Future direction of FFXIV

[IdowhatIwant]

It does make a lot of sense to future proof an MMO like FFXIV though, especially as moving from beginning to end-game is such a long and linear process.

You at least want your 50 plus hour main story to be something players can progress through at a steady pace without 20 to 30 minute queues constantly bogging it down.

It makes sense as they would have to implement the system eventually. How ever when the team comes out and states it's to broaden the player base that would have interest in the game is where it gets alarming.

[KageTokage]

I don't really find it alarming to make the game more accessible to people who don't like partying.

It's when there starts being significant changes in the staff, with members having their roles shifted or being moved onto different projects entirely that I start getting concerned as that's more often what starts sending games into a downward spiral.

At present, I'm mostly curious who the "junior writers" Ishkawa intends to pass the torch to are. If we got the people who did the writing for the Endwalker role quests on board, I'd be all about that, but if it's ones who did the Bozja storyline, that would get a resounding "heck no" from me.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I don't really find it alarming to make the game more accessible to people who don't like partying.

It's when there starts being significant changes in the staff, with members having their roles shifted or being moved onto different projects entirely that I start getting concerned as that's more often what starts sending games into a downward spiral.

At present, I'm mostly curious who the "junior writers" Ishkawa intends to pass the torch to are. If we got the people who did the writing for the Endwalker role quests on board, I'd be all about that, but if it's ones who did the Bozja storyline, that would get a resounding "heck no" from me.

I didnt really find bozja that bad tbh. It seems the writing suffered due to the main writer of it wanting to write certain things and yoshi p and other devs saying no they arent allowed to do that. Seems like the same way Ishikawa recently said in an interview where her initial draft for EW needed to be changed due to the devs and yoshi p not finding it adequate.

[KageTokage]

I don't feel like the writing restrictions could be attached the reasons I had beef with Bozja; namely the contrived plot devices (Mikoto's future sight being chief among them as it ultimately served no meaningful purpose aside from injecting cheap suspense into the story), villains running gambit schemes that shoulder on the heroes being incompetent and stupid, and trying to inject shades of gray into a conflict that openly vilifies one faction over the other to such an extent that it makes you question why anyone would willfully side with them in the first place.

I generally don't find myself eye-rolling at the writing choices in XIV, but Bozja probably accounted for more of them then the rest of the game as a whole.

[DrWho2010]

It's not being wrong that bothers me so much as the potential for things straight up just being red herrings.

A great example being Zenos' visions of the Final Days, which ended up being so insignificant they were willing to just dismiss it outright in the live letter Q&A with an extremely hand-waved explanation that very much made it feel like one of those mentioned points they thought they could go somewhere with initially but just gave up on it.

Yoshi basically going "Wait, people actually care about that?" in response to the mentions of things like the remaining Paragons and whatever the heck Azem was up to after first Final Days was rather disheartening. He might not be the writer, but he's ultimately the one who approves the final story drafts so if he's out of touch with what the playerbase is interested in, he can potentially influence it in ways that won't sit well with many, which I find all the more concerning when he also mentioned being surprised how deeply people think about the plot in general.

It leaves me curious about how the initial drafts for Endwalker posed by Ishikawa differ from the one he ended up approving.

So what if there's red herrings? Misdirection. Doesn't really matter.

[Shibi]

Do you have any statistical data to back up that “most of us” are happy with the game? Are you assuming that “the silent majority” are satisfied? Silence does not equate to satisfaction. Just because someone doesn’t voice their complaints doesn’t mean that they are “perfectly happy”.

If I wasn't mostly happy, I'd unsub. I'm not one to suffer stockholm syndrome though, so I point out a few things here or there, like how braindead it is to lock out housing on OCE.

But I'd squarely put myself in the "happy with the game" camp.

[KageTokage]

So what if there's red herrings? Misdirection. Doesn't really matter.

If XIV didn't have a habit of attaching a meaningful payoff to its foreshadowing, then it wouldn't bug me.

The cited example is alluded to as having some deeper significance in both 5.x and 6.0 then...it goes absolutely nowhere. That's just not what I'm used from the prior storytelling.

[HyoMinPark]

If I wasn't mostly happy, I'd unsub. I'm not one to suffer stockholm syndrome though, so I point out a few things here or there, like how braindead it is to lock out housing on OCE.

But I'd squarely put myself in the "happy with the game" camp.

I mean, that’s fair. But I tire of seeing the argument of “the vocal minority” versus “the silent majority”. Silence cannot be interpreted as satisfaction. Just because a person is silent doesn’t mean that they are satisfied with the game. The people that do express their complaints and feedback are only doing what the development team have asked repeatedly: share your feedback with us. Post on the official forums. Tell us how you feel.

Something to also consider is, just because a player remains subscribed doesn’t mean that they can’t have their own criticisms and complaints. It’s not that black and white. I haven’t unsubbed once, but there are still things in this game I’m dissatisfied with and would like to see addressed. If anything, it’s because I love this game that I post on here so much with my “complaints”.

The post I quoted made it seem like 1. Silence = happiness, and 2. Things like satisfaction and dissatisfactions are black and white. Silent people = satisfied, happy people. Vocal people = dissatisfied, angry people. And while that can be true to an extent, it’s a lot more multifaceted than how it’s been written here.

[MagicalChase]

Future direction? Down.

[Liam_Harper]

Honestly, I'm happy enough with this game to pay a sub. The story was good entertainment. The expansion was worth the price I paid. I'm having fun raiding.

That said, I don't feel the game is going in a direction I personally like. A lot of activities I used to enjoy are no longer fun. Classes are bland, combat still doesn't flow well, healers are a lost cause, Hunts became a chore, crafting is dead, bots are rampant, FC's are neglected. I don't feel a sense of loyalty or attachment to the game, I just don't feel there's a better MMO on the market right now. If there was, I probably wouldn't be here.

The game is good in a safe way, the developers are better than a lot of other developers, but I don't "love" the game and I'm not hooked. It's just my preferred way to burn spare time at the moment. I hate to admit it, but I think somewhere deep down there's that old WoW player in me that misses guild raid nights, the big mount and pet collections, the toy box, responsive combat, pet battles, tmog tabs, achievements and all the rest of it. Maybe I'm just waiting for a new game that brings that spirit back without the gamebreaking downsides and flaws.

This thread reminds me of the WoW forums back in WotLK where people were constantly whining and complaining about the state of the game, asking for change etc. even though the game was peaking at a massive 12 million playerbase. Cataclysm arrived and change they got. Then everyone quit. Problem is that a lot of people don't know when to be content.

This is false and entirely on the developer. Games are not a privilege or a special gift, they're a product that you pay money for, from a business, in a competitive market. If you, as a developer cannot determine which customer feedback is legitimate and which is detrimental to your product and decide to ruin it when it was doing well, then you're a bad developer. Frankly, it's pathetic of any developer to ruin a successful product and then blame the entirely inexperienced customer for it. You're meant to be a professional at game design, we aren't in charge of making your product, then handing you money for it.

Not to mention Blizzard was hardly notorious for listening to all their feedback and happily ignored most of it. They wrecked their game by themselves.