Yoshi-P wants to 'spice up' Final Fantasy XIV's battles

Square Enix's Creative Business Unit III lays out what the next 10 years of Final Fantasy XIV will look like, and more intense and thrilling battles are a big part of the plans.

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A bit ago, Square Enix confirmed that FFXIV would last at least another decade. The MMORPG has grown to 30 million registered users and is big consistent contributor to the publisher's earnings. It's definitely a cash crop, but the team has to keep innovating, iterating, and evolving the game over time to keep players interested.

At PAX East 2024, game director Yoshi-P outlined what gamers can expect from Final Fantasy XIV moving forward into the new Dawntrail expansion and beyond. A big goal is to keep combat fresh, exciting, and generally fun. Right now, depending on class and the role, combat is typically a rotation of spells and abilities that need to be carried out in specific sequences. According to Yoshi-P, this is a bit rote and he wants to spice things up.

• Read more: Final Fantasy XIV will eventually be playable on all gaming platforms
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• Read more: Sony loosens PS4 OS rules for Final Fantasy XIV, but the MMORPG may be forced to drop PS4 soon

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The plan for FFXIV moving forward.

Below we have a transcription of what Naoki Yoshi-P Yoshida said at PAX:

In terms of battle mechanics, they tend to be very similar content to content. Some people may feel that it's very repetitive. For some players, like me, I kind of get sleepy because it's so repetitive.

We rarely fall asleep when we play games and we're really into it. I'm trying to see if I can spice it up a little and bring the excitement back.

That said, I do want to advise you, when I talk about something like this, I know some people might get a knee-jerk reaction of 'oh no, Yoshida is going to make everything difficult again!'

For the most part we're not trying to trouble people. We're trying not to make your lives difficult, it's just we want to bring a little bit more uniqueness, something that is new and original into these battles. So rest assured.

We want to encourage players to figure things out and build their own strategies and talk to each other and their party to strategize.

We would love to take challenges, I would like for my developers to be able to take on challenges and take risks in creating their content. Of course, we may screw up, we may have a misstep, we might be up here apologizing.

But we don't want things to be mundane, we want you guys to be excited as you play Final Fantasy XIV.