Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[KaldeaSahaline]

I didn't say SE were better at communicating. Doing more communication doesn't automatically mean said communication is actually good. You can say a lot without saying anything new or useful at all. As was aptly demonstrated by the latest live letter, personally I found a lot of it was mere repetition and too many questions had the same answers.

You said other developers are silent and SE wasn't. That's very heavily implying that you believe one is better than the other. You've since clarified your position though so we can move on from this though.

And I was also trying to dispel this myth some people believe that SE experience an outstanding epidemic of server and engine limitations compared to other mmos when the truth is all dev teams experience them daily. It just so happens SE openly mention theirs very very often.

You didn't dispel anything and it's not a myth, it's real. SE uses that excuse by a staggering margin for many technical requests the playerbase requests. Everyone knows that other companies suffer from it. That's common sense.

And to dispel this idea that I'm a white knight. snip

Agreed. I will retract my statement that you are a white knight. You've successfully demonstrated the ability to have a rational discussion and cite logical examples to clarify your position. I respect that.

while adding less dungeons during each expansion than XIV is currently on track to add even with the scaled back 2-1-2-1 pattern (assuming 5 major patches like before, we are still on track to add more in one expansion than Blizzard has ever managed with any of WoW's patches).

You're right, they weren't at the the content decline point we are currently at - they were already below it.

Hey Buddy, haven't seen you on MMO champ in a while.

Just wanted to chime in on this one - while it's true that FF14 has more dungeons (by end of expac) than WoW does, I'm not sure that we can simply measure quantity vs. quantity and call it even.

FF14 dungeons are exceptionally linear and follow the exact same formula each time. To add to it, they're extremely narrow in focus (i.e. rewards, target playerbase, etc.), lack depth, and are released 1 to 2 at time.

WoW dungeons start you off with a lot more variety and are considerably more deep, as well as offering scalable challenges and rewards for multiple player types. Not only that, but they aren't identical in format or layout.

So while it is a factual statement that FF14 produces MORE dungeon content than WoW, I'm not sold that it's a fair comparison.

A commendable effort...

But one that sounds significantly less impressive when you consider that it's from one version of the game's engine to a new version of the same engine, and much/most (and possibly all) of the work actually developing that engine was done by an entirely different company.

Upgrading your games codebase from UE3 to UE4 is not some one script and done affair. It's a complete redesign of the games code...

It honestly comes down to this choice:

a) Yoshi-P and team continues the regular patch release schedule with constant toss ups of content for different slices of players and staggers QoL additions/upgrades over the course of years.

OR

b) Game content is stagnated for 6-10 months or longer while they overhaul everything and implement what you're asking for, focusing only on QoL and 0 content. When the patch drops to add these changes, there will either be no content or very little content similar to the x.0 expansion release but without the 10 levels of MSQ and side story.

This is pretty reductive - but it's not far off. If SE developed more deep/robust content they could mitigate some of this risk. It would allow times when they devote more effort to QoL to not be so painstakingly shallow for the playerbase.