What is Square Enix's master plan?

[Abraxai]

As a player, and a loyal player, having played Final Fantasy XI since September 2004, as well as Final Fantasy XIV since Collector's Edition release, I have stuck with this game... From the laggy servers to the buggy market wards to the development shift, everything.

I've seen, played, and seen go by, many an update in the game that ushered in Notorious Monsters, Quests, Guild Tasks, Bug fixes, system tweaks, a few new items, and I have to say, these, however fun, do not address the issues.

The reworking of this game surely begins with groundwork, while I confess, I agree with Square in saying the battle system is flawed, very flawed. However.. There are more basic and fundamental systems that don't exist, are unstable or are "being considered" that should be addressed first.

To name a couple of examples:

A Delivery Box? We can't exchange character to character.. How did this happen? More so nearly a year on.

Auction House? The retainer wards crash daily, the navigation and overall usability of the wards is fractionally as user friendly or accessible as the Final Fantasy XI Auction House was.

Case and point.

How many patches do Square Enix have to pump out with unfinished, minuscule content that hasn't been refined and built upon to a degree where it can keep us occupied and HAPPILY occupied at that, until they see, they're going about it all wrong.

WHY are we roaming around fighting Notorious Monsters with FIVE minute MAX respawn timers with GOOD drop rates that just promotes an over saturation of items?

WHY are we roaming around in a world that is over saturated with gil, undersaturated with adventure and overall a world and system that promotes no achievement in anything.

This 1.18 update will bring in two dungeons, quest hubs and a new battle system. Yes.. Nice additions. but a 30/60 minute dungeon, 10-20 new quests per area and a copy/paste of FFXI's battle system is NOT a fix to a game this deep in the trenches.

What is Square Enix's master plan? When do they feel they are going to get to addressing the ISSUES. Consumer and fan feedback SURELY has to account for a lot in terms of the development direction, and I do believe they listen. But the priority list for the way this game is to be fixed is, to me, absolutely insane.

How are Square Enix planning on bringing back the 95~% of players that left this game? How are the servers going to COPE with that?

How is this game going to become a success? When?

Edit:

It's starting to become a bit of a repetitious slap in the face to players when once a month or two we get a little tiny snippet of information about something, such as the most recent letters 2 minute Youtube Auto-attack video. Is this what we have waited months for?

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

I would very much like it if Yoshida's next letter was not "Here's how progress goes on making some changes" but also "Here is my vision for the game in its final state, it will take a long time to reach this but this is my goal."

[Xeak]

I agree, having Yoshi-P give us detail on the finished product would be nice. However, it's possible he doesn't know in full detail of how the game will be in the end, and that's expected. Some of the ideas he has may or may not be implemented, or they may turn out differently than he envisions. But I would like to see the list of changes to come in the future to know what is in the process of testing and what hasn't even been touched yet.

[Cendres]

This pretty much sums up my current feelings towards the game. We have been given very little, it is a very good thing there is no monthly and is still online but you know at this point I'd rather they pull it off the servers if it would mean a speedier update(s) to this game. It needs some major oomph right away.

[weeble]

i too would like to hear a report on what the future of this game is going towards, i'm tired of logging in worry'ing that this will be the day patch notes tell me this is not the game for me. it's been way to long now, we have the right to know in what direction this game is heading, who they aim this game for. will we enjoy it. what will this game look and feel like in say a year?

when ffxi last expansion was out they was pushing content so slow that eventually i left after 5years and 700+days of gameplay. this game should be at it's prime but it's not and content is worse then the last expansion and i said i'd leave the second content got this bad and here i am sucked into the hope for a better game><

we need to know, my time and patience is finally at a closing point. patch by patch info is just dragging us along, and no matter how u look at it, when u buy a game or leave a game it's cause u like or don't like it. people are going to come or leave for the final product, it's not right to drag along the players that would of left. and it's surely not right to keep feeding people just enough to want to stay and endure this month to month crapfest.

[Abraxai]

I'm not sure what I think about what Square Enix may or may not have stored up in terms of content, maybe they're just waiting for the "groundwork" to be completed before they start pumping in content in the masses from the old / current development teams...

I'm really not sure, but I'm sure of one single thing. We know nothing, and this is a dangerous position to put fans in, moreover when you're trying to entice them back into playing your game.

Keep us in the loop Square.. Even the "Letter from the Producer"'s have slown to a point where each time a new one arises it's that small and insignificant (ala 2minute auto-attack video) that nobody cares, and it just aggravates everybody! ESPECIALLY when that's the first bit of contact you have with us in 2-3 weeks!

[Evangelus]

They need to speak MORE to the FFXIV players ;_;

give more "power" to the forum-Community-manager ! They can make good news with photo and video ! They are best !

[Platinumstorm]

Yes, I also have felt that Letters to the Developer have been lacking lately. I think what is needed is an actual narrative rather than a list with boxes in it.

I think the problem here is that players have unrealistic expectations of what is happening and when it will be done, even when we are given timelines on things. A great example of this is some players think the game could have been released to fanfare on PS3 as far back as four months ago, others think December of this year; I think June of next year, personally.

Clarifying difficulty it takes to rewrite systems - how content added is dependent on the rewritten system, and general things like that would go a long way in explaining when content can truly be expected.

Another great example is I know many people who are dead set that the job system is going live in this patch based on the last developer letter, but I don't even understand where they get that idea.

Speaking of that letter, I would personally like to know what status effects on mobs are going to be active and last longer than .025 seconds.

I think people would really like to know more about the new job system, like what jobs for sure will be offered, how they tie in with the classes that we have, etc. For example, the assumption is that because jobs are more role oriented than classes, they will have be stronger. How will this factor into existing content?

Some people believe that a rank 50 gladiator translates into a rank 50 paladin by default, but I think many [me too] people are confused by this, and we'd really like some clarification.

What exactly are the roles of the Grand Companies as far as players are concerned? There are some generic details, but it would be great to go into deeper description. By reading the grand company page, you would assume they are going in with 1.18 because of the tie in with Toto-Rak, but other than that page there isn't a lot of information to confirm it.

The big one for me, is I really want to know how content is going to be developed in the future. There is the constant tease of a total revision of the environments that we exist in, and any such revision would likely already be in progress, but would still take lengthy times to complete. Players want it because of the repetitive, lackluster environments, and it seems like the only true way to add content into the world where things don't seem arbitrarily positioned. This is a big question, as it will help players understand the future.

Also just a quick address to the OP:
How recently has the market ward crashed for you?? I spend a great deal of time in the market ward and I haven't seen it crash in weeks.

[weeble]

bump, yes please

[Abraxai]

Honestly it's good news to me that there's people that feel the same way. I hope if Square actually read threads like this that they will take positive things from it.

For me the whole idea of a "longer development/implementation time" doesn't honestly bother me, so long as we know what is going on. It feels kind of arbitrary when we get a little big of information from a Gridanian newspaper (which btw has no building or holdings in Gridania itself) speaking of the end of days and deaspected crystals, when on the other side of the spectrum we're all waiting for information on a patch.

Their snippets of information here, there and everywhere are so scattered and small that we have multiple things going on at one time that by the time they tie together, people have either lost interest or there's MORE little things that are attracting our eyes elsewhere.

-

I do genuinely feel that Square could be stronger with communication. I think they made a good step with the dev-tracker side of the official forums, but I do believe that they need to take that a step further, whether it be making the letters from the producer more often, or on a certain day or even if it's just increased dev activity on the forums giving us a bit more every now and then.