Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[Galaktica]

Hot take: Yes and No.

Sure, we don't get everything we ask for, but there's enough shit added to this game that it's obvious they're listening loud and clear. We got a bunch of cutesy hairstyles and glamour every now and then. We're getting Cloud's ugly ass bike. ffs, they're even entertaining the idea of adding Viera to the game. It's clear they're not above adding anything the community begs for if it's possible.

[Vhailor]

Hot take: Yes and No.

Sure, we don't get everything we ask for, but there's enough shit added to this game that it's obvious they're listening loud and clear. We got a bunch of cutesy hairstyles and glamour every now and then. We're getting Cloud's ugly ass bike. ffs, they're even entertaining the idea of adding Viera to the game. It's clear they're not above adding anything the community begs for if it's possible.

I think they tend to listen when either (a) the rage reaches a sort of critical mass, or (b) when following through is a relatively trivial matter.

Examples of (a) would be the recent about-face on the Need / Greed changes in 24-man Alliance Raids and the woefully limited housing availability up until this most recent Ward expansion. Examples of (b) would be what you largely described: hairstyles, cutesy Glamours, Cloud's ugly-ass bike, probably Viera when all is said and done (I'll bet significant sums of Gil on Viera being 99% humanoid, just like Au Ra).

Where they don't listen - and where they're clearly out of touch - is in regards to underlying systemic issues (the blandness of content update cycles; RMT; Diadem 3.0 - err, Eureka*; etc.). Here, we get nothing from SE. No real mea culpas, no player surveys, no explanations, no fixes over time. Unfortunately for SE and FFXIV, these areas are quite important. It's hard to say when exactly SE's failure to address them will have consequences, but it'll happen in some form or another. They're poisoning their core fanbase, one small predictable content drip at a time.

[polyphonica]

I think the issue is, when you're making entertainment that targets a more broad/casual market, following a formula doesn't "poison" the well nearly as quickly as people think. Consider all the big gaming franchises that release basically a slightly-different skin of the same game year after year after year to colossal sales, or how Hollywood is focusing on "cinematic universes" that are basically sequel after sequel of very similarly-structured and themed movies. Yeah, obviously, eventually people tire of the formula and move on, and there are some misfires along the way, but how long do they expect this game to last anyway? Are they going to have 5 more years of active content? 10 more years? By that time, how much will the gaming world have changed, and what will the newer younger generation of players want/expect?

It's very easy to make major changes when you have something that's clearly broken, as happened with FFXIV 1.0. But since 2.0, the game has gone from success to success, with 4.0 being the most successful yet. I don't think they're under any delusion they'll be able to keep that up forever, but what's riskier? Sticking with the formula you know that has brought you success so far (knowing it won't work forever and will taper off), or taking things in a different direction that may or may not be as successful but breaks the status quo? I dare say that 95% of companies will choose the former, until there's very clear, undeniable signs that the market has changed (and then they'll follow the market to whatever's next).

All in all, I think the developers feel a great weight of responsibility -- now that they did turn FFXIV around and make it successful -- to not screw it up. And this is leading them to be rather conservative in continuing to follow the "winning formula." It's natural that places like the Forums, Reddit, etc. will tend to attract people who are the most invested in the game and have the strongest opinions for change. They also know full well that they can't please everyone, and that any major change they make disrupts the development cycle and comes with a trade-off. (People act like it's just a matter of throwing more money at the problem, but opportunity cost and the impact on other stable processes are the much bigger issues.)

If anything, I think the flaw -- such that it is -- is that the game will continue to "show its age" as time goes on, and so the number of times they have to explain that they're limited by the underlying engine/servers/code/etc. will keep increasing. People want some sort of sign that they'll invest "whatever it takes" to overcome these limitations, but that comes down to a broader business decision about whether to continue to push FFXIV, or to start work on "FFXVII Online." It may be a few years until we have that answer, and there'll continue to be uncertainty in the meantime.