Predictions for OC/FT Live Letter

[CidHeiral]

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.

Cost doesn't only mean money. Development costs also include time and other resources. It could very well be that it wasn't in the monetary budget for that patch, or it could be that they were spread too thin between OC, CE, the graphical update, and other things, and they just weren't able to get it done this time. It's unfortunate but every team has limited time and resources no matter how big it is. He probably shouldn't have said anything since the average person obviously hasn't spent any time in that sort of environment and isn't going to understand what he's saying.

[Alahard]

Cost doesn't only mean money. Development costs also include time and other resources. It could very well be that it wasn't in the monetary budget for that patch, or it could be that they were spread too thin between OC, CE, the graphical update, and other things, and they just weren't able to get it done this time. It's unfortunate but every team has limited time and resources no matter how big it is. He probably shouldn't have said anything since the average person obviously hasn't spent any time in that sort of environment and isn't going to understand what he's saying.

I mean we know that a lot of complexity comes up and cost can mean anything.

But the issue is at the end of the day when you tell a large chunk of your playerbase, who has paid for the expansion, and the subscription, and has not received any meaningful content since expansion launch, loved bodjza , was hyped out around it, just to be told that they were forgotten about, and that they were not given what the team had already did last time, and the raiders, who have gotten 2 raid tiers, an ultimate, and a 24 man chaotic practically every couple of months, were chosen instead of them, because "it cost too much" is just a slap in the face. Full stop.

Like, what are the casual playerbase paying for if the devs showed that they will never be prioritized when the chips are down.

[CidHeiral]

But the issue is at the end of the day when you tell a large chunk of your playerbase, who has paid for the expansion, and the subscription, and has not received any meaningful content since expansion launch, loved bodjza , was hyped out around it, just to be told that they were forgotten about, and that they were not given what the team had already did last time, and the raiders, who have gotten 2 raid tiers, an ultimate, and a 24 man chaotic practically every couple of months, were chosen instead of them, because "it cost too much" is just a slap in the face. Full stop.

Like, what are the casual playerbase paying for if the devs showed that they will never be prioritized when the chips are down.

If you compare the amount of difficult raids to every other type of content dropping it's clear that casual players are still getting the lion's share of content. Could the more substantive casual content have come out sooner in the expansion cycle? Sure, I think that would have been a better decision than frontloading all the raid content, but ultimately the majority of content in this game is still casual content. Saying you're getting "slapped in the face" because you ate most of the pie but someone else got the last slice seems a bit silly. Plus they just said they're going to try to prioritize a normal mode for the next one so it's a bit of a moot point either way.

[Volgia]

If you compare the amount of difficult raids to every other type of content dropping it's clear that casual players are still getting the lion's share of content. Could the more substantive casual content have come out sooner in the expansion cycle? Sure, I think that would have been a better decision than frontloading all the raid content, but ultimately the majority of content in this game is still casual content. Saying you're getting "slapped in the face" because you ate most of the pie but someone else got the last slice seems a bit silly. Plus they just said they're going to try to prioritize a normal mode for the next one so it's a bit of a moot point either way.

I think what they do is look at the raiding content and are angry that it lasts a bit longer than say, a 24-man Alliance Raid. They don't understand that for every version of savage and extremes they also get normal versions. The only exclusive thing "hardcore raiders" have is Ultimate, Chaotic and maybe DR/BA/FT. That's it.

[ovIm]

Cost doesn't only mean money. Development costs also include time and other resources. It could very well be that it wasn't in the monetary budget for that patch, or it could be that they were spread too thin between OC, CE, the graphical update, and other things, and they just weren't able to get it done this time. It's unfortunate but every team has limited time and resources no matter how big it is. He probably shouldn't have said anything since the average person obviously hasn't spent any time in that sort of environment and isn't going to understand what he's saying.

I understand that cost also means development cost and not just funds, and I have said so a few posts down the line as well.
(Related, which I also wrote later - why is there no official translation during the PLL's when everything is pre-determined anyway? We should not have to rely on fan translations done out of goodwill.)

That also does not change the message here though. Yoshi-P can't say that he does not have enough people to work on the game when parts of CS3 were being pulled of to develop the Tactics Remaster, and what ever other project they have going on.
He rightfully understood, of course, that this is not a reason customers care about. Nor should we, really.

Yes, its important that a company diversifies their portfolio and has more than one revenue stream. However, Square Enix is compromised of many teams. Instead of letting CS3 keep working on their load bearing pillar and letting other teams handle other games, CS3 are made to do all kinds of other projects as well.