Future direction of FFXIV

[Atelier-Bagur]

Ive been lurking and interacting with the forum here for a good time. I know I havent been here a good majority of this game's history; or at least havent been in the forums long enough to gauge general feeback and topic trends but from the majority of people here I'm curious about something.

Do you guys feel like the current dev team is incapable to lead this game 6.1 and beyond because of the good amount of complaints between gameplay, story, and general content releases. Should we shuffle devs around or replace Yoshi-P? Are people overall happy with the state of this game?

Wanna know people's thoughts.

[RobynDaBank]

Not gonna lie, the difference between the creative unit in charge of FFXIV and the rest of Square Enix is huge. I feel like people wishing Yoshida and co leaving would be a monkey's paw. Can't imagine SQEX's chosen replacement being anything but worse.

[Skyborne]

Not gonna lie, the difference between the creative unit in charge of FFXIV and the rest of Square Enix is huge. I feel like people wishing Yoshida and co leaving would be a monkey's paw. Can't imagine SQEX's chosen replacement being anything but worse.

Same, even if I think there's a lot that can be done better. Monkey's paw makes me think of the poor souls who wanted a simple FF7 remaster or a new Chocobo Racing game... where it just curled up into a fist and punched them in the gut.

[AziraSyuren]

Not gonna lie, the difference between the creative unit in charge of FFXIV and the rest of Square Enix is huge. I feel like people wishing Yoshida and co leaving would be a monkey's paw. Can't imagine SQEX's chosen replacement being anything but worse.

This is the correct response.

No matter what direction FFXIV stands to take, the people that'd replace the current team would only make it worse. There's not a lick of good game design sense left in SE outside of this game. I personally don't mind if this game's content schedule never really changes, I just don't want to see what others at SE would do to it.

[Lauront]

This is the correct response.

No matter what direction FFXIV stands to take, the people that'd replace the current team would only make it worse. There's not a lick of good game design sense left in SE outside of this game. I personally don't mind if this game's content schedule never really changes, I just don't want to see what others at SE would do to it.

What do you mean? I thought 7 Remake part 1 was great, and I also like some of their smaller scale projects, like Octopath Traveler. Let's say that Yoshi and Ishikawa both take more of a backseat approach while they work on other projects that interest them more, where there is less pressure to constantly adapt their work based on fan pressure on certain sites... they adopt a painting by the numbers approach of just staying committed to the project through providing oversight, because SE has no one else to head one of their steady cash cows, while they also get to work on side projects that interest them more, do you not think this is a somewhat concerning scenario? That in 10 years of this project now, not a single suitable replacement within their own BD is available? I don't think someone leading the project, doing so out of a sense of obligation/due to lack of any suitable replacements, is a great situation.

EW did well in sales, and this is in part because the MMO market is pretty slim pickings at the moment and one of the most popular games in that market has been floundering - it remains to be seen whether a game like Lost Ark will pose much competition, but let's come back in 6-12 months, and see how 14 is doing then, and how the "refugees" rate its content model at that point, and not when they had loads of content to catch up with.

I'd agree that simply replacing the current team isn't necessarily something to wish for in the absence of any good alternatives (because an MMO is a different beast to a single player title... but then the game is moving to become more single player friendly anyway), but at the same time it does somewhat concern me that Yoshi's tone seems rather resigned - beyond saying the obvious to reassure fans that the next chapter will be great. Very dismissive tone to healer concerns, for example, and very blasé during story Q&As, in spite of the game priding itself on this. I did not enjoy EW's story much after Elpis, and the subsequent Q&As etc. did not do much to impress me, so I am concerned whether I will like the game's story focus going forward in addition to its somewhat sterile content model. I'd like to be wrong and impressed by the new story and content - e.g. the Criterion dungeons - but I'm not going to pretend they're not concerns of mine. Simply referring me to all the gushing over it, as some are wont to do, isn't going to change it. With that said, if you or others enjoy the game? Awesome, but as for me, I am hoping some new competition crops up on the scene to either stimulate improvement, or so I have an MMO available more to my tastes.

No.

The forum/Reddit/Twitter are not in any way representative of the player base as a whole. The sky is not falling.

/thread

I agree, but then 2/3 of that are unreservedly gushing in positivity about it, and try suppress any criticism, so that cuts both ways. People are happy to cite them when it comes to this being the "best expansion ever", but quick to dismiss them if the suggestion goes the other way. I fully agree that they're not representative of the playerbase as a whole, but SE does not do routine surveys etc. to provide more varied feedback, and has admitted to reading Reddit and Twitter at the least. It is the forum which tends to be more critical, and at least on the EU/NA side, gets much less engagement.

[TaleraRistain]

Not gonna lie, the difference between the creative unit in charge of FFXIV and the rest of Square Enix is huge. I feel like people wishing Yoshida and co leaving would be a monkey's paw. Can't imagine SQEX's chosen replacement being anything but worse.

Pretty much this. People can complain about this small inconsistency or that or this Mogstation item or that but it would become 1000 times worse with others at SE at the helm because that's the mess their other games have become. I'm hoping with Yoshi-P at the helm, XVI can avoid that.

[Soge01]

Pretty much this. People can complain about this small inconsistency or that or this Mogstation item or that but it would become 1000 times worse with others at SE at the helm because that's the mess their other games have become. I'm hoping with Yoshi-P at the helm, XVI can avoid that.

And if Yoshi-P can succeed with XVI, I hope he gains a bigger influence over the overall company and convince the bigwigs at the top that simply following trends only leads to disaster and that going with giving their already established fan base a game they would want to play with a decently sized and managed budget is the best way to go about things.

[aveyond-dreams]

This game has ups and downs but FFXIV's current management is still representative of the best SE has to offer. Make of that statement what you wish.

[Minarisweet]

This game has ups and downs but FFXIV's current management is still representative of the best SE has to offer. Make of that statement what you wish.

I feel like part of why yoship has the game in even a decent state is because he knows how to play around square enix's bullshit. There's a lot of talent in square enix but the company itself gets in the way of the devs a lot.

[Jeeqbit]

Do you guys feel like the current dev team is incapable to lead this game 6.1 and beyond because of the good amount of complaints between gameplay, story, and general content releases. Should we shuffle devs around or replace Yoshi-P? Are people overall happy with the state of this game?

I don't know how you could have possibly got this impression. Yoshi-P is regarded favorably and something of an internet legend at this point for how well he runs and develops the game and manages his team.

If Yoshi-P were ever not doing this, the future of the game would be in question because throughout history, a change in the person at the top more often than not sends everything downhill. The person who replaces them does not have the same passion, experience, beliefs and just magick that make it work. I'm confident they are aware of this too.

I don't know if I've ever seen an MMO with so much faith in its developers and operators. It doesn't take long to get that faith. In your first few quests, it only asks you to kill 3 enemies instead of 100 of them.

The "complaints" on the forums are here because this is where we've been asked to put them. The most important ones get changed eventually (but it can take at least two years because a lot of changes happen at expansion-level). When something isn't changed it usually relates to old content or isn't a major problem.

There are times when players are just in a minority about their complaints or they don't consider other players whose interests differ from theirs and this is where Yoshi-P is good at knowing when to listen, and when not to listen.