Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[Berethos]

Watching the recent live letter I found myself feeling the same as all the others. Questions come up about things like more character creator options, new races, etc and are met with the same answers. "sorry too hard pls understand". Then they move on to the stuff they ARE working on.

I've been hearing the same thing from nearly every MMO company for years.

Very, very few actively make major changes to what they plan on adding based on player suggestions (those that are more flexible in this regard are typically those that are still in alpha/early access phases, and even then there's only so much "yeah, we're going to add this feature due to player suggestion" going on). Developers will often adjust aspects of what they are offering based on feedback, either in an ongoing iterative process after it hits live, or through testing phases on test servers, but it's rare when they just go "Yeah, we will add this completely new feature because you want it."

And the rare times when heavily requested features do get added, they often take several years before being brought into the game. Example: Blizzard's appearance log - their version of glamour was added in 2011, and despite an appearance log being an almost immediate request, was not added until 2016, even as they had acknowledged that it was something players wanted.

That's a reality across most MMO developers - you're getting what they plan, with some tweaks, and on rare occasions things the players asked for that weren't originally part of the plan. Why is it such a surprise that it happens here?

Do you know another thing that is a rare thing to be added? New character creation options. I know games that have updated character models (especially needed as their old models were noticeably different/older looking than newer models of enemies and NPCs, which isn't really a thing here - they've kept the look consistent for the most part so far), but those updates didn't actually add new character options. The closest I've seen to that kind of post launch addition is WoW's Allied Races, which are altered versions of several of the base races you can play that are treated like separate races, but they didn't actually add new faces or options to those base races.

Seems a bit odd to be so heavily criticizing the developers here for not doing things that other developers aren't doing either.

[Vhailor]

Seems a bit odd to be so heavily criticizing the developers here for not doing things that other developers aren't doing either.

Other developers have gotten it done. Products aren't graded on a curve, you know - you're supposed to follow in the footsteps of others, learn from their mistakes, and then turn around and do it better. WoW implemented their Glamour system roughly a year after FFXIV launched. The team at SE had the entire ARR re-design period, Heavensward, Stormblood - and, oh yeah, roughly five years of their own time - and a proper Glamour system still appears to be a ways off.

Plus - and I have to say, this isn't a point made often enough - SE is really digging their own grave here. The content of FFXIV is so ridiculously fucking shallow that it pushes an inordinate amount of focus onto QoL improvements. If XIV had a diverse array of content, players would be busy enough they wouldn't be nitpicking quite so much about the Glamour system, or Housing, or Character Creation. But the game is such a one-dimensional rat race outside of the MSQ, that people refer to Glamours as the true end-game - and it isn't a joke. Is it any wonder then that the system is under a great deal of scrutiny?

Get Yoshi-P off the fucking game already, install someone with an ounce of creativity and imagination, and I'll be first in line to defend SE when a few QoL issues go unresolved for longer than I might think is reasonable. But when all we see coming out of the studio is the same predictable (and dwindling) patch content for years on end, when almost every new 'original' piece of content is riddled with problems that the most junior QA tester should be able to catch? Well... then I'm less inclined to be particularly forgiving.