What is going on with Square Enix and the 14 team?

[Jybril]

It may go on for 10 more years, but it won't be popular outside of the RP and ERP crowd.

This game will turn into Second Life and it'll be you just walking around looking sexy in your Subligar at a Club and chat.
Literally what most of the game is now anyways lmaoooo.

[KizuyaKatogami]

This. They tried to set out the expectations from the get-go and where limitations would be. Players had unreasonable expectations and now they're getting mad and insulting the devs for those unreasonable expectations. I'd get resentful and annoyed, too if someone completely ignored the warnings I gave them.

This is such a tone deaf comment. So then are you saying it’s unreasonable to take the devs own words as fact? Because hrothgar players were told they would be getting race exclusive hairstyles…where are those now exactly after 3 years? Also, afaik there is no warning before you choose the race as a new player, so explain that to me as well. No, what happened was the devs were selfish and implemented their own thing and didn’t have the resources to back it up. That’s their responsibility or lack thereof. They have no right to feel resentful or annoyed for lying,manipulating, and playing the victim. They’re just reaping what they sow.

[TaleraRistain]

I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it unreasonable necessarily. I can understand it from their point of view, but there are many, reasonable, criticisms about the treatment of these races that can be made.

For example, they said these races would receive hair from the start, there are quotes out there, saying "of course" they would receive hair - custom hair at that. Now Yoshida is apparently saying he told us these races wouldn't receive any hair at all. Almost as if adding hairs after three years is him doing viera and hrothgar players a favor. The fantasia issue with hrothgar was left for years, and then stealth "fixed" recently.

Speaking on this, I feel like island sanctuary is going to bring out the same sentiment in the community, where SE has already said to temper expectations, but there are many members of the community who believe it'll be the fix for housing, or that it will be a new instanced housing system. I can already imagine the outrage if and when it doesn't deliver on many players expectations.

Fair point and they can be called out on the promise of custom hair. But they did try to indicate these races would not be treated like other races and players assumed incorrectly they would be treated like other races in all ways even when being told that wasn't the case.

I think you're right about Island Sanctuary, too. They're warning people to temper expectations but I've seen people outright try to claim the devs said it would have instanced housing. Absolutely nowhere has that been the case.

[Nizzi]

If the devs were trying their best to make sure people knew the limitations of Viera and Hrothgar, why isn't there anywhere in the character creation screen for new players that states their limitations versus the other races? Sure, you get a free fantasia at the end of ARR base storyline, but it's negligence at best for them to not let new players know that these races aren't like the others. Should we just expect that anyone who is new should know this information?

[Valfreyja]

Wasn't some of the Island Sanctuary stuff given out though?

Listed below are a few of the features that Yoshi-P provided in the interview:
Player owned island which will receive regular updates
Island begins as a blank canvas
You can place buildings (wording used by translator was, "You can say like, 'Okay, what kind of building do I want to place here? What type of materials do I want to gather? Okay, maybe I want to let my minions run free.'")
Tend to your animals and crops
Expand the territory on your island
Not a competition between players
No pressured / timed content
No high level weapons / gear
This is an area to relax. Also explicitly stated that "you can call over your friends to your island and have a chat with them, you can go and visit your friend's island"
There is "a focus on the house, the garden and the furniture, but you can see this as a bit of a rank higher, there's a bit more broad things in the mix"

I mean, that pretty well gives you a decent bit of information to work with. Sounds a lot like a Harvest Moon type of place.

We're getting our own Islands. We get to expand the island.
We get animals and crops to tend to.
We get to place down buildings. Will we be able to enter them? Maybe, maybe not. It mentions furniture. Doesn't mean it's the same furniture used in the Housing we already have. We could have entirely new furniture pieces to deal with or utilize.

[TaleraRistain]

Ah yes, how unreasonable we were for hearing them say they're open to feedback and that these races would have stuff added to them over time and feeling upset that those additions barely amount to anything. How utterly unreasonable we were for saying "Thank you for your hard work, we love this, can we please have more and perhaps better like all the other races you've made thus far have had?".

Totally unreasonable!

Square Exec: Haven't we made it clear to them we didn't want to add anything? Guh, just for that there won't be Male Viera. N-Not that we ever wanted to, we made that abundantly clear. Isn't that right Taro-san? ...Taro-san why are you putting rabbit ears on that male character? Stop that!

Edit: if that's the case, y'all need to stop begging for class changes too. How many times has Yoshida told you your class was fine? Suck it up, you got your answer, asking for anything further is unreasonable. Unreasonable, I say!!

"I realize you've tried to be straightforward with us about the difficulties of implementing X or Y. But I would like to show my support behind implementing X or Y"

Reasonable feedback and acknowledges what has been stated in the past while still asking for the possibility to be left open. But people aren't doing that. As Sturm pointed out, they're demanding, not asking.

[KizuyaKatogami]

"I realize you've tried to be straightforward with us about the difficulties of implementing X or Y. But I would like to show my support behind implementing X or Y"

Reasonable feedback and acknowledges what has been stated in the past while still asking for the possibility to be left open. But people aren't doing that. As Sturm pointed out, they're demanding, not asking.

Yes, because these players have been waiting for over THREE YEARS. And the best this billion dollar company could do was give them 6 half-assed hairstyles that cut off one of their most prominent features? And then laugh about it? I’m sorry, but at this point they’ve lost the respect from many people. It’s beyond irresponsible as a game developer to do that.

[TaleraRistain]

If the devs were trying their best to make sure people knew the limitations of Viera and Hrothgar, why isn't there anywhere in the character creation screen for new players that states their limitations versus the other races? Sure, you get a free fantasia at the end of ARR base storyline, but it's negligence at best for them to not let new players know that these races aren't like the others. Should we just expect that anyone who is new should know this information?

Not an unreasonable suggestion but why not help the devs and give suggestions on what it should say? They could probably stand to expand instructions in that area. There are differences with male and female in older races that aren't spelled out either and probably could be.

[Rokke]

ut people aren't doing that. As Sturm pointed out, they're demanding, not asking.

Several years of asking got them years pf brush off comments and earless hairstyles. Demanding got them an apology in, what, a month? Can't blame Hroths for the tone shift, lighting a fire under SE is regularly the only way to get them to shift gears with this game.

[Nizzi]

Not an unreasonable suggestion but why not help the devs and give suggestions on what it should say? They could probably stand to expand instructions in that area. There are differences with male and female in older races that aren't spelled out either and probably could be.

My problem with this is... why should the playerbase be the ones to suggest to them that they should actually warn people about these limitations if these limitations are something they're adamant towards sticking with? Shouldn't they have had these warnings in the game from the time Shadowbringers launched? I mean, you have to pay for Shadowbringers to get access to these races, so if you want to play as one, you're already out the $40 plus the subscription fee or whatever, and these limitations are nowhere on any of the promotional material they put out for this game that openly advertises the races as one of the reasons to buy the new expac. They were even advertising male Viera with EW promotions and not a single word about the limitations on male Viera was present.

I don't want to say they're intentionally being malicious, but it is a bit hard for me to feel sympathetic towards the devs with the reasoning of "they let you know back in Stormblood that these were going to come with limitations!" when they've otherwise made absolutely 0 effort on making that apparent in anything outside of live letters, especially towards new players who started at or after Shadowbringers launched. I don't think it should be up to the playerbase to make the developers do the right thing. If they're so adamant on keeping these limitations to the point it irritates and frustrates them when players complain, then they should do their own due diligence to let it be known that these are not, and will never be fully functioning races. Until they do that without the community demanding that they do the right thing, it's hard for me to feel sympathetic for them.