FF14 producer says action buttons are at their limit on Endwalker

What Final Fantasy 14 Online grows through more expansions and updates, the job and class system becomes more crowded. With each expansion comes a level increase, and with that comes new abilities and passive abilities, which means more buttons to press. The next Endwalker The expansion, due out in November, is no exception.

After having the opportunity to play a special version of Endwalker, we were able to discuss these issues with the game’s producer, Naoki Yoshida, in a short question and answer session. Fresh off the playtest, we had questions about the skill changes we noticed.

In particular, some jobs are really pushing the limits with the number of action buttons on the quick access bars. When switching to Astrologian for the first time in the preview version, the default key orientation filled three shortcut bars completely. (The preview version also included the buttons for Limit Break and Sprint with the default orientation.) Scholar and some other jobs also had quick access bars that didn’t fill up but came close.

“On Stormblood, we were seeing different icons or buttons that you are controlling to perform these actions, ”Yoshida told Polygon through a translator. “Among the team, we determined that there is an upper limit to how many buttons can be assigned to the Quick Access Bar. Whenever we consider the different abilities we add, we try to distribute them evenly, to fit within that limit. I feel like we’re at that limit right now. ”

Yoshida went on to point out the difficulty of designing healers on DPS with quick access bars in mind. He noted that DPS skills tend to evolve and improve as they level up, and since new skills will replace old ones, you don’t have to deal with button bloat for these jobs.

“This is a very difficult line to follow safely,” Yoshida said. “But for the healer, there is no particular combined route, per se. Actions are much simpler or one-time, so it inevitably adds more actions every time we try to add new items, making it challenging when trying to work on the healer jobs. “

Image: Square Enix via Polygon

While many of the tweaks and numbers that we were able to play with were previously confirmed in the latest version Live letter from producer broadcast, there were tons of changes that were not announced, such as shorter launch times and power changes. However, Yoshida cautioned that many of the skill potency changes we were seeing in the build were not final and subject to change. The first thing that immediately caught our attention was how the magic DPS cast times were slightly changed. Yoshida confirmed that the magic DPS release times, along with previously announced changes for healers, were intentionally changed.

Graphic: Julia Lee / Polygon | Images: Square Enix

“For DPS magic, there are certain newly acquired abilities, like a hobbyist or things like that. The intention behind that is to try not to spoil the rhythm. We don’t want it to drag while they’re pitching, ”Yoshida said. “That said, we don’t want to have a case where casters are using powerful spells quickly and frequently. So we had to make adjustments to the amount of damage it would do at the same time. We are very aware of the balance we are achieving, but we also want to enhance the playful feel of each individual job. “

He went on to explain that one of Black Mage’s new abilities, Paradox, is an improved version of Fire. Paradox replaces Fire in the hotbar once you unlock it, thus placing itself in Black Mage’s rotation as a replacement for Fire. Paradox originally had a longer cast time and dealt more damage, but it was changed to match Fire’s cast time, so players wouldn’t get lost in their rotation. To compensate for this, the power of the spell had to be lowered.

You can see all of Summoner’s skill changes in the video below, courtesy of Larryzaur, with the rest of Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker job changes available to view in a playlist.

Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker It will launch on November 23, with early access for players who pre-order the expansion starting on November 19.