JP: Yoshi P should step down, FF14 is a sinking ship, in response to interview

[All_Nonsense]

It's hard to quantify a success metric for a live service game. Players usually determine it based on their opinion of the current state of the game, and the developers base it on more empirical figures such as active subscription count and revenue stream. Obviously this is a pretty big simplification of how the parties involved think, but it does outline the natural disparity that occurs organically in a developer-player relationship. So what we then tend to look at is how the developer bridges that gap (as we should rightfully expect them to do).

Yoshi P and the lead members of the development team did a wonderful job of this over the course of about a decade. It was a delight. I have noticed a strange behavior from the dev team since about this time last year that's been concerning however, and it's that they don't seem as engaged with us as they used to. It's like they've pulled back from the player base for some reason. Everyone isn't going to stick their proverbial finger in the air to determine the wind direction here, but subconsciously I feel like folks became attuned to this mild division at some point and this in turn has magnified their reactions to YoshiP's completely tone-deaf and out of touch response as a result. It has scared people who don't want to lose one of the last vestiges of a game dev having a good relationship with its playerbase. A lot of us were there for WoW and Destiny 2's transformation into "the villain," (it's complicated and I don't feel like picking different words ) and they're scared that it's going to happen here now. That's why everyone is blowing up rn.

I do think that YoshiP stepping down would be the worst possible thing for this game tho. The folks who think that's a good thing have no idea how much of a death knell that would truly be, or how fortunate we are to have YoshiP at the helm of this game.

[BakoolJaJa]

A lot of us were there for WoW and Destiny 2's transformation into "the villain," (it's complicated and I don't feel like picking different words ) and they're scared that it's going to happen here now. That's why everyone is blowing up rn.

I do think that YoshiP stepping down would be the worst possible thing for this game tho. The folks who think that's a good thing have no idea how much of a death knell that would truly be, or how fortunate we are to have YoshiP at the helm of this game.

Humans are good at seeing patterns. Many other MMOs and live service games have gone through similar. It always starts out very mild. There is always a lot of defensiveness at first and hope that the things happening are just an outlier. That it's going to get better. The next expansion? They'll totally take the feedback to heart and fix things. Except somewhere in the back of our minds we realize that... this current situation isn't actually an outlier. That jobs have been getting dumbed down more and more since multiple expansions. That the story has been getting worse since the previous expansion. That many of the issues that were promised to get fixed (like the limited races) are in fact not getting fixed. That the encounter design fixes keep on getting delayed. That all the content and gameplay are incredibly stale, remaining unchanged since literally ARR. Etc. Dawntrail isn't SUDDENLY different and bad. It is just a progressive decline.

Like boiling a frog and all that.

And Yoshi P has absolutely nothing to do with anything. People keep on using him as a scapegoat or as some god who can do no wrong. Very convenient for Square Enix. The ones that are gladly leeching money off of ffxiv and giving nothing in return. The ones that are to blame for the team not having enough resources. The ones that will be to blame, should the game eventually go to shit similarly to Destiny and many others. But instead of paying attention to what they are doing, we are fixated on reading pointless Yoshi P interviews filled with PR talk, and acting like he is the singular entity working on the game. SE love him for that though.

Once he steps down... I genuinely think that will be it. Not because he is so great or because he is so terrible. Just because at that point Square Enix will be done with this game. Other than with using it as a cheap cash grab of course, but I will not be sticking around to play that.

[AnimaAnimus]

Yoshi P and the lead members of the development team did a wonderful job of this over the course of about a decade. It was a delight. I have noticed a strange behavior from the dev team since about this time last year that's been concerning however, and it's that they don't seem as engaged with us as they used to. It's like they've pulled back from the player base for some reason. .

I personally think they are just scared of not only the more common social backlashes and criticisms that are happening more and more as time passes, but also fear of trying something different and losing the casual and rp playerbase that they so heavily rely on. And that fear is causing them to spin out in a rut. Not only in a game perpective with the unwillingness to try things that are drastically different or design jobs in a way that it creates any sort of need for players to actually be fully engaged, but also with story perspective.

They don't want to do anything drastic. They will not have any conflict amongst the scions, they do not want us to face anything that will cause us to lose anymore so as not to upset the players that want everything rainbows and lollipops. And those kids are very loud and the tantrums are real. So much so that it is incredibly difficult to even make well thought out arguments because no matter how well you do, you get beat down, downvoted, and harrassed on social media. Which is why the forums come off as so negative, because its literally the only space we have to talk openly about what we don't like. So they just close themselves off and do what they think we want. And that not only severly limits what they can do but it also severely limits how they do it. Everything being solved with friendship, an already all too common trope in Japanese story telling, is so incredibly boring.

Let's face it. Endwalker should have been about war, it should have been dirty and gritty and put us through the paces. Zodiarc should never have been such a pushover, the Garleans should never have fallen off camera. The scions should have suffered loses. There should have been scenes that made us feel sad, angry or made us yell at our screens. When a story elicits emotions like that you know, as a writer, that you did well. But none of that stuff is safe. It will anger the fans who are scared of feeling anything negative. So now we are feeling angry, we are feeling sad and we are yelling at our screens, but in the wrong way.

This game was never suppsed to be this way. The original plan for HW was to make it really dark and gritty, which you can see in the trailer. But, according the Yoshida, the then CEO didn't like the idea and wanted to make it more light and happy to attract a wider audience. Which eventually led us to where we are today. Now we have that wider audience and they are made up of a bunch of emotionally immature kids who are holding the devs and metaphorical gunpoint, which is more damaging to the game then just letting creatives be creative.

[Talamh]

... letting creatives be creative.

This, I agree so much with this.

I refer to the poisoning of the Sultana as FFXIV trying to do "The Red Wedding" in a very negative connotation.
I sincerely could not take a single moment in that cutscene serious because by that point, we were literary already a Godslayer yet here was this twerp acting like he was a genuine threat.
And now... There's no more tension in the story. We are, a God, by all intents and purpose.

If you ask me the best ending for Endwalker is one where we died in the final battle and faded into legend.
But that'd mean an end to the adventure. Great for a book, or movie. Bad for a game aiming to keep players playing.

The cost of that however is, the removal of all tension.

There was a moment in Gunblade storyarc where, just for a split second, my mind went "What if this is the end?". I liked that thought.

So I agree with you fully.

[AnimaAnimus]

I refer to the poisoning of the Sultana as FFXIV trying to do "The Red Wedding" in a very negative connotation.
I sincerely could not take a single moment in that cutscene serious because by that point, we were literary already a Godslayer yet here was this twerp acting like he was a genuine threat.
And now... There's no more tension in the story. We are, a God, by all intents and purpose..

This plot point gets a pass from me only because, yeah we downed a few primals, but that had been done before by others and there is no limit to the ego, sense of entitlement and disregard for the consequences of one's actions of someone who is rolling in wealth. Of course he thought he would get away with it, he likely has never been punished for any actions. You realize how much blood is on those little hands that he never faced any consequences for? We were strong, sure, but not that strong in his view. Nowadays thigns would surely be different. But not back at the end of ARR.

I am just sorry the Sultana was not killed off and the whole story line of Ul'dah's possible civil war was removed to make things more happy. I really wish I could find that interview with Yoshida again, because he touched on a few things that were supposed to happen that were left on the cutting room floor thanks to a CEO who was unwilling to take chances.

[Striker44]

I personally think they are just scared of not only the more common social backlashes and criticisms that are happening more and more as time passes, but also fear of trying something different and losing the casual and rp playerbase that they so heavily rely on. And that fear is causing them to spin out in a rut. Not only in a game perpective with the unwillingness to try things that are drastically different or design jobs in a way that it creates any sort of need for players to actually be fully engaged, but also with story perspective.

They don't want to do anything drastic. They will not have any conflict amongst the scions, they do not want us to face anything that will cause us to lose anymore so as not to upset the players that want everything rainbows and lollipops. And those kids are very loud and the tantrums are real. So much so that it is incredibly difficult to even make well thought out arguments because no matter how well you do, you get beat down, downvoted, and harrassed on social media. Which is why the forums come off as so negative, because its literally the only space we have to talk openly about what we don't like. So they just close themselves off and do what they think we want. And that not only severly limits what they can do but it also severely limits how they do it. Everything being solved with friendship, an already all too common trope in Japanese story telling, is so incredibly boring.

This take always confuses me. So, a large portion of their playerbase that is key to sustaining the game is casual and RP players, who also manage to swamp every place on the internet except for this forum with how much they enjoy the current design of the game and don't want things to change...but the devs are "out of touch" for not listening to the relatively few people on this one small corner of the internet instead of all those other people? Then it gets doubled down with "I'm playing the game designed by a Japanese company and am annoyed they're using common Japanese tropes."

Let's face it. Endwalker should have been about war, it should have been dirty and gritty and put us through the paces. Zodiarc should never have been such a pushover, the Garleans should never have fallen off camera. The scions should have suffered loses. There should have been scenes that made us feel sad, angry or made us yell at our screens. When a story elicits emotions like that you know, as a writer, that you did well. But none of that stuff is safe. It will anger the fans who are scared of feeling anything negative. So now we are feeling angry, we are feeling sad and we are yelling at our screens, but in the wrong way.

Let's face it. This is an opinion, nothing more, nothing less. It "should" not have been anything, and again this ultimately comes down to "How dare they make me angry by telling a positive story...they should have made other people angry by telling a different one instead!" Personally, I don't think someone needs to die for a story to be "good." You can still feel sad or angry at things that don't go to such extremes. And would you say you "did well" as a writer if people stop reading your story in droves because you killed off a character that your readers liked?

Personally, I don't blame anyone who wants a positive story. Between covid a few years ago to the resurgence of bigotry, hate, and extremism in the everyday world today, I can completely understand and support people who don't also want to feel angry while playing a video game. These are designed to be a chance to "get away" from that world for a bit.

This game was never suppsed to be this way. The original plan for HW was to make it really dark and gritty, which you can see in the trailer. But, according the Yoshida, the then CEO didn't like the idea and wanted to make it more light and happy to attract a wider audience. Which eventually led us to where we are today. Now we have that wider audience and they are made up of a bunch of emotionally immature kids who are holding the devs and metaphorical gunpoint, which is more damaging to the game then just letting creatives be creative.

I'm not active on social media in general, so my experience is limited mainly to these forums and Youtube videos, but your description sounds more like what we see around here. Read the absurd hyperboles. Read how the game is "ruined" because the shading on a character's face changed slightly. Read the people wanting to straight up fire people for changing the potency on an action. Read the way people around here attack and belittle anyone who dares to say anything positive about the game on this forum. Read the way there can be a dozen negative threads on a topic, but it's still not enough and even the one positive thread will get swarmed. Frankly, I think a key reason the devs don't take this forum seriously is because of how the echo chamber around here presents itself.

[AnimaAnimus]

This take always confuses me. So, a large portion of their playerbase that is key to sustaining the game is casual and RP players, who also manage to swamp every place on the internet except for this forum with how much they enjoy the current design of the game and don't want things to change...but the devs are "out of touch"

Loud, not large. I said that too. If the devs really wanted to be more in touch, they should listen to all the voices, not just the ones who are screaming over everyone else. But since they tend to focus on the 3 dudes who just hang out and emote in limsa moreso than the rest of the players who are actually playing the game, both casually or more handcore, yeah I think they are a bit out of touch.

Then it gets doubled down with "I'm playing the game designed by a Japanese company and am annoyed they're using common Japanese tropes."

This just frustration with Japanese story telling as a whole, because it has become incredibly simplistic and almost insulting to it's audience. Esp when that audience is primarily not Japanese. If SE wants to market to a worldwide audience, they need to be able to look outside of it's own borders, which they are notoriously often unwilling to do. And now it seems to make it worse, they think their audience are 12 and not even a B average sort of 12.

Let's face it. This is an opinion, nothing more, nothing less. It "should" not have been anything, and again this ultimately comes down to "How dare they make me angry by telling a positive story...they should have made other people angry by telling a different one instead!" Personally, I don't think someone needs to die for a story to be "good." You can still feel sad or angry at things that don't go to such extremes. And would you say you "did well" as a writer if people stop reading your story in droves because you killed off a character that your readers liked?

Yeah, not sorry for being not only a writer but also someone who actually has degrees in literary criticism and has spent well over a decade looking at the writing of video games in particular, that was hoping that SE, a company known for its story telling, actually gave us good stories instead of bargin bin manga. I mean yeah it is an opinion, but at least one that comes from a more analytical perspective. I mean Twilight and 50 Shades were also considered works for literary art by the masses, so I can understand why this may be an insulting opinion to some.

I also never said to kill ppl off, there are so many more ways to have people or groups suffer losses other than just killing a bunch of ppl off. Reducing that statement to "that monster wants to kill off mama 'shtola!" is an incredibly simplistic way of looking at that.

And just because there are battles to be waged, losses to be dealt with and struggles to be overcome, does not mean that it cannot be a possitive story. But the way everything was boiled down and given to us half cooked was not only insulting to, well, some of us. But it also just makes SE look bad. Then you add DT on top of it and I, as a writer (and not even as good of a writer as most) would be embarrassed to say I had anything to do with the writing. If you need a 10 year old story about war, genocide and the destuction of multiple planets to be reduced to "we won because we shook hands and ate tacos, all because you had a bad couple years, than I don't know how you are really going to make it through life. It's not about the tragedy, it's about the responce to that tragedy that gives us hope in the end.

I'm not active on social media in general, so my experience is limited mainly to these forums and Youtube videos....Frankly, I think a key reason the devs don't take this forum seriously is because of how the echo chamber around here presents itself.

Wow you really should have been around twitter or r/ffxiv esp during the EW days. You think this place is an echo chamber filled with absurd hyperbole? lol you really have no idea. And like I said, the only reason these forums come off as so negative is because no one can say anything critical about ffxiv outside of here without being personally attacked and sometimes doxxed, to the point they need to take their opinions down and just not post at all. They show just how toxic this community really is, all while they smile and say there is no toxicity in ffxiv.

[Dante131]

They show just how toxic this community really is, all while they smile and say there is no toxicity in ffxiv.

i like the avatar innuendo at the end. All in one good post very constructive