Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[Asiragan]

Well aether does affect the physiology of a creature as we've seen with what happens if you happen to bathe too much in a primal's eather

Hmm, then why is the T-rex not showing any change? I mean, okay I can let it pass for the elephant since he can fly thanks to "magicked carpets affixed to its back". It's stupid but I can look away from this one.

Here's the item description from XIVDB :

Alarmed scholars report that the “T-Rex”—as it is called by those short on ink—has gained the power of flight through continued exposure to the Isle of Val's turbulent aether.

Wouldn't it make more sense if he some physiological modification if he was exposed so much to it? And wouldn't it take multiple generation before one of them gain the ability of flight?


Side note : I won't think the game is "unplayable" because of it. I just like to know how things tie to the lore. If the explanation is just "The T-rex can fly with the power of cool" then fine. I'll be slightly annoyed, but I can live with it.

Not when they are hanging on for dear life.

In-game explanation is of a similar bent to how the flying chair (made by Alchemists) works - enough Cloudsbreath added during construction (intended to make it easier/light enough to carry for the Namazu) had the additional effect of aspecting it enough to wind that it can fly.

Oh yeah, I remember them saying something about making it "lighter". Which is probably why they are hanging to it, now that you mention it...

[Penthea]

Honestly, I'm fine with the motorbike. You like the design or you don't, but lore-wise I think it makes sense.

At least, much more sense than a flying T-rex or a flying elephant...

The only reason why I'm not okay with a flying elephant is we haven't seen any wild ones...where are the Ananta getting them from?

[Sotaris]

OP, tbh i felt this since HW. Nothing new really happens ever. It just recycled mechanics, formulas since ARR launch.

[Remedi]

Hmm, then why is the T-rex not showing any change? I mean, okay I can let it pass for the elephant since he can fly thanks to "magicked carpets affixed to its back". It's stupid but I can look away from this one.

Here's the item description from XIVDB :


Wouldn't it make more sense if he some physiological modification if he was exposed so much to it? And wouldn't it take multiple generation before one of them gain the ability of flight?


Side note : I won't think the game is "unplayable" because of it. I just like to know how things tie to the lore. If the explanation is just "The T-rex can fly with the power of cool" then fine. I'll be slightly annoyed, but I can live with it.
.

We don't really know because they haven't gone on a lenghty explanation on how it happens, they have just done a quest about it to explain the change on the pirates of sastasha and that was it we don't know exactly how much aether it takes to create mutations or how long it tales to be able to fly, we don't even know if it's something that can be easily learned, we do know however that a good win aetherconduction can effortlessly make island float though

[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.

[Berethos]

Wouldn't it make more sense if he some physiological modification if he was exposed so much to it? And wouldn't it take multiple generation before one of them gain the ability of flight?

Worth noting:

There seems to be two possibilities - either they have been around for a while and developed the ability, as Eureka - once known as the Isle of Val - was described during those quests as being a fairly dangerous place in the first place, and part of why they chose that region...or what happened to it - the event that registered magicks related to dimensional compression - caused a significant enough shift that creatures on the island were simply warped in ways that changed them without requiring several generations of genetic development.

[Melichoir]

Aiite so it comes back to the very same thing: You open up with derision. That does not seem pragmatic if you want to deliver a message to the Devs. Yes, you can have criticisms, but if its "Hey Devs are out of touch cause theyre doing things I hate like implementing some garbage bike!", youre not going to have as good luck. People who complained about removing Need, yeah some of them were pretty "WTF Outrageous", but you know, it was probably people being straightforward in their position and giving appropriate feedback. Mind you, they probably removed it to address an issue they saw and realized it made things worse.


But heres what you did:
-Disregard their responses to inquiries you have by overs implification (and implying it was very aloof as well).
- Put down an collab event because "probably short lived".
- Mogstation items that are immersion breaking, particularly the "Ugly, immersion breaking motorcycle". Something people did actually request a few times.
- Dismissing these things as "Theyre nice, but not substantial!" and "These dont get people excited anymore!"

Then you proceed to talk about what the focus should be (based on your tastes).

You pretty much slammed them for not doing things you want, particularly in character customization. You want to convey a message, maybe making your thread title "Are the Developers of XIV out of touch?" and then slamming them a bit and putting down their projects isnt a great way to do it.

I have to point out too: For every large patch, theyve pretty much been adding glamour items and haircuts for people. New mounts which add to the flavor of your character. Armors and weaps too. And yet "They dont care about customization," in your eyes. I wonder if youve even considered their end, to be frank. Ive pointed out that adding more indepth customization can really break things in the game unless its done right, and that takes time. And yes, theyre running on an older engine because thats part of the point of recooping costs from FFXIV 1.0. You think MMOs just rebuild their engines every year like its nothing?

Im gonna stick to my guns on this: Sounds like youre dissatisfied. Sounds like youre not getting what you want. And if you have to ask if the Devs are listening, then I imagine you already have a pessimistic outlook on the game. Afterall, youre saying theyre hemorrhaging subs for years and nothing has changed, so they must not be then. So why are you still playing? The writing on the wall, according to you, is they dont listen or care. So why are you spending your money on something you dont enjoy.

[Berethos]

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.

Last time I ran dungeons in WoW, they were also pretty linear. Some do allow for doing some bosses in a random order, but many are just as linear. I also don't see them as being any more or any less deep - you have trash to deal with, occasionally with a mechanic that needs to be handled, and then bosses with 3-4 major mechanics.

Not sure where you're getting that dungeons in FFXIV are identical in layout either - pretty sure each map is different. Often linear (as often as WoW's are, especially post-Vanilla content - the ones from the classic game are the only ones that really had the open variation, but that kind of design has been missing from new dungeons for about 11 years now), but that's nothing new for either MMO.

Speaking of identical - funny that of the two games, only one offers dungeons that are the "hard mode" of previous versions that are literally the same location, with the exact same bosses (occasionally you get that one extra tucked in a corner) and trash, and where everything just now hits harder and bosses maybe get a new ability or two...versus reimaginings of the location into a sort of "sequel" version of the dungeon that often leads to new spots on the map and has brand new bosses.

That all being said, you've missed the context of my comment, which was related to the amount of content (given that the person I was quoting specifically mocked what they saw as a decline with the suggestion that we'd be getting one new dungeon and one fight in savage, it's exceptionally clear they are talking about amount). WoW drops something like 5-7 with the expansion, keeps them around with additional difficulty modes (that are, again, the same dungeon with boosted enemies - they use that to great effect with their mythic system, but that's not what is being discussed - remember, the comment was about decline in amount, trying to switch it to a subjective discussion of quality just confuses the issue), and if those players are lucky they'll get 1-2 more in another patch before the 8 or so month lull before the next expansion (in a good year, which they've struggled to get back to after multiple year+ gaps).

As for the UE4 upgrade comment - I admit that I did undersell the effort on the part of the developer needed, but that was in response to what I feel was an overselling on your part. Bringing up that they are updating to a new engine, in a thread where talking about making upgrades to a game are common, and NOT clarifying that it's not an in-house engine and that another developer made the engine they are working with (in both cases, UE3 and UE4) implies that SQEX is holding back on us by not doing something similar.

When they'd have to redo their own engine/make a new one AND redo the code, you have a situation that isn't nearly as comparable as you seem to want to imply.

[Asiragan]

I'm putting my answers in spoiler, since this subject, tough interesting, is really out of topic.

The only reason why I'm not okay with a flying elephant is we haven't seen any wild ones...where are the Ananta getting them from?

Well, according to the tooltip, marids can fly thanks to a "magicked carpets affixed to its back". And those carpets are made by the Ananta, so we probably wouldn't find any wild flying elephants out there.

Still, your point hold for the tyrannosaur as we don't see any wild one in Eureka.

We don't really know because they haven't gone on a lenghty explanation on how it happens, they have just done a quest about it to explain the change on the pirates of sastasha and that was it we don't know exactly how much aether it takes to create mutations or how long it tales to be able to fly, we don't even know if it's something that can be easily learned, we do know however that a good win aetherconduction can effortlessly make island float though

Interesting, so that's kind of a "grey zone" in the lore, right now?

Still, aren't Sastasha's pirates another story? I thought they were modified by the direct intervention of the primal Leviathan. And on this, it wouldn't be the first time a primal modified someone or something. If memory serves, Odin is doing the same thing with the player that kills him. But mutation by exposition to a large source of aether? That's kind of a first, I think.

And for the islands, you are probably talking about the Churning Mists and the Sea of Clouds. And it's true that they have large amount of crystals that generate a lot of wind aether, preventing them from falling. If I remember well, Bismark was actually feeding on those islands. But the tyrannosaur do not have those kind of crystals in it, so the mystery as to why it can fly still hold for me.


And as Penthea said, we don't see any wild T-rex flying around in Eureka.

Worth noting:

There seems to be two possibilities - either they have been around for a while and developed the ability, as Eureka - once known as the Isle of Val - was described during those quests as being a fairly dangerous place in the first place, and part of why they chose that region...or what happened to it - the event that registered magicks related to dimensional compression - caused a significant enough shift that creatures on the island were simply warped in ways that changed them without requiring several generations of genetic development.

I need to see the quest text again, but didn't Krile said that those monsters weren't here before the incident of Val happens? (Plus, how can living things survive a dimensional compression...?

[Penthea]

Well, according to the tooltip, marids can fly thanks to a "magicked carpets affixed to its back". And those carpets are made by the Ananta, so we probably wouldn't find any wild flying elephants out there.

Still, your point hold for the tyrannosaur as we don't see any wild one in Eureka.

But we don't see any wild elephants of the same model, this is my point. As for the Eureka dino, I didn't mention is as I honestly could not recall for sure if it's a mob in that zone or not.