Letter from the Producer LXII

[White_Wolf_X]

Well... how to say. If we open "armor" section in official database, it has 8326 items. Plus 2594 in accessories. Plus 3072 in arms. Plus 650 in tools. Yes, you don't need to adjust all of them, but you will need to check that there are no any glitches anyway, so it's a lot of work.

I just didn't think the game had that high a number of items to be fair, never bothered to check until now.

[Vahlnir]

Well... how to say. If we open "armor" section in official database, it has 8326 items. Plus 2594 in accessories. Plus 3072 in arms. Plus 650 in tools. Yes, you don't need to adjust all of them, but you will need to check that there are no any glitches anyway, so it's a lot of work.

They can say "it's a lot of work!" all they want but I'm increasingly less sympathetic to their plight as time goes on. The game is seriously understaffed. They can only use this excuse so many times before people start to ask "where is our money going?!"

I'm not saying that the devs don't work hard. They obviously do and I respect them for it. One could argue that they work too hard sometimes. But SE as a company needs to get its head out of the sand and staff this game properly imo. It's not like profits are an issue. This is probably one of their most profitable titles.

[Tharne]

They can only use this excuse so many times before people start to ask "where is our money going?!"

Kingdom Hearts 3, Final Fantasy VII Remake, probably on the Next Game that Yoshida is working on too.

[Halivel]

They can say "it's a lot of work!" all they want but I'm increasingly less sympathetic to their plight as time goes on. The game is seriously understaffed. They can only use this excuse so many times before people start to ask "where is our money going?!"

That's another story. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My comment was more for those who thinks that "10.000 armor" thing is an exaggeration, while it's not.

[enthauptet]

That's another story. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My comment was more for those who thinks that "10.000 armor" thing is an exaggeration, while it's not.

There is a huge number of duplicate items as well so it is a bit misleading.

Here's the problem with the number of likes. That number had a sharp increase to 1400 in 4 days. But that number only increased to 1666 in a span of 7 weeks after that initial increase. Where do you think the initial influx came from? It was from those that were watching the live letter and those that were told about the thread after. So the main question becomes "how many actually saw that announcement, heard about the thread and didn't bother to like it?". That's the actual pool size that the number of likes must be compared to. And that number exceeded 48K (that's only if you count the EN and JP twitch views for Tokyo live letter, let alone the number of players that didn't watch it).

If you were now to calculate the percentage of players that posted their like on the mega thread, that's 3.4% only. The reason many thought that 1666 likes is a big number to show profitable demand for SE was because they thought the number of likes was huge but they fell to what's called "non response bias" in their calculations.

And then we have the google poll that was done. That also falls into the same issue of "those that didn't participate in it, already should be counted as neutral". Hence the "non response bias" again. And it also has the issue that some can vote multiple times and even non players can vote. So that skewed the results drastically.

Most players aren't even aware there is a forum and if you believe reddit 90% of people are banned lol.

[Jollyy5]

...

I too often suspect that too much money from FFXIV goes to other projects, which is... not great.

But I'm pretty sure that most of the people working on FFXIV have no say in it, they have to work with what they have (manpower, budget, etc...) until someone from higher up decides to change that.

So when developers go out of their way to do something extra outside of work hours, they deserve all the praise they can get.

[Vahlnir]

I too often suspect that too much money from FFXIV goes to other projects, which is... not great.

But I'm pretty sure that most of the people working on FFXIV have no say in it, they have to work with what they have (manpower, budget, etc...) until someone from higher up decides to change that.

So when developers go out of their way to do something extra outside of work hours, they deserve all the praise they can get.

Pretty much been my suspicion as well. And yeah, I may not agree with some of the decisions being made regarding this game, but I can't say that the devs don't work their butts off, because they really do. I definitely wouldn't question their dedication. I just wish the game would be so much more than it is. It's not enough to make me quit (heck, I'll finally be getting my gunblade soon!) and I do have fun regardless. I just want the game to be better. Being silent does nothing. Being vocal might not either but you never know.

[griffinborn]

I too often suspect that too much money from FFXIV goes to other projects, which is... not great.

I've had this notion since FFXV's release. The obvious cut content, the in-game product placement...these are things that show signs of a troubled development. I can't imagine how much money had been wasted. SE is probably using FFXIV profit to recover from FFXV's shortcomings, which is sad.

[Physic]

They can say "it's a lot of work!" all they want but I'm increasingly less sympathetic to their plight as time goes on. The game is seriously understaffed. They can only use this excuse so many times before people start to ask "where is our money going?!"

I'm not saying that the devs don't work hard. They obviously do and I respect them for it. One could argue that they work too hard sometimes. But SE as a company needs to get its head out of the sand and staff this game properly imo. It's not like profits are an issue. This is probably one of their most profitable titles.

its not worth it because its not worth it. Every decision they make has a value and a cost, and a benefit, and must be compared to other costs.

Every race is actually less valuable the more races you have, because most players only use one or two races. There is a 1/16 chance that new race is going to be the most appealing race. Then, every race also makes every piece of gear more expensive to make, forever, and increases the costs of every skill with a unique animation/emote, cutscene etc (due to QA and development). And the upfront cost per race increases the more emotes/unique skills/armor etc the game has.

Then, you compare that cost, and benefit, with all the other things you could do with the same money/manhours and sometimes it no longer is worth it.

just because i make 1 million dollars off a tv show, doesnt mean its a good idea to spend 50% of my budget on one actor.

basically, at this point new races are no longer worth how much they cost, that doesnt change no matter how much money i make. Are you going to spend 2x the street value of a car, just because you have a good job when you already have 14 cars? Is that logical?

[Ceasaria]

Every race is actually less valuable the more races you have, because most players only use one or two races. There is a 1/16 chance that new race is going to be the most appealing race. Then, every race also makes every piece of gear more expensive to make, forever, and increases the costs of every skill with a unique animation/emote, cutscene etc (due to QA and development). And the upfront cost per race increases the more emotes/unique skills/armor etc the game has.
[...]
basically, at this point new races are no longer worth how much they cost, that doesnt change no matter how much money i make. Are you going to spend 2x the street value of a car, just because you have a good job when you already have 14 cars? Is that logical?

You can have 14 cars and access them for free, when in FFXIV to play another race you have to pay money (Fantasia).
Normal people and fantasia addict people will for sure allow SE to make great profits once new races will arrive.