Opinion: The Development Team should revert to Q&A for Livestreams

[HyperiusUltima]

Part of me wants to blame Square Enix, since I'm pretty sure all this is through the company and Yoshida's acting within the lines somewhat. The fact that they're stretching out their team too far is a problem since it's usually better to have a good team stick together rather than have them spread out since they know each very well. What's more, they probably have very good ideas since they were the first people to work on the game. Bringing in new ideas isn't anything new though, but I don't really like how they're advertising all this merch and what-not every livestream.

Heck, it almost makes the FF16 Allegations sound true in this regard when the team is stretched on so many different projects to the point XIV, their cash cow, suffers for it.

If anything they should probably stop the merch lines and start working on improving the game itself since it's ridiculous otherwise to try and sell merch when the game is doing so badly as it is.

[Jeeqbit]

The fact that they're stretching out their team too far is a problem since it's usually better to have a good team stick together rather than have them spread out since they know each very well.

There are a range of factors there. They want to allow them to do other roles to avoid burnout. Sometimes this could be something as drastic as being completely reassigned to other departments like FF7R or just as simple as a different role within FF14 development or CBU3.

One thing I am sure of is that when CBU3 are specifically working on multiple projects, they still are "together" as in they can talk and oversee what eachother are doing. Some of the ones working on other projects are credited as Supervisors of FF14 or vice versa and that would be challenging if they had no contact.

What's more, they probably have very good ideas since they were the first people to work on the game.

Arguably, new people are the ones more likely to have fresh ideas. That's probably why some of the most successful TV shows cycled writers every episode, and is likely why FF14 attempted the same with Dawntrail. Occasionally there is an episode that isn't so good, but in the grand scheme of things, the varied writers allow each one to come with at least 6 months of built up ideas if not years.

I don't really like how they're advertising all this merch and what-not every livestream.

If you had a brand and people approached you wanting to use your brand to make money in exchange for a cut, wouldn't you agree to it? According to Yoshi-P, a lot of people who play FFXIV have risen through the ranks of various companies and want to use the FFXIV branding on their products. I think a good example is things like custom mouses and keyboards, or dresses. I really doubt SE went out of their way to get that sort of stuff produced. But a dress company could conceivably try to contact popular brands to create limited edition events to get loads of sales. Even crossovers like Fall Guys stemmed from them contacting SE, not the other way around.

Outside of Japan at least, the ones going round trying to do merch collabs will be the many merch and marketing hires I saw over the years on their recruitment page. But I always feel like what they are mostly doing is the collabs with regional shops in exchange for recolored mounts.

In terms of making merch on the SE store, I have to point out that FFXIV players are profiting off FFXIV handmade merch on Etsy like crazy. It's only fair for SE to make a tiny, miniscule percentage of that profit themselves from the SE store merch, which is very likely just a drop in the ocean of what players are making collectively through their own art and merch that they have no permission for.

If anything they should probably stop the merch lines and start working on improving the game itself since it's ridiculous otherwise to try and sell merch when the game is doing so badly as it is.

I don't understand this logic at all. The people handling this are not the developers. They are merch and marketing teams, mostly located oversees from Japan, in NA and EU countries. And almost certainly they outsource the creation of that merch to companies with the expertise to actually make it.

It stands to reason that if you want better development it isn't going to be hurt by it getting more revenue from sources like this.

[HyperiusUltima]

*snip*

Why's the money going to other games then? If we buy XIV Merch off their store, it should benefit XIV. However, this has been proven to NOT be the case since SE wants to use XIV to make other games when it is currently failing. This is what caused Destiny 2 to fail - cannibalizing budget from the mainline because it already was a huge success, and eventually drawing it out to the point of failure. This is how live services die.

I'd say they can continue the merch lines otherwise if that branding would actually provide the team budget for XIV, but as long as it continues to do so with other games, they can cut it off and focus on using that money for things that are more important. As for the people who make XIV merch on Etsy...that's fan-made and isn't under SE's control - an entirely different market compared to what the XIV Store provides, so I don't know why that was mentioned here.

In regards to new people having fresh ideas, they haven't panned out for now what it is the length on an expansion if we're counting post-patch Endwalker, which was where the writing began to fall off. Cycling writers is not bad, but when you have the same writing quality going through from then to now, it's bad bad. It's a surprise they haven't added anyone to the Combat Team in recent years since Jobs have been altered by the same people who are juggling 23 different jobs - and it's important they get more people to handle it so the work load isn't so heavy. It'd improve quality of life as well across the board if they can get more on that team for Combat if we're talking about injecting fresh ideas.

[Jeeqbit]

Why's the money going to other games then? If we buy XIV Merch off their store, it should benefit XIV. However, this has been proven to NOT be the case since SE wants to use XIV to make other games when it is currently failing. This is what caused Destiny 2 to fail - cannibalizing budget from the mainline because it already was a huge success, and eventually drawing it out to the point of failure. This is how live services die.

I'd say they can continue the merch lines otherwise if that branding would actually provide the team budget for XIV, but as long as it continues to do so with other games, they can cut it off and focus on using that money for things that are more important. As for the people who make XIV merch on Etsy...that's fan-made and isn't under SE's control - an entirely different market compared to what the XIV Store provides, so I don't know why that was mentioned here.

I'm not commenting on whether that money should or should not go to FFXIV. I'm just saying there's no harm in it because at worst, it has no effect on development and at best it funds it.

Another factor is that players seem to want it, otherwise they wouldn't buy it, would they? I mean, I don't buy any of it, but clearly there are players that want to buy that stuff or they wouldn't bother. So can we say that they "shouldn't" do this when there are people - possibly even who visit this forum - who have bought some of that stuff? Can we say they are wrong because they like plush or want to visit Eorzea Cafe while in Japan? I wouldn't do these things but I respect that not everyone is like me.

It's a surprise they haven't added anyone to the Combat Team in recent years since Jobs have been altered by the same people who are juggling 23 different jobs - and it's important they get more people to handle it so the work load isn't so heavy.

I tried doing the maths for that and when you consider they have 2 and a half years for those 23 different jobs, you realize that is a lot of time. Also, a lot of people praised PvP job design. I don't know if that's a different team? It might not even be.

You don't put guys who have written nurse-dating visual novels in charge of a storybased MMO MSQ just for the sake of "cycling writers".

I would have to assume they didn't see their work history the same way, because as you said there's no way you'd throw someone in charge of a very prestigious story when you're not reasonably convinced that their previous work is good.

What they think in retrospect I don't know, because there are a lot of other factors that could have affected the story in significant ways, such as initial plot being made into a storyboard and into a playscript (for the acting/scenes to base off), presentation and localization.

This isn't a sitcom Jeeqbit, nor an episodic tv show.

It's not episodic but to a certain extent that could be sort of the new approach on a patch and expansion basis when you consider Endwalker patches being a self-contained story that's been essentially forgotten already. Sure it made use of existing lore but episodic shows do that. Maybe all this was an attempt to try out making it more episodic that clearly hasn't worked out (I'm sure they are aware it hasn't).

I can honestly just pray that they learned their lesson with this for 8.0.

Hopefully. I feel like they have to have got the message on it by now if they are going to, so we'll see.

I was already worried when they were talking about their own "system" where they can check their own story / lore if they forget something.

I don't actually blame them for that because sometimes people who wrote quests or lore will simply have left the company or retired.

It's also possible they just forgot. I've done all the sidequests on release and I try to imagine talking as these characters, and it's honestly difficult to remember the voice and flow of these characters 10 years later - sometimes I have to open the quest journal and re-read the quest summaries or watch the cutscenes again. It makes sense that they'd have to do the same when revisiting a job quest NPC from 10 years ago, for example, so they can talk like a pirate or a scholar again and suit back into that character's frame of mind. I've seen actors that have to do that sort of thing when resuming roles too.

[Mawlzy]

You don't put guys who have written nurse-dating visual novels in charge of a storybased MMO MSQ just for the sake of "cycling writers".

I would have to assume they didn't see their work history the same way, because as you said there's no way you'd throw someone in charge of a very prestigious story when you're not reasonably convinced that their previous work is good.

I think the issue here is that the previous work may have been the most dazzling nurse-dating visual novel ever to find its way onto the screens of... er... people who like that sort of thing, but it's hardly the expertise one would seek out for FFXIV.

Unless they had some plans for Y'shtola that subsequently got sidelined.

[Valence]

There are a range of factors there. They want to allow them to do other roles to avoid burnout. Sometimes this could be something as drastic as being completely reassigned to other departments like FF7R or just as simple as a different role within FF14 development or CBU3.

One thing I am sure of is that when CBU3 are specifically working on multiple projects, they still are "together" as in they can talk and oversee what eachother are doing. Some of the ones working on other projects are credited as Supervisors of FF14 or vice versa and that would be challenging if they had no contact.

Considering some of their interviews, if just going by Soken's, they seem to literally crawl under work. Not only doesn't he have any time for anything, but even the way he talked about his team suddenly being able to just play one single game once the latest patch was delivered because they couldn't before was so full of red flags to me about some serious heavy crunch. I don't know how this company can not only under deliver in terms of content, but also literally overwork their employees.

Also I have worked on multi projects a couple of times and all I'll say is that it generally feels terrible. You're being moved back and forth between multiple projects which means you get interrupted all the time into focusing over something you care for just to go work on something that was the last thing on your mind, for weeks or months, then tossed back where you were left except half of it has been picked up by other teams.

Believe when I tell you: it feels like a gigantic waste of time, it's unproductive, and it sucks.

[Jeeqbit]

going by Soken's, they seem to literally crawl under work. Not only doesn't he have any time for anything

I can understand that about Soken since he was the one person that had to make music for multiple games and felt overworked. Due to his fame, it would be hard to imagine getting someone else to do it, although he was certainly training people to do his quality of work in Shadowbringers, because he talked about how they made Eden's second tier themes, and that was before we knew what he was actually going through at that time.

the way he talked about his team suddenly being able to just play one single game once the latest patch was delivered because they couldn't before was so full of red flags to me about some serious heavy crunch.

I guess they could split work enough to not be busy, but sometimes there is something about one person just doing a task with a consistent focus and vision. At least that can consume a lot of time for me if I get caught up in making something, in addition to just eating and sleeping.

You're being moved back and forth between multiple projects which means you get interrupted all the time into focusing over something you care for just to go work on something that was the last thing on your mind, for weeks or months, then tossed back where you were left except half of it has been picked up by other teams.

That would of course not be fun. Hopefully they do it because they want to. They do have a column on their applications to say if you want to work only on a specific game, and have the option to be reassigned if you're burned out. That said, if they have a project and none of their employees care for it, they might have no choice but to force some of them to work on it ie. destined to fail mobile games.

[NanaWiloh]

Part of me wants to blame Square Enix, since I'm pretty sure all this is through the company and Yoshida's acting within the lines somewhat. The fact that they're stretching out their team too far is a problem since it's usually better to have a good team stick together rather than have them spread out since they know each very well. What's more, they probably have very good ideas since they were the first people to work on the game. Bringing in new ideas isn't anything new though, but I don't really like how they're advertising all this merch and what-not every livestream.

Heck, it almost makes the FF16 Allegations sound true in this regard when the team is stretched on so many different projects to the point XIV, their cash cow, suffers for it.

If anything they should probably stop the merch lines and start working on improving the game itself since it's ridiculous otherwise to try and sell merch when the game is doing so badly as it is.

SE has been doing the crap of pulling developers off one project and putting them else where since FF13. They don't seem too care how much the act hinders a project so long as the project the team was moved too gets done. FF15(FF13 VS) and KH3 were all victims of SE moving developers around to other projects. SE wont give Yoshi the money and man power he needs to work on 14 and develop other games without having one be hindered. In my opinion feels like SE wants their Development teams to suffer as much as possible..