Letter from the Producer LXII

They're going to be genderlocked forever, aren't they?

I definitely somehow missed the news that no head pieces would work with the new races, so I was immediately horrified to read that but then relieved they were modifying over 500 pieces of gear, then confused cause dancer reveal had a viera with a head piece, then grateful that the development team is obviously so passionate about this game.

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Originally Posted by PharisHanasaki

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A lot of items do share the same models though and are just resized to the needs.

For example : earring seems to at best have 2 models. Else there are moved and resized.

for chest piece it seems to have hyur midlander m, f, roe m, lala m (most of them at least) it is adjusted for the rest of the races. For more difficult attire there is obviously more models but you have the idea.

As the benchmark isn't out I can't tell you if Viera and Rhoth share what piece, or if they reworked them all, obviously. However they did said that all headpieces had to be reworked and that will take time.

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Originally Posted by Corue

They're going to be genderlocked forever, aren't they?

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I wouldn't quite expect "forever," but it's probably going to be a while.

Granted, given the lifecycle of MMOs, it might not be FFXIV we're playing at that point...might be FFXX or something.

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Originally Posted by Darkplanet

I definitely somehow missed the news that no head pieces would work with the new races, so I was immediately horrified to read that but then relieved they were modifying over 500 pieces of gear, then confused cause dancer reveal had a viera with a head piece, then grateful that the development team is obviously so passionate about this game.

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What a ride haha, glad you got off at a happy place though :D.

https://media.giphy.com/media/SKkbK3VNyDIbu/giphy.gif

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Originally Posted by LyraKuroneko

A lot of items do share the same models though and are just resized to the needs.

For example : earring seems to at best have 2 models. Else there are moved and resized.

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Yes, but the reszing and moving doesn't happen magically.

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Originally Posted by PharisHanasaki

Yes, but the reszing and moving doesn't happen magically.

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I wouldn't bet it's the same team doing both. It can be moved/resized by code alone.

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Originally Posted by LyraKuroneko

I wouldn't bet it's the same team doing both. It can be moved/resized by code alone.

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But it still needs to be worked on. Are you trolling D:?

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Originally Posted by Corue

They're going to be genderlocked forever, aren't they?

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Time will show. Knowing Japanese way of dealing with things, such answer can be considered as covered no. However, knowing Yoshida and his wishing to please community and knowing his team, who surprisingly often do things without notifying him (how often does he tell about it on streams, lol?), I personally will not be surprised if they will suddenly break into his room with bunch of concepts and draft models. ツ So it would be correct to say that chance is nor very high due to amount of work, but there is a chance.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Actually no. Whether heals are direct, shields, or HoTs it really doesn't matter how they come so long as the player doesn't get KO'd. All healers can heal, so they are balanced when looking at just that. If the dev team continues to look at healing balance in this regard, the problem is going to continue well into 5.0. The reason why healers are unbalanced is because two of the three are saturated with utility, and the last has none at all except lesser single target versions that don't help the raid much, if at all.

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Not exactly. spf1200 is right though, it boils down to HoTs and Shields. If you were to remove those two forms of healing from each healer, and look at what they have left, you'd see that that is basically all WHM had going for it. AST still offers a tone of other things, and while they'd be hit hard SCH still has utility. The main issue is WHM is supposed to be like the healer version of BLM. But where big damage numbers are good, big heals are not, relatively speaking. You are right about the utility, but it's because of the HoTs and Shields that it's more noticeable.

Not to mention that Yoshi-P mentioned in an interview they were only looking at the healers as HoTs and Shields, and they need to stop that. The indication is that they will probably try and focus more on their feel and playstyle more than their kits. Since when you get down to it how many different ways can you dress up a heal, or damage, or a shield...?

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Originally Posted by PharisHanasaki

But it still needs to be worked on. Are you trolling D:?

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It doesn't. Because they just gotta ajdust their resize algorythm once. Not for every single model.

Don't call me a troll because you don't get something please.

For example an earpiece as simple factor each time it is used.
-The races. For the position. Which is fixed for each races.
-The character size.
-the character ear size if their is the option.

And that's it. With that they can chose the factor of their liking to resize by a % for example. But that is using the above thing. So in the end is "fixed" too.

If there isn't a model it is because an automatic code does the rest. As the race is created now. It is done and shoudln't need any modification unless they rework the race altogether.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I'm pretty sure those are both the Lv70 outfits.

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Ahh so they are. Now I'm a little sad that he didn't sneak the lv 80 versions in as they like to sprinkle this stuff around until post media tour/final LL has happened.

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Originally Posted by LyraKuroneko

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No, I asked because your answers weren't as well written as this last one. I do understand, mind you. But given how many coding bugs and limitations we've had in the past due to the rushed dev 9 years ago, what Yoshi P said doesn't strike me as odd.

My point was for people saying 'Oh they're liying to me cuz that's so weird. There should be a magic code that fixes everything fast'.

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Originally Posted by Eloah

Not exactly. spf1200 is right though, it boils down to HoTs and Shields. If you were to remove those two forms of healing from each healer, and look at what they have left, you'd see that that is basically all WHM had going for it. AST still offers a tone of other things, and while they'd be hit hard SCH still has utility. The main issue is WHM is supposed to be like the healer version of BLM. But where big damage numbers are good, big heals are not, relatively speaking. You are right about the utility, but it's because of the HoTs and Shields that it's more noticeable.

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The issue isn't really HoTs and Shields. Since, it's not like AST is preferred over WHM because of its shields, it really only uses its HoTs stance because its shields are trash.

HoTs and Shields is only what makes SCH so dominant and again, it's only because SCH's shields are REALLY good, since again, AST doesn't want to use its shields because they're bad.

AST is preferred over WHM because it is the exact same HoT healer. But with cards providing utility.

It's astounding that Yoshi mentions that they've been having balance issues with healers since adding AST and hasn't made the connection that simply releasing AST as "WHM... But with Cards" might be the problem that devalues WHM.

If anything, removing HoTs and Shields would actually make WHM the king, since they have more oGCD's to use to allow them to keep DPSing instead of hard casting Cure/Benefic/Physick.

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Originally Posted by Eloah

Since when you get down to it how many different ways can you dress up a heal, or damage, or a shield...?

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Plenty of ways. Like, damage we literally have 9 DPS jobs (Soon 10) with the only limiting factor to adding new ones being them wanting to release jobs for other roles too.

Healing and shielding also has plenty of design space:

Direct Healing
Healing Over Time
Reactive Healing
Shields
Channelled Healing
Healing from dealing Damage

It would just require the games healing to not revolve around the situation where using a GCD on a healing skill is a sin.

Since that's the main thing that limits healer design, is that they all have to work around using DPS GCD's like 90% of the time and rely on massively jacked HoTs, Shields and oGCD's that allow them to do this.

There's only so many things you can do, when you're specifically restricted to things that are oGCD or GCD's that can cover healing requirements for long periods of time.

My main character on Midgardsormr is AU'RA. i have an AU'RA on the Primal DC & an Elezen on the Crystal DC.

Once Hrothgar was announced @ the Japan Fan Fest...my thot was I have Phantasia...both my alt characters will be THUNDERCATS!!
I was never interested in making "bunny boys" & would care less.

Dancer makes alot of sense to be a physical range DPS,now there will be 3 range DPS.

Kudos to the DeV team for the 540 modified head gear pieces. That's impressive, especially doing it in their spare time & without Yoshi-P knowing about it. They went the extra mile for the Community.

COME ON JUNE 28TH!!

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Originally Posted by LyraKuroneko

It doesn't. Because they just gotta ajdust their resize algorythm once. Not for every single model.

Don't call me a troll because you don't get something please.

For example an earpiece as simple factor each time it is used.
-The races. For the position. Which is fixed for each races.
-The character size.
-the character ear size if their is the option.

And that's it. With that they can chose the factor of their liking to resize by a % for example. But that is using the above thing. So in the end is "fixed" too.

If there isn't a model it is because an automatic code does the rest. As the race is created now. It is done and shoudln't need any modification unless they rework the race altogether.

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Something to consider, just because it technically (by numbers) should fit, doesn't mean it LOOKS ok. Someone still has to verify that they display ok. Even if we lump all the similar looking pieces together that's still thousands to review. It's theoretically automatable to a degree, yes. But QA still has to happen.

Just logged in the forums to say that the live letter reminded me of one of the main reasons why I love this game. This dev team is next level when it comes to clarity and transparency. Just a well-thought-out, concise, comprehensive response to all the feedback that they've been receiving. Thanks, SE. :)

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Originally Posted by Tenil

It seems reasonable if you take everything he said as fact. In actuality, though, all races except roegadyn and lalafell share a body - they aren't unique. Even roegadyn share a body with hrothgar now.

Then there's this line: "FFXIV has around ten thousand equippable items already implemented, all of which must be manually modified by our designers". That's a blatant lie. A large number of items share models, and an even larger amount are racially universal, like accessories and weapons.

I'm not suggesting that no or little work goes into new races (even though this game has cut corners massively on races), but I don't appreciate being lied to about it being more work than it is. If the actual amount of work required is too much work, then just say it's too much work.

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Modders would be laughing at you.

So I am going to be bitter about Viera and I am coming to terms with that. But it looks like they are going to use this balance issue to continually not add healers, for any expansion ever. It has been brought up for two expansions now and balancing three healers is not going to get any easier in the future with new abilities being added each expansion. So I guess what we have is all we are going to get for healers.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Plenty of ways. Like, damage we literally have 9 DPS jobs (Soon 10) with the only limiting factor to adding new ones being them wanting to release jobs for other roles too.

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I think you might of missed my sarcasm

But in regards to the GCD and oGCD comment. That's why HoTs and Shields are a big issue. Because, while the moves that might generate them are GCD they act as oGCD abilities. Aslo not sure if WHM or SCH would be the better oGCD healer without the gimmicks. WHM does have some more "powerful" ones, but SCH has ones that are more efficient time wise. I think it would depend on the fight honestly.

The only thing I do hope for is for them to keep Shield as a SCH mainstay. I like the "barrier warrior" dynamic over a pure healer one.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

Modders would be laughing at you.

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Except even a lot of modders can't get gear to not break character models. Even simple edits sometimes screws up displays. I've seen pics of gear straight up deleting bits of character models when looked at from certain angles.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Except even a lot of modders can't get gear to not break character models. Even simple edits sometimes screws up displays. I've seen pics of gear straight up deleting bits of character models when looked at from certain angles.

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I think his post was more about laughing at it not being hard when the modders would tell you that no, there is actually a lot of work involved for the dev team?

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Originally Posted by Corue

They're going to be genderlocked forever, aren't they?

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In all honesty, it is better to look at it this way. Not only do you have to thoroughly read Yoshi's statements, you also have to read between the lines to understand what he's telling you without him directly saying it. The time we live in is the present. Not the past, nor the future. Female Viera and male Hrothgar are here now, and that is the way of it. It is now time for all of us to move on and look forward to the coming expansion. It is less than two months away now.

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Originally Posted by Dualblade

I think his post was more about laughing at it not being hard when the modders would tell you that no, there is actually a lot of work involved for the dev team?

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Exactly that. Those saying that it's a simple job to fit the gear on all races just because they share the same mesh, have no idea of what else is done for each race specifically. I've seen some modded gear pics where the dye color breaks at certain locations on the mesh from a very small modification.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

Exactly that. Those saying that it's a simple job to fit the gear on all races just because they share the same mesh, have no idea of what else is done for each race specifically. I've seen some modded gear pics where the dye color breaks at certain locations on the mesh from a very small modification.

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Ahh, my mistake. So used to people saying "look, modders can do it and they don't even get paid/it's just a hobby!" due to ignorance haha...

Wow... White Knights are out in full force in this thread, talking down anyone that don't praise the devs cause of this "Live Letter". And why do you always have to use the word entitlement too? Like you think you're entitled to get what you're getting in the new expansion is funny stuff...

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/p...es/livia_4.jpg

i think this picture sums up very well the reason they have to go through every piece of gear and QA it and adds context to what yoship was talking about with gear meshes.

look at livias wrist.

this very small motion causes extreme stretch in her texture even though shes a single character with a single model and a 'single' texture with a fixed set of character sliders. now imagine them using a bulk algorithm to process gear, theyd STILL have to go through and manually check each and every gear piece (this could be done by set, with a secondary piece by piece check to make sure a piece of transition texture doesnt end up halfway down a meshes leg, but even with an efficient process its still a lot of stuff to look through) to make sure something like this doesnt happen during movement or that a prim doesnt stretch wierd with the height slider or something (imagine getting a butt slider and any value other than the default causes livia wrist).

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Originally Posted by Astarotha

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/p...es/livia_4.jpg

i think this picture sums up very well the reason they have to go through every piece of gear and QA it and adds context to what yoship was talking about with gear meshes.

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Yeah, I don't think most people doubt how much work it takes to do what they do. I believe them when they say it takes a lot of time and money. I just think that, considering the size of the company, they should be hiring more people and upgrading the equipment required to run this game. They want experienced people. Every company does. But sometimes it's best to bite the bullet and hire someone who may need a little training, especially when doing so would lead to making more money in the long run. It's about common sense as much as it is good business sense. But I guess they need to fund their other projects somehow...and to be completely fair, what I've seen of the FF VII remake so far looks decent enough. Most of the time they put their money to good use. FF XIV just tends to suffer for it.

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Originally Posted by LiteBrite

Wow... White Knights are out in full force in this thread, talking down anyone that don't praise the devs cause of this "Live Letter". Any why do you always have to use the word entitlement too? Like you think your entitled to get what you're getting in the new expansion is funny stuff...

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Calling people entitled is the cool thing to do. Just like claiming people are White knights.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Calling people entitled is the cool thing to do. Just like claiming people are White knights.

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We are all entitled...entitled to our opinions, that is. I guess in that sense people are correct.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Calling people entitled is the cool thing to do. Just like claiming people are White knights.

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Just like reflecting and proving my point about talking down to others that don't praise the devs for their choices regarding the new expansion.

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Originally Posted by Taybat

I do find there gender races decision very odd. trying to please everybody and instead pleased no one

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I'm pleased :)

So you can't say no one was pleased :p

Mh. We don't really get much new information from this letter other than the Headgear update on Viera and Hrothgar... (shout out to the overtime devs for that) A majority of the letter though is verbatim language used after or during the FanFests.

Unfortunately, these responses have done little to reassure me of their efforts to "Rebalance Healers". I'm fine with their explanation on why a new healer wasn't added, that's not my beef; it's really their lack of response on how healers will be fixed that worries me.

Their reasoning for adding a new tank to create, essentially, two MT classes and two OT classes is sound in terms of "This is how we'll balance them". I can wrap my head around that. It's a plan of action; a structure to cling to; a methodology to follow. It informs and at least gives me an inkling of an expectation.

But "Healers are a complex situation and we decided to focus on rebalancing them" does nothing to inform me of what's actually happening; what their plan is. It really only tells me "Somethings wrong. Something will change".

As someone who mains the games most maligned healer (WHM) this really just makes me nervous about the whole thing. What is the something that's wrong? Are they even looking at the same problems with the role that I am? How are they fixing it? Are they moving in a direction that makes sense to me or are they completely missing the point? "What will my class look like when all is said and done?" is not a question I can even speculate about because there's literally nothing to go on. At least a Tank player can think "Well they'll either make me like this so I can MT. Or they'll do something like this so I'm an OT.

Information on healer changes is just a big void at this point. And when you acknowledge that an entire role is broken and needs fixing, and then say nothing else... people get a little ancy... Imagine if they just said "DPS is broken in FFXIV. We're changing how all of them work. That is all." and then left everyone in the dark for 5 months. There'd be SO much panic and people making posts going "PLEASE DON'T CHANGE [X] SKILL / [Y] CLASS!"

Just trying to keep my optimism up until the next Live Letter....

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Originally Posted by Coltvoyance

Just trying to keep my optimism up until the next Live Letter....

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This letter was meant to address some of the more pressing matters, and Yoshi P did that for better or worse. The next letter is supposedly about the battle system changes so if they are going to discuss healer changes at all, it'll probably be in that LL.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Ahh, my mistake. So used to people saying "look, modders can do it and they don't even get paid/it's just a hobby!" due to ignorance haha...

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No worries lol. And you're right, I've seen that argument being thrown around by people that don't even know how it works.

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Originally Posted by LiteBrite

Wow... White Knights are out in full force in this thread, talking down anyone that don't praise the devs cause of this "Live Letter". And why do you always have to use the word entitlement too? Like you think you're entitled to get what you're getting in the new expansion is funny stuff...

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Proud to be a white knight if it's for giving credit when it's due rather than being an entitled brat throwing false accusations because I didn't get the toy I wanted or expect the dev team to work 24/7 because I pay them 15$/month.

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Originally Posted by Tenil

this thread is like watching people reacting to non-apologies as if they were apologies

literally nothing new was stated; the same nonsense excuses were given regarding races

I don't know if yoshi p is lying or if he's just ignorant about how races/item models are set up

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Director of the game is "ignorant about how races/item models are set up". LOL

Seems a very vocal part of the player base will not accept any answer that doesn't involve them getting what they want. (◔_◔)

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

This letter was meant to address some of the more pressing matters, and Yoshi P did that for better or worse. The next letter is supposedly about the battle system changes so if they are going to discuss healer changes at all, it'll probably be in that LL.

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Oh I know. With all the information that came out during the FanFests and the fervor that followed, many of their answers to questions got lost or buried for most players. This letter is essentially a compilation of statements to help set the record straight on their position to these matters in an effort to calm the player base.

My post was more to just draw attention that their lack of communication on Healers has had a negative effect and that it hasn't really been acknowledged. Since y'know, everything's been drowned out by all the gender/race chants.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Creator: +20% Balance. I don't need to say anything else.

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Well, we did ask for balance and they delivered!

The excuse of no healer because of balance reasons is upsetting because it's the same excuse they gave in SB.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

Proud to be a white knight if it's for giving credit when it's due rather than being an entitled brat throwing false accusations because I didn't get the toy I wanted or expect the dev team to work 24/7 because I pay them 15$/month.

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Another person that has proven my point. But don't let me stop you from chasing people away from this game....

Why can’t we all just... chill out? It’s almost like 55% (or more) of the player-base is never happy with this game.