Something the FFXIV developers should learn from the WoW developers

[giwaman]

I would rather have a single well-thought delay for a bunch of fixing than spread-out content that may or may not work, more and more time and resources going into more coding for servers for housing, and so forth that we have going now. I'd rather know that the game actually works well, and has a ton of things for us to pick up and choose to do any any given day, rather than an uninspired routine that reinforces itself every other patch, because all else was abandoned by some combination of the players or the devs.

so you want a very long content drought that may take months and months of continues delays because that may happen if they keep chaging stuffs adding or remove etc... vs what we have currently atm a very stable patch schedule and alot of fun content updates?.

[Wolf_Heartnet]

To be honest, I think XIV devs just don't have any idea how to properly implement content and innovate. One of the biggest problems plaguing this game is the fact that the content cycle has become increasingly stale and uncreative. Side content is not designed with the intent of making it fun but instead incentivise you to get you to do the content. (Diadim, PvP, Eureka, Verminion) Then theres the fact that Yoshi doesn't even want to release blitzball because he doesn't know if people will like it the way they implement it so decides that turning it into football manager is the quickest and easiest way to get past it, just screams that the fun aspect is not taken into account. That and the fact that the devs are giving us less and less content per patch. 3.3 literally has twice the amount of content 4.3 has.

Edit: Is there any reason to even buy the new expansion at 5.0 launch when there is going to be a 6-8+ month long content drought?

[Aster_E]

so you want a very long content drought that may take months and months of continues delays because that may happen if they keep chaging stuffs adding or remove etc... vs what we have currently atm a very stable patch schedule and alot of fun content updates?.

Yes.

I would rather the delays be due to getting the content right, rather than now, where we already have delays on some things, and half-assed attempts on some others, because so much time is spent fixing things. For instance, when they made the loot of 24man raids all Greed Only, and went back shortly afterward to undo that change, do you think it was a simple on/off switch, or do you think someone in the dev team took a portion or more of their day--time that could and should have been spent on other things--on both changes?

Even without that in mind, my answer is still, emphatically, yes. I want quality over quantity.

[Hestzhyen]

so you want a very long content drought that may take months and months of continues delays because that may happen if they keep chaging stuffs adding or remove etc... vs what we have currently atm a very stable patch schedule and alot of fun content updates?.

I would not mind a delay in content release if it meant what we were getting was vetted for "fun factor"*. Clearly SE has the technical side down pat (as much as you can in an MMO), it's way past time for them to start getting player feedback on whether the upcoming content is actually worth doing or not. Or exploitable. A PT Realm could have forewarned of the NM train in Anemos at the very least. Since SE clearly didn't like that they could have adjusted for it. And Pagos has shown that only a very tiny minority of players will enjoy this type of content if they can't cheese it so SE needs to step it up and find out what we like instead of handing it to us and saying "take it or leave it".

If they're worried about trial boss spoilers, they can have a dummy model with fake move names.

*This needs to be incorporated into the development cycle so it doesn't significantly delay patch releases. Perhaps when they start technical testing they can add the new content to the PT realm as well, thereby getting large amounts of feedback on both bugs and the quality from a player perspective.

[Jojoya]

What you quoted has nothing to do with your concern. The quote was about trying to hide plot points from players, not changing content based on player feedback during beta testing or other public testing (they tend to fail at hiding the plot points, regardless). Blizzard doesn't make changes to content based on tester feedback once development moves out of alpha and into beta. The most you see are some changes made shortly after beta testing begins that weren't ready to be implemented before alpha ended.

If you knew anything about the history of WoW beta testing, you'd know that opening FFXIV beta testing to players would not achieve the result you're looking for. WoW is notorious for ignoring tester feedback even when most of the time the feedback is spot on for predicting how the player base will react after release.

The other thing you're conveniently ignoring is something you pointed out yourself - not everyone plays the same way or for the same reasons. Making changes to please one segment of the player base is going to upset other segments.

Any game developer ultimately needs to stick to their vision for their content design. Games would be a mess if they were constantly messing with things trying to please a player base that's not in agreement about what they like and what the game should be.

[Deceptus]

What you quoted has nothing to do with your concern. The quote was about trying to hide plot points from players, not changing content based on player feedback during beta testing or other public testing .

One of the main reasons SE has stated they don't want a Test Realm is they want to keep the story a secret.

I'm pointing out that the lead developer of the most successful MMO ever thinks that the benefits of having a PTR outweighs the need for secrecy.

[Kazrah]

Blizzard doesn't make changes to content based on tester feedback once development moves out of alpha and into beta.

Except no gaming company tests for feedback; they test for analytics. Numbers and percentages related to content being done are much easier to read than any (mostly) jibberish that winds up in player feedback, which is why any written feedback is usually taken with a grain of salt. Looking back nowadays of when I took part in the ARR beta, I'm fairly convinced that whatever reasons SE may have had for player testing they believe can be done through in-house testers and mathematicians.

Ironically though, what testing possibilities that could be offered to players wouldn't involve story content at all. The same means that have been stated for testing job gameplay for example (target dummy testing and fight mechanic simulation testing) could be done by players willing to do it at no expense to the company.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Except no gaming company tests for feedback; they test for analytics. Numbers and percentages related to content being done are much easier to read than any (mostly) jibberish that winds up in player feedback, which is why any written feedback is usually taken with a grain of salt. Looking back nowadays of when I took part in the ARR beta, I'm fairly convinced that whatever reasons SE may have had for player testing they believe can be done through in-house testers and mathematicians.

Ironically though, what testing possibilities that could be offered to players wouldn't involve story content at all. The same means that have been stated for testing job gameplay for example (target dummy testing and fight mechanic simulation testing) could be done by players willing to do it at no expense to the company.

I don't know that i trust players opinions on jobs after the SAM speculation before launch/ and the numbers people saw on some skills at launch. Thats one of the reasons its in such a poor place right now, everyone complained it was too strong because they saw potencies, but it wasn't, and after like, 4 weeks, other jobs got buffed due to the backlash.

[Voltyblast]

so you want a very long content drought that may take months and months of continues delays because that may happen if they keep chaging stuffs adding or remove etc... vs what we have currently atm a very stable patch schedule and alot of fun content updates?.

Define fun for one thing: is eureka fun? is potd 2 fun? Is rathalos fun? For me fun is doing dungeons and getting gear that doesn't become obsolete in few weeks.

Secondly, think of this way: let's assume they delay one patch for giving us some ACTUAL good content, content that lasts, content that is worth being called content - like some sort of speed run dungeon feature or mythic like wow - and this content is balanced, gives us some good reward - and i mean actual good rewards like gear and weapons and not fluff rewards like pets - and overall it's great.

Now think of this: they took longer to deliver this and will take longer for the next, but since this content is worth something and it's good for progression and it's well balanced, people will be fine waiting longer to get better and balanced content because it's good, it doesn't become boring really quick, it gives some reward for our time and overall it's worth the wait.

In the end it would cycle this way: longer waits for patches but better and lasting content that doesn't get boring immediately. Right now we got so many fluff content that isn't just worth it - biggest example is gold saucer - and they basically become obsolete within 24 hours if not less.

Meanwhile in wow even events like Darkmoon Faire grants us benefits for our gaming experience (they give exp and rep boosts) while ALSO being fluff content (and not even bad either!)

[Kazrah]

I don't know that i trust players opinions on jobs after the SAM speculation before launch/ and the numbers people saw on some skills at launch. Thats one of the reasons its in such a poor place right now, everyone complained it was too strong because they saw potencies, but it wasn't, and after like, 4 weeks, other jobs got buffed due to the backlash.

And that backlash (along with the dumpster fire that was the tank accessory debacle) could've been avoided by having players test SAM beforehand and realizing that the numbers are intended to offset its complete lack of utility (which I'd argue is why it's in a poor place these days).