General concerns with the Devs content philosophy

[CorbinDallas]

I agree about the concern, but it ain't Designer Philosophy, its more financial administration. FFXIV team can do so much with the limited funding that SE hands to them. Sadly FFXIV gains and profits don't return 100% to the game production, its used to fund other SE projects. If 50% returned to FFXIV, the team would be huge.

It isn't a money problem, but a staff problem. They've gone on record to say this a number of times, that the reason they can't do everything they want to is that they require sufficiently talented staff members with enough experience to maintain 14's quality bar, which isn't the easiest thing to do.

A good example of this is how they hired some new battle content designers, and they were specifically the reason we had an expansion (Stormblood) full of super lengthy phase transitions in the majority of trials, which the majority disliked. It took them nearly 2 years to break this pattern with Seiryu's release, with Yoshi himself commenting on the fact in a Fan Fest Q+A while promoting Shadowbringers.

Throwing more money and staff at a problem doesn't fix anything, it's a heavy handed approach a lot of places employ, which usually only serves to harm the overall product.

[Renato]

2. Missing Gunbreaker and Dancer glamour:
This is one of my biggest gripes with this expansion.
Now when Dancer and Gunbreaker got released, all we got were Omega weapons for both of them and that's it.

This isn't entirely true. They also have the lv60 Shire weapons from Illdyshire, The Kinna and Padjalli Weapons from PoTD, The Coven weapons from Diadem, Emperean Weapons from HoH and the lv70 Dai-Ryumyaku and Scaevean weapons from Rhalgar's Reach. On top of all the lv60 and 70 dungeon drop weapons and a LV1 PVP obtainable weapon. I agree there isn't as many as the other classes when it comes to older content but there's enough selection of glamourable gunblades to choose from. And they're STILL adding glams for older jobs, GBR will get more I'm sure. All in due time.

3. "Empty" zone design

I agree completely with this. This is espcially seen in the final zone. It's dark, large and pretty empty. I'm hoping SE is planning to adding something down the line that livens up the areas.

[Bright-Flower]

The role quests don't bug me, but the token boring level 80 job quests do. They feel like they're really only there just to tie the quests to title achievements, at least in the few I've done so far.

Considering the workload for new job stories goes up with every expansion as more and more jobs are added, the role quests are fine with me. THough yeah I admit the first quests in all four of them being 'go kill a couple thigns to prove yourself,' while making story sense, are kind of repetitive.

As for glams there are a few more. Shire, Ryumaki and Scaevan weapons too, as well as a set of SB pvp weapons, but I agree all in all it would have been nice to have more options at level 60 to start with.

I don't really have an issue with the zone design itself though some zones like the Lochs feel wasted when the MSQ rushes throught hem. I don't mind not having EVERYTHING voiced. They have to do mulitple languages and once a scene is voice they have to lock down the dialog 100% much further in advance. I don't really need EVERYTHING voiced.

[Arkfrost]

If you don't want to care about the lore, that's fine....

A geomancer isn't an Astrologian.
A fencer isn't a Red Mage.

Yes, but it is the Othardian equivalent of an Astrologian, which is why they're the main topic of the Stormblood AST quest.

And Alisae is officially a Red Mage, not a fencer.
https://imgur.com/a/91MgPeG

Throwing more money and staff at a problem doesn't fix anything, it's a heavy handed approach a lot of places employ, which usually only serves to harm the overall product.

And that is where I completely disagree with Naoki Yoshida. Throwing more people at a problem in gaming almost ALWAYS fixes the problems. The important part however is HOW you throw people at problems. Of course they can't just hire people and let them create content. That doesn't work. However, they could future proof their development, by hiring a lot more new staff, training that staff and after a year of so they're ready to be thrown at these problems, perfectly capable to handle them. But that would require investment, which the poor small indie company Square Enix is not willing to give Naoki Yoshida for his Dev team. Of course he cannot say that, but that's most certainly the main problem. I don't blame him or the development staff itself, but mainly the company for this.

[Takamorisan]

It isn't a money problem, but a staff problem. They've gone on record to say this a number of times, that the reason they can't do everything they want to is that they require sufficiently talented staff members with enough experience to maintain 14's quality bar, which isn't the easiest thing to do.

A good example of this is how they hired some new battle content designers, and they were specifically the reason we had an expansion (Stormblood) full of super lengthy phase transitions in the majority of trials, which the majority disliked. It took them nearly 2 years to break this pattern with Seiryu's release, with Yoshi himself commenting on the fact in a Fan Fest Q+A while promoting Shadowbringers.

Throwing more money and staff at a problem doesn't fix anything, it's a heavy handed approach a lot of places employ, which usually only serves to harm the overall product.

I agree partially with you, but still they are missing staff for basic operations like, animation, art team for extra character customization (see Viera and Hrothgar they had to do work off hours to manage to get at least basic headgears), improving overall textures and so on.
FFXIV is a well managed product with their budget, but they could use more finances. Not FF7 remake levels of money but some extra is required to expand quality.

[Arkfrost]

FFXIV is a well managed product with their budget, but they could use more finances.

I can absolutely sign this. FF XIV deserves much more love, but greed apparently doesn't allow making good things better

[Kaethra]

It isn't a money problem, but a staff problem. They've gone on record to say this a number of times, that the reason they can't do everything they want to is that they require sufficiently talented staff members with enough experience to maintain 14's quality bar, which isn't the easiest thing to do.

A good example of this is how they hired some new battle content designers, and they were specifically the reason we had an expansion (Stormblood) full of super lengthy phase transitions in the majority of trials, which the majority disliked. It took them nearly 2 years to break this pattern with Seiryu's release, with Yoshi himself commenting on the fact in a Fan Fest Q+A while promoting Shadowbringers.

Throwing more money and staff at a problem doesn't fix anything, it's a heavy handed approach a lot of places employ, which usually only serves to harm the overall product.

I'm going to be honest here. SE likes to deflect mistakes instead of taking responsibility for them. FFXIV is a touchy subject for them due to the fumble that was 1.0. Therefor they like to say they have issues making certain things happen, that quite frankly don't make much sense. We'll start with your example.

So they claim that it was a new staff that caused a issue with design philosophy of the trial fights. That is extremely problematic. No company allows new hires to dictate philosophy. Lets look at another Japanese company for comparison. Nintendo has a design philosophy for its Super Mario games. In fact they've recently given out that philosophy in their new Super Mario Maker 2 game. Its a lengthy 'class' on how to make levels by that philosophy. They had that philosophy for nearly 40 years. Which means they have designers and level makers who follow a philosophy that is older than they are.

What I am saying here, is do NOT give SE a pass when they say they have shortages here, or limitations there. Do a little research on the subject, and ask people who have experience in those fields. As best you can anyway.

They've done this with several other subjects such as Housing, Character options, glamour options, and various other materials. One thing that is in common with all those things mentioned is they are all small (under 1KB in size) additions to the database. But they claim adding a few hundred bytes to a character load would tax the servers too much. That sort of dishonesty is pretty much wrong. Either some head coder is blowing smoke up an ignorant producer's rear, or they are being dishonest to the players directly.

[Granyala]

3. "Empty" zone design

I welcome it.
Look outside at nature. You don't get an animal standing every 2 feet.

I hate the claustrophobic feel of WoWs modern zones, esp since Blizzard crams them full with aggro mobs. No thank you.

As for the Crystarium feeling a bit empty: I can see that point. There should be a few more NPCs up and about, considering it is one of the main cities left. Maybe SE could load balance NPC population with player population, so you always get a filled city but not an overcrowded one should many players be in the zone.

[Theodric]

Instead of more voice act, I would rather they use the budget for more quality voice act. I have only try JP and ENG voice and I must admit the English one seem lagging behind when come to voice acting quality, not that they are bad, but there are far better

I strongly disagree. The English voice acting is incredible and the game makes excellent use of some of the finest actors in the industry as well as leaning on some accents that aren't usually present in Western versions of JRPG's outside of games such as Dragon Quest 8 and 11.

[Reiryuu]

I agree with a lot of what the OP is saying here. To me, the Role Quests seem extremely samey down to the point where the healer and physical DPS person could have been the same character personality for the most part. The tank one seems refreshingly different personality wise at least, so that's a plus... but I really wanted to punch the healer and the phys dps NPCs. The level 80 job quests were a joke, plain and simple.

Healer balance is.... laughable and, TBH the healer jobs just aren't that fun to play anymore. With button bloat always thinning our skills (not just healers) I feel the game gets even more dull with each expansion in terms of what each job does at various levels. And when you have to level sync to earlier content.... man it hurts. Trusts feel extremely grindy for little benefit from what I can tell so far and I'm just getting them all to 73 so I can get into the next dungeon after running the 71 dungeon like 18 times over various classes. Trusts seem to have a choreographed order for which they kill mobs in and I really wish I could change it, affect it some how, or at least they would use some AoEs. Those stupid gremlins with the slow in the 71 dungeon are super aggrivating especially since they seem to be targeted last for some reason.

The plot I felt was super predictable. And while I did like it, I felt that the predictability and lack of any surprise when it seemed like I was supposed to be surprised distracted me a lot. The roleplay duty as thancred, I'm sorry to say, was boring AF. As are each of the once in the Role Duties so far. I renew my request to be able to skip those.

On the other hand, I really like the dungeon boss fights and I felt Eden was pretty decent aside from a few fights (2 and 4) mainly, but my complaints about those are fairly minor overall, they just drop the enjoyment for me personally. I don't know if I will stick with 5.0 yet or not, so far I am satisfied enough, but I have a feeling I will not be continuing to 6.0 unless something amazing happens in game between then and now. I just feel the quality of the game overall keeps getting worse and worse. And I just can't be confident that the devs have my interests in mind simply because I feel our interests/ideas of fun are too different at this point.