Melbourne International games week Interview about content

[Hausti]

"Please dont retire" sounds to me like they're stretching the timegap between patches even more... :/

[Raven2014]

I don't know if any of the teams playing some of the F2P games on the market currently. I'm playing Wuthering Wave right now and after allocating a monthly budget similarly to FF14 (15$/month), the value honestly do not even compare. One of the thing it makes me realize is just how ... dated FF14 is. Writing, graphic, cutsceen, voice is either on par or a step above FF14. And the world exploration really make FF14 open world play feel like a game from 20 years ago.

One of most significance difference is just overall how ... smooth everything is. Transition from zone to zone, dialogue to cutsceen ... comparing to FF14's where you constantly going into a 2-3 seconds black screen when you need to switch from one thing to another. I didn't care much until the beginning of DT where the constant cut to black-screen became apparent due to how many unnecessary cutsceens there was. But now that I'm getting used to the smoothness of modern game it really hits home how bad the engine FF14 is. In a way FF14's cut to black now feels like the Starfield's loading screen meme.

And this is not something I think they can fix even if they want to. There is no deniable how limited the game engine of FF14 is. They really should have not rushed to conclude the Hyadelin story line. Between Omega, Garlemard, Zodiac they probably had enough for 2 expansions after end walker. They should have used that time to sunset FF14 while working toward a new MMO's engine for the next story. I don't think FF14 is so old now that it won't have what it takes to carry for another 10 years.

Also. you get new content every 1.5 months

[Carin-Eri]

I don't know if any of the teams playing some of the F2P games on the market currently. I'm playing Wuthering Wave right now and after allocating a monthly budget similarly to FF14 (15$/month), the value honestly do not even compare. One of the thing it makes me realize is just how ... dated FF14 is. Writing, graphic, cutsceen, voice is either on par or a step above FF14. And the world exploration really make FF14 open world play feel like a game from 20 years ago.

One of most significance difference is just overall how ... smooth everything is. Transition from zone to zone, dialogue to cutsceen ... comparing to FF14's where you constantly going into a 2-3 seconds black screen when you need to switch from one thing to another. I didn't care much until the beginning of DT where the constant cut to black-screen became apparent due to how many unnecessary cutsceens there was. But now that I'm getting used to the smoothness of modern game it really hits home how bad the engine FF14 is. In a way FF14's cut to black now feels like the Starfield's loading screen meme.

And this is not something I think they can fix even if they want to. There is no deniable how limited the game engine of FF14 is. They really should have not rushed to conclude the Hyadelin story line. Between Omega, Garlemard, Zodiac they probably had enough for 2 expansions after end walker. They should have used that time to sunset FF14 while working toward a new MMO's engine for the next story. I don't think FF14 is so old now that it won't have what it takes to carry for another 10 years.

Also. you get new content every 1.5 months

F2P is the very definition of a double-edged sword though.

To repeat something I said in another post - I came to FFXIV from another MMO I'd played for 12 years. An MMO which started off okay but took at look at gambleboxes as a method of income and eventually based it's entire (now gatcha-style) business model on selling them (and stupidly expensive bundles).
Imagine you really want a particular weapon and the only way of getting it is opening loot boxes - you open a loot box.... and receive an item of garden furniture for a house you don't own. Oh well, bad luck - better buy another five-box bundle (that'll be another £30 please) and keep trying.

And in the background the game eventually started to suffer, as the Devs focus switched from making new playable content to making the gambleboxes more attractive to maintain profitability. And the worst part? They never revealed the odds of winning the 'main prize' (though they were independently worked out to be preposterously low) - I gather that, to this day, there is little in the way of any legal obligation for them to do so.

To be honest, I'd almost definitely quit if gambleboxes found their way into this game. I've seen firsthand how they can ruin an MMO.

[ovIm]

F2P is the very definition of a double-edged sword though.

I think that is kinda missing the point Raven2014 is trying to do here.

For the monetization part - each (live service) game needs a constant revenue stream to operate, and there are different ways to go about it. FF14 does it kinda well with asking everyone for the same fair price, other games try to subsidize freeloaders by getting more money from people wanting to drop more cash in their game (if I buy a mount that costs 60€, I am kinda paying the monthly cost of me and 3 other people, assuming a cost of 15€ per Month per Person).

With a constant, calculatable revenue stream, a company like Square Enix should be able to match content pacing and quality with that of a F2P gamblebox game. They just don't.

[Raven2014]

F2P is the very definition of a double-edged sword though.

...

To be honest, I'd almost definitely quit if gambleboxes found their way into this game. I've seen firsthand how they can ruin an MMO.

I'll be blunt, if you're the type who easily get hooked on gambling or have issue with impulse control, you should stay away from F2P gacha as far as possible. And what you said apply more to the old F2Ps game from probably 10-15 years ago. I said before I used to don't have a kind look toward F2P games for the same reasons you mentioned, but modern F2P are really attractive in term of what they offer.

After playing a few of them for a few months, most modern F2P seems to follow this pricing structure:

- Completely F2P players: can still play and get most things, but may demand heavy time investment.

- Monthly Subscribed players: ranging from 5$-15$ a months. Offer the same comfort as playing a traditional MMO.

- Whale players: for those who wants everything, and wanted to have them yesterday.


In my experience engaging with their communities, most people are in the 2nd category. You go to any of them and pose as a new players asking for advise on how to spend, that's what gonna be recommended to you, and that's what the majority of players self-identified as. Looking at the pay structure, it's very obvious there are some artificial wall against F2P players to nudge them toward paying, the monthly subscritions are extremely attractive value wide, while anything beyond that is just straight up exploitive, but only if you're the type who let yourself being exploited. So it's clear what companies are doing with their pricing.

To put it in perspective:

- In FF14 you need an average 2 months to BiS a jobs, costing $30.

- In F2P Gacha, spending $30 over 2 months

- In FF14, you can get gears very quickly if you're willing to RMT (probably in the hundred or thousand of dollar) clears.

- In F2P Gacha, they just put that options officially in the game.


As long as I maintain discipline, like I said these F2P games offer a much more modern and content rich experience comparing to FF14 becuase you know what? At least it feels Gacha games constantly invest the money they made back into the games, can't say that for FF14.

[Carin-Eri]

I'll be blunt, if you're the type who easily get hooked on gambling or have issue with impulse control, you should stay away from F2P gacha as far as possible. And what you said apply more to the old F2Ps game from probably 10-15 years ago. I said before I used to don't have a kind look toward F2P games for the same reasons you mentioned, but modern F2P are really attractive in term of what they offer.

But there are still older MMOs around that do still use that 'old F2P' model as they have the sort of playerbase who tolerate it; the sort that several people have bemoaned here - the sort who complain about what they don't like but give the game company their money anyway, which sends a message to said company in the only language the company understands or cares about.
Which was one of the reasons I quit the game I used to play; I didn't want to support their business model.

As for lootboxes - was never that bothered about them myself when I played an older game that pretty much built it's business model around them, but certainly had friends who were addicted to them and at least one whom got themselves into a LOT of debt because of them.

[Raven2014]

But there are still older MMOs around that do still use that 'old F2P' model as they have the sort of playerbase who tolerate it; the sort that several people have bemoaned here - the sort who complain about what they don't like but give the game company their money anyway, which sends a message to said company in the only language the company understands or cares about.
Which was one of the reasons I quit the game I used to play; I didn't want to support their business model.

As for lootboxes - was never that bothered about them myself when I played an older game that pretty much built it's business model around them, but certainly had friends who were addicted to them and at least one whom got themselves into a LOT of debt because of them.

Then none of what you're saying really related to anything I'm saying. That's why I specifically said "modern F2P" in my post. All of the F2P I play are 2020+. I hate the fact that every time F2P comes up, the discussion immideately shift to the gambling/addiction because people seems to get stuck with the old bias/stereotype that's hardly applied any more. I wasn't talking about that, what I want to pointed out is objectively speaking, a lot of modern F2P games are just simply ... a better game, specfically they feel like a game made after 2020, whether FF14 felt like a PS3 era game most of the time.


And you know what, I guess that's why you see the shift in Yoshi's tone in this interview. Comparing to the old F2P games, FF14 did really stood a step above and Yoshi knew he was offering something better than the rest of the market. That's why he could say "it's ok people to quit and play other games" because he knew players always gonna come back to FF14 simply because it was the better value. But now I think he's waking up to the fact that it's no longer the case, and the modern F2P games are giving his game a real argument about where players can spend their money.

[Xeronia]

It isn't even just F2P games at this point as Raven2014 pointed out. I started playing WoW very casually due to a friend being curious about it. Just to compare timelines here:

Dawntrail released ( Early Access June 28th) July 2nd and the first major content update in Early November.

WoW: The War Within released ( Early Access August 22nd) August 26th and the first major content patch is the anniversary event starting on October 22nd.

Now you can make a lot of complaints about WoW but the point here is they have nailed a far better content cadence and this only is addresseing retail. For your WoW sub you also have access to all the Classic servers as well along with any event mode they put up like Plunderstorm or Timerunning past expansions. I know Blizzard may be an unfair comparison as they do have a large team and now Microsoft's backing but they absolutely have nailed release schedule.

[Jeeqbit]

Dawntrail released ( Early Access June 28th) July 2nd and the first major content update in Early November.

WoW: The War Within released ( Early Access August 22nd) August 26th and the first major content patch is the anniversary event starting on October 22nd.

So that's 2 months for WoW. There used to be a 3.5 month gap for FFXIV in the past but now they account for holidays to give a better work-life balance, making it about 4.5 months.

Now you can make a lot of complaints about WoW but the point here is they have nailed a far better content cadence

What you may not be aware of is that their content cadence used to be notoriously bad. People used to say WoW took 9 months or more for a major content patch. What changed was they recently bought a company with 100 employees and reassigned those employees to work on WoW.

The reason they had to do this was because they were actually struggling to hire (good) developers. I don't know why that is - maybe their situation in the media at the time, but also there was a practical issue that to work for them people have to live in close proximity. The benefit of buying it was they were all in close proximity, ready to go, and had experience.

So you see, WoW was in a much worse boat patch cycle-wise before you played it. So if Square Enix were to replicate their methods, they would want to look to buy out a game developer with 100 employees so they can skip things such as hiring and (to some degree) training.

[ExESGO]

The reason they had to do this was because they were actually struggling to hire (good) developers. I don't know why that is - maybe their situation in the media at the time, but also there was a practical issue that to work for them people have to live in close proximity. The benefit of buying it was they were all in close proximity, ready to go, and had experience.

So you see, WoW was in a much worse boat patch cycle-wise before you played it. So if Square Enix were to replicate their methods, they would want to look to buy out a game developer with 100 employees so they can skip things such as hiring and (to some degree) training.

To add to this: If you haven't noticed in the past PLLs they've been aggressively trying to hire new people to join their team, and a telling thing is they are now down to "we don't care about your existing credentials, but if you are willing to learn we will train you". Which to me reads there isn't a large pool of ready developers in Japan. Blizzard has the advantage of being in an English-speaking country and with English being the global lingua franca, but Japan doesn't have that luxury. Dawntrail could very well be the very first game several members of the team shipped. Sure there are people whose dreams are to work at Square Enix and Blizzard, but one needs you to know business level Japanese.

Also, asking them to speed up the current cycle would do more harm than good. They did say they have 2 years of planning ahead, and while flexible, it isn't THAT flexible. I've said this elsewhere, but the first time we'll see a lot of this feedback implemented realistically will be 8.0.