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

[Midareyukki]

There was supposed to be a Garlemald expansion that was cut in order to get Endwalker out. Now we live with the results.

I like EW's story. It was fun and had really cool elements.

But just because it was enjoyable doesn't mean it was good, and Garlemald wasn't the only thing poorly executed. Right after we wrap up Garlemald, we go to the Moon for exactly 5 minutes before coming back home and see everything hit the fan.

People need to stop thinking that when people say "Endwalker is rushed" it means it's bad. It's not. It's rushed, that's what it is. Plot points and lore were rushed. A lot of things that could and should have been explored in Garlemald, especially after Werylt and Bozja, just got put on the backburner. We only speak to the aan for about 2 minutes before we have to deal with General Depresso. The Moon should have had more than just "Woo, mystery, Zodiark and... bunnies?". And we knew the Final Days were something we'd have to deal with, but there wasn't a slow burner at all. Even in the end, Meteion was trivialized, with the music not even caring about the meaning she has to the plot. For all his crap, even Necron's music theme had more gravitas.

It was enjoyable, and I'm probably one of the few who liked Hermes's incarnations. But it doesn't mean it's not without its flaws. One thing I loved going from SB to SHB was how there wasn't much unnecessary fluff in SHB, and even at its worst and slowest, it gave you a lot of insight about how that world worked and what would come next. In comes Endwalker, and we have... drunken Scions, Captain Depression, Rabbits!, End of the World? nah we have to build an airship, now with 10% more RABBITS! Or my personal favourite. "Our main characters are dying one by one? lol nah you know this is gonna end well, I mean how many times have we baited you with Flow and it never had major consequences since the first time?"

And unfortunately, these flaws wouldn't have felt so major and it wouldn't label the expansion as "rushed" if they gave each chapter its proper time to breathe.

[Ranaku]

Somehow i fear Yoshi P. etc being dragged into the FFXVI (16) development has much to do with all the recent shortcomings in XIV. Really hoping they don't burn him out just to make money.

[aveyond-dreams]

Somehow i fear Yoshi P. etc being dragged into the FFXVI (16) development has much to do with all the recent shortcomings in XIV. Really hoping they don't burn him out just to make money.

Given the utter state of the rest of SE it's no wonder why they decided to attach him to the FFXVI project. The mainline series cannot afford another stain on its reputation after messes like FFXV and the complete implosion of its "FFXV universe" that they tried to make work, only to abandon. FFXVI, at least as a general impression, looks like it will be a dark fantasy RPG that takes after the likes of Dragon Age and is helmed by the Heavensward writing team. This is a game that if executed well, has a high chance of success. The problem is that there is barely anything to show for it at this point.

Those of us excited for the game have to hold onto the nebulous promise of a spring announcement from people who change up the seasons however they want. Of course, if development is still behind due to a lack of graphical assets then I imagine even that won't be possible. A decent chunk of people have forgotten the game was even announced and if we dare complain about how long it's been since we've had new info then we get told that we're being too greedy and toxic.

It cannot possibly be too much of a strain to show something, literally any signs of life from the people who gave us the expansion that launched FFXIV into the heavens and also worked on by the original localization team that fleshed out ARR's world with styles of dialogue that we just don't see anymore these days. Instead we have to put up with people who I imagine must also be simultaneously working on the FFXIV manga given how so many resources are dedicated to slice of life and fluff. The localization team nowadays has also done some questionable things as was noted by others who took a look at what was going on in their twitters and previous interviews they have done. They are losing my confidence in their ability to keep things moving forward in a good direction.

Of course, if the game ends up being entirely beholden to the whims of the twitter/reddit crowd then I will have no choice but to cede this territory to them. They will end up with a visual anime novel with little left in terms of gameplay. They will go on to have another 10 years of immortal Scions while those of us who want a more grounded story and better combat will be off playing other games. I guess at that point if we "take a break" we won't be missed by that crowd.

[Jybril]

People need to stop thinking that when people say "Endwalker is rushed" it means it's bad. It's not. It's rushed, that's what it is. Plot points and lore were rushed.

You're right. It's both rushed and bad.
It's bad BECAUSE it's rushed. You'd think they learn from Stormblood
and then with the success of Shadowbringers, but here we are.

[IkaraGreydancer]

You're right. It's both rushed and bad.
It's bad BECAUSE it's rushed. You'd think they learn from Stormblood
and then with the success of Shadowbringers, but here we are.

Opinions. Some say its good like myself. Others dont believe so. It kinda seems like if things aren't spotless and the characters aren't Emet or Dragons folks have issues. I myself can't really point to to much and claim it was rushed with EW. I won't claim it perfect but I'd for sure wouldn't call it bad

[SpiralMask]

They did Garlemald dirty and I'm still bitter.
Ugh.

maaan, remember when garlemald was an expansionist racist empire that had a few actual valid points that people could rally behind to lend some nuance to their stances (via gaius, his crew, and folks like mr. hydrus)? garlean meritocracy success stories and all that to really explain why everyone was so violently patriotic despite their heinous actions?

and then SB we get to see a land after ~20 years of gauis' supposedly even-handed rule and a few short ones of zenos' entirely hands-off stance and it's a barren squalid wasteland where everyone is farming dirt, with every garlean just reduced down to moustache twirling villains to the man, with one small minority of nerds in the homeland that were opposed to such rampant dickassery? that they then had to panick and try to walk back with the weapons series and when they needed to make anyone even mildly consider helping garlemald after it got it's shit rocked?


how interesting for her character's growth would it have been to see lyse roll in guns blazing only to find that the generation raised in occupied ala mhigo were doing relatively fine and didn't actually want "liberating", and having to reconcile that the dreams of her sister that she's built her entire life around following through on are different than reality, and trying to see to it that the ala mhigan culture at least lives on in her homeland despite garlemald's efforts to stamp it out--while both the rebels and the ala mhigans can agree that zenos' murderhobo self has got to go since he is running the country into the ground and nobody can really stop him due to his extreme political and physical power, and their nebulous agreement is what allows us to get into the castle to fight him with such relative ease? and how much more could the writers have gotten to lean into zenos being a hyperviolent force of nature that even his own men can't deal with if that were the case?

alas.

[Skyborne]

maaan, remember when garlemald was an expansionist racist empire that had a few actual valid points that people could rally behind to lend some nuance to their stances (via gaius, his crew, and folks like mr. hydrus)? garlean meritocracy success stories and all that to really explain why everyone was so violently patriotic despite their heinous actions?

and then SB we get to see a land after ~20 years of gauis' supposedly even-handed rule and a few short ones of zenos' entirely hands-off stance and it's a barren squalid wasteland where everyone is farming dirt, with every garlean just reduced down to moustache twirling villains to the man, with one small minority of nerds in the homeland that were opposed to such rampant dickassery? that they then had to panick and try to walk back with the weapons series and when they needed to make anyone even mildly consider helping garlemald after it got it's shit rocked?


how interesting for her character's growth would it have been to see lyse roll in guns blazing only to find that the generation raised in occupied ala mhigo were doing relatively fine and didn't actually want "liberating", and having to reconcile that the dreams of her sister that she's built her entire life around following through on are different than reality, and trying to see to it that the ala mhigan culture at least lives on in her homeland despite garlemald's efforts to stamp it out--while both the rebels and the ala mhigans can agree that zenos' murderhobo self has got to go since he is running the country into the ground and nobody can really stop him due to his extreme political and physical power, and their nebulous agreement is what allows us to get into the castle to fight him with such relative ease? and how much more could the writers have gotten to lean into zenos being a hyperviolent force of nature that even his own men can't deal with if that were the case?

alas.

I will now subscribe to your newsletter and wait for your more-appealing Stormblood fanfic to be dripfed into my mouth.

[FoxyAreku]

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.

This is weird to me because endwalker has less content and gameplay then every expansion that came before it in previous .1 patches except maybe shadowbringer.

So unsure feature creep is the case really.

[Kyrj]

Given the utter state of the rest of SE it's no wonder why they decided to attach him to the FFXVI project. The mainline series cannot afford another stain on its reputation after messes like FFXV and the complete implosion of its "FFXV universe" that they tried to make work, only to abandon. FFXVI, at least as a general impression, looks like it will be a dark fantasy RPG that takes after the likes of Dragon Age and is helmed by the Heavensward writing team. This is a game that if executed well, has a high chance of success. The problem is that there is barely anything to show for it at this point.

Those of us excited for the game have to hold onto the nebulous promise of a spring announcement from people who change up the seasons however they want. Of course, if development is still behind due to a lack of graphical assets then I imagine even that won't be possible. A decent chunk of people have forgotten the game was even announced and if we dare complain about how long it's been since we've had new info then we get told that we're being too greedy and toxic.

It cannot possibly be too much of a strain to show something, literally any signs of life from the people who gave us the expansion that launched FFXIV into the heavens and also worked on by the original localization team that fleshed out ARR's world with styles of dialogue that we just don't see anymore these days. Instead we have to put up with people who I imagine must also be simultaneously working on the FFXIV manga given how so many resources are dedicated to slice of life and fluff. The localization team nowadays has also done some questionable things as was noted by others who took a look at what was going on in their twitters and previous interviews they have done. They are losing my confidence in their ability to keep things moving forward in a good direction.

Of course, if the game ends up being entirely beholden to the whims of the twitter/reddit crowd then I will have no choice but to cede this territory to them. They will end up with a visual anime novel with little left in terms of gameplay. They will go on to have another 10 years of immortal Scions while those of us who want a more grounded story and better combat will be off playing other games. I guess at that point if we "take a break" we won't be missed by that crowd.

You'd be surprised just how long fans can wait, just look at Star Citizen. Fans are still waiting for that scam to come to fruition.

[Vahlnir]

But just because it was enjoyable doesn't mean it was good, and Garlemald wasn't the only thing poorly executed. Right after we wrap up Garlemald, we go to the Moon for exactly 5 minutes before coming back home and see everything hit the fan.

I enjoyed the overall story for Endwalker, but this was definitely one of my main gripes. They kept rushing us around and we never got the time to properly enjoy and take in every zone.