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

[Jandor]

They did once but never again. 3.1 had verminion and the first incarnation of diadem which was mixed gathering and battle content, gave an alternative way to get competitive item level equipment. Secondary stats randomised so you could farm forever in pursuit of small upgrades if you wanted. Parser people hated not be guaranteed the maximum possible stats.

I actually liked some of the ideas. When it was unpopular they never tried to innovate the gearing system again or give an alternative path to getting stronger, just stuck with tome+raid where everyone has the same stats and restricted to slow progress by weekly limit.

Yeah things like 'relic' have been introduced really late into the last few expansions and deep dungeon is usually X.3 too, so a year after xpac launch at the current pace. Personally I don't need several normal dungeons in each X.0 if it delays getting less braindead content. There's no non-linear or randomized content at all in the first year.

To put some figures to it:

HW started in 3.1 with some FATE grinding.
SB launched Eureka in 4.2.
ShB relic technically started in 5.2, but Bozja and the associated grind didn't launch till 5.3.

Technically the ARR relic was in at launch, but it was more skill check than time sink at first, till they shifted gears and dropped the Atma grind in 2.2. ARR was kinda weird in a lot of ways though.

Either way, I hope they have something longish term to put some time into come 6.2.

Hard agree on the delay. The delay kills the hype for the content for me especially when said content fails to deliver. Heaven on High vs. Palace of the Dead as the best example. I loved PotD and waited nearly a year for HoH only to find out it was only a measly 30 duty finder-able floors compared to PotD's 100. It lacked a story unlike PotD and I also had no reason to keep playing it as I had all the jobs I wanted to play already leveled to max by the time HoH dropped. That's really when I noticed a downhill spiral of barren content.

I liked playing HoH, but I'm only really interested in the extra floors anyway.

The story of HoH was absolute rubbish though, I can't even remember it, racking my brains and all I can come up with it Allagans? Some computer hidden in a tree? The pirate guys were trying to trick you? Or ... not really? Something something it was all a test? Shockingly poor quality stuff, especially given the quality of the hook, a seemingly infinitely tall sealed jenga tower.

Such a shame, especially as PotD was fairly strong in the story department too IMHO. The easter eggs with the zombified minor NPCs was a great touch as well.

[AziraSyuren]

Precisely. Hype something up for a year, get everyone excited for housing and maybe even try to partake in content that is even more exclusive than Ultimates - shit the bed with the entire system not working for 80% of players. Results might be rigged and the entire new system has shattered the trust of most of the playerbase.

If square don't want people to be angry at them, perhaps don't hype something up for a year and fail to deliver the most basic and fundamental part of that new feature.

It's a bit different with housing because they hyped it up for almost TEN years and failed to deliver EVERY TIME. It's a special case in that regard.

Now, if MORE content is low-quality, including things I actually EXPECTED to be good...

My only bit of hopium comes from my belief that ShB will be an outlier in terms of content released. But even that is a small condolence because their first iteration of content- including content that's beloved now- is always awful, outside of raids. People are so jaded and disappointed these days that they're going to shit up the forums even when/if the game starts trending in a positive direction.

[Manofpassion]

It's a bit different with housing because they hyped it up for almost TEN years and failed to deliver EVERY TIME. It's a special case in that regard.

Now, if MORE content is low-quality, including things I actually EXPECTED to be good...

My only bit of hopium comes from my belief that ShB will be an outlier in terms of content released. But even that is a small condolence because their first iteration of content- including content that's beloved now- is always awful, outside of raids. People are so jaded and disappointed these days that they're going to shit up the forums even when/if the game starts trending in a positive direction.

Yeah, you are right. The housing team hasn't made anything not shit since its inception. With the benefit of hindsight, a 10 year track record of the housing team being incompetent kind of suggests that them fucking up ishgard housing was inevitable.

I guess I let myself get caught up in the hype, with players no longer having to punch placards for 12 hours to get a house. Gonna need to stop huffing the hopium and start huffing the doomium.

[Vahlnir]

It really is confusing. I know this team's still capable of great things. Just look at the new Alliance raid. That's probably the best one I've done in a long, long, LONG time. I know they can do better. I literally just saw it. So how they can go from doing that to... creating absolute failures when it comes to the smallest things is simply mind boggling, but I suppose kind of impressive in a depressing sort of way.

[Kaurhz]

It really is confusing. I know this team's still capable of great things. Just look at the new Alliance raid. That's probably the best one I've done in a long, long, LONG time. I know they can do better. I literally just saw it. So how they can go from that to...absolute failures when it comes to the smallest things is simply mind boggling, but I suppose kind of impressive in a depressing sort of way.

This is just a result of trying to spread themselves too thin all in a short time frame by releasing too many feature systems at the same time. E.g. Duty Support, Update to NG+, Adventurer Plates, and the housing system. I don't really see why one of these, or even 2 at the minimum couldn't come in a later minor patch, e.g. 6.15, or do a 6.18.

[SamsaraTrickstar]

It really is confusing. I know this team's still capable of great things. Just look at the new Alliance raid. That's probably the best one I've done in a long, long, LONG time. I know they can do better. I literally just saw it. So how they can go from doing that to... creating absolute failures when it comes to the smallest things is simply mind boggling, but I suppose kind of impressive in a depressing sort of way.

Most likely different teams.

[nudistmaid]

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 mean this in the least rude way, but they cut an expansion? where did this come from?

[IckeDerTyp]

Hindsight is amazing innit?~

[SamsaraTrickstar]

i mean this in the least rude way, but they cut an expansion? where did this come from?

From the way the pushed 2 if not 3 big plots in to EW to not do even 1 properly. All was rushed and non logical. What for? You can clearly see it if you want to see.

[Laphicet]

i mean this in the least rude way, but they cut an expansion? where did this come from?

Quote from one of the interviews leading up to endwalker's release.