While the Berlin FanFest keynote has given plenty for players to speculate on, some burning questions just can’t wait until Tokyo. Following day one of FanFest, lead producer Yoshi-P sat down with members of the press to answer their questions directly. Here are some of the highlights on Evercold’s future content, sourced from Gamer Escape.
Evercold’s Visual Identity: No Snow?
Despite the expansion name, Yoshida said that ice and snow weren’t the primary focus when designing the new zones for Evercold.
“This is something that applies not only to Evercold, but whenever we approach developing a new expansion- and when we’re thinking about developing new areas, we want to create something that all of our players have never been before. Something that they wouldn’t even imagine.
We want to think up areas that we ourselves haven’t really experienced or seen before either. So when we go through that process, we really want to have a good think about what kind of scenery there is, what kind of culture there is, and what kind of daily lives we can experience that are really refreshing, and something completely new.“
Moreso than an arctic tundra, Yoshida said Norse mythology was a primary source of inspiration for Evercold’s new zones. Norse myth has a variety of worlds free of snow, such as Muspelheim, the realm of the fire giants. It’s easy to draw a connection to that and the new area showcased at FanFest, Hringhorni.
Yoshida also assured the staff they do make the effort to sperate the visual language of similar areas. In this case, Garlemald and the Fourth.
“Whenever we create new areas, sometimes we do end up with a similar aesthetic. So there are sometimes when we create these new areas and we think, ‘Hmm, yeah, it does look a bit like Garlemald. Maybe we need to look to a slightly different direction.’“
Is Better Housing on the Way?
The addition of free player housing in World of Warcraft: Midnight resurfaced a common complaint amongst FFXIV players. In-game housing not only costs a fair bit of gil, but there are the issues of auto-demolition and the UI. For those frustrated by XIV’s housing, Yoshi-P says there’s reason to look forward to Evercold, with two particular updates on the way.
“The first one of those updates involves the UI. I do appreciate that right now, the UI in FFXIV is quite technical, and it’s not very accessible. So what we want to do is to have a major overhaul of that UI so that it is more accessible for casual players so that they can easily create elaborate housing layouts.
As for the second major update that we have planned, unfortunately I’m not able to provide any details right now, but I think you’ll probably be much happier to hear about what it is compared to the UI update. It’s currently in the planning process right now on our end. There is a higher chance that it will get released earlier than the UI update. Once we have a better idea of when we can provide this update, we will announce further details.“
Of course having played WoW himself, Yoshida said he was very impressed with the game’s housing — especially given Blizzard’s dev team said they hoped to exceed XIV’s housing system. Hopefully this is one case where competition makes things better for both games.
More About Bastion, and Off Tanking Concerns
Many players are eager to know more about Bastion after a basic overview of the job given at Berlin FanFest. As the second main tank in the game, comparisons with Paladin are to be expected. Both jobs seem similar, in that they’re both main tanks that can easily swap to a ranged combo. Yoshi-P helped clarified some of the things Bastion does differently.
“I did mention this in the keynote presentation as well, but one of the key appeal points of Bastion is that in its toolkit, it does have a good recovery and guard ability as well. So as a main tank, you can instantly apply those effects to a party member, but the key thing about Bastion is that you can also do it at a timing of your liking. You can look to what the boss is going to do and, based on the boss’s timeline, decide when would be the most optimal time to apply that recovery or guarding ability for your party members. So I think that’s a key point.”
Some concerns have been raised about what exactly off-tanking will be like in Evercold. Yoshida clarified that the distinction between main and off tank is only for evolved mode. There will be no difference in reborn mode. He also said the main and off tank roles will only really be relevant in high-end content such as Savage and Ultimate Raids.
“…I don’t think that there’s any kind of preparation you need to do in advance. The reason being is that this new system that we’re introducing is going to start in 8.0 and the only kind of real situations where you need main tank and off tank is really in higher end content. So starting from Savage or higher difficulty content. So in those kinds of raids, it would be great if you could experience those new battles. By going through those new battles as well, we learn to make mechanics for the content. So I do hope that first, you’ll just play as usual, and then provide your feedback, and talk amongst yourselves as well.”
What Content is the Most Challenging to Make
Aside from the new systems, Evercold is introducing two major franchises to the game: Final Fantasy VII and Evangelion. As far Japanese media is concerned, those two names are easily in the top ten of most recognizable media series. And developing content for them in XIV has proven to be something of a challenge.
“For both of these raids, we’ve placed a lot of importance on the story, and we’ve really worked hard to ensure that the story will be engaging for players. But also we’ve equally put a lot of attention and effort into the boss battles as well.
In particular, this applies more to Evangelion, but because Evangelion is such a different world, we’ve really approached how do we fuse these two completely different worlds together and form a cohesive story with it? I think this is a very big challenge that we’ve been taking on. We are working very closely with Kara, Inc, and it’s been a lot of fun working together with them, but equally, I think it’s also been a very big challenge, and we are really enjoying it.”
Aside from the raid series, the “World Raids” teased at FanFest have also proven to be a unique challenge. But Yoshida expressed confidence in Mr. Ozma, the designer leading the project, based on his development of Beastmaster and Eureka.
Kweh! Chocobo Updates and Improving XIV
While updates to players’ Chocobo companions may seem out of the blue, it’s not. The same process is part of a larger picture about improving every aspect about XIV. Yoshida and his team solicited feedback from every stakeholder who worked on XIV: the current dev team, former devs, marketing, operations, etc. Asking them what they would change about XIV, Yoshida’s team consolidated the feedback and developed an implementation timeline. The Chocobo update just happens to line-up with the launch of Evercold.
“So when you look at the PR campaign for 8.0, you might be thinking that we’re just focusing on the 8.x series, but what we really want to do is also look at FFXIV as a whole and see what kind of evolution we can incorporate into Final Fantasy FFXIV. So this includes the 8.x series, as I already announced some big things coming in 8.1 and 8.2, but what we want to do is to further evolve the game moving forward as well and continually providing those big updates. And this would happen right up to the run up to 9.0, but we wouldn’t stop just there. We would still want to continue evolving again further.“
The New Player Experience: Getting from ARR to Evercold
With a free trial stretching all the way to Shadowbringers, it’s no secret FFXIV has a lot of story content. For some players, that can be a massive time sink just to get to the latest expansion. That issue is well in CBU3’s mind, and two new updates are in the works to address it.
“…I do appreciate that back at the time of A Realm Reborn, I had previously said that I do want players to enjoy the story. So I would like them to have a fresh experience right from A Realm Reborn. But now that we are at this point, we have begun thinking about accommodating these kinds of requests. And I think from the two things that I have hinted at here, one of them at least you might be able to know more about at the Tokyo Fan Fest… but I think you can think positively about it.”
Breaking Canon with Updated Player Appearances
One of the big features teased for XIV’s future is updated customization for player characters, to rather liberal degrees. Why did it take so long to allow this level of customization?
Yoshida said he and the rest of the development team wanted to preserve the accuracy of the world and its lore by restricting customization across different character races. But as XIV heads into its sixth major expansion, he says his view has changed.
“So, in Final Fantasy XIV, we have the Miqo’te, and as announced, in Patch 8.1 there will be the option to remove the makeup or switch it off. But as a player myself, if I’m playing with a Miqo’te, I would personally not turn it off. The reason being is that I love the lore behind Final Fantasy XIV, and the unique characteristics of each race. But when it comes to the question of following that lore and being really loyal to that lore, I think it’s not really a question of good or bad, but now I begin to think that it’s more a question of how particular you are about that aspect, and that’s more tied into roleplaying.
We have millions of players, and even if there was just one player who was really particular about that, and they would lose that option to have that design in the way that they prefer… I thought this wasn’t really the direction that we want to take, but rather we want to give the choice to players. So for those players who are really particular about how they want to present their characters, then we can provide that choice to them, so now they have that option and that formed the basis of this approach that I’m taking.”
That wraps up the major points from Yoshi-P’s Q&A. We’ll be looking forward to his next Q&A when FanFest Tokyo happens later this year.
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