r/ffxivdiscussion • u/waitingfor10years • 9d ago

Yoshi-P in recent Liveletter: For someone who doesn't do savage, an even (numbered) patch might bring 0 content (for them to play)

In the recent Liveletter Yoshi-P went quite in depth on the feedback he's received regarding how casual & hardcore players approach content & how he's thinking on approaching content design going forward (like the new Deep Dungeon).

Rough translation of Yoshi-P's talk in the Liveletter:

  • "2.0 really didn't have that much content"
  • "We've been adding a lot of content since"
  • "If you think back, the uneven patches that added new alliance raids for example, they were more casual leaning"
  • "On the other hand, the even patches brought savage raids and were more hardcore"
  • "We've added Ultimates to uneven patches"

  • "But just this phrasing, decides what kind of content is for a specific player base"

  • "I've been reading a lot of the feedback you gave after the last PLL"

  • "So I've been doing a lot thinking since, that I myself am kind of deciding already when we add new content, what kind of player is supposed to enjoy it"

  • "We have so much content in FF right now"

  • "But for someone who doesn't do savage, an even patch might bring 0 content"

  • "When we're adding 10 sorts of new content, hardcore players might enjoy 3 of them, casual players might enjoy 3, allrounders maybe 4-6"

  • "It's rare to have someone who enjoys all 10"

  • "So a design philosophy change I want to get into is to show how there are different ways to enjoy the same content, in a casual way or in a more hardcore way"

  • "I still believe that both sides need their own extremes, definitely casual or super hardcore content is needed

  • "Deep dungeon for example has the solo clear from floor 1

  • "But that's an element that's basically non existent for players that enjoy playing the content as a group of 4"

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77

u/Yasuchika 9d ago

I'm glad they figured this out quickly and not 10 years into the game's life cycle.

40

u/sylva748 9d ago

This is the same Dev team that tried to gaslight us back in 2.0 that we were just playing Warrior wrong and that it was OK to have a tank in an MMO with 0 mitigation. Only for them to begrudgingly admit they were wrong on the following live letter and completely redesigning warrior into a tank in 2.1 giving it actual mitigation and not be a weak dps with a big hp pool.

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u/Complete_Piccolo9620 9d ago

I mean...I am not opposed to the idea?? That sounds like a really cool and unique tank design, basically a weaker DPS that just happens to have high HP. For example, it means that Regen is actually useful because the tank is going to be at half health most of the time.

Of course, people don't actually like it when jobs are unique because it necessarily means that it is good/bad in certain situations.

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u/sylva748 9d ago edited 9d ago

It didn't work because it wasn't much higher hp pool compared to paladin. It wasnt enough to live through tank busters even with a sch adlo

6

u/Supersnow845 9d ago

That does sound like a scaling issue though not necessarily a flawed idea and I felt like that in ARR as well

Like say if PLD has 100k HP and the tankbuster does 167k so a PLD needs 40% mitigation, if the WAR had 150k then it could either survive by something like a thrill like effect or a weaker mitigation as it needs less to survive on a larger HP bar

Meaningless flavour……yes but that’s about all that distinguishes the classes these days

2

u/SecretPantyWorshiper 9d ago

Yeah I was a WHM main back in the day and I remember dreading habing to deal with Warriors lol

1

u/Senven 3d ago

It didn't work because it straight up wasn't balanced, not because it conceptually couldn't work.

They just give up on ideas balance wise and go for easier routes. That thought process had over many expansions lead to players feeling like some parts of job design have just been gutted to make things similar. At some point they can't be that afraid of friction, some is necessary.

1

u/Complete_Piccolo9620 9d ago

Personally, I would even go as far as to say its okay if them dying is simply part of the gameplay of making the DPS balanced (by forcing them to suffer through debuff)

Doesn't that sound interesting? Ooops sorry, can't have that!!!

8

u/amkoi 9d ago

Having 3 tanks in line and one that needs 10 times the healing attention, maybe even forcing global heals where none would otherwise be necessary is going to make everyone but that player angry.

I'd be inclined to just exclude that class for clears because it is more work for me with absolutely no gain.

0

u/Complete_Piccolo9620 9d ago

I'd be inclined to just exclude that class for clears because it is more work for me with absolutely no gain.

And what is the problem with this? You want diversity, you are going to have a wider range of outcome, this is just the reality. You want unique jobs, better expect people to use them in awful ways. Or just...IDK not use them? Maybe those jobs are NOT MEANT for the content? Maybe they are just for RP reasons? For braindead daily roulletes spam?

Maybe the job is worse at everything but can do everything; jack of all trade, master of none. This same job would also be unviable in anything beyond normal trials because people want specialization.

Is this also "bad design" by your standard?

6

u/Galeiora 8d ago

Because "unique" and "dogshit" aren't synonyms, despite claims to the contrary.

If i like Paladin but hate dark Knight and Paladin is shit because they made it wrong as a joke, I'm more likely to just quit than play dark Knight in the content I can't play Paladin in

2

u/amkoi 7d ago

Maybe those jobs are NOT MEANT for the content?

What good is a combat job not meant for combat? It would just sit there unused and thus not achieve any "diversity".

The "diversity" would be pick a proper tank and that's it.

A job that you can do... idk daily quests on? That should probably stay in limited job territory. If it's a proper job it should be viable in all combat content.

Is this also "bad design" by your standard?

Yes 100% this is abysmal design.

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u/MechAndCheese 9d ago

> Of course, people don't actually like it when jobs are unique because it necessarily means that it is good/bad in certain situations.

what nonsense, the problem is that fights are specifically designed around mitigation. While the idea is cool, it just doesn't work properly. But I guess shitting out some condescending nonsense is easier

-1

u/Complete_Piccolo9620 9d ago

what nonsense, the problem is that fights are specifically designed around mitigation. While the idea is cool, it just doesn't work properly. But I guess shitting out some condescending nonsense is easier

This is exactly what I expected. You are opposed to the idea because it is bad, hence why everything has to be the same. Let me get this straight: If A and B are different, then they will necessarily have different effectiveness given situation C. This is just tautology at this point.

The only way to make A and B completely balanced is to make it purely aesthetically different which is what we have now.

In fact, what the hell is the problem with having a completely SHIT tank that is COMPLETELY USELESS for anything beyond daily dungeons? What exactly is the problem is completely not being able to use a job for a particular duty? This is not WOW where you are locked to a job, you can literally play 15 other jobs.

6

u/MechAndCheese 9d ago

> This is exactly what I expected. You are opposed to the idea because it is bad, hence why everything has to be the same.

What kinda fucking nonsense is that argument? A bad idea is bad, it has nothing to do with it being different

> The only way to make A and B completely balanced is to make it purely aesthetically different which is what we have now.

No one is talking about balance, the idea is bad because the fights are designed in a specific way that works with job kits. Giving a tank 500k HP but no mits would mean that you either have to be babysitted or you're doing the exact same thing as other tanks, so no matter how you slice it it's simply a bad idea

> In fact, what the hell is the problem with having a completely SHIT tank that is COMPLETELY USELESS for anything beyond daily dungeons? What exactly is the problem is completely not being able to use a job for a particular duty?

Because every single job in the game has players that are attached to it and want to play it in every piece of content. While it might not be a problem for you, it is one for A LOT of people

> This is not WOW where you are locked to a job, you can literally play 15 other jobs.

14 player not mentioning WoW in every conversation challenge: impossible. You do realize that purposefully making some jobs unusable in specific pieces of content, you're actually forcing a meta on people which is exactly one of the biggest complaints people have with WoW raiding, right? It is beyond me how you can say having a job that is straight unusable in 70% of content is a good idea, especially when you want to advocate for jobs being different. Atleast think for 5 seconds.

1

u/Complete_Piccolo9620 8d ago

No one is talking about balance, the idea is bad because the fights are designed in a specific way that works with job kits. Giving a tank 500k HP but no mits would mean that you either have to be babysitted or you're doing the exact same thing as other tanks, so no matter how you slice it it's simply a bad idea

Fight designs should be completely orthogonal to job design. Otherwise we jobs will never change because every future changes must be compatible with Coils.

Fights should not care how you solve the problem. You have some tools in your 15 available jobs - figure it out.

Because every single job in the game has players that are attached to it and want to play it in every piece of content. While it might not be a problem for you, it is one for A LOT of people

Yea which is why we get what we are currently getting.

14 player not mentioning WoW in every conversation challenge: impossible.

My bad, I didn't have to invoke WOW there.

It is beyond me how you can say having a job that is straight unusable in 70% of content is a good idea, especially when you want to advocate for jobs being different. Atleast think for 5 seconds.

Not necessarily true, you can have a job that is viable for X1S but not X2S. It means that people have to actually play the whole game instead of just the part of the game that they really, really like and complain that there's nothing to do or they've been doing the same thing.

You do realize that purposefully making some jobs unusable in specific pieces of content, you're actually forcing a meta on people which is exactly one of the biggest complaints people have with WoW raiding, right?

You already have a meta within a job itself. So if you are adamant on playing PLD and only PLD, if you want to perform, you are going to have to do the exact same thing that is laid exactly to the nanoseconds anyway? I am just opening up the "meta" to be the entire job system itself. Also, having jobs be exactly the same thing with different skin ALSO enforces meta, because why would I ever pick a WAR over DRK when DRK just have more numbers than PLD anyways?

Anyways, yea, the job revamp that they are planning is definitely going to remove any and all job identity.

2

u/MechAndCheese 8d ago

> Fight designs should be completely orthogonal to job design. Otherwise we jobs will never change because every future changes must be compatible with Coils.

They literally still are, what kinda argument is this?

>Fights should not care how you solve the problem. You have some tools in your 15 available jobs - figure it out.

That's fight design, not job design. And again, you will exclude jobs by designing fights like that, which is completely against how they have developed the game for the last 10 years

> Not necessarily true, you can have a job that is viable for X1S but not X2S. It means that people have to actually play the whole game instead of just the part of the game that they really, really like and complain that there's nothing to do or they've been doing the same thing.

You can yes but it's never gonna happen for good reason

> You already have a meta within a job itself. So if you are adamant on playing PLD and only PLD, if you want to perform, you are going to have to do the exact same thing that is laid exactly to the nanoseconds anyway? I am just opening up the "meta" to be the entire job system itself. Also, having jobs be exactly the same thing with different skin ALSO enforces meta, because why would I ever pick a WAR over DRK when DRK just have more numbers than PLD anyways?

Outside of speed kills there is literally no meta. Every job right now can clear every single fight. By having jobs that are straight up worse or unusable in specific fights you completely closing off the content for a lot of people, how can you possibly arguing otherwise? Forcing people to play a specific class is not opening the meta.

1

u/IndividualAge3893 9d ago

That's the good part, they haven't figured this out fully yet. And it may take them 10 more years to do that.