Criticism of Shadowbringers and the hostility there in

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Manuka]

Except Eureka was noted by devs as being more popular than they though it would be with only Pagos being the real downer, Bozja also still has mass participation I've had no problems getting CLL or DR runs & most SFs are still filled constantly even quite filled during off peak hours. Diadem is only real failure out 3 you mention other two did/are doing great.

If we could see Relic numbers for time when they were relevant you'd probably find more of the community have a Eureka/Bozja Relic then what did the Zodiac/Anima when they were relevant.

I'm not saying it wasn't decently populated back when it was relevant. But is it now? Recently I had to complete the Eureka story because they annoyingly locked a triple triad NPC behind it. During my week-long grind the most players I seen in the zone was around 26, the lowest was 3 and the average sat around 15 I'm estimating. The content is basically dead and it's only going to get worse because this content is never going to get updated or changed. At least with my hunt example, it would still provide a universal currency that could be spent on stuff that is still relevant, meaning people would still have an incentive to do the older relics. There will likely never be a reason to go back to Eureka because it's insulated from the rest of the content. Only way I can see them getting those numbers back up is by nerfing the content so hard you could 4-man BA. But even then it would only be a short-term gain that again would die off in time.

Which goes back to the point I was making, they keep putting so much resources into content that doesn't have lasting appeal/can't be updated or is left in a half-complete state and abandoned. The Firmament is an example of good-design, you have what's effectively a crafter and gather hub with a unique zone for them to collect specialized materials and earn experience and currency to buy collectables and consumables that will always be in-demand (dyes). And most importantly, its organized in such a way that come EW they can just add in 80-90 turn-ins and new rewards to keep it relevant at little resource cost. Compare that to Squadrons, what was the point of them? Right now they're just manual dispensers and have been made redundant thanks to Trusts. Why have have two systems that effectively do the same thing, just move the Squadrons to the Rising Stones and unify it with the Trust system.

As for Relic numbers, I'm not sure. The closest you could get to some census is from FFXIV Collect, and there it shows that complete ARR/HW Relics on average sit around %10~12, while complete Eureka Relics sit around ~%5 on average and Bozja is around %3~4. Granted Bozja is still current so might not be fair to compare.

[NeoDivinity]

I do agree with the topic on most parts and that giving feedback is always a good thing but most of the hostility comes because of extreme casual or hardcore players asking for things that just are not viable right now in the game(already looked on the forum Job Section? lol), like "I want more Ultimates!" or " I want more houses and slots for assets and things to do".

Before SB we didnt even had Ultimates and to fill that void in ShB we got instead of 3 Alliance Raids, The Bozja thing and the savage mode, its not an Ultimate but still it's something to keep hardcore players ocuppied for a little while.The whole Savage Content in ShB is also pretty neat.
Casual content super good i can't even name a game with better quality of contents for those who dont like raiding, even i who plays for years now sometimes finds myself unlocking something that i've never tried out like Ocean Fishing.
*(these are just simple exemples)

Also if you reading this and came this far on the Topic, you already know that hardcore content is way harder to make and balance than casual content.

ShB for me isn't perfect by far, but HW had its problems so as SB too, and i think the sacrifice of some content to open space for a brand new thing, is okay. I do prefer to stick with a game where devolepers are willing to take risks and do something to refresh my experencie ingame than add layers and layers of the same thing every exp.( Maybe sometime in the future we lost 1 Ultimate to give room to a 4-man superhardcore content or maybe we get 3 Ultimates instead, who knows).

I do expect to see some other content for harcore next expansion since most of my friends love to raid and would be nice to not having them taking a break if they clear the content to fast or are uninterested in because its bad designed.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I do agree with the topic on most parts and that giving feedback is always a good thing but most of the hostility comes because of extreme casual or hardcore players asking for things that just are not viable right now in the game(already looked on the forum Job Section? lol), like "I want more Ultimates!" or " I want more houses and slots for assets and things to do".

Before SB we didnt even had Ultimates and to fill that void in ShB we got instead of 3 Alliance Raids, The Bozja thing and the savage mode, its not an Ultimate but still it's something to keep hardcore players ocuppied for a little while.The whole Savage Content in ShB is also pretty neat.
Casual content super good i can't even name a game with better quality of contents for those who dont like raiding, even i who plays for years now sometimes finds myself unlocking something that i've never tried out like Ocean Fishing.
*(these are just simple exemples)

Also if you reading this and came this far on the Topic, you already know that hardcore content is way harder to make and balance than casual content.

ShB for me isn't perfect by far, but HW had its problems so as SB too, and i think the sacrifice of some content to open space for a brand new thing, is okay. I do prefer to stick with a game where devolepers are willing to take risks and do something to refresh my experencie ingame than add layers and layers of the same thing every exp.( Maybe sometime in the future we lost 1 Ultimate to give room to a 4-man superhardcore content or maybe we get 3 Ultimates instead, who knows).

I do expect to see some other content for harcore next expansion since most of my friends love to raid and would be nice to not having them taking a break if they clear the content to fast or are uninterested in because its bad designed.

My only problem with the trade off of the "3 alliance raids" is that it still doesnt cover nearly everything weve lost. Taking into account the amount of bosses we'd have gotten from the extra dungeons and deep dungeon we lost would be more than the bozja alli raids. My problem with ShB isnt even really so much the loss of content as it is the downgrade of content we've had in the past.

[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.