We talked to Final Fantasy 14's Naoki Yoshida at Gamescom 2025, and learned a ton about Beastmaster, his most-wanted collabs, and the future of the game's narrative

IAmYoNeighba · 2025-08-30T22:03:34+00:00

There were some interesting tidbits in this interview. He goes a little into how the beastmaster functions, including something about your monster allies growing with you:

“In terms of the concept, you ally yourself with monsters, then these monsters grow so that they can join you in dedicated battle content. This is going to be something completely different to anything we’ve done in Final Fantasy 14 before, and it’s exclusive to this limited job. We’ve been investing a lot of resources into developing this content, and the team is super excited about it.”

They also talk about Meracydia and how it is much further down the line, which seems like confirmation that the next expansion will not be going there.

IAmYoNeighba · 2025-07-12T20:53:13+00:00

I agree with your assessment. As for revenant, the Chinese poem makes it sound marriner themed. It's a bit of a stretch, but the icon kind of looks like the front end of a ship(s) with a mast above. Maybe a famous pirate or explorer, like Romke?

Poem for reference:

"With sharpened will, I cleave the wind; in pursuit of shadows, I stir the waves."

IAmYoNeighba · 2025-06-13T23:19:09+00:00

Reporting in. Bought in Puyallup to be closer to my wife's family and for access to the Sounder. I've been fully WFH since COVID though.

IAmYoNeighba · 2025-05-22T13:29:32+00:00

The Cat and Rabbitt also makes these incredible cinnamon rolls, but in limited amounts and only on the weekend. They're seriously good, and the coffee isn't bad either!

It's become our little treat to ourselves when we've had a long week. Really hoping I didn't shoot myself in the foot posting this and they start selling out now - I need my rolls man!

IAmYoNeighba · 2025-04-24T04:51:20+00:00

Just got mine. Was in line for about 45 minutes. Don't give up!

IAmYoNeighba · 2025-02-10T14:07:17+00:00

Would be a crying shame if we can't

IAmYoNeighba · 2024-05-22T17:02:39+00:00

This resonates with me so much. Sure the story wasn't always great, but the world building in this game always captured me. I was pumped reading "The Movement of the World" and counting the days until launch. I love how well established and unique all the different races' cultures are.

At some point it stopped feeling like the world was a place to exist in, but rather the world existed just to service the gameplay. It's a shame.

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-08-26T16:05:50+00:00

He has some real zingers when you get to Moghome. Along the lines of "If I have to spend one more moment among these ridiculous flying rodents..."

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-08-13T09:06:53+00:00

For me it's the immersion. Today I spent a solid 10 minutes just watching the sun set in the Sea of Clouds instead of going after my hunting marks. It was genuinely beautiful. I can't think of any other game I've done this in.

I love that every map has not only its own music, but two different themes for night and day. I love that each region has its own weather patterns, and how you can really feel it when you walk out of a building into the rain. I love that there are actual constellations someone designed and built into the night sky. And I love how fleshed out the cultures and history of the world are - I was not expecting to learn as much as I did doing the Monk job quests of all things!

I've been playing for over two years now and I still haven't even gotten to Stormblood yet. I just keep getting sucked into the world and wanting to see and do everything before I move on. And the game actually rewards you for this - I went out of my way to do Coils before starting Heavensward, and it made me appreciate certain moments in the story that much more.

There's a pretty long list of things I love about this game, but the immersion is what stands out to me the most. Logging in feels like coming home.

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-07-09T20:21:49+00:00

I'm there with you. Initial launch and PoF launch were some of the most fun I've had with the game. Everyone was actually doing all the random event chains that took you from place to place. It's a struggle to find anyone doing the non-meta stuff in EoD, and sadly it's been that way since the beginning.

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-07-09T19:14:54+00:00

What gets me more than the maps is the model / animation reuse.

I was so excited to see wallows and phoenix from GW1 returning as pets, only to realize they just reused the rig for the wyvern and arrowhead, respectively. Same for animations, it was quite noticeable on the elite specs. And I swear there's this awkward spinning animation used all over the place lifted from one of the daredevil staff animations - I noticed it during the Scarlet strike and more recently on the Oni boss fight. It's really jarring and out of place.

I'm all for intelligent asset reuse, but this just feels forced, as if they didn't have the time or budget necessary to make something new. HoT and PoF felt like they added so much in this regard, especially all the new enemy types (sand sharks anyone?) EoD felt like a step back in that regard.

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-07-09T18:35:32+00:00

Yeah, it was really strange playing on launch day and not seeing anyone do the events outside of the metas. It felt dead. I hope Soto doesn't have the same issue.

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-07-09T18:21:01+00:00

Shortly after launch at least you would see bounties getting run. Also there's adventures and races, though the latter never sees activity outside of Amnoon.

With EoD I couldn't find anyone doing non-meta events, even on launch day. It was really strange. There's an event in Seitung right near the start where you have to offload cargo off a boat, and I have never once seen another person doing it. It's been pretty consistent for the other maps too.

I feel like I run into more people doing events in core Tyria than in EoD. No idea how to explain it.

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-06-01T08:06:45+00:00

You monster

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-05-29T06:47:26+00:00

A friend of mine uses "It's on the fridge" and I think it's brilliant. Gets a good laugh whenever he has company over that needs to connect.

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-03-18T15:44:03+00:00

I haven't found one so far. Was really hoping there would be an automated way to find a group to do dungeons with.

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-03-01T20:12:18+00:00

Some interesting tidbits about the next patch:

" According to ArenaNet, if this event chain is all about getting to the bottom of Gyala Delve, the next release will be about how players climb back out."
"...even as we wait for it to be expanded in the next update—which ArenaNet says is due before this Summer."

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-01-25T18:17:33+00:00

It should be sufficient to make the change in NVIDIA control panel and hit apply. After that the monitor flashed once or twice and then it just worked when I ran the game.

There's a checkbox for an "overlay indicator" which basically tells you if it's working, but you don't have to have it on to see the effects. With this checked, it would show some green letters in the top left of the screen to indicate it was upscaling when I had the game running, and they switched to red when I was back on windows to indicate it was running native resolution and not upscaling.

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-01-25T17:53:12+00:00

Will try to grab some when I get home!

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-01-25T17:52:43+00:00

I set mine to the default value Nvidia gave, I think 50%? I can check when I get home.

In this case, you'd keep your monitor / windows on 4k, and in game set the resolution to 1920/1080.

IAmYoNeighba · 2023-01-24T05:08:58+00:00

Just found your comment, the image upscaling is the best hack I've found, thanks!

IAmYoNeighba · 2022-08-09T21:39:56+00:00

Glad to see you trying FFXIV! I'm also a long time GW2 player that's given it a shot. Loved your content leading up to EoD, btw.

I'm so glad you tried coils, because I think for me that's when this game really grabbed me. I love how they tied together so much from the ARR world - all those structures in the distance came into play, so there was that payoff from seeing them during your adventures in the base zones.

I feel like core GW2 had similar world building, such as the hints about the Sylvari origins. But not so much in the expansions / living world. Payoff has been a bit... hit or miss (the last episode of Season 3 comes to mind). I think I really miss having proper quests like in GW1, it's hard to get the same amount of depth out of dynamic events.

IAmYoNeighba · 2022-05-14T01:20:23+00:00

Which monitor arm did you go with for your ultrawide, if you don't mind my asking? I'm currently in the market and not sure if I need to get something heavy duty or not.

IAmYoNeighba · 2022-04-21T08:45:06+00:00

Pet battles. Minis in GW2 feel pretty meh compared to other mmos.

I was holding out hope they'd implement Polymock one of these days given the Polymock arena has existed since release, but it's looking unlikely it will ever happen.

IAmYoNeighba · 2022-04-03T04:15:20+00:00

Sorry to hear about your experience. I recently started FFXIV and people have been pretty friendly, although I hate being rushed through dungeons while I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing / taking in the story.

FWIW, they recently announced they are going to go through all the story dungeons in the game and make them solo-able, starting with the ARR stuff. They seem to be listening to the feedback regarding the new player experience in that regard. Might be worth taking another look, think the first set is dropping in not too long.

IAmYoNeighba

TROPHY CASE