Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

What I would like to see moving forward, is a narrower scope in the way to types of content, but significantly more depth and longevity of the types they are creating. If you are developing an MMO with an update schedule of 3-4 months rewards should take roughly that long to achieve... Eureka took 2-3 weeks to get all weapons.

That would basically mean making everything incredibly difficult, incredibly grindy, or incredibly rng.

Can you imagine trying to get a piece of gear from content, only for it to have a drop rate of a mount from a newly released primal?

I don't see any other way to make something last 3-4 months entirely. That is just unrealistic expectations.

[KisaiTenshi]

You don't think those people could have been tasked to create better content? There is too much fluf in this game.... and we keep getting more.

Welcome to DisneySquareEnixLand, On your left is the one of the children's attractions the staged show, on your right is the dress-up-glamour Fashion Report, further down the road we have the haunted Palace of the Dead, and around the corner we have the roller coaster raids. Then there is our main attraction the "It's a Small Overworld"

The point is that there is no harm to adding more attractions to the game. You are not required to play all of them, just like you're not required to go on the Pirates of the Carribbean ride and Space Mountain. Disneyland also retires rides after they wane in popularity or wear out.

[Ayer2015]

Welcome to DisneySquareEnixLand, On your left is the one of the children's attractions the staged show, on your right is the dress-up-glamour Fashion Report, further down the road we have the haunted Palace of the Dead, and around the corner we have the roller coaster raids. Then there is our main attraction the "It's a Small Overworld"

The point is that there is no harm to adding more attractions to the game. You are not required to play all of them, just like you're not required to go on the Pirates of the Carribbean ride and Space Mountain. Disneyland also retires rides after they wane in popularity or wear out.

To me it just seems like the attractions are being added at the detriment to the core game.

[Remedi]

I've come across plenty of people who think the devs are wasting resources developing systems like perform. It wouldn't be an issue if we were getting content with longevity.... but our devs seem to think continually making new content with a lifespan of 3 months is a good idea. They continually say they are under staffed, yet they choose an inefficient method of content creation.

As said I question how something is implemented not the implementation itself. Otherwise I would've to ask devs to stop wasting time on PVP since it was not a core of the game and was just tacked on to fill a quota, but I'm not doing that for obvious reasons and actually I would like the devs to meet the demands of Pvpers

Oh and believe when I tell you that PVP for me is essentially garbage tier content that's a waste of devs resources, but that goes back to my point of fun not beign a good metric

[Ayer2015]

As said I question how something is implemented not the implementation itself. Otherwise I would've to ask devs to stop wasting time on PVP since it was not a core of the game and was just tacked on to fill a quota, but I'm not doing that for obvious reasons and actually I would like the devs to meet the demands of Pvpers

Oh and believe when I tell you that PVP for me is essentially garbage tier content that's a waste of devs resources, but that goes back to my point of fun not beign a good metric

I can't really comment on PvP, as I only do it for wolf mark rewards. It would be nice if the devs actually acknowledged player feedback about the core game. Every live letter the questions they choose are always about auxiliary game systems.

[Remedi]

Can't really comment on PvP either, I only know what little I know from some pvpers, just saying that I do believe that some parts of the game are kinda of a waste but I don't really like to do denounce them as such since the lack of mine enjoyment doesn't mean that they shouldn't exist.

However I do reckon that Yoshida does have said that he designed the game to be enjoyed in burst and as I said Earlier I think this is a company direction and not just him, he cited words for words the same explanation the guys in charge in 1.0 had for the fatigue system when talking about game content. this to me says that SE is concerned in ppl overplaying their games.

Perphas this is because of what happened with Pandemonium warden or AB in the past but I honestly can't say for sure, however that does explain why they keep developing content in this way and why they are dodgy on those questions.

[Dyvid]

Honestly you need both combat and non combat content because everyone enjoys something different. Housing is a great example of this because if nobody cared you wouldn't see all the housing post. Just because it's something you're not into doesn't mean it isn't part of the core game. They do have a WoW problem though where they just let older content age and die without every going back too it. Gold Saucer event is a good example because it hasn't change much since ARR. They never added new level that have flying or swimming nor added anything new. They did add it to DF but sadly too little too late.

As for the main question "Are the Devs out of touch?" Yes and no. I think the devs are relaying too much on forums and hand picked question for feedback. They would be better off doing polls like in 1.0 for player feedback on future content. They also need to try something new with 5.0 like added Full party dungeons to change things up. For the life of me I just don't understand why they split up level 70 dungeons into two categories if they are just both level 70.

[Freyar]

--Just Bitter--

Considering that I run three alliance raids in a row, and there is literally zero pieces of gear up for my role (I'd be okay if I just lost the roll, that's fine, I know RNGesus hates me, that much was beaten into me during the Atma phases..)? I'd like to think so. Even the same exact piece of BLM gear dropped twice multiple times in this raid each run I went though. -_-

--Ending Bitter--

[Vhailor]

@Vhailor: You do have a point, even though I have a hard time believing that someone that plays games for fun or is a fan of something can truly be 100% objective. I am not saying that one cant see the faults of a system (like you pointed out with the exp ratio) and imo its probably easier with something like a movie but a game?

For example if you hate plattformers and yet you have to review one. Can one be truly objective in it? Isnt there always a part that will influence this? In the end I believe that fun alone is not good but still something that SE can use for future content.

I imagine reviewers have to do this all the time. I'm sure organizations like PC Gamer or IGN or whatever try to place people into their 'preferred' areas, but what if nobody on the staff particularly loves racing titles? They still have to review it, and their reputation will be dinged if they don't offer a reasonably objective analysis. I'll admit it's a lot to place on the shoulders of forum-goers, but this is why I think SE has to take action themselves. They're the ones working on FFXIV, the ones who will be tangibly impacted if the game begins to falter or fail. Their livelihoods are on the line: they arguably can't afford to take a simple-minded approach (are people saying it's fun or not upon release).

If someone posted that they found Eureka fun, then for us this is not really a deep look at it but SE can say that this person liked the way it was done. So if more people are of this opinion they know that their content works because people find everything as fun. If someone writes that they dont like the content itself but found it at least fun with friends, then SE can take from it that some people will do content that they dont like if they can do it with their friends. If someone writes that they did not find it fun because of x then SE might know that x might not be the way to go and can conclude what the people might like instead. All of this was founded on the feeling of fun with the input of why its fun or why its not.

I'm not so sure this is the case. The problem here is a lack of visible alternatives. SE would be making a massive assumption if they judged a 'this is fun' message as 'we did good, let's keep at it', which is something I feel they've done for quite some time now in XIV. To again use Eureka as an example, let's say someone tells SE 'yeah, this was fun.' Well, the next question would be, how fun? Are we talking a 6/10 review, 7/10? Is it an 11/10? Without knowing even that surface level of detail, the feedback almost has to be discarded entirely; it's useless from a development-guidance standpoint. So, yes, you're right that SE can view this as evidence of a job well done - but they really shouldn't.

About Eureka and its content: Well in a recent interview they said that they have forseen that people might react that way (Fate trains) and even just wait in town for a spawn, so can it be really objective broken if they have forseen it and are fine with that? I do agree though that bugs exists and those might count into buggy content.

I'd be interested in the source here, but I'd suggest that this actually worsens the situation. It means they're either lying to us to save face, or they actually outright ignored a strongly likely outcome from a balancing perspective in order to release content in a problematic state. I'd prefer ignorance to intent, speaking personally. I'd also hesitate to define 'broken' content as something SE didn't intend or foresee. I mean, Microsoft surely foresaw many of the downsides to imposing forced updates on Windows 10 users. That still doesn't excuse them from the myriad problems that arose from this process, particularly in the first couple of years of Windows 10's lifespan. Broken design is broken design: the intent and supporting design / development didn't match the outcome, in a way that proved problematic to a non-trivial population of end users. Foreseen or not, it's still a problem.

But yeah maybe we are talking about the same thing in a different way. In the end its important to ask if they take our feedback into mind and listen because we players are the most important part in this (without us they could not produce the game further) and for me it feels like they dont often listen that good. I mean otherwise I just question why we have something like Diadem 2.0 if they did..

I think we are. I think if we contrast what we have right now with what we had when 2.0 was being developed and just after release, we'll note there's less player feedback, less community outreach. During ARR's development and aftermath, Yoshi-P stressed the value of not developing in a bubble. By all appearances, he's no longer practicing what he preached. Oh, sure, he's still doing the 'Live' letters, he's still doing the media appearances, but they're all so carefully insulated and controlled, they aren't achieving the desired result.

[GrumbleBeard]

They would be better off doing polls like in 1.0 for player feedback on future content. They also need to try something new with 5.0 like added Full party dungeons to change things up.

I think these are great suggestions. As far as content for larger parties I don't even think it would be difficult for them to implement. I would even be for a system where you could do existing content with larger parties and the difficulty would scale with it.