The current state of the "MMORPG" FFXIV is unsustainable. Here's why

[Ath192]

So tell them what "could be" is.

Don't speak in broad fanciful strokes such as "millions for years to come". Those days are gone. Gaming and players have both changed greatly in the decade plus since WoW was able to reach 12 million concurrent subscribers.

Speak in detail. Speak about the type of content you think that players want. Speak about what should be kept, what should be discarded and what should be added.

Speak about how much time per week you think players would be willing and able to invest in a single game.

And then don't be shocked when it turns out your "could be" isn't what other players actually want.

I have. lots of times. This thread is about the general unsustainability of the game. I think you've been in the forums for a while and have seen some of my specific posts, otherwise you can look my history. You want detail but you don't take time to research the details of the posters doing the posting.

TBH while I do make specific suggestions I enjoy casual and hardcore content alike. So I doubt my "could be" is catering to a specific audience.

[Raven2014]

I can tell you right now the XVI, as good as it may be. It could even be a 10/10 across the board, will never be as profitable as XIV is. EVER. Because of its single player nature. SE got handed a huge population inheritance from Blizzards mistakes and the press that followed XIV and could hyper focus on retaining as much of it as possible to truly rake in the cash. But in this misguided attempt they are letting the opportunity go. But just look at their CEO and their NFT bet. And all the crap games they release. No. It's sad such a great IP doesn't have visionaries leading it.

That ... not how software development work, at all. Whether you like what's happening in 7.0 or not, most of the work on it have been decided 2-3 years ago. By the time WoW implosion happened last year, the plan for FF14 would already finalized. Even if SE scramble all hand on deck and put FF16 in a freeze to take advantage of it like your sage advise indicate, the most likely outcome out that is Square would give it their own crisis, that's it. For example, the decision of 7.0 not gettign Eureka/Borza content was probably decided in the planning phase of 7.0 at least 3-4 years ago. If they scramble to put something like that in just a year, all you would get is a broken/half-finished/ill-designed instance that would od more harm then good.

Also the fact they don't put every egg in one packet is something to applaud, not criticize IMO. A diverse porfolio is always preferable to a one trick ponny developers. Also, FF15 raked in half a billion revenue, FFVII remade is also getting close to that number. Regardless of how they're compared to other FF games, they are number that the majority of the market can only dream and salivating about. And they're equally important for SE to maintain their status as a brand.

[Ath192]

If they scramble to put something like that in just a year, all you would get is a broken/half-finished/ill-designed instance that would od more harm then good.

You load this with speculation. And even if it did come with bugs we'd report them and work it out. God knows it's not like we haven't before. Exceptional times require exceptional attention. The massive population boom was pretty exceptional. I do agree with you things are decided in advance, when its business as usual.

You speak like someone who's been working at a job for 20 years and have grown so complacent that even if the opportunity of a lifetime for your company shows up you couldn't be bothered to lift an extra finger to see if it'll work out.

"Eh" its fine.

[Raven2014]

You load this with speculation. And even if it did come with bugs we'd report them and work it out. God knows it's not like we haven't before. Exceptional times require exceptional attention. The massive population boom was pretty exceptional. I do agree with you things are decided in advance, when its business as usual.

Like I said, spoken like someone who don't understand software development work. The only way your previous post would make sense is if you can go back in time to maybe 2018 and tell Yoshi all the event that transpired in 2022, if his teams didn't adapt, then yeah you have a point. Btw, you can also inform them about COVID and shortage of chip/server in 2021 as well, so they could pre-order all the necessary hardware to full capitalize it as well, instead of having us waiting half a day to log in at the launch of 7.0. So, did you go back in time?

It's always so easy to speak candidly and giving sage advise with the benefit of hindsight, isn't it?

You speak like someone who's been working at a job for 20 years and have grown so complacent that even if the opportunity of a lifetime for your company shows up you couldn't be bothered to lift an extra finger to see if it'll work out.

I speak like someone who actually worked in software-development. And no, I'm not old enough to have 20 years working experience yet. But I worked long enough to understand why there is a reason "content lockdown" is a sacred concept in a development cycle that they taught you in school, and upheld by every good project manager. Almost every time I see a shit shown happen, it's because a team do not give this principal its deserve respect.

No content developer will appreciate a manger one day knock down the door and say "I want you to drop everything you're doing and focusing on making something we never planned for and get it out ASAP!". Sometime, there is something you can not just buy or do.

[Ath192]

Like I said, spoken like someone who don't understand software development work. The only way your previous post would make sense is if you can go back in time to maybe 2018 and tell Yoshi all the event that transpired in 2022, if his teams didn't adapt, then yeah you have a point. Btw, you can also inform them about COVID and shortage of chip/server in 2021 as well, so they could pre-order all the necessary hardware to full capitalize it as well, instead of having us waiting half a day to log in at the launch of 7.0. So, did you go back in time?

It's always so easy to speak candidly and giving sage advise with the benefit of hindsight, isn't it?

I speak like someone who actually worked in software-development. And no, I'm not old enough to have 20 years working experience yet. But I worked long enough to understand why there is a reason "content lockdown" is a sacred concept in a development cycle that they taught you in school, and upheld by every good project manager. Almost every time I see a shit shown happen, it's because a team do not give this principal its deserve respect.

No content developer will appreciate a manger one day knock down the door and say "I want you to drop everything you're doing and focusing on making something we never planned for and get it out ASAP!". Sometime, there is something you can not just buy or do.

Sounds like 1.0 disaster to ARR to me. And I guess they did do it.

Honestly I don't care where or when actions happen if my comments are taken into account. So per your own admission "The only way your previous post would make sense is if you can go back in time to maybe 2018 and tell Yoshi all the event that transpired in 2022" The post makes sense right now because I am telling him how I feel right now, the events that are transpiring in 2023, and I know a lot of people feel the same way. So that even if its 2 years down the line or whatever hopefully they don't repeat the same mistakes. And the opportunity they have.

But I guess if your mission here is to explain away everything and dismiss people's feelings you do a great job. The level of condescension you have for others here as well is something else so if you don't care about anyone the only guess I have is that you want attention about how much of a genius you are because you can rationalize why they don't do anything. That doesn't mean anything to me, nor does it make the situation better. The devs also know what they're doing and why, so you explaining what they may or may not be going through doesn't help them either because they know their situation better than you do.

[R041]

I speak like someone who actually worked in software-development.

So cringe. Nobody cares about their restrictions in their dev cycle, because at the end of the day - If a game doesn't have what a player wants, then they move on.

If a business is unable to stay limber to market movements, then they die.

This is exactly what players complain about today - XIV's inability to react to movements and needs like most Live Service games to date. They almost never update their content, we're basically just now seeing them doing something for decade old rotten ARR.

Their cycle is more like a single player game than an actual MMO in this market. It's pretty sad.

[ForteNightshade]

No, people complained final coil was too easy. So we got gordias.


Most of the more casual groups from the coil days were killed in gordias. Coil areas had a ton of people outside them even late in the tiers. Alexander was starkly different.

The people complaining weren't the ways actually clearing Coil but rather non-raiders with the perception a tier dying in only a few days meant it must be super easy. That mentality was derived entirely from WoW, which was at the height of its popularity back then with their Savage equivalent taking several weeks.

Furthermore, it's straight up disingenuous to say anyone asked for Gordias. The dev team has openly acknowledged they didn't test it properly; going through each mechanic individually but never actually clearing the fight from start to finish, which caused it to be widely overtuned. We saw this carry over into Midas where A6S bad to be nerfed during the tier itself because of how much harder it was than A7S. Another major factor in both Gordias and Midas' poor success rate is the lack of cross world party finder, cooldown resets, raid gear being the job specific artifact gear making in impossible to switch to another job even within the same subrole for Gordias and woefully poor balancing. Astro wasn't just bad, it was downright worthless in Gordias.

There were many, many throughout early Heavensward and the disaster that was Gordias. Difficulty played a large factor, there is no denying that. But it was neither the only one nor was it the raid community demanding it.

You load this with speculation. And even if it did come with bugs we'd report them and work it out. God knows it's not like we haven't before. Exceptional times require exceptional attention. The massive population boom was pretty exceptional. I do agree with you things are decided in advance, when its business as usual.

You speak like someone who's been working at a job for 20 years and have grown so complacent that even if the opportunity of a lifetime for your company shows up you couldn't be bothered to lift an extra finger to see if it'll work out.

"Eh" its fine.

Much as Raven and I have disagreed in the past, he's correct in his assessment. Endwalker was mostly finalized long before the exodus of WoW happened. At best, the only bits of content not near completion would be the latter Criterion Dungeons or Raid Tiers we'll soon be seeing but the foundation was likely well underway. They couldn't, for example, decide to scrap Island Sanctuary to begin work on Bozja v2. I mean, they theoretically could but you'd get a near literal copy/paste of what already existed because they simply wouldn't have the time to develop new assets, animations and etc.

Once an expansion is near its intended release date, everything is done and dusted. Any criticisms, complaints and dissatisfaction can only be incorporated for the next expansion. Now what Square could have done to keep potential interest is be less secretive with what's coming in 7.0, what improvements and new additions they hope to achieve and what can be improved upon with the current content. We'll see in the forthcoming Live Letter and Fanfests if that happens.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The people complaining weren't the ways actually clearing Coil but rather non-raiders with the perception a tier dying in only a few days meant it must be super easy. That mentality was derived entirely from WoW, which was at the height of its popularity back then with their Savage equivalent taking several weeks.

Furthermore, it's straight up disingenuous to say anyone asked for Gordias. The dev team has openly acknowledged they didn't test it properly; going through each mechanic individually but never actually clearing the fight from start to finish, which caused it to be widely overtuned. We saw this carry over into Midas where A6S bad to be nerfed during the tier itself because of how much harder it was than A7S. Another major factor in both Gordias and Midas' poor success rate is the lack of cross world party finder, cooldown resets, raid gear being the job specific artifact gear making in impossible to switch to another job even within the same subrole for Gordias and woefully poor balancing. Astro wasn't just bad, it was downright worthless in Gordias.

There were many, many throughout early Heavensward and the disaster that was Gordias. Difficulty played a large factor, there is no denying that. But it was neither the only one nor was it the raid community demanding it.

We remember things very differently then. I remember people asking for increased difficulty in raids after Final Coil, as it was considered too easy after Second Coil. I remember literal boos at fanfest in 2014 when they announced the Coils would have nerfs applied for DF. Yes, QoL issues impacted progression in Gordias, and it was overtuned. But that also comes from the community expectation that we be able to clear week one. Gordias was tuned with Savage and tome gear in mind. The community rejected that, and now that's why we have raids clearable without needing savage gear at all.

[TheMightyMollusk]

So cringe. Nobody cares about their restrictions in their dev cycle, because at the end of the day - If a game doesn't have what a player wants, then they move on.

And yet so many are still here.

Oh, wait, I've seen this before, it's because only the people who complain about how the game is terrible and dying actually care about it, and the people who talk about the things they actually enjoy doing in the game or dare to contradict the naysayers are just white knights to be dismissed and derided. Because clearly us armchair devs on the forums know better than the actual devs who work on the game.

[DPZ2]

So cringe. Nobody cares about their restrictions in their dev cycle, because at the end of the day - If a game doesn't have what a player wants, then they move on.

If a business is unable to stay limber to market movements, then they die.

This is exactly what players complain about today - XIV's inability to react to movements and needs like most Live Service games to date. They almost never update their content, we're basically just now seeing them doing something for decade old rotten ARR.

Their cycle is more like a single player game than an actual MMO in this market. It's pretty sad.

I see you've reverted to Standard Operating Procedure here. Dimiss the fact that someone works in software development as "cringe". Reiterate because "nobody cares". Finalize with "they move on".

Then bring out the absolutely stupidest statement ever made about business "unable to stay limber to market movements, then they die". Without any actual examples for this statement, you have written off entire industries with your overall generalization about 'business' without the slightest clue beyond what you may or may not have heard on the Internet.

Then move on to the non sequitur "XIV's inability to react", as if a game that was founded 10 years ago has to have the latest fad in what you call Live Service games. Follow that with the bold (and false) "They almost never update their content", when you actually meant "they almost never change what's selling for them because I said the game needed it."