Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[Dualgunner]

You know, I wonder about that. When Yoshida came at the end of 1.0, everyone saw him as the most ballsy devs ever. The guy that could blow up an entire MMO with a giant meteor in order to create an other one from the cinders of the first version.

But now? We either get the same kind of content since years, have the same servers problem since years in the west, or just get flawed game-designed content. Is this really the same guy?

Is it because SE is holding the string? But Yoshida is now a director, he should have some means to take decisions regarding that, no?

I'm offering the benefit of the doubt because of what Yoshida managed to do to save XIV in the first place. Which is what makes all of this really confusing is exactly what you pointed out; Yoshi P stepped into this game and styled all over it, literally nuking Tanaka's XIV from orbit... Yoshida's XIV then became such a bland, milquetoast thing years later, and it makes me wonder what happened. I don't actually buy into the "All the revenue XIV generates is going into XV, KH3, and FF7R" as anything more than plausibility, but seeing such a drastic change in Yoshida, it really gets the noggin joggin' as they say.

I think that has a lot to do with it, for sure. More money, more manpower, more resources of any kind would've let him do so much more. He does what he can with what he's given, I fully believe that as well. Which makes me laugh at the reactions to this:

SE is a small indie company, adjust your expectations accordingly.

SE? No. The part that works on XIV? Certainly feels like it sometimes, with all the sub money going away elsewhere.

I'm a layman when it comes to business. I also don't have Square's ledger in front of me, so take what I say with all the salt a white mage can give you: it feels like Square is not reinvesting in FFXIV, of which ARR is one of the major reasons they managed to stay in the black, and that feels like a bad decision for the long term.

That said...XIV as it is is successful. Nobody can deny that. So why throw money at XIV to try to fix what ain't broke*?

*it's not optimal, but it's certainly operational, and messing with the code could break things and cause costs to skyrocket too.