When did the dev's stop reading the forums?

[Jeeqbit]

Probably when SE as a whole started to nosedive in terms of reputation and released flop after flop and the budget for XIV got tight because of it.

If you really think that Shadowbringers and Endwalker flopped then I'm not sure what to say. Even Dawntrail had more pre-orders than any prior expansion.

[Rueby]

If you really think that Shadowbringers and Endwalker flopped then I'm not sure what to say. Even Dawntrail had more pre-orders than any prior expansion.

I think they may have meant the ~other~ games? Forspoken comes to mind

[Jeeqbit]

I think they may have meant the ~other~ games? Forspoken comes to mind

Probably, but I think it is not hard for Yoshi-P to negotiate more funds if they are needed. He's part of the management now and highly respected at this point. It is hard to imagine him saying something and them ignoring it.

In any case, I heard SE is shifting their focus to games that are more likely to suceeed.

From one of the Famitsu interviews before Dawntrail:

"Trust comes first, business comes later."
"We will use the profits we earn from this process to further develop new content for FFXIV...We are thinking of making this cycle even better in the future. The company's approval is required to adjust the budget for game development, but since the company has high expectations for the development of FFXIV, we were able to obtain approval for this policy. It's thanks to all the Warriors of Light who have been playing FFXIV that I'm able to talk like this about an MMORPG that has been in service for over 10 years. In order to repay your kindness, I would like to be conscious of returning these profits."

[Rueby]

"Trust comes first, business comes later."

They can say whatever they want to say, but this isn't what I feel in DT. My 'kindness' has been repaid with 'you're collateral damage for future proofing the game'. I never had issues in a game, I consider myself 'okay' perhaps having alittle bit of photosensitivity when it comes to flashing lights. This game has been getting worse and worse visually since EW that I had to stop playing certain content, but at least I could AVOID it. Now it's everywhere. I'm scared of running dungeon roul out of fear I might have to physically look away from my screen, and I'm sure there are people who have it worse. (I experienced this in Castrum Meridianum and prior to Thunder God in alliance roul, CT became really rough on my eyes too)

They shipped a half baked product and I guess this is their 'kindness' for players supporting them...The outcry that came from both JP and EN in response to the half baked benchmark is them repaying 'kindness'. This update needed more time and more care should've gone into the player characters, I feel like expressions weren't tested, funny how 10 year old expressions look more natural than the uncanny valley we got.

Everywhere I look there's flickering shadows that catch my eyes on sharp edges or text (I think it's antialiasing), really bad lighting courtsey of CT, I could go on...but I'm tired. I want to be able to play the game again, until they 'fix' it, I won't believe anything.

Prior to the benchmark, I posted here for steam which is awful, and when the PvP rework hit with the onsal PLD cheese. Something that made me actually quit running FL and take to the forums.

Trust is earned, I'd like to see them earn it after they squandered it repeatedly.
This is the first time in any MMO or game really that I felt attached to my character, so losing her sucks alot (every unique feature that I adored about her got removed). I never thought I'd lose her, I lost my favorites, housing looks worse now, the world feels strangely lifeless (I could swear there used to be moving clouds...), I can't even GPOSE or take pictures because they botched the expressions. The literal only use of my sub rn is checking retainers and keeping myself busy with another game or the forums as I pray that they 'fix' this mess. Maybe if I pray hard enough a primal might manifest at this point.

Anyway, sorry for the rant/word salad. I hope they get their shit together because I'm terrified what they might do to my favorite characters, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Zenos was untouched but I remain terrified of what they might do to him.

[Jeeqbit]

This game has been getting worse and worse visually since EW that I had to stop playing certain content

I didn't honestly notice. Wasn't Shadowbringers content full of these effects as well? With the intention being to create a "fantasy" feel of magic and pixies.

I think ARR, Heavensward and Stormblood probably weren't as much in part due to supporting PS3 and just freshly upgrading to 64 bit, and in part because they were more real with just regular people sword fighting, whereas they were trying hard to get that pixies, light, dark magic feel from Shadowbringers onwards. Although they kinda started even with Stormblood sometimes, having trials like Tsukuyomi and dungeons like Ghimlyt Dark with particles.

at least I could AVOID it. Now it's everywhere. I'm scared of running dungeon roul out of fear I might have to physically look away from my screen, and I'm sure there are people who have it worse. (I experienced this in Castrum Meridianum and prior to Thunder God in alliance roul, CT became really rough on my eyes too)

I'm sorry to hear that. It would be nice if they can add in more settings for disabilities, but I think it's pretty normal that disabilities are not at the forefront of people's minds when designing things and are often addressed afterwards. I know it's frustrating but it's not really unique to SE and it's hard to account for every possible disability and their varying level of effects on people.

I feel like expressions weren't tested, funny how 10 year old expressions look more natural than the uncanny valley we got.

I didn't really notice that since the expressions in this game, while good at conveying emotion, have never exactly been what I'd imagine any character or myself doing. So in the end I just don't think of it as my story or my character, but rather SE's story and that in their story/world people express themselves... like that, in this heroic way that nods a lot.

Everywhere I look there's flickering shadows that catch my eyes on sharp edges or text (I think it's antialiasing)

Oh? I thought that was all fixed now in DT with max settings. I'm using DLSS with the FPS < 30 frame rate threshold trick on 1080p.

when the PvP rework hit with the onsal PLD cheese. Something that made me actually quit running FL and take to the forums.

If it's what I think you mean where a PLD covered someone so they could capture points, I remember that got fixed. Bugs do happen sometimes in any online game or any program at all. Even Apple releases bug fixes regularly for example.

every unique feature that I adored about her got removed

I suppose I can understand that, but is SE supposed to just not do the graphics update?

They already avoided updating characters in a significant way. What I mean by that is, you are attached to the tiny nuances of the character and those changed it a lot for you, but they could have changed it a lot more drastically if they hadn't been concerned about this exact issue (of the attachment to the nuances of the rigid and low-polygon models they've had for 10 years). So they have tried to strike a balance, improving the models, lighting and texture quality a little but still trying to retain it mostly.

For me personally, I'd see it as "a new character for a new 10 years" because characters can evolve over time.

[Rueby]

I didn't honestly notice. Wasn't Shadowbringers content full of these effects as well? With the intention being to create a "fantasy" feel of magic and pixies.

For me, it was EW EX1 and EX2 being too dark/too bright.
Example to me is
Hades had a well lit arena where you can see the effects etc, EX1's background and arena were very much of the same-ish color palette with bright neon attacks. This is bad, well to me at least because it's painful to look at for a long time (like farming extremes)
EX2 suffers from this as well, bright background on really bright aoes, I get their themes is just that I can't help but feel like visual clarity is being lost.
I never noticed any glaring issues personally in ShB and I did all EXs when they were current content (I missed Hades and Memoria) not once did I feel 'oh god my eyes make it stop'.

I saw it alot in EW in alliance raids and normal raids where raidwides are essentially a flashbang. More and more effects at the expense of visual clarity, no joke I had forgot to disable other people's chars after a friend was showing me BLU skills and I was blind as a bat. I couldn't see the boss, I couldn't see anything.

Another critique is SMN summons for EW, summoning him is 1. obstructive 2. his attack has so much white saturation into it that it counts as a little flashbang, this is...bad.
For DT, I couldn't help but notice an increase in flashing white in skills of Picto and Viper and I noticed being unable to look at certain animations. Ie. I'm fine with reaving maw, but something like steel maw hurts to look at. I either have to disable full effects or not do it.

There's also Blizzard in Cyan for Picto that I noticed have this hm...intense white? into it. I can think of Comet in Black and other picto skills, once you use it often it kinda hurts.

This is what I meant by visually getting worse. I don't have more examples off the top of my head. I can think of EW Alliance raid 3's last boss raid wide Eulogia? Or something and P12's raidwides...

I'm sorry to hear that. It would be nice if they can add in more settings for disabilities, but I think it's pretty normal that disabilities are not at the forefront of people's minds when designing things and are often addressed afterwards. I know it's frustrating but it's not really unique to SE and it's hard to account for every possible disability and their varying level of effects on people.

What's upsetting is that the game wasn't like this before. Also I never had issues with any other game, I don't know how they managed to mess it up this bad. They need to hire someone to add more accessibility options. I trusted them to preorder the expansion and renewed my sub, I never thought they'd deliver a product that will start hurting me. I never had issues with any game except this.

I didn't really notice that since the expressions in this game, while good at conveying emotion, have never exactly been what I'd imagine any character or myself doing. So in the end I just don't think of it as my story or my character, but rather SE's story and that in their story/world people express themselves... like that, in this heroic way that nods a lot.

I made a video with my characters' facial expressions. I don't know if male midlander suffers from it, but things like smiles are alot worse, alot of expressions suffer from twitchy mouth/eyebrows...Why? I'm not saying about the expressions chosen in cutscenes, but I'm sure if my character smiles it'll look horrific. The corners of the lips are way too upturned, imo. That's an interesting way to look at it. I speak of how currently expressions give abit of an uncanny valley feel to me. If I were to compare old smile expression vs new smile expression, I honestly feel the new one gives a more unhinged/weird look. I noticed it on my male viera alt. It gets mentioned in the graphical update feedback thread. [1] I did a detailed bug report on it but got slapped with a dupe but even then a bug report doesn't address how strange imo expressions look. It's hard to explain without having access/comparison to the old ones (which I had in my bug report).

Oh? I thought that was all fixed now in DT with max settings. I'm using DLSS with the FPS < 30 frame rate threshold trick on 1080p.

I'll give the below 30FPS a go! Thanks

If it's what I think you mean where a PLD covered someone so they could capture points, I remember that got fixed. Bugs do happen sometimes in any online game or any program at all. Even Apple releases bug fixes regularly for example.

It is, but the fact that it took them sooooo long to actually address it was frustrating (think it was something like 6 months? Not sure). It generally feels that PVP, specifically FL is neglected by them. Hardly anyone does CC on Chaos and if they do you run into the very same people, it was fun when it first released...but yeah.

I suppose I can understand that, but is SE supposed to just not do the graphics update?

They already avoided updating characters in a significant way. What I mean by that is, you are attached to the tiny nuances of the character and those changed it a lot for you, but they could have changed it a lot more drastically if they hadn't been concerned about this exact issue (of the attachment to the nuances of the rigid and low-polygon models they've had for 10 years). So they have tried to strike a balance, improving the models, lighting and texture quality a little but still trying to retain it mostly.

For me personally, I'd see it as "a new character for a new 10 years" because characters can evolve over time.

They should've taken more time with this and perhaps even beta tested and seen player feedback. My miqo and female viera noses got drastically changed in the nose bridge area, the bump that was prominently there (not low poly I'm sure) is gone. We're talking about reshaping features and beautification of characters. Female aura Face 2's mouth lost ALL charm it had before. Everyone has prominent philtrum even if they didn't have it. This is a poorly implemented and rushed graphical update in my opinion, I notice alot of this strange hmm wet clay-like feel to dark skinned characters. They slapped lipgloss on everyone, so even male characters have weird glossy lips. It's...weird. Anyway.

I think you have a positive outlook on it, I'm merely disappointed by it, because I feel like there's alot of compromises on my end.... I would've rather had them introduce something like cross DC PF/DF over this.

[Jeeqbit]

For me, it was EW EX1 and EX2 being too dark/too bright.

To me they are alright but I can see how the clarity could be lost if vision is limited.

no joke I had forgot to disable other people's chars after a friend was showing me BLU skills and I was blind as a bat. I couldn't see the boss, I couldn't see anything.

I've had those disabled on other players since I started playing. Initially due to my computer specs, but I kept them disabled after that because sometimes even with just a light party, nothing can be seen due to the effects. One time when I was in Eureka I had them enabled and the boss was covered by the effects of 70-144 people and it was actually impossible to read its visual tells, because the boss was not even visible behind all the bio and fire IVs.

Another critique is SMN summons for EW, summoning him is 1. obstructive 2. his attack has so much white saturation into it that it counts as a little flashbang

I think SMN's effects should be there for the person playing, but reduced enough for others so they aren't in the way. I've never really liked the old primal "ultimate" attacks though. They just do a flashbang like you said, when in older FF games, they did something real like a dive, a meteor, shooting a beam from space, coming out of the ground, etc.

What's upsetting is that the game wasn't like this before. Also I never had issues with any other game

I can agree that I don't think any game I played before this had so many flashy effects, although that might have just been due to older graphical limitations. It's still unlike other things I've played though because instead of, say, shooting an arrow there's lots of flash happening alongside it.

They need to hire someone to add more accessibility options.

I've seen people ask for more for years. I hope they will try so that people can tune issues like happened in P3 where everything was a similar color and Nier which gave lots of people headaches.

It is, but the fact that it took them sooooo long to actually address it was frustrating

They are often slow with these things. I'd say that's mostly the case for the game as a whole. Whenever we get QoL I am wondering how it took so long to notice and address it (ie. 10 years). The first examples that taught me SE will always be slow were at Stormblood release:

• Bards having cast times had caused all Bards to quit the game and they became extinct. They didn't seem to care, until 2 years later at the expansion release...
• PLD couldn't block magic. SE didn't seem to care. Then 2 years later at expansion release, suddenly...
• Parry was a joke and not something we could reasonably recommend to stack (unlike Tenacity, which at least is of reliable use against a tank buster). SE didn't seem to care, until suddenly at Stormblood release...

So SE is like this, for whatever reasons. Occasionally we get actual emergency patches but I've just come to expect they will eventually address things like that, but not necessarily this expansion or decade.

They should've taken more time with this and perhaps even beta tested and seen player feedback.

Well perhaps they could have done that in a special benchmark-like client for a longer period of time. In any case, they are planning a patch related to a lot of the issues people have so maybe some things will be addressed. I wouldn't expect everything you don't like to be addressed but we don't know yet.

[CaptainLagbeard]

If you really think that Shadowbringers and Endwalker flopped then I'm not sure what to say. Even Dawntrail had more pre-orders than any prior expansion.

Aside from Final Fantasy XIV, almost everything they published was a massive flop and the few that weren't flops didn't really receive much attention at all..

A few highlights of how they're dumping money into a fire are
Forspoken
Babylon's Fall
Marvel's Avengers
Symbiogenesis

Also, the PS5 exclusivity for the FF7 remake's 2nd part and Final Fantasy XVI cost them a fuckton of sales as those weren't enough reason for people to buy the PS5.

And a few other project s they've put out that kinda fell off the face of the planet

Star Ocean The Divine Force
Tactics Ogre Reborn
Octopath Traveler 2
Valkyrie Elysium



I wouldn't be surprised if one of their most successful game releases in recent years that isn't 14 is the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters...

[Oizen]

If you really think that Shadowbringers and Endwalker flopped then I'm not sure what to say. Even Dawntrail had more pre-orders than any prior expansion.

???
XIV is the outlier, SE as a whole has been doing abysmally lately.

I'm talking about shit like Marvel's Avengers, Balan's Wonderworld, FF7 First Soldier, Forespoken, Chocobo GP, Babylon's fall, Foamstars, and shit like their NFT game. Fuck thats not even all of them. Hell theres even evidence that FFXVI hasn't sold as well as they wanted with them rushing it to PC and promising all future FF games will day 1 launch on PC.

If you think this hasn't impacted the budget that XIV gets in some way then I dont know what to tell you, the money this game makes does not 100% go back into it.