Imagine what goes through yoshiP's head seeing zepla having fun... In gpose.

The comments about figuring it out as they go remind me of Breaking Bad. Vince Gilligan has openly talked about how much they figured out as they went, or how they planted seeds early that they had no idea what the payoff would actually be at the time. The notion that a long-running story has to be thought out entirely from the start for it to be good is a misconception.

Saying "We were winging it the whole time," is probably the best thing that they could say after the first narrative arc is already over, which may satisfy doubters (edit: not daughters) that think that they may not be able to do it again.

Please, PLEASE! Better and well-designed gear. I see all the time people with zero clue about the materia priority for their gear, and I don’t blame them. In fact, all pieces of gear are so generic; there are no ‘BUILDS’. We don’t even know about the stats. For example, I don’t know what the Crit Rate of my SAM is and what Crit Hit has to do with it. I don’t know how much Piety is enough for WHM, nor Tenacity for a Tank job. ‘Direct hit’ affects direct hit chance, but again, what’s the chance? We need numbers. I have a piece of gear that has ‘+4 Poison Resistance’ (Butcher's Crown). Is that a joke? Is it outdated? Blue Mage has a skill that gives you 20% Evasion, but how is that calculated? So in the end, all players have the SAME gear, and the only thing that matters is skill rotation, which is the same too! I don’t know if there are more people who feel the same way about this stuff, but at this point, all players seem to be coming from a mass production factory of WoLs.

this guy took every idea he and his friends came up with during lunch in gradeschool and ran with it. Love it.

I read “narrative construction” as “building a narrative foundation.”

One thing that I hope is done better now that we are in a new beginning, is creating an actual world. The content was fun in FFXIV but I never felt a reason to be out in the world itself, and quests were often just go into a circle and kill a few mobs, move on. I want to explore more.

Endwalker started well but everything after the beginning was uneventful.

Honestly, I’m worried about what will happen if player feedback determines too much of the narrative of this next arc. At least in the English-speaking side of the fanbase (which is the only part I’ve personally experienced) it seems like the most vocal fans only react positively to the heaviest and most high-stakes parts of the story, like Shadowbringers and Endwalker, and can’t stomach anything lighthearted and less serious. If the story becomes one universe-shattering crisis after another, as many people seem to want it to be, it’ll become flat and boring.

To be fair, the Manderville quest was actually very long. The length just depended on if you did any of the previous chapters. Being one of the ones who did the whole quest by the time they came out with the weapons, I understand how it could feel short. But I also had a bunch of friends who had to slog through the whole thing from the start and they did not enjoy it. It's just hard to find that perfect balance of work vs reward. Too long and people will give up, too short and it feels lazy.

7:25

Someone please make a meme of Yoshi looking down at you in an examining way

I will say when it comes to relics, Yoshi P has a good point about the fact there’s a lot of jobs now. I think there needs to be a balance on how much grind something like relics are because if they’re not planning to stop adding jobs anytime soon, it’s going to get more and more time consuming to max them out- especially for new players starting from square one. I hope they figure out a satisfying middle ground.

I definitely developed some form of psychosis going for Saint of the Firmament.

"We connected the dots as we went along" is to me the most honest response to give when talking about any serialized story. Like, people love saying "wow Oda thought about that so much in advance" when it comes to One Piece but the most likely explanation is more that writers in these conditions look back and see what unexplored stuff they could bring back and expand on.

Thanks for going through all these interviews and putting this summary together for us! It's much appreciated ❤

Cant wait for Dawntrail! Love all the videos Zep! Appreciate your hard work!

Thank you for relaying the translation of all of this. I wouldn't have heard or read about this if one of the few FFXIV content creators that I watch hadn't covered it like this.

There's such a world of difference for me between removing points of friction or improving clarity/readability vs increasing difficulty. Adding AOE markers and tank buster indicators instead of forcing players to read and memorize ability names in the cast bar is not dumbing down content or making it easier; it's removing points of friction. Higher level content should be puzzles that need to be solved over time, but lower level content like story dungeons, players should be able to clear on their first run by sight-reading the mechanics and executing them competently.

With my own planet I can live out my dream of being a Mormon.