ffxiv FFXIV - The Art of Raid Design: An Interview with Masaki Nakagawa

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Learn how Masaki Nakagawa, the lead battle content designer of FFXIV, creates challenging and rewarding raids for players. Read about his insights on P10S, player feedback, and future raid design.

Nakagawa and his team have created some of the most challenging and satisfying raids in FFXIV, here is what he had to say about it!

One of the main features of FFXIV is the raid system, which allows players to team up with other players and face powerful enemies in a large-scale cooperative adventure. The raids are designed to be challenging and rewarding, testing the players’ skills, strategies, and teamwork. Today, we will take a look into how raids are designed and what challenges Masaki Nakagawa, the lead battle content designer of FFXIV, faced while working on them, according to an interview he had with Gamespot.

Check out the official post on X (previously known as Twitter) of interviewer Michael Highman below. 

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Here are some things we learned from the interview:

• An interview with Masaki Nakagawa, the lead battle content designer of FFXIV, who is also known as Mr. Ozma in the community, is featured in the article.
• The development process of creating raid bosses is explained by Nakagawa, such as deciding the design concept, creating artwork, programming mechanics, testing and balancing. He says that it takes six to twelve months to design a raid boss, and when one raid comes out, they are already working on the next one.
• Some of the challenges and limitations that Nakagawa faces as a designer are also revealed, such as working within the game’s engine, network latency, player feedback, and maintaining creativity and difficulty over time. He says that they listen to what players say and watch how they play, and then use this feedback to make future raids better.
• The trickiest raid boss that Nakagawa has ever made is discussed by him, which is part of Patch 6.4. He says that he wanted to create a memorable and emotional experience for the players who have followed the story of FFXIV for a long time. The fight is harder than other savage raids, and requires good timing and teamwork.
• Nakagawa also talks about the huge improvements him and his team have made since Coil of Bahamut, which was the very first raid. Whether it is design, mechanics, scenario, phase changes and more, a lot of progress was made, and they will continue to do so.
• Nakagawa and his team are passionate about making fun and high-quality raids for FFXIV players. They listen to feedback and use data to improve their design.

For a more detailed read, check out the full interview on Gamespot.