Why is Yoshi P turning his back on the playerbase that loves this game the most?

[Shai]

I also thinks Heavensward is the problem. Frankly, Shai, when ARR was released, did you really feel tricked ?

I had a brief honeymoon period with ARR - I'll be honest.
But I did feel tricked. Probably by December. Around the time Crystal Tower was released.
I think by that first patch a lot of the wonder - a lot of the "new car smell" had gone away and I missed 1.0 and what I hoped ARR would really be.
I hoped Heavensward would make the game better, but it only perpetuated the status quo. Now it looks like 4.0 will just be more of the same.
That's disappointing. Severely.

I loved Coil. Do not get me wrong. Coil is/was the highlight of this game so far.
But Coil is (in essence) a conclusion to 1.0 and everything that made 1.0 remotely interesting.

Honestly - the games true flaws only become jarringly apparent when you hit end game - and your mileage there may vary. The ARR story isn't very good. It isn't as good as 1.0 and it certainly isn't as good as HW. Despite that, I think that the game to a beginner is quite fun. I've started several alts just to level them to 30 and discard them over the years because the early parts of this game are still good. Before you hit the end and fall into a weekly slog of doing the same thing over and over. The sense of discovery and unlocking things and gradually becoming the role you were destined to be (not in the story mind you, but as your skills develop on your class) - all of this is pretty good. Though coming to this game as Legacy with all jobs @50 - I only got to experience this on Arcanist (which due to the whole "Summoner debacle" that I won't detail was a pretty big disappointment). That is to say until I decided to make new characters and really got to experience the game from a new player's perspective.

[Reynhart]

But I did feel tricked. Probably by December. Around the time Crystal Tower was released.

Crystal Tower ?! Wow, that's early. At that time, we didn't even knew that we'd be farming new tomestones over and over every 6 months, nor the rigid patch cycle.
Besides, 2.1 really brought a lot of things with Alliance raids, Housing, PvP, the EX primals, Hildibrand, the daily quests...

You're quite a demanding customer

Though coming to this game as Legacy with all jobs @50 - I only got to experience this on Arcanist (which due to the whole "Summoner debacle" that I won't detail) was a pretty big disappointment. That is to say until I decided to make new characters and really got to experience the game from a new player's perspective.

That indeed might have been a problem. I only had 3 jobs lvl 50 in 1.xx, so I had lots of things to try on my character while progressing on the story.

[Hyrist]

No offense Shai, but you're can't exactly just automatically claim that you'd be a fair third party for some sort of check against Yoshida.

Anyways, vocal minority and whatnot. I don't often speak about ARR to 1.0. But while the seriese of 1.xx leading up to ARR will always have a special place in my heart. I voted for a vast departure from 1.xx along with the majority of the Legacy Players who took part in the polling. I don't feel betrayed.

But there's no way to accurately measure that now. Only SE has the true account for all Legacy members, so trying to make a public poll is going to give you unverifiable false-positives and false-negatives. Nor, honestly at this juncture does it really matter.

_____________________________________________________________________________________
On to the more broader subject... (Not referring to Shai past this point)


The game is three years old. It is going to bleed people, as all aging games, even MMOs do. What I find funny about this thread is the assumption that 'people who love this game the most' is something quantifiable. How do you measure such a thing? Do I need to get my Legacy Tatoo put on my RL back to prove 'I love it the most'? Or is it based off subscription? In which case, I can tell you I've bought every collectors Edition since 1.xx and have not yet lapsed my subscription since I started. Does that make me love the game the most?

If so, you should probably know that my sentiments agree with Yoshida with most of his stances. But even if they did, that wouldn't be 'turning his back' on me. I'm not so shallow as to take something like a business decision personally. I feel like there's a lot of naivete going on around here when it comes to business relationships and fandoms.

I've various amounts of criticisms on how Yoshida has executed on his ideals, as well as some disagreements with those ideals. But never have I considered it a betrayal. So the answer the thread title - it's because players assume everything surrounds them on a personal level - and it never really was a 'turning his back' to begin with.

However, I never considered myself someone 'who loves the game the most' nor do I feel like anyone could really quantify that. It's kind of the wrong foot to start this discussion on, seriously.

[Shai]

Funny you mention Housing - the biggest PR blunder 2.0 stumbled into!

I don't know. I'm an analytical thinker. I look at the pieces and analyze what it means for the future. It's a gift and a curse cause it makes me pretty cyncical.

That said, I also did not know Tomestones would be the end-all of our gear progression experience. I didn't realize at Labyrinth of the Ancients that the formula would just repeat forever until I decided to walk away (which I haven't yet - came REAL close during Alexander 1-4 cycle). There was no real way to predict that and I wasn't truly disappointed by that until Heavensward. It was frustrating by the time 2.0 came to an end, but expansions promise "new things" and opportunities to generate new ideas - but they just didn't. That's when the Tome Grind Reborn really got to me and made me discouraged about the future of this game - as it is.

But I'm talking about that moment when I realized ARR was never going to be what I felt (perhaps naively) I was led to believe it would be. I used to hate Tanaka for his empty promises and bold-faced lies, but now I see Yoshida do it and no one holds him to the same standard. They continue to parade him around like the Jesus of Eorzea - back from the dead! He did some amazing things by taking a failed MMO and turning it into one of the most successful pay-to-play games on the market. Props to him. As I said in my initial post (I think) I get that they're just following the money and that makes sense, but they did use my money under the pretense they were recreating a game I really liked into a better version of itself - and from my point of view this promise was not fulfilled. To a lot of people it probably was.

I'm not like Skizzle or Fizzle who continue to dredge up these butt hurt feelings to stir up the pot and generate self-validating conversations. I agree with their sentiment, but the question really is "Do you want the game to succeed, make money, continue to generate [albeit generic, regurgitated] content? or did you want them to make another flop that you can tell all your friends was the greatest game ever for the six months it lasted?" It's a pretty crappy choice, but that's what it all boiled down to. This game is a success because of its business model, and no other model would really result in the type of success this game currently has.

[Hyrist]

Not to harp on you Skai, as it's just coincidental, but I've noted in my tenure here that I've heard more collective negativity from Hyperion server than I have heard from any other server in this game on these boards. It's just an observation, but it brings to mind a theory to me that Community is a larger influence on the game's enjoyment than most give credit for. We often fall to blaming the content, or lack of content, or type of content, or execution of content, etc. But often I've seen that people who spend time in miserable company, often tend to be more miserable themselves.

Meanwhile, when I'm with excited players, even with all the flaws the game has, that excitement can be catching. I've often wondered why we don't put more effort and attention on improving our communities in games like these, and I feel the more I observe it, that the more I feel it's a critical, and vastly overlooked issue.

[Shai]

No offense Shai, but you're can't exactly just automatically claim that you'd be a fair third party for some sort of check against Yoshida.

Everyone seems to be missing my point. I'm not claiming to be a fair third party. I'm saying in the absence of an unbiased third party, in the absence of an open ballot - all we know is what Square Enix told us! I'm not saying there -is- a conspiracy, but I am saying that I feel like the only person on Earth who finds it weird.

We did a secret ballot and Yoshida posted the results. Yoshida could have said anything. Honestly. My analogy was saying I could ask you all to email me your votes on the current game, I [pretend to] tally up the votes [but secretly don't even read them cause they are irrelevant], then come back here and announce you all hate the game [erroneously] and now I have the freedom to do whatever I want with impunity and blame it on you guys for voting for it. There's no accountability to those 1.0 polls. Again, I'm not saying it was fraudulent. I'm just saying those polls could have easily been faked - and we have clung to them for years to say "This is what fans wanted!" Is it? Who knows?

Edit to reply to 2nd post:

I don't feel harped on. We're just having a conversation. I'm open to dialogue.
I was referred to this post by someone on Hyperion in the Novice Network.
So obviously the sentiments are reflected by a vocal population of Hyperion.
I agree with the sentiment of the OP and his cohorts, but I also know why this game is the way it is and why it won't change.

[Reynhart]

But there's no way to accurately measure that now. Only SE has the true account for all Legacy members, so trying to make a public poll is going to give you unverifiable false-positives and false-negatives. Nor, honestly at this juncture does it really matter.

There's a way to measure people who don't like where the game is going, but only if those people actually take actions.

As I said earlier, if 4.0 is just a reskinned 3.0 (wich is just a reskinned 2.0), I'll unsubscribe between each patch. One month is far enough to do every content (Except Savage but, for now, I don't care now and probablly won't in 4.x...) and prepare for the next patch.

then come back here and announce you all hate the game [erroneously] and now I have the freedom to do whatever I want with impunity and blame it on you guys for voting for it.

Problem is, 1.0 was a remarkable commercial flop. I'm not sure that even if every Legacy player actually liked the game, we'd have been enough to keep it alive.

[Shai]

I'm not sure that even if every Legacy player actually liked the game, we'd have been enough to keep it alive.

No, definitely not. The poll basically asked "should I fix this game" or "should I make a new game."
I voted "fix the game" and most of my friends (less than 1% of the player base, I'm sure) voted "fix the game."
Then results were posted and "Make a new game" won by an alleged landslide - according to Yoshida.

It was weird to me - like voting for Al Gore and him winning the popular vote but waking up the next day and George Bush is President!

No, speaking seriously - I realize that I was in the minority but I also realized in that moment - Who looked at the poll results? Who tallied them? Who is reporting on them? There's a reason elections (outside of China) aren't run this way. The person running the poll controls all the information and thus can present any results that suit his agenda. Maybe his agenda all along was to build ARR, and the poll was just to make us feel like it was our grand idea. Maybe. Who knows? You don't know. I don't know. That's the inherent flaw of a secret ballot without any checks or balances in place. The results are subject to the whims of the poll taker.

Again, I restate, I'm not saying it was a good or bad decision to take 1.0 in a new direction and make ARR. Obviously, it was financially successful, and obviously -subjectively- to SE that's "a good direction" but is it what fans wanted? Who can really say? I can't and neither can Fizzle.

[Reynhart]

No, definitely not. The poll basically asked "should I fix this game" or "should I make a new game."
I voted "fix the game" and most of my friends (less than 1% of the player base, I'm sure) voted "fix the game."
Then results were posted and "Make a new game" won by an alleged landslide - according to Yoshida.

The thing is, the game was never "fixed" even during 1.xx lifespan. Stats point distribution wasn't fixed, it was changed. Leveling system (with physical and rank) was not fixed, it was changed, cross-classing was not fixed, it was changed, attack system was not fixed, it was changed (Damn, auto-attack is so boring...)...so, even before the poll, it was pretty clear what Yoshi-P would do with the game. It's still a wonder we kept the armory system, and Yoshida mentionned several times that he would gladly change it...instead of fixing it.

But, for a commercial standpoint, it's pretty understandable. You can market a "new" game to quitting players or players who were just not interested. "Patching" it would have been received with a lot more suspicion.

[Shai]

The thing is, the game was never "fixed" even during 1.xx lifespan. Stats point distribution wasn't fixed, it was changed. Leveling system (with physical and rank) was not fixed, it was changed, cross-classing was not fixed, it was changed, attack system was not fixed, it was changed (Damn, auto-attack is so boring...)...so, even before the poll, it was pretty clear what Yoshi-P would do with the game. It's still a wonder we kept the armory system, and Yoshida mentionned several times that he would gladly change it...instead of fixing it.

But, for a commercial standpoint, it's pretty understandable. You can market a "new" game to quitting players or players who were just not interested. "Patching" it would have been received with a lot more suspicion.

So you see my point.

I know those things weren't "fixed" and we [allegedly] didn't vote to "fix" - we voted to "build a new game."
He built an entirely new combat system for 1.0 which he then ... threw away (?) to build what ARR has.
Why?

This is part of why we [myself and MY cohorts] were led to believe the changes being made in 1.0 would reflect the changes of ARR. That when ARR launched it would resemble some form of continuation of all Yoshida's hard work to transform 1.0 into a playable and [arguably] fun game. This is why I felt tricked. He was making these bold changes to 1.0 while 1.0 was still live and then just threw THAT away to launch ARR. It felt then and even now like 1.0 was milked for money to make ARR and those people (the 1.0 players) were otherwise irrelevant. Cast off. What we thought we were investing in was never going to exist.

You are only emphasizing exactly WHY I feel tricked and why Fizzle feels like the people who cared most got the shaft.

The difference between me and the OP is that I understand and accept WHY we got the shaft. We're not profitable. Bottom line.
I don't like it, but it's not about me. It's about the future of Square Enix and Final Fantasy.