Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[Fawkes]

People who complain about the type of questions asked usually seem to think a good question would be something like "what are the next new jobs going to be" that would never get answered randomly on a live letter.

[SinisterJoints]

SE is a small indie company, adjust your expectations accordingly.

literally the dumbest reply Ive ever seen. Especially since SE is a multibillion company. Lol at your salt

[Stormfur]

I wish we could get a Community Manager in here to shed some light on how questions are chosen. If anything, that would help give us, the community/players, some guidance as to what to ask and how to phrase it so that the likelihood of it being asked would be higher.

I mean, yeah, they said "ask your burning questions" rather than around a certain topic, so it was pretty much a free-for-all. But I wish the community specialists would step in and say something like:

"Hey, we know X is important to you and we've noted that you've asked about it often. We're currently working on changes to X in the coming months, so please stay tuned as we'll have more information to share then."

Or even if it's not about 'kicking the can down the road', they could say something like:

"We understand that Y is important to players and it's important to us, too. Although we currently have no plans to integrate Y, because of (reason), rest assured that we hear you, and due to the nature of game development itself, this may change in the future."

I mean, that at least gives us a semblance of a yes/no and that our feedback is valued instead of "crickets".

Granted, the community managers' hands are probably tied too because things can EASILY get lost in translation/taken out of context. For example --

I asked a question about Gold Saucer rewards being updated to have a new "big shiny" thing to aim for. Perhaps it wasn't asked because (as an example) they're working on updates to the saucer that won't be live for another 3 months, but it may take as long as 6 months.

If they had said "we're working on adding new rewards to the saucer, but it will be a few more months until they are live" all the community would hear is "blitzball is coming".

See what I mean?

[Squintina]

I wish we could get a Community Manager in here to shed some light on how questions are chosen. If anything, that would help give us, the community/players, some guidance as to what to ask and how to phrase it so that the likelihood of it being asked would be higher.

I mean, yeah, they said "ask your burning questions" rather than around a certain topic, so it was pretty much a free-for-all. But I wish the community specialists would step in and say something like:

"Hey, we know X is important to you and we've noted that you've asked about it often. We're currently working on changes to X in the coming months, so please stay tuned as we'll have more information to share then."

Or even if it's not about 'kicking the can down the road', they could say something like:

"We understand that Y is important to players and it's important to us, too. Although we currently have no plans to integrate Y, because of (reason), rest assured that we hear you, and due to the nature of game development itself, this may change in the future."

I mean, that at least gives us a semblance of a yes/no and that our feedback is valued instead of "crickets".

Granted, the community managers' hands are probably tied too because things can EASILY get lost in translation/taken out of context. For example --

I asked a question about Gold Saucer rewards being updated to have a new "big shiny" thing to aim for. Perhaps it wasn't asked because (as an example) they're working on updates to the saucer that won't be live for another 3 months, but it may take as long as 6 months.

If they had said "we're working on adding new rewards to the saucer, but it will be a few more months until they are live" all the community would hear is "blitzball is coming".

See what I mean?

Actually ( a little off topic).

Yoshida showed up on Hyperion and told players that a new GS mini game was coming in 4.4 and it's not blitzball or snowboarding.

https://twitter.com/tackangel/status...25074358063104

[Tiaque]

I honestly believe they're already working on the next FF MMO at this point.

Your not far off, but remember, they have 3 mmos in circulation right now. FFXI, FFXIV, and the one they wont release to us yet.....likely wont ever but never know depends on how well sales are, and that is Dragon Quest X, which has far more players Japanese players on it than FFXIV does. DQX is still hostage and the sales of the upcoming DQXI and DQB2 will determine if it comes west.

[Tiaque]

literally the dumbest reply Ive ever seen. Especially since SE is a multibillion company. Lol at your salt

You took his bait hook line and sinker.....

/facepalm

[Berethos]

Watching the recent live letter I found myself feeling the same as all the others. Questions come up about things like more character creator options, new races, etc and are met with the same answers. "sorry too hard pls understand". Then they move on to the stuff they ARE working on.

I've been hearing the same thing from nearly every MMO company for years.

Very, very few actively make major changes to what they plan on adding based on player suggestions (those that are more flexible in this regard are typically those that are still in alpha/early access phases, and even then there's only so much "yeah, we're going to add this feature due to player suggestion" going on). Developers will often adjust aspects of what they are offering based on feedback, either in an ongoing iterative process after it hits live, or through testing phases on test servers, but it's rare when they just go "Yeah, we will add this completely new feature because you want it."

And the rare times when heavily requested features do get added, they often take several years before being brought into the game. Example: Blizzard's appearance log - their version of glamour was added in 2011, and despite an appearance log being an almost immediate request, was not added until 2016, even as they had acknowledged that it was something players wanted.

That's a reality across most MMO developers - you're getting what they plan, with some tweaks, and on rare occasions things the players asked for that weren't originally part of the plan. Why is it such a surprise that it happens here?

Do you know another thing that is a rare thing to be added? New character creation options. I know games that have updated character models (especially needed as their old models were noticeably different/older looking than newer models of enemies and NPCs, which isn't really a thing here - they've kept the look consistent for the most part so far), but those updates didn't actually add new character options. The closest I've seen to that kind of post launch addition is WoW's Allied Races, which are altered versions of several of the base races you can play that are treated like separate races, but they didn't actually add new faces or options to those base races.

Seems a bit odd to be so heavily criticizing the developers here for not doing things that other developers aren't doing either.

[Melichoir]

You can post the list of priorities, but they are all suffering. It's not like character options are being cut so they can do more with other content because those are also dwindling. People have been aaite with what we have for years, but you can't wait forever.

Im fine with Story, Gameplay, and Content currently. I dont feel theyre 'suffering'. Are tehy a perfect dream? No. Is the game in teh crapper where the Devs are super out of touch and all these things suck? No, not in my opinion. If you think thats the case, then unsub. If you feel therye not listening, then whyre you giving them your money. Invest it in a game that gives you what you want. But for me, this is fine. I enjoy what I pay for, and I dont have any huge beef with whats in ffxiv.

If they add new stuff, Groovy. Im down for that. If they take away stuff, or I feel the quality is lacking, bummer. Ill just unsub and play another game. Devs know this. So I hardly believe theyre "Out of Touch." Chances are theyre servicing communities that are more likely to play the game, and you might just be an outlier.

[Penthea]

I swear every single excuse with them is "oh this is too hard" or "oh the old code won't work with this".

They can't just keep using these same excuses for everything players want.

I think these problems SE often refer to are far more common than most here seem to think.

The majority of mmo dev teams are pretty damn silent compared to SE. SE actually directly address things players say and ask for several times a year, with most mmo dev teams you're lucky if it's even once. I think it's very naive to think that it's only SE who experience frequent limitations due to an older engine or server capability.

There are features in WoW that didn't make it to the game until after several years of players asking. Do people really think each time it was Blizzard forgetting the community existed? That not even once they had to put off some updates because the engine or the servers at the time couldn't handle it? The game even has a history of getting ahead of its own engine. The end boss of one of the expansions had several phases with separate hp pools because the combined hp pool literally could not exist in the game. With all their resources and experience they still clearly experience limitations like SE do, the difference is they rarely openly admit it. So the conversation players tend to have is "Blizzard don't read feedback" and not "Blizzard keep giving us the same excuses".

I know it's tiresome to get the same answers over and over. Trust me I too would love to hear an answer other than "server/engine limitations". I would even prefer to hear about a different limitation. It is especially annoying when it's a long time frequently requested feature. But this idea that only SE have these excuses or reasons is incredibly incorrect. It just appears so because most dev teams abstain from commenting about limitations until after they have conquered them and have the new features ready. So the focus is on being able to experience the new feature and not why they can't have it.

[GrumbleBeard]

Im fine with Story, Gameplay, and Content currently.

That's wonderful. Rather than immediately taking your advice to unsub, I will instead voice my concerns on the provided public forum.

Everybody cites WoW and their content release schedule taking years to implement things too. Of course, nobody is expecting SE to answer demands immediately (or at all in many cases). However, for what I played of it (vanilla/ bc) they weren't on content decline already by the point we're at. Look forward to 5.0 one dungeon, one fight for savage,