What is going on with Square Enix and the 14 team?

[KizuyaKatogami]

Between the healer problems for 6 years being ignored, the recent Hrothgar problems where they waited patiently for 3 years and got literal shit, to the horrid job design in 6.1, the pretty controversial story of EW, to now the housing system just imploding on itself. Do the devs just not care anymore? The game is seeing it’s peak, the game is bringing in more money than ever, and yet we’re somehow getting more broken systems. I guess this is what happens when they let the popularity get to their head? They start thinking they can half ass everything and people will continue to stay and kiss up to them. Seeing this community’s history i don’t blame them for thinking that way but…my god. The game is taking such a downward spiral. At this point i’m expecting Ultimate to have some major errors and that would be the icing on the cake.

[SturmChurro]

Some of us have seen what was happening, and talking about it for years. It seems "Endwalker" was aptly named.

I'm not sure what is going on, but it does feel like they have become complacent with the game's success. Apparently, siphoning funds to other projects, moving devs over, etc. Yoshida being "surprised" at negative feedback, gives me the feeling that much of our feedback here simply isn't getting to the devs unless it's a very big issue, but not only that, a lot of players themselves were satisfied enough with the game that they wouldn't speak out.

I hope a lot of this is a wake up call for SE. The playerbase does look to have their limits.

[Sclair0]

For a serious attempt at an answer... I think its mostly feature creep, they're moving forward with multiple pieces of content at once and not giving them enough attention individually. Which is why I think we get lower quantities of things (smaller maps, less dungeons, less gear etc.)

Not to say that excuses anything. Just that I think thats the reason, attention divided between fixing ongoing issues and systems and producing new content at the same time.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Some of us have seen what was happening, and talking about it for years. It seems "Endwalker" was aptly named.

I'm not sure what is going on, but it does feel like they have become complacent with the game's success. Apparently, siphoning funds to other projects, moving devs over, etc. Yoshida being "surprised" at negative feedback, gives me the feeling that much of our feedback here simply isn't getting to the devs unless it's a very big issue, but not only that, a lot of players themselves were satisfied enough with the game that they wouldn't speak out.

Oh absolutely. I started saying it in ShB, when we saw less content and just overall laziness on the devs part and people called me stupid, a hater, how i’m just so wrong and look where we are now. Ngl i’m a bit amused at watching all of this happen. A part of me wonders if they knew the game wouldn’t be sustainable and that’s why they’re focusing on solo friendly content now and why they cut an expansion.

[aveyond-dreams]

This is what happens when instead of keeping people accountable, fans silence those who speak against key issues under the pretense of combatting alleged "toxicity." I'm sorry, but what we've seen come out of this patch is in no way acceptable.

Money and resources have disappeared and since FFXVI has nothing to show for it despite the looming promise of a spring reveal, from a company whose definition of fall extended all the way into late November, they are not doing a good job of maintaining my confidence in them.

[Kyrj]

Between the healer problems for 6 years being ignored, the recent Hrothgar problems where they waited patiently for 3 years and got literal shit, to the horrid job design in 6.1, the pretty controversial story of EW, to now the housing system just imploding on itself. Do the devs just not care anymore? The game is seeing it’s peak, the game is bringing in more money than ever, and yet we’re somehow getting more broken systems. I guess this is what happens when they let the popularity get to their head? They start thinking they can half ass everything and people will continue to stay and kiss up to them. Seeing this community’s history i don’t blame them for thinking that way but…my god. The game is taking such a downward spiral. At this point i’m expecting Ultimate to have some major errors and that would be the icing on the cake.

I remember all the people saying that with the sudden boom of new players coming to FF14 that EW would have to slap hard. That slap you heard? It was FF14 falling on its face in front of those new players. Seriously, this has been the laziest expansion I've seen them do, which makes me think that Yoshida wants out.

[Arzalis]

It's been going on since Shadowbringers, honestly.

People were just kind of riding out the (admittedly great) story and overlooking all the other game/system issues.

IMO, FFXIV is suffering because of FFXVI development. It's obvious CBU3 has manpower related issues. Some part of their team is working on the other game and the timelines line up well enough for a typical game development cycle.

[Kuritzkale]

Personally I think it's a result of them trying desperately to appeal to the non MMORPG crowd. There wouldn't normally be anything wrong with that really, but they've taken it to pretty extreme levels and have simplified jobs repeatedly, and made the vast majority of content in the game braindead easy. Also probably has something to do with the community being overly positive to nearly every change, my guess is they don't really spend much time looking at the places where actual criticism against the game is laid, and just aren't aware of the problems people have with the direction the game is headed.

But then again, appealing to as wide a group of people as you can is a good business strategy, I guess, if all you care about if squeezing as much money out of people as possible and then moving on to the next new player that doesn't stick around for more than 3 months

[SturmChurro]

Oh absolutely. I started saying it in ShB, when we saw less content and just overall laziness on the devs part and people called me stupid, a hater, how i’m just so wrong and look where we are now. Ngl i’m a bit amused at watching all of this happen. A part of me wonders if they knew the game wouldn’t be sustainable and that’s why they’re focusing on solo friendly content now and why they cut an expansion.

I was right there with you speaking out about how viera/hrothgar were treated, the state of patches, the lack of content, etc. I was right there with you at the start of Endwalker about the lack of gears, the quality of gear, and the hairs for viera, even how I thought the story felt rushed. We were always told to just go play a different game, but the fact of the matter is, we are questioning these decisions, because we care about the game. We want(ed) to see the game succeed.

[Kyrj]

We were always told to just go play a different game

Any lead director who says this about a MMORPG needs to be let go. The sad truth about online gaming like this is that you want people to be as hooked as possible, the more exposure to your game the more likely they're to buy stuff off your cash shop.