Yoshi-P: Flippant dismissal of player criticism is a poor look for a lead developer.

[LeonKeyh]

Wow, all of this over a joke comment. Ok.

Since there are a couple of conversations going on here:

RE: Player numbers increasing - Definitely is not the end-all be-all of performance metrics for a game with a sub, retention metrics are _closer_ but there is still subjective things that you need to take into account. With the consistent lack of listening to player feedback about gameplay, the game is literally one bad/mediocre story expansion away from a mass exodus. They're HEAVILY leaning on the great storytelling and people's engagement with the story/characters. This is going to be a VERY important expansion though because they're swapping over to a different story and if that isn't good, then the people that have been here for a while that don't enjoy the gameplay are going to wonder why they're still playing.

Current glam system is definitely bad design and this is a bandaid so, yes, people will complain it's not enough at some point. As has been said before, they need a glam system like the Guild Wars 2 wardrobe system, that would fix all of this and ultimately remove a ton of wasted inventory space.



I realize that it's naive to say it, but I feel somewhat better about them stating that they're going to be more open with the reasoning on why they have made changes to classes. Mainly because we can call out bullshit and have an actual critical conversation with them. It's hard to have a conversation with someone about an action without knowing why the action was made. If that information is freely given then we can certainly do a better job at calling them out with dumb stuff like "Kaiten was removed due to action bloat" by pointing out the fact that so many other abilities could be merged if they mean "button bloat" and that removing Kaiten removed 1 button press every ~1 minute because you're just using the same kenki on 4 Shintens instead of 5 Kaitens.....

[Misplaced_Marbles]

Wow, all of this over a joke comment. Ok.

Yeah, that happens when you joke at the expense of those with concerns.

I realize that it's naive to say it, but I feel somewhat better about them stating that they're going to be more open with the reasoning on why they have made changes to classes. Mainly because we can call out bullshit and have an actual critical conversation with them. It's hard to have a conversation with someone about an action without knowing why the action was made. If that information is freely given then we can certainly do a better job at calling them out with dumb stuff like "Kaiten was removed due to action bloat" by pointing out the fact that so many other abilities could be merged if they mean "button bloat" and that removing Kaiten removed 1 button press every ~1 minute because you're just using the same kenki on 4 Shintens instead of 5 Kaitens.....

Being "more open" is just them showing/telling us what they're going to do, it doesn't mean any feedback will be acknowledged or acted upon. Naive, indeed.

[LeonKeyh]

Yeah, that happens when you joke at the expense of those with concerns.

400 items is plenty of room to hold every single glam plate if each piece of each one is different. They're joking at hoarders not being able to realize that they're holding onto crap that they'll never use, not at people who are complaining that the game is unplayable because of some issue or disability.

Being "more open" is just them showing/telling us what they're going to do, it doesn't mean any feedback will be acknowledged or acted upon. Naive, indeed.

Glad you read what I said. I can see why it wouldn't mean anything for you.

[Deceptus]

Current glam system is definitely bad design and this is a bandaid so, yes, people will complain it's not enough at some point. As has been said before, they need a glam system like the Guild Wars 2 wardrobe system, that would fix all of this and ultimately remove a ton of wasted inventory space.

The issue is, it has never been enough since the day it was implemented. It's always been a sub-par system due to it always being severely behind the amount of armor sets obtainable at the time of each band-aid fix (about to be the 3rd one).

The reason people compare it to other systems (WoW, GW, etc) is those systems were well established before FFXIV implemented theirs. The Devs say they like to take good ideas from other games and implement them in FFXIV but largely failed with this one. Whether it's engine limitations, technical debt limitations, spaghetti code, we don't know because they're simply not being honest with us.

[Ronduwil]

The reason people compare it to other systems (WoW, GW, etc) is those systems were well established before FFXIV implemented theirs. The Devs say they like to take good ideas from other games and implement them in FFXIV but largely failed with this one. Whether it's engine limitations, technical debt limitations, spaghetti code, we don't know because they're simply not being honest with us.

I'm as unhappy with the system as you are (maybe even unhappier), but let's take this in perspective. FFXIV 2.0 inherited a real mess from 1.0, and they tried to remake as much as they could. In retrospect, the glamour system didn't receive as much attention as it should have. Given how broken everything else was, though, it's no surpise that implementing a proper glamour system fell by the wayside. As for SE not being honest with us, I disagree. Not communicating the inner workings of your code is not dishonest; it's smart. Want your system to get hacked? Let everyone know how it works so that they can find ways to exploit it. We can make educated guesses as to the challenges simply by observing how it's implemented and comparing it to better systems like WoW's. For example, WoW's transmog system doesn't support dyes, so it's going to require exponentially less memory to track. They've been pretty up front about the fact that memory is the limitation here. That's why their band-aid fix was simply to double everyone's storage. Hardware storage finally got cheap enough to make that viable.

I don't know for sure, but I strongly suspect that the alternative is to strip your stored items of their dyes as well as their materia so that they can reduce the amount of combinations they have to track in your chest. Can you imagine reapplying dyes every time you want to switch glamours? It would get really expensive really fast. Another option is to make dyes a one-and-done thing where you acquire a dye, use it, and then permanently gain the ability to apply that dye, so you have a glamour chest and a dye chest. Even so, reapplying dye to your gear would remain super tedious. I had a really good manager once who put it really well: "All software sucks. Your job, as an engineer, is to minimize your customer's exposure to the suckage." In other words, there are always trade-offs to be made, and the current system reflects the level of compromise that they deemed acceptable.

You may not like it, and you may disagree, but be careful what you ask for. While I prefer the way WoW's transmog system works, I also have to note that WoW doesn't allow you to dye gear, let alone keep it on a transmog. I haven't played GW or GW2 in a while, but I'm pretty sure I played it after FFXIV 2.0 was out, and I don't even recall them having anything like a glamour system in their game at that time.

[Amenara]

You may not like it, and you may disagree, but be careful what you ask for. While I prefer the way WoW's transmog system works, I also have to note that WoW doesn't allow you to dye gear, let alone keep it on a transmog. I haven't played GW or GW2 in a while, but I'm pretty sure I played it after FFXIV 2.0 was out, and I don't even recall them having anything like a glamour system in their game at that time.

Having played GW2 recently their glamour system works similar to wow in that when you acquire that glamour, you unlock it permanently in the glamour system for them and don't need to keep the item to use that look. As for dyes you have default dyes in GW2's system and can get other dye colors from playing the game or from their real money system. You can dye different parts of a piece of gear different colors to add more color customization than FF14 offers. Basically it is the best glamour system out there, that I have interacted with at least.

I really hate how the old code is the tired excuse used 9 years after ARR relaunched and they rebuilt the game after 1.0s failure. I am pretty sure they have gotten rid of a lot of the jank in 1.0 and found their own new jank with the 2.0 coding and just don't want/have the funding to fix it. I am not asking for them to overnight fix everything, just start taking steps to tackle underlying issues instead of just taking the easy way and band-aiding every couple years and still have the same problem.

[Denji]

I'm as unhappy with the system as you are (maybe even unhappier), but let's take this in perspective. FFXIV 2.0 inherited a real mess from 1.0, and they tried to remake as much as they could. In retrospect, the glamour system didn't receive as much attention as it should have. Given how broken everything else was, though, it's no surpise that implementing a proper glamour system fell by the wayside. As for SE not being honest with us, I disagree. Not communicating the inner workings of your code is not dishonest; it's smart. Want your system to get hacked? Let everyone know how it works so that they can find ways to exploit it. We can make educated guesses as to the challenges simply by observing how it's implemented and comparing it to better systems like WoW's. For example, WoW's transmog system doesn't support dyes, so it's going to require exponentially less memory to track. They've been pretty up front about the fact that memory is the limitation here. That's why their band-aid fix was simply to double everyone's storage. Hardware storage finally got cheap enough to make that viable.

I don't know for sure, but I strongly suspect that the alternative is to strip your stored items of their dyes as well as their materia so that they can reduce the amount of combinations they have to track in your chest. Can you imagine reapplying dyes every time you want to switch glamours? It would get really expensive really fast. Another option is to make dyes a one-and-done thing where you acquire a dye, use it, and then permanently gain the ability to apply that dye, so you have a glamour chest and a dye chest. Even so, reapplying dye to your gear would remain super tedious. I had a really good manager once who put it really well: "All software sucks. Your job, as an engineer, is to minimize your customer's exposure to the suckage." In other words, there are always trade-offs to be made, and the current system reflects the level of compromise that they deemed acceptable.

You may not like it, and you may disagree, but be careful what you ask for. While I prefer the way WoW's transmog system works, I also have to note that WoW doesn't allow you to dye gear, let alone keep it on a transmog. I haven't played GW or GW2 in a while, but I'm pretty sure I played it after FFXIV 2.0 was out, and I don't even recall them having anything like a glamour system in their game at that time.

2.0's engine has very very little to do with 1.0. In fact, it's entirely different both on the front and back ends. Really the only stuff that survived the transition were asset-related. (Models, sprites, icons, fonts, sounds, animations, text and some scripts).

[Midareyukki]

2.0's engine has very very little to do with 1.0. In fact, it's entirely different both on the front and back ends. Really the only stuff that survived the transition were asset-related. (Models, sprites, icons, fonts, sounds, animations, text and some scripts).

They also cleared a lot of the scripts in Stormblood. It was even a big deal that "they reduced spaghetti code by this much!"

So even if they did inherit a mess, which they still did all things considered... it's honestly not that bad. There are a lot of things you're going to have to do some really nasty workarounds just to get things to work. Off the top of my head, there can easily be engine-specific redundancies that will interfere with how your code is meant to work. So if you pull on one end, something will get dragged along due to how stuff is structured. But so far they've found a workaround for the stuff they could.

There's people that will always complain no matter what they do.

*sigh* you know... at one point I'd tell this to people, because you're right and some languages even have entire idioms dedicated to that sentiment (like how you can't "please both Greeks and Trojans")...

But one thing that sentiment does neglect to mention is how you can at least make something to please someone. And hopefuly not to ignore when a large collective says it's not right. And there's for sure stuff in this game that the majority agrees isn't right and they refuse to acknowledge it.

You can't please everyone, someone will always complain. But you can make sure that those who complain aren't that numerous.

[DiaDeem]

*sigh* you know... at one point I'd tell this to people, because you're right and some languages even have entire idioms dedicated to that sentiment (like how you can't "please both Greeks and Trojans")...

But one thing that sentiment does neglect to mention is how you can at least make something to please someone. And hopefuly not to ignore when a large collective says it's not right. And there's for sure stuff in this game that the majority agrees isn't right and they refuse to acknowledge it.

You can't please everyone, someone will always complain. But you can make sure that those who complain aren't that numerous.

I'm afraid I'll be labeled as a "White Knight for SE" and it's why I rarely like to post seriously on the forums, but I'll give a reasonable conversation a chance.

I'm sure they're trying to please their players. I believe that the majority of players have enjoyed the changes done from expansion to expansion, and I think it's disingenuous to believe the contrary. I also think Yoshi was probably joking when he said what OP posted, and though intention is very hard to understand through just text, OP's title seems a bit pompous and a bit too dramatic.

Are there things I believe that can be improved? Of course! As a Viera, hats are the first thing that come to mind as I write this. Having the Legacy camera not auto-adjust is a big one for my brother in law, and I agree with him. It's such a basic feature! Can it be frustrating? Yes, but we shouldn't take for granted how communicative the team is compared to other devs. I can only think of Bungie (With their TWABs) being this talkative to their players besides than Yoshi and team.

I dunno... I don't know if I made much sense.