Development Team Downsizing and Justification Makes no Sense

[Sp1cyryan]

If ff14 was a living entity, evolutionary pressure being applied to it are as follows

Making the game easier and easier to appeal to the casual players they have successfully attracted over the years, this includes making tanking and healing faceroll easy.
Trying to take attention away from raiding because it's insanely expensive to develop with the gear reset systems, and promoting other types of things to login for.
Trying to design and release less impressive armors from content to promote cash shop outfits.

Lol, just stop with the 14 nonsense. Big F'n deal. Even then, your opinions on the evolution of a different game are neither here nor there, and that is before even evaluating them.

[Rinuko]

I used to play it for the story but each time I re-sub I get bored after a few days, and due to the housing demolition timer is disabled for my region I don't even have to worry about losing my personal houses.

[Pixela]

The housing destruction is the single worst thing I've seen in an mmo, they designed the housing system to be limited in a subscription based game and knew full well that if someone ceases their sub they will lose it. This would be annoying enough on its own, but when the lead developer tells you to just go play other games if you're bored with the lack of content, knowing full well your house gets demolished if you ubsub is terrible.

On one hand it's predatory behavior to blackmail players this way, on the other hand I know people who haven't played for years and retain the sub to keep a fake house so it obviously works. Smart buisnessman.

This would be like if the developers made prime weapons have an afterglow, but limited it to 50 per server and to retain it you had to talk to an npc once a month in the game. If you unsub you lose the glow and all the gil / time you spent to get it in the first place.

[Alhanelem]

The housing destruction is the single worst thing I've seen in an mmo, they designed the housing system to be limited in a subscription based game and knew full well that if someone ceases their sub they will lose it. This would be annoying enough on its own, but when the lead developer tells you to just go play other games if you're bored with the lack of content, knowing full well your house gets demolished if you ubsub is terrible.

On one hand it's predatory behavior to blackmail players this way, on the other hand I know people who haven't played for years and retain the sub to keep a fake house so it obviously works. Smart buisnessman.

This would be like if the developers made prime weapons have an afterglow, but limited it to 50 per server and to retain it you had to talk to an npc once a month in the game. If you unsub you lose the glow and all the gil / time you spent to get it in the first place.

Actually most games with housing that has a publicly accessible element (i.e. exterior) has limitations like this.

The housing system in FFXIV was originally designed for free companies (guilds) only. During the time that it was like this, there wasn't a major capacity issue. But then they opened it up for individual purchasing and th at's when the system could no longer handle it. The deomolition timer is necessary to ensure that people who want and are actually going to use housing can get access to it when there is limited capacity available. Each ward of housing needs another server machine so it isn't a trivial matter to expand the capacity, which is why it only happens every so often.

Meanwhile in XI, there is no exterior element to mog houses and it's just a zillion copies of the same identical room. The game only needs to load in your personal furniture layout data when you enter, and other people can't enter without invitation. XI's system is simpler and doesn't require anywhere near the same level of resources to operate as XIV's.

[BobbinT]

The housing destruction is the single worst thing I've seen in an mmo, they designed the housing system to be limited in a subscription based game and knew full well that if someone ceases their sub they will lose it. This would be annoying enough on its own, but when the lead developer tells you to just go play other games if you're bored with the lack of content, knowing full well your house gets demolished if you ubsub is terrible.

On one hand it's predatory behavior to blackmail players this way, on the other hand I know people who haven't played for years and retain the sub to keep a fake house so it obviously works. Smart buisnessman.

This would be like if the developers made prime weapons have an afterglow, but limited it to 50 per server and to retain it you had to talk to an npc once a month in the game. If you unsub you lose the glow and all the gil / time you spent to get it in the first place.

Well... FF14 now has Island Sanctuary, FF11's equivalent for Mog Garden/Island, & next week's patch 6.4 will let players decor using outdoor housing items up to 90 furnitures. Think that would ease up alot of problems regarding housing needs.


Do personally admit having housing mostly for cheaper tele access, but only in long run since I do play there since start. Also, there's apartments which doesn't have destruction/eviction times, at least for indoor furnish needs. And it might not hurt joining free companies since one can rent rooms there as well which provides up to 500+ per FC.

[Sp1cyryan]

This is not an FF14 forum.

[Rinuko]

This is not an FF14 forum.

You sure? :')

[Pixela]

back on topic

I was watching a video earlier and something they were saying made me see this for what it is.

The realities of the game

SE have profit margins they will demand be met from the producer of xi.
FFXI has a standard sub fee that has not changed for 21 years, they can't change this.
Wages of all SE staff rise inline with inflation, whether they want it or not.
Measures they added to selectively increase revenue were not enough to counter inflation (wardrobes etc)
A certain server launched within the past 6 months that lead to a loss of long time players, even if temporarily.

Given the timing of being announced just before the 21st anniversary when it was due to be funded for another year, and the shock leaving of Matsui when he said he wanted to stay till retirement it's obvious what happened to me.

They went for the yearly funding meeting and were told the game isn't making enough money and to either heavily reduce funding or see the game close.

As such they selected to effectively fall on their swords and retire or be moved to other departments to allow XI to continue running.

Allowing the game to continue running allows the possibility of funding to be increased in future and possibly even next year, if the issues above are rectified because yearly funded is decided based on the performance of that year.

If you care about the game and are upset at recent actions (as I am), keep in mind they are keeping it running and the future could be better. If you can afford it, continue to support it.

The developers do care about this game, they could of just walked away but they are determined to keep it going and so should we.