Should FF14 take a new route? Discussion

[Keridwyn]

The thing is, they are a large company. They could afford to spare a few developers on other projects in the company if not outright hire temporary people to work on only that aspect of the game.

Except the FFXIV branch doesn't seem to get much attention from the company at large except to take the money the game makes and seemingly send it elsewhere.

While I agree they should be forthright about these changes coming and I would hope from understanding from us the players I'm not holding my breath. By keeping expectations low I can be pleasantly surprised.

[ToriiMiyuki]

Not writing a huge post about this myself. I'm just going to say this:

Square has no interest in innovating, or really doing much else but the bare minimum to profit. We've all been had because of our passion, and we let our passion blind us into supporting those who have no interest in, or care for us.

This is basically MMO Stockholm Syndrome.

ADDENDUM: Vote with your wallets. Seriously.

[Kaonis]

Except the FFXIV branch doesn't seem to get much attention from the company at large except to take the money the game makes and seemingly send it elsewhere.

This is what has always blown my mind with FFXIV. It's no secret the game makes SE money and it's probably what saved them from financial ruin years ago. But I can't understand why the higher ups at SE won't invest more into the game.

[addz3]

3 words.... Black Desert Online. That's what a character creation should be able to do. If I wasn't scared that id empty my bank account it's where I would be now. I've been playing FF games for 20 years and they are still my favourite and always will be but 14 is getting boring. Much preferred XI. Remake XI with BDO character creation and detail and the option of XIV instance dungeon as well as normal XI exp parties (because lfp for 10 hours+ in Jeuno as DRG is no fun) and it's the best of all worlds. I would unsub for awhile if I didn't lose my house. That's another thing that's pissed me off lol......

[Zeonx]

I like the game though SE is basically destroying the market board.
Things that are worth money are re-issued into the system in new dungeons and more ways to get that item very easy causing the market board to crash.

I am losing more money than gaining by teleporting places to farm due to the 999 teleporting prices and when stuff gets undercut which I know I have zero power against which doesn't matter cause SE murdered the market board i am bleeding gil.
I understand the guild teleport price cut and notes you get from flame barracks but not everyone has the power to use that stuff or even have done it.

That is actually whats killing it for me, soon I won't have any reason to farm up anything and go play something else.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

What this game needs is a bigger development team, large enough to where the current team can adhere to the 3 months schedule while the remainder fixes system issues, works on QoL, server infrastructure and figuring out their spaghetti code to add things with more relative ease and adjust the inner workings of the game beyond what they can currently do with their 90-120 day cycle. They need more developers, otherwise this game will never go beyond what's worked int he past because they can't deviate for risk of losing out on dev time for actual content.

[ApprenticeSmithy]

What this game needs is a bigger development team, large enough to where the current team can adhere to the 3 months schedule while the remainder fixes system issues, works on QoL, server infrastructure and figuring out their spaghetti code to add things with more relative ease and adjust the inner workings of the game beyond what they can currently do with their 90-120 day cycle. They need more developers, otherwise this game will never go beyond what's worked int he past because they can't deviate for risk of losing out on dev time for actual content.

I quite agree. More help means better quality stuff for the game! Besides, with more people on board, we can get new ideas on the drawing board too.

[Berethos]

Is it the belief that a patch with no content at all would turn players off? Who knows.

Considering how players reacted to waiting 5 months instead of 3ish for patch 3.1 (which was itself a fairly lackluster patch in certain areas that followed the whole 2 dungeons only in expert debacle), I'm almost certain this is a factor.

The side activities. That point is hit or miss obviously but the greatest contrast is Lord of Verminion. Imo LoV should of been what Pet Battles are for WoW. A Pokemon like minigame. It's silly to say but Pet Battles are extremely fun even through their simplicity. LoV tried to be complex and strategic and it blew up in it's face... Even though FFXIV has side activities like Triple Triad and PotD, it's just not enough and not updated enough through the patches. WoW has the Brawlers Guild where players have solo encounters against multiple bosses testing their awareness and their skills to take them down and get as far as possible through the gauntlet and there's probably other stuff I haven't seen yet as I rerolled on a differnet server. .

Outside of farming old content for transmog/mounts, that's actually about it for side activities...

And brawlers guild requires getting an invite that is particularly rare (sources I'm finding put it at or below a 1% drop rate from various mobs/treasure caches), and once you do get it, you often have to sit around and wait in line to be the next challenger for your next solo fight. It's fun...if you ever actually get to do it.

As for their pet battles, different strokes for different folks. I don't find LoV to be my cup of tea, but I find WoW's version even more lackluster.

They do have their Darkmoon Faire, to which our Golden Saucer is comparable...but it's only around for a week out of the month, and it's ridiculously grindy to get just about any reward, instead of just a select few "special" ones.

Side activities is just not something Blizzard does particularly well. Heh, they even prevent players from using specific holiday items/costumes if it's not during that holiday time. There's a reason "Fun detected, must nerf it" and other similar sayings is a bit of a meme over there.

[Mikki]

Unfortunately, people don't have this image of Japan... but as someone who lives here, I can tell you that sadly this is not a country that enjoys progression and change. The culture here is to do things as they have always been done; it's not very well received if you try to speak up and present another more efficient way to do something. Even if it is undoubtedly superior, others will tend to scoff at you and ignore your suggestions. They suffer very much from "this is how it's always been done, so this is how we will do it".

And with FFXIV already having been a flop once, I can definitely see how they would be hesitant to try to switch it up drastically. However, if they want XIV to remain relevant, they can't be scared to overhaul things and completely rework the system. It won't be easy, but in order to keep the game alive it's something they need to do. Unless they're happy with it being as viable as XI has become, of course. If their revenue on XI is "enough" then yeah. Sure. Whatever. Let it burn. lol.

If they DO want to stay more relevant though, they need to hire a new team for this so they can keep pumping out "fresh" content as they usually do (lol, Eureka...fresh content...hm..), just to keep the player base subscribed at the same time. But they need to have something else in the works behind the scenes and they should tease it to us so we know it's coming. The game should be making more than enough money. I've bought so much stuff off the mogstation, including $18 outfits FOR FRIENDS too! I've bought every expansion as it came out. I preordered the collectors edition of ARR for BOTH PC and PS3. I have extra retainers that I pay monthly for. Many people have the max amount, easily DOUBLING THEIR SUBSCRIPTION FEE. Come on. I expect more for a dedicated fan base. We have a freaking cash shop for a pay to play game. That's ridiculous. So make it worth my money, please.

[Fynlar]

Unfortunately, people don't have this image of Japan... but as someone who lives here, I can tell you that sadly this is not a country that enjoys progression and change. The culture here is to do things as they have always been done; it's not very well received if you try to speak up and present another more efficient way to do something. Even if it is undoubtedly superior, others will tend to scoff at you and ignore your suggestions. They suffer very much from "this is how it's always been done, so this is how we will do it".

It isn't just Japan that suffers from this. I've seen a whole lot of stupid practices continue to be done on the "it's always been this way, I had to deal with it, so do you" basis, and I've never set foot in Japan.