Future direction of FFXIV

[Gemina]

Ive been lurking and interacting with the forum here for a good time. I know I havent been here a good majority of this game's history; or at least havent been in the forums long enough to gauge general feeback and topic trends but from the majority of people here I'm curious about something.

Do you guys feel like the current dev team is incapable to lead this game 6.1 and beyond because of the good amount of complaints between gameplay, story, and general content releases. Should we shuffle devs around or replace Yoshi-P? Are people overall happy with the state of this game?

Wanna know people's thoughts.

As I mentioned to you in the other thread, the forums is the place to go to vent your frustrations with the game. That is the core reason why the negativity resonates so strongly with you. When you watch streamers bawling their eyes out playing the MSQ, but witness a smile from ear to ear when they're doing dungeons, trials, and all those "poorly designed" encounters; you see and feel the exact opposite of all that negativity. You see exactly what this dev team aims to achieve.

I come from the Atari age, and have seen how games have evolved from green screen Oregon Trail and Snakebite, to the games we see today, which includes FFXIV. And while FFXIV does not perform to current standards, it is VERY easy for me to take in and appreciate what it does.

What do you suppose it means when an MMO's popularity has grown so vast that sales and marketing of it has to be suspended, despite its blatant setbacks? This is not a rhetorical question, because while one might surmise that where I am going with that might be, "Of course this team is capable of leading the game. XXXXXXX number of subs has to mean something" It is also easy for me to see the launch of 6.0 as a failure to accommodate the growing demand. Neither response tells the whole story with what is going on with FFXIV and its playerbase.

One thing I can say that is concrete is that an unfulfilled demand does not mean they don't address them. It means that particular demand has not been addressed. I use the word demand because that is the form a player's critique takes when they object to the direction the game has gone. Even more so when reluctance, refusal, or inability to meet a player's expectations results in the demand turning to an opinion that feels the current dev team needing to be purged from the game, and existence itself (yes, there are players who actually do feel that way). Those are the entitled players who think the world revolves around them.

Last thing I will say on this manner before I log on for the night is a true question I have for you: Are YOU enjoying FFXIV? When you are logged on, does an air of appreciation fill your lungs when you look at the landscapes, listen to the music, admirer your avatar, get taken in by a quest or the story? Remember, the question is for you. I asked myself the very same questions already.

[KageTokage]

From what they’ve said it was cut not delayed. The problem is too, with them rushing to get this expansion out, cutting the garlemald expansion, it ruined Bozja as well. Matsuno wasn’t able to even fully complete his story and instead the story had to be resolved anti climactically and off screen.

It does seem like the change was planned pretty late in the writing process as they mentioned they had been intending for Anima to be the final boss for the expansion we would've gotten.

I assume they originally wanted to tie up all of the loose ends with the Garleans before the story arc finished, but decided to put them on the backburner to keep the story mostly focused on the beats introduced in Shadowbringers.

The single biggest disappointment for me would be them opting to resolve those lingering matters off-screen again as their fall from grace already felt extremely sudden and anti-climactic.

[DrWho2010]

i think there's only a small vocal minority that would actually go for a long drought of no new content in order to "fix" things to their satisfaction. And they will never be satisfied. The vast majority would not accept delays.

[Jeeqbit]

SE its going to repeat the same formula forever until they release a new MMO
- Release a new patch every 3-4 months

I've been content with this for years. I love the consistency and I love the change of scenery every 2 years with 6 new areas.

EW was just an unfinished/unpolished expansion that nobody even talks about unlike HS or SHB.

What has given you the impression that it's unfinished/unpolished? It was so polished that some tidy quest features were added such as characters following you in the world and tasks that involve you following others without being seen. I didn't see any glitches at all.

I think the developers need to find more ways to add games within the game. Golden Saucer and Maps are nice additions. Better housing, more things to do within wards (assuming they want to keep the ward system) and perhaps farming or fishing or mining games might help stabilize the content between expansions. Maybe even expeditions (archaeology) for the adventuring types.

Don't forget hunting and we have occasionally got new GATEs as well as things like doman mahjong, open tournaments, firmament restoration, ocean fishing and soon islands. I'd consider squadrons, eureka, bozja and deep dungeons as games within the game too.

In a recent interview, they apparently confirmed they cut an entire Garlemald expansion.

I was really excited for a Garlean expansion after Stormblood, especially with characters visiting and teasing Garlemald. Shadowbringers actually destroyed the momentum that had been built towards it and the final blow to the momentum was saying it was the creation of the Ascians.

When we got Bozja, it occured to me that a Garlean expansion would basically just be the same as Stormblood. Rise up and overthrow them with military force and it wouldn't be anything fresh. Executed through the main story, it probably wouldn't feel as thrilling as doing it the way Bozja does it with Critical Engagements and raids. I think what happened instead of it (Endwalker) was fresh.

[ElysiumDragon]

Personally, my biggest frustrations as a player are (pretty much) everything about housing, the 'transmog' system, and some items being near-impossible to obtain without being entirely at the mercy of region/timing.

[Deceptus]

The upcoming changes to jobs such as living dead changes, pvp and other quality of life changes in 6.1 reflect that they know a lot of what is going on in the game.

That has yet to be seen.

We have no idea what those changes are going to be, good or bad.

[Minarisweet]

No.

The forum/Reddit/Twitter are not in any way representative of the player base as a whole. The sky is not falling.

/thread

I see you say this a lot but this is pretty much invalidating imo, since people that post in those sites are mostly the more active fanbase of the game.

[AziraSyuren]

Not gonna lie, the difference between the creative unit in charge of FFXIV and the rest of Square Enix is huge. I feel like people wishing Yoshida and co leaving would be a monkey's paw. Can't imagine SQEX's chosen replacement being anything but worse.

This is the correct response.

No matter what direction FFXIV stands to take, the people that'd replace the current team would only make it worse. There's not a lick of good game design sense left in SE outside of this game. I personally don't mind if this game's content schedule never really changes, I just don't want to see what others at SE would do to it.

[Atelier-Bagur]

When we got Bozja, it occured to me that a Garlean expansion would basically just be the same as Stormblood. Rise up and overthrow them with military force and it wouldn't be anything fresh. Executed through the main story, it probably wouldn't feel as thrilling as doing it the way Bozja does it with Critical Engagements and raids. I think what happened instead of it (Endwalker) was fresh.

When you put it that way I wonder if that was the reason the devs decided to cut out the Garlemald expansion since plot wise would feel like just a repeat of Stormblood's overall narrative.

[Vahlnir]

When you put it that way I wonder if that was the reason the devs decided to cut out the Garlemald expansion since plot wise would feel like just a repeat of Stormblood's overall narrative.

I was excited for Stormblood since we were supposedly taking the fight to the empire at long last. What we got was a hollowed out husk of that concept. Instead of an escalation in the conflict that had been happening since 1.0 it ended up being a road trip with Lyse who probably doesn't remember half of the journey she took anyway. lol I know I don't.