[GensouRakuenFFXIV]

перед TGS и соответственно 32 лив леттером Йошида давал здоровенную интервьюху, которую опубликовали тока вчера.
в ней сказано много всего интересного.
коротко
сюжета много, особенно для лор задротов, Йошида рекомендует проходить спокойненько на выходных.
3.4 можно рассматривать как нулевой эпизод нашего сериала. ВоД тут в главной роли и нам расскажут кто они, и про Хайделин.
ожидается некий фенсервайс с Америком.
Алиска будет сильно отличатся для тех кто прошел и не прошел койлы.
Александр 3 будет проще второго и София EX легче Нидхога. но на Софии надо будет думать. головой....
межсерверный пати файндер на 3.5
работа над увеличение армори честа и инвентаря уже идет, но пока.... выбрасывайте ненужный шмот! Йошида хочет чтобы к концу года мы освободили ретейнеров!
девочки работают над мальчиками зайчиками!
платье Эдды. только для девочек. мальчикам ничего не дадут.
20+ рыб для аквариума на данный момент. будут увеличивать. украшения для аквариума так же будут добавляться.
идея бесконечного кача и апгрейда чаров устарела и в наше время мало применима. у большинства людей нет столько времени. никакие идеи из ФФ11 и похожих старомодных игр сюда не подойдут и ничего меняться не будет. ну может быть лет через 10.

полное интервью

Q. We would like to start by asking you questions about the main scenario. Titan and Garuda showed up in the 3.4 trailer, but does that mean the story is going to revolve around the 3 nations?
A. No, they don't have much to do with the plot. The focus will be the warriors of darkness and Hydaelyn. At the same time, the story will focus on the origin/roots of the feelings between humans and beast tribes. The beast tribes being focused means that the primals will show up as a result as well. There is actually a fight against titan in the main story.

Q. What sort of titan battle? It differs to a normal or ex?
A. I'd like you to check it out yourself through the main scenario. We did something which is pretty artistic. I personally checked it and i honestly thought the dev team did a good job putting in the details.

Q. So it's not something you play over and over again with the duty finder?
A. Correct. Just imagine the normal mode of the primals. The stage effects during the combat is in line with the scenario and it's a little artistic. I think we were able to synchronize what's told in the story and the actual experiece this time. I'd like those people interested in the story to look out for those small tricks.
Totoro note: We can assume he is talking about us playing as Titan to fight against the cobolds or something. Soul surrender.

Q. The new instauced dungeon Xelphatol had a scene where the boss summoned Garuda. Which part of the main scenario does that take place?
A. We want the players to be able to access the expert roulette as soon as possible, but we couldn't work around it this time, because we had to connect it to the main scenario. The dungeon shows up relatively early on, so i don't think it'll be that difficult to access. It's totally a main story related dungeon, so i suspect most players can assume Garuda has something to do with the plot after seeing the trailer.
The adjustments to the 2 new dungeons are already complete. Since the item levels are being refreshed, it may feel harder than the 3.3 dungeons at first. With the 3.3 dungeons, they were released when the item levels of players were already high, so it felt easier from the get go, but this time you'll be challenging it with a low item level and of course you'll be able to clear it, but we made it so you start to get what's going on as you go, and the clear times become faster and faster as your item level goes up. Please take careful steps on your first visit and go full-out.

Q. Is it risky to pull them all at the beginning?
A. I think it'll be dangerous (laughs) I'd prefer tanks to advance carefully.

Q. Xelphatol is located in the east of Abalathian's spine, but this is the first time this area showed up in the game no?
A. Yes. Of course it has a setting to be a huge field, but the theme this time is the main base of the Ixali located in the valleys of Xelphatol, so you won't witness the whole region.

Q. So we're charging into their main base.
A.Right.

Q. Aymeric showed up again, but is Ishgard going to be involved in the story?
A. The dragonsong ended in 3.3, but there weren't any big movements against the warriors of light and the scions. So the story will quietly start in Ishgard and Aymeric fans will be a little happy with what happens near the start.

Q. Some sort of fan service?
A. Yes. Regarding how it starts, some people may feel a little itchy. The main scenario has a lot of points worth noting, so i hope you enjoy it.
Q. What looks to be Ala Mhigo slightly showed up in the trailer. Is the Main scenario heading towards various directions?

A. Yes. If i use a TV series as an example, patch 3.3 was the end of season 2 and finally the television pilot (episode 0) will begin. There are a range of scenes to look forward too. What/who are the warriors of darkness? What have they done so far and what are they aiming towards? What is Hydaelyn or should i say what is "the primordial (origin) world" about? Those sort of keywords that reveal the basis of Final Fantasy XIV are what i'd like players to focus on.

Q. So the warriors of darkness who popped their heads in and out will be the main focus?
A. They are the protagonists. The story will involve a range of protagonists. Patch 3.1, 3.2, 3.2 had a lot of drama and we reduced the amount of quests and increased the volume of cutscenes, but patch 3.4 will have a substantial amount of main scenario quests that are not fetch quests, so i'd like you to spend your time to watch them. I don't mind if those players who want to get right into new content to prioritize other content, but i'd like players to slowly move through the main scenario when they have time over the weekend.

Q. The 3.4 main scenario seems to be long?
A. If you take your time to watch the story carefully, i think it will seem very long. For those who enjoy the lore, there will be plenty of scenes where they stop for a moment to think about it. To add to that, Alisaie is really cute when she is fawning (jp termere) so i would like players to finish off the binding coil of Bahamut.

Q. She has different lines depending on if you've cleared coil?
A. The main linear will be the same, but Inheriting Louisoix's will, going through the great accomplishment of stopping the regeneration of Bahamut together definitely has to change how she reacts to the warrior of light. So this time, The scenario writer was obsessed and precisely split Alisaie's words depending on if you have/haven't done coil. Even if you haven't finished coil, you'll gradually get closer to her, but i can say that is where it hugely differs. You can only watch the haven't done coil version of the cutscene in the inn, so even if it means going unsynced, i'd be happy if you clear the binding coil of Bahamut.

Q. If you haven't done coil, the last time you met her was in the plaza.
A. Yes. During the speech back in a realm reborn, Alphinaud and Alisaie were in the back of the plaza and you didn't actually meet them directly. Alphinaud and Alisaie had an argument with each other and moved on seperately, and after Alphinaud said "Keys don't only exist to open doors", Alisaie never shows up in the main scenario. There was just a hint that Alisaie might have been the one who got the chocobo carriage ready after the victory celebration back in 2.55.
The binding coil of Bahamut can be cleared with 4 to 5 members if you go unsynced, so please try it. During the 14 hour broadcast i explained how the story will change a little depending on if you've cleared coil or not, and because? of that, I've witnessed a lot of party finder groups for unsynced coil. I also helped a few of them too.

Q. On the other hand, you could say there were that many people who haven't cleared coil?
A. The clear rates for the binding coil of Bahamut is the highest out of all the high end raids, but still more than half of the population haven't seen cutscenes.
Q. After finishing the main scenario for 3.4, do we see the direction the next season is heading towards?

A. I think it's still early for that. I think i said this somewhere before, but we have patch 3.4, we have the NA fanfest in Las Vegas, then we have the JP fanfest, then we have the EU fanfest and we turned what we're announcing at each location into a flow of story. By combining the future development we are announcing at fanfest and what goes on in the main scenario, i thought the players would be able to enjoy it more, so we turned it into that composition. People will probably be able to speculate the future after 3.4, but there won't be anything decisive to make it totally clear.

Q. So you won't know even after the Las vegas fanfest?
A. It's difficult to say, but players will have the impression "Where is the story going from here on? but we still have 2 more fanfests...hmm"

Q. The isle of Val is gone now and the imperial succession for the throne was going on in the back and all of this foreshadowing is left. Will these mysteries get solved before 4.0?
A. There are some that will be solved and some that won't.

Q. Some of it will continue on in the 4.0 main scenario?
A. Yes. We do have the intention of properly digesting the mysteries and foreshadowing. It's just a matter of when.

Q. Will the people who are missing like Hoary Boulder and the scions show up again?
A. If they're alive. A nostalgic..or should i say a touching reunion might be just around the corner.

Q. That guy in the mask showed up. His mask reminds me of how you hided the new race of Yugiri and i imagined that might be the case again when i saw the screen shot.
A. That's not the case. I'd like players to speculate the reason behind the mask. The mask itself has a meaning.

Q. So it's safe to assume the man with the mask will continue to show himself?
A. Yes. The man with the iron mask was mentioned in recent patches like 3.2 and 3.3 by Yda and Papalymo and that guy who showed himself in the trailer is the "Sir iron mask" so he is an important character.

Q.What are the requirements to enter Alexander the creator ?
A. As long as you've cleared the normal mode for Midas, you can continue on to enjoy the story. After clearing the normal mode of the creator, you can challenge the savage mode. (note: he didn't specify, but you'll probably need to unlock it in Mor Dohna like Gordias and Midas)

Q. I've heard voices where players want the normal and savage mode to have different stories. Are there any differences in stage effects between the two modes?
A. Last time (patch 3.2), only the savage mode of Brute justice had its final form with wings, but that's about all we can do. The Alexander story in 3.4 is closely tied to a certain battle and there will be no difference between normal and savage mode in that fight. The story (of Alexander) is coming to an end with its grand finale, so it's difficult to make them differ. However, we spent as much cost as possible (under the limitations) on the rewards, where the savage gear is a little bit fancier than the normal mode gear, so please forgive us with that this time.
Coil had its story gradually building up as it headed towards its climax. The Alexander story involves time so there was a lot of unsolved foreshadowing that made it inarticulate, but story for the creator will join all the gears and you'll understand the story more, so those who love lore will enjoy it. Because the story revolves around "time" makes it complicated, if any of you totally understand it, i'd like you to explain it to those who don't. It's tremendously large scaled, but that is properly reflected upon the actual battle content.

Q. Does that mean we get a glimpse on the past or the future?
A. Please imagine as you like with association of the keyword "time" (laughs)

Q. The story up to now was very sad, but is there are possibility it will turn out to be a happy ending?
A. It won't be a bad end. I think you'll have mixed emotions.

Q. One of the bosses transformed into something that might even be released as a plastic model figure.
A. When i thought about it calmly, what were we thinking to do this in an MMO (wry smile). Brute justice from the former tier united so the man in charge thought "this time it'll transform into a flying mode!" Just watching it transform won't be an experience, so we added the neccesity to ride it. It's one of the mechanics you need to deal with to clear the fight.

Q. Really? Now that you've reminded me, they did ride the plane.
A. We're challenging the limits of a game with a server client model. We deliberately left it out of the trailer, but there is one more huge mechanic related to the story, so i hope you enjoy it.

Q. Regarding savage mode, You said before that you'd make adjustments after seeing how the raid finder does. What was it like after a few months after implementing it?
A. We split it into the practice phase for the first half, the middle and the second half, but most people didn't use the "middle range" function and those who que with that selected had to wait an extremely long time and that also affected the que times for both the first half and the middle phase, so we are getting rid of that "middle" phase option.

Q. We're only going to have an option for the first and second half?
A. We decided to divide it in that way. Also, we added extreme primals to the raid finder. Starting with Knights of the round (Thordan)EX and EX primals from there on will be deleted from the Duty finder and wil be added to the raid finder instead so you can specify conditions to raise the success rate.

Q. Did the raid finder help raise the clear rates?
A. The clear rates for A5s and A6s savage are extremely high. Regarding A7s and A8s, the population of players who have cleared A6s and cleared it during that week is low, so there's an inclination of those floors to take longer to get a que. However, the clear rates of A8s consisted of players who have cleared A7s is pretty high. I think the raid finder will fulfill its role until we implement the cross server party finder planned for 3.5, but i do think the waiting time is the bottle neck at the moment.

Q. The datacenter i play on has an easy time getting 2 tanks, but healers and DPS that are probably ranged DPS make me wait most of the time. In the past you said you might turn one of the DPS seats into a wild card spot, but what happened to that?
A. If we increased the wild cards (note: allowing multiple casters or ranged), i assume the clear rates will plummet so we don't have plans to change it. I suppose it's fine to add it when a new raid tier isn't about to get added (odd patches). For example, Everyones' item level is already high for Midas, so the clear rates will still be high even if we changed 2 DPS seats into wild cards and have no BRD or MCH in the party, but 3.4 is just around the corner and a new raid tier is coming soon, so if we added that now, you'll probably end up matching up with a composition that cannot clear the raid and you'll keep encountering that composition. Especially in the early stages, you'll be challenging the new raid with a lower item level, so you'll end up having no chance clearing the content.

Q. Even when a que does pop up, there are a lot of occasions where vote abandon begins. Any word on this?
A. If one person starts the vote abandon and if that goes through, it means a majority of the members think there's no hope, so there isn't much we can do about that.

Q. I'm assuming each of the members waited quite a while for the que to pop, but they start vote abandoning with no hesitation.
A. Let's say we made it so you can't vote abandon until 20 or 30 minutes into the fight. That would just make players leave the instance and i think that will make it worse. Since it's a decision made by the majority, if the vote goes through, it means everyone is thinking that it's impossible to clear, even if they don't say so.

Q. The creator is going to be less difficult right?
A. Yes, but i would like to clarify to prevent misunderstandings. Savage is a high end raid. It's a different story when it comes to the top 1%, but it won't be a difficulty where anyone can run through easily and clear it all in a week. Those people who meet up with their friends once or twice a week to practice properly will need approximately 2 months to clear it.
Midas took too long for players to clear the final floor and as a result, by the time they cleared A8s, the next raid tier would pop up in front of you. For example, we allowed players to upgrade their lore weapons in 3.37 and a lot of players cleared A8s from that point on, but still there's only 8 weeks until the next patch, so i think that was a fault. We are trying to make it so players can clear the raid a little earlier.

Q. Do you think it's a difficulty where we can clear it during patch 3.4?
A. We are aiming to adjust it so those who raid because they love to can clear the raid around that timing you mentioned. We lowered the required DPS in Midas, but if the fight makes you move around that much, the gap between those who can push out those numbers and those who can't became larger and larger. With the average DPS of players in Gordias in mind, we lowered the required clear line by a mile, but that "assumed DPS" wasn't accomplished with all the mechanics moving players around, and it made us realize the level 60 rotations was really hard for them. With that premise in mind, we decided the number of mechanics. We are still under development for final adjustments and it will probably take this whole week. We'll continue the adjustments until the deadline and we're striving to leave a chewy degry of difficulty and also make sure you can step one step at a time to eventually get the clear. It is easier in comparrison to Gordias and Midas, but i believe the difficulty is challenging enough.
Sophia Extreme will be placed in the Raid finder and the creator (savage) is also included from the start. Just to warn you, the item level requirements to enter the creator (savage) through the raid finder is moderately high, so those who are planning to use the raid finder need to get your equipment ready properly. If we didn't have these item level requirements, those players who want to take a look at the fight might get up with players who are serious, so we set the item level requirements to a level where "you have a high motivation = you have appropriate gear ready". If you que up with a full party with 8 members in your party, you can enter freely with any item level just like before.

Q. Alexander Gordias is already in the Duty finder, but even with the echo, there are one shot mechanics and it feels like it's a little difficult to clear it with the Duty finder. Any chance you'll add it to the raid finder?
A. Not at the moment. Midas isn't put in the Midas either. There is a limit on how much content you can put in the raid finder so we are prioritizing the EX primals because i expect more players to challenge EX primals.

Q. Will you consider it if there's a high demand?
A. I'd like to consider...but patch 3.5 will introduce the cross server party finder which will most likely change the situation, so it's a difficult subject. If we put too much cost into the raid finder, 3.5 will end up being delayed.

Q. Will the Cross server party finder only cover content in the raid finder?
A. Everything you can put up on the party finder will be covered (Guild hests!)

Q. So we'll be seeing the current party finder for each data center?
A. Yes. However, you can't be like "hey let's go to Aquapolis with people from other servers" , because the content has to be instanced for you to be able to cross the servers. (note: aquapolis is instanced, but the dragons skin maps take place in the open world so it's a no no)

Q. So it's only content that takes place in an instance. Well i guess if you were able to do content in the open world, that would mean you are transferiring over to another server.
A. That's right. That will require another level of server processing.

Q. Regarding the new warring triad. From what i saw in the trailer, Sophia Extreme seems to frequently use stage effects involging the balance. What sort of setting does this boss have?
A. I'd like you to see the scenario for yourself for the lore. It's a very tricky type of original boss and we put our effort into reproducing the balance part. The original Goddess was a character that had the balance as a symbolic feature, so we thought about how to bring in the concept of the balance into FFXIV and make it interesting, including the lore and mechanics. For us, this was a new challange. The concept of Sephirot was "Jump rope" and Sophia's concept is "brain training" ( brain training games were a trend in Japan 5 to 10 years ago)

Q. We have to use our brains? You mean calculating or a puzzle like mechanic?
A. It's brain training so once you solve it, you can move. It's made so if one of your 8 members can solve it, you'll be fine to go. This content is something where it cannot have mechanics that kills other party members when you make a mistake, so each individual skill will be tested.

Q. So it's going to have random mechanics you have to solve?
A. It's content where there is an appropriate answer and if you can solve that or not. When you first go in, you'll really have no idea. Just like escape games, it's made so if you solve one knot, the rest will be solved one by one, so some people will think it's easier than Nidhogg EX.

Q. What's the reward and item level?
A. It's a weapon. The item level is a secret. Like i said previously, you can use the raid finder the day it comes out. The duty finder won't have it listed so please be careful. All the EX primals will be like that. Thordan EX, Sephirot EX, Nidhogg EX will be the same.

Q. We are going to have new tomestones and all the equipment will be refreshed.
A. Yes, Sharlean themed equipment. So it'll have an essence of Alphinaud, Alisaie and Y'shtola's equipment incorporated.

Q. With all of this new equipment, there must be a lot of people with their retainers fully filled up. No plans on adding a book that can store and manage equipment?

A. The development task to expand the armoury chest and inventory has already stareted, but all i can say now is please through away what you don't need until that day comes (wry smile). I do understand how you feel...I'm the type of person who leaves the gear i like inside my armoury chest and my retainers are packed with equipment, but it becomes endless so i think you should hand the retainers what you really want to keep. Or throw them away or turn them into Grand company seals. The calamity salvager can hold seasonal items so i would like players to clean out their retainers at the end of the year.

Q. Talking about equipment, You're adding the gear Edda was wearing in the deep dungeon right?
A. We got a lot of feed back so we are considering getting our hands on that. That was specifically made for Edda and only for Edda's model, so we need to render it for all races.

Q. I was looking forward to see it as a reward for clearing floor 200.
A. That's too soon for us to make it in time. Basically, it takes 6 months of development time to create one piece of equipment for all races, including the time to design it.

Q. That's a lot of time
Q. I assume Men can wear it too?
A. No.. men can't wear that.

Q. Are you adding something different for men?
A. No. If we try to maintain that equity as a policy, we'll have to make most equipment unisex, and on top of that it'll require more development time and we'll have to cut the amount of total gear we can implement. At the moment we are working to get rid of the gender lock for bunny suits for men.

Q. So men and women are going to be able to equip it?
A.Yes. The NA community had an especially high demand so we thought we should do it. Our female staff is putting hard work into creating it.

Q. Will we see that gear in 3.4?
A. We wanted to prior others so it won't be 3.4 but it is in the works.

Q. I personally like "Aqua" so i'm really looking forward for the aquarium. The trailer showed a few types of aquariums, but do you have to fish them by yourself to put them in the aquarium?
A. Basically yes, but you can buy some one the market board.

Q. How many fish can we place inside the aquarium?
A. Patch 3.4 will introduce 20+. You might think that's not much, but if we waited until we got all the models ready, the implementation will get pushed back, so forgive us with these numbers for now. We will continue to add about 10 species per patch, so i'd like you to play around with what you have.

Q. Are there Big fish you can keep in the aquarium?
A. Yes there are. We would like feed back on " Give us this big fish first!" so we can prioritize the most popular. However, there are a lot of wierd Big fish, so i'm worried if we can put them in the aquarium (laughs).

Q. Please tell us about how the aquarium functions
A. The aquarium has a capacity limit. The smallest of all, the small sized fish takes up 1 capacity, the hugest Extra large (LL) sized fish will take up 7 capacity. If it's under 7 capacity, you can mix up any fish with different sizes. You can place multiple small sized fish from 3 different species, or just 1 Extra large fish or mix medium and large sized fish. There's a designated User interface for the Aquarium, but you cannot mix fish from fresh water and salt water. You need to click a switch to change it between fresh and salt water.

Q. The scenary changes?
A. There aren't a lot, but we have a couple of options you can choose for the interior and we'll continue to add them in the future.

Q. Can we put Jelly fish and Shrimps in there?
A. We don't have those this time, but we'll add it one day.

Q. When i see the fish in the aquarium, it makes me dream about having actual fish show up when we fish them instead of the ball of light.
A. We really can't do that. Please forgive us (laughs)

Q. Is it difficult?
A. It's not that we don't have the technology, but if we do that, the development time will be put into that, and we won't be able to add as much fish as we do now, meaning that the big fish people are waiting for will be delayed even further. FFXIV has realistic graphics so if we were to implement it, we would want the fish to show its face on the surface when you hook it, you'd want it to wobble around when you finally fish it and it would have to fit right in your hands and so on. For that animation, we would need fish with bones in it and build it all up carefully and we can't spend that much time on it.

Q.Which of the 20 fish do you like?
A. If i were to decorate my room, i'd choose the small aquarium and put 1 Small sized fish in it. To match my room, i'd put plenty of colorful fish in it, or put it in my personal room with lights to decorate it or actually put that huge aquarium in my small room and design my room around that. I'd like players to enjoy playing around with the aquarium in that fashion. With the ideal housing theme in everyone's minds, the amount of fish are still lacking but i think you'll feel the future potential of the variation the aquarium can offer.

Q. Any limitations on how many aquariums you can place?
A. One per room. Leaving a semi transparent shader in the middle of space in an MMORPG and allowing you to move it around is takes up a lot of resources. When we were debugging and move the aquarium, the water would leave the container and split with the aquarium and we had a hard time during development. The prettier the shader looks, the harder it is to move it in real time. The semitransparent processing for water is really difficult and after gradually working on it, we finally got to the point where we can implement it.
The previous bug i spoke about where the water would slowly follow the aquarium when you moved it was actually extremely beautiful so i said "Why don't we just implement it this way. Water can have days when it wants to wander about you know?(laughs)" and the QA team said No that can't be allowed!(laughs). So, with the burden on the processing in mind, we'll start with 1 aquarium per room. We do have the room to add multiple aquariums, but we are still scared what it will cause. It's impossible to verify its compatibility with all the other furniture in such a short period, so we are playing it safe to only implement 1 at the start, listen to the feed back and bug reports and if there aren't any critical bugs that pop up, we're okay with allowing players to place 2 more aquariums.

Q. As an Aquarist, i'd like to fill my room up with aquariums and fulfill my dream of having a room full of water tanks.
A. I think 2 to 3 will be the limit.

Q. Fishers are going to have a fun time this time, but is there a possibility you'll add features to decorate your room with plants or ores you gathered?
A. You are full of dreams (laughs). If we were to implement it, botanists would expand upon the flower pots and that direction. Regarding ore...I personally think decorating your room with a chunk of silver isn't that interesting, and putting adaman ore in your room won't be too bad as a joke, but we don't really have plans for it.

Q. There's something i was curious about asking, and you know how people on the internet occasionally say "There's nothing to do in FFXIV" and i think that's because FFXIV's end game has no character growth involved in it. I assume that's because those players into that sort of character growth may enjoy it, but new players will have a hard time catching up.
A. I consider "If there's some sort of character development, the players into that stuff will enjoy it" is a faulty expression. The current FFXIV allows you to reach the level cap at a comparatively fast pace and players who feel they are "released from the burden of leveling a job" won't be able to enjoy the game as much if there is some sort of element that requires you to spend time on building up your character before you do other content. FFXIV has a wide range of players who all have different tastes. It's not like everyone can keep their motivation to run towards a long term goal that is extremely far away to grow their character.

Q. So not having elements to "let your character grow" is intentional.
A. I feel like people who are saying there's nothing to do or they are bored, are people who prefer the "FFXI type" game where the game itself is like end content, where there are almost unlimited amount of elements to grow your character and keep building up. I do understand their feelings, but as a game that needs to fight on the global scale and this era makes it very difficult for use to choose that railway as an option.
The same applies to how, having elements like ice and fire on your weapon and equipment is rather meaningless with our game design. If the game system has elements as a huge factor and let's say you face a boss who is weak against a certain element. Those who don't have the actions or weapons that are effective will need to start back from re-learning a certain move or go get that fire weapon that melts the boss. That being said, this is actually really fun if you get into it. You feel like you're getting stronger as you work hard for it and you feel more satisfaction after beating that boss with your new weapon. However, you need to put in a lot of time before you fight this single boss and if the next patch adds a boss with a different weakness, you have to start from scratch and learn another move and go get that weapon that the boss is weak against.
If this continues to go on, there will be a moment where you lose focus and at one point you collapse. That sort of game system is highly addictive with fear and uplift alongside each other with the merit where it's harder to get bored because it forces you to continue spending most of your time. But, people nowadays don't have that time anymore. If FFXIV had that old school type system, with how busy i am now, i wouldn't be able to play the game. I'm not saying it's outdated, and the coming era might prefer those types of games and they still have a potential to succeed by changing the business scheme, but like i said before, it just doesn't fit FFXIV.
That doesn't mean we aren't doing anything. Like the Zodiac weapons and anima weapons, we'd like to implement a "time to win" type route, but that will not be the pillar of the game, not in FFXIV at least. This is just an imagination, but 10 years into the future we might shift into a team consisted of members who all truly love FFXIV and we might take our risk to release an expansion with that kind of character development involved in it, but at the moment it's impossible.

Q. So you're saying, not all the current players want a strong character build element in the game.
A. Even if we did change our policy, starting with new players having a hard time getting into the game, a majority of the current players will also be like "I was only able to keep playing because of the current system!" and the problem is, those people don't raise their voices and log in normally or just fade out after getting bored of the game. We need to watch out for those players with no voices. With the feed back, data from the logs, the duration of subs for each player in mind, it's a part of my job to balance the demand of the player base. You can't run an MMO with just "esthesiography", so it's like studying everyday and i'm always being sandwiched by both sides. I personally have an interest in trying out various things, but that by itself will just be my ego.
Back when we realeased "A Realm Reborn", it was a one shot deal so i looked at the market and situation then designed the game to revive FFXIV, but even now, it's not like i can just make 100% of what i'd like to design in this world of FFXIV, so i'm looking at the balance in between.
Not having an endless element to build on your character is intentional and it's designed so you build up your item level instead. You don't obtain that by gaining experience points. You can clear content, take one step at a time to gradually get stronger, or skilled players can challenge harder content to run in front of everyone else. After reaching as far as you can go, it's true there might be nothing for you to do. In that case you can play a different job, craft or gather or play other games while you wait for the next patch which is no problem at all. We have kept that stance from the beginning and it's the core of FFXIV, so have no intentions of changing that in the future. Of course, we do understand you will get bored of refreshing your item level at one point, but no matter what sort of game desing you choose, you'll eventually get bored. I personally want to present a speech on this topic if i have the opportunity because it's such a deep subject, but today i'll finish it here.
For further development of the game, we are okay with adding totally new attractions such as using a huge area to explore or creating an area where you get one shotted unless you take the enemies out one by one, even if you have the best gear, but we aren't in the stages to place this in the center as the core of the game.

Q. During the 14 hour broadcast, you said you wanted to create an unexplored zone. Is that what you're referring to?
A. It's still just an initial idea, but we do talk about wanting to have something like that. FFXIV is designed each job has a certain amount of capabilities to do mostly anything with 1 job, so an 8 man party is actually really strong, meaning that it's difficult creating monsters that trouble an 8 man party. So the base ends up being mechanically heavy. Placing a monster who hits like a truck and has a lot of HP is questionable for something that is fun.
At the moment we are slowly experimenting with the exploratory missions to observe how players move about and we are piling up experience on whether or not it fits the FFXIV system. We do have conversations about how we want to do something that is a compilation of all of what we experimented with.

Q. We'd like to hear your closing thoughts and your message to players looking forward for patch 3.4
A. Patch 3.4 will finally drop on the 27th of September (JP). Keeping in mind to fill up the blank we had between 3.0 and 3.1, we got back on the usual pace and i think we were able to include more content in all directions. An even patch introduces a new raid and the item level going up tends to be the main focus, so those people who don't raid might feel "Not much for us to do.." but we added the crafters' gear in 3.3 so i'm sure everyone is ready to craft a mountain full of gear we are adding. The crafters and gatherers will probably throw away battle content and be busy staring at the market board, new materials and new recipes. 3.4 will be a fun patch for crafters and gatherers to consider what to craft and gather first. The new craftable items include weapons and these weapons are truly strong so the demand from raiders should be extremely high. Gatherers and crafters, it's your chance to shine.
With the implementation of apartments, the personal demands for housing will be 100% met. Each ward has 1 apartment with 90 rooms, and we are ready to increase the number of rooms whenever we want. We designed it so 1 ward can have over 500 rooms per apartment, so it will definitely be able to cover every player. Players who already own a house can buy an apartment. We also have a chocobo stable per apartment so players who didn't have a house to feed and change the color wii be able to now. Sophia is a little easier than the usual EX primals. Since we have the raid coming out at the same time, we tuned Sophia into content where people can enjoy it together. I couldn't talk about platoons because we ran out of time, but it's content you can take your time to play solo. Updates to platoons won't end here and we'd like to allow players to take them into dungeons and keep expanding it. Apart from the main scenario, we have various challenges, QL changes like resetting your cooldowns and being able to auto attack 360 degrees around you. We hope you enjoy the game again.