FF14 player count reached the lowest point in 4 years. We lost 75% of the playerbase.

[Crafoutis]

For me the DT story went over like a wet fart in an elevator, which was only made worse by the fact that I loved SB->EW so much.

I can completely understand players getting tonal whiplash from such great characters and writing in EW, only to be served up Wuk Lamat and the Series of Irrational Decisions.

[Hyperia]

For me the DT story went over like a wet fart in an elevator, which was only made worse by the fact that I loved SB->EW so much.

I can completely understand players getting tonal whiplash from such great characters and writing in EW, only to be served up Wuk Lamat and the Series of Irrational Decisions.

It didn’t help that the story devs for DT were essentially a new team and we got a preview of their work in 6.1 to 6.5. I was worried but I stuck it out, my fears were proved correct when DT hit and it looks like SE may have pulled some of their vets back to the game late in the 7.x patches to try and right the ship.

Sadly, the damage is done and we lost a lot of players permanently or at the very least, until they see reviews of the game, not from 8.0 but more like 8.3. Many I know want to see a long term trend before they spend money again. I’m expecting preorders for 8.0 to be much lower than past expansions, probably close to ShB.

[Daralii]

It didn’t help that the story devs for DT were essentially a new team and we got a preview of their work in 6.1 to 6.5. I was worried but I stuck it out, my fears were proved correct when DT hit and it looks like SE may have pulled some of their vets back to the game late in the 7.x patches to try and right the ship.

Sadly, the damage is done and we lost a lot of players permanently or at the very least, until they see reviews of the game, not from 8.0 but more like 8.3. Many I know want to see a long term trend before they spend money again. I’m expecting preorders for 8.0 to be much lower than past expansions, probably close to ShB.

They were new to the role, but they were hardly new to writing in XIV. The lead had been doing side stories since 3.0, worked on MSQ patches in SB, and was Matsuno's right hand for all the Ivalice content.

[0blivion]

They were new to the role, but they were hardly new to writing in XIV. The lead had been doing side stories since 3.0, worked on MSQ patches in SB, and was Matsuno's right hand for all the Ivalice content.

Here's the thing though. Ivalice sucked, SB has the same story issues that DT has and 6.1-6.5 patches were a trainwreck.

[Larirawiel]

Big layoffs at Square Enix:
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/mas...ebugging-soon/

It seems, that they get rid of non japanese teams.

Cheers

[Selsix]

Big layoffs at Square Enix:
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/mas...ebugging-soon/

It seems, that they get rid of non japanese teams.

Cheers

While I don't like the idea of AI handling the lion's share of QA and debug work, I am a fan of them moving development back to Japan. Time will tell how well this plays out for us I suppose.

[CNitsah]

While I don't like the idea of AI handling the lion's share of QA and debug work, I am a fan of them moving development back to Japan. Time will tell how well this plays out for us I suppose.

I hope that does not affect the localization teams. Especially with XIV. French version has been a banger since day one (except for Haurchefant in ARR. I don't want them to change the localization team and localization for other language to be done in Japan.

Also, I feel like you guys put too much importance into the game becoming too easy and the writing.
Game has always been pretty easy for most of of its content. This is not a problem. Between 70 and 90% (depending of the regio of hte world) never touch high difficulty, and thing like eureka and bozja are not that difficult to begin with.
For the matter of the writing, it sure is important, but if the writing had been what it is BUT the game would have kept us entertained, we would have gone "yeah, story is dogshit, I hope they will do better next time" MSQ is only a small fragment of the time we spend ingame. That's not what keeps us ingame for month.

No to me, the real problem is that for 4 freaking years, they chose to add nothing with shelf live. In a freaking mmo, It's now that they began to add some again that bleed seem to begin to stop. But that content with shelf live is worst than the previous iteration. They still chose to do relics as tome weapon with one farm at the beginning. OC failed in nearly everything it tries to do (if you want to see my opinion on that, you can go there : https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-wrong-with-OC). Sure Pilgrim traverse did some things right, but it's too little too late. The promise of a mmo is to be a forever alive game : if there is nothing to do in your game, it's dead. FFXIV always has been a game that doesn't push you to spend a lot of time in it, but it did give the possibility to do that when they wanted. That's what they removed with EW patches.