"Final Fantasy XIV helps drive revenue spike"

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Originally Posted by Avraym

It baffles me they'll quickly boost about their high subscription numbers, or quarterly profits, but continue to dish out the exact same amount of content (if not less in recent expansions).

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The issue is having well trained people for the content development pipeline, which is something Yoshi-P is on record talking about during live letters. It is not a problem that they can fix by throwing more money at it, as just grabbing a bunch of low level coders and developers to flood to try to push out content even quicker leads to buggier messier content that then proceeds to slow everything down because of all the extra work that needs to be done to fix it. They have to steadily bring in new people, train them up to par, and find ways to optimize their content development pipeline. Which is also part of why they stick to a regular schedule for content drops instead of trying to be ambitious and then having all that content delayed like WoW is prone to do.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

The issue is having well trained people for the content development pipeline, which is something Yoshi-P is on record talking about during live letters. It is not a problem that they can fix by throwing more money at it, as just grabbing a bunch of low level coders and developers to flood to try to push out content even quicker leads to buggier messier content that then proceeds to slow everything down because of all the extra work that needs to be done to fix it. They have to steadily bring in new people, train them up to par, and find ways to optimize their content development pipeline. Which is also part of why they stick to a regular schedule for content drops instead of trying to be ambitious and then having all that content delayed like WoW is prone to do.

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I understand that. What I don't understand, is that the game is continuing to grow, yet has these limitations with no mention of progress.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

- Challenging Solo Content
- Dungeons which are actually difficult

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Solo dungeons would be a pretty fun concept I think - no trusts or squadrons or anything, just a dungeon balanced around the role to tackle and figure out.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

Couldn't have said it better.

It baffles me they'll quickly boost about their high subscription numbers, or quarterly profits, but continue to dish out the exact same amount of content (if not less in recent expansions).

Since i'll try and be constructive here and make some suggestions
- 5-6 Savages instead of 4
- A developed Eureka, not the lazy fate spaming/light farming we've been given
- Meaningful Open World Content / Redesign Hunt System
- Challenging 4 Man Content
- Challenging Solo Content
- Dungeons which are actually difficult

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I would love 2 of those .. but the one 4 man trial we got - IT'S TOO HARD RATH IS TOO CHEAP- was screamed on the forums. And While it wasn't hard persay... I remember a large outcry on the mist dragon. So while I would love those the reason we DON'T is becuase they listen to the massive cry babies about this game being too hard as it is.

Solo Dungeons....

That sounds amazing.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

It was tarnished well before the OP's post.

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I thought it was fine, but I guess people need something to hate, right?

CAN WE GET UPDATED TEXTURES NOW PLEASE? >.<

Why woud/should this game get cuts though?
@ Nalien you do realize a very good portion of our sub money goes to other SE game projects, yes?
More should be injected into this game i think along with improving servers, coding, etc...

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Originally Posted by Noodle_Trinidad

I ask again, why does this matter to me the consumer?

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Yeah, it reads like a German government-controlled news propaganda in state TV: "Germany is so wealthy, exports peak, lowe unemployment rate! Best country!"


Mh..2nd highest tax rates of the OECD countries (probably even world-wide), low pensions, very large low-pay sector, decline in educational system, low rate of self-owned property, very high rents, Mrs. Merkel only thinking for the next day instead of decades,...


The analogy is that we pay our butt off (I repeat again: FFXIV is an expensive game and we over-pay so much. I like it, but it's not justified with a merchandise and cash shop and expansion to pay and then monthly fee. Each patch which should be free is basically a paid DLC of (13€/month * months patch cycle) but we get nothing much back, the state of the game does not change to the better. Just like with my German taxes that go...somewhere...but surely not into the damaged roads or changing the the 3-month wait for a specialist doctor...


Sincerely,
https://imgur.com/HTju1aB.png

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Originally Posted by Maero

Why woud/should this game get cuts though?

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Corporate greed? "You did fine with this budget, try and do the same with slightly less so we can spend more elsewhere".

I very much agree they should invest more in XIV, but in my experience that is not how SE operates. A budget cut might by hyperbole, but I'm certain we wont see any drastic changes going forward. Just more of the same. Heck I'd argue we've already seen something of a loss in content... Don't get me wrong, Shadowbringers was amazing, but I can still see some cracks starting to form... Namely with the new races and Jobs... Both of which have significantly less options than everything that's come before, because... Reasons...

That's not to say they don't invest in XIV at all, because they do. I'd mostly say they're either poor investments or just simply not gameplay related... Take the new data centers, that is an investment in the game, but it's both not gameplay related and IMO a bad investment, since it split players up further rather than bringing them together more. A good investment would have been reworking the games infrastructure to bring data centers together, although that's still not really gameplay related... Some might say Eureka was a new gameplay element, but I'd say it just recycled FATEs rather than being new. BA was arguably new, but good luck doing that with how poorly designed and thought out the whole thing was, especially now... A poor investment simply by the nature of it being handled poorly...

I wouldn't even say budget is entirely the problem with XIV at this point. It's the theme park model Yoshida clings to. It's a perfectly workable model, obviously, since XIV is a success, but I do think it stifles content somewhat... When you're pumping out new rides patch after patch, you're not going to make truly amazing rides each time... You'll save ideas for the next patch, otherwise you'll just burn out creatively... Personally I'd like to see more content in this game that isn't theme park based, Eureka could have been it honestly, but even that is ultimately just the Stormblood Relic Ride, completely devoid of purpose now that Shadowbringer Rides are being released... Had it not been theme park content (a horror house is the way Yoshida himself described it, IIRC) I think it could have been a truly amazing piece of content for this game, one which they could have continued to refine, they could justify that effort into if because it wouldn't be replaced after a few patches... Instead it was replaced after a few patches, so why put more effort into it than rehashing FATEs for the umpteenth time...

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Originally Posted by Insertcoins

IT'S TOO HARD RATH IS TOO CHEAP- was screamed on the forums. And While it wasn't hard persay... I remember a large outcry on the mist dragon.

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Mist Dragon was difficult at first until you get the mechanics down just like any other fight. Rathalos...Normal was ok. To this day, I STILL haven't beaten Extreme and kind of just gave up out of frustration after so many tries. The issue I have with Rath is that it isn't too hard, it's that it uses half-assed mechanics from another game in a game that doesn't have those mechanics. Having to use potions for healing, no rolling/dodging mechanics, etc. It's very frustrating in my opinion and I hope SE never does anything like that again.

And I'm one of the people that enjoyed Shinryu when it was first released. I think the normal version of the 4-Man trials are fine.

The complaints I've read here about FF14 can be applied to every other MMO out there. It honestly sounds like the folks who are nit picking a part 14's design, are just tired of MMOs in general. If 14 was as boring and generic as people are saying, then the game wouldn't have been growing. I do agree, the earnings mean nothing to the consumer as we don't know where that money will be going but it's good for us to know that, the game is selling very well.

I like 14. I like every positive about it and of course I hate the negatives I find. The negatives though, are not enough to drive me away or become bitter like some may have here. I strongly believe, the consistent rate of change, is a favorable thing compared to other MMOs people are from or played.

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Originally Posted by Yamr3

I like 14. I like every positive about it and of course I hate the negatives I find. The negatives though, are not enough to drive me away or become bitter like some may have here.

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The negatives aren't enough to drive most away, obviously. I mean, we're all still here. Some people want to comment on them in the hopes the devs address those issues though, others are just happy to ignore them. Nothing wrong with either approach IMO, so long as people are enjoying themselves. Personally I rather enjoy analyzing and critiquing things, so I take "I don't like this aspect of the game" and spin some enjoyment out of it that way, while also hopefully providing feedback for the developers to work with.

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Originally Posted by MrKusakabe

The analogy is that we pay our butt off (I repeat again: FFXIV is an expensive game and we over-pay so much. I like it, but it's not justified with a merchandise and cash shop and expansion to pay and then monthly fee. Each patch which should be free is basically a paid DLC of (13€/month * months patch cycle) but we get nothing much back, the state of the game does not change to the better. Just like with my German taxes that go...somewhere...but surely not into the damaged roads or changing the the 3-month wait for a specialist doctor...

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... Who do you think pays for the servers, data bandwidth and staff necessary to keep this game running? and electricity for that matter?
This game costs a lot of money month to month to run/host/fix, let alone develop for.

Do you really feel the equivalent of one meal cost a MONTH is that high?

Having somewhat followed SE's financial reports over the last few years, they always get a nice revenue boost from these expac launches (and furthermore, announce such expected increases on reports leading up to expansions). So it's really nothing surprising or new.