Final Fantasy XIV is a game where the accountant is in the room.

[Red-thunder]

Staff cycling in and out isn't exactly sign of most of what you said in the OP. It's a potential indicator -- and fodder for speculation, as I said in my initial post.
For instance: members of staff might be able to request working on a different project, it may be based upon internal politics, or they might simply get assigned to a project and have to assume responsibility in perpetuity. I could speculate very strongly in any of these directions and probably find evidence that circumstantially supports my perspective.

As for what my "argument" is, it's twofold:
* That FFXIV is not nearly as staunchly budget-focused as you've represented it, at least in comparison to its contemporaries;
* That while it's safe to speculate regarding internal turmoil, it's irresponsible to speak as if you know for a fact what the internal issues and attitudes are.

I'm just saying, it might be prudent to be a bit more reserved with your conclusion.

Yeah virtually all of the senior staff no longer working on FF14 anymore is just because of internal politics LOL

[Auro_Seldaris]

Yeah, yeah, I know, hater bait post by another Highlander Hyur man, but nevertheless, this did get me thinking about something I got talking about with some friends while we farmed old EX trials the other night.

I think part of why this game has a hard time hiring programmers for this game is due to the exclusive proprietary (and old) engine it uses. Whether they hire a programmer fresh out of school or a veteran with 20 years of coding experience, they are going to have to train them both for weeks to months on how to use and work with the system FFXIV runs in, which, if I recall, is the 1.0 engine stripped down and rebuilt, and *that* original engine was made for FFXIII, a game that released in late 2009 and was probably in development for at least a few years before that. In some ways, this game is running on the reanimated corpse of a engine that's probably been around in some fashion since the mid 00s. If you were a game dev looking for work, does that sound like your first choice of a system you'd want to work on? Not I. Sometimes I stop and think it's a miracle this game even functions at all.

Which is not to excuse any of this, mind, just theorize why some systems are as bizarre, janky, or abandoned as they are. I wouldn't be surprised at this point if, say, the dev that worked on some of the old content that hasn't seen updates in years doesn't even work at the company anymore, and no one even knows how to touch that corner of the code so they just shrugged and abandoned it.

A company like Nintendo also does lots of proprietary hardware and software (for better or worse...), but unlike Square Enix, they have the name cred and clout to do this and still hire talented people to work on their games. I just don't think SE has that kind of clout anymore. Maybe at one point in the late 90s/early 00s, but certainly not recently.

It's a bummer, because I feel like if this game had some stronger bones to build on than the duct tape and prayers of the retrofitted 1.0 engine, we could have a lot cooler things with this game. It is what it is, but I believe with more financial support and a better work culture that can attract high quality talent, SE could absolutely fix the problems and improve a lot of the jank with this game. But... [glances around at the state of the video game industry] yeah, that's never gonna happen, that's not instant money for the board and shareholders.

You say that, but Blizzard has managed to make an MMO run on an old-ass RTS game's engine for 20 years now. Yes, there were challenges, such as expanding player inventory space, but at the end of the day, they made it work. FFXIV can't, or more worryingly, won't.

[Red-thunder]

You say that, but Blizzard has managed to make an MMO run on an old-ass RTS game's engine for 20 years now. Yes, there were challenges, such as expanding player inventory space, but at the end of the day, they made it work. FFXIV can't, or more worryingly, won't.

Blizzard has far better engineers than SE. SE's staff has always been lopsided towards artists, writers, and musicians, since that's SE's competitive advantage. They've always sucked at engineering challenges.

[Auro_Seldaris]

Blizzard has far better engineers than SE. SE's staff has always been lopsided towards artists, writers, and musicians, since that's SE's competitive advantage. They've always sucked at engineering challenges.

I know that's the rep SE has built for itself since at least FFVII, but given how far video game storytellling has advanced in the past decades (partly due to their own efforts), SE is quickly losing even that competitive advantage.

"Oh, we have really intricate cinematic cutscenes, and awesome music, and an interesting story."

Yeah... so does almost every other game studio now. Everything from gacha games, to looter shooters, to puzzle games. SE keeps resting on their "But we made Final Fantasy The Spirits Within and muh heckin Seven" laurels too much longer, the wider industry is going to surpass them. Arguably, it already has.

[Catwho]

I think part of why this game has a hard time hiring programmers for this game is due to the exclusive proprietary (and old) engine it uses. Whether they hire a programmer fresh out of school or a veteran with 20 years of coding experience, they are going to have to train them both for weeks to months on how to use and work with the system FFXIV runs in, which, if I recall, is the 1.0 engine stripped down and rebuilt, and *that* original engine was made for FFXIII, a game that released in late 2009 and was probably in development for at least a few years before that. In some ways, this game is running on the reanimated corpse of a engine that's probably been around in some fashion since the mid 00s. If you were a game dev looking for work, does that sound like your first choice of a system you'd want to work on? Not I. Sometimes I stop and think it's a miracle this game even functions at all.

The even BIGGER issue is that they want them to speak Japanese.

There are lots of people who want to go into video game development graduating from college all the time, but SE is only looking at them from Japan, and in that respect they're competing with every other Japanese company.

I know exactly one(1) high level American programmer who speaks fluent Japanese, and he's bounced around a few studios but was ultimately snapped up by Sony. He does hardware level programming for them; he did a lot of work on the PS5 GPU. He said he would not have gotten hired for his first job with a tiny developer in Kyoto if he did not already speak fairly fluent Japanese when he interviewed.

[Red-thunder]

I know that's the rep SE has built for itself since at least FFVII, but given how far video game storytellling has advanced in the past decades (partly due to their own efforts), SE is quickly losing even that competitive advantage.

"Oh, we have really intricate cinematic cutscenes, and awesome music, and an interesting story."

Yeah... so does almost every other game studio now. Everything from gacha games, to looter shooters, to puzzle games. SE keeps resting on their "But we made Final Fantasy The Spirits Within and muh heckin Seven" laurels too much longer, the wider industry is going to surpass them. Arguably, it already has.

Oh I agree. But they'll probably not be the first to fall. If there's anyone who might actually fail in the near future that would be Ubisoft. Their time is probably up with Assassin's Creed, and if Shadows is a failure their company will probably have to be sold at a huge discount to Sony or something.

[Red-thunder]

The even BIGGER issue is that they want them to speak Japanese.

There are lots of people who want to go into video game development graduating from college all the time, but SE is only looking at them from Japan, and in that respect they're competing with every other Japanese company.

I know exactly one(1) high level American programmer who speaks fluent Japanese, and he's bounced around a few studios but was ultimately snapped up by Sony. He does hardware level programming for them; he did a lot of work on the PS5 GPU. He said he would not have gotten hired for his first job with a tiny developer in Kyoto if he did not already speak fairly fluent Japanese when he interviewed.

The American economy would probably have fallen into a Japanese-style stagnation were it not for immigration. Japan's lost decades and its lack of using immigration to try to correct that stagnation has led to the entire country's labor productivity being in stasis for 4 decades. I wouldn't be surprised if the language barrier is a huge contributor to the stagnation there.

[Zakuyia]

Just to weight in on this its funny how yoshi-p could have been unlocked armor as glam for all class. His excuse for not doing it. He hates seeing casters in plate armor. XD

[genuine_stranger]

I know that's the rep SE has built for itself since at least FFVII, but given how far video game storytellling has advanced in the past decades (partly due to their own efforts), SE is quickly losing even that competitive advantage.

"Oh, we have really intricate cinematic cutscenes, and awesome music, and an interesting story."

Yeah... so does almost every other game studio now. Everything from gacha games, to looter shooters, to puzzle games. SE keeps resting on their "But we made Final Fantasy The Spirits Within and muh heckin Seven" laurels too much longer, the wider industry is going to surpass them. Arguably, it already has.

Just to chime in on this. I'm playing through FF7R and in my honest opinion it's not a great game. It's enjoyable at times and looks pretty, but relies way too much on nostalgia and it's past glory. From what I've seen and heard, the more recent titles aren't that great either

SE has in my opinion stagnated / worked itself into the ground over the past decade and has a bunch of AA studios which try produce AAA-Titles that don't penetrate the market much beyond the established fanbase.

Which in of itself isn't bad, AA-titles are the birthplace of new IP's and franchises after all. The industry has far surpassed them long ago and I, and others too, would do well to temper our expectations from here on out.

[Red-thunder]

Just to chime in on this. I'm playing through FF7R and in my honest opinion it's not a great game. It's enjoyable at times and looks pretty, but relies way too much on nostalgia and it's past glory. From what I've seen and heard, the more recent titles aren't that great either

SE has in my opinion stagnated / worked itself into the ground over the past decade and has a bunch of AA studios which try produce AAA-Titles that don't penetrate the market much beyond the established fanbase.

Which in of itself isn't bad, AA-titles are the birthplace of new IP's and franchises after all. The industry has far surpassed them long ago and I, and others too, would do well to temper our expectations from here on out.

I thought the combat system in FF7R is not bad and has pretty good depth. The problem is they don't seem terribly interested in writing a good story and are more interested in padding out the playtime. It's filled to the brim with filler dungeons and the open world is one step away from Ubisoft spam. Rebirth is the epitome of tedium. Remake is probably even worse but at least it ended relatively faster.