Finally Understanding SE's Decision Making (And Why It Won't Change)

[KikiTia]

You compare it to Warframe like Warframe is better but what you may not know is that their "expansion" equivalent is basically a 2-3 hour story mission released once every few years. And then there's a new game mode or two once a year to grind for hours doing the same stuff on repeat. Don't act like FF14 is somehow committing a cardinal sin by either not being able to or choosing not to produce as much content as people are demanding. Running an MMO is extremely demanding, coding is a nightmare even without a deadline and include a high quality standard and online components as well as having to put all that through several profit driven executives, you'll understand why 9/10 MMOs end up failing within 10 years.

I don't understand why some people can't accept this. It's one thing having 5-10 years to produce a high budget, massive open world game for a huge audience, but FFXIV gets 2 years tops to actually work on an expansion and that is while producing endgame content for the previous one, and they still manage to make the new expansion big enough to be its own game. That in itself is a miracle and we should be grateful that we get a playable expansion or patch at all (looking at you WoW), but some people have cultivated this discourse that FF14 is somehow a terrible game because the developers either cannot or choose not to produce content that they can spend all hours of the day on and not feel disappointed once. It's a video game! If you aren't happy just play something else instead of ranting and casting judgement on something you know nothing about.

[HunkyMarauder]

Running an MMO is extremely demanding

If you aren't happy just play something else instead of ranting and casting judgement on something you know nothing about.

we should be grateful that we get a playable expansion or patch at all

That in itself is a miracle

Are you trying to artificially win a Bingo card or something?

[Archeron]

You compare it to Warframe like Warframe is better but what you may not know is that their "expansion" equivalent is basically a 2-3 hour story mission released once every few years. And then there's a new game mode or two once a year to grind for hours doing the same stuff on repeat. Don't act like FF14 is somehow committing a cardinal sin by either not being able to or choosing not to produce as much content as people are demanding. Running an MMO is extremely demanding, coding is a nightmare even without a deadline and include a high quality standard and online components as well as having to put all that through several profit driven executives, you'll understand why 9/10 MMOs end up failing within 10 years.

I don't understand why some people can't accept this. It's one thing having 5-10 years to produce a high budget, massive open world game for a huge audience, but FFXIV gets 2 years tops to actually work on an expansion and that is while producing endgame content for the previous one, and they still manage to make the new expansion big enough to be its own game. That in itself is a miracle and we should be grateful that we get a playable expansion or patch at all (looking at you WoW), but some people have cultivated this discourse that FF14 is somehow a terrible game because the developers either cannot or choose not to produce content that they can spend all hours of the day on and not feel disappointed once. It's a video game! If you aren't happy just play something else instead of ranting and casting judgement on something you know nothing about.

How much copium have you been huffing holy shit I think it's time to cut you off.

[Clockworks]

You compare it to Warframe like Warframe is better but what you may not know is that their "expansion" equivalent is basically a 2-3 hour story mission released once every few years. And then there's a new game mode or two once a year to grind for hours doing the same stuff on repeat. Don't act like FF14 is somehow committing a cardinal sin by either not being able to or choosing not to produce as much content as people are demanding. Running an MMO is extremely demanding, coding is a nightmare even without a deadline and include a high quality standard and online components as well as having to put all that through several profit driven executives, you'll understand why 9/10 MMOs end up failing within 10 years.

I don't understand why some people can't accept this. It's one thing having 5-10 years to produce a high budget, massive open world game for a huge audience, but FFXIV gets 2 years tops to actually work on an expansion and that is while producing endgame content for the previous one, and they still manage to make the new expansion big enough to be its own game. That in itself is a miracle and we should be grateful that we get a playable expansion or patch at all (looking at you WoW), but some people have cultivated this discourse that FF14 is somehow a terrible game because the developers either cannot or choose not to produce content that they can spend all hours of the day on and not feel disappointed once. It's a video game! If you aren't happy just play something else instead of ranting and casting judgement on something you know nothing about.

This is some good stuff, I'm honestly jealous, I have no idea how you wrote that with a straight face

[Striker44]

This is some good stuff, I'm honestly jealous, I have no idea how you wrote that with a straight face

When you attack the person while not actually addressing any of the points they actually made, it ends up just being tacit admittance that you can't refute what they're saying. In other words, you're admitting that you know they're right and don't like it.

[keichirou]

blah blah blah

I don't understand why some people can't accept this

blah blah blah.

That line alone...im going to say something that might be new for you but
THIS IS A PAID SERVICE , PEOPLE WONT ACCEPT ANYTHING BELOW OF WHAT THEY'RE GETTING
is like you're paying for a stream service but then for the same price the catalog is reduced...we're going backwards, is people money they are entitled to feel that way in any way they want and you cant say anything about it

[DPZ2]

That line alone...im going to say something that might be new for you but
THIS IS A PAID SERVICE , PEOPLE WONT ACCEPT ANYTHING BELOW OF WHAT THEY'RE GETTING
is like you're paying for a stream service but then for the same price the catalog is reduced...we're going backwards, is people money they are entitled to feel that way in any way they want and you cant say anything about it

So true. And when a paid service disappoints, what is the most logical thing for a player to do? Stop paying.

I say this because your ALL-CAPS line leads to that conclusion. If not, it becomes obvious that "won't accept anything below" is wishful thinking. People will apparently accept a lot before abandoning an MMORPG.

[BigCheez]

Well yes, I've discussed this with people and there is a reason it's called a "themepark MMO" and that Yoshi-P has said he views himself like a government and the player as the citizens. I recently described it as a "pick and mix" https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...00#post6657400



Technically, it is the most packed expansion ever, if you include everything that is coming in the patches. But as my image shows, every piece of content only lasts 5-20 minutes per attempt, so on that basis people will dismiss all the content as nothing. It's mostly like this because they don't want it to be too much of a burden for casual players that just login for a few days for a patch, then move onto the next game, and that's pretty obvious really.

They've not used the "it's too much money" excuse as far as I know and even express a willingness to go over budget. They are almost constantly hiring developers in some department for FFXIV specifically (I know because I check).

The issue is that they think things are "too hard" or "a lot of work", including many things that any programmer, with any codebase, could achieve in a short period of time. There are so many ways to think outside the box if there are infrastructure issues. It comes down to either that their team is too divided up so one person can't just implement a feature on their own causing it not to be implemented at all, or that some of them don't believe they can do things that they, in fact, can.

The problem isn't that content is designed to be drop in/drop out and doesn't force you to stay glued to it for hours on end. The problem is that so much of the content either doesn't allow you to continue playing after 10 minutes and/or is fully completed too quickly. It feels less like a theme park and more like a mobile game that wants me to swipe my credit card for more spins.

[TheMightyMollusk]

It's not going to change because it still brings in money, so the suits don't see a reason to change. Money is the universal language.

[Heroman3003]

It's not going to change because it still brings in money, so the suits don't see a reason to change. Money is the universal language.

And if it stops bringing the money, they won't change anything but just say that the game has outlived its profitability and start shutting things down. Most higher up SE suits don't care for FF14 as a product, only as source of revenue to fund other projects, so when the well dries up they won't rush to rejuvinate it.