The Devs need a much needed thanks!

[Boblawblah]

Simping for people you dont know is gross. You pay twice to access the game, that's thanks enough

When saying thanks for something you really enjoy (and yes, paid for) is considered 'simping'. If you don't like the game, that's cool, but resorting to insulting people that are grateful for where the game is and where it is going doesn't seem an appropriate reaction.

[Avoidy]

Simping for people you dont know is gross. You pay twice to access the game, that's thanks enough

Nailed it. The rhetoric in this thread is weird and sometimes feels like an unpaid intern is being tasked with just lurking in here all day.

Really, all I want is basic communication. I'm not being "spoiled" for expecting basic communication from a game that triple dips with the buy to play fee, the subscription fee, AND the expensive cash shop. I could get into a whole lot of things right now, but I'll just stick to one. The live letters. Why isn't there a live translator for these? You did it once, but then never again. You take my foreign dollars. You announce to me, in English, on your English language site, that you're having a developer sit-down. And then you slap me in the face by telling me that the entire audio/Q&A is going to be JP only. Why even tell me in the first place. Just upload the english powerpoints and be real that you legit don't care about communicating nuanced info to your non JP players. "Oh but the slides are in English" yeah the basic powerpoint one liners are indeed in English. But the part where the lead developer expands on that information is not, and that's the part that people latch onto and quote for weeks when they want to speculate about the future of the game. It's bullshit that we're forced to lean on amateur translations for this, especially with how nuanced and subtle the Japanese language is. "Oh but Japanese listeners complained that it took too long" I don't care. You want to capitalize on a global market and take advantage of global money? Gotta take the good with the bad.

2 billion dollar company btw, but it's got good Samaritans from reddit doing live translation work for them because they can't take 1% of the profit they made on fat cat costumes to drag in a live translator for a few hours. Got me fucked up. I've seen f2p mmos with better basic communication than this.

Hell, the game's more profitable than ever but square won't even expand their team so we've got this same small group still handling job balance, content creation, quality assurance, etc. etc. etc. like come on man. Give this game the support it deserves.

[Silverbane]

You want to capitalize on a global market and take advantage of global money? Gotta take the good with the bad.

No, they don't, because people like you and Lustre keep paying for subscriptions anyway.
Your actions speak louder to them than your words, and that's as it should be.
I don't care why you keep paying, and they may not either.
They probably pay way more attention to revenue numbers than forum posts.

I don't judge you for continuing to pay for an experience you appear unhappy with.
It's fine: keep complaining and keep paying, even if the latter moots the former.
You do you, and I appreciate your continued contribution to SE's profitability.

[Avoidy]

No, they don't, because people like you and Lustre keep paying for subscriptions anyway.
Your actions speak louder to them than your words, and that's as it should be.
I don't care why you keep paying, and they may not either.
They probably pay way more attention to revenue numbers than forum posts.

I don't judge you for continuing to pay for an experience you appear unhappy with.
It's fine: keep complaining and keep paying, even if the latter moots the former.
You do you, and I appreciate your continued contribution to SE's profitability.

This is actually fair. Despite my earlier post, there are actually things I -do- enjoy about the game enough to just ignore smaller things. But the live letters are just an area where I'm consistently let down, and it wouldn't even be hard for them to improve it. They've even shown that they could do it; they simply choose not to, and you're 100% correct in that there's no incentive for them to do better since me, you, and everyone else here continues to throw money at them as long as the rest of the game is good enough.

The moment a better game comes out though, they're in trouble.

[Silverbane]

The moment a better game comes out though, they're in trouble.

This is true for every product. And smart companies understand this, and adopt a strategy of "cannibalization" --
using the revenues from their current successful product to develop the product that will replace it.

Which frankly is what I hope will happen with the FF franchise.
I don't want them to forever continue to patch and extend their decade-old game engine.
I don't want them to forever continue writing stories under the constraints of a decade of canon.
I want them to start from scratch and create a new FF MMOJRPG, a "17" to be to "14" what "14" was to "11."
And as with 11 and 14, I want them to keep the servers up for 14 when they do.

[Kaurhz]

Simping for people you dont know is gross. You pay twice to access the game, that's thanks enough

Don't know how you manage to confuse or synonymize (for that matter) thanking the developers verbally, or in a written form as an expression of gratitude with 'simping' for them. But well done on convincing yourself, I guess.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Basically this, especially considering they do the bare minimum for the game to stay afloat so it keeps racking in mog station purchases

Ah yes the "bare minimum"

[Stormpeaks]

Ah yes the "bare minimum"

Yes, the bare minimum is done by the devs of this game. If you think otherwise, I dont know what to tell you.

From balance, to housing, to islands, everything is the bare minimum.

[Midareyukki]

Yes, the bare minimum is done by the devs of this game. If you think otherwise, I dont know what to tell you.

From balance, to housing, to islands, everything is the bare minimum.

On one hand, he has a point, you know? Like, yeah some stuff ARE done with the absolute bare minimum such as race design (a lot of Hrothgar and Viera work is achieved through blatant cutting corners), job design (there are ways to translate Blue Mage into the game, it doesn't need to limit itself to the Learn mechanic as it isn't inherently its defining traits; using enemy skills is) and other features. Often those things are excused away with what's very clearly corporate bullsh**.

But a lot of it has its own justification, and unfortunately, corporate bull is something that permeates markets nowadays. You're bound to see it, and the fact that the game is still enjoyable, functional and the devs still care about player experience despite the rise in corporate bull is interesting. Half the time we wouldn't even have X feature had the fans not asked for it, and while it's not always done successfuly, they do at least try. Hrothgar was a race they wanted to implement, but Viera were asked for by fans. Yoshida admitted that Reaper was done with Western players in mind who kept asking for a scythe job. Blue Mage itself might not be the best thing in the universe for a lot of fans, but it's still there because the team heard people wanted something, went out of their way to do it through the vision they themselves interpreted of it.

Job Balance is its own can of worms, and a full revamp is in order. But it cannot happen mid-expansion, it's almost never how they've approached it. Housing has its issues, but the latest connundrum was technical rather than its design necessarily; it works as intended otherwise... the issue is that "what's intended" = "a system where someone will always lose", which isn't desirable. Housing's been reworked at least three times by now, and this raffle system is what we kept asking for years. As for the island, it looks and feels quite bare, yes, but given the amount of technicality inside it, it's normal for it to be bare. It's not a system they're wanting to focus on, it's just a side project. One that, hopefuly, they'll expand upon in the future. It's in its early stages, as was a lot of stuff in the game.

Meanwhile the rest of the world who doesn't speak Japanese nor English wish for other games companies to do the same for them when it comes to live communication, yet where are the cries from the general public to cater for them?

Face it, your biased as heck.

On the other hand, "others have it worse" doesn't excuse issues this one company has. If the bar is so low, then OF COURSE other companies will be that bad. Keep in mind that the standard in the gaming industry at the moment is crunching. Just because "it's the standard" doesn't mean it's a good thing that we need to shut up and accept.

And lately, corporate bull has been running rampant in the game. And there needs to be as close to a balance as it's realistically possible; a true balance will never be achieved, the corporation always comes first, but there are ways to mitigate the impact. And unfortunately that's not what we're seeing. A lot in the game is being approached with a laissez-faire attitude, and it's quite noticeable. Especially when before they could provide content with better-assured quality. We've cut out so many things to accomodate and patch times are now a few months longer. And what we got were earless Hrothgar/Hrothgar ears with a weird texture around them, verifiable glitches that shouldn't get past QA, and underwhelming job balance. Something is up. As much as we might want to love the devs, we cannot deny something is off.

[IkaraGreydancer]

Yes, the bare minimum is done by the devs of this game. If you think otherwise, I dont know what to tell you.

From balance, to housing, to islands, everything is the bare minimum.

Then I have to ask...why are you subbed? If we're going to use your logic you being subbed tells them the bare minimum is ok. You're contributing to the problem you've presented.

On another note, I also don't get this hate where "big corpo is bad because they aren't doing exactly what I FEEL I deserve" rhetoric. Folks ok and satisfied with things as they are are somehow bad and folks who defend that stance are somehow paid shills or simps. It's like no matter the topic when it comes to xiv you can't just like something or be ok with it. It's wild and saddening really