Predictions for OC/FT Live Letter

[Infindox]

Hmm... I'm happy that there's *some* preformed party thing available for FT, but by the time it's implemented, it'll be considered "old content" and just end up being a Discord sort of affair again.

I really hate that these LLs are left to unofficial translations. The account I follow will say one thing, another translation says another. I don't expect them to translate everything, but this section was important enough I think to do so.

[LaylaTsarra]

Castrum was fun they basically forked out the casual crowd and catered to the Savage one and that isn't very smart in my opinion. No excuse for it my view.

Castrum, DR and Dalraidia were all fun and engaging for everyone. The DRS was placed where it should have been at the end of the relic cycle as was BA.

[Valence]

What I find absolutely crazy to hear to is them starting up the stream by saying that the devs took up on them to make decisions on their own before checking up with Yoshida if it was good, and as someone that worked in the dev industry I'm like, what? Isn't that normal behavior? Isn't that what your lead devs are supposed to be doing? And the assistant producers to keep track of little things? And only then the creative director and art director to get the final word on it?

What are their leads doing? Can't they think for themselves?

I am quite shocked that the reason for a lack of "Normal Mode" Forked Tower was, according to unofficial translations, that it would have cost too much.
This game a load bearing pillar for Square Enix.

What I find even more baffling is that they'd prioritize the challenging version over the version for everybody if that was the case.

Development cost, not money. Money isn't a problem. What that means is if they have 10 developers, they assign 3 to Cosmic, 1 to FT, 3 to OC, 3 to extreme and savage - they didn't assign one to a "normal" version.

So next time it'll be solved not due to more money necessarily (considering they are actively hiring), but due to planning the development roadmap better, basically.

So if we posit that money isn't the problem, why aren't they recruiting appropriately to alleviate development times?

[Aniise]

Reminder that the idea of "cost" isn't especially about money, it's mostly about time.

Yes, maybe. But even if this is true, the same question remains.
Why would you put your limited resources in content, the majority of the player base will never set a foot in?

It's still just as weird. It still doesn't make sense, no matter which resource they fall short on. Be it money, time or employees.

[Sekundessounet]

Yes, maybe. But even if this is true, the same question remains.
Why would you put your limited resources in content, the majority of the player base will never set a foot in?

It's still just as weird. It still doesn't make sense, no matter which resource they fall short on. Be it money, time or employees.

Same reason we have Ultimate : Hard content creates publicity and community effervescence, be it because of organizing stuff or just following along. When Bozja came out at first, people complained about the lack of hard content à la Baldesion. And that Castrum was a snoozefest.
So it feels reasonable for them to have the whole zone and CE for casual enjoyment, and Forked Tower for more hardcore people.
The best solution is a normal and savage mode of course, but choosing between the two, I suppose it made more sense to give player a hardcore part for the island exploration.

[Jeeqbit]

So if we posit that money isn't the problem, why aren't they recruiting appropriately to alleviate development times?

I see battle design and story jobs going pretty often. Even if they do bring them in they may need to give them the specifice experience working there and with their tools. I don't know if they find recruiting easy or hard there either.

[Sekundessounet]

I see battle design and story jobs going pretty often. Even if they do bring them in they may need to give them the specifice experience working there and with their tools. I don't know if they find recruiting easy or hard there either.

They talked about it a lot in recent years, they have trouble recruiting because they need their devs to speak fluent Japanese, and yeah there's teaching for a while. And no amount of money is gonna help if the devs aren't applying.

[Saraide]

We're getting bogged down in an argument about what that "cost" means but I think we are just arguing semantics here. Wether it's dev time or money, they are lacking the resources to deliver what people are expecting and are cutting corners on basically everything instead. IIRC FF14 is pretty important to SE overall so this lack of support just feels really odd. The problem in cases like this is generally upper management, even inexperienced workers can be directed to do great things but the top needs to know exactly what they're doing and right now this doesnt really feel like it's the case.

[Valence]

They talked about it a lot in recent years, they have trouble recruiting because they need their devs to speak fluent Japanese, and yeah there's teaching for a while. And no amount of money is gonna help if the devs aren't applying.

That's the weirdest argument I've ever heard. Having a really hard time accepting that Japan somehow lacks talents willing to make working in video gaming their dream, that's just crazy talk. In a country of over 120M people? For real?

[Sekundessounet]

That's the weirdest argument I've ever heard. Having a really hard time accepting that Japan somehow lacks talents willing to make working in video gaming their dream, that's just crazy talk. In a country of over 120M people? For real?

I'm not saying that the country lacks in devs, it lacks in devs willing to apply. That's an HR issue that goes beyond CBU3.