Face it, this game is in maintenance mode now, i.e. managed decline

[Jeeqbit]

I don't think it's intention.

It's clearly not their intention. It's just happening anyway because their decisions (or execution of said decisions) are leading people to be unhappy.

For example:

• Many people are unhappy with the job design since prior to 7.0, yet addressing it has been put off until 8.0.
• The focus is almost entirely on the next patch, leaving almost everything else ignored and forgotten, except highly specific things such as the graphics update or dungeon revamps, while the mobile version routinely improves past content and quality of life issues across the board. Yet, a lot of complaints pertain to past systems that have been abandoned and not improved, ever.
• When issues are addressed it's often not sufficient ie. account privacy, housing.
• Content is formulaic and scripted, so a lot of people do it once and then feel there is no content left, as opposed to it being different (and fun) every time like PvP. Most systems aren't made to create dynamic experiences, so people get bored of repeating the exact same thing. This is not just the case with battles, but also things like Island Sanctuary. What past MMORPGs excelled at was creating dynamic experiences.
• Even casual players like dynamic systems and PvP in any MMORPG is an easy example of that.

Hopefully the decline will help them realise that maybe the continued success of their flagship product is something worth investing in.

Yoshi-P actually just said at the Anime Expo "even if we were to double our number of developers, I don't think we'd necessarily be able to double our output while trying to maintain the same level of quality."

[Volgia]

I don't think it's intention. I think corporate SE's point of view was that FFXIV is doing well, therefore CBU3 doesn't need a lot of resources, while the offline and mobile games divisions are underperforming, therefore they need a bunch of money pumped into them.

Hopefully the decline will help them realise that maybe the continued success of their flagship product is something worth investing in.

They have invested in it, with the massive graphical overhaul, with making everything soloable with trusts, that must not have been cheap...

I'm not sure I buy that they're using the revenue money from subs and sales of FFXIV to reinvest in other projects. I'm not an economist but from what I understand big investment require outside funding (FF16 and FF7R had an exclusivity deal with Sony precisely because of this) and FFXIV isn't gonna bring them massive revenue to justify that, even if you brought everyone back and made every single lil' warrior of light happy. It's their projected profit thing that ends up being the problem (to this and any gaming company), there's just not enough MMO players to satisfy their insane greed.

I remember on FF7Remake and Rebirth sold out, but it didn't meet Square Enix sales expectations, despite it being PS5-Only and at that point they were just angry people didn't buy the game 3 times to meet the expectations.

[Kaurhz]

Forspoken is unironically better than this expansion tbh.

[brinn12]

You've misunderstood something. There is a 19 week gap between patches, but that is not the case between the 7.5 and 8.0. The gap between that is actually 8 months, because 7.5 is split into two halves so they have more time to work on the expansion. This has been the case prior to both Endwalker and Dawntrail, where the gap was increased from 5 months to 8 months.

• 7.4 23rd December 2025 (19 weeks)
• 7.5 5th May 2026 (19 weeks)
• 7.55 18th August 2026 (15 weeks)
• 8.0 2nd February 2027 (24 weeks)

Although there are normally 19-20 weeks between patches, it's a bit different for 7.55 and 8.0, but if you move the 4 over to the 15 weeks you get the same overall result.

Now, maybe they will try to put in a lot of effort and make it sooner than that. But how sooner? They might manage November 2026 again like they did with Endwalker. But to get it out in August 2026 would be some sort of big demonstration of how many more people they have employed to work on FFXIV.

Just a small correction here. 5.0 patch notes released 24 months after 4.0. Releasing 8.0 in November 2026 is not putting in "a lot of effort". It's putting in no effort at all, considering they've managed to do it in late June before, following the same timeline.

[Carin-Eri]

I don't think it's intention. I think corporate SE's point of view was that FFXIV is doing well, therefore CBU3 doesn't need a lot of resources, while the offline and mobile games divisions are underperforming, therefore they need a bunch of money pumped into them.

Hopefully the decline will help them realise that maybe the continued success of their flagship product is something worth investing in.

Doubtful, as things stand.

Apologies if you've already seen this, but this was Square Enix President Kiryu's take on the situation, when asked to address it at the very recent shareholder's meeting:


I can't help but find this response laughable; it basically amounts to "We're aware of this problem but the experience that our overworked FFXIV producer is gaining through working on games that are not FFXIV will make everything better for FFXIV".
Completely tone-deaf.

[0blivion]

snip

I don't disagree, but I feel the need to post SE's "clarification", because it's hilarious.



src: https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/i...rsmeeting.html

lol

[AlucaDragonheart]

I can't help but find this response laughable; it basically amounts to "We're aware of this problem but the experience that our overworked FFXIV producer is gaining through working on games that are not FFXIV will make everything better for FFXIV".
Completely tone-deaf.

The funny thing is, that he actually brought his experience with FF14 over to other games too (FF16), because that game suffers from the same thing this one does, terrible pacing, samey combat, and a huge but barren world with not much to do or interact with.

[Jeeqbit]

Just a small correction here. 5.0 patch notes released 24 months after 4.0. Releasing 8.0 in November 2026 is not putting in "a lot of effort". It's putting in no effort at all, considering they've managed to do it in late June before, following the same timeline.

You're ignoring some important context here. They increased the timeframe of each of the major patches. So to release it after 24 months would require releasing it a lot sooner after 7.5 than they normally release a major patch even. The timeframe between final patch and expansion has generally always been longer than the timeframe between major patches, about 5 months until they increased it for Endwalker release.

I think you may underestimate how much they were actually pushing themselves to meet the 24 month timeframe as well, and the intent of it taking longer is to increase breaks, reduce burnout, and increase producitvity and consider the health of employees. This was likely also the case for major patches due to them having a wider variety of content types than they used to.

I remember they said how meeting one of the deadlines was going to be really tough and I think it must have been prior to Shadowbringers they said that, but they were going to do it anyway and crunch hard to keep it in summer. Then they flat out couldn't with Endwalker due to delayed contracts, remote working issues, etc. No doubt it was comfortable having more time so they seemed to stick with it.

So if they released it in November, that would be about 6 months after 7.5, similar to their previous timeframe of 5 months afer the .5 patch.

[bic12]

I think you may underestimate how much they were actually pushing themselves to meet the 24 month timeframe as well, and the intent of it taking longer is to increase breaks, reduce burnout, and increase producitvity and consider the health of employees. This was likely also the case for major patches due to them having a wider variety of content types than they used to.

I remember they said how meeting one of the deadlines was going to be really tough and I think it must have been prior to Shadowbringers they said that, but they were going to do it anyway and crunch hard to keep it in summer. Then they flat out couldn't with Endwalker due to delayed contracts, remote working issues, etc. No doubt it was comfortable having more time so they seemed to stick with it.

So if they released it in November, that would be about 6 months after 7.5, similar to their previous timeframe of 5 months afer the .5 patch.

You don't get As just for putting in your best. Results matter.

I don't blame the devs though. It's a management problem. Their workflow is obviously just pure garbage. They literally still use Excel for everything.

[CapaxInfiniti]

The funny thing is, that he actually brought his experience with FF14 over to other games too (FF16), because that game suffers from the same thing this one does, terrible pacing, samey combat, and a huge but barren world with not much to do or interact with.

I like how so many people ignore this.
The problem with this game is very clear to see when you look at the other game also made by the same person and it suffers the same problems.

Almost like both of them have something in common....