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

[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.

[Valence]

What people are also missing is what's currently going with labor laws in Japan under Sanae. They're rolling backward the work time regulations and asking people to "work more and put more effort until they can heavily invest in automation in order to cover for the crippling manpower shortage and aging population". And what happens when you can exploit work your workforce for longer amounts, you by extension need less of them, and therefore may end up with layoffs as a result.

Now that mostly concerns the construction/transportation/critical services fields usually covered by immigration, which has been a rising political wedge issue in Japan especially with the current reactionary voices in the government, so perhaps it's going to affect video games a lot less, especially when those aren't exactly known for their work conditions when it comes to crunch work hours, but still. What are you going to choose between an expensive western work force that can only work 40 and an expensive jp work force that can now work way over that amount? Even though their per hour productivity is bottom of the barrel?

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.

Interesting. I find the french loc to be abysmal. I have a serious problem with how they translate almost everything, and everything reads like cringe to me. And let's not speak about the translation of job abilities. Ugh.

[CNitsah]

Interesting. I find the french loc to be abysmal. I have a serious problem with how they translate almost everything, and everything reads like cringe to me. And let's not speak about the translation of job abilities. Ugh.

Yeah it's true when I said that, I mostly thinking about the narrative side (voice acting and translation). Honestly, if you think THAT is abysmal, go take a look at the english version. But I know bashing the french version is a very popular sport with french talking people. They often don't realise how good their dubbing industry is because they remember the underfunded dubbing they saw as kids, and tend to idealise english and japanese versions because they don't have a native lvl (or any lvl at all), thus being far more lenient with those.

[Valence]

I rather have cringe dialogue (also jrpg by nature can be cringe tbh, so...) than having a localization team that has Main Character syndrome and changing things, or their obsession with "Ooo we make the character said the Thing *pog face*"

I guess it's a matter of preferences. I have my own problems with the EN version, but I can't play with something that reads cringe, it just puts me off completely and pulls me out of the immersion/story instantly, so I'll take the other drawbacks over this one out of necessity.

Yeah it's true when I said that, I mostly thinking about the narrative side (voice acting and translation). Honestly, if you think THAT is abysmal, go take a look at the english version. But I know bashing the french version is a very popular sport with french talking people. They often don't realise how good their dubbing industry is because they remember the underfunded dubbing they saw as kids, and tend to idealise english and japanese versions because they don't have a native lvl (or any lvl at all), thus being far more lenient with those.

Ok, now you're assuming a lot of things about me. I'm not some random pleb that goes through something in english subbed in french while I can't even understand the english. Yeah you bet to those people the foreign language is never gonna sound cringe if they lack the familiarity with it.
To me the french loc reads exactly like it's been translated by teens/kids. Not the EN one, and I do have my problems with the old dusty book tone, but at least it's mostly well written, if just dull and lacking of personality at times because that unfortunate choice.

Either way, if you like it, all the more power to you!

[Daralii]

I guess it's a matter of preferences. I have my own problems with the EN version, but I can't play with something that reads cringe, it just puts me off completely and pulls me out of the immersion/story instantly, so I'll take the other drawbacks over this one out of necessity.

That's a universal part of the DT experience. It's juvenile, completely devoid of substance or flavor, is banking entirely on references to previous expansions and games, and it goes back to what the people at CS3 wrote and approved of.