Criticism of Shadowbringers and the hostility there in

[SturmChurro]

According to the Mr. Happy interview. The lack of high-end, or just simply 'hard(er)' looks to be completely due to having an understaffed battle team. Not enough designers, or playtesters. They do not have a dedicated team for playtesting either. The devs designing content, are also the ones testing it. The easier the content, the easier it is to design and test.

The OP's point here:

It seems to me that they aren't choosing a hill, they aren;t catering to causals over hardcores, and vice versa, it seems they're undermanned and doing their best to provide..

Is pretty much proven correct, according to this information. However, I do still think they are "choosing a hill", casual content is easier to make, and will be played by more of the playerbase. Instead of having to delay these content releases, or outright not do them, they can continue releasing 'casual' or 'normal' content.

[Aluja89]

According to the Mr. Happy interview. The lack of high-end, or just simply 'hard(er)' looks to be completely due to having an understaffed battle team. Not enough designers, or playtesters. They do not have a dedicated team for playtesting either. The devs designing content, are also the ones testing it. The easier the content, the easier it is to design and test.

The OP's point here:


Is pretty much proven correct, according to this information. However, I do still think they are "choosing a hill", casual content is easier to make, and will be played by more of the playerbase. Instead of having to delay these content releases, or outright not do them, they can continue releasing 'casual' or 'normal' content.

How is that our problem? They always have a dumb excuse for everything.

Almost every dungeon since ARR has been 2 packs>wall>2 packs>boss, repeat 2 more times and somehow no one has called them out on it for 6-7 years.

[Sotaris]

How is that our problem? They always have a dumb excuse for everything.

Almost every dungeon since ARR has been 2 packs>wall>2 packs>boss, repeat 2 more times and somehow no one has called them out on it for 6-7 years.

It isn't our problem, but it seems like the development team and/or SE prioritize other aspect of the game to make more money from subs/store than hiring more people.

[Aluja89]

It isn't our problem, but it seems like the development team and/or SE prioritize other aspect of the game to make more money from subs/store than hiring more people.

Exactly, were those dumb commercials with Tom Holland necessary for example? People keep buying into that dumb excuse how they're understaffed when they waste their resources on crap like that.

[strawberrycake]

Exactly, were those dumb commercials with Tom Holland necessary for example? People keep buying into that dumb excuse how they're understaffed when they waste their resources on crap like that.

The Team working on the game, Creative Unit 3, aren't the PR(public relations) team, those are to totally different parts of the company. So while the PR team may be well staffed, Creative unit 3 isn't.

So if anything thats a direct issue with Square Enix and not Creative Unit 3, the dev team, and would only play into the management of things being bad, thus the dev team being understaffed, and the product placement team not being understaffed, showing where the priority of the parent company as a whole lies.

In the end, the Dev team is under staffed.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The Team working on the game, Creative Unit 3, aren't the PR(public relations) team, those are to totally different parts of the company. So while the PR team may be well staffed, Creative unit 3 isn't.

So if anything thats a direct issue with Square Enix and not Creative Unit 3, the dev team, and would only play into the management of things being bad, thus the dev team being understaffed, and the product placement team not being understaffed, showing where the priority of the parent company as a whole lies.

In the end, the Dev team is under staffed.

And even then, it's not the entirety of the dev team that is under staffed. More specifically, battle content designers and qa testers of sufficient skill levels.

[strawberrycake]

How is that our problem? They always have a dumb excuse for everything.

Almost every dungeon since ARR has been 2 packs>wall>2 packs>boss, repeat 2 more times and somehow no one has called them out on it for 6-7 years.

Truth be told its not our problem, as a whole I would say its the management failing the dev team and the players, or even the management within the dev team, again with the massive lack of transparency we dont truly know.

For me personally I simply care about the game I love doing better, I know mnay others do as well, hence why I say speak out about the understaffed dev team and the possibility of SE not managing things right.

[strawberrycake]

According to the Mr. Happy interview. The lack of high-end, or just simply 'hard(er)' looks to be completely due to having an understaffed battle team. Not enough designers, or playtesters. They do not have a dedicated team for playtesting either. The devs designing content, are also the ones testing it. The easier the content, the easier it is to design and test.

The OP's point here:


Is pretty much proven correct, according to this information. However, I do still think they are "choosing a hill", casual content is easier to make, and will be played by more of the playerbase. Instead of having to delay these content releases, or outright not do them, they can continue releasing 'casual' or 'normal' content.

I mean I used you saying they were choosing a hill mainly because it just had a nice ring to it with making a point. That being said you're 100% right, and I'm slightly wrong, but the point still stands, This team has consistently been understaffed on Content for years. WHy are we not calling this out, why are we not talking more about this. Its not as simple as hiring a bunch of Devs, especially in the middle on the pandemic, but SE STILL could have thought twice about a lot of what they expect the team to do with developing 2 games while under staffed.

Easier content is easier to make and I don't blame them, its easier to allocate stuff to things that players will funnel into and again I don't blame them, creating content that relies on pre-existing content is just smart, and I dont blame them. But how is this not reason to criticize the management? How is this not worrying? I'm not saying XIV will die in 10 years, but we have again MORe confirmation that they're still understaffed, and this is 10 years in? Will we just expect them to work understaffed another 10 years? Thats unhealthy, thats Unfair to them Unfair to us as players, and generally bad business practice on SE.

So again, why are we arguing semantics amonst ourselves when we can directly Criticize SE?

[KizuyaKatogami]

I think a problem with it too isn’t even just the easier content. Like yes it’s a problem for sure but they’ve also just completely made jobs easier as well. They homogenized a lot of the jobs from sb and crafters and gatherers were completely simplified down to baby levels. I shudder to think what 6.0 has in store tbh. Idk at this point if that is also due to the understaffing or what. It just seems like they’re catering more and more to the casual crowd that wants things handed to them.

[strawberrycake]

I think a problem with it too isn’t even just the easier content. Like yes it’s a problem for sure but they’ve also just completely made jobs easier as well. They homogenized a lot of the jobs from sb and crafters and gatherers were completely simplified down to baby levels. I shudder to think what 6.0 has in store tbh. Idk at this point if that is also due to the understaffing or what. It just seems like they’re catering more and more to the casual crowd that wants things handed to them.

They were most likely understaffed then as well and with the Overflow issue they're still experiencing it only made sense to simplify things. WoW had a similar problem way back and had a very similar approach to the problem. Though with WoW they had way more people and actively hotfixed things as problems came up and fixed it within the expansion it started in.

In XIVs case this overflow issue requires the team who made the engine and works on the servers to come in and work on this problem, this isn't easy given the current state of things at SE and how they're handling all of their games and releases, and with how MArvel avengers did I will also go out on a limb and say they most likely are being tight fisted on the Yen, and aren't looking to outsource the help.

So as much as I hate the idea of easier content, I feel like its more of a money and management issue, mixed with Creative Unit 3 being understaffed that lead to all of the oversimplifications, at least thats where my logic leads me.