certainly it's very handy on summoner. However, an equally skilled melee player can also be quite strong. This is something else we discussed. Since summoner burst damage has become a habit, there are also a lot of people who will run in to bait it. Willingness and ease of playing Seal Rock is a major factor in players participating, so if we start depriving certain things, there will be less players participating. We decided to leave the current situation as is until it gets to the point where we feel it's totally necessary to suppress it.
As a melee, if I see that I'm matched against a bunch of summoners, I think to myself "great!" (laughs)
Yoshida: Good melee DPS are really strong, so there's peace of mind in that (laughs).
Indeed, there are many melee DPS who will have at least 10 kills.
Yoshida: Yeah, and as you kill more opponents, including with the LB, melee just get stronger and stronger and a skillful person can be pretty extraordinary. So if we just weaken summoners in PvP they would feel too much change in PvE. Perhaps eventually...
So there won't be any adjustments to Frontline in 3.1.
Yoshida: Right now we're working on Wolves' Den II and we'll be making balance adjustments there. We've been talking about this for three weeks so far, but since there's a high likelihood that we'll be changing up the current situation with Wolves' Den II, we decided to leave things as is for now. There's been a lot of talk about the risk to pets, so you might see things in that direction in the future with Wolves' Den II.
---(End part 1 of 2)---
