I feel bad for Tanaka. (Tanaka appreciation thread)

[Gramul]

Dude i don't mean to be rude or anything but you don't make much sense. How could the battle system have been more completed then it is now? The game mechanics are pretty much done and are complete in regards to his vision. He wanted it to be this way. But in the end it just sucks and it's boring.

Well, for example, pugilists where originally supposed to have different stances and be able to steal. And there's also the matter of the system not being well explained.

And if you're going to give me any arguments about how he was going to complete it, keep in mind that nothing can be changed! We are talking about completing a system here so it's all about adding stuff. The spells suck visually and they suck in practice too. Every ability feels the same to me. Whatever ability i chose to use feels the same... it's like it doesn't matter much what i do. No real buffs too in this game... combat involves very little strategy.

Who said nothing could be changed? I'm sure with many concepts dropped, the system already in place would have to be altered to accommodate the changes. If they where to be reintroduced, the system would either have to change again or perhaps the system could somehow lend itself to the old concepts.

The fatigue system is horrible and looking at all the threads around you will see how the majority hates it. Even before the game was out and Tanaka was discussing the fatigue system, everyone was against it. Guess what? he decided to add it anyways and people hate it.

The system was made to encourage people to level many jobs so they wouldn't feel stale in one job. The system in place is made to encourage development of a personal job by use of combining skills from other jobs. Was it the best decision? Probably not, but I can appreciate the idealism and vision behind it.

The armory system... pick and chose every ability you want across the board and make yourself a custom class. The idea at it's core is interesting but the execution is really bad. He should have really seen this coming. Doing that will result in all classes being the same in the end. He should have added some restrictions and don't tell me he was going to because that is CHANGE not COMPLETING something.

Again, change is fine. I'm not going to follow your arbitrary rules. But all classes couldn't be the same, as some people will want to focus on being a damage dealer, some on healing, some on stat effects, and some on tanking. You can't use all the abilities you want, the game doesn't allow it.

You don't come up with a broken game based on your bad decisions and then say well it's incomplete. Not it's not incomplete. The only incomplete things about what he tried to do is the content and he was so sure that we would end up enjoying all his systems once we got dungeons and stuff to do in game.

It's clearly incomplete. We have tons of blocked off areas, no chocobos, no airships, missing attributes for jobs, and tons of junk coded into the game that we can't get to yet.

Do you think so many people would have voted for an extreme change if all that needed to be done is tweakings to complete Tanaka's work? SE are not idiots, they would rather tweaks stuff quickly then change everything start from scratch, which takes months and generates hate from the community because of the long wait time.

The whole poll thing happened after Tanaka was booted from the project. By that point, I believe people where ready for an extreme change as the original head man was gone. New director, new direction.

Tanaka screwed up. HE thinks so himself, SE thinks so, Yoshi-p does too and all the community(leave a few here and there) think so too. People make mistakes, we are human and so is Tanaka, He did a mistake and he payed for it.

I think so too. I'm just saying I appreciate his original vision and I don't think he's solely to blame and he shouldn't receive so much ire for it. The game was rushed out and they had poor internal communication this made it very difficult for him to accomplish his vision for the game and many aspects had to be dropped in order for him to complete it on time. We have the evidence for it from the official site to the actual coding in the game.

[Kiroh]

Love how this Thread turned from appreciating Tanaka to the "Tanaka or Yoshi" Thread lol *giggles a little* >.>

All threads have been turning into Tanaka vs. Yoshi lately. I think in large part due to the fact that though Yoshi is the lead, not a whole hell of a lot has changed in the game yet from Tanaka's version. So now we have a half completed Tanaka/ barely altered Yoshi hybrid monster of a game that seems to have no direction or grand vision in mind at the moment, and is only trying desperately to staunch the hemorrhage of players rather than develop a great game.

I'm still waiting on something (anything) to be added to the game that I can clearly say would never have been added by Tanaka. Until then, everything is just a slightly altered version of the original plan anyways, just without Tanaka's vision guiding it.

[Starlord]

All threads have been turning into Tanaka vs. Yoshi lately. I think in large part due to the fact that though Yoshi is the lead, not a whole hell of a lot has changed in the game yet from Tanaka's version. So now we have a half completed Tanaka/ barely altered Yoshi hybrid monster of a game that seems to have no direction or grand vision in mind at the moment, and is only trying desperately to staunch the hemorrhage of players rather than develop a great game.

I'm still waiting on something (anything) to be added to the game that I can clearly say would never have been added by Tanaka. Until then, everything is just a slightly altered version of the original plan anyways, just without Tanaka's vision guiding it.

Well, I never really post on these types of threads I only read them, and I never get to much into them, only read them and I can honestly say, this is getting a little ridiculous and obnoxious. Just in my opinion Threads like these don't help the game at all, only saying things like oh this person is better than that person because of X reason, I love the topic when it first started because it weas giving a hand to Tanaka for at least "trying" to make this game great. We all know he didn't succeed grant that.. but is it also right to bring down his pride and dignity along with it? No, Im not saying to stop talking about this you guys do what you want, Im just saying that this A not helping the game and B comparing two people which to me is judging people.

/endrant

[kukurumei]

We all know he didn't succeed grant that.. but is it also right to bring down his pride and dignity along with it? No, Im not saying to stop talking about this you guys do what you want, Im just saying that this A not helping the game and B comparing two people which to me is judging people.

/endrant

We are talking about the game industry here... pride and dignity is all they have left. We can't return games, we can't recoup losses, we constanty follow hype, what else is there.

Considering Wada is the one that had to end up sacrificing pride and dignity in his public apology, Tanaka got off gracefully only kicked out of the room and not paraded around in public execution.

Tanaka in hindsight got off pretty lightly. We can and should lambast him all we want, it's the nature of the business. He's wasn't a cubicle holder, he was a PR figure just as much.

[Starlord]

We are talking about the game industry here... pride and dignity is all they have left. We can't return games, we can't recoup losses, we constanty follow hype, what else is there.

Considering Wada is the one that had to end up sacrificing pride and dignity in his public apology, Tanaka got off gracefully only kicked out of the room and not paraded around in public execution.

Tanaka in hindsight got off pretty lightly. We can and should lambast him all we want, it's the nature of the business. He's wasn't a cubicle holder, he was a PR figure just as much.

All Im saying is what point is there with these threads that always come back to the same answer (Tanaka messed up) we get it.. instead we have 5 threads of the same things with like 200 posts in them on how one is better than the other. Im just saying its getting a little out of hand.

But again thats just me.

[Onidemon]

Well, for example, pugilists where originally supposed to have different stances and be able to steal. And there's also the matter of the system not being well explained.

That's great for pugilists... steal would not have made any difference. Stances is a cool idea but it doesn't fix the over all battle system.

Who said nothing could be changed? I'm sure with many concepts dropped, the system already in place would have to be altered to accommodate the changes. If they where to be reintroduced, the system would either have to change again or perhaps the system could somehow lend itself to the old concepts.

Well if Tanaka was still in charge and was able to complete his game to his vision like you stated before. We would have the exact same systems but with added stuff which i don't see how it could make it better. If you try to eat crap, even if you add sugar on top it will still taste like crap....

I appreciate that you agree that change is needed but Tanaka would not have change anything. That's how he envisioned the game. After adding a few dungeons, monsters, items and quests. He would have realized that people still don't like the game and maybe then he would have started to make changes, which would have brought us to the point we are today but somewhere in 2012-13...

The system was made to encourage people to level many jobs so they wouldn't feel stale in one job. The system in place is made to encourage development of a personal job by use of combining skills from other jobs. Was it the best decision? Probably not, but I can appreciate the idealism and vision behind it.

You can't force people to do something they don't want to. It's called freedom of choice. If i don't want to level a mage i just won't. If i don't want to craft then i won't. If i'm forced to do so then i'm gone! When you order a cheeseburger and you get a salad instead, do you say you appreciate their concern for your health and leave with the salad or do you ask for what you wanted? People were against the idea of such a system so the right thing to do is to please your customers.

Again, change is fine. I'm not going to follow your arbitrary rules. But all classes couldn't be the same, as some people will want to focus on being a damage dealer, some on healing, some on stat effects, and some on tanking. You can't use all the abilities you want, the game doesn't allow it.

True but you agree that if i want to Tank and so do you, we would both use the same abilities right? As opposed to a game like WOW where Death knights, warriors, paladins, druids can all tank using their UNIQUE abilities and strategies.

Tanaka's system kills uniqueness and has no variety.

It's clearly incomplete. We have tons of blocked off areas, no chocobos, no airships, missing attributes for jobs, and tons of junk coded into the game that we can't get to yet.

Blocked areas are what he couldn't finish in time. If he was still in charge you wouldn't see Chocobos or Airships for a while as he stated himself that he thought they would be useless due to the teleport system.

The whole poll thing happened after Tanaka was booted from the project. By that point, I believe people where ready for an extreme change as the original head man was gone. New director, new direction.

I think it's the state of the game that pushed them to want an extreme change. Nobody could stand the game the way it was and the only reason people even stayed is because they believe that change will make the game into what they hoped it would be.

Tanaka would still be in charge if his mistakes where not that important.

I think so too. I'm just saying I appreciate his original vision and I don't think he's solely to blame and he shouldn't receive so much ire for it. The game was rushed out and they had poor internal communication this made it very difficult for him to accomplish his vision for the game and many aspects had to be dropped in order for him to complete it on time. We have the evidence for it from the official site to the actual coding in the game.

I don't understand how you can appreciate his vision, i wish i could see what you see because there is nothing about his decision i like. I wouldn't even have tried to use the same races as in FFXI(he just renamed them....).

Of course he is not the only one to blame. But a big part of the blame is on him because he was the man in charge. Don't think for a second that the team in charge of the battle system did whatever they wanted and Tanaka was like "Well i don't have any say in it...". Same goes for all the other teams. They all worked to bring his visions to life. He was the one in charge of the direction the game would take. This right here is what he is to blame for.


Now for the huge lack of content, no matter how much most you guys think SE are tyrants and how much you think you know about what kind of pressure the management team put on him, he still had 5 years to work on this game. Now even if you make stuff that sucks, it's not possible to take that long and only come up with the amount of stuff FFXIV has.

They must have had many many technical problems with the engine or they must have started a whole different game (probably something more in the lines of the tech demo of 2005) and ended having to scrap that and start from scratch for a reason we will never know. That is the part where MAYBE he's not to blame for....

[Renshi]

Wieners! Wieners for 1$! Enjoy the show!

[bsphil]

It must have been awful working beneath the tyranny of the Square Enix boardroom, slaving away day after day trying to meet a deadline, only to have customers hate your product in the end.

What a thankless task.

Well not anymore! Thank you Tanaka.

Edit: Can a moderator please forward our sentiments to Tanaka-san.

He either was a fountain of bad ideas, lacked the ambition or attention to detail to address smaller inconsistencies and bugs, or didn't have the testicular fortitude to make any real improvements.

So, no. Screw you Tanaka, FFXI and FFXIV would have been better if you were never a part of the team. The new dev teams for both games are still in the process of fixing the amalgam of failure you left behind.

[Xmbei]

I actually in the last 3 posts thought of something that many of you probably thought of too... Tanaka did not want XIV to be an XI clone wanted it to be it's own unique world.... as stated by Onidemon, what did we get? same damn races and mobs as in XI... for what nostalgia sake? I would of liked a whole new set of races, goblins looked not the same, and other oh look its just XI with a new UI and battle system!!!! That is all we got at release... If he wanted a fresh new world we should of had a whole new set of races... like ever other FF except for the human's, which in all RPG's will be there because it is something we can relate too... Tanaka's vision even though he said it wasn't... was to make XI-2... look at the facts... he got lazy and used the same races, what because people loved the XI races? Then they should stick with XI.... I was hoping for new races in this new world not a rehash of old idea's. Also I think majority of you are forgeting, mainly the i hate yoshi because he hasn't done anything yet people, it take's time to do anything on this magnitude, expecially when you have to build it on a new battle system. Tanaka had a timeline, pre-replacement, of things he was going to put into the game early 2011, I for one think yes we might of gotten it, but those changes would of been incomplete and we would of just been seeing hintlings of what we will be getting over the next year. Anyway's either way I am going to wait another few months, when we get the starting's of the REAL implementations, before I say Yoshi is not doing his job, while I was all hyped by Tanaka's visions leading up to release and getting non of his promises, or half done/broken (broken in the sense of not optimized and didn't work) promises.

[Shyd]

hmmm at some point i had thought that FF14 was supposed to be set in the same world as like FF13. i have no idea where i heard that O.o maybe it was in a dream. Prolly got in confused with FF13-2. or wotever.