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

[aveyond-dreams]

Honestly speaking, the only thing I'm looking forward to in FFXVI is the gameplay surprisingly enough. If I'm remembering correctly, the battle director they hired for the game was a combat designer for both Dragon's Dogma and Devil May Cry V, so at the very least it should have some pretty good action. Hopefully it'll come packaged with a cohesive story as well.

Good. Because the FFXIV team at present needs to re-examine how they go about all things combat.

[thereal_aliceanders]

I don't have the time to read through all the post (so excuse me if it's already been said) but what is up with all the recycled events and gear? There was a time when seasonal events actually had stories and you wanted to go do them, now I see that Maidens Rhapsody is back and it's the same event that I did in 2017, and 2020. What happened to the Song Birds, that was left on a cliff hanger and never wrapped up. I mean they cut Shadowbringers short so they could work on Endwalker, and well Endwalker has been one let down after another. The story was meh, the job changes are meh, and don't even get me started on housing.

[BrokentoothMarch]

The only thing that was said about a Garlemald expansion is that they considered it and decided against it after the response to Shadowbringers. It wasn't like they had storyboards ready or voice actors hired or even a script. Oda also said in the Famitsu interview that it hadn't changed the story that much.

I have to doubt that last statement if a scrapped Garlemald still made it into the game. It makes no sense for it to be there if it didn't change much and was dumped pre-production.

[TaleraRistain]

I have to doubt that last statement if a scrapped Garlemald still made it into the game. It makes no sense for it to be there if it didn't change much and was dumped pre-production.

From what they said in the Famitsu interview, they considered if they could make the events after ShB into 2 expansions. If they did a Garlemald one, it would stop at Anima. So it sounded like we would have gotten exposition on points relating to Garlemald that were brought up in Endwalker. Then the second expansion would be the things after Anima.

I'm sure they could have done interesting things with Garlemald, though I can see where they may have seen that it would probably feel a bit too 2-parter. Because there's not a lot resolved up to Anima, so I could see where they might have to end on some sort of To Be Continued note or throw in some more superficial arc completing there to justify having that point be the end of an expansion.

Also consider if they did a Garlemald expansion after the questions raised with ShB. They would have to be careful to sprinkle in things leading up to the resolution of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark arc and keep that going or I could see people complaining it was a filler expansion focusing on something unrelated to ShB.

[Recon1o6]

I'm wondering as my sub draws to a close whether as time goes on, 5.0-6.0 will be known as this game's Dork Age.

That period in a long running medium where either one big change or several smaller changes coalesce together, usually in attempts to get new players, and turn off old ones. At first the new customers grow and fill in the old ones, but gradually the new ones leave as well because they run into the same frustrations as the old

Here's a good link if anyone doesnt know
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...eAlienatingEra

[Theodric]

I'm wondering as my sub draws to a close whether as time goes on, 5.0-6.0 will be known as this game's Dork Age.

That period in a long running medium where either one big change or several smaller changes coalesce together, usually in attempts to get new players, and turn off old ones. At first the new customers grow and fill in the old ones, but gradually the new ones leave as well because they run into the same frustrations as the old

Here's a good link if anyone doesnt know
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...eAlienatingEra

I appreciate the link! I always wondered if there was a term for such a thing and now I've learned that there is!

To me, Endwalker felt as jarring and poorly thought out as World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion. Mostly because both expansions took aspects of their respective setting that many were excited about seeing and just...didn't make use of them to their full potential.

Building up particular aspects of the story, fleshing them out with nuance and then getting rid of them as quickly as possible is just bizarre to me. Especially with the gaslighting about a 'new start' and a 'second season for the story' that ended up being more of the same on many fronts...

Of course, that's just me just talking about the story elements and not everything else that's arguably wrong with the game at the moment.

[Rufalus]

I would have preferred them to tell backstory using power of the echo more. Numerous times they actually made the past playable through time travel or incredibly rich simulation or entering a person's dreams or other magic. It erodes immersion if they add so many different kinds of miracle lore events whenever convenient to tell a story. I strongly prefer the story having to fit inside existing lore rules instead of making up new ones at every turn. Way too late now.

[Souljacker]

I strongly prefer the story to be unique and original. I swear I get zilart flashbacks every time I see an ascian. This expac has been the slowest I have gone through story content yet because every single thing was entirely predictable... because it all basically happened before in some form in Vana'diel.

[OhNooo]

because every single thing was entirely predictable... because it all basically happened before in some form in Vana'diel.

Speaking of FFXI, I’d really like to try it again, but last time I did the combat was so slow on a starting level 1 mob that I just rage quit lol not to mention I didn’t know what I was doing. I hear it’s supposed to be better for new players now? And now you’ve got me interested in learning more about XI’s lore

[EtherRose]

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.

1.) Healer problems. You mean what healers specifically wanted but never got because SE did things their own way? Just because you want things your way doesn't mean you are going to get it. That's the cold harsh truth unfortunately for MMO's. I've played healer since 1.0 up until ShB. There was nothing done with healers that I felt the need to portray my feelings about.

2.) Hrothgar and Viera problems. It was known since the beginning that these were "Limited" races. And before these races were even revealed to us Yoshida said he wasn't going to make new races due to manpower/resources. But surprise. Anyways, they were limited for reasons. Player base knew they were limited but still chose to cry about it after they changed.

3.) Horrid job design for 6.1? I don't know. A majority of the player base seems fine with it. Just because you have a thread on the forum with some-hundred upvotes doesn't mean that voices the other hundred thousand to millions players. I feel like it's only a small core group of people that don't like things.

As for the other stuff - things happen. But then they fix them and they are VERY transparent on what they are doing. Which is rare for other companies.

I'm sure it's not the dev's caring anymore. You forget a few things. Pandemic was a factor throughout the work force. CBU3 is working on both FFXVI and FFXIV. They have a strict patch/update schedule. So combine the spread out work force (possibly) with the absurd japanese work culture. And yea.

But I personally don't think FFXIV is going on such a drastic down spiral like you assume.