Future direction of FFXIV

[IdowhatIwant]

There are also at least 2 extreme trials to farm 99 times and occasionally an ultimate.

Expecting to farm 2 trials 99 times is a very bad expectation of any player base. This is the sort of thing that cause issues with other games.

It's intentional that it alternates between 1 raiding patch (6.0, 6.2, 6.4) and 1 casual player patch (6.1, 6.3, 6.5), because both types of players exist and Yoshi-P wants to cater to both.

The people who really enjoy this game enjoy both the raiding content and the casual content. When you only play a certain piece of content and not everything else, of course you will experience long gaps of time where you are bored unless you play other games.

Although on paper this sounds nice, it still makes players wait anywhere between 6 - 10 months to receive content for there particular play style if they choose not to enjoy both. The development team should expect not all players are going to opt into everything. This is why people want them to change up the formulaic patch cycle because both groups experience a drought.

The Trust system is not being implemented to "appease a small portion of the player base". In fact, it is being implemented into ARR to convince millions of people who play the single player FF games to try out this game by telling them it is soloable.

Does not change that it is the wrong direction for the game to go as well was as requiring a large amount of dev time.

[Slatersev]

Tbf, they easily could’ve done a “oh yeah he’s dead….totally.” And then have him come back in some other form whether it be Anima or whatnot. it seems pretty obvious to me one was cut and it seems fairly last minute. Never forget the slideshow for ShB where on of the slides said we’d be taking the fight to garlemald and then…it just never happened lmao. People seem to think the devs plan everything in advance though and they’ve basically confirmed they don’t, and they do change things pretty last minute it seems. This is an excerpt from an interview done around 5.4,5.5 in regards to Endwalker and…it didn’t age well let’s just say that.

“We don’t like adlib in terms of like, ‘Oh, this character is going to go or this character is going to die.’ It’s not random, either. At the same time, yes, people might notice that those in the core cast may not have died over the course of the story,” he explains. Since Final Fantasy XIV constantly depicts wars, conflicts, and battles, he says it’s “unrealistic to not have any sort of sacrifices even on the ally side. So I mean, I don’t mean to scare you… this is not, by any means a threat of any sort, but don’t get too comfortable knowing that, ‘Oh, these characters are safe’ because you might be in for quite a shock.”

I am well aware they don't have everything planned out in advance, they say as much all the time. The same interview where they talk about how they wrote the Ascians over the years is the one people keep saying mentioned a Garlemald expansion being cut, when it never said that.

Having a good idea about what they would do if they decided to do two is not the same as cutting an expansion.

[Jeeqbit]

Although on paper this sounds nice, it still makes players wait anywhere between 6 - 10 months to receive content for there particular play style if they choose not to enjoy both. The development team should expect not all players are going to opt into everything. This is why people want them to change up the formulaic patch cycle because both groups experience a drought.

How many other games release DLC every 4 months? Not even that, because there are sub-patches distributing more throughout that 4 months. Development takes a lot of time.

Usually with any other game you just play a different game until there is new DLC to do. That is exactly how a lot of people play this game too, so it's designed around this behaviour.

If you don't want to pay a subscription for the months without DLC then you don't have to.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I am well aware they don't have everything planned out in advance, they say as much all the time. The same interview where they talk about how they wrote the Ascians over the years is the one people keep saying mentioned a Garlemald expansion being cut, when it never said that.

Having a good idea about what they would do if they decided to do two is not the same as cutting an expansion.

But they’ve stated in another interview that most of the devs thought they would be doing said 1-2 other expansions. We get Ishikawa’s take on this where she says it was overwhelming and then Yoshi said he knew it would be but he knew they could handle it. There’s numerous signs one was cut. From the random Varis fight in Bozja, to the entire bozja storyline basically resolving completely offscreen because they can’t really finish it if Garlemald isn’t in the story anymore… And then there’s the matter of that slide for ShB talking about Garlemald and yeah there’s just too much that points to it being a thing.

[LittleImp]

The Trust system is not being implemented to "appease a small portion of the player base". In fact, it is being implemented into ARR to convince millions of people who play the single player FF games to try out this game by telling them it is soloable.

This game would not hold up well if assessed as a purely single-player experience, even once trusts are added to the entire MSQ. When compared to other major FF single-player titles, the game would appear extremely shallow and almost totally devoid of actual content, all the while bearing a 60 usd pricetag with a 12-15 usd monthly subscription if someone wants to continue playing. I am extremely skeptical that 'millions' of people are actually interested, and on top of that willing to spend that much money for something they know will be a suboptimal experience.

[SamsaraTrickstar]

How many other games release DLC every 4 months? Not even that, because there are sub-patches distributing more throughout that 4 months. Development takes a lot of time.

Usually with any other game you just play a different game until there is new DLC to do. That is exactly how a lot of people play this game too, so it's designed around this behaviour.

If you don't want to pay a subscription for the months without DLC then you don't have to.

you play nay active game that is not ff14? i give yo some maple story each month. genshin impact. any active fighting game. any live service game. new world. if you like i can give you more.

[Jeeqbit]

This game would not hold up well if assessed as a purely single-player experience, even once trusts are added to the entire MSQ. When compared to other major FF single-player titles, the game would appear extremely shallow and almost totally devoid of actual content, all the while bearing a 60 usd pricetag with a 12-15 usd monthly subscription if someone wants to continue playing. I am extremely skeptical that 'millions' of people are actually interested, and on top of that willing to spend that much money for something they know will be a suboptimal experience.

A lot of people would disagree with that and some would even say that it is the best FF story of any FF game. I agree that the subscription fee might still put people off and so might the former association with the MMO category. I doubt they expect to win everyone, but I do wonder if they underestimate how significant these things are in making people decide to avoid it.

[IdowhatIwant]

How many other games release DLC every 4 months? Not even that, because there are sub-patches distributing more throughout that 4 months. Development takes a lot of time.

Usually with any other game you just play a different game until there is new DLC to do. That is exactly how a lot of people play this game too, so it's designed around this behaviour.

If you don't want to pay a subscription for the months without DLC then you don't have to.

Comparing a patch in a subscription based MMO to another games DLC content is a very skewed view. This is a online game, that requires others to complete tasks. When you are splitting the patches as casual and raid, you are splitting the times when player bases would be subscribed. So when Player X decides now to want to go do Savage raiding when a casual patch is coming out, there are players that are still around to do it with. That is where the issue lies with the idea of just unsubscribe when your content is not here as a solution, when that in fact becomes the problem. That is why the game really does not respect our time as Yoshi says. Sure there's droughts in the game content to go play other games so it "respects" my time in that aspect, but it certainly does not respect my time in game.

[EaraGrace]

We’ve now entered the part of the conversation where some of those dissatisfied argue that they’re opinion should outweigh others because they’re apparently the true connoisseurs of video gaming and the masses are just pigs eating the slop set in front of their faces.

The games doing fine. Sub counts are up, it’s winning awards and getting reviewed well. You have every right to not like the direction it’s heading, but don’t make it anything more than that.

Comparing a patch in a subscription based MMO to another games DLC content is a very skewed view. This is a online game, that requires others to complete tasks. When you are splitting the patches as casual and raid, you are splitting the times when player bases would be subscribed. So when Player X decides now to want to go do Savage raiding when a casual patch is coming out, there are players that are still around to do it with. That is where the issue lies with the idea of just unsubscribe when your content is not here as a solution, when that in fact becomes the problem. That is why the game really does not respect our time as Yoshi says. Sure there's droughts in the game content to go play other games so it "respects" my time in that aspect, but it certainly does not respect my time in game.

Perhaps I’m incorrect but to “not respect the players time” is to make content specifically to maximize how long a player would need to spend to finish it so as to extend sub lengths. Telling subscribers to unsub until their preferred form of content comes out is the opposite of that I believe.

[MikkoAkure]

But they’ve stated in another interview that most of the devs thought they would be doing said 1-2 other expansions. We get Ishikawa’s take on this where she says it was overwhelming and then Yoshi said he knew it would be but he knew they could handle it. There’s numerous signs one was cut. From the random Varis fight in Bozja, to the entire bozja storyline basically resolving completely offscreen because they can’t really finish it if Garlemald isn’t in the story anymore… And then there’s the matter of that slide for ShB talking about Garlemald and yeah there’s just too much that points to it being a thing.

According to Matsuno himself, the Bozja storyline ended abruptly because the reception to the plot was mixed in Japan and Bozja is already freed anyway.

I don't know the impression well outside Japan.
There were pros and cons in Japan.
Some people said it was good, but other said it was the worst.
In any case, this story was completed because the Bozja was liberated.
Thank you.

The whole thing was separated from the Garlean storyline anyway. The whole point of the plot was a whole legion going rogue trying to make their own country and having nothing to do with Garlemald anymore. It would never have been a part of a possible Garlean expansion MSQ regardless unless they decided to pull another Crystal Tower and require all players complete the Return to Ivalice and Bozja storylines, which would have been a tall order.

And while I wish we got more Garlemald, they kind of flubbed the whole pacing by sending us to a side-dimension while things on the Source go on without us and then revealing probably a little bit too much about the greater backstory. And there's also the fact a Garlemald-centric expansion would have been Stormblood all over again, which would have just been covering the worst-received expansion for a second time. But in the end, Oda says the flow of the plot didn't change much from condensing it into one expansion anyway.