This game is on a terrible state right now.

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

And SE created their own demise. When the boss has to be middle for every mech (or is a wall boss), when the hitbox has to be big, and when the boss needs to be "barse-able" in any group, you run out of ideas pretty quickly. The unique ideas will be few and far between.

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Gotta cater to JP players who scream every time a fight can't be done by just following a three line macro after all.

I hope I don't regret it by sharing this, but from what I was told (if its true) that the current state of endwalker goes back to the launching of it.

Apparently stuff happened in the background between the developers we don't know of (one thing I can share that apparently Endwalker was launched too soon, this caused some background problems), and that is all I'm going to say.

If you all noticed there was a shift how this expansion played out in some ways, not as clean as previous ones.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

I hope I don't regret it by sharing this, but from what I was told (if its true) that the current state of endwalker goes back to the launching of it.

Apparently stuff happened in the background between the developers we don't know of (one thing I can share that apparently Endwalker was launched too soon), and that is all I'm going to say.

If you all noticed there was a shift how this expansion played out in some ways, not as clean as previous ones.

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Without solid proof this is white noise.
Just saying. But a certain camp will latch on to this like it's gospel

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

I hope I don't regret it by sharing this, but from what I was told (if its true) that the current state of endwalker goes back to the launching of it.

Apparently stuff happened in the background between the developers we don't know of (one thing I can share that apparently Endwalker was launched too soon, this caused some background problems), and that is all I'm going to say.

If you all noticed there was a shift how this expansion played out in some ways, not as clean as previous ones.

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https://i.imgur.com/qi9q5jH.png

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

I hope I don't regret it by sharing this, but from what I was told (if its true) that the current state of endwalker goes back to the launching of it.

Apparently stuff happened in the background between the developers we don't know of (one thing I can share that apparently Endwalker was launched too soon, this caused some background problems), and that is all I'm going to say.

If you all noticed there was a shift how this expansion played out in some ways, not as clean as previous ones.

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Don't give me hopium...

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Without solid proof this is white noise.
Just saying. But a certain camp will latch on to this like it's gospel

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I personally don't need a source for this one. It makes logical sense. The game was delayed not once but twice. Their dungeon crawl video was released in an incomplete state compared to previous expansion dungeon crawl videos. They had the massive WoW shift that distracted them into to getting new servers which are no longer going as planned with people leaving the game. Covid happened during that period and ruined everything around the entire world. (Not making an excuse but pointing out a fact). And Yoshi P even said before that we were supposed to have another expansion before Endwalker but that got scrapped so they could just get it over with. It's evident that Endwalker was rushed and needed more development than it had.

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Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

I personally don't need a source for this one. It makes logical sense. The game was delayed not once but twice. Their dungeon crawl video was released in an incomplete state compared to previous expansion dungeon crawl videos. They had the massive WoW shift that distracted them into to getting new servers which are no longer going as planned with people leaving the game. Covid happened during that period and ruined everything around the entire world. (Not making an excuse but pointing out a fact). And Yoshi P even said before that we were supposed to have another expansion before Endwalker but that got scrapped so they could just get it over with. It's evident that Endwalker was rushed and needed more development than it had.

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I would add what should also be obvious: Yoshi and others from the FFXIV team have been busy working on FFXVI and have been angling to have it revitalizing the FF mainline series. There's no way that you pull the game's director, major composer, artists, and story writers off of FFXIV and have it continue chugging along like usual without seeing major lessening in quality.

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Originally Posted by Rhysati

I would add what should also be obvious: Yoshi and others from the FFXIV team have been busy working on FFXVI and have been angling to have it revitalizing the FF mainline series. There's no way that you pull the game's director, major composer, artists, and story writers off of FFXIV and have it continue chugging along like usual without seeing major lessening in quality.

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That too. Also, with them increasing the time between patch releases. SE probably has more on their plate than they can handle. Just on the surface there is plenty of reason to suspect that the internal workings of the development team are probably a chaotic mess right now.

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Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

That too. Also, with them increasing the time between patch releases. SE probably has more on their plate than they can handle. Just on the surface there is plenty of reason to suspect that the internal workings of the development team are probably a chaotic mess right now.

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The fact that they finally wrapped up the story in 6.0 probably gave them the time to polish up XVI since 6.1 and on has mostly been boring filler content across the majority of the game.

Each patch we go further into it’s clear more and more just how much they pulled from XIV and CBU3 and put the resources into XVI

Ayo but them ultimates been good tho

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Originally Posted by Kickwars

No it wasn't like this in HW and SB. It's like you guys don't even remember doing content anymore.

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This. I joined post-SB and the fact it wasn't a dead game full of energy after everyone did everything already kept me invested. Expansion just feels somewhat bland without soul across the playerbase compared to the other ones - regardless if the Sqex team needs a break.

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Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

It's evident that Endwalker was rushed and needed more development than it had.

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For sure. Several people hypothesized in a previous thread that EW being rushed was also why the MSQ had so many inconsistencies. Link to that thread if anyone's curious: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...%28Spoilers%29

They really should have split EW into two separate expansions. It would have given them more time to smooth things out and add some polish.

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

For sure. Several people hypothesized in a previous thread that EW being rushed was also why the MSQ had so many inconsistencies. Link to that thread if anyone's curious: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...%28Spoilers%29

They really should have split EW into two separate expansions. It would have given them more time to smooth things out and add some polish.

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I know there are many theories for the quality/quantity of EW's content, but I keep thinking that it could be related to 7.0 being a bigger project that would improve a lot of things beyond just basic expansion features, and that's where the resources went.

But if that was the case, is not really feasible to think that Yoshi P would pop out in a Live Letter to announce something like "Oh sorry for the lackluster patch content, the team is focused on 7.0, look forward to it."

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I know there are many theories for the quality/quantity of EW's content, but I keep thinking that it could be related to 7.0 being a bigger project that would improve a lot of things beyond just basic expansion features, and that's where the resources went.

But if that was the case, is not really feasible to think that Yoshi P would pop out in a Live Letter to announce something like "Oh sorry for the lackluster patch content, the team is focused on 7.0, look forward to it."

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I kinda want to bet you 5gil and the 128 Lugworms I have in my inventory, the following expansion will be the same thing with a different name and a different coat of paint. I honestly want to believe that they will just do something different, but deep down I just know it will be more of the same.

It's like they hear all the issues being brought up but they aren't really listening. I'm not saying that's how it is, but that is how it feels.

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Originally Posted by DarkBladeNemo

I kinda want to bet you 5gil and the 128 Lugworms I have in my inventory, the following expansion will be the same thing with a different name and a different coat of paint. I honestly want to believe that they will just do something different, but deep down I just know it will be more of the same.

It's like they hear all the issues being brought up but they aren't really listening. I'm not saying that's how it is, but that is how it feels.

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Probably... But I feel if something doesn't change in 7.0, I'll probably just treat XIV as a single player game for the storyline, doing the MSQ and the unsub until the next expansion (so I can run through patches without interruption).

As much as I like the game, the state of the pve content won't really hold for yet another expansion of the same thing with a different paint of coat. I realized that when Orthos (the thing I was most excited for) was released and it just turned out to have very little differences from the other DDs.

You just have to check the historical patch trailers.
2.X series patches were massive, through them they implemented the basis of patch cycles to this day too, for better and worse: to know what content is ahead, and to know what content is ahead...

But after that basis, it really didn't took off.
And arguably with time we have been getting less and less content while the dev team focuses resources in extreme and really niche content.

Thing is the player base is diverse, i couldn't care less for ultimates and would rather have at least 2 dungeons per patch back. But the opposite is true for another player.
But in overall cuantity and quality, aside very few examples, the game content has took a turn for the worse.

MSQ being what is remaining, and even those have started to feel too streamlined, and thus, shorter.

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Without solid proof this is white noise.
Just saying. But a certain camp will latch on to this like it's gospel

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No, you're correct in saying that.

I'm gonna share a little more, but as a disclaimer this isn't me or the person who told me this as bashing the devs, its more of a concern.

From what I was told a head developer was bullying other developers, and a certain developer high up the chain left the team (including other devs along with him), it caused a rift within the company when they were trying to get Endwalker out the door as soon as possible

Take it with a grain of salt since there is no direct info on this, so for now yes this is white noise as you said.

I do wonder if it could correlate to the scrapped Expansion were supposed to get instead of Endwalker.

We can only speculate if its true or not.

I did make a topic at first, but I decided against it, but at the same time idk if I should withhold this so here it is, and maybe someone here might have heard something similar if it is true.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

No, you're correct in saying that.

I'm gonna share a little more, but as a disclaimer this isn't me or the person who told me this as bashing the devs, its more of a concern.

From what I was told a head developer was bullying other developers, and a certain developer high up the chain left the team (including other devs along with him), it caused a rift within the company when they were trying to get Endwalker out the door as soon as possible

Take it with a grain of salt since there is no direct info on this, so for now yes this is white noise as you said.

I do wonder if it could correlate to the scrapped Expansion were supposed to get instead of Endwalker.

We can only speculate.

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Could you seriously please provide sources for where you heard this. You cant just be spouting claims under the guise of "disclaimers" without at least having something credible to back it up. The forums arent the Kuzunoha Detective Agency from Persona 2 where you can spout rumors in the vain hopes they somehow come true.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Could you seriously please provide sources for where you heard this. You cant just be spouting claims under the guise of "disclaimers" without at least having something credible to back it up. The forums arent the Kuzunoha Detective Agency from Persona 2 where you can spout rumors in the vain hopes they somehow come true.

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Read my post carefully again, there is no way I can, so whether its true or not I do not know.

I'm hoping here someone might know something a little more about it if anyone heard similar, and its notoriously hard to find anything out what happens in Gaming Companies to begin with.

Idk, you're right though, this might be not my brightest posts, but still I wondered if there was something to it.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

This game has always been trash when it comes to retention. Everything is so fastly done due to the dribble of content between the frequent and consistent patches.

Anyone who calls the halcyon days of ARR and HW or SB is lying to do in order to push the blame on Shb and EW when really the fault lies in FFXIV's core content designs.

Its really that this game has always been like this.

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True.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Eureka and Bozja is absolute hot garbage though. Waiting around afk by the base for nms and engagements is not fun content.

Exploratory zones need to be better

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Also, largely true.

That being said, the game now is still worse for lacking (incentive even to make at least a situationally socially engaging experience, if not one compelling for its combat, out of) that, though, especially in regard to core aspects of content-flow and -longevity.

If Exploratory Missions were actually compelling, my average time played per month would probably quintuple, or more. Granted, I could say the same for the addition of Savage Dungeons, if well made.

But if we can't even manage to provide/situate even the most barebone (minimal effort per player hour of grind) content like Exploratory Missions (as they are/were)... and fall back only to weekly tome grinds and weekly raidlocks alone between the occasional Extreme farm, the heck are we doing?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

True.



Also, largely true.

That being said, the game now is still worse for lacking (incentive even to make at least a situationally socially engaging experience, if not one compelling for its combat, out of) that, though, especially in regard to core aspects of content-flow and -longevity.

If Exploratory Missions were actually compelling, my average time played per month would probably quintuple, or more. Granted, I could say the same for the addition of Savage Dungeons, if well made.

But if we can't even manage to provide/situate even the most barebone (minimal effort per player hour of grind) content like Exploratory Missions (as they are/were)... and fall back only to weekly tome grinds and weekly raidlocks alone between the occasional Extreme farm, the heck are we doing?

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Agreed with all the sentiments with you and Atelier.

When you're a sprout player you don't think of these things until you pull back the curtain when you reach endgame.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

No, you're correct in saying that.

I'm gonna share a little more, but as a disclaimer this isn't me or the person who told me this as bashing the devs, its more of a concern.

From what I was told a head developer was bullying other developers, and a certain developer high up the chain left the team (including other devs along with him), it caused a rift within the company when they were trying to get Endwalker out the door as soon as possible

Take it with a grain of salt since there is no direct info on this, so for now yes this is white noise as you said.

I do wonder if it could correlate to the scrapped Expansion were supposed to get instead of Endwalker.

We can only speculate if its true or not.

I did make a topic at first, but I decided against it, but at the same time idk if I should withhold this so here it is, and maybe someone here might have heard something similar if it is true.

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Honestly, this would make some sense if it's true... but EW is unlikely to have been much better since the roadmap showed that we were getting very little from the get go. Content planning is unlikely to have been affected that much.

But it's very possible it's a QA-focused developer that left, which is why QA sucks right now.

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But it's very possible it's a QA-focused developer that left, which is why QA sucks right now.

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More likely no one left as theres no verification of any kind that this story is even remotely true.

We dont know.

IMO it’s much more likely that this is still the hangover from the work from home situation forced by the pandemic. Complex game development is just way less efficient when you’re not all shoehorned into the same building.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Complex game development is just way less efficient when you’re not all shoehorned into the same building.

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Seems to have worked just fine for Dragonflight from what I heard.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Seems to have worked just fine for Dragonflight from what I heard.

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Blizzard is a complex mess. Dragonflight might be good but the internal workings of that company is chaotic and on fire. It wouldn't surprise me if they got a new team of devs by its next expansion for reasons not directly related to the game.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Seems to have worked just fine for Dragonflight from what I heard.

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/shrug, there’s a million and one other examples of development teams that struggled to adapt and fell behind on their schedules as a result.

As a former Bullfrog/EA world builder, I can vouch first hand that stuff just gets done faster when your supporting art team is sat right behind you. If I needed an asset or feature, the people I needed for it were right there on hand and could be mobilised immediately if needed.

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As a former Bullfrog/EA world builder,

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OMG Bullfrog..theres a name I havent heard in a LOOONG time. Populous, Dungeon Keeper, oh those were the days.and Syndicate. I still have that on cd somewhere.

HUGE for their time.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

OMG Bullfrog..theres a name I havent heard in a LOOONG time. Populous, Dungeon Keeper, oh those were the days.and Syndicate. I still have that on cd somewhere.

HUGE for their time.

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Yeah, it's been a while since I seen Bullfrog come up too. I played a lot of Theme Park and Populous: The Beginning. Checked out the online Match Maker like a year ago.

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Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

Blizzard is a complex mess. Dragonflight might be good but the internal workings of that company is chaotic and on fire. It wouldn't surprise me if they got a new team of devs by its next expansion for reasons not directly related to the game.

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It absolutely is a mess but that is irrelevant in this context. They arguably did better work during their remote work period than before it, the WoW team at least, and that's the only point I was making.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

It absolutely is a mess but that is irrelevant in this context. They arguably did better work during their remote work period than before it and that's the only point I was making.

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I mean... ARR did better than 1.0 too with its own rework. The whole comparison is apples to oranges really. Nothing is preventing WoW from having their own "Endwalker" after Dragonflight and following in our footsteps. Or maybe we're following in theirs. Hard to really tell anymore.

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Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

I mean... ARR did better than 1.0 too with its own rework.

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Also entirely irrelevant since it has nothing to do with the efficiency or quality of remote development vs office development.

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Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

Nothing is preventing WoW from having their own "Endwalker" after Dragonflight and following in our footsteps. Or maybe we're following in theirs. Hard to really tell anymore

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Obviously not an exact 1 to 1 comparison but we have some worrying similarities to Warlords of Draenor so...