JP: Yoshi P should step down, FF14 is a sinking ship, in response to interview

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

... letting creatives be creative.

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This, I agree so much with this.

I refer to the poisoning of the Sultana as FFXIV trying to do "The Red Wedding" in a very negative connotation.
I sincerely could not take a single moment in that cutscene serious because by that point, we were literary already a Godslayer yet here was this twerp acting like he was a genuine threat.
And now... There's no more tension in the story. We are, a God, by all intents and purpose.

If you ask me the best ending for Endwalker is one where we died in the final battle and faded into legend.
But that'd mean an end to the adventure. Great for a book, or movie. Bad for a game aiming to keep players playing.

The cost of that however is, the removal of all tension.

There was a moment in Gunblade storyarc where, just for a split second, my mind went "What if this is the end?". I liked that thought.

So I agree with you fully.

The WOL being some super immortal superhero is getting old. Dude is just a good fighter, he needs help from time to time. He cant solo armies. Hell Gulool Ja Ja in his prime wouldve probably beat him

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Originally Posted by Talamh

I refer to the poisoning of the Sultana as FFXIV trying to do "The Red Wedding" in a very negative connotation.
I sincerely could not take a single moment in that cutscene serious because by that point, we were literary already a Godslayer yet here was this twerp acting like he was a genuine threat.
And now... There's no more tension in the story. We are, a God, by all intents and purpose..

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This plot point gets a pass from me only because, yeah we downed a few primals, but that had been done before by others and there is no limit to the ego, sense of entitlement and disregard for the consequences of one's actions of someone who is rolling in wealth. Of course he thought he would get away with it, he likely has never been punished for any actions. You realize how much blood is on those little hands that he never faced any consequences for? We were strong, sure, but not that strong in his view. Nowadays thigns would surely be different. But not back at the end of ARR.

I am just sorry the Sultana was not killed off and the whole story line of Ul'dah's possible civil war was removed to make things more happy. I really wish I could find that interview with Yoshida again, because he touched on a few things that were supposed to happen that were left on the cutting room floor thanks to a CEO who was unwilling to take chances.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

The WOL being some super immortal superhero is getting old. Dude is just a good fighter, he needs help from time to time. He cant solo armies. Hell Gulool Ja Ja in his prime wouldve probably beat him

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I mean, they could - the WOL is an Ascian after all.

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

I personally think they are just scared of not only the more common social backlashes and criticisms that are happening more and more as time passes, but also fear of trying something different and losing the casual and rp playerbase that they so heavily rely on. And that fear is causing them to spin out in a rut. Not only in a game perpective with the unwillingness to try things that are drastically different or design jobs in a way that it creates any sort of need for players to actually be fully engaged, but also with story perspective.

They don't want to do anything drastic. They will not have any conflict amongst the scions, they do not want us to face anything that will cause us to lose anymore so as not to upset the players that want everything rainbows and lollipops. And those kids are very loud and the tantrums are real. So much so that it is incredibly difficult to even make well thought out arguments because no matter how well you do, you get beat down, downvoted, and harrassed on social media. Which is why the forums come off as so negative, because its literally the only space we have to talk openly about what we don't like. So they just close themselves off and do what they think we want. And that not only severly limits what they can do but it also severely limits how they do it. Everything being solved with friendship, an already all too common trope in Japanese story telling, is so incredibly boring.

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This take always confuses me. So, a large portion of their playerbase that is key to sustaining the game is casual and RP players, who also manage to swamp every place on the internet except for this forum with how much they enjoy the current design of the game and don't want things to change...but the devs are "out of touch" for not listening to the relatively few people on this one small corner of the internet instead of all those other people? Then it gets doubled down with "I'm playing the game designed by a Japanese company and am annoyed they're using common Japanese tropes."

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Let's face it. Endwalker should have been about war, it should have been dirty and gritty and put us through the paces. Zodiarc should never have been such a pushover, the Garleans should never have fallen off camera. The scions should have suffered loses. There should have been scenes that made us feel sad, angry or made us yell at our screens. When a story elicits emotions like that you know, as a writer, that you did well. But none of that stuff is safe. It will anger the fans who are scared of feeling anything negative. So now we are feeling angry, we are feeling sad and we are yelling at our screens, but in the wrong way.

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Let's face it. This is an opinion, nothing more, nothing less. It "should" not have been anything, and again this ultimately comes down to "How dare they make me angry by telling a positive story...they should have made other people angry by telling a different one instead!" Personally, I don't think someone needs to die for a story to be "good." You can still feel sad or angry at things that don't go to such extremes. And would you say you "did well" as a writer if people stop reading your story in droves because you killed off a character that your readers liked?

Personally, I don't blame anyone who wants a positive story. Between covid a few years ago to the resurgence of bigotry, hate, and extremism in the everyday world today, I can completely understand and support people who don't also want to feel angry while playing a video game. These are designed to be a chance to "get away" from that world for a bit.

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This game was never suppsed to be this way. The original plan for HW was to make it really dark and gritty, which you can see in the trailer. But, according the Yoshida, the then CEO didn't like the idea and wanted to make it more light and happy to attract a wider audience. Which eventually led us to where we are today. Now we have that wider audience and they are made up of a bunch of emotionally immature kids who are holding the devs and metaphorical gunpoint, which is more damaging to the game then just letting creatives be creative.

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I'm not active on social media in general, so my experience is limited mainly to these forums and Youtube videos, but your description sounds more like what we see around here. Read the absurd hyperboles. Read how the game is "ruined" because the shading on a character's face changed slightly. Read the people wanting to straight up fire people for changing the potency on an action. Read the way people around here attack and belittle anyone who dares to say anything positive about the game on this forum. Read the way there can be a dozen negative threads on a topic, but it's still not enough and even the one positive thread will get swarmed. Frankly, I think a key reason the devs don't take this forum seriously is because of how the echo chamber around here presents itself.

The echo chamber on these forums is almost unbearable and is exhausting. The game is doing fine and this same routine happens all the time. I saw it with ARR and Stormblood and it probably happened with other expacs but I rarely actually visit these forums. Mostly because people are just always complaining. There's a login queue every time I play this game despite what time of day or day of the week but sure it's "dying".

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Originally Posted by seraf

The echo chamber on these forums is almost unbearable and is exhausting. The game is doing fine and this same routine happens all the time. I saw it with ARR and Stormblood and it probably happened with other expacs but I rarely actually visit these forums. Mostly because people are just always complaining. There's a login queue every time I play this game despite what time of day or day of the week but sure it's "dying".

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There's a login queue every time I play this game despite what time of day or day of the week but sure it's "dying"

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The fact you said this proves how clueless you are and how you have absolutely no clue about how the FFXIV login system works.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

This take always confuses me. So, a large portion of their playerbase that is key to sustaining the game is casual and RP players, who also manage to swamp every place on the internet except for this forum with how much they enjoy the current design of the game and don't want things to change...but the devs are "out of touch"

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Loud, not large. I said that too. If the devs really wanted to be more in touch, they should listen to all the voices, not just the ones who are screaming over everyone else. But since they tend to focus on the 3 dudes who just hang out and emote in limsa moreso than the rest of the players who are actually playing the game, both casually or more handcore, yeah I think they are a bit out of touch.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Then it gets doubled down with "I'm playing the game designed by a Japanese company and am annoyed they're using common Japanese tropes."

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This just frustration with Japanese story telling as a whole, because it has become incredibly simplistic and almost insulting to it's audience. Esp when that audience is primarily not Japanese. If SE wants to market to a worldwide audience, they need to be able to look outside of it's own borders, which they are notoriously often unwilling to do. And now it seems to make it worse, they think their audience are 12 and not even a B average sort of 12.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Let's face it. This is an opinion, nothing more, nothing less. It "should" not have been anything, and again this ultimately comes down to "How dare they make me angry by telling a positive story...they should have made other people angry by telling a different one instead!" Personally, I don't think someone needs to die for a story to be "good." You can still feel sad or angry at things that don't go to such extremes. And would you say you "did well" as a writer if people stop reading your story in droves because you killed off a character that your readers liked?

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Yeah, not sorry for being not only a writer but also someone who actually has degrees in literary criticism and has spent well over a decade looking at the writing of video games in particular, that was hoping that SE, a company known for its story telling, actually gave us good stories instead of bargin bin manga. I mean yeah it is an opinion, but at least one that comes from a more analytical perspective. I mean Twilight and 50 Shades were also considered works for literary art by the masses, so I can understand why this may be an insulting opinion to some.

I also never said to kill ppl off, there are so many more ways to have people or groups suffer losses other than just killing a bunch of ppl off. Reducing that statement to "that monster wants to kill off mama 'shtola!" is an incredibly simplistic way of looking at that.

And just because there are battles to be waged, losses to be dealt with and struggles to be overcome, does not mean that it cannot be a possitive story. But the way everything was boiled down and given to us half cooked was not only insulting to, well, some of us. But it also just makes SE look bad. Then you add DT on top of it and I, as a writer (and not even as good of a writer as most) would be embarrassed to say I had anything to do with the writing. If you need a 10 year old story about war, genocide and the destuction of multiple planets to be reduced to "we won because we shook hands and ate tacos, all because you had a bad couple years, than I don't know how you are really going to make it through life. It's not about the tragedy, it's about the responce to that tragedy that gives us hope in the end.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

I'm not active on social media in general, so my experience is limited mainly to these forums and Youtube videos....Frankly, I think a key reason the devs don't take this forum seriously is because of how the echo chamber around here presents itself.

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Wow you really should have been around twitter or r/ffxiv esp during the EW days. You think this place is an echo chamber filled with absurd hyperbole? lol you really have no idea. And like I said, the only reason these forums come off as so negative is because no one can say anything critical about ffxiv outside of here without being personally attacked and sometimes doxxed, to the point they need to take their opinions down and just not post at all. They show just how toxic this community really is, all while they smile and say there is no toxicity in ffxiv.

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Originally Posted by Narnio

Get off your high horse and realize they have a point instead of dismissing it out of hand because they got a login queue fact wrong. This forum has been an echo chamber of negativity for as long as I can remember. In 6.0 the forums claimed that Endwalker was abysmally bad and would kill the game. In post-Endwalker the forums claimed that the story is abysmally bad and would kill the game. And now we're in Dawntrail which is abysmally bad and will kill the game. Stay tuned for 8.0, the worst expansion to date that will kill the game!

As always, the game is doing fine, probably better than it had been during the Post-EW content drought. If you ask the forums though, it's doomsday and a toxic mob 24/7 (which is most MMORPG forums in fairness).

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https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...92/415/fe9.jpg

This you ?

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Originally Posted by PassinLay

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...92/415/fe9.jpg

This you ?

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Don't you have venues to get blacklisted from?

What's the objective in this thread? To be able to look back when the game goes into maintenance mode (because it eventually will) and say, "Look! I called it. Game died!"

Your opinions expressed here will not change the direction of the game. A Dev will not read your post and say, "wow, this random kid has an idea that we totally never thought about or considered! (probably not true also) we should totally hire them and have them help us write the games next expac!"

If you do not enjoy it, leave. I've taken many breaks during my tenure. Though, usually, due to the community (in game drama) rather than the game. Not surprising I suppose.

Also, why are people so fixated on the story? It's kinda one of those things you get thru to unlock content. Unless you really enjoy living in a constant NG+ loop, whats the big deal..? I'm in the "not a Wuk enjoyer club" also, think the character is insensitive and self centered (lets not forget the VA) .. but it was pretty on par with the rest of the writing, at least in my opinion. Which isn't worth much.

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Originally Posted by Sensui

What's the objective in this thread? To be able to look back when the game goes into maintenance mode (because it eventually will) and say, "Look! I called it. Game died!"

Your opinions expressed here will not change the direction of the game. A Dev will not read your post and say, "wow, this random kid has an idea that we totally never thought about or considered! (probably not true also) we should totally hire them and have them help us write the games next expac!"

If you do not enjoy it, leave. I've taken many breaks during my tenure. Though, usually, due to the community (in game drama) rather than the game. Not surprising I suppose.

Also, why are people so fixated on the story? It's kinda one of those things you get thru to unlock content. Unless you really enjoy living in a constant NG+ loop, whats the big deal..? I'm in the "not a Wuk enjoyer club" also, think the character is insensitive and self centered (lets not forget the VA) .. but it was pretty on par with the rest of the writing, at least in my opinion. Which isn't worth much.

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It's almost like the story matters in FFXIV

I know it's crazy, the story is actually one of the biggest selling points of this game, because its part of the FF franchise, but please go off telling people what they should or shouldnt like in a game they pay for, also, if the motto was "just leave lmao" this game wouldnt exist at this point, FFXIV ARR happened because of people's complaints.

So basically if people followed your advice, this game wouldnt even be a thing.

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Originally Posted by PassinLay

It's almost like the story matters in FFXIV

I know it's crazy, the story is actually one of the biggest selling points of this game, because its part of the FF franchise.

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So you just wanna say you don't like it? Cool I guess. I don't like a lot of stuff too. It's like someone going to a restaurant they hate just so they can leave another negative yelp review.

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Originally Posted by PassinLay

So basically if people followed your advice, this game wouldnt even be a thing.

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Ugh. God, I wish. Worst thing about this game are the other players.

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Originally Posted by Sensui

So you just wanna say you don't like it? Cool I guess. I don't like a lot of stuff too. It's like someone going to a restaurant they hate just so they can leave another negative yelp review.

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So you want an echo chamber of positivity basically, gotcha

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Originally Posted by PassinLay

So you want an echo chamber of positivity basically, gotcha

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Mm, no, not exactly.

The overdramatization is annoying. It's like people all went to the same "write a headline that uses extreme words to get clicks" class. I see it in real life garbage news articles and also in these forums. It immediately puts me on the opposing opinion.

A good ol' bitch session is fine. But the seriousness of it is so wild to me. People get so bent out of shape over it, it kinda makes me want to take the opposite side just to see how much more you can send the person over the edge. Lighten up, it's a game. The WOL isn't really you.

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Originally Posted by Sensui

Mm, no, not exactly.

The overdramatization is annoying. It's like people all went to the same "write a headline that uses extreme words to get clicks" class. I see it in real life garbage news articles and also in these forums. It immediately puts me on the opposing opinion.

A good ol' bitch session is fine. But the seriousness of it is so wild to me. People get so bent out of shape over it, it kinda makes me want to take the opposite side just to see how much more you can send the person over the edge. Lighten up, it's a game. The WOL isn't really you.

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"I don't have stances on things I just react emotionally" wild

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Originally Posted by gllt

"I don't have stances on things I just react emotionally" wild

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Never said I don't have opinions. I said they're not worth much.

is it just me or is he on a lot more conventions these past few months than usual?

Probably being told he needs to do more marketing of the product. Likely a strategy to boost sales.

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Originally Posted by Asari5

is it just me or is he on a lot more conventions these past few months than usual?

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Post-COVID Expansion stuff


Was like this pre-COVID also.




Just you know, COVID happened.

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Originally Posted by AnimalsALot

many words

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Unsub. You're burnt out.

Don't forget to give me your stuff first.

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Originally Posted by Sensui

Mm, no, not exactly.

The overdramatization is annoying. It's like people all went to the same "write a headline that uses extreme words to get clicks" class. I see it in real life garbage news articles and also in these forums. It immediately puts me on the opposing opinion.

A good ol' bitch session is fine. But the seriousness of it is so wild to me. People get so bent out of shape over it, it kinda makes me want to take the opposite side just to see how much more you can send the person over the edge. Lighten up, it's a game. The WOL isn't really you.

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It's honestly amazing the tone some of the complaints here have, like they're demanding personal letters of apology from yoship after he shot their dog.

It's possible to say "thing bad, I don't like new thing" without overblowing it like "the game is dying and yoship should resign, because the MSQ from a single expac (not including patches) was bad for half of it". There was another thread saying that the writing team should be fired, another with people acting like the game's literally unplayable because their character looks 1% off after the graphical update and demanding a reversion of the graphics, and many more over the time I've poked my head in here since DT launch.

I get the feeling they're under the impression that if they just pretend the sky is falling, everyone will believe it, instead of taking it as reason to not take them seriously.

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Originally Posted by Akonyl

It's honestly amazing the tone some of the complaints here have, like they're demanding personal letters of apology from yoship after he shot their dog.

It's possible to say "thing bad, I don't like new thing" without overblowing it like "the game is dying and yoship should resign, because the MSQ from a single expac (not including patches) was bad for half of it". There was another thread saying that the writing team should be fired, another with people acting like the game's literally unplayable because their character looks 1% off after the graphical update and demanding a reversion of the graphics, and many more over the time I've poked my head in here since DT launch.

I get the feeling they're under the impression that if they just pretend the sky is falling, everyone will believe it, instead of taking it as reason to not take them seriously.

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Also worth noting that there are some who actually enjoyed Dawntrail.

I'm one of them.

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Originally Posted by Narnio

Get off your high horse and realize they have a point instead of dismissing it out of hand because they got a login queue fact wrong. This forum has been an echo chamber of negativity for as long as I can remember. In 6.0 the forums claimed that Endwalker was abysmally bad and would kill the game. In post-Endwalker the forums claimed that the story is abysmally bad and would kill the game. And now we're in Dawntrail which is abysmally bad and will kill the game. Stay tuned for 8.0, the worst expansion to date that will kill the game!

As always, the game is doing fine, probably better than it had been during the Post-EW content drought. If you ask the forums though, it's doomsday and a toxic mob 24/7 (which is most MMORPG forums in fairness).

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I see your point, except this time, the story really is abysmally bad, evidenced by the fact that complaints are coming from outside the echo chamber of negativity that the forums are, as well.

I agree with some of the issues, however, the resolution for Yoshida to step down is silly at best. It's not exactly like the problem is exclusive to XIV itself (Edit: Or even the titles that he oversees for that matter).

I would agree that Dawntrail is probably pretty weak overall, but taken in bite sized moments I genuinely enjoyed the story mostly.

I was fine with Wuk Lamat as a character, fine with her voice actor and generally fine with the story up to about level 95.

It was painfully obvious that Koana and Wuk would co-lead, but I had really hoped the three siblings would rule together in the end.
That is really my only major problem: many plot decisions/happenings were just very unsatisfying, or it was blatantly obvious what the result was going to be way too early.

The first half set up a lot and just discarded threads (like Sareel ja) meant nothing.
Bakool’s redemption really lead to nothing (we got a story and some cutscenes, but he should have become a major party member.
A loving father that for some reason is unaware of or simply doesn’t talk to his son about their problems.
Too much time with Wuk Lamat overall and not enough with other characters…
A disease that stunts the giants? Guess that was not that important…(see you in DoH tribe I guess?)

Heck, even that puzzle volcano thing which asked you to pay attention, only to have the answers given very condescending-ly so you couldn’t make a mistake was a total waste. The entire expansion felt a lot like this one instance: big set up, no pay off.

These are minor gripes, but all together they leave a “meh” taste in my mouth. Solid C+. Fine, but not amazing.

I guess what I was hoping for is somewhere around 94 to realize “wait, this story was never about Wuk Lamat. This is Bakool’s origin story” (or Zareel)

All that said, Yoshida is fine at the helm. Just needs to not have a single main writer. Use a writer’s room and make sure the lore peeps are there…

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Originally Posted by Akonyl

It's possible to say "thing bad, I don't like new thing" without overblowing it like "the game is dying and yoship should resign, because the MSQ from a single expac (not including patches) was bad for half of it". There was another thread saying that the writing team should be fired...

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Hard disagree.

Look at all the reviews on Steam/Metacritic/anywhere else.

The main selling point of FF14 is the story, and it's marketed as the "story-MMO".
With a story this bad, a lot of people will jump ship in the long term. And honestly, I am very hesitand to recommend this to anyone, even if the MSQ including 6.0 was amazing imo.

This game is currently the only reason the company is even profitable, Square cannot afford to let some absolute talentless amateurs work on the most critical part of the game.

These writers need to go. I don't want this game to become World of Warcraft.

Yoshi brought back FFXIV from 1.0, presided over Heavensward / Shadowbringers / Endwalker, and if someone had asked him to step down after Stormblood - We'd never have gotten Shadowbringers / Endwalker's stories.

WoW has had hit / miss xpacs, FFXI has had hit / miss xpacs, and FFXIV will have them as well. This isn't even a complete miss as the raids / end game dungeons are awesome and we haven't even seen the real changes they have in the pipeline starting in 7.1.


Take it down a notch and try providing better feedback outside of "Fire this man for not shit talking the game during what is still effectively a media tour as they're in the middle of selling as many copies of DT as possible since the game was recently released". Seriously, how entitled. Calling for a man's job because your favorite game didn't have an absolutely perfect xpac in an industry where bad xpacs are a thing. Shameful.

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Originally Posted by Morphiana

Take it down a notch and try providing better feedback...

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Look at the very first post in this thread.
Not sure why that doesnt count as "feedback" to you.

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Originally Posted by AnimalsALot

http://blog.livedoor.jp/umadori0726/.../61755714.html

JP comments in response to Yoshi P interview. Translator original link down below.

“Wuk Lamat’s complex isn’t really a problem”

1. Seriously? You wanted to make her even more annoying??? LOL That’s not the issue at all, LOL.


2. Didn’t feel like she had much of a complex, and Koana’s portrayal blurred that even more. Zoraal Ja was the only one who seemed like a weak point, but even that wasn’t depicted well, so we never got what their relationship was like. And with how it ended, there’s no fixing it. The slow pace of the story was due to repeating similar cutscenes and ineffective comedy scenes, and it dragged on throughout the narrative. It’s not just a Wuk Lamat problem. The food trial, sudden power-up, the stage, the Smile—there’s just too much to list this time.


3. She has a complex about being less than her brothers, but she never really questions if she’s fit to be a ruler. She says she wants to understand others, but everything’s about how she sees it, with no consideration for others. She uses people, puts them down, or discards them without hesitation. I thought she was completely selfish and narcissistic—where’s the lack of confidence?


4. They didn’t nail the story of a low-confidence character growing. Alphinaud also had a growth story, but it was followed through much longer after the expansion’s .0 patch, whereas this was rushed and condensed, which is the issue. Focusing on portraying her as a confident character from the start was just the wrong move.


5. More than Wuk Lamat’s complex, it’s more about how Warrior of Light is just a backseat observer and shutting down Living Memory without hesitation...


6. Instead of focusing on her complex about her father and brothers, they should’ve focused on Zoraal Ja’s twisted complex about his dad. He’s got this huge father complex, yet the golden alpacas and the fight against Valigarmanda were depicted with excitement. In contrast, Wuk Lamat has an inferiority complex toward them, but she quickly surpasses Zoraal Ja in combat and Koana in intelligence through instinct, so she overcomes her struggles too fast, leaving no catharsis. When it comes to being fit to rule, all three are below Nanamo from A Realm Reborn.

7. When Wuk Lamat said, “I’m getting tired of this” during the quiz event at the Living Memory-styled building, I was honestly just done. I’d managed to hold on until then, but that completely broke me. She showed no consideration for others. Krile was there, trying to learn about her origins, and Wuk Lamat was being so insensitive. If she’d been written as a strong woman from the start, this wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have been so disillusioned with Dawntrail. Hey, Yoshi-P, why did you do this?


8. I spent the whole game wondering if it was really okay to make her a ruler, and having to choose between bad options was just painful.


9. She’s hated because she lacks any kind of sensitivity. From A Realm Reborn onward, the characters who don’t care about others, no matter how strong or weak they are, are disliked. Characters like Haurchefant are popular because they’re considerate and take care of others.


10. Wuk Lamat was portrayed as having some complex about her parents and siblings. Because of that, she lacked confidence, which I think is why the story felt slow and frustrating. Really...? To me, she seemed like a spoiled princess, despite being adopted, who lived far beyond her status and enjoyed her privileges, growing up naïve... So there’s a contradiction in her character, where she supposedly wants to learn more about others despite knowing nothing outside Tuliyollal... Her seasickness and “I’m not scared!” cheap characterization felt hastily added... Despite being weak and easily kidnapped, she suddenly becomes strong without any convincing events... The whole thing just feels broken.

11. The low-confidence character thing was already done with Lyse. Wuk Lamat was portrayed as confident and brash from the start, but the nervousness was supposed to be cute, right? But 7.0 was full of annoying nervousness, and if she had a seasickness issue, why wasn’t that shown when she landed in Sharlayan or headed to Ham Island?

“Yoshi-P is out of touch”

1. If they don’t understand the problem, nothing’s going to change. It’s over, our journey’s done.

2. Yoshi-P doesn’t seem to be playing the game.

3. Yoshida should probably step down.

4. I’ve felt a disconnect between Yoshida and the players for years now; it’s probably time he steps down...

5. Yoshida seems out of touch. They hinted at a complex in 6.5 and early 7.0, but it was just surface level. She talked about her complex and then immediately resolved it, so she wasn’t really bothered by it. If anything, she bounced back quickly and started lecturing others, acting like she deserved all the support she got.

6. It’s not that the story “dipped after Endwalker,” it’s that the story is just sloppy. You shouldn’t bash individual staff too much, but Yoshida, as the guy in charge, doesn’t get the problem at all (or maybe he’s dodging it), and his excuses are so superficial that he deserves all the criticism.

7. If Yoshida really thinks this way, not because of a translation error, then I think the story of FF14 is genuinely over.

8. I bet Yoshida hasn’t played through this because he’s too busy. There’s no way a PD would play through this boring progression and Wuk Lamat’s excessive screen time, only to find the character hollow, and not notice. If he played it through and still approved this interview, that’s even worse.

9. Yoshida hasn’t played through all the DT content, has he? Otherwise, he couldn’t say something like this. He’s completely out of touch. Please prep a proper script before giving interviews.

10. Yoshida needs to realize that since FF16, his games’ stories have been unpopular. I don’t know if it’s the writers’ fault or if the original concept was flawed, but from the outside, it’s clear there’s no one left at Square Enix who can fix this disconnect. The ship is sinking...

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus..._couldve_been/

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

Look at the very first post in this thread.
Not sure why that doesnt count as "feedback" to you.

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They're not the only person here, we are 16 pages in, and I am not sure why you consider this demand acceptable. Even if they were the only person here, they devalue their own feedback by calling for someone's job based off a xpac's story being mixed in ratings while end game is just fine, and FF16 which while they may not like it, plenty of people certainly did.

It is entitled to demand someone's job over this. Again, if he had been asked to step down after Stormblood then Shadowbringers never would've been a thing. The greatest things sometimes come from tripping and getting back up, let him get back up.

Tone it down, his job and livelihood are your not play things to demand be broken after something like this.

Between this and people calling for Wuk Lamat's VA's job while completely ignoring most the VAs this xpac have flat moments and the VA studio's director / approach is what needs to be adjusted - It is shameful.

Be better.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

Hard disagree.

Look at all the reviews on Steam/Metacritic/anywhere else.

The main selling point of FF14 is the story, and it's marketed as the "story-MMO".
With a story this bad, a lot of people will jump ship in the long term. And honestly, I am very hesitand to recommend this to anyone, even if the MSQ including 6.0 was amazing imo.

This game is currently the only reason the company is even profitable, Square cannot afford to let some absolute talentless amateurs work on the most critical part of the game.

These writers need to go. I don't want this game to become World of Warcraft.

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even if i am fully on your side i dont get why people in this forum always have to bring wow into the topic...
But for its defense the last expansion have a pretty nice story in my view.

Another interview dropped, this time from a German gaming site. He seems to think a lot of the anger is culture war stuff or foreigners not understanding the Japanese-style writing that went into Wuk Lamat, and handwaves the pacing as the struggles of introducing a new world and new people (even though the stuff that was shown to us was puddle-thin and honestly kind of offensive).
That being said, it's a little odd for a German site to talk about Wuk Lamat's voice acting being a point of criticism when apparently the German voice actor for her was very good, but we are talking about games journalists, I suppose. Anything to redirect discussion from the game itself.
https://jpgames.de/2024/09/final-fan...-an-wuk-lamat/

The Japanese aren't taking this one well, either. Top comment is calling Yoshi P clueless.
https://ff14net.2chblog.jp/archives/61770304.html

Yoshi has been bombing a lot lately it's not unreasonable to start questioning whether he's up to maintaining the game for another 10 years. We've been shipped a lot of excuses for the weak content he's delivered over the years. First it was covid, then it was a chip shortage, and now what is it? "The graphical update was big" "I didn't know what to do with ____" "I didn't know how the community would react to ____". He needs to address the core issues with this expansion, and stop putting out weak PR that just stokes the flames even further. This is a paid, monthly MMORPG which is unable to deliver things that even free 2 play games have figured out by now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Drimn

Another interview dropped, this time from a German gaming site. He seems to think a lot of the anger is culture war stuff or foreigners not understanding the Japanese-style writing that went into Wuk Lamat, and handwaves the pacing as the struggles of introducing a new world and new people (even though the stuff that was shown to us was puddle-thin and honestly kind of offensive).
That being said, it's a little odd for a German site to talk about Wuk Lamat's voice acting being a point of criticism when apparently the German voice actor for her was very good, but we are talking about games journalists, I suppose. Anything to redirect discussion from the game itself.
https://jpgames.de/2024/09/final-fan...-an-wuk-lamat/

The Japanese aren't taking this one well, either. Top comment is calling Yoshi P clueless.
https://ff14net.2chblog.jp/archives/61770304.html

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2. Anonymous Adventurer
September 3, 2024 00:52
It's obvious that they're not even supervising properly anymore, so don't say anything unnecessary.
Just focus on overseas travel and idol business.

5. Anonymous Adventurer
September 3, 2024 00:54
Well, the difference in perspective is becoming apparent...

7. Anonymous Adventurer
September 3, 2024 00:54
>At the same time, there will likely be a lot of players who like her as a character.
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

17. Anonymous Adventurer
September 3, 2024 00:58
I knew that their sensibilities were out of sync with the users, but
when they're this far apart I can't have any hopes for the future...
I guess there are only yes-men left on the inside now.

162. Anonymous Adventurer
September 3, 2024 01:52
>>1
"The way her character is designed is very Japanese"

Why do you always say she represents Japan as if she were the one?
What is Japanese about that beast?


Also there are actually just no positive comments that got above 10 likes lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Archeron

Yoshi has been bombing a lot lately it's not unreasonable to start questioning whether he's up to maintaining the game for another 10 years. We've been shipped a lot of excuses for the weak content he's delivered over the years. First it was covid, then it was a chip shortage, and now what is it? "The graphical update was big" "I didn't know what to do with ____" "I didn't know how the community would react to ____". He needs to address the core issues with this expansion, and stop putting out weak PR that just stokes the flames even further. This is a paid, monthly MMORPG which is unable to deliver things that even free 2 play games have figured out by now.

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I'll cut him a little slack, the chip shortage was 100% unavoidable. The game ballooned in popularity while Taiwan, a huge producer of semiconductors, was getting hammered by covid and crypto was at its peak, meaning the dwindling supply of chips was getting bought up by GPU manufacturers so they can sell them to Bitcoin miners at high markup. It's more unfortunate that by the time they had the data centers ready to roll out, the streamers had bailed and the player base was down from its peak to the point that Dynamis really wasn't all that necessary.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Archeron

We've been shipped a lot of excuses for the weak content he's delivered over the years. First it was covid, then it was a chip shortage, and now what is it? "The graphical update was big" "I didn't know what to do with ____" "I didn't know how the community would react to ____".

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What really sucks too is that I was completely with them and on board for those excuses, because they were valid excuses. Covid completely fucked the entire global workforce and economy, of course I was willing to cut them some slack on patch 5.3 being delayed and it cutting into some content they wanted to have. The chip shortage was a real problem all over the world, so that was also an entirely valid excuse. Hell, at the time in 2022 I was just desperately trying to get a new dishwasher of all things and couldn't due to the global chip shortage. There weren't enough damn chips to make anything electronic, which is a lot of stuff! Plus it was the height of all that NFT and crypto BS so that was also leeching the market dry. Most of the player base I saw at the time was completely understanding and patient with the team for that stuff.

But then the Endwalker patches wore on, and those excuses stopped working. Vaccines were now out and covid was getting better contained. The chip shortage stopped and I could finally get my broken dishwasher replaced and upgrade my old dying GPU. They couldn't keep blaming the pandemic for lackluster content.

I believe Yoshi-P can't say the real reason why content has been so bad, because he can't publicly speak ill of Square Enix. I refuse to believe that the concurrent development of FFXVI didn't hurt Endwalker and its patch cycles in some major ways. And now we hear it announced that CS3 is working on TWO new titles concurrent to XIV, because apparently corporate looked at how XIV and XVI worked an said "That was great, do that again and more of it." And now Yoshi-P is stuck having to come up with some other explanation that isn't that to why the team is having problems, because he can never say anything like, "Corporate gave us two more games to develop so we're down a lot of staff on XIV right now."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Morphiana

They're not the only person here, we are 16 pages in, and I am not sure why you consider this demand acceptable.

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And if you bothered to read said 16 pages, you might have noticed that no one (okay, let's say 1, just in case I've missed it) is actually calling for him to step down, but instead be more heavily involved again.

Get off your high horse. You won't get extra tomestones for defending Yoshi-P's honour.

And in the words of someone you may be familiar with:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Morphiana

Be better.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Willemdarke

And if you bothered to read said 16 pages, you might have noticed that no one (okay, let's say 1, just in case I've missed it) is actually calling for him to step down, but instead be more heavily involved again.

Get off your high horse. You won't get extra tomestones for defending Yoshi-P's honour.

And in the words of someone you may be familiar with:

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I personally would like to think this is him being disengaged because he's got way too much on his plate, or just left the game in other hands because he mentally moved on post-EW, and that he's being fed information from people that may or may not have the game's best interests at heart. I'd like to think that, but I honestly don't know. I don't want him to step down because we saw what happened when Koji Fox and Ishikawa got promoted away from creative positions to managerial ones. Be very careful what you wish for if you go talking like that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Archeron

This is a paid, monthly MMORPG which is unable to deliver things that even free 2 play games have figured out by now.

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Your entire post is completely correct but I want to highlight this part.

It's so frustrating because people are already throwing around the line he said about taking a break. I don't want to take a break, I don't want to play more than one mmo. I want to play this game and have a reasonable enough amount of things to do in it, even if it's casual. It has been 62 days since DT release at this point and, outside of raiding, there's nothing to do. I've never felt so reluctantly bound to the game because of my house and staying subbed to not lose it.

I'm not saying it needs to be all riveting content but the game's shortcomings have been piling up and have finally come home to roost in DT now that the story isn't distracting enough from them. Small zones with no need or lure to do any exploration, meaning they're empty. Easy dungeons that are one and done unless you're leveling alts. Content that's never been repurposed or we've been told straight up that it's not getting more additions. The combat system that's slowly been eroded to the point that I feel like we're just going to shift to a Blade & Soul style system with no trinity so no one ever feels any pressure. The massive amount of MSQ that new players need to slog through just to get to where everyone else is. Raid tiers always being the same size and structure resulting in bland and boring.

This is the worst time for 14 to stumble. GW2 just put out housing for everyone as well as just normal content in their expac. WoW is regaining their reputation after the restructuring and HR issues as well as Shadowlands and I've seen a lot of excitement around War Within. The competitors have never looked so appealing.

It's okay to experiment with the story or possible ideas but the problem is that we still have nothing to do in the game. EW was just as flat and irritating, especially when we got the Varient Dungeons. How much time was put into that, content that died the second week after arrival each time? How did they not plan a better system to keep people engaging with it? I'm baffled that people still play FF11 when it's like 20 years old and have things to do when it's been 2 months into DT and we're already having people pull out the "oh well Yoshi said to go play other games when you're done!" How did we get here?

I just hope this entire situation is a wake up call to stop resting on their laurels. It was a cosmic alignment of irl situations that drove 14's numbers up dramatically (the wow exodus, covid lockdowns, etc) and I was happy that 14 was finally getting more attention. Yoshi doesn't necessarily need to step down but he and any of the people in charge of 14 need to step back and have a good long talk about what is going on with the game and stop being scared of negative feedback.