Where is all the content?

[RulerOfPotaoes]

The issue is to keep it simple, that the game has become (more popular and profitable.) Yet the production budget seems to always stay relatively the same for each expansion and patches.

If FF14 really is SE most profitable IP, then where are all the funds going?

It's a real shame the company is not willing to inject some serious and substantial amount of funds and resources back into the game's development.

[Sylve]

We do affect things. We affect a lotI am personally of the opinion that the logic of the time loop is fine, but Venat's actions post-Elpis are either under-explained or too reliant on doing things because we told her it would happen. She should have her own reasons for acting in accordance with what we described.

My opinion is that we were in an altered timeline from the beginning of ARR.
Basically, Original WoL goes back to Elpis, finds out about Meteion and then returns to the Original Timeline, leaving Venat to play out her role in the story as originaly described to her.
The Original timeline doesn't have a tagged Meteion, but the new altered time that we've been in since ARR is the one with the tagged bird. Original time goes through the Exodus on the Moon and finds another way to Meteion.
Meanwhile, we get the events of Endwalker. Its the only way the Elpis part of the story gels with the time travel rules they set out in G'raha's story.

[Reaperking386]

I have not finished the story but can say that story is subjective. Some will find it as art and others will find it as bad writing.

As concerns of content.. content has always been dry in between X.0 and X.1. Just look at the previous patch trailers. Why people always tell you not to rush the story? Is this an excuse for the team? No, but players should expect this, unfortunately.

Concerning music someone mentioned that the main composer was going through cancer and while you can have a backup composer with Square's money, there may be something in the contract or respect for the composer for why they are not using new music.

Voice acting is never used in raids unless in extremely rare instances.

Screw big empty zones like Ruby Sea. They were so huge that it took forever to go anywhere and felt empty and I can see the team also saw that as a waste of time. Just because it is a zone does not mean it needs to be huge.

[Shin96]

The issue is to keep it simple, that the game has become (more popular and profitable.) Yet the production budget seems to always stay relatively the same for each expansion and patches.

If FF14 really is SE most profitable IP, then where are all the funds going?

It's a real shame the company is not willing to inject some serious and substantial amount of funds and resources back into the game's development.

Most of us barely care where our money goes into. As long as we feel satisfied; that alone can be enough for some people.

[Miiu]

The issue is to keep it simple, that the game has become (more popular and profitable.) Yet the production budget seems to always stay relatively the same for each expansion and patches.

If FF14 really is SE most profitable IP, then where are all the funds going?

It's a real shame the company is not willing to inject some serious and substantial amount of funds and resources back into the game's development.

Don't underestimate how expensive game development can be. You can definitely see the increased production value with each expansion. Compare cutscenes in ARR to Cutscenes in later expansion. You can see updated facial rigs. More custom animations. More work being put into camera movements. Music etc.
Obviously they're still limited by the engine they're using and the platforms the game is running on. So you can't expect a sudden increased visuals boost. They're sadly confined to PS4 limitations.
Nonetheless the production quality keeps going up with each expansion.

[Ronduwil]

Agreed, the asinine use of Azem's Crystal to invalidate any emotional investment players had made in the Ultima Thule arc as well as the 'teleport me home' button simply destroyed any integrity the writers once had IMO.

Let's be honest. By the time three of the guys had dropped out, anyone who'd ever watched Naruto knew they were coming back. It was just like the arc after the Chunin Exams where the team went after Sasuke and gave their lives for the group one by one until the end, when it was revealed that a medical squad had been in tow the entire time, unbeknownst to the group. If you think the use of Azem's Crystal was asinine you should also acknowledge that their manner of "death" was equally asinine. It's not like trading their lives to reconstruct portions of deconstructed stars made any more sense than Azem's Crystal.

It's beyond me why so many 'young male fans' are so giddy with excitement over this appalling end to the ARR arc .. it's FFXIV's equivalent of Game of Thrones Season 8.

It's beyond me why so many players are so giddy with excitement over this story overall. Comparing it to Game of Thrones is laughable for several reasons. The most obvious is that Season 8 was much worse than Season 1. That was not the case for FFXIV. This game's story keeps getting better and better, and IMO the latest story was no exception to that. This story is great by video game standards, but I would never have called it fantastic. This expansion's story was good, and it nicely wrapped up the overall arc. I didn't expect any more than that. All these players who built up expectations that FFXIV stories are on par with great literary works set themselves up for disappointment on their own. A video game company will never live up to that standard. We want new content every couple of years, not every few decades!

[Snorky]

It's beyond me why so many players are so giddy with excitement over this story overall. Comparing it to Game of Thrones is laughable for several reasons. The most obvious is that Season 8 was much worse than Season 1. That was not the case for FFXIV. This game's story keeps getting better and better, and IMO the latest story was no exception to that. This story is great by video game standards, but I would never have called it fantastic. This expansion's story was good, and it nicely wrapped up the overall arc. I didn't expect any more than that. All these players who built up expectations that FFXIV stories are on par with great literary works set themselves up for disappointment on their own. A video game company will never live up to that standard. We want new content every couple of years, not every few decades!

I have to agree with this last part. I found this story to be more enjoyable than most other MMOs I have played. When the SWG came out the story was such a let down. I think most people expected so much more from that MMO. World of Warcraft had a good start with it's single player co-op play but to me WoW story wise was a let down. ESO was a let down story wise.

But I can say I enjoyed the story in FFXIV more than any of the others and that is what keeps me playing. I want to see what is next. And when this game doesn't entertain me any more I will move on. That's how RPGs work.

[Commander_Justitia]

If FF14 really is SE most profitable IP, then where are all the funds going?

Marketing. Innovation dies with no real competitors. They simply don't need to deliever, people are paying anyway atm

People forget the content they announced to cut in the past in order to bring new other type of content. I'm not really seeing much of it happening. I will be suprised if we see more than 1 ultimate this addon.

[Lauront]

I agree with this, the Shroud especially as that's always what comes to my mind when people mention HW onward zones "lacking life". The point absolutely has merit but I chalk it up to designing world zones around flying vs walking/riding in ARR and try not to let it bug me too much.

To be completely honest, I would be quite happy if we never got flying and all the zones were small, but dense with assets, like ARR. Having larger areas without loading zones between them is nice, for sure, but I got so used to them in ARR that they don't really bother me and in a strange way feel like home.



Restaurants are a perfect example. If I get something that's undercooked or a side that wasn't what I ordered, it's a simple thing to call the waiter over and say "Excuse me, I asked for X but got Y, may I please have X?" or "This is a bit undercooked, on the rare side of medium rare, would you please ask the kitchen to cook it a bit more? Thank you.". Servers and chefs don't always get everything right, all you have to do is bring up the issue politely and quietly and they'll take care of it.

The same thing applies here. "I'm not a fan of X and would prefer if it were more ABCDEF." That says what you're not fully satisfied with and gives a solution. While it may not be practical to fix, at least the solutions mentioned open up an avenue for discussion and perhaps change in the future.

I agree with you that that is the most valuable form of feedback, but I'd add a few caveats. Not everyone is capable of conceiving of solutions that are practically feasible, and in some cases, people can struggle even to articulate what it is they dislike about something, which is why companies will often probe feedback further to get the information they need out of it. Knowing a customer (dis)liked something is already feedback in itself. There's other things you could find out - e.g. is it decisive enough to stop them consuming the product? Will it end up being a series of straws, one of which will break the camel's back? Can we even do anything about it? And so on.

[Iscah]

My opinion is that we were in an altered timeline from the beginning of ARR.
Basically, Original WoL goes back to Elpis, finds out about Meteion and then returns to the Original Timeline, leaving Venat to play out her role in the story as originaly described to her.
The Original timeline doesn't have a tagged Meteion, but the new altered time that we've been in since ARR is the one with the tagged bird. Original time goes through the Exodus on the Moon and finds another way to Meteion.
Meanwhile, we get the events of Endwalker. Its the only way the Elpis part of the story gels with the time travel rules they set out in G'raha's story.

I disagree that you need a different timeline to make the story work or to make it consistent with G'raha's time travel.

My basic interpretation of the time travel rules is that the universe "prefers" things to link up into a single timeline. If you travel to the past, you move back along your own timeline and most of the time anything you do while you're there gets integrated into the way things always happened. This is the outcome seen in Elpis and in Alexander.

G'raha, in the other hand, managed to break the timeline by altering things in the past enough that the future he came from was impossible. This new future splits off on its own path while the original one also stays open as it forms the path that will bring him back here in the first place.

So that essentially turned the timeline from a single straight line to a Y shape with the "trunk" being everything that happens up to Shadowbringers and the two branches are the original (dark future) timeline and the one that we exist in now.

When we travel back in time to Elpis, we are going to the "trunk" of the timeline that is the single past of the two current branches, and so our actions there create the basis of both paths.

Our other self in the dark timeline never visits Elpis. They never have a reason to do so prior to dying in the Calamity, and in any case both Emet and Elidibus probably survive our demise and Fandaniel never gets to set off the Final Days anyway.

However, if our other self did have reason to go to Elpis, they would arrive in the same world we visit, not a separate copy. So there is no need for them to do so, and no paradox caused by their failure to get there.