What has gotten into the community these days?

[Lium]

Population increase is the likeliest culprit. This game saw a surge of popularity last year. Becoming the #1 MMO in the world brings extra scrutiny, higher expectations, and more hate. Lots and lots of hate. Primarily from its own playerbase.

They will say things like, "We have a right to express our opinions." And while that's true, the vitriol on the forums has been over-the-top and hilarious. Fortunately, this game also has a large Japanese playerbase, and that's where I go to gauge the actual state of the game. Certainly not these forums, which outside of the Lore section, suck pretty badly.

[Vryn]

Population increase is the likeliest culprit. This game saw a surge of popularity last year. Becoming the #1 MMO in the world brings extra scrutiny, higher expectations, and more hate. Lots and lots of hate. Primarily from its own playerbase.

They will say things like, "We have a right to express our opinions." And while that's true, the vitriol on the forums has been over-the-top and hilarious. Fortunately, this game also has a large Japanese playerbase, and that's where I go to gauge the actual state of the game. Certainly not these forums, which outside of the Lore section, suck pretty badly.

I would say the main culprit is age and poor planning. As time goes on, problems arise. Content is no longer as good as it once was. As philosophy and demands change as the players leave and enter the community, the main point of contention I have seen that causes toxicity is Square Enix's inability to quickly resolve issues of their creation. Such as Hrothgar and Viera Hair Styles.

It is an excellent example of how live services operate compared to commercial SAAS applications produced by a company such as Oracle or Microsoft. These hairstyles are essential user experience issues for roughly around 10% + of your user base. That would consider players who play those races and people who want to play them. Then you also have significant sub-issues such as poorly implemented hairstyles such as the hairlines for Viera in 6.1 and the need for fantasia and lack of ears for Hrothgar.

It is only an example, but if a crippling user experience issue were happening for 10% of your userbase in any commercial company worldwide, its resolution would happen quickly. Usually within 1-3 quarters or 3-9 months after implementation because the product wouldn't make it off the ground if it had not been. However, you wait 2-3 years or 8-12 quarters for something as simple as hairstyles. The development team should have had plans to rectify once placed on the live servers quickly.

Now we all get that the game has other issues, but this is an example of bringing something to the live servers without properly planning to see the significant pain points rectified promptly. Yes, covid was a thing, but it's not just hairstyles, and this mentality in the team goes back longer than 2-3 years, and while yes, other companies do it, it's not an excuse. Patch 6.1 was a maintenance patch for systems and content, which should have been maintained 6 - 8 years ago. Such as revamping older dungeons, a new PVP mode, and a few extra glamour plates. Since this wasn't done for eight years, we are now stuck in a situation where the overall patch is tarnished because of poor implementation, content being worse than previous iterations and not listening to customer feedback regarding the core mechanical gameplay of particular roles and classes such as healer and samurai who got a buff in the most recent patch notes instead of just reversing the overwhelmingly unpopular change.

This inability to consider how established players feel in your game is a direction we have seen the team go as they strive to make the game more solo and new player friendly at the expense of the established userbase and people who already give you their hard-earned money. The game developers have a fiduciary duty to take on the wishes of the userbase as they are stakeholders in the game, and they are ignoring their will for players who don't want to play the game-turning FF14 from an MMO to an RPG with online elements. We already have far better games in the market which provide this service with many more diverse options at their disposal. Want to hunt monsters with friends? Monster Hunter World is there for you. Want a challenge? Then play Elden Ring. The game is trying to cater to a different market than initially intended, so of course, players who are invested will lash out because they feel like their investment is at risk.

There are only so many excuses you can make over the game's lifetime for a particular subject. If it's taken a fortune 2000 company that made 2.4 billion dollars last year alone to fix, we have an issue because it shouldn't take one year, let alone 8, for a glamour rework, hairstyles, an engine overhaul etc. So while yes, there are reasons for this, you are paid six-figure salaries to fix those issues within a reasonable manner because no one in their right mind can say that it's right or just that two races can't wear hats 2-3 years on or that the majority of the player base can't participate in an advertised end game activity such as housing.

The game developers are lovely people; however, action speaks louder than words, and they can write all the Loadstone or video apologies with crocodile tears in the world, but you have had eight years and a fortune that could feed a small nation that is comparable to the GDP of an African country. As time goes on, this game should be getting more efficient and cheaper to run; your staff should be far better at handling issues meaning they have a higher quality and time effective response even as content increases. In addition, you should be hiring more people along the way.

Suppose the team is growing the game in terms of content that is outstripping the ability of the team to provide support. In that case, we have a significant issue, especially now that we are entering another 10-year journey which has already experienced three scandals, especially after how poorly Endwalker was received compared to Shadowbringers, as it's evident they combined two expansions.

FF14 is a global product, and therefore, the opinion of the globe matters, not just in Japan. While the Anglosphere and others may be more brutal in their criticism, it's far more helpful than a shower of compliments.

You need to be speeding up production, not slowing it down and if you have staffing issues, system issues, engine issues etc. You need to fix that within 1-2 years because you can't expect people to stay. Maybe that's why you are more comfortable telling people to leave because any designer who doesn't want people to have the best experience in their world and spend as much time willingly is not a designer worth their salt no matter their accomplishments because your only as good as your last patch.