Future direction of FFXIV

[AziraSyuren]

As great as the Garlemald section was, we kinda covered most of the major story beats involving it already. A whole expansion dedicated to it would be a waste, especially after ShB.

People who didn't like EW will probably focus a lot on what could've been, but I can assure them that a Garlemald-focused expansion would've been even worse. There simply wasn't enough ground to cover.

[KizuyaKatogami]

As great as the Garlemald section was, we kinda covered most of the major story beats involving it already. A whole expansion dedicated to it would be a waste, especially after ShB.

People who didn't like EW will probably focus a lot on what could've been, but I can assure them that a Garlemald-focused expansion would've been even worse. There simply wasn't enough ground to cover.

Personally i don’t think it would have been a waste. Varis would still be a thing. Let’s not forget that Nerva person they kept name dropping as well, along with the rest of the populares. Not to mention they could have actually expanded on Gabranth and not just throw him to the side like they did. I don’t think it would be any worse than the rushed mess we’ve gotten this expansion and with bozja due to the changes. There was a lot they could have addressed, especially if they get into the roots with Solus. Hell, there was that whole factory of Solus clones they still haven’t elaborated on. I mean apparently they didn’t have much to draw upon for Ew as they had to bring a whole lot of new stuff out of their asses like endsinger and Dynamis.

[Soge01]

I love Yoshi-P and his dev team! While, they make occasional mistakes here and there and don't quite get what we want sometimes (cough healers and DRK), I would never want to replace them with another dev team. Like another person pointed out here, the FFXIV dev team is the singular shining beacon amongst the whole of SE. If this team were replaced with another, I am 110% positive this game would fall into ruins within less than a year due to how seemingly incompetent other devs are with their budget management, story telling and SE's business side having such a bad and intrusive habit of trying to microtransaction the living shite out of everything and then appeal to people who don't even like to play their types of games!

[nighttimebunny]

It's great and I hope nothing changes

[Breakbeat]

The people that are satisfied and not complaining vastly outweigh those that do complain.

So, no, let's not redesign the beach because a handful of sand over there is very unhappy, and very loud about it.

The other 8 billion grains of sand on the beach are fine where they are.

...

I dislike how people reason, sometimes. They see some videos on YouTube, they read this and that on Reddit, they watch a streamer on Twitch, and somehow they get in their heads that "everyone" is complaining, or "everyone" dislikes such-and-such, or "everyone" is unhappy. That's illogical, simple-minded nonsense. I am sorry, but it is.

3.5 million active players, one sees a Reddit thread with 12k upvotes, and suddenly "everyone" wants things "this way." What a weird way to view the world. It doesn't make a lick of sense.

The only way to know "what players want" would be to survey all players, which unfortunately doesn't happen. With that kind of data, there'd be no more assuming who wants what.

Until then, wouldn't someone of sound mind err on the side of logic? That logic being that a human being, in general control of their own faculties, would simply stop consuming optional entertainment, should that optional enjoyment no longer fulfill the human's subjective needs? (In other words, if a person doesn't like a game, they just don't play it. Same as if you don't like coffee, you don't drink coffee. You don't go into Starbucks or wherever and rant about how coffee shouldn't be that bitter. Duh?)

Yeah, if anything "generally" happens, it's that. It's a small slice of the player base that shows up to rant and complain. The rest play if it's fun, and don't if it's not.

Ergo, the idea that "most people" dislike or are complaining about such-and-such within FFXIV - to the extent that one would seek to replace the development team - is asinine nonsense. "Most" people are happily enjoying this game, and I'll bet my left leg it's not even a close race. People who just enjoy this game and play it, or stop enjoying it and simply quit, outnumber those that complain endlessly by 1000:1. Or more.

[KizuyaKatogami]

The people that are satisfied and not complaining vastly outweigh those that do complain.

So, no, let's not redesign the beach because a handful of sand over there is very unhappy, and very loud about it.

The other 8 billion grains of sand on the beach are fine where they are.

...

I dislike how people reason, sometimes. They see some videos on YouTube, they read this and that on Reddit, they watch a streamer on Twitch, and somehow they get in their heads that "everyone" is complaining, or "everyone" dislikes such-and-such, or "everyone" is unhappy. That's illogical, simple-minded nonsense. I am sorry, but it is.

3.5 million active players, one sees a Reddit thread with 12k upvotes, and suddenly "everyone" wants things "this way." What a weird way to view the world. It doesn't make a lick of sense.

The only way to know "what players want" would be to survey all players, which unfortunately doesn't happen. With that kind of data, there'd be no more assuming who wants what.

Until then, wouldn't someone of sound mind err on the side of logic? That logic being that a human being, in general control of their own faculties, would simply stop consuming optional entertainment, should that optional enjoyment no longer fulfill the human's subjective needs? (In other words, if a person doesn't like a game, they just don't play it. Same as if you don't like coffee, you don't drink coffee. You don't go into Starbucks or wherever and rant about how coffee shouldn't be that bitter. Duh?)

Yeah, if anything "generally" happens, it's that. It's a small slice of the player base that shows up to rant and complain. The rest play if it's fun, and don't if it's not.

Ergo, the idea that "most people" dislike or are complaining about such-and-such within FFXIV - to the extent that one would seek to replace the development team - is asinine nonsense. "Most" people are happily enjoying this game, and I'll bet my left leg it's not even a close race. People who just enjoy this game and play it, or stop enjoying it and simply quit, outnumber those that complain endlessly by 1000:1. Or more.

From the mouths of the 14 devs themselves. Clearly complaints are much more important than some people want to believe.

[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.

[KageTokage]

As great as the Garlemald section was, we kinda covered most of the major story beats involving it already. A whole expansion dedicated to it would be a waste, especially after ShB.

People who didn't like EW will probably focus a lot on what could've been, but I can assure them that a Garlemald-focused expansion would've been even worse. There simply wasn't enough ground to cover.

I think a "Garlemald" expansion would've covered the whole of Ilsabard and the various Garlean-occupied provinces.

We really don't know much of anything that was going on in those regions both during the civil war and after the resulting tower shenanigans, and now with the Final Days having messed things up even more the situation could be rather dire.

The empire's leadership gone and now there's a power void that needs to be addressed before there can reasonably be a true peace amid the Three Great Continents.

[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.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Pretty much how I feel about the current state of FFXIV. I'm overall happy with the current game. I think people oversell too much HW and Shb honestly; like I came into the game with the impression that those expansions are like the top of the crop of FF and after going through it all I'm just like.... honey its not. The game got so much better but not in the ways people say. Gameplay wise questing never got better, the combat is still generally the same, dungeon design has gotten more linear, but the overall quality of characters, narrative and spectacle of gameplay set dressing is what kept getting better. Especially with how much you get attached to your character.....But compared to other games in the series it doesnt even rival to the concise quality of say FFIV, FFIX or FFVI. And granted I'm comparing different games, but HW or ShB alone doesnt blow those other games away. I enjoyed Endwalker and the whole journey from ARR. I love how consistent the generally consistent the content patches are and how we get this numerous live letters from the devs constantly conversing about future plans and content for this game; which in all honesty that level of communication is a godsend compared to other MMOs where it just feels they roll out patches whenever the hell they feel like it.

But I digress, I dont think this game is nowhere bad to warrant kicking out Yoshi-P and the devs from their pet project. From what other media outlets such as twitter, reddit, youtube say it seems general public praise Endwalker and the overall play of the game in general. Clearly they put a lot of love and care into it, no matter what other people think otherwise. But criticism to certain parts of the game are indeed warranted regardless and I dont think it should be wholefully ignored either. Some of the stuff people complain is valid such as healing, endgame content, narrative etc. But I also feel a lot of folk tend to over-exaggerate these issues just to sell their points for discussion.