 | https://preview.redd.it/3s2pptsaucx...bp&s=e72cb32df94cf36d885e1df04926f62475afef48 Happy Saturday, Warriors of Light! Day 1 of the Anaheim Fanfest was an absolute deluge of new information and big announcements for the next FFXIV expansion, Evercold! If you need a refresher on everything that was announced, check out our summary thread here! Shortly after the Piano Concert wrapped up for the day, Yoshi-P sat down with members of the media to answer some of their burning questions about Evercold and the future direction of the game. Questions were submitted in advance and selected by Square Enix. A few members of the mod team here were invited to attend, and here's what we heard: How did the FFXIV Online and Evangelion partnership come about? How long has this been in the works for?On the Evangelion crossover, Yoshi-P was unable to offer much more information than what had already been revealed in the keynote presentation. He mentioned that Square Enix has been working very closely and at a rapid pace with Khara, Inc. in order to make sure the announcement would be ready for Fanfest. He asks for everybody's patience as they prepare more information to be released at the Berlin/Tokyo fanfests: "I've been looking at the reactions on social channels and it seems like, while everybody is surprised, they're also very excited about it." Will the Switch 2 version of FFXIV utilize the built-in mouse controls across all areas of the game? Have you used it for a Savage raid yet?Yes, the built-in mouse controls are supported. While he hasn't personally tested a Savage raid on the Switch 2, Yoshi-P says the QA team is checking that and he expects that Switch 2 players will feel comfortable choosing the configuration (docked vs. handheld, controller vs. mouse + keyboard) that matches their playstyle. He also responded to comments he saw on social media expressing concerns about the console's specs and how it may impact other player's experience when matchmaking: "We are really working hard on the optimization for the platform. So, we are striving to get the best performance. I think with the towns you may see a lower frame rate only because there's so many players that are rendered in the screen, but we are still able to reach 30 frames per second in a stable state. And, so considering a duty content, I think the performance is something you that don't have to be concerned about." Yoshi-P took this moment to also touch again on the PS4 talking points from the keynote: while they are encouraging PS4 players to eventually transition to a PS5 or another platform due to the technical limitations of the console, he stressed that the PS4 will remain fully supported through 8.0. Can you tell us a bit more about the Dancing Mad (Ultimate)? Why was Kefka chosen, and how are you guys going to make it as interesting as other ultimates that bring different bosses for different phases and kind of tell a story?There's a limited number of developers on the battle encounter team who have experience working with Ultimate encounters, so they take turns or volunteer to work on the next Ultimate. The developer who pitched Dancing Mad (Ultimate) is a big FF6 fan and previously worked on both the Normal and Savage version of Kefka Omega: "He came to me saying 'I can make something better, let me do Kefka again!' so it's this almost unnatural love for Kefka that brought this about." Yoshi-P declined to give a full answer to the second part of the question due to the potential for spoilers, but reminded the room that Ultimate encounters typically incorporate some kind of puzzle or gimmick that has to be solved. He hinted that by answering the question, he would potentially be giving part of the puzzle away. Why did you decide to go with two completely original jobs for Evercold, rather than going to Legacy jobs? How does it tie into your vision to "evolve" the game?Answering the second part of the question first, Yoshi-P stated flatly that selecting new jobs was "irrelevant" to the effort to evolve the game. He explained that development team has a process that most players are already familiar with: DPS is the most popular role to play so every expansion includes at least one new DPS job, while the second job will often be either a tank or a healer. They alternate each expansion, not only between tank and healer but also between types of DPS. Once the roles for each new job have been decided, developers pitch ideas including what kind of weapon the job will use and what the gameplay experience will be like. As the job mechanics begin to coalesce, the question of what to name the job becomes more relevant: "If an idea was pitched along with an existing Final Fantasy series job name, then we would kind of associate it with that. But then this time the ideas that were pitched were very unique. It was not based on any Legacy Final Fantasy job, and so we wanted to prioritize that sort of unique feeling and bring the interesting ideas that they had pitched. So that's why we decided 'Okay, these are going to be original to FFXIV.'" Evolved jobs seem to be a substantial overhaul. Can you estimate roughly when you started working on them? What were the biggest challenges, and when did you decide to support both styles rather than committing to just the new designs?Yoshi-P originally approached Assistant Director Yokozawa and Battle Directory Santo about a year and a half ago with the idea for Evolved mode. They both recommended Hikaru Tamaki aka "Mr. Prime" as the best person to handle the job, so Yoshi-P invited him to dinner to discuss the idea. The biggest challenge for the team was time: "[Tamaki] was designing the individual jobs that would be under the Evolved system. But at the same time, he did work on the different encounter team tasks, including adjustments and checking those adjustments, checking for balance and difficulty levels, making sure that mechanics and gimmicks are being designed properly. He was doing his sort of full role of tasks that were upon him and also, he works on PvP items as well so he would need to work on adjustments on PvP actions and everything was happening in parallel to each other." As for why the team is supporting both Reborn and Evolved modes, Yoshi-P broke out a bit of MMO history in a question to the room: "Do you know about Star Wars Galaxies? I think if you know about the game, I'm sure you know what happened to it when it did its thing." Given how long FFXIV has been around for, Yoshi-P was reticent to completely remove a core system that players had become so comfortable with. However, he pointed to the streamlined designs of new jobs like Viper and Pictomancer as examples of the game's direction already bending towards what we'll experience in Evercold. Same Region Player Matching is a huge improvement for FFXIV. What made this change possible now?Yoshi-P referenced Party Finder and World Visit as two examples of systems that did not exist in the game originally but had to be built out later. Systems like these act as building blocks that make the next project doable, after the development team reaches a point where they are confident that the previous system is stable. Server hardware replacements began roughly 2 years ago with the software side of the project beginning roughly 1 year and 4 months ago. Same Region Player Matching is something that Yoshi-P has wanted to implement since A Realm Reborn and Evercold is the finally where the team feels comfortable that the infrastructure can support the feature. What is the inspiration for the name of the expansion? How long ago was the name locked into production?Yoshi-P had originally wanted to call the expansion "Absolute Zero", but the name was ultimately rejected which he says is not uncommon. He gave a few examples: Stormblood was originally pitched as "Rebellion", Shadowbringers was pitched as "Darkbringer", and Endwalker was pitched as "World's End." The theme was for the expansion was decided roughly 2 months after the release of Dawntrail, although he says that was more "narrowing down" as he already had a bigger picture of the direction the main story will take before then. He mentioned that part of the inspiration for the theme is a scientific theory that the Earth was once nearly completely frozen over. As for the meaning, he encouraged players to consider multiple angles: "With falling to ice, lost to ice, of course we can imagine things like literally, physically freezing. Or metaphorically, we can also think about how some person's heart could grow cold and icy. So there's many different interpretations of what 'icing over' would mean." "[The Warriors of Light] will be encountering many instances where various different ice that they would melt or have to destroy to move forward and explore and becomes that sort of 'Wanderer.'" We saw in the keynote that there are heavy Norse influences in the architecture, but it seems like there are also some in the story line. That one-eyed man is very suspicious. Similarly, Heavensward also had a lot of Norse influence. Is there a method to this madness?Yoshi-P seemed mildly surprised by this question and complimented the submitter for their sharp eye. He says they tried to obscure the Norse influence a bit in the presentation which is also why it did not contain any names or proper nouns for people, places, etc. He can't provide any more details for now due to spoilers, but he suggested that people may get a better understanding and deeper enjoyment of the expansion by studying up on Norse culture and mythology. How do you plan to restore stronger job identity without hurting balance?For the development team, they first consider mechanics that are unique to a particular job before they consider the balance implications. He cited the "Sky High" ability shown off during the Evolved DRG demo as an example: "So in our minds, Final Fantasy's Dragoon is always with their jump attacks and so with the Evolved mode we really wanted to bring that characteristic out." From there, they can adjust damage values to account for the unique properties of the job, such as making "Sky High" deal much higher damage to account for the uptime lost while the DRG is in the air. As for balance between jobs, he says the term can be broad and vague and mean different things for different people. The development team looks at the balance between similar jobs rather than comparing all DPS to each other. Melee, Ranged, and Casters are all DPS but those categories act as "roles within a role" which is how they evaluate performance. Have you ever considered making an FFXIV spin-off game, like a single player focused game set in a different time period or a game that focuses on side characters?Yes, he has considered it. Despite how long Yoshi-P has been working on FFXIV, he still feels a desire to bring new players in so they can experience FFXIV for themselves. He acknowledged one of the major challenges to that goal: "There are still a lot of people out there who look at an online Final Fantasy and they say 'Well, an online Final Fantasy is not a Final Fantasy.'" While he would love to consider making a standalone version FFXIV, he says the only team capable of making the best possible standalone game is his current team and they're busy. He says only half-jokingly that if there are people or companies out there who are passionate enough and have the capability, he would love to hear from them about creating a standalone version of FFXIV. He mused for a moment about creating a smaller team within Creative Studio 3 who could focus on making spin-off titles, but even that would have its difficulties: "But then, if that happens, I'm sure FFXIV players would look at that project and go 'Yoshi-P, instead of focusing on some spin-off project, you should work more on the main actual Final Fantasy XIV game!'" You said at the time of transition between Endwalker and Dawntrail that we were back for a new 10 year journey. Where would you like to see FFXIV in 10 years? What would be the goal you would like to achieve?Yoshi-P immediately pushed back on the idea of a goal, as he says that brings to mind the idea of an end point and he can't really imagine FFXIV ever ending: "Even if I die or even if I retire my job, FFXIV would continue on even without me. So I think that would probably be the goal, is for FFXIV to continue on, for me to create that state so that it will continue to go on." He hopes that in the next 10 years, they can deliver another story climax on the same level or surpassing that of the previous 10 years. Yoshi-P ends the press conference by reminding everybody that it’s the journey that makes the destination worth the wait: "So right now, we're starting to take one step at a time to build that with Evercold. And it applies to not just Evercold but through FFXIV, you would only see the end of the journey through the path that the Warrior of Light has gone through. So if you continue to play, I think you will see that sort of meaning and you will see that ahead of you." submitted by /u/alabomb [link] [comments] |
Continue reading...