What island sanctuary doesn't get about games like Animal Crossing/Stardew Valley.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

What the OP doesn't get about content like Island Sanctuary:

As SE stated on multiple occasions prior to its release, Island Sanctuary was never intended to be an Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley. Bringing up yet another set of comparisons is pointless.

Honest question but you have a source for anyone from the team saying to not expect something similar to Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley? I did a Google and couldn’t find this. All I could find was gaming news websites and their articles titled things like “FFXIV is getting a new mode inspired by animal crossing” and whatnot. Call it fake news if you want but it seems the available info at the time led them to make those conclusions. I only remember them saying it wouldn’t be a housing system and that’s all.

Even if they did explicitly say to not expect that it’s still not an excuse for the content having problems. Like if they didn’t intend to make it have a fun gameplay loop like stardew… maybe they should have because the workshop system ain’t it.

Okay, so you and others don't like it. Other players do and visit their Sanctuaries regularly.

SE doesn't expect every player to like every piece of content released in the game.

C’mon this is a weak argument and you know it… you can do better than this dawg. I actually wanted to like IS, and I actually listed the many things I currently like about it. I’m the target audience! And as I said I am still currently doing this content but I just wish it was more fun because I want it to like it even more! You can’t just say that every time someone criticizes content….

[Jojoya]

If you feel like people shouldn't be allowed to express feedback of a feature that was a selling point of the expansion, perhaps you should be the one avoiding going into a place meant for feedback - the official forum of the game - just to tell people to ignore things.

"I don't like it" isn't especially useful as feedback, especially when the player says their reason for disliking the content was they were expecting things the player base had been told not to expect before the content was even released.

Same! I also happen to dislike FFXIV's pvp. I find it boring and the rewards aren't enough to make me stomach it. I never complained about it in the forums. However, I can and I should complain about content that I think should be better than it is

Yet you admit the content delivered what YoshiP said it would have. If you knew what he said the content would include, you should have also known that he said that the player base needed to lower their expectations because the content was not going to on the level of an Animal Crossing. All that was included in the same interview answer.

If the content hadn't delivered what we were told to expect, then complaints would have been justified.

Just about any content is going to have room for improvement. Instead of complaining that you don't like what they told us we would (and did) get, try offering ideas for what you think would make it better while staying true to what it was intended to be.

Honest question but you have a source for anyone from the team saying to not expect something similar to Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley? I did a Google and couldn’t find this. All I could find was gaming news websites and their articles titled things like “FFXIV is getting a new mode inspired by animal crossing” and whatnot. Call it fake news if you want but it seems the available info at the time led them to make those conclusions. I only remember them saying it wouldn’t be a housing system and that’s all.

Even if they did explicitly say to not expect that it’s still not an excuse for the content having problems. Like if they didn’t intend to make it have a fun gameplay loop like stardew… maybe they should have because the workshop system ain’t it.

There were several comments made over a long period of time but probably the best known and most detailed was the response YoshiP made to an interview question from Shenpai during the Endwalker media tour.

The following is a transcript of the official translation:

Shenpai’s Q: “Since the announcement of Island Sanctuary there has been a lot of mystery surrounding this content, are there any new details you can share about it?”

Uh, so, I want to say firstly that when we originally announced Island Sanctuary, we were kind of taken aback by the huge response we got by the players. Uh we weren’t expecting such an incredible reaction.

So really, because now uh, we-we understood that a lot of players are really looking forward to it and they’ve got like really high expectations-- I did not want to just approach it in a haphazard way. For example if we just to give some uh information here and there uh, I think that might lead to a misunderstanding on the player’s side. They might not really understand what we are trying to do in this content. So, I thought it might be a safer option if we wait until we are at a stage where we can show screenshots or maybe even live game play, in a stream.

But I just want to give like uh, a bit of a disclaimer for our players. Uh, I think a lot in-a lot of people are thinking that maybe uh Island Sanctuary will be something very akin to Animal Crossing, uh but Animal Crossing is really the product of many, many years of you know, uh, installments, very many iterations, much development, uh so a first and foremost I’d just like to say that uh please don’t expect something on that level uh because it will be a little bit tough for us uh in the team.

But I would like to provide you some general details, just some general information. So this is going to be Island Sanctuary is new content that we’re putting in the game and we will be uh putting it in the 6.x series, and we will make sure to update the content regularly as well. So it will be uh quite a large scale uh new form of content.

And so really the concept is that you obviously have your own island. So you have at the start, kind of like a blank canvas, and so you can see “okay what type of building do I want to place here? What type of materials do I want to gather?” and you know, you can see “okay Maybe I want to let my minions roam free in this uh, in this Island.” So that was really the concept we were going for. This is not going to be a, the type of content where people compete with each other and you won’t feel pressurized like for example if someone is trying to uh get Allagan Tomestones, you know, they feel like, “oh I have to do that content every week”, uh, so it’s really free from those pressures and laid back, relaxed, uh where basically you have your own sanctuary, uh your island.


So this is not the type of content where you would expect to find that you know, the goal is to get like a super strong weapon or you know for the people who like raiding then maybe this is not so much their cup of tea, maybe they will not play it.

So really I’d like for people to think of it that in 14 uh, this is an area where you can uh, relax. So basically you- you can also call over your friends to your island, have a chat with them, you can visit your friends’ island, but basically it’s laid back, relaxed content. So it’s Typically things like tending to crops or you know like uh looking after animals, raising animals, that was the uh more of the concept we were going with here.

So, of course there is content which is the, there’s a focus on the house, the garden, and the furniture. But this, I would say, Island sanctuary, you could see like a bit of a rank higher, because there’s, there’s a bit more uh broad things in there, in the mix.

But I think that’s probably about all that I can share for today.

Shenpai: “That’s more than I thought, thank you so much!”

C’mon this is a weak argument and you know it… you can do better than this dawg. I actually wanted to like IS, and I actually listed the many things I currently like about it. I’m the target audience! And as I said I am still currently doing this content but I just wish it was more fun because I want it to like it even more! You can’t just say that every time someone criticizes content….

In what way is it a weak argument? It is impossible for any game developer to make everyone happy with every piece of content they release.

It's okay to realize that you don't like something that you were hoping you would like. In your case, it seems like you set your expectations far too high because you were lacking information that was released in advance of the content release.

They're not going to go back and remake Island Sanctuary into a Stardew Valley because that was never their intent for the content.

Ater reading through the transcript, are you still certain you were the target audience for the content?

[Amh_Wilzuun]

There were several comments made over a long period of time but probably the best known and most detailed was the response YoshiP made to an interview question from Shenpai during the Endwalker media tour.

The following is a transcript of the official translation:

So Yoshi P just says not to expect a game system on the level of a solo sim game like Animal Crossing, which if you read my original post is exactly what I said too:

IS was never gonna have nearly the depth of a standalone game like AC or stardew

This doesn't make the system immune from criticism however. As me and other people in the thread have expressed. I do think the right amount of resources was used on IS but said resources could have moved around better for a more engaging gameplay loop than workshop copy and paste.

In what way is it a weak argument? It is impossible for any game developer to make everyone happy with every piece of content they release.

It's okay to realize that you don't like something that you were hoping you would like. In your case, it seems like you set your expectations far too high because you were lacking information that was released in advance of the content release.

They're not going to go back and remake Island Sanctuary into a Stardew Valley because that was never their intent for the content.

Ater reading through the transcript, are you still certain you were the target audience for the content?

Yes telling me that it's my fault for wanting to like a piece of content and that I tricked myself into wanting it to be more fun is a very poor argument. I really don't think my expectations were high at all. I didn't expect my island getaway to boil down to copy paste from a discord server. Is it "sky high" expectations to want more than that?

And again, here's the yoshi p quote on the matter: Uh, I think a lot in-a lot of people are thinking that maybe uh Island Sanctuary will be something very akin to Animal Crossing, uh but Animal Crossing is really the product of many, many years of you know, uh, installments, very many iterations, much development, uh so a first and foremost I’d just like to say that uh please don’t expect something on that level uh because it will be a little bit tough for us uh in the team.

He's not saying it WON'T BE like animal crossing, just that it obviously won't be on the level of a standalone game which, again, is literally something I already said too. He didn't say "no it's a completely different type of experience from AC, instead I would liken it to microsoft excel with an island theme".

As i've said people are bending over to defend this content with out of context dev quotes and telling people they are in the wrong for being excited for it and yet no one has addressed the core flaws of workshop. "Noooo don't expect gameplay like harvest moon or SDV idiot!" Okay what should I expect then? Are you really okay with the braindead workshop system? That's your idea of acceptable?