When patch 6.21 arrived this week for Final Fantasy XIV, it included a pretty significant change in that it dropped the health of the last boss of Abyssos (Savage) by 1%. It’s pretty unprecedented to lower health for a current progression raid like that, especially when you consider that players have beaten the boss. So producer and director Naoki Yoshida penned a lengthy explanation of why the adjustments were made as well as why other changes were not made, such as simply offering a flat buff to underperforming jobs.
Yoshida’s letter explains that the raids are made and balanced by a battle team well aware that the game’s best players are far better than they are, so there’s always some adjustment upward in terms of health after the battle team has the fight down solidly. In this case, however, the battle team overperformed and the DPS checks were just too harsh, and just buffing every job that wasn’t doing as well would have had a ripple effect across the game. The full explanation is well worth a read if you’re curious about how the game is balanced and how the team approaches making content challenging but still fun.
On an unrelated but significant note, the FFXIV team will be making an appearance at the Australian edition of PAX, which means that’s the place to go if you have a deep yearning for an “I BEAT ZODIARK” t-shirt.
