Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

We don't need a rehash of what wow does, with 200 hundreds difficulties that serve no purpose but to inflate the ilvl and then cry WEZ NEEDZ STATZ SWUISHHHHHH!!!!!

Also I put the blame on SE caving too much to the "I want this [insert object of desire here] NOW". srsly that's one of the mayor reason why too much feels shallow .

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Because 2.0 had such great depth of content that you could spend hours to do right? Man there was so much to do that you were overwhelmed wait......

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I fact that was with 2.0. Everything was new and most players started with nothing. Ofcourse you have the 24/7 who wanted to be first lv50.

I think before the developers do anything else is first they need better hardware if this keeps going back to server issues.

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Originally Posted by ShadowHunterrX

I fact that was with 2.0. Everything was new and most players started with nothing. Ofcourse you have the 24/7 who wanted to be first lv50.

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Still, I must point out, 2.0 was pretty damned shallow. The primary issue is that the MSQ and Job Quests took you through literally everything available, with the exception of a small handful of dungeons and... well, a small handful of dungeons, only two of which were relevant after the MSQ was complete. This is the double-edged nature of using the MSQ and sidequests as the primary mechanism for leveling one's first job: it both speeds up the leveling process, and leaves the player with less to do once the leveling is done.

Case in point, I hit level 50 in ARR within about three days. I wasn't a '24/7' player, but I had significant amounts of disposable income, and I wanted to really soak in Eorzea. In so doing, I leveled quite quickly, because questing is a really rapid way to level up. So before I knew it, in the space of less than a week, the MSQ was done, my primary job was leveled, I'd conquered both the level 50 dungeons, I'd completed literally every available quest flag in the game, and I was left to... well, think about what I wanted to level next, be it DoH, DoL, or another combat job. That's a fairly startling position to be in after a scant seven or so days. It's a large part of why I quit around 2.4, and didn't return until a couple of months before Stormblood hit.

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All this to say, acting as if only the '24/7 crowd' has a problem is just wrong. Similarly, the claim that 2.0 is 'overwhelming' is ludicrous, unless someone is brand-new to gaming. Grand Theft Auto games can be overwhelming. Elder Scrolls games are overwhelming. FFXIV 2.0 was closer to the complexity of Diablo, and wasn't overwhelming in any sense of the word. Eorzea felt downright cramped within a few weeks of playing. It's one thing if only the truly hardcore players felt this way: the Twitch streamers, the students on summer vacation, the people with dozens and dozens of hours a week to devote to gaming. But this feeling impacted me, a mid-core sort of player, a single adult with 4-5 hours of free time per night and weekends to devote to the new game I'm playing. I'm not the type of player who should be able to clear literally every non-Job-specific quest icon within a week or two of ARR releasing. I shouldn't be examining other classes within two weeks of a new MMO, wondering what I'll play next because the end of the process for my primary class is nigh until the first content update lands.

SE has simply made FFXIV too convenient, the grind too minimal. I don't want a return to pre-ToAU FFXI, where leveling an average job to cap could take several months. I do, however, want an update to still feel fresh a week later, and new expansions to still feel fresh after a month. SE has yet to hit that target with XIV, and in fact hasn't even really come close. I, and others, keep clamoring for it, attempting to deliver the message in countless ways, but they're simply not listening.

They're out of touch.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

I think before the developers do anything else is first they need better hardware if this keeps going back to server issues.

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I don't agree with this. I think the core issue plaguing FFXIV is shallow, overly-convenient content. That's not a hardware problem, it's an overall product development problem, starting with Yoshi-P and working its way on down through the ranks. I do think there are a ton of QoL features we're currently lacking that FFXIV would benefit from, but realistically, if I envision a world in which all of the server-related problems are fixed - housing for all, no bottlenecks because SE pulled a stupid and put a solo instance early in an expansion, a true Glamour Log, a butt slider, etc. - I still don't see a vastly improved game. I see a significantly less annoying game, but one that would still deliver updates and expansions that fail to meaningfully occupy me for more than a week or so.

SE needs to bring back more grind, horizontal itemization, and other mechanisms that slow us down. They're throwing us the tools to go 100mph through the content, and they're only capable of developing content at a speed suitable for, say, 25mph. They've got to put up road blocks and speed bumps for us so that mid-core players like myself don't blink and find ourselves at the end of an entire expansion by the time a weekend has gone by.

I think when it comes to the length of the MMO is because of much effort he has been putting into the story, something I have never seen really and almost feels like I was playing a single player game at times.

However

I can't say the same for his side quests which are about 80% fetch quests which to me is pretty lazy, and boring. That kind of time and effort should have put into meaningful side quests with a good story backing it.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

I think when it comes to the length of the MMO is because of much effort he has been putting into the story, something I have never seen really and almost feels like I was playing a single player game at times.

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It's the good side of the game and one of its strongest features against all other MMORPGs.
The complaints we have is with gameplay features we ask for years now.
The game's engine and code is utter crap.
This leads to the walls of limitations which prevent game from further growth and evolution.
For example they still can't figure out how to add more glamour plates and how to add the glamour dresser as a housing items for personal houses. In a recent E3 interview Yoshi said it's very difficult and they still didn't figure it out.
Same with character creation options and same with the game's graphic engine. And we still don't have numeric values over the TP bar on the group list HUD despite the drop of the PS3.
I'm just not happy how they are not even trying to solve those issues.
Yoshi himself said many times in past than for an MMORPG to stay alive it needs to evolve and enhance it's features and graphics over time.
I see nothing of this.

it's not because you don't like the question that they don't deserve answer, plus, they are easy question to answer.... character creation, true it need an update, but it will not happend before a big change of the graphics of the game, what will happend, but not with 5.0... and honestly they don't have a lot to talk to us, since the 4.4 is not coming before 2 months.

this E3 live letter did arrive at the worst time, since the 4.3 is only here for 1 month...

about the bike, how is breaking immersion? we do have magitek armor, airship, robot,.... and bike is immersion breaking? you know that garlemald even have train and stuff like this? we are not into heroic medial fantasy....

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Originally Posted by Riardon

It's the good side of the game and one of its strongest features against all other MMORPGs.
The complaints we have is with gameplay features we ask for years now.
The game's engine and code is utter crap.
This leads to the walls of limitations which prevent game from further growth and evolution.
For example they still can't figure out how to add more glamour plates and how to add the glamour dresser as a housing items for personal houses. In a recent E3 interview Yoshi said it's very difficult and they still didn't figure it out.
Same with character creation options and same with the game's graphic engine. And we still don't have numeric values over the TP bar on the group list HUD despite the drop of the PS3.
I'm just not happy how they are not even trying to solve those issues.
Yoshi himself said many times in past than for an MMORPG to stay alive it needs to evolve and enhance it's features and graphics over time.
I see nothing of this.

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the code is not crap, it was planned for use console and not for this much player.... the game was means to be played by 600.000 player at best and we are more of 5M.... they need to work on this all the time, they did improve the server and continue to improve it.... the game engine is far to be shitty too....
plus they did improve the engine, by adding more stuff over time, it not super change, because the engine was very good from the start. the only complain we can have is about the texture.... outside this the game is gorgeous.... anyway, they already planned to improve graphism, but not for the 5.0....

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Originally Posted by Riardon

It's the good side of the game and one of its strongest features against all other MMORPGs.
The complaints we have is with gameplay features we ask for years now.
The game's engine and code is utter crap.
This leads to the walls of limitations which prevent game from further growth and evolution.
For example they still can't figure out how to add more glamour plates and how to add the glamour dresser as a housing items for personal houses. In a recent E3 interview Yoshi said it's very difficult and they still didn't figure it out.
Same with character creation options and same with the game's graphic engine. And we still don't have numeric values over the TP bar on the group list HUD despite the drop of the PS3.
I'm just not happy how they are not even trying to solve those issues.
Yoshi himself said many times in past than for an MMORPG to stay alive it needs to evolve and enhance it's features and graphics over time.
I see nothing of this.

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I'm curious - do you think FFXIV would really become a transformed experience, one well worth its monthly sub, if technically-limited QoL features like the Glamour system and housing and character creation system were completely resolved to everyone's satisfaction?

To me, the core issue isn't a lack of QoL features, it's boredom. Certainly I'd love to have a Miqo'te with a proper ass again, but at the end of the day, it wouldn't entertain me more than I'm entertained now. Shallow gameplay surrounded by overhauled and improved customization and UI systems is still shallow, to me. I think these problems are easy targets for complaints, but to me, it's a very surface-level issue that SE would be wise to back-burner in favour of creating enduring, longer-lasting content.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

the code is not crap, it was planned for use console and not for this much player.... the game was means to be played by 600.000 player at best and we are more of 5M.... they need to work on this all the time, they did improve the server and continue to improve it.... the game engine is far to be shitty too....
plus they did improve the engine, by adding more stuff over time, it not super change, because the engine was very good from the start. the only complain we can have is about the texture.... outside this the game is gorgeous.... anyway, they already planned to improve graphism, but not for the 5.0....

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Oh, man, yes, the code is awful.

Firstly, due to server sharding, there's really no difference between 600,000 and 6,000,000. Just add more servers. And as an aside, we're nowhere near five million. Not even close. That would be around 75,000 people per server on each individual server. That's too large by an order of magnitude. Do you remember when SE was splitting map instances near the launch of Stormblood to handle the temporary influx of players? Yeah. They used three instances, and none had more than 150 people in it at any given time. I'd be surprised if there were more than 5,000 truly active players on any given server, and the true number could easily be less than half that. Nowhere near five million total players.

Secondly, the engine was awful at the start. It's based on FFXIV 1.0, which, for its time, looked like utter ass considering the resources it required. Sure, character textures were decent and polygon counts were high, but textures and level design was noticeably repetitive (literally there were copy-pasted chunks of map), and there were plenty of single-player titles that looked as good or better while drawing less power. ARR solved this to some extent by bludgeoning the engine's technical side (texture resolutions, poly counts, etc.) and attempting to gloss over it instead with vibrant artwork, but that approach is rapidly showing its age.

What worsens this, of course, is that SE routinely makes the bone-headed mistake of designing content that squarely collides with the limitations of their crappy engine. Eureka is a prime example of this. The idea of an instanced, cross-data-center environment where players can team up in large packs and have a different experience sounds good on the surface. Until you remember that we can't send /tells from instances, obviously can't join a friend's party if they're in the instance and we're not, can't Black List from within instances, can't form truly durable Linkshells with the people we might meet in instances, couldn't at the time consistently target party members or monsters when enough players came together in one spot... these issues should have sent Eureka back to the drawing board. Instead, SE stupidly plunged forward, and released a piece of content that will in all likelihood never fully realize its potential. Or, look at Housing: SE devised a tremendously ambitious Housing system, with nary a thought paid toward the fact that their existing server infrastructure was wholly inadequate to address the demand. The result was players waiting literally years for the Housing supply to even remotely approach demand, and the wait is ongoing on more crowded servers.

Look, I get the desire to defend SE sometimes. I can certainly be harsh on them myself, and so can the forums. But FFXIV's underlying code is not a hill upon which to make an effective stand.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

I'm curious - do you think FFXIV would really become a transformed experience, one well worth its monthly sub, if technically-limited QoL features like the Glamour system and housing and character creation system were completely resolved to everyone's satisfaction?

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The crap coded base of the game that prevents those QoL advancements is the same reason we can't have cooler content like more dynamic dungeons and fort-sieges type of content.
The game can't even handle a darn FATE with more than 40 people around and game engine can't even handle showing those PC/NPCs and starts culling them despite us having the hardware to do so.
For an MMORPG this game can't handle the MMO side of things and this is the big irony.
It bottlenecks itself. They never fixed that and they will probably never will.
Aside those tech limitations it's their management as well. They are scared to allocate more recourses to XIV development.
So they stick to the formula that works and they do not move an inch away from it. To be fair though this formula kinda works as XIV is healthy and has steady population.
The only issue with that is that it prevents the game to further grow and evolve.
But if you wanna be successful you must never settle down and relax. You must always look how to improve and advance.

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Originally Posted by Adelaide3

Yeah their exact patch content cycles are so predictable to the point where we know exactly what we're getting every single time which is basically the same rehashed content with a slightly different flavor.

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the devs should do something unpredictable for 5.0
Something like 5.0 8 man raid, 5.1 24 man raid, 5.2 24 man raid 5.3 8 man raid, 5.4 3 trials instead of any raid

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Originally Posted by Riardon

The crap coded base of the game that prevents those QoL advancements is the same reason we can't have cooler content like more dynamic dungeons and fort-sieges type of content.

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I'm with this guy. It's all well and good if you wanna add a new wing and a greenhouse to your fancy mansion, maybe install a pool for those hot summer days. But it's all meaningless if the mansion's foundation is cracked, the wooden framework is rotten, and there's a bat colony in the attic. In my opinion, the devs should focus on stabilizing the foundation of the game before piling more stuff on it. Ultimately it's in their best interests, yet they seem either unwilling or unable to do so.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

the code is not crap, it was planned for use console and not for this much player....

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This game does have bad coding, because so much of it is built upon the foundation of 1.0 code...which in and of itself was a nightmare. The game was meant to be played on both PC and Console, but the coding was made to cater to the lowest common denominator. There is a reason behind the “PS3 limitations” meme.

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the game was means to be played by 600.000 player at best and we are more of 5M....

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This game has nowhere near 5,000,000 active subscriptions. I’d say even 800,000 is a bit generous. The game hit its lowest numbers during Patch 4.1 — I don’t think the subs even topped 650,000 according to the LuckyBancho’s census. While it’s unofficial, I can say with certainty that this game has never had 5 million active subscriptions at the same time.

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they need to work on this all the time, they did improve the server and continue to improve it.... the game engine is far to be shitty too....

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It’s my opinion that the servers could still use quite a bit of work. When they say that we can’t apply Glamour Plates outside of city states, because it’s “too hard on the servers”, or that we can’t have more character creation options because, again, “it’s too hard on the servers”, that’s not a mark of an improved or strong game engine.

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plus they did improve the engine, by adding more stuff over time, it not super change, because the engine was very good from the start.

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It absolutely was not a good engine. FFXIV ARR used a slightly improved engine over the one they used in 1.0, but the engine is no where near the standard it should be.

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the only complain we can have is about the texture.... outside this the game is gorgeous.... anyway, they already planned to improve graphism, but not for the 5.0....

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They have stated repeatedly that they will not provide HD texture packs to PC users because some consoles (PS4 proper) or lower end gaming PCs cannot handle them. They have also given no indication of going back and updating map textures in any of the existing areas, and Stormblood’s areas have just as many pixely rocks as ARR and HW do, sadly. I won’t deny that the zones are beautiful, but there is still tons of room for improvement.

Complaints far exceed textures—there are complaints for more character creation options, more housing, instanced housing on top of ward housing, better glamour system options (a proper Glamour Log), interactive housing item culling, character load culling, better battle content in general... the list goes on. It far exceeds just textures, and a lot of the other complaints I’ve seen have their own merits.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Complaints far exceed textures—there are complaints for more character creation options, more housing, instanced housing on top of ward housing, better glamour system options (a proper Glamour Log), interactive housing item culling, character load culling, better battle content in general... the list goes on. It far exceeds just textures, and a lot of the other complaints I’ve seen have their own merits.

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I really think upgraded textures are and should be way down the list of their priorities because they're technically not content (you can't really interact with them), and it's certainly not something everyone can enjoy. Whereas everyone can enjoy a more updated glamour log, more character creation options, combat content, etc.

Not saying I don't want the game to be prettier, it would be nice if it was...but I'd much rather have more things to do than have an unneeded graphics update that only some players could experience.

Makes me wonder if they could just ask for technical help from people who made WoW since they were so inspired from it.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

Makes me wonder if they could just ask for technical help from people who made WoW since they were so inspired from it.

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I don't think ability is the issue. It's whether SE see something as a priority or not.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

This game does have bad coding, because so much of it is built upon the foundation of 1.0 code...which in and of itself was a nightmare. The game was meant to be played on both PC and Console, but the coding was made to cater to the lowest common denominator. There is a reason behind the “PS3 limitations” meme.

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That's honestly a strength. A lot of pc only MMOs have horrid optimization unless they specifically design for the lowest common denominator. The recent game Bless Online was notorious for dismal frame rates, and even PBUG got unthroned mostly because Fortnite (also designed for consoles) was so much more stabler. The flip side of high end textures would be low end framerates on a lot of pcs, especially considering these days many people are gaming on laptops with integrated graphics cards.

And to be honest, a lot of people trot our bad coding like ps3 limitations. We dont see or proofread the code to know how good it is, and goodness is often a function of things like how readable it is or how stable it is. Bad coding is more of an excuse in the way "god did it" is...its teh catch all we use to explain why something bad happens or something we like isnt here. Ps3 limitations is eh...I've played MMO experiences on the Nintendo DS that probably had as much depth as this game, like phantasy star Zero, and Mabinogi could probably have been ported to the PSP and retained most of its features.

The thing is, at what point does completely rebuilding and redoing the game's code and infrastructure become more worth it than just making a new game entirely?

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Originally Posted by Riardon

The crap coded base of the game that prevents those QoL advancements is the same reason we can't have cooler content like more dynamic dungeons and fort-sieges type of content.
The game can't even handle a darn FATE with more than 40 people around and game engine can't even handle showing those PC/NPCs and starts culling them despite us having the hardware to do so.
For an MMORPG this game can't handle the MMO side of things and this is the big irony.
It bottlenecks itself. They never fixed that and they will probably never will.
Aside those tech limitations it's their management as well. They are scared to allocate more recourses to XIV development.
So they stick to the formula that works and they do not move an inch away from it. To be fair though this formula kinda works as XIV is healthy and has steady population.
The only issue with that is that it prevents the game to further grow and evolve.
But if you wanna be successful you must never settle down and relax. You must always look how to improve and advance.

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Fair points, but I honestly think there's more at play here than just the bad underlying engine. I mean, FFXI had more limitations, and managed to have much more varied and longer-lived content. A lot of this goes back to design decisions, rather than technical limitations. I mean, Besieged work in FFXI, despite a similar inability to see more than 40 people around at once; Campaign worked. For that matter, Hamlet Defense worked in FFXIV 1.x as well. There are options here.

I feel like the bigger barrier is SE's design strategy. This isn't a situation they can't design around; it's one they don't want to design around. In my estimation, anyway.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

I really think upgraded textures are and should be way down the list of their priorities because they're technically not content (you can't really interact with them), and it's certainly not something everyone can enjoy. Whereas everyone can enjoy a more updated glamour log, more character creation options, combat content, etc.

Not saying I don't want the game to be prettier, it would be nice if it was...but I'd much rather have more things to do than have an unneeded graphics update that only some players could experience.

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I'd tend to agree with this. FFXIV's visuals are going to age. So long as the visuals of the game aren't 75% of its appeal (which I'd say they currently are, given that Glamour is the true end-game...), this isn't a massive problem. It's something SE can fix via better design decisions for content.

RE: tech limitations. well this game was designed to be able to run on PS3. they increased some stuff after the demise of PS3 like more information on HUD and faster mount speed, but we're still restricted in some ways and supporting Win32 although persuading users to upgrade to 64-bit Windows.

I would like this game to evolve and thrive, keep up with the new generation of MMOs. In a few years it would be good if they could begin working on the new rendering engine and enhanced character creator, upgrade to minimum spec and larger more ambitious content. Meanwhile keep the existing stuff ticking over in a way that is low on resources to keep players busy while awaiting the large-scale tech improvements.

I seriously think it's time for YoshiP to step down from his position and any involvement with this game as his content desighn philosophy is sucking all the life out of ffxiv. I would even go so far to say that Tanaka was a much better game producer when he was in charge of ffxi but his reputation is gone with the 1.0 fiasco.

Please give us Akihiko Matsui because all of his work on ffxi is very good and he's done alot to take that game in a nice direction and it's still thriving because of him.

The question to ask is:
Are the devs out of touch or The playerbase is actually a multiheaded (and sadly forgetful) beast?

¿Por qué no los dos?

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Originally Posted by Remedi

The question to ask is:
Are the devs out of touch or The playerbase is actually a multiheaded (and sadly forgetful) beast?

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Little column A because of how long it takes to make changes from feedback and mostly column B partially because devs aren't as transparent about their processes compared to games that allow players to provide infinitely more valuable and credible feedback.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

The question to ask is:
Are the devs out of touch or The playerbase is actually a multiheaded (and sadly forgetful) beast?

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Both.

There are decisions were one just question why they did that and some show that they have not taken the behaviour of their playerbase into account. There is also a big problem with their communication, especially with their western playerbase, which should not happen in a global game. (And in a game where the majority is from NA or EU). But the playerbase is also not that easy because they are not one person thus something can be seen differently by a lot of people.

It does not make it easy but in the end this is the case for any company that has customers from different places and cultures. Its their job to make the best out of it and SE could do much better. For example, make sure that you have official translations for any important information, so that the western playerbase does not feel like second rate customers. Be more straight forward with your answer. (And yes I know that this is a cultural thing but you need to get away from that if you want to be a good global player) Have surveys..these are probably the easiest way to get the opinion of the playerbase and let people feel like they can be heard. Increase your customer support..it cant be that there are cases where people get told that they get free shipment and then suddenly its just 8% discount that did not even work..if you let others do certain work for you, make sure that they are customer friendly.

Idd it's what I think too

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Originally Posted by Remedi

The question to ask is:
Are the devs out of touch or The playerbase is actually a multiheaded (and sadly forgetful) beast?

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I agree with posters above, both. That said, I think to a large extent that is something that can be laid at SE's feet as well. Realistically speaking, they've built FFXIV to target the lowest common denominator, the widest possible audience. Without commenting on the merits of that decision (and it's often typical for MMOs), one of its clear-cut downsides is that community feedback is going to be widely varied, and often contradictory.

This reality demands a minimum of two countermeasures, neither of which SE has done well.

(1) Feedback must be frequently, officially and carefully solicited. Done properly, this can tune out some of the 'background noise' complaints of players, and help get to the heart of important issues that will drive the game's future.
(2) The content design and development process must lead the charge when it comes to delivering fresh experiences that work well, since they cannot rely on consistent and clearly-directed player feedback to inform them of larger structural issues.

That latter point is probably where SE has failed the most spectacularly. Their content design process is incredibly conservative, and tends to view half-assed game system as being 'good enough' until informed otherwise. Glamours are good examples: I'm 99% certain the development team was fine with the original implementation of Glamours, and content to rest on their 'laurels' and not think about it anymore. They also seemed quite happy with the Diadem-style content, because they released the crap twice. Put quite simply, they don't seem to have any sort of creative fire underneath them, any sort of motivation to push the envelope and then - once pushed - to continue pushing it.

Maybe this was the inevitable backlash to the failure of FFXIV 1.0. I'm not sure. Regardless, it is no longer a sustainable model. They've got to start driving development in new directions, much as FFXI did, much as the vastly more successful WoW has done throughout its lifespan. You'll win some and you'll lose some doing this, but so long as a title is vibrantly and consistently evolving, players will stick through the short-term, and minimize the effects of the inevitable missteps. Playing it safe, though, will kill FFXIV over time. They've got to start making changes unprompted, and, of course, listening to players more carefully.

If you look to how they've been treating pve content you can assure that they are quite scared of displeasing the community. I think that they try to appease every opinion possible even though they miss the mark, I don't believe that there was no1 saying that the loot system was hard for ppl in 24 man and they though to make everyone happy with that crappy system while IMHO if you ask me that was none of their buisness.

Everyone has a fair shot at playing a job in a 24 man as such the player choice was the problem not the design of the game.

If SE keeps this up this game will surely became a cesspoll especially if they are this sloppy in the execution

Personally I think it's less a case of Yoshida being out of touch and more a case of SE's internal finance team starving him of the manpower needed to both design and test the content they come up with.

Actual solid content has gotten progressively thinner on the ground since ARR hit, whilst it was pretty much plain as day that the 4.0 job changes were done by a team that was too small and seemingly didn't understand the classes they were wrecking changing. The fact that things were still so rough and up in the air by the time the press preview landed speaks volumes to me. My gut feeling is that SE are taking away talented and experienced developers from Yoshi's team for other projects without giving him the funding or go ahead to replace them.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

Makes me wonder if they could just ask for technical help from people who made WoW since they were so inspired from it.

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It's not that they're trying and struggling, they simply don't think it's worth putting the money into. That's what it boils down to for any feature or improvement, is it worth the money? If they think not they won't do it.

[QUOTE=Stormfur;4700433]By that, I don\\\\\\'t mean "he didn\\\\\\'t implement it yet so we\\\\\\'re gonna keep asking till we get it"...but more-so like: [\QUOTE]

With respect I can honestly say that none of the things you just mentioned concern me at all.

What you are doing IS asking over and over again until you get your own way and I think if you think about it, you’ll see that.

Truthfully me and many others tire of the whiny character option/Ishgard housing questions.

I’d much rather they spent this time discussing classes and content like most mmo devs instead of keep getting asked weird costume questions by weeabos.

You keep saying we like you speak for the community, and you don’t speak for me and many others like it or not.

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Originally Posted by Vickii

I’d much rather they spent this time discussing classes and content like most mmo devs instead of keep getting asked weird costume questions by weeabos.

You keep saying we like you speak for the community, and you don’t speak for me and many others like it or not.

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100% agree. A significant portion of FFXIV's primary 'content', the carrots at the end of many of the sticks, are entirely superficial fluff. That stuff needs to be in the game, but XIV focuses on it to such an extent, it more closely resembles a F2P mobile app than it does a supposedly-premium MMO. We need more content, that's designed to last longer, and is infused with more creativity and challenge. It shouldn't be possible to make half-serious jokes about Glamour being the real end-game.

Edit: This is particularly relevant in light of the fact that FFXIV is not well-designed for Glamour. The character options are average at best; the texture resolution is shit; SE's back-end code is incapable of supporting a proper Glamour log; the graphics engine features some of the worst character model clipping I've seen in years. Can we please stop asking SE to focus their attention on fluff content that the game clearly cannot execute all that well? It's like whining for better AoE indicators for players who prefer playing in first-person mode.

They could just have a third party do a texture pack for it like they did for Skyrim. I rather have them spend funds on making the game more enjoyable. Like adding options for primals and dungeons. where can pick if want echo and add difficulty settings for them to pick from. Like have a easy setting where wouldn't need a tank or healer to complete it. that way can just pass it and go on.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

SE's back-end code is incapable of supporting a proper Glamour log;

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TBH atm we are at the void storage stage of wow, I think if they manage to snag one of the ppl that worked on the diablo 3 trasmog they might fix it (they were the ones that made the glamour log possible in wow).

Technically speaking it would be giving you access to the storage from anywhere

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Originally Posted by Remedi

TBH atm we are at the void storage stage of wow, I think if they manage to snag one of the ppl that worked on the diablo 3 trasmog they might fix it (they were the ones that made the glamour log possible in wow).

Technically speaking it would be giving you access to the storage from anywhere

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That could potentially alleviate the Glamour log issue, but there are still the other problems I mentioned. The clipping one, for instance, is huge. Do I want to wear a big hat? Well, I'd best be fine with hiding my displayed weapon, because it's going to clip. Do I want to wear a skirt? Well... there really aren't any good options for that unless I want to pretend like my character always has her hands in a pair of nonexistent pockets. The texture resolution is also an issue: as soon as I zoom in much, it just looks like ass relative to modern titles. It's interesting that you mentioned D3, because while D3's transmog system is effortless to use, the items themselves look like crap if you zoom in on your character or are looking them over. This isn't an issue for D3, since transmog is very much an additional 'why not' feature, but in FFXIV, when Glamouring is positioned as a significant objective for players, I think we'd just swap usability complaints for different ones (we need high resolution textures; we need to address clipping; why don't we have equal outfit opportunities across genders and races; can we have a butt slider; etc.).

As a result, I really think that SE should stop positioning Glamours as being such a large part of the game. Stop advertising them in patches. Stop charging so much money for them on the cash shop. Stop locking key ingredients behind content walls on par with, or surpassing, the best available crafted combat gear. Then, refocus all that effort on building the high-quality, durable content that XIV is so sorely lacking. With a bit of luck, this will mask a lot of the game's issues, because XIV's engine is fine for delivering battle content, at reasonable scales, in tremendously immersive maps. It's terrible at Glamours. Why focus so much effort and attention on an area of the game that exposes all the shortcomings of the engine and back-end?

Dunno how long it took for wow to fix that, but I remember some terrible things happening with hats there too eheheheh

Yes, don’t get me wrong I have nothing against glamour or people who enjoy that part of the game. I personally find some of the things I see in Limsa a little weird but to each their own, I hope all have fun in the game.

But it shouldn’t be catered for those people so much. It would be like catering wow for the low levels who hang out in goldshire.

When the director speaks for an hour he should speak about the state of the game, class balance, content and maybe at the end take one or two random questions.

Instead he spends 50 minutes talking about glamour and social stuff and barely anything on the actual game.

I’m sorry but this is what The Sims is for.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

False
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ges_over_time/

The team size has been constant in it's size, the amount of battle devs have been always low and only with SB they've been able to expand it to alllow them do things like the extra savage boss and Ultimate

Also I remember hearing that FFXIV is the biggest team working at SE but I wasn't able to find that quote so don't quote on me for that

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Very good point. Also, again, it cannot be said enough: the XIV dev team is shooting itself in the foot by creating throwaway content.

It's bone-headed stupidity to design content, and then relegate it to the trash (err.... Roulette*) heap after six months. It massively increases pressure on the development team to churn out content rapidly, because the core available content isn't augmented by what you're developing - it's almost entirely replaced. This argument is even more critical if there is a shortage of experienced developers on Yoshi-P's team. They're making some really bad decisions.

Agreed on all points to your post above Vhailor. The forums kinda messed up my other reply, so I'll copy and paste what I had for the edit, but I lost the original response.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

SE needs to bring back more grind, horizontal itemization, and other mechanisms that slow us down. They're throwing us the tools to go 100mph through the content, and they're only capable of developing content at a speed suitable for, say, 25mph. They've got to put up road blocks and speed bumps for us so that mid-core players like myself don't blink and find ourselves at the end of an entire expansion by the time a weekend has gone by.

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Speaking strictly personally here - I don't think the solution to the issue is "more grind" or intentional roadblocks/slowdowns. The problem lies in the fact that the core content systems are shallow and binary. Imagine if a piece of content was actually fun for longer than the handful of times it's meaningful? I know fun is subjective, but treat it this way: If you remove the rewards - would you still participate consistently?

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

the code is not crap, it was planned for use console and not for this much player.... the game was means to be played by 600.000 player at best and we are more of 5M.

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The actual code is optimized quite well for sure. It's actually one of the common points I praise about the game., but it having a redeeming feature of two isn't enough to offset how:

• Awful the netcode is
• Overly reliant on menus
• Clunky
• Bloated

In addition - I very strongly suspect you do not have a source to corroborate your statement that the game was designed for only 600K players OR that the game has 5M players.

Please edit your post to remove the misinformation.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

SE routinely makes the bone-headed mistake of designing content that squarely collides with the limitations of their crappy engine.

Eureka is a prime example of this. The idea of an instanced, cross-data-center environment where players can team up in large packs and have a different experience sounds good on the surface.

Until you remember that we can't send /tells from instances, obviously can't join a friend's party if they're in the instance and we're not, can't Black List from within instances, can't form truly durable Linkshells with the people we might meet in instances, couldn't at the time consistently target party members or monsters when enough players came together in one spot... these issues should have sent Eureka back to the drawing board.

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Agreed wholeheartedly. This would be the equivalent of designing a race car to enter in the Formula 1 equipped with a Toyota Prius Engine. It's an idea so bad that people should have intervened, but no one did. Yet somehow they're still surprised by the outcome. If that doesn't demonstrate an out of touch perspective I don't know what does. AND to add insult to injury that doesn't even count the fact that they needed to add features to Eureka to make it tolerable in a hot fix. Stuff that any junior level intern with 20 minutes could have identified.

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Originally Posted by Felis

the devs should do something unpredictable for 5.0
Something like 5.0 8 man raid, 5.1 24 man raid, 5.2 24 man raid 5.3 8 man raid, 5.4 3 trials instead of any raid

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No. This doesn't actually change anything. That is not unpredictable. That would be awful. What they need to do is design actual meaningful content with scale-ability and replay-ability.

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Originally Posted by Adelaide3

I know that they took away alot of the developers on Yoshidas team so they can create KH3, FF7 remake and whatever else the company is working on but that's no excuse for not being able to reuse assets and create harder difficulties for the newly released battle content.

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You know? or you feel/think? Do you have a source for this? I'd be interested to read it.

I agree with most other points. I think creating an EX primal level 24 man alongside the normal version would be welcomed by the midcore community. I'd argue to make it 8 man though if I was speaking personally.

The reason why we need grinding back is because there is a intense lack of long term goals, also I'd rather ppl stop using fun as a way to judge content since it's a very subjective choice, some find fun Eureka others don't, just as some like testing themselves in ultimate while others prefer 24 man raids.
Since MMOs targets a wide audience it's impossible to use fun as a metric at all.
I'd rather gut myself than play PvP, but I don't think that Pvpers shouldn't get content at all because of that for example or that they shouldn't receive what they ask of the devs

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

Very good point. Also, again, it cannot be said enough: the XIV dev team is shooting itself in the foot by creating throwaway content.

It's bone-headed stupidity to design content, and then relegate it to the trash (err.... Roulette*) heap after six months. It massively increases pressure on the development team to churn out content rapidly, because the core available content isn't augmented by what you're developing - it's almost entirely replaced. This argument is even more critical if there is a shortage of experienced developers on Yoshi-P's team. They're making some really bad decisions.

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It also true that the reason why such content exist is because they catered too much to the fast food community imho.
I'm starting to believe that hoever it's less than a yoshida's policy and more a company policy tbh.
In a recent interwiew Yoshida used as an explanation for why they are spreading out content the exact same words for why 1.0 had the fatigue system.

That makes me think that SE got burned badly by the controversy of players fighting mmmh I think it was pandemonium warden or absolute virtue for X hours in FFXI (notice how he asked mrhappy if he slept when they met at E3). As such players well-beign is a sensible topics for them and this is affecting their decisions. I mean it's a supposition but it does fit if you think about it

I mean even FFXV can't be possibly considered a grindy game and FF game (and JRPGs) have been always considered to be grindy