Lack of communication and transparency from SE, roadmaps for the future?

[Auro_Seldaris]

This community is absolutely terrible at regulating their emotions. They treat every single mention of a possible idea as a promise, and every time some changes or feature doesn't meet their expectations as a betrayal.

The roadmap we get is likely the best they can offer. Game development is difficult. It's very hard to estimate timelines for complicated fixes or novel features without already doing a good chunk of work on it. Meaning you can't provide a reliable timeline for items years in advance of its completion, so including it as a roadmap item would result in a "broken promise" in the community's eyes once the timeline inevitably changes.

The best we can get in terms of a long-term roadmap is the gist of an upcoming expansion. That has to be marketed carefully, because if you spill too early then people will be bored and burned out by the time it comes to advertise the content that work has been done on (concept art, demos, new jobs, duties etc). And that's basically the maximized version of the problem with publicizing a roadmap for smaller items - even if you could miraculously accurately guess the timeline for a feature years in advance of doing it, by the time it's delivered most players will have lost interest. On the other hand, short-term roadmaps are more reliable, more deliverable, and advertise *upcoming* changes for players to look forward to

I don't disagree with you on regulating emotion. I try to be more logical and reasonable myself, because I see such a rampant lack of it in the real world. I certainly agree that, thanks to the anonymity of the internet, people are far more free with their feelings and often they just go wild with them on the forums. However, is it wrong to get hyped about a game you enjoy? People can't be reasonable 100% of the time. Was it wrong to get hyped about the Shadowbringers trailer, or the Endwalker trailer? It's a bit hypocritical to want peope to be hype with one hand and perfectly rational with the other. You can't just demand that people turn that off or on at a whim. Believe me, I get it, I used to have a very good friend who would get lost in the hype sauce and overhype himself and others about things, and it was my job to sort of balance him out and reel in his wacky tendencies. However, you can't expect perfect logic at all times from someone who's passionate about something.

As to the point about roadmaps, I'm a Warhammer player, and GW got a lot of flack about their recent "Roadmap" for 2025 releases. In previous years, they would release a roadmap twice a year that mostly told people what was coming for the next 6 months and in what order, and with what products. "This codex is coming for this army, with a wave of model releases. This codex is coming next, with only one model release," that sort of thing, with a couple of unnanouced "Mystery Codexes" to leave room for shuffling product releases if needed. Know what their 2025 "Roadmap" was?

"Hey! We released Stuff in 2024! Wasn't that cool? Guess what?! We plan to release MORE stuff in 2025! Stuff! And Things! Stay tuned, so you know when to give us your hobby money!"

Yes, they were absolutely ridiculed for it, and they deserve it. There's a big difference between "Here's 6 things that are coming in the near future, 2 or 3 of them being a mystery at the moment (but only to you, WE know what is actually going on behind the scenes)" and "Don't worry guys, we promise that we're acutally doing our job! Stuff is coming, for sure!"

FFXIV having a hyperdetailed roadmap would be setup for failure, I agree, but saying literally nothing other than "the usual stuff is coming" is also very problematic.

[Hallarem]

I don't disagree with you on regulating emotion. I try to be more logical and reasonable myself, because I see such a rampant lack of it in the real world. I certainly agree that, thanks to the anonymity of the internet, people are far more free with their feelings and often they just go wild with them on the forums. However, is it wrong to get hyped about a game you enjoy? People can't be reasonable 100% of the time. Was it wrong to get hyped about the Shadowbringers trailer, or the Endwalker trailer? It's a bit hypocritical to want peope to be hype with one hand and perfectly rational with the other. You can't just demand that people turn that off or on at a whim. Believe me, I get it, I used to have a very good friend who would get lost in the hype sauce and overhype himself and others about things, and it was my job to sort of balance him out and reel in his wacky tendencies. However, you can't expect perfect logic at all times from someone who's passionate about something.

As to the point about roadmaps, I'm a Warhammer player, and GW got a lot of flack about their recent "Roadmap" for 2025 releases. In previous years, they would release a roadmap twice a year that mostly told people what was coming for the next 6 months and in what order, and with what products. "This codex is coming for this army, with a wave of model releases. This codex is coming next, with only one model release," that sort of thing, with a couple of unnanouced "Mystery Codexes" to leave room for shuffling product releases if needed. Know what their 2025 "Roadmap" was?

"Hey! We released Stuff in 2024! Wasn't that cool? Guess what?! We plan to release MORE stuff in 2025! Stuff! And Things! Stay tuned, so you know when to give us your hobby money!"

Yes, they were absolutely ridiculed for it, and they deserve it. There's a big difference between "Here's 6 things that are coming in the near future, 2 or 3 of them being a mystery at the moment (but only to you, WE know what is actually going on behind the scenes)" and "Don't worry guys, we promise that we're acutally doing our job! Stuff is coming, for sure!"

FFXIV having a hyperdetailed roadmap would be setup for failure, I agree, but saying literally nothing other than "the usual stuff is coming" is also very problematic.

Something in between is the solution. Give us somekind of an idea what they are thinking and pushing out, without it being an avalanche of information.

[Illianaro]

Something in between is the solution. Give us somekind of an idea what they are thinking and pushing out, without it being an avalanche of information.

Agreed! A solid roadmap isn’t a blow by blow of everything big or small that’s going to happen. It’s just to capture high level goals and milestones. I just want an idea that SE has an idea of what they have planned.

[Auro_Seldaris]

Agreed! A solid roadmap isn’t a blow by blow of everything big or small that’s going to happen. It’s just to capture high level goals and milestones. I just want an idea that SE has an idea of what they have planned.

They told you. "Have one level of the exploration zone, and be satisfied with that for the next 12-17 months. Oh we might spice up the porridge halfway through with a few extra Lost Actions Phantom Jobs. Please look forward to it!"

[Illianaro]

They told you. "Have one level of the exploration zone, and be satisfied with that for the next 12-17 months. Oh we might spice up the porridge halfway through with a few extra Lost Actions Phantom Jobs. Please look forward to it!"

Oof. I felt this one… ������

Hard to swallow the drip feed when I can remember the full servings of yesteryear.

I remember the Yoshi P who cried on stage when acknowledging the issues players had logging in and discussing how to address them. Things just seem so different now.

[Auro_Seldaris]

Oof. I felt this one… ������

Hard to swallow the drip feed when I can remember the full servings of yesteryear.

I remember the Yoshi P who cried on stage when acknowledging the issues players had logging in and discussing how to address them. Things just seem so different now.

Now we're only going to get 2 levels of Occult Crescent it seems, rather than the multiple we got with Eureka and Bozja. Shrinkflation is real, my friend....

How about the Yoshida who cried because he had to delay the launch of Endwalker for one week, cause he knew some of the players had taken time off that they couldn't get back and he knew we would be incredibly disappointed? This is a man who used to be sorrowful when he felt he was disappointing us or making us lose faith in him and the team. And I think it was genuine, I don't think it's was an act. Sometimes I really do feel that we're watching Skinwalker Yoshida on stage, now....

[Kazuke_Miso]

a “job rework” for 8.0, all we’ve heard from them are general and vague pseudo-statements or non-promises: just enough information that the community fills in the gaps with their own expectations and then gets disappointed when the expectations that they set from their internal interpretations are not met.

That is INTENTIONAL and therefore will never change.

They have realized that they can bait the players with vague promises that cannot be tested or verified. They are intentionally lying to you to keep you hooked on copium and keep paying the sub for some self-imagined ideal future of the game.

[TaleraRistain]

Oh look I made the list twice!

I think they have to be careful about what they do and don't say. They did reveal things a bit earlier or tried to let players see a little behind the curtain in the past. But instead of appreciating that peek for what it is, players often took it as promises or made up their own expectations and then got mad at the developers for not living up to some things they never promised. So they keep things a bit closer to the vest now.

One of the most recent was Island Sanctuary. They kept that close to the vest. That tried to tell players not to go overboard on expectations. There was a ton of speculation here on the forums about what it was going to be. Some was honestly rather ridiculous given what we had been told. And like clockwork, people got angry that SE didn't implement it the way they had envisioned and acted like SE had promised things they never said would happen.

I enjoy when they go over the things that will be in an expansion at the Fan Fest announcements. I'm happy when I hear updates on things, like the raid tool that was mentioned recently. But I know things can change and delays can happy so unless they officially set in stone announce something, I just wait for the topic to come back around.

[TaleraRistain]

Now we're only going to get 2 levels of Occult Crescent it seems, rather than the multiple we got with Eureka and Bozja. Shrinkflation is real, my friend....

Bozja only has 2 areas. So this at least is keeping with what has already been established with the last field content zones.

[SkankyRoe]

They told you. "Have one level of the exploration zone, and be satisfied with that for the next 12-17 months. Oh we might spice up the porridge halfway through with a few extra Lost Actions Phantom Jobs. Please look forward to it!"

I don't remember them telling us we were getting the second map in 7.55. Do you have a timestamp for where they mentioned it?