The Great FFXIV Exodus of 2024

[Sharkie]

I have replaced the quote so it links to your more detailed post now. In the interest of keeping the opening post somewhat readable I unfortunately had to keep the quotes short but I'll happily make changes if anyone feels like they've been misrepresented. I'd also encourage people to read the stories and context of the linked posts because they are quite interesting.

No problem, thanks very much.

Yeah this is more understandable, especially in terms of hardware. I know my FPS has went from 70 to dipping down around 40 ever since the graphical update.

Have fun in warcraft.

I have a Ryzen 5 1600 and GTX 1070 with 16GB of RAM. I'm also on 3440*1440 ultrawide - the actual in-game performance for me was fine, even at that resolution, though the benchmark was plagued by flashing black squares.

Thanks. The 20th anniversary brought back the Night Elf Mohawk, so it's all been worth it.

[BigCheez]

While I don't think the mobile game is taking dev time away from XIV proper because it's 100% outsourced to a Tencent studio, it is almost certainly being funded with our sub money; and the fact that SE would rather use that money to try (and probably fail yet again) to tap into a mobile audience that may or may not exist than improve their game that does actually have an audience who want to play it is disappointing to say the least.

[ZavosEsperian]

While I don't think the mobile game is taking dev time away from XIV proper because it's 100% outsourced to a Tencent studio, it is almost certainly being funded with our sub money; and the fact that SE would rather use that money to try (and probably fail yet again) to tap into a mobile audience that may or may not exist than improve their game that does actually have an audience who want to play it is disappointing to say the least.

The biggest issue isn't so much devs being removed to deal with the mobile port, it is that the mobile port has been influencing game design decisions in FFXIV for the past while. Dont believe me? There is a post in a different thread that describes this:

[ForteNightshade]

After the mobile version announcement, I might join the exodus myself, as that was all the proof I needed that Final Fantasy 14 (PC) is never going to actually improve.

That was where all the time, money, and resources for the PC version was going apparently, that's why we got the 7.x patch series we have so far (though some would say they were getting anemic before then). *THAT* was apparently where all my subscription fees and cash shop purchases were going and I'm finally fed up with this loathsome lack of priorities and general lack of quality with THE MAIN GODDAMN GAME.

I'm going to quote Daeriion from another thread because this is a very common misconception on how mobile games work with existing IPs

SE itself isn't developing it, Lightspeed is, none of our money is realistically going into this version.
Speaking from experience working in the industry, more than likely Lightspeed sees opportunity to get some major $$$ off a mobile version of FF14, they approached Square for licensing deal, Square approved it, now Square either got paid a handsome sum for the deal, or they'll collect some royalties the mobile port makes. Or both. Either way, Square is/just made a ton of money for doing basically zero work. From the time I worked at Ubisoft, we had plenty of mobile game studios pitching mobile game ideas that involved some of Ubisoft's bigger IPs for licensing deals.

Either way, this is effectively entirely disconnected from actual FF14 in any development sense. If anything, it might even benefit FF14's development, if Lightspeed adds features/QoL that become extremely popular that could be translated to the main game, putting pressure on the main devs to implement them.

To put it simply, this is a licensing opportunity for LightSpeed and a marketing benefit for SE, nothing more. Our sub fees aren't funding it nor does it have any impact on Dawntrail's current patch lulls. Heck, we saw this exact same drought during Endwalker and even Shadowbringers, albeit to a lesser extent in the latter's case. The lackluster patch cycles are entirely due to the dev teams refusal to expediate content, partially attributed to the belief it will "overwhelm" players. While I do genuinely believe that's a part of it. The other reason is extending patch content keeps people subscribed. Maybe not those on this forum but the general masses afraid they'll miss the initial rush. Don't get me wrong though. I hate it as much as you and most others on this forum but that doesn't change their logic. Whether it's flawed or simply disappointingly pragmatic is up for debate.

A thread on the discussion reddit made an apt comparison; saying FFXIV is essentially McDonalds. It's easy junk food that the general mass eats knowing it's not great but still satisfying enough. That's the target demographic XIV cares about. And it's undeniably profitable. After all, McDonalds has the highest mark up of any fast food chain in the world; more than four times than inflation standard. And yet, people are still going. Heck, they've even reported the first major loss of customers not unlike XIV losing interest. Evidently, it's not enough for anyone to care because nothing has changed.

[Shougun]

The biggest issue isn't so much devs being removed to deal with the mobile port, it is that the mobile port has been influencing game design decisions in FFXIV for the past while. Dont believe me? There is a post in a different thread that describes this:

From my reading I'm not 100% sold there are not other interpretations of that, but overall if it is taken in the most negative and decently likely way... that they nerfed gameplay to make it work on mobile.. gross lol.


I'm not sure what I'm going to do with FFXIV in the immediate term, its almost like a close friend / family member due to time spent lol, and the journey from being a 1.0 player has been really cool.. but if they ruin the roleplay* further in 8.0 I'm just 100% out. A) Means they definitely "heard" and didn't care, and B) We're already substantially worse than other MMOs on that element, and we were already on my last straws in terms of thinness.


*(class identity, gameplay roleplay, not balmung eRP roleplay)

[Schan]

Lesson learned I guess, you just can't trust Square-Enix with any service-based game because they'll always find a way to get spit into the food.

Have you not been paying attention to what SE has been doing in the past... I'd say decade at the very least?

Like the whole premise of the final fantasy franchise was that square messed up so bad that they were about to go bust. They have always lived in this weird cycle of hitting it big and then pissing it all to the wind until they almost go broke again and then somehow get something that makes them money again.

The suits have always overpriced their merch. The gachas have mostly failed bc they don't understand the concept of cheaper more consistent paid packs over the ridiculously expensive stuff and all the questionable decisions that include: following fads when it's way too late (I'm looking at you 16 and your wanna be global release which has an ONE YEAR GAP and you didnt even optimize well for pc); betting on stuff that never went anywhere, promoting good devs into management roles and keeping them there when they are obviously bad at the management side of things, chasing the mobile market moneis and that's all I can think of atm.

SE is greedy and their suits are way too much into gambling which so far has not paid off. Even worse they are doing a Blizzard and are too proud or naive to think they won't hit rock bottom like Blizzard did.

I feel like 14 only did well because yoship had to do a spacex and block the suits from meddling into gameplay decisions. I think he threw the mogstation at them and let them chew on it.

The vibe I get from DT is that there is an absence of proper quality control. Heck even the sound department which is amazing is letting stuff go through which is making me raise my eyebrow. Why is the shake emote so loud. Why are we missing oomph from quite a lot of new skills?

[ExESGO]

The biggest issue isn't so much devs being removed to deal with the mobile port, it is that the mobile port has been influencing game design decisions in FFXIV for the past while. Dont believe me? There is a post in a different thread that describes this:

My understanding of this is that YoshiP is talking about the mobile game and purely the mobile game. They of course have to tweak mechanics to fit it, but I don't think it has an affect on the retail game. I don't want to say it, but I think you're reading into it too much.

THEN. WHERE. ARE. THEY. AND. WHAT. ARE. THEY. DOING. WITH. THEIR. TIME. INSTEAD?

You can call me cope, but I stated this elsewhere that YoshiP is running a ship that cares a lot for the welfare of the development team. If this was any other company they would have shifted timelines and schedules to fit the needs of the userbase (ie. push up the release schedule of the exploration zone), but they opted not to. Between the team constantly having to recode the game to make sure they have space for new systems and not break existing systems (dependencies of dependencies, ad infinitum) and making the actual new content, talking to a lot of my game developer friends and my own experience with production (in the advertising industry), the timelines kind of add up.

You trade a "happy" player base for "miserable" devs and a rushed realease or a bit of the playerbase for "happy" devs and a quality release. Another cope is I prefer the latter over the former. I'm burnt out as heck from constantly having to shift gears and rush things out, and the quality what comes out suffers too (some things that would better be served with handcrafted assets are just chucked into Canva to save time). It just comes down to once the content is here what is the quality of it, then I would say it is a fair time to judge.

[BigCheez]

The biggest issue isn't so much devs being removed to deal with the mobile port, it is that the mobile port has been influencing game design decisions in FFXIV for the past while. Dont believe me? There is a post in a different thread that describes this:

To me, this reads that the mobile version of the game needed to be simplified so that it could be enjoyed more casually in a shorter period of time; and Yoshi-P oversaw that process (he almost certainly did not).

I guess it's open to interpretation though.

[caffe_macchiato]

The vast majority of gaming is going through a rough time right now. If you check FFXIV's competitors, none of them are doing any better. Every gaming and tech company is going through catastrophic job losses and decline in profits. That's not to say that FFXIV is worth a subscription (it's not), but the grass won't be greener on the other side. It's rare to find a live-service game that's actually doing better now than it was last year. Online gaming wasn't a transformational change, it was a brief fad. When end of service comes, we're all going to have touch grass, go to the bar and "rizz". It's unfortunate, but we don't run our society, the companies do, and they alone decide when to pull the plug. Yoshi-P has made his decision and we have no choice but to deal with it.

[AnnRam]

It's the game dead? well in terms of actually playing FFXIV and doing content yup, long queues for everything, trials, dungeons w.e even at peak hours or weekends.

The player base that keeps numbers high and queues for logging at any hour are the ones involved in RP/Mare/Venues, people who are in the game but don't do anything besides hard modding and dragging people in to it.