'I want to incorporate more changes, I don't want to take a conservative approach': Final Fantasy 14 game director Yoshi-P expresses a desire to shake things up in the future

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail has arrived to a bit of a mixed reception, thanks to a middling story that has a few glaring flaws and—despite some excellent improvements when it comes to bosses and dungeons—a few persistent issues that, from what I've seen from more critical elements of the community, are frustrating because of how long they've been going on.

There's a perception I've picked up on that, if we're taking the long-view, FF14 is mechanically stuck in a rut—while direct competitors like World of Warcraft are heaping on new experimental mechanics like the Warbands system and doing harebrained modes like MoP Remix, not much has changed on Etheirys.

Questing has remained largely the same for years: Go here, click on two objects, fight an enemy that takes half of your opener before it explodes—and while Dawntrail did have a few good solo duties, they were few and far enough between to make things drag. Patch cadence and content has remained largely the same. Open-world FATEs, aside from getting an optional grind in the Shared Fate system, mostly involve melting the same unthreatening monsters down with area of effect spells.

FF14, simply put, innovates pretty slowly. That's not to say we haven't had new ideas come into the ecosystem, but they also had their own share of issues—Island Sanctuaries were cute at first, but wound up becoming a largely passive spreadsheet simulator. Variant Dungeons, meanwhile, were a ton of fun to play the first go around, but they suffered due to poor reward structures.

I sat down and spoke with the game's director, Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P) during Gamescom, and while we talked about the story's overall reception, and what to do with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, something he said towards the tail-end of our interview also surprised me: It looks like Yoshi-P really does want to shake things up.

«Yes, when it came to the previous Hydaelin and Zodiark saga, this was something that started before I took charge of project on Final