Interview - Cost, Hiring, FT, Hardcore and Casual, Ultimate, Cosmic, Future of FFXIV

[CidHeiral]

A roadmap would interesting from a developer perspective but an absolutely terrible idea for the company given how everyone here treats the slightest mention of a development plan as a super best friend pinky promise. The truth is we need someone from the studio who knows how to filter design philosophy through PR speak.

It doesn't matter who is relaying the information, there will always be people in this community who twist the messenger's words to hear whatever they want to hear so they can complain.

[Mawlzy]

It doesn't matter who is relaying the information, there will always be people in this community who twist the messenger's words to hear whatever they want to hear so they can complain.

A lot more twisting can be carried out the vaguer the information is. Doubly so when we are told repeatedly that the released content deviated from the original design intent.

I have worked in managing content solicitation, QA, and release scheduling. It is frankly a rather dull, but highly predictable process. We worked with contractors rather than staff. Terms were negotiated with contractors that included a delivery date. Once that date was in place, we mapped QA including a buffer for revisions, time required to develop PR/social media assets, AV clean-up of video, editing associated text, and pushing live on site. Each phase had a due date.

Why does SE work in this bizarre fog of uncertainty, in which the release date of an Ultimate or housing modifications are these Bob Rossian fluffy clouds rather than a red circle on a calendar???

[Jeeqbit]

Why does SE work in this bizarre fog of uncertainty, in which the release date of an Ultimate or housing modifications are these Bob Rossian fluffy clouds rather than a red circle on a calendar???

The vast majority of what they produce is a red circle on a calendar, but Ultimates are extremely complex and the degree of setbacks for them are not predictable due to the difficulty of getting them just right and testing such difficult fights.

The house updates you're referring to aren't really content, but more of a technical thing they want to address. If it were just content such as new furniture, it would 100% be a red circle on a calendar.

They also outsource a lot, so the people they contract will likely have deadlines as well.

[Astronis]

A lot more twisting can be carried out the vaguer the information is. Doubly so when we are told repeatedly that the released content deviated from the original design intent.

I have worked in managing content solicitation, QA, and release scheduling. It is frankly a rather dull, but highly predictable process. We worked with contractors rather than staff. Terms were negotiated with contractors that included a delivery date. Once that date was in place, we mapped QA including a buffer for revisions, time required to develop PR/social media assets, AV clean-up of video, editing associated text, and pushing live on site. Each phase had a due date.

Why does SE work in this bizarre fog of uncertainty, in which the release date of an Ultimate or housing modifications are these Bob Rossian fluffy clouds rather than a red circle on a calendar???

I can damn well guarantee that SE is not remotely vague when they are working with their business partners and contractors. Those sorts are very, very different than Joe Shmoe Gamer who thinks "We are thinking about doing X but aren't sure" is an IRON-CLAD PROMISE THAT X WILL HAPPEN WHY DID YOU LIE TO US?!?!?!!?

[Mawlzy]

I can damn well guarantee that SE is not remotely vague when they are working with their business partners and contractors. Those sorts are very, very different than Joe Shmoe Gamer who thinks "We are thinking about doing X but aren't sure" is an IRON-CLAD PROMISE THAT X WILL HAPPEN WHY DID YOU LIE TO US?!?!?!!?

Yeah I recognize that, but why do you suppose that SE is not vague with business partners, but is continuously vague with their paying customers?

Feels to me like they respect one group but not the other. And that "we are considering..." is nothing more than soft soap to keep players subscribed.

I can't think of other serious companies that do this. Does a fast food chain announce: "we may start selling a BBQ chicken sandwich this September, or possibly next January, but we really aren't sure. Please look forward to it."?

It's insulting.

[brinn12]

I love the idea that senior developers will be able to communicate more clearly to a non-technical audience than someone with a decades worth of experience. You think Yoshi-P is a master of non-committal or confusing answers, just wait.

It doesn't take a genius to provide a better argument towards the outdated glamour system than what Yoshi-P told us. It doesn't take a mastermind to respect people asking for harder jobs and give a proper answer, rather than tell them to play content made for 5% of the playerbase. Experience and intention with words go hand in hand. And Square Enix doesn't need billions of dollars to hire a translator for the live letters, which would definitely help.

[Kranel_San]

With Yoshi P, I'd say believe in his actions and not his words. That's the nicest way to put it.

We need a man of action, not a man of PR

[zarahleo]

They have a team of 70+ people testing the game and they still manage to output occult crescent and forked tower like they did. Its time to start recruiting long term game veterans to do the testing or basically any fan of the game because it was obvious within a few hours of playing occult how boring and shallow it was.

These are all words, they mean nothing, just like everything said over the last few years. Eternal broken promises and you expect it to change. Only actions matter now, show me the change, until then I have zero faith. Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes, do not get your hopes up, do not give sympathy until you see proper change.

Stop buying from the cash shop, get rid of all your retainers but the ones you definitely need. I now spend nothing in the cash shop and my total sub cost is 65% less than it used to be. Force them to make change, speak with what motivates SE, money. If you can't unsub take it down to the bare minimum, if everyone does this, you will see how fast the game will change.

[Catwho]

Leaders doesn't always just mean project managers either. In software it can sometimes be the senior software developers that you have mentoring, training, and providing oversight on the junior software developers.

And I'm glad he addressed the "more people means more production" because that's not just not universally true. More people can lead to less production. You might have to retask senior employees to bring junior employees up to speed, so you lose production until the point they can work independently. Or if you bring in new management, you might create more management levels that can blockade things getting done. My company follows the Lean philosophy and while sometimes new headcount is the answer, sometimes it's also a change in processes. And we try to fully understand what the effect of a new person is going to be on all elements of the process before we arrive at that conclusion.

Good old Brooks Law. "Adding more people to an already late project just means it's going to become even later."

[Catwho]

Regarding their anti-macro stance with CE: I wrote up an outline for my fellow crafters who struggled with the Cosmic Exploration A-1 crafts I called "Rethinking macros" that was taking some of the actually repeatable actions in older macro crafting, breaking the macros apart, and then building a modular recipe for each of the new CE challenges. I was able to finish out my CE weapons that way (well, I would have, if I didn't get distracted with my alts on Goblin server.)