Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[Cidel]

Just coming back in to note that I find Yoshida being exasperated by the repetitive questions very ironic, considering he's been feeding us the same patch content structure on repeat for at least four years.

You... lol...


I like you.

[polyhedral]

Just coming back in to note that I find Yoshida being exasperated by the repetitive questions very ironic, considering he's been feeding us the same patch content structure on repeat for at least four years.

OMG, SO MUCH THIS!

[Ilyrian]

You know they only wheel out Yoshida as a PR stunt. I've nothing against the guy - and he clearly looks like he's into his work (and very good at it) but it's a basic advertising tactic to put a human face onto what is ostensibly a huge company working to make a game that pleases the majority.
I don't say this as a negative - it's great to have a sense of personal attachment and community but I do think people take it all a bit far thinking that Yoshida is FFXIV and he's alone worrying about how we individually feel about 'his decisions'.

[Stormfur]

You know they only wheel out Yoshida as a PR stunt. I've nothing against the guy - and he clearly looks like he's into his work (and very good at it) but it's a basic advertising tactic to put a human face onto what is ostensibly a huge company working to make a game that pleases the majority.
I don't say this as a negative - it's great to have a sense of personal attachment and community but I do think people take it all a bit far thinking that Yoshida is FFXIV and he's alone worrying about how we individually feel about 'his decisions'.

Well.. he's the producer and director, so a lot of decisions, if not all of them, get filtered through him. He has essentially made himself the "face" of FFXIV, both in-game and outside of the game. That could be both a blessing and a curse as the expectations on him must be nothing short of ENORMOUS.

And judging by his reactions today...he's tired of us asking for these things, we get it. But we ask for these things because we love the game and the potential for what it can become, and because these things weren't answered to our satisfaction in the past. By that, I don't mean "he didn't implement it yet so we're gonna keep asking till we get it"...but more-so like:

- We see it's difficult to add housing areas, which is why Ishgard hasn't been implemented. But how hard would it be to add apartments? It seems easier to add those than full-blown houses and would be a nice compromise in the meantime if/when we ever do get full-blown housing.

- Character data is next to bursting the servers it seems, which is why we can't have new face options. But hairstyles don't seem to be a problem. What is the difference?

- Skill overhaul despite the fact that 5.0 hasn't even been announced yet. If we can't have real choice...at least give us the illusion of choice!

[Penthea]

In MMOs, your character is the most important aspect. You spend most of your time getting gear for your character. Changing how they look to suit your tastes. Making your self insert or perfect waifu. Yet we've never received more character creator options since the games inception. It's only the second expansion and already it is too difficult for them to make a new race.

Question: Players feel that the character creator feels limited and they ask if there are any plans to update it in 5.0?

Yoshida's answer: We haven't even announced 5.0! We are not limiting the character creation but considering the level of graphics available, too many choices or branches in the creator could slow down the game. We have no plans to update as we speak. But of course, considering in the long run of 14, when we start to talk about if we want to bolster up the graphics, then it might be something to consider in the long term.

He never said that we can't or won't get new races. I think he took the question as "any plans to give more character creation options to the current races?" which was my understanding of the question as well.

I think the limitation he speaks of has to do with how many possible appearances there are for every race/gender combo avatar. Not how many races the game can have. They're not the same thing.

Yet we've never received more character creator options since the games inception.

I am impressed that you somehow managed to avoid ever seeing any of the new hairstyles.

Sarcasm aside I get that hairstyles may not be the content you want, but it's still false to say we haven't had any more options since the game's inception.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I swear every single excuse with them is "oh this is too hard" or "oh the old code won't work with this".

They can't just keep using these same excuses for everything players want, yet keep charging us for every other mount and glamour that comes out.

If they keep up with this, with the same excuse that any upgrades/changes to the system or characters is impossible...well it'll be interesting to see where this game is a few years from now.

[Penthea]

I swear every single excuse with them is "oh this is too hard" or "oh the old code won't work with this".

They can't just keep using these same excuses for everything players want.

I think these problems SE often refer to are far more common than most here seem to think.

The majority of mmo dev teams are pretty damn silent compared to SE. SE actually directly address things players say and ask for several times a year, with most mmo dev teams you're lucky if it's even once. I think it's very naive to think that it's only SE who experience frequent limitations due to an older engine or server capability.

There are features in WoW that didn't make it to the game until after several years of players asking. Do people really think each time it was Blizzard forgetting the community existed? That not even once they had to put off some updates because the engine or the servers at the time couldn't handle it? The game even has a history of getting ahead of its own engine. The end boss of one of the expansions had several phases with separate hp pools because the combined hp pool literally could not exist in the game. With all their resources and experience they still clearly experience limitations like SE do, the difference is they rarely openly admit it. So the conversation players tend to have is "Blizzard don't read feedback" and not "Blizzard keep giving us the same excuses".

I know it's tiresome to get the same answers over and over. Trust me I too would love to hear an answer other than "server/engine limitations". I would even prefer to hear about a different limitation. It is especially annoying when it's a long time frequently requested feature. But this idea that only SE have these excuses or reasons is incredibly incorrect. It just appears so because most dev teams abstain from commenting about limitations until after they have conquered them and have the new features ready. So the focus is on being able to experience the new feature and not why they can't have it.

[KaldeaSahaline]

The majority of mmo dev teams are pretty damn silent compared to SE. SE actually directly address things players say and ask for several times a year, with most mmo dev teams you're lucky if it's even once. I think it's very naive to think that it's only SE who experience frequent limitations due to an older engine or server capability.

You're white knighting. I hate to use that term, but you're irrationally defending something and citing blatant misinformation to do it. You're letting bias and ignorance shape your perception of what is acceptable.

1) No, other dev teams are not silent. WoW devs literally post almost daily about class changes, systems changes, etc. They even have Q&As (that still suck, but suck considerably less than SE's softball garbage) fairly frequently. Did you even verify that claim before making it? Blizz runs into technical problems like anyone else. They also clearly articulate when they are a problem (they've shared the digit stuff before, as well as issues with the backpack inventory and many other technical woes they've encountered). They've talked about technical troubles with loot, CRZ, and many others. Instead of frequently citing it as an excuse though, they fix it. Give credit where credit is due.

2) I can go even further. B&S has Johnathan Lien, the producer frequently answering players tweets as well as doing Q&A's fairly frequently. You can argue he isn't a dev (because technically he isn't Korea has the devs), but he like Yoshi is the face of the game in the west. Hell, they're even porting the ENTIRE GAME over to UE4 because UE3 was holding the game back due to feedback in the west and the back and forth between the producer and the community.

3) Even the awfulness that Bless Online is has Dev's constantly engaging the community (despite being miserable at it). These are just the ones I personally know about off the top of my head. I'm almost positive there are more.

There are features in WoW that didn't make it to the game until after several years of players asking. The game even has a history of getting ahead of its own engine. The end boss of one of the expansions had several phases with separate hp pools because the combined hp pool literally could not exist in the game. With all their resources and experience they still clearly experience limitations like SE do, the difference is they rarely openly admit it.

See above - this is also false. They admit to stuff like this all the time.

[Penthea]

See above - this is also false. They admit to stuff like this all the time.

Then this is new. This was not my experience of Blizzard in my ten years of WoW before I quit.

My point still stands though. SE aren't the only ones to experience limitations due to servers and game engines. Literally any dev team making an online game do. But somehow knowing this means I'm white knighting, okay.

[KaldeaSahaline]

Then this is new. This was not my experience of Blizzard in my ten years of WoW before I quit.

My point still stands though. SE aren't the only ones to experience limitations due to servers and game engines. Literally any dev team making an online game do. But somehow knowing this means I'm white knighting, okay.

What made it white knighting was you irrationally justifying that somehow SE is really good at communicating and everyone else wasn't, without actually putting an iota of effort into verifying whether your statement was true or not. That's something a zealot does, not a rational individual would do. If Yoshi P popped in every single day and answered feedback with please look forward to it, or limitations, etc. half the community would praise him as a god because he talked to them instead of judging him on what is said. Granted the language barrier is a pretty huge issue and very likely contributes to the lack of quality responses.

Your point does not stand though. You said: "The majority of mmo dev teams are pretty damn silent compared to SE. SE actually directly address things players say and ask for several times a year, with most mmo dev teams you're lucky if it's even once. I think it's very naive to think that it's only SE who experience frequent limitations due to an older engine or server capability."

1) Your first sentence is factually inaccurate as I demonstrated.

2) Your second sentence is a little more nuanced in that you said SE actually addresses things. While it's true they do respond, I don't consider "please look forward to it" or "limitations" as addressing anything.

3) Your last sentence is flawed. It's not that other game companies don't experience these things. It's that they don't use it overwhelmingly like SE does.