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

[Lauront]

Many of us knew this was coming bc of the lack of content with everything else besides story, that the lack of depth would continue- we were either told by other players "you have a good story, why are you complaining?" or by Yoshi-P to "go play something else" (abit out of context)

See why those of us being the squeaky cog were so persistent about the lack of depth in the content we were getting?

One of the issues too, being most players were content bc they don't believe in constructive criticizing - even JP players have said they get annoyed at their own playerbase for being too content bc they're too "polite" to say they don't like something or want to see changes. Take the Hrothgar issues, the jp players joked about the ears but they didn't actively say they aren't okay with it- some even turned to the NA forums since although NA forums can be pretty rude & obnoxious, there are those of us who are direct & get the point across.

When Viera & Hroth were 1st released many of us hoped they would continue to get cosmetic support as we were told they'd retain their uniqueness & be given more unique hairstyles (paraphrasing here)
But that hasn't happened. Viera still look mostly half-completed copy-paste E-girls with bunny ears on them. Not the Amazonian like humanoid Leporidae that appeared in FFXII or in other previous concept art. (atleast that's how I've viewed them excluding how they appear in XIV)

Hrothgar certainly have gotten the biggest middle finger- The devs have wasted our money on the recourses spent to trying to fix this race.
Do not support other SE projects until we start seeing features we have asked for- and the devs correcting their mistakes.

I do appreciate the content we do get, but I don't appreciate the blinders the devs apparently wear when it comes to listening to their fanbase- All I'm asking is for more transparency. More honest communication. Like, tell us when something is taking longer bc of issues, tell us when we are getting instanced housing, tell us the best way to get our point across.

Protest by cancelling your subscriptions. Or talk about cancelling subs-
either way, it might help get the point across.

Some JP site commentary I've seen has been very blunt, but I'm guessing they're the less "polite" ones which the devs avoid.

[Denji]

Some JP site commentary I've seen has been very blunt, but I'm guessing they're the less "polite" ones which the devs avoid.

as someone who has a decent grasp of japanese, people have this misconception that they're more polite. i assure you, they're not. google translate and other translators typically strip emotion from text and there's a lot of context and cultural stuff that just ends up getting left behind in translations done even by people.
it doesn't help that the japanese language itself is based around the idea of apologizing for inconveniencing people so people get this strange idea that this means they're always actually saying sorry when in actuality it's pretty difficult to write more than a sentence in japanese without something that resembles an apology to non-native speakers.

example: saying just "thank you" without apologizing for an inconvenience is so difficult in japanese that many just say サンキュー (sankyuu), aka 'thank you' in english.

[HeyMcFly]

Some JP site commentary I've seen has been very blunt, but I'm guessing they're the less "polite" ones which the devs avoid.

that's what I've heard and read roundabout from others that are more fluent & not reliant on google translate lol (not throwing shade, I promise)- that the more "blunt" posters get trolled (much like here, but the trolls don't discriminate) or they get ignored/ thread becomes inactive. Until semi-recently.
or the Threads aren't super active until something arises- so like anywhere I guess when you look at it broadly.

[GiraffeNeck]

I do appreciate the content we do get, but I don't appreciate the blinders the devs apparently wear when it comes to listening to their fanbase- All I'm asking is for more transparency. More honest communication. Like, tell us when something is taking longer bc of issues, tell us when we are getting instanced housing, tell us the best way to get our point across.

Protest by cancelling your subscriptions. Or talk about cancelling subs-
either way, it might help get the point across.

Oh I can tell you when we're getting instanced housing: never. If it hasn't happened by now when the housing system has been a huge source of angst for years, I don't see if ever happening. I honestly, truly believe that Square Enix either does not care or does not fully understand the extent of the frustration and disappointment around housing, or does not believe it's enough to actually drive people away from the game so they don't bother fixing it. I know there are excuses given for why they can't do X or Y but I do really find it hard to believe that it's actually impossible to introduce bigger apartments or instanced houses or any of the myriad solutions that people have proposed over the years.

EDIT: In regards to the OP though, honestly I'm not someone who frequents the official forums (until yesterday because I was curious to see the fallout from the lottery debacle) so this is actually the first I'm hearing about EW's story being "controversial". Everything I'd heard so far was that it was another success.

[KariTheFox]

EDIT: In regards to the OP though, honestly I'm not someone who frequents the official forums (until yesterday because I was curious to see the fallout from the lottery debacle) so this is actually the first I'm hearing about EW's story being "controversial". Everything I'd heard so far was that it was another success.

The praise for Endwalker's story is pretty universal for the most part, outside of a small handful of forum posters overstating their personal dislike of the story and pretending it represents some kind of silent majority.

Mostly I see people giving high praise for Endwalker's story, with the caveat that it doesn't quite match up to Heavansward or Shadowbringers, but it's nowhere near the universal consensus of being "less good" like Stormblood's story is.

[Skyborne]

The praise for Endwalker's story is pretty universal for the most part, outside of a small handful of forum posters overstating their personal dislike of the story and pretending it represents some kind of silent majority.

Sounds like an extreme understatement even if it's a minority... this is the attitude that has led to people feeling alienated (as was I for the longest time, still am somewhat) and making posts like this. The honeymoon period has worn off for some, with even reddit of all places having some critical voices pop up, but I think "you're just stupid" "you didn't understand it" "you're just mad your headcanon didn't come true hahahaha!" is going to be pulled out for the rest of the game's lifespan.

Anyway, shilling this thread (your worst nemesis, I know) because EW disappointment is what made me sign up here... just like how many have signed up solely because of other controversies who really wanted to give voice, in case anyone's lurking and missed it.

[Darthgummibear]

The praise for Endwalker's story is pretty universal for the most part, outside of a small handful of forum posters overstating their personal dislike of the story and pretending it represents some kind of silent majority.

Mostly I see people giving high praise for Endwalker's story, with the caveat that it doesn't quite match up to Heavansward or Shadowbringers, but it's nowhere near the universal consensus of being "less good" like Stormblood's story is.

I really enjoyed the EW story, but even as someone who thoroughly enjoyed the experience I recognize the obvious problems. The pacing is all over the place, and it feels like they tried to cram two full expansions of story into one. You have a lot of things happening with a lot of people, so you technically got a lot of story, but almost none of the individual arcs got really fleshed out like in the past. They went with quantity over quality for the MSQ. Current endgame doesn't have either. It doesn't have quantity or quality. The game is sorely lacking in 90 content, and a lot of what we have is either broken or extremely buggy. It's a really disturbing trend I hope they are able to recover from because at the end of the day I still like this game.

[Rulakir]

The praise for Endwalker's story is pretty universal for the most part, outside of a small handful of forum posters overstating their personal dislike of the story and pretending it represents some kind of silent majority.

I won't claim people who dislike it are the "silent majority", but they certainly far exceed any wishful thinking that it's "a small handful of forum posters". Even on r/ffxiv, which is notorious for glowing praise of the game and downvoting dissent, there have been an increasing amount of people posting their criticisms of EW.

[Theodric]

Isn't it interesting that whenever the game endures some manner of controversy, posters who rarely contribute to the forum appear out of the woodwork to insist that there are no problems whatsoever?

[Puksi]

I'm wondering if Yoshida will bring out the convenient emotional waterworks this time, lmao. It's a safer bet than the broken lottery system.

As usual, $quare wants your money for the least effort, because why do more and profit less? And yes, I mean Creative Business Unit III, too. This goes beyond "small indie company, please understand". Smaller MMOs have done better. WoW has done better. It's hard to swallow "rookie mistakes" while listening to all the "critically acclaimed" boasts and memes. Which is it to be?