Final Fantasy 14 Will Have “More Original Jobs” After Dawntrail, Says Yoshi-P

This article is based on play of an in-development build of Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail, and content in the final version is subject to change.

Most Final Fantasy 14 players have painful memories of encountering bosses for the first time, then promptly eating dirt when faced with mechanics or abilities they’re unfamiliar with. It’s a rite of passage we go through with every new expansion or large update, and so, unsurprisingly, during my time in the hands-on preview of Dawntrail, I died numerous times when up against things I’ve never seen before. I couldn’t help but wonder whether producer and director Naoki Yoshida had to suffer in the same way.

My first look at Dawntrail featured the new Ihyuykatumu dungeon, so using this example to explain their current workflow, Yoshida tells me the team first plans out the activity’s structure, splitting it into different phases of locations and bosses. At this stage of development, final mechanics are undecided. The team finishes its first build six months after the flow of the story and dungeon design has been decided upon and approved. Only then does Yoshida do a “rough check” of the dungeon with a party of four.

Part of the test run includes checking for graphical issues, such as Yoshida giving the team feedback on camera positioning if the angles do or don’t work well in certain areas or scenes, and giving critique on transitions from one dungeon phase to another.

“We would be looking for things like maybe certain mechanics are too difficult for the player to understand, or maybe they might be too unfair for the players. We finish one boss fight and then think about what could be addressed with the mechanics, and then I would provide the feedback for that. We do that for each of the three bosses.”

Once feedback has been actioned and numerical figures have been locked in, the team does another run. Yoshida, having already done one playthrough of the dungeon, represents the “hardcore player base”, while the three remaining party members represent casual players. To achieve this, Yoshida explains that “one absolute requirement is that they have to use a job which they don’t usually play”.

The workflow for things like eight-person raids and trials varies, with Yoshida explaining, “For trials, the boss concept would be worked on, an order would be given for the boss concept, and then the first thing that would be locked in would be the artwork. After the trial has been prepared, I would go completely with a blind playthrough so I wouldn’t know the mechanics.”

So the short answer is yes, Yoshida has to suffer through learning mechanics the hard way just like the rest of us. Misery loves company, so that’s comforting to hear. Yoshida tells me it would take hours to explain the workflow of all the duties in-game and how much he knows going in to test each one, but one day we might get the full answer as he tells me my question has given him an idea for a future dev panel.

As well as the new dungeon, Dawntrail is set to introduce two new DPS jobs: Viper and Pictomancer. Yoshida explains that, when it comes to adding new jobs, the team first decides which role that job would fit into — healer, DPS, or tank — and that there are two key points that must be taken into account. “The first one is that it would have different mechanics from the existing jobs so that it would have a unique playing experience. The second point is that, as an MMORPG, it’s fun to play when playing in multiplayer content. Of course there are a lot of jobs from the existing franchise that are very unique. However, the second requirement of having that job be suitable [for MMO gameplay] is extremely important.”

Yoshida tells us that though the franchise has many great jobs to draw inspiration from, there aren’t many left that manage to fulfil the second requirement. He tells me that the team had previously considered Time Mage for FF14, but decided it wouldn’t have worked. “The Time Mage is known for using time-related abilities such as haste to speed up the party or to stop time. All of the abilities related to the Time Mage were designed to be fun to play using active time battles.

Another factor when adding new jobs is deciding which weapons they will have. With the launch of Dawntrail, there will be 21 jobs in total, so the team is now limited when it comes to choice, with Yoshida joking, “We already have most weapons in the game, so maybe a morningstar?” He says they also contemplated a whip, but as each weapon requires numerous designs as players receive new weapons from different content all the time, they need a weapon that is structured in a way that makes it easy to provide lots of unique designs for.

“In Endwalker, we implemented the Sage, but I remember that we had gone through many different ideas about which weapon to use,” Yoshida tells me. “The worst idea was just holding a huge orb and fighting with that. I thought we could not possibly implement that.”

From Shadowbringers onwards, the team focused on content for more casual players and introduced new ways to play solo, such as Duty Support and the Trust system. Yoshida explains that his concept was to focus on people who didn’t like MMORPGs or were worried about playing them, and that by introducing these new ways to make the game accessible, they might “gradually understand the appeal of MMOs”.

As Endwalker represented “a finale of sorts”, Yoshida decided that with the launch of Dawntrail, it would be time for the game to refocus more on multiplayer content and by rejuvenating the game with fresh battle content and boss mechanics, telling us that the team approached these new ideas with the mindset to “not be afraid of failure”. He says there are four main points the team is bringing in Dawntrail to fulfil this: refined multiplayer gameplay, more large-scale duties, more fulfilling gaming experiences, and improved rewards, with the latter two objectives carrying on through the 7.X patch series and rewards being increased by 1.5x by the time 7.3 launches.

Yoshida acknowledges that the team hasn’t added any further tutorial systems since the Hall of the Novice and tells me that perhaps a training system could be provided, such as something to explain skill rotations once players reach the level cap. He doesn’t want to keep adding tutorials though, as “it feels almost like you’re in school”.

For all the new Dawntrail duties, jobs, storylines, and characters, there is something that always persists in the game regardless of the changing content: the community. Sometimes I play with other journos and PR, and we get together simply to play hide and seek on Island Sanctuary. I asked Yoshida if he ever does something silly like this outside the intent of what the game offers.

“On our development team, I would say about 85-90 percent are Warriors of Light themselves and they hide their real identity,” he tells me. “I think they’re probably joining in on these kinds of weird forms of playing with everyone in the community. Amongst those people, I’m included. A lot of people have been playing together with me and they don’t even realize it. I might even be on their friend’s list and they don’t know about it. Seeing the people in the community play in FF14 outside the intended schemes or mechanics, I think more so than when we release an expansion, we are super excited to see that kind of thing.”

Yoshida added one final, bittersweet point about playing incognito with fans, “I have one unfortunate piece of information to share. As I mentioned, I have so many friends in-game, but when they all say, ‘Oh, let’s go for dinner’, I cannot join them, and that makes me sad. I can’t even voice chat with them.”

I’m sure many of you are now wondering whether that one person on your Friend List who always declines to voice chat and meet up is Yoshida, so at least you have something to obsess over for the next few weeks while we wait for Dawntrail’s launch on July 2 (or Early Access on June 28 for us eager beavers).

This article is based on play of an in-development build of Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail, and content in the final version is subject to change.

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