General concerns with the Devs content philosophy

[Arkfrost]

1: How can you have job specific quests when your job trainer is back on the Source, and there are very limited professions and trainers on the First?

Then just make new job trainers on the First. Just to give you 5-second thoughts that would instantly come up as ideas for job quests:

PLD: You're training a group of knight recruits in the Crystarium
WAR: You're bonding with the First's Amal'jaa learning about their tribal habits, which could involve some berserking stuff
DRK: You're the posterboy of the expansion. C'mon. Join a group of sin-eater hunters
WHM: You help people that got attacked by Sin Eaters and are a field-doctor
SCH: You help Moren with some research on the faefolk
AST: You study old tomes about the stellar constellations of the First at the cabinet of curiosity
MNK: You learn a new way of meditating from the Nu Mou, who are a pretty chill nature by default, releasing a new form of Chakra
DRG: You learn stuff about the First's dragons from the Amaros in Il Mheg
NIN: You join a shadow group in Eulmore to take down a few corrupt people that exploit the system (even after Vauthry's death)
SAM: You enter a swordsmanship contest in Eulmore
BRD: You learn the songs and archery methods from Norvrandt from some archer/bard dude there
MCH: You help the techies in the Crystarium to craft new gadgets and craft a few new on your own with the knowledge gained there
BLM: You try to heal the land even more by drawing energy from the void, countering the light and restoring balance
SMN: You venture on a study trip in advanced summoning that leads you to the ruins in Rak'tika Greatwood, where you learn more summoner stuff
RDM: Some crazy mages argue about if white or black magic is better and you help them find a middle ground, teaching them red magic
DNC: You learn the dances of Norvrandt
GNB: Well, come up with something. I'm tired of thinking about anything

2: This I concur with, it'd be nice to see more unique glamours for the new jobs however we're only a month into the expansion so I'm prepared to wait.

I'm also prepared to wait for it this time, but if we don't get the glams we got before eventually, I'll be pretty salty about it.

3: Because overfilling zones caused catastrophic failures, see 1.0.

Only if you do it wrong. Coding was one of the major issues of 1.0 and especially the high poly count were the main troublemakers.

4: Most, if not all, voiced FF titles have the side quests and chores non-voice acted. They're sticking to the theme and it's more than okay. Giving random NPC's and vendors "BALADASH MALARIA" bullshite robs a part of what makes FF FF.

Yeah, but at least the raid cutscenes are like the most important content after the MSQ. They deserve voice acting.

Comparing the Crystarium and Limsa isn't fair considering Limsa is split into 2 zones. Look towards Kugane instead.

Alright. Kugane looks amazing. It is filled, with barely any empty space (except for the far outskirts), with NPCs having patrols around the city, etc. Crystarium really is a downgrade compared to Kugane.

As for the WoW thing, it's about quality. WoW might do this or that, but evidently the quality bar ain't so high considering the mass exodus of players we've seen thanks to their latest expansion and simmering frustrations since whenever.

The mass exodus was mainly due to gameplay decisions. Not because of the "lack of quality". People mainly disliked, that their old playstyle got trashed because their old gear got devalued (there is gear with certain active abilities that can impact your playstyle in WoW), they disliked the Azerite grind (which if we're reasonable is WAY less intense than the Eureka grind was) and they disliked general changes like mob scaling in zones and Global Cooldown on everything.

At the same time, they keep adding more jobs. It's not about cutting corners and being lazy, when their workload is exponentially increasing with each expansion. Something's gotta give, and frankly, being on the First gave them a brilliant, legitimate way of doing this, which gave us valuble backstory in a way that felt valid, and not at all like they were cutting corners.

Well, even more reason to make the role quests completely different from each other.

I think the Role Quests were a brilliant idea for Shadowbringers.

I'm not saying, that role quests in general are a bad idea. I also agree, that the general idea is actually pretty great. But what they did with it is, what I'm complaining about. Right because there are so much less quests now, it would give them the opportunity to make entirely different and diverse questlines and they didn't do that.

Instead they made the more or less same questline 4 times, that follow the same path: Kill a few mobs, then learn about the transformed ex Warriors of Darkness, have a flashback about their past, do a solo instance where you play as them, beat them in combat, receive their crystal, done.

3. Empty Zones:

I felt the zones were adequately populated tbh. But that's from participating in all of the FATEs and Hunts. It felt like every inch was utilized, especially the FATE trains that take you all over the map with interesting stories and lore.

I believe most of the credit for that goes to implementing the FATE currency system, which was a brilliant idea. However I'm thinking more about the attention to detail in the landscape and area design, rather than the overall world population.

4. Voiced cutscenes:

More voiced cutscenes would certainly be welcome, but this is probably one of the more expensive areas of development. It's less about dev resources, and more just flat budget restraints. This just needs more money thrown at it.

Completely agree there. This is an issue with Square Enix itself though, rather than the devs. FFXIV deserves more budget, considering how it has grown.