What if (PS4 and PC become seperated)

[LastFireAce]

What you think would happen to the game?
This mostly couple of stuff i been talking about with friends. Wanted to hear you guys opinion.

My is the game will become "meh".

[Aster_E]

Well that would screw with communities more than the excruciating effort of such a change would be worth, for one thing. If I stayed on the PS4 then it would separate my boyfriend and me on the game that we have both felt less inclined to play of late, so... I can only imagine how many people would take off from the game at that point.

[Rufalus]

Yoshida and the XIV team refuse to separate the community by platform. That's the main roadblock to getting the game onto more consoles since they need Sony and Microsoft to agree on allowing PS4 and Xbox players to play together. The console guys aren't relaxing their policies and S-E will not compromise to make Xbox Live-only worlds disconnected from other players.

[Luna-M]

Will never happen. The whole pitch with XIV is it's cross plattform.

[Kirsten_Rev]

What you think would happen to the game?
This mostly couple of stuff i been talking about with friends. Wanted to hear you guys opinion.

My is the game will become "meh".

Communities would fracture, the PS4 version would likely die off outside of Japan, and the PC version would likely die off in Japan.

If the game survived these immediate short-term consequences, I don't really think there would be much of an impact. My personal 'Top 10 Things I'd Like to Change' list for FFXIV doesn't feature anything that would be somehow limited, or even influenced by, multi-platform support. I mean, sure, I'd love HD textures, no loading zones, and some bigger maps, but none of those factors are pushing me away from the game, nor would changing them lessen the feeling of 'bleh' I have surrounding the next expansion cycle.

I will, however, put forward one caveat: if splitting the game across platforms meant Yoshi-P stepped down from his role for one or both platforms, I think we'd see potentially tremendous improvement for the version under a fresh set of eyes. I cannot recall any supposedly-premium MMO with less ambition than FFXIV has featured for the past four years or so. It feels to me like Yoshi-P and team brought the game back from the brink of death, only to turn it into a virtual bubble boy. Not that I think a split would be good even under this scenario, but in this case, I could see an upside if it survived the inevitable community fracturing.

Yoshida and the XIV team refuse to separate the community by platform. That's the main roadblock to getting the game onto more consoles since they need Sony and Microsoft to agree on allowing PS4 and Xbox players to play together. The console guys aren't relaxing their policies and S-E will not compromise to make Xbox Live-only worlds disconnected from other players.

Fixed it for you Sony has been the primary roadblock for years in terms of cross-platform play (see: Minecraft, Fortnight, etc.). It's arguable that's understandable given their status in the console world, but cross-platform play definitely isn't a Microsoft problem right now.

[LauraAdalena]

snip

I don't get this thing that people have been doing where they say "If Yoshi-P steps down it'll improve." God no. Changing out major roles is far more likely to lead to catastrophic failure. Only reason it was successful with FFXIV was because Yoshi-P generally had a vague idea of what players wanted and was able to rally the team and get them all to see his vision. Doing that again right now from one person to an unknown is far more likely to start causing miscommunications between departments like there was during 1.0 pre-Yoshi. The FFXIV change of head was a miraculous recovery, one that is rare to replicate or even come close to the stability afterward. Especially given how rigorous they want their release schedule to be.

If anything, they need to slow down or take a break from developing the game. They need to stop right now and give more time between SB and the next expansion. Only reason I say this is because they're working themselves into a corner with the rigorous patch cycle they want.

[Iscah]

Why would they ever decide do that though?

It’s one thing if it had never been cross-platform, but what could they possibly want to achieve by splitting it afterwards? The community backlash would be massive, and rightly so.

[Kirsten_Rev]

I don't get this thing that people have been doing where they say "If Yoshi-P steps down it'll improve." God no. Changing out major roles is far more likely to lead to catastrophic failure. Only reason it was successful with FFXIV was because Yoshi-P generally had a vague idea of what players wanted and was able to rally the team and get them all to see his vision. Doing that again right now from one person to an unknown is far more likely to start causing miscommunications between departments like there was during 1.0 pre-Yoshi. The FFXIV change of head was a miraculous recovery, one that is rare to replicate or even come close to the stability afterward. Especially given how rigorous they want their release schedule to be.

If anything, they need to slow down or take a break from developing the game. They need to stop right now and give more time between SB and the next expansion. Only reason I say this is because they're working themselves into a corner with the rigorous patch cycle they want.

From my perspective, the pace they've set is also Yoshi-P's responsibility. He's the director, after all - it's his call whether or not they slow down the pace of content releases.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know the full picture. All I do know is that the game is no longer grabbing at me, personally, nor is it appealing really to most of my friends. I and my friends are all hungry for something fresh, but nothing has been delivered - for years now. While it's certainly possible that Yoshi-P is not at fault here, all available evidence - and his position as both Director of the game and an Executive Officer at SE - suggests he's at the root of what I feel is bland, unambitious development.

As to the risk of things getting worse... well, yeah, it's certainly possible. But again, speaking personally, I don't feel I have much to lose. I'm not planning on continuing into 5.0 unless I see major changes, and once my house gets demolished, I'll have precious little reason to ever return again down the road.

I can't speak for others on the forums, but that's why I'd welcome a change at the top. I'd happily suffer through a period of chaos if it meant I had hope for the game to meaningfully evolve.

[KaivaC]

I think a much better question is, what would be the benefit? This isn't the PS3 - the excuse of PS4 limitations doesn't really apply insomuch as the limitations are with the FFXIV servers themselves and the lack of quality/innovation by the devs. I don't think SQEX would be too pleased with having their profits chopped by such a huge margin. I'd imagine that this would severely hurt FFXIV far more than the housing/Pagos/Companion App issues combined into one. Given how SQEX is slowly starting to push towards getting as much profit as they can, I don't see any tangible benefit whatsoever for anybody in them doing this.

[Kirsten_Rev]

I think a much better question is, what would be the benefit? This isn't the PS3 - the excuse of PS4 limitations doesn't really apply insomuch as the limitations are with the FFXIV servers themselves and the lack of quality/innovation by the devs. I don't think SQEX would be too pleased with having their profits chopped by such a huge margin. I'd imagine that this would severely hurt FFXIV far more than the housing/Pagos/Companion App issues combined into one. Given how SQEX is slowly starting to push towards getting as much profit as they can, I don't see any tangible benefit whatsoever for anybody in them doing this.

I suspect the OP was intending to engage in a hypothetical thought project, rather than making a realistic suggestion. Sort of along the lines of 'what would happen if the Half-life IP were released to a devoted mod team so we could finally get HL3'. It'd never happen, but still potentially interesting to discuss.