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

[Supersnow845]

Are we seriously discussing the trans lady beach scene being changed to a conspiracy theorist in P3 reload

Are people really going to stake their flag on that of all things

[Shipp]

Are we seriously discussing the trans lady beach scene being changed to a conspiracy theorist in P3 reload

Are people really going to stake their flag on that of all things

That and Atlus changing the super homophobic stereotype of lecherous pervs assaulting Ryuji for P5 Royal.

How dare Atlus and SE
*checks notes*
Not offend LGBT folks. Stupid westernized ideals! *shakes cane at clouds*
/s

[Azurarok]

The JP playerbase are the people happiest with the overall balance of the game right now, not sure how that’s western audiences fault

Think people who felt abandoned are more likely to just silently quit over there, which creates an echo chamber that I'd argue is worse than over here.

[Drimn]

I don’t know. Let’s take a look at our feedback contributions

1. We kept complaining the game was too hard until it became too boring to bother playing.
2. We kept forcing them to focus on current social issues the west is mostly interested in instead of writing engaging stories and good gameplay.
3. And finally, when they did all the things the west wanted them to they all ditched them game because it was ruined.

Just about the only positive thing we contributed to this game was asking to keep the graphics and UI fresh so it doesn’t stagnate as Japan is reluctant to changing games that are already established. (XI suffered this fate). And to this day there are people complaining about it.

I don’t know, I think they have a point going back to a close knit development environment. Only time will tell, but we didn’t exactly improve their company.

Relying too heavily on player feedback is a bit of a double-edged sword. You keep them happy until you don't. Guild Wars 1 ran into this very issue.

Players: "I hate playing with noobs and the prepackaged AI teammates have horrible builds. Fix it"
ANet: "Here are fully customizable AI teammates"
Players: "If you nerf my class and make me change the way I'm playing I'm going to quit."
ANet: "Fine, dartboard buffs around the board."
Players: "The game's too easy now, I'm going to WoW"

The best answer is to have a vision and try to stay on course with it while making room for player feedback if it fits in with what you're doing. They really didn't have a plan past EW and it showed.

The social poisoning isn't just a Western thing anymore, it's been in Japan for a while now, even if the face of it at Square Enix supposedly had a change in roles. Even without a US division, they'll still bring in consultants and such to keep the press and Bluesky types off of their backs. Unfortunately I think the flour tortillas and rubber bullets are here to stay for the foreseeable future, at least until they stop basing expansions off of real life locations.

[Kozh]

The JP playerbase are the people happiest with the overall balance of the game right now, not sure how that’s western audiences fault

I wouldn't be so sure about. JP players just aren't as loud as non JP. They will simply leave the game or suffer in silence. And sh*t talk the game on 2chan (or whatever that forum name is) I guess.


Now as for DT writing, yeah I agree that it's 99% is a matter of bad writing. Though I also feel like yoshi-p has made decisions (unrelated to DT) that is kinda weird coming from JP. By that I mean, typically it's not a thing JP players would complain about.

I do think the rubber bullet in DT is because of western, but that's just me.

[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.

[Azurarok]

I do think the rubber bullet in DT is because of western, but that's just me.

tbf Japan did get a Prime Minister shot dead not too long ago.

[RedLolly]

I also think the reason DT was such a weird mess in places was because of the nebulous "modern audience" of the West. SE massively downsizing their non-Japanese studios when basically every bit of media that's been designed by or for that "modern audience" has been a financial or critical failure just doesn't look bad on paper. There's not enough grant money in it anymore, either, though trying to write so that you don't hurt anyone is a noble cause. And the Covid boom is fully dried up. When life returned to normal, the amount of gaming hobbyists went right back to the pre-covid numbers, right when the industry finished hiring thousands to make more games, faster because so many new people were playing games to not lose their minds while at home. They went back to work and went out and did the things they actually wanted to do instead.

Dawntrail had some really great concepts that felt too toothless or underbaked in too many places. But I'm also 100% in the camp that DT's combat design is both peak for innovation and expectation of players while being almost as badly designed for mediocre to bad internet speeds as ARR was. It's both made me a better player and gotten me killed with some of the worst bullshit because the client and servers aren't communicating like the game requires. Dawntrail is such a mixed bag.

[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.

[Ajisaii]

That and Atlus changing the super homophobic stereotype of lecherous pervs assaulting Ryuji for P5 Royal.

How dare Atlus and SE
*checks notes*
Not offend LGBT folks. Stupid westernized ideals! *shakes cane at clouds*
/s

What happened to this thread what does this have to do with FFXIV?