Quote Originally Posted by Zadood View Post
Isn't someone else in forum has pointed out the expansion credit rolls has showed that the size of FFXIV development team has increased?
That would have been me since I point that out usually.
Yet the months between patch release is increased
Yes, primarily so they can have enough of a break. Yoshi-P has always made sure that people avoid burnout, have opportunities to transfer to new roles or departments, to take breaks and has also forced people to take breaks if they refuse to. Preventing burnout is integral to this so providing more holidays is in line with this.
at the same time the amount of content on patch release is getting lesser and lesser.
That is not true. The content that is released is just not necessarily of interest to the people making these complaints ie. they aren't interested in variant dungeons, Eureka Orthos, Island Sanctuary, Ishgard Restoration and Ocean Fishing.
While they also decided that island sanctuary will no longer supported in DT.
This is not unexpected. They don't typically continue developing content like this once the expansion is over. Eureka was exclusively developed during Stormblood. The Firmament and Bozja were exclusively developed in Shadowbringers. Island Sanctuary will more than likely remain exclusive to Endwalker.

They might continue them when it makes sense to ie. more Ocean Fishing routes, but if it looks like something has "run its course", it probably has, and let's be honest, what really more is there to do with Island Sanctuary?
Strange don't you think? That even with the size of development team increased, they still refused to dedicate themselves on develop the big content feature they introduced on expansion
It is a little strange, but remember that the bigger the game gets, the more overhead there is ie. they have to balance things around more jobs, they have to QA more things, they have to adjust gear for more races, they have to make new models for more jobs each expansion ie. over 20 weapons now instead of around 10.

But also, the added development team is most in certain areas, like AI or web development. Got to remember that diminishing returns is a thing, and also that people quit/retire and have to train new staff. For example, some of the people who went to work on FF16 slowly trained other staff before moving over through Heavensward and Stormblood. I remember reading about Soken training people in Shadowbringers etc.

Much as the community may love the veteran developers, they also can't not be thinking about the future generations given their age.

The bigger thing for me is AI not resulting in a reduction in development time yet.
such as GC rank and squadron, deep dungeon, eureka/bozja, hard mode dungeon, recently island sanctuary.
GC rank and squadron isn't really popular enough as a concept tbh. Deep dungeons were completed and didn't need further development. Eureka was completed and didn't need further development. Bozja was completed (and yes the rest of the story was concluded, in the field records, for whatever reason), Island Sanctuary can't really have much more done (more visions, another mine, some more items to gather, come on... what's the point).

Hard Mode dungeons (which weren't hard for most of their time) were discontinued because we simply had enough dungeons. We were approaching 100 dungeons and the entire point in making them was when the game started, it hardly had any dungeons vs its main competitor (WoW). Now it does. The resources were invested in other areas.
And dropped some of introduced big feature on some expansion.
Related to resources being reinvested. Arguably, we are getting more this expansion than the last because we are getting everything we got in Shadowbringers + the new things we got in Endwalker (like variant/criterion dungeons), most likely more than 1 ultimate as well, plus the graphics update.
SB expansion introduced ultimate raid, introduced field operation such as eureka, continued hard mode dungeon as well as optional dungeon
Context is a type of content like Eureka existed in Heavensward called Diadem, but it was a failure for various reasons. Although they quadrupled the amount of Diadem-like areas in SB. They reduced dungeon development in Stormblood from 2 per patch to 1 > 2 > 1 > 2 > 1 to allow for this extra Eureka development.
SHB expansion dropped hard mode dungeon, turn optional dungeon into MSQ dungeon, dropped deep dungeon, delayed ultimate raid to EW expansion, continued field operation as Bozja
You missed a lot of stuff. Yes, ShB dropped 2 optional dungeons and 2 Field Operation areas, but in its place was:

Ocean Fishing, Ishgard Restoration (which was a massive player event spanning many patches of development you can watch on youtube and culminated in a new housing area), a crafter/gatherer rework, an ARR rework which saw flying added, a lot more raids in the Field Operation (instead of 1 like Eureka, we had CLL, Dalriada, DR, and a savage version of DR) and many of the CEs were designed more like dungeon bosses and frequently wiped everyone there, or left a few people to solo it, not to mention the duel content. Most of this was more mechanically complex than the NMs in Eureka, many of which were more like the Skirmishes in Bozja.

Remember this was all despite covid and despite working from home and despite all the companies they outsource to delaying things and despite a semiconductor shortage and despite what Soken went through. Delaying an ultimate and EW and not bothering with a little throwaway thing like Allied Beast Tribe Quests was understandable given all these things.
EW expansion introduced Island Sanctuary, merged optional dungeon with optional boss trial into part of the MSQ, introduced PVP Crystal Conflict, introduced Criterion Dungeon, dropped field operation, re-continued deep dungeon
EW dropped field operation, but revamped all MSQ dungeons and duties and indicators and as you said, added a new PvP mode, 5 series, several new PvP maps, a new content type (3 variant and 3 criterion) and Island Sanctuary and resumed the deep dungeon.

Quite frankly, we can argue that MSQ duty rework, Island Sanctuary, variant/criterion and deep dungeon replaced the Ishgard Restoration and Field Operation content cycle from ShB.
DT expansion, according on what we got so far, dropped Island Sanctuary
Cosmic Exploration should be seen as the successor. But it will be more like Ishgard Restoration than Island Sanctuary.