Why is the Post-MSQ Content so Passive in Endwalker?

[Sjol]

The thing is, a traditional MMO typically weaves more open world combat into it's quests. So you might have to fight your way to an objective in the open world to proceed, giving the player something to do. Whereas FFXIV tends to have a sparse world and prefers to instance combat or spawn a token mob during quests. Some of the fun of other MMOs is fighting your way into a temple to grab the object or scouting a jungle and beating back beasts to find the lost princess or whatever.

Whereas FFXIV loves its "standing around and endlessly talking" cutscenes.

I do miss zone story telling. It's not entirely absent from FFXIV, but it's close enough to being that way that I really don't find the zones compelling.

As a result I never really get attached to a zone or end up having a love/hate relationship with one. Even the fantastical zones like the Tempest still managed to be boring for 90% of your time there.

Most zones seem to have one or two interesting features and then a lot of patchy grass. A lot of them are also color desaturated moreso than actual reality. Seems crazy that my own outdoors is more interesting for me to look at than some of these zones.

I think the other thing that I really miss from zones is verticality. Most of the zones are pretty flat. They certainly don't have multiple levels, cave systems, etc. When I first got to Faerieville I was really excited at the idea of doing the whole zone in fog. I thought that would have been really cool. I've had a few letdowns between hopes and reality when it comes to zone design.

[Valence]

Is it any different from any other post expansion msq, or even vanilla msq segments?

They have shown they can do bigger production value on cutscenes for example as witnessed in the 5.3 end cutscenes (scions in Mor Dhona and Fandy in the Throne Room, probably a lot of mocap involved). It's not gonna address the lack of interactive gameplay, but at least it makes the "movie" side of msquesting a lot more immersive and gripping imo. Too bad they only did it once or twice, it's kinda night and day when compared against most of the rest.

[Ancalagon_Blacktalon]

Is it any different from any other post expansion msq, or even vanilla msq segments?

They have shown they can do bigger production value on cutscenes for example as witnessed in the 5.3 end cutscenes (scions in Mor Dhona and Fandy in the Throne Room, probably a lot of mocap involved). It's not gonna address the lack of interactive gameplay, but at least it makes the "movie" side of msquesting a lot more immersive and gripping imo. Too bad they only did it once or twice, it's kinda night and day when compared against most of the rest.

the Big Production Values I've found tend to happen near the end of patch cycles too. Think about as well the ebb and flow between back and forth unvoiced cutscenes and Big Moments in expansions as well. It wouldn't surprise me if they end up having to meticulously plan which scenes get The Money and which scenes get the stock stuff. That said, there were otherwise normal scenes that had some bespoke things in them (estinien's face right before all the alchemists dogpile him, anything post ShB that had food physics in it, Estinien getting ready to jump off your balcony) that imply that someone out there found little workarounds for that, even if they turned out to be expensive.

This might be something the graphics update is intended to help with. If cutscenes are difficult to make because their internal tooling is a pain, that's how you get the constant back and forth talk cutscenes (they probably have a template even), with only bigger moments getting the better stuff because they have to devote nearly all their time to it. If they're redoing how animations and rendering works, it wouldn't surprise me if they're also having to completely change their kit to go with it, given that older systems have a tendency to just scream any time you make even the slightest change.

[Sjol]

With a big enough operation, they could probably just move it all over if they can do it in 48 hours. Or they could only unlock the "extra storage" upon login so that it doesn't increase storage considerations for inactive characters.

Good idea. They could also run conversations behind the scenes.

Just because a company has millions of customers doesn't mean that their code is very complicated. In a big way, this is why object-oriented programming is pushed hard by people. It's infinitely more difficult to grasp when it's not done that way.

It's also why scripts are used. Scripts were a major problem in 1.0 because they relied on them to such a point that both the server and players were taking ages to do basic operations. But they definitely still use lots of scripts, tables and shaders.
One game I worked with wasn't object oriented. It took me months to grasp the different functions illogically put in different files and map them in my head. But eventually, I did. If they've been working on this game for years, they should have it mapped out and know their way around it by now.

Ironically my person preference is for heavy functional programming over OO, but experiences vary.

My back is the envelope math was what put the number of lines of code at the millions or tens of millions.

265 employees in CB3, maybe 30% developers, devops, and QA automation, producing about 50 lines of code a day working for 10 years at 5 days a week for 45 weeks a year.... * calculator sounds*

About 9 million lines of code.

There's really no relationship between lines of code and users using it, but I think I'm in the ballpark with my estimate.

[Jeeqbit]

265 employees in CB3, maybe 30% developers, devops, and QA automation, producing about 50 lines of code a day working for 10 years at 5 days a week for 45 weeks a year.... * calculator sounds*

About 9 million lines of code.

There's really no relationship between lines of code and users using it, but I think I'm in the ballpark with my estimate.

They list about 40 programmers on their "main staff" in the EW credits (not including the website and companion app, designers, QA, engineers or other roles). This is split up between the server, client, UI and automation. Which would be about 15% of 265

From the 6.55 credits, they list about 54 (I decided to include the 10 engineers and a supervisor this time). The slight extra is due to the graphics they're working on. This would be about 20% of 265.

But it would be a bit higher to include the website and companion app. They also just outsource a lot (or like to include the entire staff of companies whose software they used).

In any case, code gets deleted and changed as well, and I'd expect a lot of it to be scripts for cutscenes or other decentralized functions, or the infrastructure for such.

[Valence]

Maybe they're one of those companies who don't put everybody on their credits who knows (it's actually very a well spread disease in the industry, way more than you'd assume, i've literally lived through it). But 265 sounds about right at a glance.

[HappyHubris]

All this discussion on technical debt is odd, as developers aren't using the tools that we've seen in action. Instanced combat, phasing NPCs in the open world, dynamic cutscenes, and other techniques are clearly in the game, and the game has a gigantic budget to work with.

I finally finished the post-EW MSQ slog and it was really tough. How many times did I return to that spot on Radz to click on a NPC and be ushered into a cutscene? Why couldn't I enter the area in the open world to see my allies standing there and discuss the quest with them instead? Why was so much time put into shot-reverse shit discussion on friendship and trust instead of sending me into the world to collect regeants or fight off incursions or whatever?

Just looking at other MMOs, there are many ways to engage players even with an old engine, if your devs are willing to shift time to active play instead of endless dialog.

If these post-release MSaq chains are so hit and miss, why not make them optional? Guild Wars 2 for example had optional episodic content, where the player could choose to engage with a continuation of last expansion or jump directly into the current expansion. Sure you might be a bit behind on plot, but FFXIV doesn't see much development there either. The Zero storyline was almost completely self-contained, as we met someone knew, watched them move through their obvious-at-first-sight character arc, and then banished them from the cast. No one in the remaining cast was developed or changed. Much of the conflict is immediately resolved right after it is introduced. It just feels like checking the box on something that is technically a plot.

[Sjol]

All this discussion on technical debt is odd, as developers aren't using the tools that we've seen in action. Instanced combat, phasing NPCs in the open world, dynamic cutscenes, and other techniques are clearly in the game, and the game has a gigantic budget to work with.

Technical Debt doesn't just affect what's possible, it affects what's easy or hard, too. It's possible that they can put together some things, but that they're extremely time-consuming to do and so they don't do them as often.