Mr. Naoki Yoshida, have you forgotten your own "Three Easy Steps to Failure"?

[Oizen]

Yoshida lies to make him/his product look good?
no way...

[All_Nonsense]

Just wanna say congrats on making a sentence clunkier than anything in FFXIV right now.

.....he quoted Lahabrea during his monologue in the Ultima trial. Athena also says it during her trial (being his wife and all and the heart of Sabik, from which he likely got the quote).

[Tatiana]

1 - the graphical update was wasted on XIV, it was still great before.
FF7 remake is a thing, but it's a complete remake not just a coat of paint.
It should have been FFXI getting an update (graphics on par with 14 and "modern" UI), not 14.

Have to disagree with this one, every time I've come back to FFXIV for the past couple of years after playing newer games, XIV has looked more and more outdated and it's aging graphics were more apparent than ever. A graphics update was absolutely needed for an 11 year old game they intend to try and keep competitive on the market for another decade. They obviously messed up with certain character model faces so they do need to address that, and seeing as parts of the graphics update aren't even implemented yet (many textures and materials still are highly pixelated and ugly), it's not really fair to assess the totality of the graphics update til all of it is implemented. Sure, FFXI getting an update would be cool for anyone who actually still plays that game, but that isn't the title they're really trying to push forward in the way that they are with XIV.

[ZXN]

In light of the ongoing criticism of Dawntrail and your recent responses in interviews, let's explore:

1. An unhealthy obsession with graphic quality

Dawntrail is planned as the first major graphic update. However, have you been overly focused on very specific graphics, such as the grass and every polygon on Lalafell faces? It took the first benchmark and players flooding the forums to point out that there is more to the game than just grass and Lalafell. As a result, for the first time, there was a "patch" for a benchmark.

Graphics update looks okay to me personally, and I am sure other players have their own opinions. Although they definitely did seem to hyper-fixate on certain things a bit too much. My eyesight also isn't the best, so there are actually a lot of things that "changed" that I haven't even noticed. I hope they just gradually keep fixing things as they go along.

2. A surprising lack of MMORPG knowledge among development team members

Does this also extend to the writing team? Is your current writing team lacking the knowledge and experience needed to create a compelling story within the current MSQ structure/formula? It seems so, especially if you thought that main story quests should have been side quests.

I think the current team is a bit "in over their heads." They relied WAY too much on doing constant "Call backs" to the past expansions with moments and certain characters, but making them for Wuk Lamat, without really seeming to understand why those original moments and those certain characters were important and meaningful to our WoL. Do I think the current team all need be fired? No. But if all of them are more use to side content, like Hiroi was, then I think they need to be overseen more thoroughly, at least until they can get their footing.

3. The mindset that the solution to every problem could be patched in a future update

Did you approve the Dawntrail story under the pretense that any "weaknesses" in the story would be addressed later following player feedback?

I really want to say that Yoshi-P wasn't as involved with Dawntrail as past expansions. With essentially having to work on both FF14 and FF16 at the same time, he probably had to take a step back for most of Endwalker's MSQ's and Dawntrail MSQ and give the okay to ship them, even if the quality as a result wasn't as good as expected. I mean he even said Endwalker content put him to sleep, so the quality certain wasn't at the level he was probably expecting. And while Dawntrail's content is certainly a step up from Endwalkers, the story still needs work. I know OP is roasting Yoshi-P for his "The mindset that the solution to every problem could be patched in a future update" point, but I DO hope they actually take what they said seriously about listening to feedback and working on things during the Dawntrail patches.

[Jeeqbit]

I really want to say that Yoshi-P wasn't as involved with Dawntrail as past expansions. With essentially having to work on both FF14 and FF16 at the same time

Let's do some maths. FF16 was originally going to release about 6 months earlier, so in 2022, but covid delayed their office communication and the delivery of assets (they out-source a lot to other companies).

"That said, we have spent much of 2021 addressing this issue, and hope to see its impact to a minimum by the new year, allowing us to better focus on the tasks at hand: increasing graphic resource quality, refining combat mechanics, fleshing out individual battles, putting the finishing touches on cutscenes, and conducting overall graphical optimization,"

These sort of words suggest the game was more or less done when Endwalker released in 2021 and they were adding finishing touches, refining and optimizing it. This is evident even from the trailer in 2020. Therefore, the argument that it took most of his focus during Endwalker patches doesn't make a lot of sense.

At the end of 2023, he said the "development team for FF16 has been disbanded, except for the main DLC team".

Their actual FF16 development team had been "distracted" with FF16 going back to the Heavensward patches, so an argument would have to made that Stormblood and/or Shadowbringers suffered from this too.

Despite all of these things, people still continued to say "they are distracted with FF16". The reality is, people just didn't like their content and gameplay decisions and FF16 was just a convenient scapegoat.

he even said Endwalker content put him to sleep, so the quality certain wasn't at the level he was probably expecting

However, he approved the idea of increasing the hitbox size and other decisions around "making content comfortable". He just didn't realize it would lead to where it did and it was something he had to observe in the long-term. The specific content probably felt exciting when testing it for the first time, but in the long-term you see trends and limitations with the big hotboxes and certain similar mechanics. Given the time it took to say this, it probably took player feedback to make him question it enough.

[CNitsah]

2. A surprising lack of MMORPG knowledge among development team members

Does this also extend to the writing team? Is your current writing team lacking the knowledge and experience needed to create a compelling story within the current MSQ structure/formula? It seems so, especially if you thought that main story quests should have been side quests.

That's even true for for the dev team too. The first problem with the EW patch was that they removed any kind of MMO content except for beast tribes quest. And by mmo content. I mean content made for last. Exploratory zones and relics used to be that content, but they removed it without giving anything to fill that role. I once read "the complains with the lack of exploratory zones is not the fact that we liked eureka or bozja that much, but it gave us some to engage on the long term" and I totally agree with that.

A mmorpg NEED shelf content, that will ask for some kind of farm. Up until ShB, FFXIV understood that. They achieve to give us enough farm to be satisfying, while it was not long enough to become a chore and most of all not mandatory, but present for people that like that, and giving enough rewards to . They removed all that and I don't get how the team of a mmo could that. It's mindblowing. Even now, this a problem, there's been 2 month since the release, and we're 2 month away from the next patch, and once again, the shelf content hasn't been renewed.

I had a small fear they wouldn't get the right conclusions from the lack of exploratory zone complains, but with how out of touch they seem to be lately, this fear is not so small anymore.

[Jeeqbit]

A mmorpg NEED shelf content, that will ask for some kind of farm. Up until ShB, FFXIV understood that. They achieve to give us enough farm to be satisfying, while it was not long enough to become a chore and most of all not mandatory, but present for people that like that, and giving enough rewards to . They removed all that and I don't get how the team of a mmo could that. It's mindblowing. Even now, this a problem, there's been 2 month since the release, and we're 2 month away from the next patch, and once again, the shelf content hasn't been renewed.

I had a small fear they wouldn't get the right conclusions from the lack of exploratory zone complains, but with how out of touch they seem to be lately, this fear is not so small anymore.

That isn't really true...

We are getting a lot more social, large-scale content, such as:

• Field Operations with relic grinds
• Cosmisc Exploration
• Savage alliance raids

As for long-term content, that is subjective and depends on the person. I have been busy farming hunts for the hunt mount, PvP for its mount, FATEs for its rewards and mount and still need to do the raid content for those mounts. All of this content is large scale and involves playing with 24+ people. If some people sped through this, congrats, but I need to actually eat and sleep as well...

[Zelda206]

I'll say this much: I can't claim to know much about the lore of Final Fantasy, but I think Dawntrail was a failure of writing in general. Down to the basic features, the one who got the most spotlight and the actual least development was Wuk Lamat, who was being uplifted by this expansion's writing team and they were ultimately shooketh by JP and EN not widely receiving her warmly. We've had fantastic writing and genuine Final Fantasy depth before, so Dawntrail felt like a slap in the face. The entire experience likens to that of a DnD group that has been together for a fair amount of time, the DM allows a new player in, gives them a catch-up sheet, and they proceed to stick their nose into every single experience while preaching the same message on repeat, almost non-stop, and by the grace of the RNG gods is given a free pass by everyone on the island and even overcomes her physical shortcomings with the plot device of 'power of resolve' because her cause was better than her opponent's. And not a single time do we genuinely shepherd or coach her, but instead everything we say is "you go, girl boss" and we don't get to say anything even remotely critical against the NPC. It's the first time I felt like the team said "We drive the narrative and we want you to like this character and your WoL will love this character and there's nothing you can do about it except skip the CS", and it was a genuine Western taste and betrayal that I got from this game.

I like it when all characters experience depth and growth on a relatively similar plane, but this all overshadowed the real journeys we were intending to take, like with Krile. For an opening expansion, this has been the worst in terms of story-telling. It doesn't help that the PR answers given were basically "We failed to bring forth Wuk Lamat in the intended way" but didn't elaborate on why the playerbase majorly dislikes the character. We've had characters with less screentime and with more endearing traits than Wuk Lamat, like Wuk Evu. Bloody Wuk Evu was more engaging.

So back to the original post: I can't say with confidence if the three rules were tarnished or upheld, but I can say without question that the story-telling at a basic level was an utter catastrophe when scaled next to the expansions we've gotten thus far.

Bakool Ja Ja: "You couldn't fathom the amount of dead men behind me."

[Voidmage]

That isn't really true...

We are getting a lot more social, large-scale content, such as:

• Field Operations with relic grinds
• Cosmisc Exploration
• Savage alliance raids

As for long-term content, that is subjective and depends on the person. I have been busy farming hunts for the hunt mount, PvP for its mount, FATEs for its rewards and mount and still need to do the raid content for those mounts. All of this content is large scale and involves playing with 24+ people. If some people sped through this, congrats, but I need to actually eat and sleep as well...

Tbf though, that content isn't in the game yet so we don't know how it will be implemented.
Field operations sure, I give you that (even though Bozja was pretty solo friendly) but after EW I wouldn't be surprised if the relics will be completely soloable.
Cosmic Exploration could be like Ishgard and that was solo.
Savage Alliance raid would be that. But who knows when that comes.
Giving more and more solo choices was the policy of them lately, at least in the more casual content.

Right now DT is really just like the expansion before it. You have Savage + Extremes and that's it.

[FuwafuwaMii]

Dawntrail is planned as the first major graphic update. However, have you been overly focused on very specific graphics, such as the grass and every polygon on Lalafell faces? It took the first benchmark and players flooding the forums to point out that there is more to the game than just grass and Lalafell. As a result, for the first time, there was a "patch" for a benchmark.

But... if you want to play Minecraft, it's right there. Get it and look forward to it.