SE, the dev team needs some more resources.

[Ronduwil]

Does this look right to you?

When players are making nitpicky complaints about minor clipping issues specific to one race, I'd say the game is in a healthy state. I have never seen that bug in game before, but I have to say it looks hilarious. I'm sure they could have avoided that by delaying the expansion's release by a few more weeks in order to sort out these kinks, but would you have been willing to make that trade? I don't think so.

[Ronduwil]

You have the assets available to make sure you have a successful product and you don't release the product until it's ready. The question shouldn't be how you fix the problem other than patching it later but rather why wasn't the problem fixed before Shadowbringers was launched?

It's not a question of assets. It's a question of time. And, believe it or not, the market rewards timely releases far more than quality. If you knew this issue was going to exist prior to buying the expansion, would you still have bought it? I believe the answer is yes.

[Ayuhra]

there's also the issue of time too. they have a rigid schedule to keep with the patch update schedule and a new expansion on a 2 year cycle. i don't think any delay in that timeline will be acceptable to most people.

With more people, keeping on the patch cycle should not be an issue. Ideally they would be implementing fixes to, say, character models into the planned releases with enough time for it to pass through quality assurance and testing. I don't have any insight into how they do QA but applying resources to fix things would take the patch cycle into account. It would have to.

What players might have to brace for is even with more resources the fixes would not make it into a release coming out in the immediate future. The test cycle still needs room to happen.

[official_coconut]

I think that part is false. Sometimes a delay is worth it and sometimes even necessary in order to release something more complete with less glitches like this one. I definitely would have waited an extra week or so if it meant I could get some more hairstyles and my witch hats back.

[Ronduwil]

More money and people to work on things should free up more time for them though right? Of course some stuff might still be cut but what remains and is released shouldn't be rushed or unfinished.

Not necessarily. More often than not, the new people require training. Also, more people introducing changes reduces product stability. With every bug fix, there's a risk of introducing new bugs. That risk goes up exponentially when you have multiple people introducing fixes into the same component simultaneously. In the best case, you may see long term improvement at the expense of a short term delay. With a team as old as this one, however, you will likely just see a permanent delay. More resources does not always equate to faster development.

[Ronduwil]

I think that part is false. Sometimes a delay is worth it and sometimes even necessary in order to release something more complete with less glitches like this one. I definitely would have waited an extra week or so if it meant I could get some more hairstyles and my witch hats back.

That assumes that you're exclusively the audience that they're trying to please. The fact is that shareholders matter, too. Every company needs to walk a fine line between appeasing their shareholders and appeasing their customers. Sometimes companies go too far one way or the other and ultimately fail. I don't think that a handful of clipping issues with Viera armor falls into the category of utter disregard for their customers. Maybe you would have been willing to wait a week, but I don't think the majority of the FFXIV playerbase would have been as reasonable about it as you.

[DrWho2010]

also hiring more people means more overhead costs - training them, placing them in the right department, making sure they have the equipment for the work, can the building house this many people? HR issues, salary costs. etc. etc.

[Sylve]

More money and people to work on things should free up more time for them though right? Of course some stuff might still be cut but what remains and is released shouldn't be rushed or unfinished.

The problem with "more people" is one I can relate to on a personal level where I work.

Its not just a matter of having more bodies. Those bodies need to be trained up and integrated into the existing team.
The reason I can relate to how this as an issue is because when I take on new staff, even after receiving the proper training, they're not familiar enough with the processes to complete tasks in a timely manner. Prime example is a certain task that takes me 5 minutes to complete takes the new guy almost 30. But its taken me years beyond my initial training to be able to do that.
They'll get it done. Eventually. In the meantime, anyone relying on that work to be done in a timely manner will suffer delays that compound until everything screeches to a halt.
My years of experience and ease at handling the tools in question is not something that is easily passed on.

That's what the XIV dev team is facing, in my opinion. It takes a lot of time to properly integrate new staff and get them working at the pace of existing experienced staff.
Any new staff they added right now would likely not be capable of truly easing the workload on the existing devs for a year or more.

[BHolland]

you know how much money they burned for the Stormbloods Launch being that years wrestlemanias biggest sponsor..I feel like more money goes towards marketing than the actual game.

[Gwenorai]

you know how much money they burned for the Stormbloods Launch being that years wrestlemanias biggest sponsor..I feel like more money goes towards marketing than the actual game.

Marketing got a large chunk of the funding that's for sure. If I remember correctly they had multiple billboard advertisements and etc in times square. Not to mention having 'spiderman' be part of their commercial.