Response to Yoshi P: you can fix it.. but

[Raven2014]

Seriously, it is very hard to predict, whether the players will like a story or not. In DT, they tried something new and they failed.

Not really?

Quality of the MSQ has always been consistently good in FF14. Even SB was only bad because it's considered to be worse in relative to other expansion, rather than because it was objectively bad. So if your players have been consistently praising you for one thing, I don't think the "it's hard to predict" argument really fly here. The problem stem from a quality of the staffs problems, not because they're trying something news:

- They moved their top writer Ishakawa to other project, and handed the writing to a team that's much less talent.

- They moved Koji-Fox, who has been handling the English localization with a spotless record for 10 years and handed the task to someone who are far less competent and professional ... and it shows.

- Instead of keep hiring top talent - theatrical trained professional British VA, they opt for cheaper and much less professional American VAs ... and it shows.

- In EW, instead of giving us a full zone for relic, we got a a simple "just grind for tome" in the last relic.



And of course, the "copo" reason for all of these are: oh we're just trying something new, oh we're doing this to improve presentation, oh we thought players didn't like long and complex grind for relic so we made it easier. But do you see one common thread among all of these "we did it in the best interest of players"? Conveniently, each and every of those actions will result in saving them money and lower cost? So yeah, I don't buy it. This is like believing youtube's new "pause experience" is genuinely an attempt to improve user's experience, and not "we're just trying to jam as much ads down your throat as we can because it makes us more money".

So no, this is simply just them trying to cut cost and hope you will see it as them trying something new.

[Eyrilona]

- They moved Koji-Fox, who has been handling the English localization with a spotless record for 10 years and handed the task to someone who are far less competent and professional ... and it shows.

Um.. Koji-Fox's record is actually quite spotted and not without scandals being caught out in weird stuff.

Recently a bilingual (JP/EN) content creator has even started calling him out as actually quite detrimental to the international versions of the game, because of his insistence on rewriting things 'his way' in ways that will then produce massive plot holes in future patches (because the JP devs base how they will proceed on the JP version of the game, not the 'creative localization').

Under Koji's guidance, the localization team has simply omitted major plot points that exist in the JP version from the EN version, completely changed the personalities of major characters (seriously, people like Urianger and Alphinaud, Gaius and Haurchefant), confused things that were supposed to be obvious in the JP script, inserted sexual innuendo in a lot of jokes where they weren't in the JP, changed character motivations (e.g. did you know Gaius never meant to conquer Eorzea? His lines at the start of the Praetorium make SO much more sense in JP, while in English he seems to be seeking you to side with him in.. conquering your own home?), and so many more liberties that ended up creating plotholes and things that look like retcons to EN players a few expansions down the line.

Koji is also rather too fond of his own mythos and gets away with overselling his influence on the game because he can tell the EN player base his side of the story in interviews that don't get fact checked by the JP team.

[Raven2014]

snip

Ok, proof for any of these claim please?

I tried to google one of your claim (about Praetorium ) and the first result is from ~5months ago by someone on reddit who tried to challenge the English translation while openly admit they use "google translate" and then re-write it into proper sentence. Needless to say they got immediately called out for their audacity.

I've been studying Japanese for about 3 years now and while I'm not any where near proficient, I know enough to discern when the Japanese VA don't match the sub. It's the reason why I decided to swear off a lot of tittle from Nintedo the last couple years until I can fully play them in Japanese after too many "there is no freaking way that's what they said" moments with their games. And I honestly don't see what you're claiming.

- I know Y'shtola has the most radical change. In JP she's more a stoic sage, whether in the English version she's more a sassy witch.

- I'm pretty sure the JP community actually think the English Shakespearean Urianger is a better portrayal of his character than the JP version is.

- Your claim about Haurchefant and sexual innuendo ... seriously are you sure you're not getting your accusation backward here? The JP Haurchefant was a total flirt and that's exactly why he got tone down in the English version. This one is hilarious to me because - full disclosure - a lot of my practical experience with Japanese came from reading eroge so his JP line was very familiar to me.

- I have NEVER heard anyone who interpret Gauis's speak the same way you just did, in English or JP. He believes in strength, and those who endowed bear the responsibility of bringing order to the world, kind of like a noble oblige. It's because he recognize the WoL's strength that he wants us to join him, that's a way for him to show respect.

- I know Koji is quite liberal with his insertion of meme, especially in naming of quest.

Again, I'm not exactly fluent so I can be wrong or miss something, I'm just saying if you have proof for any of your claim, that would be nice to see.

To be clear, I'm not a purist who would rail again "localization" simply because it's "difference". I'm fully aware of the difference between translation and localization. As a born and raised Asian but living in the US, it's not rare for me to not be able to translate one from another even though I would consider I'm naturally fluent in both language. The reason why I'm pointing out this is for the most part, his localization are well received because the change he made are often in good taste. Also, he ALWAYS had solid direction, evidence by the strong VA performance we consistently see in the last 10 years. The same can not be said for DT, like ... not even close.

[Gember]

No--they told us it was a VACATION and has been anything BUT a vacation. It's just more work we have to do (and babysit at the same time). The Golden city was not anything at all worth mentioning because of how poor the direction of it was--and another world we have to either save or destroy because it wants to mess with the source. Japanese don't have a clue on what the word vacation is because they don't go on vacation. They work themselves to death and wonder where their lives went wrong since they turned 18 and could work for the first time.

I believe at this current point of time, the "vacation" meant that we are not the main character of Dawntrail. Wuk Lamat is, and lore community is theorizing that she is apart of Azem's legacy, and we helped her with that legacy because we carry it too. I don't think advertising: "Hey guys, you aren't the main character in Dawntrail." would be a good tactic to get people to buy your expansion. Its just a theory, and yes... I know a lot of people won't be happy reading this. I am just giving out the deets since I tend to listen to the lore nerds.

[Valence]

What's wrong with the new english localization?

[Supersnow845]

What's wrong with the new english localization?

Something is wrong with the recording and the voice direction for multiple characters

Graha was flat the entire time, the only time I felt like he showed his range as the crystal exarch was during the gondola scene, y’shtola sounds like she recorded her voice lines in a bathroom and while we all know the “SPHEEEEEEEENE” there are multiple scenes by multiple characters that feel like the director didn’t actually give the VA the context of the scene and they sorta had to guess what it was. It’s become really noticeable even though I feel like the EN localisation has been slipping since the 6.x patches

[Valence]

It's not something unique to DT, we've had this in EW as well, and I even remember one instance in HW where Urianger sounded very weird. Perhaps DT was the worst though. In my opinion it's a problem on the acting direction/producing and recording side of things, not the translation side, which seems to follow the same render than it always has, for better or worse?

[Yuri_Love]

[Jeeqbit]

I've never really had a problem with the voice acting itself (except really Alphinaud, I'm sorry since the actor seems really nice, but I preferred the one from ARR).

But the voice environments have always been... not good. Everyone knows this already for ARR. In Endwalker, Meteion talks quietly to us in Elpis from the other side of the arena and our characters act like they can hear (this would not really happen). It's been a constant issue in a lot of cutscenes where I know in real life I'd not be able to hear their mumbling from that far away. Then there is the lack of a megaphone of some form with Wuk Lamat's speech, which would be fine if a loud voice shouted and echoed on the walls, but her voice is not exactly loud since she is mumbling stuff about happiness. Then I recall echoes where it seems a stretch (but possible) such as The Rising Stones.

Ultimately I put it down to the fact it's a video game and they just don't 100% nail real life with it, but I would appreciate if they did, especially when it's something that is so easy to notice like these examples.

As for localization, just know that the new one has said how they vehemently disagree with this asssessment of them and that localizing instead of translating is the "only way to do it" and that you discover this if you actually do the job they're doing. They talk to the writers extensively asking lots of questions about the intent, what information they want to convey with the story, and what emotions they want to convey, then localize it in a way that achieves what the writers wanted but in the target language. For example, something that triggers sadness in Japan may not do so to English speakers due to different cultures and histories, so they may need to do it differently in order to achieve the same result.

[Chiru_Kai]

*sigh* I'll bite:
"DT shows that story can't save you" >> Flawed reasoning. If the story was actually good, then it would be enough. DT story is lackluster, and only because of that do people start to see some of the worse aspects of the game. ShB had less repeatable content and less features, yet hailed as a great expansion solely because of story. So clearly, story quality does define an expansion, for FF14 at least.

"FFXIV suffers, there is no reason to sick in, most people who ignores a game for more than a 3 months will less likely to return back" >> Meh, for other games maybe. Not MMOs. And this MMO is also designed to allow players to put it down and come back later. Example: ilvl is basically worthless. Each expansion, the first few dungeons give gear with similar if not better stats than high-end raiding of the last expansion. You can literally just skip an expansion and pretty much come back right away. Players often do return. Very often raiders will just raid for a month or two, then quit, and come back on the new tier. That's fine.

"Gameplay / Netcode" >> Even with 150 ping, netcode seems fine. It's the animation locks that are unnecessary. Said animation locks can and should be fixed sometimes. Other than that, most of what people call netcode issues is usually a skill issue though.

"Gameplay / Jobs" >> Issue with creating wildly different jobs is that job balance now gets thrown out the window. For casuals, that's fine, they won't care. But for high-end raiding? For ULTIMATES? The devs will get an incredible amount of complaints about players feeling that they're being forced to play a certain class or role. This system of kind of homogenizing jobs on a macro level (2 minute bursts) but still creating different rotations on a micro level, is good and allows for more finetuned control over job balance. And even that still leads to metas.

"gives no room to WoL choices and that's a bad a horrible system." >> True, stats need to be looked at. It's kinda silly how bad Piety and Tenacity are. But even so, there will always be 1 meta even if they fix that. This is not something the devs enforce. This is decisions made by numbercrunching gamers who are optimizing the fun out of the game and people just blindly follow it.

"Story: focus on one theme" >> They do this, and then people WILL complain that the story is shallow, boring, and uncomplicated, and that it treats the players as too dumb to handle complex subject matter, and the players then wish the story touched on more themes. The writers will not win regardless of the choice they make, so in this case I would recommend just giving them free reign on what they want to make stories about.

"Replayability: Content generating machine" >> One of the few things I agree on. Game needs more casual/midcore content that can be repeated and is rewarding and fun to do and gives something to do when not raiding, and when you had enough of doing roulettes every day.