Yoshi-P “Regrets” Making Final Fantasy XIV Too Comfortable

Final Fantasy XIV players who have been less than thrilled with some of the gameplay choices made for the MMORPG's Endwalker expansion and its patches will be happy to know that Yoshi-P feels the same.

According to a joint interview he and WFS Production Head Shoohiro Shimoda did with Famitsu, he “regrets” making the game “more comfortable”. In that, he means that it can be played more or less stress-free.

Naoki Yoshida brought up the topic (translated and shared on Reddit by MKlby1998) himself following a bit of discussion about how impressive Tokyo Fan Fest has become. Promising that the team would “keep working to surprise players” he then went on to add that the topic reminded him of something he regrets, saying, “As we’ve continued to operate Final Fantasy XIV, we’ve made the game more comfortable, a game you can play without stress.” He then notes that looking back, he’s “thinking [they’ve] overdone that a bit.”

He expanded on this saying that a game should have some stress, but getting it right can be difficult. As an example, he noted that removing holes that people can fall down in side-scrolling games if they miss a jump would remove stress, but it would also remove the fun of playing the game. That’s what he wants to bring back, the challenge of playing.

This has been a complaint among a lot of players – particularly those who have been around a while and aren’t playing catch-up on old content. For those who are new and trying to hit all those milestones, it’s not quite as big of a deal, but the fact remains that once you get through the story content and into the patch content, things have been simplified. One of the big examples given – and Mr. Happy discusses this in the video below – is the current relic weapon grind. It isn’t really much of a grind. Just go do some dailies or other general content to get your tomes. It’s a big difference between that and doing Eureka or Bozja.

It’s good news for players that they’re looking to give more of a challenge and therefore a reason to log into the game more often.

During the interview, Yoshi-P also revealed that if he has the opportunity to work on another major title in the future, he plans on being the Director. If you’re wondering if his age will get in the way, he noted that he’s over 50 now but still snowboarding and that there’s so much he can do that he’s not going to put limits on himself.

Another interesting topic that came up during the interview is his philosophy as a boss. This part wasn’t translated, so I used auto translate for it, but it’s fairly simple. He talks about thanking those working under him as part of a way to encourage them. He also discusses earning the players’ trust. He and Shimoda also discuss their time working together in the past. The full interview can be found on the Famitsu site.