Lack of voice acting is really hurting the emotion of the story

[MistakeNot]

SWTOR did it so I know it's viable and the game was certainly better for it. Twelve forbid they ever invest the profits of FFXIV into FFXIV.

SWTOR did - with different voices for each of the eight class choices. With male and female options that made for 16 voice actors just for the player character. Cost them a lot of money which didn't go to endgame content - with the result that when the game launched, and players got through to the endgame and found there wasn't much of an endgame present, players left in droves. They later added more endgame content, but not quickly enough.

In later expansions SWTOR has cut down heavily on the voice acting. Seems it was just a bit too expensive to have voice acting everywhere.

[HyoMinPark]

Well I've not heard anyone say SWTOR was bad because all the quests were voice acted. And I'd rather the expansion budget be focused on the story over the battle content. Few people are going to remember these battles in 5 years.

The expansion includes more than just the MSQ—therefore, resources have to be allocated to EVERYTHING. Not just the story. Expansions include all the content we get in patches, including new dungeons, trials, raids, crafting/gathering content, glamour, the new areas, content surrounding housing, etc.. If they started leaning more heavily towards voice acting, they would have to pull from the budgets that fund these other areas. Such is the way of budgeting.

People already lost their minds when we got one less dungeon in the odd patches in Stormblood. They lose their mind when they get to endgame and there’s “nothing to do”. Patches 3.1 and 4.1 were some of the worst patches in this game’s history because there was no content aside from Thordan EX/Diadem (3.1) and Shinryu EX/UCoB (4.1). I’d imagine more cuts would have to be made from the endgame content should the developers opt to voice act everything, and I’d rather not see that.

[Edax]

If they started leaning more heavily towards voice acting, they would have to pull from the budgets that fund these other areas. Such is the way of budgeting.

That's fine by me. I don't care about SE other projects, they should invest FFXIV profits into FFXIV and make it ever better.

[HyoMinPark]

That's fine by me. I don't care about SE other projects, they should invest FFXIV profits into FFXIV and make it ever better.

You completely missed my point. Congratulations.

I don’t think voice acting everything in this game would make it better. More endgame content, however, would.

[Kewitt]

The Voice acting is so much better in ShB...

But I don't mind my voice being Text reply only. Here is why.
Most of the RP community believe their character sounds a one way... Voicing their character would break that for a lot of RPers.

Also so some unknown reason for it to be done right... They would have to record every Races/sex 8 times for the different voices....lol

[Edax]

People already lost their minds when we got one less dungeon in the odd patches in Stormblood. They lose their mind when they get to endgame and there’s “nothing to do”. Patches 3.1 and 4.1 were some of the worst patches in this game’s history because there was no content aside from Thordan EX/Diadem (3.1) and Shinryu EX/UCoB (4.1). I’d imagine more cuts would have to be made from the endgame content should the developers opt to voice act everything, and I’d rather not see that.

You completely missed my point. Congratulations.

I don’t think voice acting everything in this game would make it better. More endgame content, however, would.

I don't think you understood my point, voice acting does not mean taking anything away from the game. A bigger budget means you can add to the game, not take it away. It's SE whose chosen to deprive FFXIV of its own money.
FFXIV can absolutely afford a bigger staff and a bigger budget.

[Elladie]

Well I've not heard anyone say SWTOR was bad because all the quests were voice acted. It was objectively better to have voice come out of NPCs. It increase immersion and made quests more important when you actually had someone to talk to. And I'd rather the expansion budget be focused on the story over the battle content. Few people are going to remember these battles in 5 years.

I hate the constant VA in SWTOR and in TESO. It's really bad acting and very very annoying. I only played either for a few days, and the non- stop VA was a contributor in both cases. Maybe if the acting had been better - or the story - it wouldn't have been so grating. Also I can read faster than I can listen to someone speak and, though I do read every bit of text in this game even side quests because the lore is so fantastic, I would get annoyed if I was constantly getting slowed by VA in everything.

I absolutely don't agree that the lack of a voice for the WoL diminishes the emotion, far from it. Instead it gives me the freedom to have my character react the way I know she would, albeit through my own imagination. If I did agree that it diminishes my emotional investment, I would probably be less anti, but I would still be very aware that - in a video game - the allotted budget for that department is likely tiny. Any additional expense - and something on this scale would be hugely expensive - would have to come from money allocated to other teams. Unless of course the game was doing so badly that the budget boys decided a.) there's more money, and b.) only a voiced WoL will save it

[Edax]

Any additional expense - and something on this scale would be hugely expensive - would have to come from money allocated to other teams.

False, a bigger budget does not mean taking money away from other teams from within the game development. They could have given a FFXIV a bigger budget given it's SE's cash cow.

I hate the constant VA in SWTOR and in TESO. It's really bad acting and very very annoying.

You also retain the option of turning the voices off in the menu. Play it old school.

[HyoMinPark]

I don't think you understood my point, voice acting does not mean taking anything away from the game. A bigger budget means you can add to the game, not take it away. It's SE whose chosen to deprive FFXIV of its own money.
FFXIV can absolutely afford a bigger staff and a bigger budget.

If the budget cannot afford the extra content after all the money spent on VAs, then yes, it does take away from the game. Unless you have control over SE’s larger finances and budgeting, you cannot definitively say that we will not lose anything. Nor can you control where the money goes. I dislike that FFXIV’s money goes into other projects, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Any money that goes into FFXIV that is deviated to voice acting is taken away from other aspects of the game. Expansions are given a budget, which includes the base expansion and all the patches involved—which include all the content included in said patches. I already listed them once; I won’t do that again. Considering the sheer amount of quests and dialogue in this game, you are looking a very, very, very large sum of money to cover complete voice acting like you would want. I would rather the larger budgets go to other aspects. I don’t see the need for random NPCs I interact with once or twice to have a voice.

At the end of the day, you also need to consider where we spend the majority of our time in this game. Story and sidequests are one and done unless you make alts (and until NG+ comes out). Endgame is where most people spend their time unless they unsubscribe for several weeks at a time until the next patch comes out. Perhaps more money should be spent on that instead of something far more transient.

They had a good balance with ShB. I don’t think we really need more than that.

[Elladie]

False, a bigger budget does not mean taking money away from other teams from within the game development. They could have given a FFXIV a bigger budget given it's SE's cash cow

And as I said in my post - though you missed that bit out - they're not likely to increase the budget unless the game suddenly crashes and burns. And if does, I doubt they're going to think that suddenly having everything with voice acting will save it