E3 2014 Interview With Naoki Yoshida Part 2

12 Jun 2014
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What? Part 1 wasn’t enough? You want more information out of Yoshida from this year’s E3?

… OK, no problem!

our interview was shared with MMORPG.com

GE: What kind of changes can we expect to see to Materia?

Yoshida: (Ed. Note: something got lost in translation here, but the answer is still interesting, if not necessarily related to the question)
A lot of people playing DoH classes want more stuff to do and create better items with their crafting skills, but the problem is that creating items that are so great leads to inflation. What we’re worried about people who have taken a break or stepped away for a couple of months, its hard to come back because everything is more expensive and you have less gil because you’ve been out. So we realize that’s one of the risks. But, on the other hand, we understand that the DoH want more to do and have more involvement, so there have already been ideas about bringing back the “risky” crafting we saw in the 1.x release, where there is some risk in building it but you can create something great. We’re working on that and working out the logistics.

MMORPG: Any word on a possible expansion within the next year?

Yoshida: We are currently working on the expansion, but for now the main focus is going to be our major updates. The next one being 2.3 which is coming out soon. As for the expansion, we are going to be releasing a lot more information at our Fan Fest, which is scheduled for October. So at the fan fest in October you will be able to hear a lot more about what we have planned for the expansion. What e can tell you now is that with this expansion we hope to have at least the same amount of content that was released in 2.0. As for story wise, while we still want to maintain the Final Fantasy feel of the game we want to go into maybe some darker themes and take the story to little but of a darker place. A more mature final fantasy is what we will be aiming for in the next expansion. So the next major updates that will be a build up to this expansion, kind of like what we did with the Seventh Umbral Era and meteor story in 1.x where we built up to it. So there will be shocking turns of events to look forward to that will all lead up to the climax that will lead into the expansion.

GE: We know there will be a new zone released with Frontline. Can we expect to see anew new field areas before the expansion?

Yoshida: We are not planning on any new areas beyond the one for Frontline. One of the main reasons for this is that when you add a completely new area you need to have enough content to put into that area, and it is very difficult for a whole area to put in that content. However, if you call Gold Saucer a new area then you could say yes, we will be adding a new area. It’s pretty big what we have planned.

MMORPG: Since you added a new fighting class, can we expect to see a new crafting or gathering class?

Yoshida: Currently no, we are not considering any new disciples of the hand or land classes because since there are already crafted items, by adding new classes you’d have to break up items into more classes, which would reduce the number of items able to be crafted by each class. It would become hard to balance it that way. However, for 3.0, the expansion, we hope to expand the current classes by making them have, maybe a professional level.

chocoboraising

GE: We know Chocobo raising is coming soon. Will there be a benefit for those who already have a rank 10 Chocobo?

Yoshida: For people who already have a rank 10 Chocobo, using Chocobo raising you will be able to raise your Chocobo to rank 11 and give them pretty much all the abilities, but it will be very, very difficult to do.

GE: Rank 11 is only accessible through raising?

Yoshida: Yes, you will have to use raising to get to rank 11.

MMORPG: We saw new Primals in the 2.3 trailer. Can you tell us who they are and a little of their backstory?

Yoshida: After E3 is over and we work towards 2.3, we are thinking of making a longer trailer that explains what’s going into the patch, and that will include the Ramuh battle. As for Ramuh, he’s going to be different than the other Primals. The Primals that we’ve seen before have been “we hate the 5 races and love our beast tribe” – very angry Primals. Ramuh is going to be a little different because he doesn’t necessarily hate the 5 races and its not all about his beast tribe.

The title of the 2.3 patch is going to be “Defenders of Eorzea”, and the meaning behind this is that you have many different people trying to defend the realm from what they feel is harming it. So you’re going to have the Grand Companies trying to defend the realm from, for example, the Empire, you’re going to have rge Scions of the Seventh Dawn trying to defend the realm, then you’re going to also have Ramuh who is trying to defend the realm from what he believes is hurting the realm. When you think about Ramuh from past Final Fantasy games, its all about the judgment staff, its about his judgment and his bolts of judgment. Those attach to here where he feels something is wrong and he is that adjudicator, so that will play into how he feels he needs to defend the realm.

MMORPG: What’s your favorite Final Fantasy class that is not in Final Fantasy XIV.

Yoshida: I really like Cecil’s story from Final Fantasy IV, so that Dark Knight role. Also, from Final Fantasy Tactics, the Engineer (or Machinist).

GE: We know Ninja will be faster on the field and take reduced fall damage, and will be very useful in Frontline. Will any other classes of jobs get any passive boosts that will be useful in Frontline?

Yoshida: We currently are not planning that. We want that to be the main characteristic of the Rogue and Ninja. You can use those traits outside of PvP, and when you talk about Ninja its going to be about the stealth and movement. But even considering the stealth abilities, its all about balance. Its not like the ninja can use their stealth in the middle of a battle and be invisible, because then he would be invincible, which we don’t want. It’s just one of their main characteristics.

odin

MMORPG: Are their any plans for more large open world FATES like Odin and Behemoth?

Yoshida: We’ve gotten this a lot. Back when we first released those FATES, our engine wasn’t able to display as many people and you couldn’t see Odin, but we’ve fixed that and now Odin isn’t as difficult to defeat so people want more of a challenge, so we’re working on adding those big FATES. Although the server team says it puts too much load on the severs and don’t make any more [laughing]. But that’s one of the fun things about MMOS. Out on the field, one monster and everyone goes to get it, and there is all this lag and people are popping in and out of existence, but that’s one of the things that’s fun about an MMO.

When we had our special tie in with Final Fantasy 11, we had the big Shantotto out on the field. A lot of the former FFXI people said Shantotto was way to easy to defeat, that she was stronger than that – so maybe we need to make a much stronger Shantotto to come back and get revenge.


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And there you have it! Our E3 interview with the Director/Producer of Final Fantasy XIV. But wait… you still want more don’t you? Keep an eye out in the coming days for our interview with Michael-Christopher Koji Fox aka Fernehalwes!