Last Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida says a “main change” is required in what he calls the sport’s “content material hierarchy”.
Talking to JP Video games, Yoshida stated that in latest instances he’s felt the sport wants a notable shakeup in the way in which new content material is introduced to the participant, as a result of not all gamers are participating with every new wave of content material.
“I believe that there must be a restructure about how we method the content material hierarchy in sport design, as a result of content material hierarchy is part of the sport’s design,” Yoshida stated (by way of translation).
“I began to really feel lately notably that the way in which that issues are structured in Last Fantasy 14 now not matches the gamers‘ preferences, and that is one thing that I began to really feel after we entered this yr.
“And so I felt that now we’re at a time the place we have to incorporate a significant change within the content material hierarchy and likewise the sport’s design, and that is restricted not simply to expansions, however to the general improvement of Last Fantasy 14.”
He added: “After we take a look at the content material hierarchy, we really feel that it has labored properly because it was up till now. It has been employed proper again from the Time of A Realm Reborn till Patch 7.2 and it has all the time labored properly till now.
“However now I really feel we have to advance extra, change the content material hierarchy but additionally change the design itself inside stated hierarchy. It has labored properly up to now 12 years, however now we really feel from our perspective it wants change and we’re enthusiastic about that change and the prospects of adjusting it for the way forward for the sport.”
When requested to elaborate on this, Yoshida defined that from the developer’s viewpoint, the sport’s content material is split into ‘hardcore’, ‘mid-core’ and ‘informal’ classes, and within the 12 years the sport’s been lively the staff has been aiming new content material at these teams of gamers.
Nevertheless, he says the issue with this has grow to be that with every new content material drop, solely sure parts are fascinating to every group, whereas sooner or later the plan is to guarantee that all the brand new content material launched will likely be of use to all gamers no matter their degree of expertise with the sport.
“If we continued to observe this [existing] coverage… from [the casual player’s] perspective, regardless that [hardcore content] is carried out within the sport, it’s nearly the identical as being non-existent to them. And on the flip aspect, from a hardcore participant’s perspective, [the casual content] can be non-existent.
“However we are saying to them: ‘Hey, look! Have a look at how a lot content material you’ve acquired to play!’ So, this coverage we had went properly, however I may say that it went too properly, as a result of now we’ve created a lot new content material that the gamers are telling us: ‘Oh ,properly, this content material has nothing to do with me. I don’t care.’”
“So, what I wish to say is that, after all, for the highest tier of gamers, we all know that content material tailor-made in direction of them is required, and we’ll proceed to provide that content material. And on the opposite aspect of the spectrum, for the actually informal gamers, we additionally perceive that that content material can be wanted, and we’ll proceed to provide that. So, we’ll proceed to tailor content material for each ends of the spectrum.
“What we’re attempting to do now could be to alter the design in order that now we have content material which might be loved by everybody, so from [the hardcore player’s] perspective there can be 5 forms of content material, and for [the casual player’s] perspective there’s additionally 5 sorts.”
Yoshida stated the step on this new shift in technique will likely be seen in patch 7.35, which is but to have a launch date (patch 7.31 was launched on Tuesday). “I’d actually admire it if gamers may take the chance to play that content material, and I’d love to listen to their suggestions,” he stated.
“It could be nice to listen to whether or not they thought it was enjoyable or not, or whether or not they have any particular suggestions about issues they need modified. This new content material that will likely be coming within the patch is known as Pilgrim’s Traverse, so I’d actually love if gamers do test it out and let me know their ideas.”
