Maybe Yoshi is just tired of the game?

[Jojoya]

For FF16, they increased the age rating, but I think they know that people below that age will find a way to play it regardless.

I wonder if the age rating is that important to developers anymore.

It was one thing when the majority audience for video games was very young but we're at the point that even senior citizens have played video games either as a child or with their own children. They're much more mainstream among all age demographics. Children may have more time to play but more and more adults are buying for personal use, and they're the ones that have the wallets.

[Mecia]

Class balance is a mystery but hes not tired of the game

[TheMightyMollusk]

I wonder if the age rating is that important to developers anymore.

It was one thing when the majority audience for video games was very young but we're at the point that even senior citizens have played video games either as a child or with their own children. They're much more mainstream among all age demographics. Children may have more time to play but more and more adults are buying for personal use, and they're the ones that have the wallets.

To the people actually working the game, probably not. To the people above them responsible for marketing and trying to get as much profit as they can to the shareholders, absolutely. Anything that could potentially reduce sales is bad.

Of course, anything less than an Adults Only rating (where many retailers will simply refuse to carry it) shouldn't actually matter. But a lot of marketing execs tend to be old and stuck in their ways.

[Kaurhz]

I don't agree with this rationalization, frankly.

If he were truly tired of the game then there are worse things that would be happening aside from what issues the game currently has.

[Sir_Tonberry]

What's the saying again? Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence? Or something like that. I think the simplest answer is just that the balancing team just aren't good at their job.

[Jeeqbit]

If he were truly tired of the game then there are worse things that would be happening aside from what issues the game currently has.

I agree with this point a lot. When developers are actually burned out, it comes across everywhere. The dungeons are still a masterpiece visually, regardless of what people think about them being "linear" or "formulaic". The mechanics are still different, regardless of people's opinions on ease or in/out mechanics. They are still doing new things with the raids, such as the black hole/beam mechanic in the latest extreme, playing football in P9S or playing tank pong and using webs in P10S.

I mean, regardless of people's opinions on the story, if you seriously think Endwalker wasn't something they put their heart and soul into, with places like Elpis and the Venat walking scene, the final walk scene through Ultima Thule, many of the beast tribe stories, the twelve being foreshadowed in prior quests... then all I can say is it clearly has the passion behind it that Heavensward had. None of the things I mentioned would likely be there if this was the problem.

It's also very clear from interviews that it's not an issue. They're just as they have always been. It's just a simple policy disagreement ie. some people want classes to play like Heavensward/Stormblood and SE have stated they disagree. That's it.

I wonder if the age rating is that important to developers anymore.

Just for legal reasons. I'm sure they don't care on a personal level. They'd be very into a dark, realistic setting like FF16. Arguably, Yoshi-P can't help himself with dark settings considering people dub Shadowbringers as a depression expansion and Endwalker as even more of a depression expansion that, according to a lot of people, helped them with their depression by daring to confront and explore it.

[strawberrycake]

I don't think he's bitter, I do think he's overly attached at times, which can lead to him not being to put his foot down when it matters. When being a leader you have to be able to be compassionate and still see the bigger picture. Atm Yoshida is the Director,Producer, and a board member, he also carries a lot of weight given they wanted to make him the CFO.

It wouldn't be unfair to say at times Yoshida is too compassionate, and anyone who's ever been in a leading position knows exactly why this can be bad for you and your workers after a while.

[strawberrycake]

What's the saying again? Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence? Or something like that. I think the simplest answer is just that the balancing team just aren't good at their job.

There was an interview back in Shadowbringers where the battle devs said they were scared of feed back, not like, mean feed back, or harsh feed back, just.......literal feed back. I've never seen that as a good sign for the game xD.

[SieyaM]

He did mention years ago that he would love to make a new mmo that was pure high fantasy and that he didn't really care for the tech but since they were introduced before he took over he had no choice but to keep them in game. He also mentioned things like he would have created different races instead of using the ones from FFXI. They also wanted to make XIV a lot darker with more Game of Thrones sort of intrigue, but the ppl above him were not happy with this and said that the game had to be more happy and fun so they had to rewrite a lot of the story arcs they originally came up with for HW and beyond. Which you can see not only in the ending of ARR but also the trailer for HW and in the lyrics to it's theme, which was already in production/complete when these decisions were made.

There was a few other things he mentioned but that was like 7-8 years ago he was talking about it, so idr the details.

If people want to watch or read game of thrones then they will just go do that, I would rather developers didn't mirror what happens to be popular and instead have their own vision and passion for a project.

[SieyaM]

Bit off topic but, i havent fought barnabus in ff16 yet. I am loving the game at least. Sure the story in ff16 has been done before but when i turned 20 i feel like i'd seen every story in literature/film already anyways. Like at some point there's nothing new under the sun.. the difference is how it is portrayed. I have been really impressed with ff16 on a technical standpoint and graphics.

ff14 is just..what it is. with the server ticks and tab target system. i pay to play it only when i want, and don't expect my money to be an investment for a better product later on.

I was not very taken in by 16, and for me it was about the combat system being pretty button mashing heavy. I found myself hammering out the same combos over and over again, and just wasn't excited to get new abilities or weapons because it changed nothing about the flow of combat. It was always standard sword combo with magic finisher, and the magic finisher had no real effects other than the ones that returned HP. I felt the characters were all the same haunted warrior template with minor changes but none of them stood out as particularly original or engaging to me. The characters just weren't interesting to watch. It felt to me like a marketing department came up with a list of trends and handed it to a development team to make a game out of.