Lack of communication and transparency from SE, roadmaps for the future?

While the Dawntrail story is a big divider for the community and a lot of people are hoping for changes or additions to QoL and Gameplay. I think there is an underlying issue that might be inflaming the situation and not helping in any way to appease some of the community that are frustrated.

The lack of communication and transparency.

Their way of communicating things is either a very dismissive:

- Please look forward to it
- We are working on it
- Its a bit difficult

Or very biased interviews that simply are set up to present features of a patch and not adress any concerns of the community, nor...
Give us a timeframe, behind the scenes, or anykind of indication on what they are working on for this so called "10 year plan" besides things that are coming in the next patch.

Now I understand the need to hide some major features as a surprise, if they are expansion related. But fixes, upgrades, QoL, aspirations, goals, timelines, roadmaps, somekind of a section for live letters called "Looking towards the future" or something similar would help tone down concerns that they aren't doing ANYTHING.

The "hiding everything" was cute at the start, but I think its ran its course. If they intend on keeping customers loyal and subbing for this "10 year plan" I think it's time for a "10 year roadmap" in chunks to alleviate concerns of certain non-hat wearers and more.

Possible subjects:

- Progress with hats for Viera and Hrot
- Progress with graphical updates and a roadmap for it
- Progress with adding various QoL
- Future aspirations on what they want to add or a concern they want to tackle (teaser)

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

hide some major features as a surprise

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The thing is they don't even HIDE anything because the content is so barebones.

But the playerbase for some bizarre reason thinks that they are hiding stuff and to keep players surprised. The only time they have done that is with the MSQ. They don't hide major features because if they did they have nothing to talk about.

This playerbase lets their imagination run wild and ALWAYS, ALWAYS give CBU3 the benefit of the doubt for some reason, even when they promised absolutely nothing concrete.

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Just come down memory lane with me and look at this thread:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-announced-yet

EW didn't get a relic zone and people back then were FULL OF COPIUM

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Originally Posted by DragonFlyy

Why would anyone expect relics to be announced or released on a x.1 patch? They are usually x.25 or x.35.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

I imagine we'll get to know what the Relic story will be about this time once the Patch 6.1 promotional site goes up... Or at least the quest series' name...

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

This roadmap did not include "standard content" that we already know about such as extreme trials and savage. Instead they said something along the lines of "we didn't put all the standard content but you'll still get everything else you're used to".

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(I'm sorry jeeqbit)

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Thread closed, I suppose!

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

That was a special live letter focusing mostly on the next 10 years, with some small bits about upcoming patches. Wait until the actual 6.1 live letter to complain we aren't being told about things.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

I don't want another Eureka or Bozja. One or two stages of fate grinding is fine but having to grind fates to get imaginary levels for 3 patches is stupid. Tie some of it to other content like dungeons, trials, deep dungeons, crafting, hunts, maps and gil. Similar to ARR relics.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

And HW. HW has been the expansion where the relic future proofing has held up the best. ARR isn't too bad but the books are kind of a bottleneck. Problem with tying relics to zones or specific instances that need other people is that the ability to complete them after the rush lowers over time.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Island Sanctuaries. You are gonna farm the materials on your island to craft it.

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Just look at all the COPING.

FF14 players DON'T PLAY THE GAME. They play WHAT'S IN THEIR IMAGINATION.

After 10 years, you'd think that people will realize this:

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Originally Posted by Skiros

What you see in the Live Letter is what you get. Don't hope for more because it's not coming!

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I fully agree. I believe they showed a roadmap for Dawntrail content, but a wider overall roadmap for other major fixes wouldn't hurt.

I don't think we'll get a new playable race until the Viera/Hrothgar hat issue is fixed, and if I had to give a rough timeline for that... 9.0?

This 5,5 billion dollar company cant even give us subtitles for the LL. What do you expect?

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

...
- Progress with hats for Viera and Hrot
...

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It's time the big folk accepted that things are never going to change, and if they can't then maybe it's time to fanta from basic Viera back to basic Miquo/Aura or from xtra Hroth back to xtra lala, or to accept that this games approach to millinery means it is not the right game for you. I recon InZOI will probably have amazing hatware options?

(This post is satire in favour of the status-quo or change, tick whichever suits)

Not gonna happen. The "to shy to confront issues" culture is a reliable comfort zone. They're afraid of losing reputation, so the usual plan is to just sit things out.

It's the very same during old Q&A sessions during liveletters. Ask for more info's, but get told "please look forward to it" (except its a cash shop request, which gets immediatly adressed "oh Krile's outfit? you want that?")
They're just to scared of promising things, which they might not keep up.

Lack of transparency is a big concern of mine. I want to be wrong here, but It really seems to me like the devs don’t really HAVE a roadmap, internal or otherwise. They’ve seemed directionless. Other than mentioning a “job rework” for 8.0, all we’ve heard from them are general and vague pseudo-statements or non-promises: just enough information that the community fills in the gaps with their own expectations and then gets disappointed when the expectations that they set from their internal interpretations are not met.

In project management, I’ve learned that transparency to your stakeholders is mission critical to the success of any project or program that you’re running. Leaning into and acknowledging issues and feedback builds trust and helps you hold yourself and your team accountable to strategizing and, where appropriate, resolving the issues. Obfuscation builds frustration and destroys trust. You should communicate good news early, and you should communicate about and address issues earlier.

I would rather SE say “we hear your feedback and are currently assessing how best to address the issues that have been raised” than to obtusely misinterpret complaints. I would rather SE acknowledge “we’ve realized that we didn’t have a clear roadmap after Endwalker, and we’re working internally to fix that and identify our path forward so that we can present it to you” than just give out the vibe that they’re scrambling and making stuff up as they’re going along.

( I agree )

I honestly think after all the blunders that have been dropped when they actually tried to speak genuinely (on healing requirements in Abyssos, on healing difficulty or the infamous "go play ultimates", on viera/hrothgar hats being "too difficult, too many items", on encounter and job identity for 7.2 and 8.0, etc), they just shoot themselves in the foot by not putting their money where their mouth is, they've decided to just fall silent and weather the storm and cross their fingers for new content to change minds.

But this is not going to happen until fundamental core issues dont get addressed, and all it would take would be to have Yoshida or their battle designers sit down in front of a camera and talk about everything in detail. And then of course not proceed to do the exact contrary of what they said, that is...

When I hear, "We would like to..." I basically class it as never happening. It's the safer bet.

This community is absolutely terrible at regulating their emotions. They treat every single mention of a possible idea as a promise, and every time some changes or feature doesn't meet their expectations as a betrayal.

The roadmap we get is likely the best they can offer. Game development is difficult. It's very hard to estimate timelines for complicated fixes or novel features without already doing a good chunk of work on it. Meaning you can't provide a reliable timeline for items years in advance of its completion, so including it as a roadmap item would result in a "broken promise" in the community's eyes once the timeline inevitably changes.

The best we can get in terms of a long-term roadmap is the gist of an upcoming expansion. That has to be marketed carefully, because if you spill too early then people will be bored and burned out by the time it comes to advertise the content that work has been done on (concept art, demos, new jobs, duties etc). And that's basically the maximized version of the problem with publicizing a roadmap for smaller items - even if you could miraculously accurately guess the timeline for a feature years in advance of doing it, by the time it's delivered most players will have lost interest. On the other hand, short-term roadmaps are more reliable, more deliverable, and advertise *upcoming* changes for players to look forward to

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Originally Posted by Exmo

This community is absolutely terrible at regulating their emotions. They treat every single mention of a possible idea as a promise, and every time some changes or feature doesn't meet their expectations as a betrayal.

The roadmap we get is likely the best they can offer. Game development is difficult. It's very hard to estimate timelines for complicated fixes or novel features without already doing a good chunk of work on it. Meaning you can't provide a reliable timeline for items years in advance of its completion, so including it as a roadmap item would result in a "broken promise" in the community's eyes once the timeline inevitably changes.

The best we can get in terms of a long-term roadmap is the gist of an upcoming expansion. That has to be marketed carefully, because if you spill too early then people will be bored and burned out by the time it comes to advertise the content that work has been done on (concept art, demos, new jobs, duties etc). And that's basically the maximized version of the problem with publicizing a roadmap for smaller items - even if you could miraculously accurately guess the timeline for a feature years in advance of doing it, by the time it's delivered most players will have lost interest. On the other hand, short-term roadmaps are more reliable, more deliverable, and advertise *upcoming* changes for players to look forward to

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I don't disagree with you on regulating emotion. I try to be more logical and reasonable myself, because I see such a rampant lack of it in the real world. I certainly agree that, thanks to the anonymity of the internet, people are far more free with their feelings and often they just go wild with them on the forums. However, is it wrong to get hyped about a game you enjoy? People can't be reasonable 100% of the time. Was it wrong to get hyped about the Shadowbringers trailer, or the Endwalker trailer? It's a bit hypocritical to want peope to be hype with one hand and perfectly rational with the other. You can't just demand that people turn that off or on at a whim. Believe me, I get it, I used to have a very good friend who would get lost in the hype sauce and overhype himself and others about things, and it was my job to sort of balance him out and reel in his wacky tendencies. However, you can't expect perfect logic at all times from someone who's passionate about something.

As to the point about roadmaps, I'm a Warhammer player, and GW got a lot of flack about their recent "Roadmap" for 2025 releases. In previous years, they would release a roadmap twice a year that mostly told people what was coming for the next 6 months and in what order, and with what products. "This codex is coming for this army, with a wave of model releases. This codex is coming next, with only one model release," that sort of thing, with a couple of unnanouced "Mystery Codexes" to leave room for shuffling product releases if needed. Know what their 2025 "Roadmap" was?

"Hey! We released Stuff in 2024! Wasn't that cool? Guess what?! We plan to release MORE stuff in 2025! Stuff! And Things! Stay tuned, so you know when to give us your hobby money!"

Yes, they were absolutely ridiculed for it, and they deserve it. There's a big difference between "Here's 6 things that are coming in the near future, 2 or 3 of them being a mystery at the moment (but only to you, WE know what is actually going on behind the scenes)" and "Don't worry guys, we promise that we're acutally doing our job! Stuff is coming, for sure!"

FFXIV having a hyperdetailed roadmap would be setup for failure, I agree, but saying literally nothing other than "the usual stuff is coming" is also very problematic.

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

I don't disagree with you on regulating emotion. I try to be more logical and reasonable myself, because I see such a rampant lack of it in the real world. I certainly agree that, thanks to the anonymity of the internet, people are far more free with their feelings and often they just go wild with them on the forums. However, is it wrong to get hyped about a game you enjoy? People can't be reasonable 100% of the time. Was it wrong to get hyped about the Shadowbringers trailer, or the Endwalker trailer? It's a bit hypocritical to want peope to be hype with one hand and perfectly rational with the other. You can't just demand that people turn that off or on at a whim. Believe me, I get it, I used to have a very good friend who would get lost in the hype sauce and overhype himself and others about things, and it was my job to sort of balance him out and reel in his wacky tendencies. However, you can't expect perfect logic at all times from someone who's passionate about something.

As to the point about roadmaps, I'm a Warhammer player, and GW got a lot of flack about their recent "Roadmap" for 2025 releases. In previous years, they would release a roadmap twice a year that mostly told people what was coming for the next 6 months and in what order, and with what products. "This codex is coming for this army, with a wave of model releases. This codex is coming next, with only one model release," that sort of thing, with a couple of unnanouced "Mystery Codexes" to leave room for shuffling product releases if needed. Know what their 2025 "Roadmap" was?

"Hey! We released Stuff in 2024! Wasn't that cool? Guess what?! We plan to release MORE stuff in 2025! Stuff! And Things! Stay tuned, so you know when to give us your hobby money!"

Yes, they were absolutely ridiculed for it, and they deserve it. There's a big difference between "Here's 6 things that are coming in the near future, 2 or 3 of them being a mystery at the moment (but only to you, WE know what is actually going on behind the scenes)" and "Don't worry guys, we promise that we're acutally doing our job! Stuff is coming, for sure!"

FFXIV having a hyperdetailed roadmap would be setup for failure, I agree, but saying literally nothing other than "the usual stuff is coming" is also very problematic.

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Something in between is the solution. Give us somekind of an idea what they are thinking and pushing out, without it being an avalanche of information.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Something in between is the solution. Give us somekind of an idea what they are thinking and pushing out, without it being an avalanche of information.

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Agreed! A solid roadmap isn’t a blow by blow of everything big or small that’s going to happen. It’s just to capture high level goals and milestones. I just want an idea that SE has an idea of what they have planned.

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Originally Posted by Illianaro

Agreed! A solid roadmap isn’t a blow by blow of everything big or small that’s going to happen. It’s just to capture high level goals and milestones. I just want an idea that SE has an idea of what they have planned.

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They told you. "Have one level of the exploration zone, and be satisfied with that for the next 12-17 months. Oh we might spice up the porridge halfway through with a few extra Lost Actions Phantom Jobs. Please look forward to it!"

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

They told you. "Have one level of the exploration zone, and be satisfied with that for the next 12-17 months. Oh we might spice up the porridge halfway through with a few extra Lost Actions Phantom Jobs. Please look forward to it!"

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Oof. I felt this one… ������

Hard to swallow the drip feed when I can remember the full servings of yesteryear.

I remember the Yoshi P who cried on stage when acknowledging the issues players had logging in and discussing how to address them. Things just seem so different now.

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Originally Posted by Illianaro

Oof. I felt this one… ������

Hard to swallow the drip feed when I can remember the full servings of yesteryear.

I remember the Yoshi P who cried on stage when acknowledging the issues players had logging in and discussing how to address them. Things just seem so different now.

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Now we're only going to get 2 levels of Occult Crescent it seems, rather than the multiple we got with Eureka and Bozja. Shrinkflation is real, my friend....

How about the Yoshida who cried because he had to delay the launch of Endwalker for one week, cause he knew some of the players had taken time off that they couldn't get back and he knew we would be incredibly disappointed? This is a man who used to be sorrowful when he felt he was disappointing us or making us lose faith in him and the team. And I think it was genuine, I don't think it's was an act. Sometimes I really do feel that we're watching Skinwalker Yoshida on stage, now....

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Originally Posted by Illianaro

a “job rework” for 8.0, all we’ve heard from them are general and vague pseudo-statements or non-promises: just enough information that the community fills in the gaps with their own expectations and then gets disappointed when the expectations that they set from their internal interpretations are not met.

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That is INTENTIONAL and therefore will never change.

They have realized that they can bait the players with vague promises that cannot be tested or verified. They are intentionally lying to you to keep you hooked on copium and keep paying the sub for some self-imagined ideal future of the game.

Oh look I made the list twice!

I think they have to be careful about what they do and don't say. They did reveal things a bit earlier or tried to let players see a little behind the curtain in the past. But instead of appreciating that peek for what it is, players often took it as promises or made up their own expectations and then got mad at the developers for not living up to some things they never promised. So they keep things a bit closer to the vest now.

One of the most recent was Island Sanctuary. They kept that close to the vest. That tried to tell players not to go overboard on expectations. There was a ton of speculation here on the forums about what it was going to be. Some was honestly rather ridiculous given what we had been told. And like clockwork, people got angry that SE didn't implement it the way they had envisioned and acted like SE had promised things they never said would happen.

I enjoy when they go over the things that will be in an expansion at the Fan Fest announcements. I'm happy when I hear updates on things, like the raid tool that was mentioned recently. But I know things can change and delays can happy so unless they officially set in stone announce something, I just wait for the topic to come back around.

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

Now we're only going to get 2 levels of Occult Crescent it seems, rather than the multiple we got with Eureka and Bozja. Shrinkflation is real, my friend....

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Bozja only has 2 areas. So this at least is keeping with what has already been established with the last field content zones.

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

They told you. "Have one level of the exploration zone, and be satisfied with that for the next 12-17 months. Oh we might spice up the porridge halfway through with a few extra Lost Actions Phantom Jobs. Please look forward to it!"

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I don't remember them telling us we were getting the second map in 7.55. Do you have a timestamp for where they mentioned it?

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Originally Posted by SkankyRoe

I don't remember them telling us we were getting the second map in 7.55. Do you have a timestamp for where they mentioned it?

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Friend, it was a literal slide shown in the live letter.
It laid out the entire roadmap for occult crescent.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...42f470cb99684&

I did have a thought last night that I thought would be really neat: Fortnightly Q&A streams with the senior devs from each department.

Kinda like Live Letters but better they could show us a bit of the internal development process each stream (modelling progress, storyboarding, system flow charts, maybe even some running code) and talk about the near future, then take questions from players. If they rotated time zones with each stream (one for East Asia and Oceania, one for the Americas and a third for Europe and West Asia) then they can do a translated transcription to post to social media to avoid getting the same questions week after week. This would disallow them the option to hide from feedback and open them up to possible new ideas while also showing us what our money is paying for.

Further to this they could have a six month summary stream to show off highlights from the previous six months and give a view into the planned work for the next six months.

It would really be nice if they would communicate more in regard to their reasoning for some changes or talk about their ideas behind content. Tell us how they came to certain decisions.

If they would communicate better then maybe not so much people would have screamed for a 'nerf picto!'.
Some days ago I saw this video.

https://youtu.be/PzaOTnlxynI?si=WqbpfMYukX6_RbOj

Now that I understand better, how much it's not only about numbers, I am afraid what will happen to picto on Tuesday. D :

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Oh look I made the list twice!

I think they have to be careful about what they do and don't say. They did reveal things a bit earlier or tried to let players see a little behind the curtain in the past. But instead of appreciating that peek for what it is, players often took it as promises or made up their own expectations and then got mad at the developers for not living up to some things they never promised. So they keep things a bit closer to the vest now.

One of the most recent was Island Sanctuary. They kept that close to the vest. That tried to tell players not to go overboard on expectations. There was a ton of speculation here on the forums about what it was going to be. Some was honestly rather ridiculous given what we had been told. And like clockwork, people got angry that SE didn't implement it the way they had envisioned and acted like SE had promised things they never said would happen.

I enjoy when they go over the things that will be in an expansion at the Fan Fest announcements. I'm happy when I hear updates on things, like the raid tool that was mentioned recently. But I know things can change and delays can happy so unless they officially set in stone announce something, I just wait for the topic to come back around.

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I am remember reading some of those wonderful expectation and so called promise threads. Very amusing to say the least as well as the resulting anger and disappointment that followed when said expectations were not met.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

I am remember reading some of those wonderful expectation and so called promise threads. Very amusing to say the least as well as the resulting anger and disappointment that followed when said expectations were not met.

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When will people learn not to expect anything that isn't very literally and unambiguously shown in the live letter.

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Originally Posted by Alice_Rivers

I did have a thought last night that I thought would be really neat: Fortnightly Q&A streams with the senior devs from each department.

Kinda like Live Letters but better they could show us a bit of the internal development process each stream (modelling progress, storyboarding, system flow charts, maybe even some running code) and talk about the near future, then take questions from players. If they rotated time zones with each stream (one for East Asia and Oceania, one for the Americas and a third for Europe and West Asia) then they can do a translated transcription to post to social media to avoid getting the same questions week after week. This would disallow them the option to hide from feedback and open them up to possible new ideas while also showing us what our money is paying for.

Further to this they could have a six month summary stream to show off highlights from the previous six months and give a view into the planned work for the next six months.

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Summary from the last 6 months? lol. We only had a 5 min Mandeville quest & 2 dungeons within those time frames.

Yoshi: I hear what you all saying and the answer is NO!

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

Friend, it was a literal slide shown in the live letter.
It laid out the entire roadmap for occult crescent.

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Your image isn't showing for some reason, but I found the timestamp. Absolutely stupid, there's no reason to delay the second map so long, 7.45 makes more sense and is in line with the time between Bozja's maps.

Then again they prolly delaying it to 7.55 in hopes it'll keep more players subbed throughout the ~6 month lull before 8.0