I'm concerned for ffxiv's future

[grinkdaboy]

makes me wonder where all of that cash shop money's going. you would think that the game's overwhelming success, not only as an mmo, but pulling SE from the brink, would reflect more on the game. i understand they work very hard developing this game. but they give sort of the wrong impression when they decide to develop 2 incomplete races that won't even be able to equip all headgear when they're available.

[Azsuna]

"I'm concerned for ffxiv's future"

Translation: "I am disappointed that the new races are gender locked."

This isn't an inflammatory post. Having recently gone through your posting history, it is quite easy to see that this is the focal point that drives your comments on the forums. If you were really concerned about the future of FFXIV, you'd have a diverse perspective that covers a wide range of topics, which include but are not limited to: FATEs, leves, Guildheists, Crafting/Gathering/Fishing, Gold Saucer, Companions, BLU, job balance, raid content, NM difficulty, ilv progression, dungeon content, lack of outer world activity, mentor program. The list goes on and on and on and on.

These are what make FFXIV an online mmo. These are what the players do, and players with a genuine concern about where the game is going are concerned about. Your race choice at the end of the day is just glamour, and it is an aspect of the game that the devs have allocated a crap ton of resources and money towards all for the sake of appearance because we have vehemently expressed how important it is to us when in fact, it is not all that important to the actual gameplay.

Instead of thanking the devs for their endless nights, no weekends, sacrificing time with their families, and not getting paid anything extra for their above and beyond efforts; many choose to take this wonderful game they have brought to us for granted. All because you're not getting a male bunny. You can't see the forest for the trees. Grab a fishing rod. Seriously. Go to Eastern Thanalan, The Dravanian Forelands, or the Ruby Sea and cast your line. Take the time to take in all those small details. The sun setting and the moon changing phases; the small breeze of wind that brushes your hair; the sound of the crickets and owls; your character's random blinks of his/her eyelids; the music and weather changes along with reflections in the water; all those flickering stars that come out on the clear nights.

What the devs have put into this game is nothing short of amazing, and if there is a reason why I am concerned for the future of FFXIV; it's due to the abundance of players who choose to overly critique the game's shortcomings. The game is not perfect. Never will be. Neither are you. Nothing lasts forever, and the game will die at some point. I'd enjoy the here and now instead of shedding tears when looking out to the horizon.

Just logged in just to say i appreciate this comment. And borderline embarassed for OP. :s

[Enla]

makes me wonder where all of that cash shop money's going. you would think that the game's overwhelming success, not only as an mmo, but pulling SE from the brink, would reflect more on the game. i understand they work very hard developing this game. but they give sort of the wrong impression when they decide to develop 2 incomplete races that won't even be able to equip all headgear when they're available.

Cash shop is the only revenue source that goes directly back into the game but it can't carry the lion's share of the funding.

[spf1200]

People just need to stop acting like everything they don't like is the end of the game.

[RoseBnargin]

I always say: If you dont like it, don't like it, dont play. Bottom line cut and dry.

[Kaedan]

When are people going to understand, as Yoshida himself has even said, that money isn't everything? You can throw as much money as you want at something, it won't make it go faster, won't make it perfect, and won't make it necessarily successful. There are thousands of examples of companies throwing money at a project and it still going belly up.

It's a question of reasonable use of manpower. Every new race, as Yoshida said, is thousands of hours of work hours needed that could be spent more effectively elsewhere (since ultimately, races are nothing more than cosmetics, not game content).

[Ceasaria]

Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, each have their strength and weakness.
However, with all these years, I have seen an improvement in the quantity and quality of the contents delivered by SE.
I'am convinced, it will continue to follow this way in Shadowbringers.

[Kalise]

When are people going to understand, as Yoshida himself has even said, that money isn't everything? You can throw as much money as you want at something, it won't make it go faster, won't make it perfect, and won't make it necessarily successful. There are thousands of examples of companies throwing money at a project and it still going belly up.

It's a question of reasonable use of manpower. Every new race, as Yoshida said, is thousands of hours of work hours needed that could be spent more effectively elsewhere (since ultimately, races are nothing more than cosmetics, not game content).

Ehh... It's not quite as simple as that.

From a consumer perspective, throwing money at the game will make things go faster and will solve our problems.

Since, more money spent on more people means shared workload. I.e. Instead of having 1 guy go through the game altering 10,000 items to fit a new race, you get 10 people going through the game altering 1,000 items each to fit a new race. Effectively increasing efficiency tenfold.

Not only that, but more people means more teams can be simultaneously working on different parts of the game. You can have teams working on MSQ, Dungeons, Raids, Eureka, PvP, Glamour, Housing, Character Customization, Side Quests, Deep Dungeons, Job Balance, New Jobs, Job Quests, New Activities etc. All at the same time and thus creating content for each aspect regularly.

Thus, from a player perspective, money DOES solve everything (In the case where it's going towards new staff, not just going to the CEO's wallet like many companies seem to do >.>)

The questions come from the other side of the fence. From the side of the company. Since they want to make profit and they thus will not just throw infinite amounts of money at the game unless they are sure that they will get it all back AND MORE.

They're the ones that need to balance expenditure of money and reasonable use of manpower, so that they don't lose money and therefore shut down the game.

For FFXIV, it's in somewhat of a precarious situation because of the way that SE has set things up. Where the money is provided by the parent company and it's Yoshida and his team that balance out the expenditure and manpower. With the baseline situation where the majority of the money made by the game is already siphoned off by the parent company and re-distributed elsewhere.

Meaning that Yoshi and Co. Are working essentially from a limited fund that is not directly related to how well the game is doing (So they can't for example, do something well and get a bunch more subs and then use the extra money to expand the team and the content they provide to retain those subs. Instead, they do something well and get a bunch more subs and they have exactly the same amount of money to try and retain them unless Papa SE decides to give them more), which causes them to be limited in what they can and cannot do, since their every move needs to be justifiable to SE.

This is why certain things are difficult for them to overcome. Why they can't simply have a team to rewrite the Character Creation code to make adding new options such as hairstyles, faces, body types (Fat, thin, tall, short, butt sliders etc) much easier. Why they can't rewrite the Inventory System to make it not trash and allow for easier times implementing additional space and creating a Glamour system that doesn't suck. Why they can't simply alter how Housing is done to allow for things like Glamour Dressers in houses or things like Balconies. Yoshi and Co. KNOW that people want these things. They KNOW that they're popular requests. But they cannot JUSTIFY working on them to SE and thus cannot do anything about them.

It's the reason behind the single gender races. They KNOW that people want Male Viera and Female Hrothgar. But they cannot JUSTIFY working on them to SE. Not unless Female Viera and Male Hrothgar prove to be profitable enough for SE for it to be considered a reasonable use of manpower.

So, it ends up being the thing that people understand is that while Square Enix is a multi-million dollar company. The team working on FFXIV is not Squeenix as a whole, but a subsidiary that is funded BY Squeenix and is thus at the mercy of their financial decisions.

[Kaedan]

Ehh... It's not quite as simple as that.

From a consumer perspective, throwing money at the game will make things go faster and will solve our problems.

Since, more money spent on more people means shared workload. I.e. Instead of having 1 guy go through the game altering 10,000 items to fit a new race, you get 10 people going through the game altering 1,000 items each to fit a new race. Effectively increasing efficiency tenfold.

snip

That's the reason I mentioned the "saturation point" of manpower. There is a point where no matter how many people you add to a project, you get nothing but diminishing returns. It's where the idiom "too many chefs spoil the broth" comes from.

They already have a VERY large staff. Far more than is typical. It isn't as simple as the basic math you have tried to apply. But you do illustrate how the "consumer perspective" is a flawed one with a very narrow view of the whole picture. That's precisely the false thinking that throwing money at a project will allow them to simply hire more people and get things done faster.

[Kalise]

That's the reason I mentioned the "saturation point" of manpower. There is a point where no matter how many people you add to a project, you get nothing but diminishing returns. It's where the idiom "too many chefs spoil the broth" comes from.

They already have a VERY large staff. Far more than is typical. It isn't as simple as the basic math you have tried to apply. But you do illustrate how the "consumer perspective" is a flawed one with a very narrow view of the whole picture. That's precisely the false thinking that throwing money at a project will allow them to simply hire more people and get things done faster.

But then, if you read literally the sentence afterwards that you snipped out, you'd also see that once you hit the point of "Diminishing Returns" (Which in of itself, isn't a hard wall of productivity, merely a reduction in the increase each person provides which is literally every person past 2 people working on something in my example. I.e. 1 guy going through 10,000 items. A 2nd guy then makes it 100% more efficient by splitting the load to 5,000 items for each of them. A 3rd guy merely increases productivity by 50% because it's now splitting those 5,000 items between 2 people into 3,333 items between 3 people. Thus a diminishing return of investment)

Then you can put more people towards OTHER things. Such as like Yoshida mentioned "While FFXIV will continue to strive to maintain a regular 3.5 month major update cycle, we must also ensure that sufficient time is secured for the meticulous development of new content—or else the quality will invariably drop."

They need to keep pumping out the regular release of the new Dungeons/MSQ/Raids.

Thus if you can have a larger team working on Cosmetic things like Races/Character Customization AND have a larger team working on Dungeons/MSQ/Raids at the same time, that is more efficient than having to split focus because you only have a small team working on one aspect, or you have a larger team that works on the core content (Dungeons/MSQ/Raids) first and then works on other things afterwards.

You're the one who's illustrating flawed and narrow views of the whole picture in this scenario. By having limited understanding of how game development works. Including your reference to them having a "VERY large staff". Which often will be distributed into different teams that work on different aspects. I.e. The Art team won't be doing any work on Job Balance. The Art team will simply be working on Art assets. If this team gets larger, they can work on more Art assets. If the team gets large enough where more people won't help, you get people in to different teams, such as the Job Balance team so they can work more efficiently.