FFXIV FanFest Yoshi-P Q&A – Letter from the Producer Live
The second day of FFXIV FanFest Frankfurt opened with “Eorzea Question Time”, a live version of Yoshi-P’s regular Letter with the Producer show. Event attendees were asked to write down a question that Yoshi-P and the development team would answer.
Q: Are there more choices for character creation planned? Bum slider etc.
A: Not currently. In addition to this being a burden to the graphics team, we also want to reduce the stress on the server. You guys really want the butt slider? Because your gear will get bigger and the textures will stretch out. It’s a bit too difficult to get right, but it seems like, for some reason, this is something that people want…
Q: Will the slots for gardens be increased as well?
A: How about we just leave it at expanded furnishings for now. We are considering increasing the garden slots, however, with the estates (because they are instances, we can increase item limits), gardens are not, so the increase on the one zone would be that much greater. Because of that, we’re working on increasing the housing item limits first, then the residence move feature, and then garden limits.
Q: Is it possible for pets to automatically run back to their position after being knocked back?
A: You guys are the pet masters, you have to do this yourself.
Q: Can we get a rhythm game in the gold saucer?
A: So you think it’s that easy?! I suppose we could put Theatrhythm in the Gold Saucer, because they have that in arcades [in Japan], but you have to pay real money at the arcades, right? I’ll be sure to talk to Hazama-San, the director of Theatrhythm after this. If it makes them money, why not?
Q: Do you plan to remove racial-restrictions on hair etc?
A: Regarding hair, there are some hair styles we want to keep as race-specific to keep the race identity. Though others will be shared over the next few years, so you will see some, but never all. It’s a difficult thing to do on our side.
Q: There are a lot of fights in the main quest and class quests that I enjoy. Is it possible to implement a feature to repeat these?
A: Nice idea: make a new character. Because these types of quests are triggered by quest flags, we would have to redesign our quest system from the ground up. However, now that I think about it, each battle is a unique content, so we could figure out which is which, so it’s not impossible. It would be difficult and require a lot of debugging.
Q: Since 3.0, the difficult has been lowered and focus is now on glamour. Will 4.0 be more difficult?
A: I remember when we had Coils, people said it was too easy. So we made Alexander harder, and people said it was difficult. I trust noone. Content difficulty is something we go over a lot and we consider a lot when designing new content. We did get a lot of feedback that the third leg of Alex was easier than the first two. However, we believe that the difficult level we have on that is at such a level that many players can experience it. We kind of want players to say it’s too easy. For Omega, we want to make something accessible to all players. There is an idea that players who complete Savage 4 will have access to even harder challenges. But don’t come whining that it’s too hard!
Q: Can we get the krile gear on Mog Station?
Q: Mog station is overseen by a powerful sorceress; even more powerful than myself. We spoke about it, and it’s complicated to have it on there. So, you’ll have to promise to buy it.
Q: We really like the Hildibrand quests, but will future ones feature new trials (as it was in 2.X)?
A: Back in 2.X, we kind of went overboard on Hildibrand, so 3.0 was a bit of a rest. However, we had so much feedback from players that we implemented him on 3.1 and so, in 4.X, we thought to give him a rest but Hildibrand never sleeps. Take a look at the direction he flew off in in the final patch. Was it West, or East..?
Q: Can we have an official in game parser for only ourselves? Especially for PS4 players.
A: No. I 100% understand that you want to see your DPS, but then people will demand to know your DPS and there will be fights. And it would then mean someone would take the tool, and make it so you can see everyone’s. And we understand fully that people want this tool to get better themselves, but we are certain that it will lead to fighting. But we are always considering it for the future. So, during 3.X we saw the skill gap between good and bad players increase, which is why we are focusing on re-developing our battle system to close the gap. Once that happens, we will consider it. But now, it would just hurt the community. I’m not sure if I can say this, but we are working on a system that doesn’t display a number but may be a system that you can try and then try again, to make yourself better. Hmmm. It’s probably never been done on an MMO before.
Q: When can we expect a PS4 pro patch?
A: Yeah, we’re working on it. However, different from offline games, FFXIV is all about displaying as many things on screen at the same time, so rather than use the PS Pro power to increase graphical experience, we are using it to increase playability. I tested a patch last week, so it will be released very soon. But one thing, we don’t want PS4 players to worry about bad performance on the regular version. It wont decrease.
Q: Flowers in pots during bloom stage, without the sparkles?
A: That’s actually in our patch list. Can’t remember which one. But it’s coming soon.
Q: Umbrellas as vanity items like minions?
A: Umbrella? Mmmm. Remember the Mog Station goddess? There are plans to make one, but as a mount. Think Mary Poppins. The back and forth has been whether to make it a mount (mounts have small memory size) or not. Should it be straight or spin? (The crowd at this point overwhelmingly cheered for a spinning umbrella.)
Q: Cross server Palace of the Dead?
A: This is something that our team is working on; we are running into some problems. What is closer, is the cross-world matching for alliance raids. This will be ready by Return to Invalid release. And why it’ll take a little time, we want to increase the things you can do cross world. We are working on cross sever friends list, link shell, FC, and tell. We’re working on all these things as we speak.
So says Yoshi-P…
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- FFXIV FanFest Yoshi-P Q&A – Letter from the Producer Live - February 19, 2017
