Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[Mikhaill]

Yeah, I'm not going to sit here for the next 10 years and having
Ultima The 10th Unlimited TRIAL. They are so scared to move forward
because of 1.0's failure that they are in a Safe Space Limbo.
Nothing else they can do...I'm sure the things that people want cannot
be done with how the core of the game is. I'm one of those people tbh.
And the things that CAN be helped, someone somewhere has miscommunicated
with the team or again, "we can't because limitations". I'm still trying to find out
how we can't have more inventory space because limitations but magically can with purchasable retainers.

There's one thing where hardware is legit limiting things but it's another
when you Godang lie to us. You might as well tell us "you don't feel like it".

[polyphonica]

And the things that CAN be helped, someone somewhere has miscommunicated
with the team or again, "we can't because limitations". I'm still trying to find out
how we can't have more inventory space because limitations but magically can with purchasable retainers.

[...]

There's one thing where hardware is legit limiting things but it's another
when you Godang lie to us. You might as well tell us "you don't feel like it".

For this one, they actually said from the get-go that they could increase retainers, but it's the active inventory (that gets synced with the server constantly, including when you're in instances) that can't increase further. All the other things they've done since then, like Saddlebag and Glamour Plates, were done in a different way to bypass this limitation. It was basically their answer to the problem of not being able to expand active inventory further. (There was actually a detailed post by one of the lead engineers that explained this.)

The problem is, as you say though, unclear communication (which isn't helped by imperfect translation). They gave an answer about one specific thing, but it got interpreted as an answer about a very broad thing... and then when they come up with a different solution to address the broader problem, it's perceived as a lie. The more detailed/nuanced communications that fully explain it are either not translated or not noticed. This same pattern has repeated a number of times in the past and definitely makes things worse.

[Hamada]

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?

My problem with that viewpoint is something I shown earlier:

https://youtu.be/0_7u0z9cIZI

You got any idea how many people play this game? esp compared to ffxiv? There is a huge range of of their ranking system. Picture a rank point system about 5500 max and 0 is the smallest, within 100 points, say you have 2200, you hit that button to be matched with someone, within above or below 100 points you are instantly matched with someone. How can something appeal to that wide range of people, and still find time for the community manager to sit there for 10 minutes, explaining the changes, showing that he understands what people want and complain about (esp on the remark on the eagle cannon to golems) When you see someone talk in that way, it really shows they listen to people.

When it comes to yoshi-p it sounds like he thinks he knows what people want, but doesn't. Take the male bunny thing. They could approached this differently, they could gone slow and just did the bunny ears, get ideas over a "male version" of the suit. But no there was a miscommunication and thought everyone wanted this copy/paste solution... I mean how out of touch can you be?

Yeah, I'm not going to sit here for the next 10 years and having
Ultima The 10th Unlimited TRIAL. They are so scared to move forward
because of 1.0's failure that they are in a Safe Space Limbo.
Nothing else they can do...I'm sure the things that people want cannot
be done with how the core of the game is. I'm one of those people tbh.
And the things that CAN be helped, someone somewhere has miscommunicated
with the team or again, "we can't because limitations". I'm still trying to find out
how we can't have more inventory space because limitations but magically can with purchasable retainers.

There's one thing where hardware is legit limiting things but it's another
when you Godang lie to us. You might as well tell us "you don't feel like it".

Yeah charge people more money for something a sub should be paying for. The retainer situation is ridiculous.

[polyphonica]

How can something appeal to that wide range of people, and still find time for the community manager to sit there for 10 minutes, explaining the changes, showing that he understands what people want and complain about (esp on the remark on the eagle cannon to golems) When you see someone talk in that way, it really shows they listen to people.

Honestly, part of this is just cultural and due to the language barrier. A lot of the long explanations that are provided (for example, during Patch Note readings, in interviews, staff server visits, and the like) are in Japanese and not officially translated. Sometimes when they are officially translated (like Live Letters), they'll summarize a 5-minute explanation and try to "cover the main points" so most of the nuance and detail is lost. And then there are times when the translation ends up missing or slightly misinterpreting the original point (due to lacking technical background or whatever), or a fan translation makes a mistake but sticks in everyone's mind. I'm not trying to say this is a "valid excuse" for the miscommunications that occur; Square Enix is a big company and they need to figure it out. But, it's definitely a factor that creates a larger perceived barrier among English players when they compare to English developers.