So is no one still excited for Island Sanctuary...

I'm actually more excited for it.
Which is worrying because I don't want to overhype it for myself

To be honest I never was interested to begin with. I play mostly for the story and dungeon / raid content. After that, maybe RP stuff like housing. Then PvP.

Last on my list is mini games or random content like this.

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Originally Posted by XiRon

...I also expect criterion dungeons to, idk, have no animations and for players to be stuck in t-pose even after leaving.

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Please look forward to it!
https://i.gyazo.com/c698390a06182c33...abf924d139.jpg

XD

If it gives me something to do in this game outside of raid time for longer than 2 days, then I'll see it as a success.

Nothing has succeeded in doing that for me in any patch since stormblood, not counting full blown expansion releases.

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I KNOW Eorzea Crossing is going to be a total disaster for weeks after it drops like everything else in endwalker has been.

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Thats a MASSIVE exaggeration and absolutely untrue.

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: the game is so hypercrowded many players couldnt complete them msq until january

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Te game is a massive hit , immensely popular and thats...bad? i can think of a dozen MMO's that would LOVE to have that problem.

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hrothgar lose their ears for no damn good reason and single-bidders on houses LOSE THE BID do to a numerical error

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A system glitch that can happen to anyone and was fixed.

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Several thousand players lost access to their accounts for hours after attempting DC travel, and those who could play still couldnt hop back meaning they couldnt access retainers, fcs, any myriad activities you can do natively

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They were deluged with 15,000 transfers per minute which overwhelmed their system. it happens. it was fixed.

I dont see a disaster here.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Te game is a massive hit , immensely popular and thats...bad? i can think of a dozen MMO's that would LOVE to have that problem.

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To a certain degree its good to have such issue, but in this case it had major downsides. If players are unable to game at all due to excessive queue lengths, this can cause negative feedback. You couldnt make a new trial account, that is a bad thing as that is already a potential lost sale. And especialy during such releases, it grabs attention of new players.

While WoW also faced similar issues, they generaly werent this excessive except for its original release.

And dont be surprised, but these spikes are predictable, and normaly you can generaly hire hardware to cover such spikes, or mitigate these things in other ways. Sure, that something might cost some time to make, and the hardware also costs money, but to repeat. New players that keep playing bring money to the game for an extended duration. This adds up quickly.

So yes, the EW release was a disaster.

The housing bug on that is also just a problem because housing in general is that anyway. It only amplifies the problem. The system glitch on that was somewhat decently handled, except still in an unfair way (some people got a free house). And nothing was done to compensate at this part. It realy rubs it into players that not only lost the bid, they also didnt get any bonus gil.

And now the DC travel faces similar problems to the EW release. Clearly indicating no improvements were made (there probably have been some, but we do not see that!).

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If players are unable to game at all due to excessive queue lengths, this can cause negative feedback. You couldnt make a new trial account, that is a bad thing as that is already a potential lost sale. And especialy during such releases, it grabs attention of new players.

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The reasons for that were well explained and as everyone knew, the issue was owing to the last two years and an ONGOING issue with parts and server hardware. Remember? Everyone has the same issue and production is still ramping up, after being ground to a halt for two years.

“When it comes to adding new Worlds, we need tens of ‘server machines’ for every World that we add,” Yoshida says. “Server machines are high-performance computers, which utilize numerous semiconductors. However, due to the COVID-19 countermeasures currently in place, many factories across the globe which produce semiconductors, have halted production or have faced labor shortages.

As for lost sales, have you forgotten they had to STOP SALES owing to the massive influx?

The pandemic created chaos worldwide...which is still being remedied.

Semiconductor production is still in train and will take at least a year to get to a stable volume to meet demand. SE did the best they could in a very bad , very volatile situation. if anything you should be thanking them for the massive efforts....they couldnt buy hardware ANYWHERE even when they offered BIG money.

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, and normaly you can generaly hire hardware to cover such spikes

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NOTHING about the last two years can even remotely be called "normal". Catastrophic would be a far better word.

You cant just "hire" hardware for a game like this, thats ridiculous..especially when there was none to be had at any price. COVID 19 brought this planet to a screeching halt, getting back to speed will take a very long time...and lets not forget that games are LOW on the totem pole when it comes to essential..especially when said hardware is also badly needed for things like TCAS..a system that stops aircraft meeting by accident at 35,000 feet?

There was literally nothing anyone could do.

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Originally Posted by XiRon

I KNOW Eorzea Crossing is going to be a total disaster for weeks after it drops like everything else in endwalker has been.
6.0: the game is so hypercrowded many players couldnt complete them msq until january
6.1: hrothgar lose their ears for no damn good reason and single-bidders on houses LOSE THE BID do to a numerical error
6.18: Several thousand players lost access to their accounts for hours after attempting DC travel, and those who could play still couldnt hop back meaning they couldnt access retainers, fcs, any myriad activities you can do natively

I think people should set their expectation bar to molten-core levels honestly, I also expect criterion dungeons to, idk, have no animations and for players to be stuck in t-pose even after leaving.

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Based and true

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

I dont see a disaster here.

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"I don't see an issue, therefore one does not exist."

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"I don't see an issue, therefore one does not exist."

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Hrothgar ears: not a disaster.

Game issues at launch: unavoidable and no one with an ounce of sense thinks otherwise. Dealt with quickly as possible. Not a disaster.

World / DC travel system: overwhelmed by far more requests than was expected or could be handled, issues fixed, attended to and managed, with maintenance this week to reopen systems so they can cope. Accounts in that situation attended to and fixed. Not a disaster.

Issues yes, attended to, yes, managed yes.

Given all thats happened over the last two years, given the massive problems the SE team has met and handled as best they could, given the current state of the game and that a lot of problems have been overcome, I dont see a problem here.

I personally am grateful to them for their dedication in creating this masterpiece...especially when they succeeded in keeping it together in the face of a global catastrophe. A comment made to me a few days ago in discord still resonates: we have been through the type of dislocation that comes with a world war ( I know many may disagree, but the description is an apt one)..thanks to the dev teams we have had a community and a game kept alive for us to gather together, band together, support each other in what Dickens had rightly called "the worst of times".

No game is perfect..never said it was.

To my eyes at least, from all i have seen, the SE team has busted their caboose over and over again to try and keep things on an even keel, succeeding far more than could be expected of them..in all truth, given my experience with other games companies, quite frankly, they are incredible and dedicated...an example for more than one company to emulate.

God knows some of them could stand a lesson or three in excellence.. ( and yes Blizzard, I am looking at YOU. ) After the chaos, death and utter worldwide misery that was 2020 - 2022, they have risen above and beyond countless times.

We should be THANKING THEM, not throwing brickbats for mundane matters that can and will be addressed. Issues crop up, they always will.

I have immense faith in Yoshi and his team....to use a parallel,in the last two years, we faced our own real Calamity..and thanks to them...here we are.

Here we remain.

So, IMO, no, I dont see any "disasters" anywhere.

As for the island sanctuaries, why dont we wait and get more details before throwing asparagus?

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

I would pay them not to make Eureka or Bozja type stuff required for relics anymore. They could take that entire budget to make one minion instead and I would consider it money better spent.

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I do agree, I would prefer not to have another Zone of Grind. Make it like the earlier relic grinds, where the point was to keep older content alive.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

lol

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBwtpD4WQAkqTWY.jpg

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

So, IMO, no, I dont see any "disasters" anywhere.

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Then you are living under a rock. I hope it is comfortable at least.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Then you are living under a rock. I hope it is comfortable at least.

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I'm surprised there are still people who defend everything SE/FFXIV team does lol

Where they have put alot of time & effort in, sure it's been done well- where they haven't though is glaringly obvious

I'm with you here, that person is living under a very steep rock. I just see it as "very out of touch" on alot of things folks have been requesting for years and more have joined that band-wagon as seeing the lack of dedication to improving features like housing & cosmetics- cosmetics like hrothgar hair not removing ears. I don't think even GW2 has issues like that and Charr (cat/beast race) have 4 ears but none of their hairstyles remove them AND CHARR ARE THE MOST IGNORED RACE IN GW2- why is it the FFXIV team thought this was okay, didn't look further into requests & just winged it only to be met with dissatisfaction which they were confused by? That is so out of touch, that if a hand was placed nothing would be felt lol

Which I'll bet they'll also deny

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Originally Posted by HeyMcFly

... - why is it the FFXIV team thought this was okay, didn't look further into requests & just winged it only to be met with dissatisfaction which they were confused by? That is so out of touch, that if a hand was placed nothing would be felt lol

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I get the sense that Viera and Hrothgar were added in a panic. I seem to remember the "we've been told no more new races" was mentioned before it was announced Yoshi-P was added to Square's BoD. So instead of one race we got two half completed ones.

The "incompatible" heads is the real head scratcher. That should never have happened, not without a good reason. My glass half full thought is that they're built on the new rigs for the Graphical Update project. The half empty side is that there was a completely uncharacteristic breakdown in design discipline. If the second were true that doesn't explain all the neglect, the tone-deaf responses, and outright silence.

Some explanation about what happened and what they plan to do to address it would go a loooooooong way towards quelling the justified anger. Clamming up just because there are perpetual complainers is not a good excuse.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

I get the sense that Viera and Hrothgar were added in a panic. I seem to remember the "we've been told no more new races" was mentioned before it was announced Yoshi-P was added to Square's BoD. So instead of one race we got two half completed ones.

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I have said something similar to this before in several of my arguments on the forums. Being their "last chance", meaning the last chance to add one of the most heavily requested races (viera), and a beast race to round out the races. Limiting features such as "unique heads", having limiting factors also conveniently means these races would require less upkeep for the future. I do not believe they are "half completed", but intentionally designed this way. They are completed.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

I get the sense that Viera and Hrothgar were added in a panic. I seem to remember the "we've been told no more new races" was mentioned before it was announced Yoshi-P was added to Square's BoD. So instead of one race we got two half completed ones.

The "incompatible" heads is the real head scratcher. That should never have happened, not without a good reason. My glass half full thought is that they're built on the new rigs for the Graphical Update project. The half empty side is that there was a completely uncharacteristic breakdown in design discipline. If the second were true that doesn't explain all the neglect, the tone-deaf responses, and outright silence.

Some explanation about what happened and what they plan to do to address it would go a loooooooong way towards quelling the justified anger. Clamming up just because there are perpetual complainers is not a good excuse.

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I don't know about a panic, but definitely a great deal of pressure. Hearing them talk about male viera at the last fan festival gave me this impression. It sounded like something they had to really find the time to get done and we were told the same for female hrothgar. That there's little in the way of functional headgear indicates the same issue. This just stands as a prime example of requests that are made without much thought into how it will affect the team and what they'll actually be able to do.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

I don't know about a panic, but definitely a great deal of pressure. Hearing them talk about male viera at the last fan festival gave me this impression. It sounded like something they had to really find the time to get done and we were told the same for female hrothgar. That there's little in the way of functional headgear indicates the same issue. This just stands as a prime example of requests that are made without much thought into how it will affect the team and what they'll actually be able to do.

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Agreed. People wanted their male viera and they wanted it now. Female hrothgar were just a hanger-on. It didn't matter what Yoshida said about how costly the addition of races are, how they were just able to maintain their patch schedule with female viera and male hrothgar. This happens quite often with requests, but regardless, it's not like they had to do male viera. Similarly, many people started making their own expectations for island sanctuary, even though Yoshida literally said, several times even, if I recall correctly, to keep expectations tempered.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Limiting features such as "unique heads", being a limiting factor also means these races would require less upkeep for the future. I do not believe they are "half completed", but intentionally designed this way. They are completed.

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If Square believes that these two races are feature complete then they deserve every bit of criticism, every bit of anger, every unsub in disgust over not doing their job. If people put up with half-assed products we'd still be drinking Zima, cutting our hair with Flow-bee's and driving Yugo's. (I'm sure I could come up with better examples if I put my mind to it).

If you're happy with how these races have turned out, great. The rest of us will hold Square's feet to the fire until they're fixed.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

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They are as intended. Don't worry, people aren't unsubbing over it. Clearly. People won't unsub over island sanctuary either, for that matter.

When did I ever say I was happy with how they turned out? I have literally been a broken record since LAUNCH. I played viera at LAUNCH. I am sick of the assumption of me believing one way, just because I explain how something is. Maybe it's because I do not pretty it up enough?

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Then you are living under a rock. I hope it is comfortable at least.

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An issue with Hrothgar ears doesnt, as far as I know, constitute a "disaster".

As for "under a rock"..well lets just say I am nowhere near as negative as many of you are, I can and will appreciate what they have done to make this game one of the best in the market.

I personally am really looking forward to the Islands thingy! I tend to keep to myself so things like this that give me more to do are always welcome :)

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

An issue with Hrothgar ears doesnt, as far as I know, constitute a "disaster".

As for "under a rock"..well lets just say I am nowhere near as negative as many of you are, I can and will appreciate what they have done to make this game one of the best in the market.

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If anyone is under a rock it's those people you're talking about. Everyone else is out there enjoying the game, while they sit in this place and write complaints that reach no one. :p

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

If anyone is under a rock it's those people you're talking about. Everyone else is out there enjoying the game, while they sit in this place and write complaints that reach no one. :p

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Yup.

I am well aware there are issues ingame, there always are, there always will be. That never changes. They ARE however, the minority in stark comparison to the brilliant work thats been done.

Endwalker MSQ, despite the brickbats here, has been acclaimed as one of the best in the MMO genre. Every single review has Classes are great, minor tweaks here and there sure, but they sure as hell arent the "disaster" they are painted to be, not by a long shot.

The new SMN..I love it, easy, smooth, fluid gameplay, MCH fast and furious gunplay, SAM is just as much fun if not more so, so one ability was taken away, BIG DEAL, we adapt, we change, we get used to it,..again, whats the drama about?

The smallest thing is held up as a "major catastrophe", sheesh.

As for hats, I am reminded that the devs, on their own time and not having to be told, turned around and found 500 designs that would allow headgear..sure the cosmetics need improving, but that will happen in time...have we forgotten the major upgrades to character designs on the way?

Glamour, we will always need more space for the MASSIVE amount of gear variations we have, then again, look at the work thats been done to GIVE us those variations, the new weapons, housing designs...each patch has MORE content in it than a full expac elsewhere.."theres nothing to do", from people who think raiding is all there is, ignoring the HUGE variety of other activities.

FF 14 is taking its place as one of the major frontrunners in the MMO genre, thanks to a dedicated and brilliant team who have gone, and always will, that extra mile for their players. Remember when they announced a delay to Endwalker launch?..did ANYONE see Yoshi's face and eyes?

The man was exhausted, Id say he hadnt slept in 18 hours, Ive watched his interviews, watched the videos on the evolution from 1.0 to today...really, can ANYONE here say that the same team that brought FF 14 back from the brink after 1.0, is now incapable of maintaining that standard of excellence?

Close to the end, in one of the final raids, was this line from Youtube

"Endsinger has failed its dps check, the Warrior of Light has enraged"

An epic moment in a story that has captivated me, torn at my heartstrings.....and reduced me to moments of helpless laughter.

"Lacklustre"..are you kidding me?????

Seriously, this forum, molehills, mountains...*sigh*

Have a little faith...ya know?

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

I have said something similar to this before in several of my arguments on the forums. Being their "last chance", meaning the last chance to add one of the most heavily requested races (viera), and a beast race to round out the races. Limiting features such as "unique heads", having limiting factors also conveniently means these races would require less upkeep for the future. I do not believe they are "half completed", but intentionally designed this way. They are completed.

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Look I love to bash on devs all the time but I really doubt they intentionally made the heads to be so poorly designed as to not allow hats. They were probably just crunched for time when adding them and had to cut corners. Being forced to implement something badly does not mean that is how they wanted it to come out. They clearly care about the game and would never make the viera and hrothgar the way they did if given the time to do it properly.

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

I really doubt they intentionally made the heads to be so poorly designed as to not allow hats.

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I mean, the hats are one thing. But I really doubt the devs would intentionally make it so a race was unable to change a basic customization option, so basic that the previous five races AND the other additional race that was also implemented at the same time have the option, without needing to purchase a fantasia.
They clearly weren't finished and had to use unorthodox methods to push them out.

On the subject of the Island Sanctuary itself, I'm going to wait until I see what is actually implemented to see if the wait was worth the hullabaloo. Already got what I looked forward to the most in the game Monkey Paw'd twice, best to not expect a lot especially when the devs themselves are saying to maintain expectations.

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

Look I love to bash on devs all the time but I really doubt they intentionally made the heads to be so poorly designed as to not allow hats. They were probably just crunched for time when adding them and had to cut corners. Being forced to implement something badly does not mean that is how they wanted it to come out. They clearly care about the game and would never make the viera and hrothgar the way they did if given the time to do it properly.

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Here are some quotes from Yoshida.

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“Once more, I want people to understand that Hrothgar’s head shape is truly unique and custom made here. We created them and implemented them in this way, hoping the furries will love it"

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Bolded. "hoping the furries will love it", the heads are custom made, in the hope players would "love" them.

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Q: With the two new races' unique heads, how will their headgear work?

A: It won't be displayed, because those face parts wouldn't work in FFXIV's system if headgear were involved. Even Viera ears would've had to be moved down to where Miqo'te ears are. It would've been meaningless if you couldn't go all-out creating characters from these new races, so we decided that helmets wouldn't be necessary.

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Bolded. The "face parts" take priority. "It would've been meaningless if you couldn't go all-out creating characters from these new races", Implying that in order to "go all out" faces were done this way, intentionally, as a quality choice (further down quoted, bolded), for this race's design.

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"well, originally the ears and the head are integrally molded and it’s the actual specifications [we need to adhere to] in order to implement Hrothgar into the game"

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"The head shape we use for hrothgar is designed completely exclusively for the race. It's precisely because of this fact that we're able to create their facial appearances, and their current quality is only available because the faces and hair are completed as a set.

Originally, I had announced at the outset that we would be unable to add more hairstyles for them. However, we continued to receive comments asking for more hrothgar hairstyles to be added somehow. In order to address this feedback, we went with a plan where we would maintain the shape of the head and have the ears "hidden" in the hair"

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There is a previous quote of these races getting hairstyles, although some debate on whether he had originally meant hrothgar then, or if he forgot he made this statement. Regardless, to me, this implies the intention was not to give them more hairstyles, and this was a compromise in order to accommodate player requests.

If players would prefer to disbelieve Yoshida's own words (much like with Island Sanctuary), according to these quotes, that is on them. I digress. This isn't the thread for it. Quote me and move it to one of the many viera and/or hrothgar threads and we can discuss it there.

I suspected these quotes were out there. I'm happy someone found them. As much of a tangent as it is, it fits perfectly with what's been going on with Island Sanctuary, where Yoshida says something and people just put their hands over their ears and babble.

I think we still have another few weeks before we can actually get enough info to be excited about it. I'm interested to see what it is we get from what sounds like a minigame.

There are other long-running threads to discuss Viera Hrothgar issues if you want instead of derailing a thread intended for those who want to talk about Island Sanctuary.

Please take your complaints there. Thank you.

and the thing to do is just to jump back on that. so....