Do you think cost is an acceptable excuse regarding not getting FFXIV content?

[Memento]

I've been here since 1.0 - the worst of the worst. I'll never understand how people can defend the game being in the state it is while also raking in more money than it ever has. Its clear SE isn't investing in this game like it should and deserves to be.

[Supersnow845]

Progging forked more makes me feel like there is an element of designing boredom to their decisions

Anyone who has done forked up to magitaur will tell you that the puzzles are really well designed and you can feel the devs had fun flexing the phantom job utility as far as possible. Something like bridges wouldn’t be possible without it being a high end field content duty and the map room is arguably the most beautiful area of the game in its entirety

But if you made forked normal you’d be cutting out the three puzzle sections and replacing them with DRN “here’s 2 pointless traps that may kill a random or a vet who stopped caring”. It just feels (at least to me) they wanted to make what became current forked and not be limited by what could conceivably fit in a normal mode

It’s not really a valid reason from the wider customer perspective but I can at least imagine it must get boring to create normal instances that are designed to be destroyed with little thought

[Mawlzy]

You didn't specify what sort of cost. Financial cost? Time cost? Productivity cost?

In terms of financial cost, not really, because SE clearly has billions of yen.

In terms of time cost, which is the specifically what led to the Forked Tower issue, yes, because you can't necessarily employ someone, train them and assign them a task if there is not enough time to do so.

That said, they should have predicted the issue and accounted for it earlier than they did. Unfortunately, they had only decided to make a Field Operation right before the expansion release due to Zepla's video, so they didn't actually have as much time to plan it as they did all their other content.

Are they really making content decisions based on a single video or content creator? There were rumors that was why CAR had the characteristics it did. If so, a bizarre approach when surveying the player base as a whole is an option used by many companies.

[BigCheez]

Are they really making content decisions based on a single video or content creator? There were rumors that was why CAR had the characteristics it did. If so, a bizarre approach when surveying the player base as a whole is an option used by many companies.

Not a single video or creator, but they've been making changes based on feedback given by content creators since the dawn of time. Many of the oversimplifications to the combat system were implemented in response to "feedback" from Xeno, for example.

[Khryseis_Astra]

Progging forked more makes me feel like there is an element of designing boredom to their decisions

Anyone who has done forked up to magitaur will tell you that the puzzles are really well designed and you can feel the devs had fun flexing the phantom job utility as far as possible. Something like bridges wouldn’t be possible without it being a high end field content duty and the map room is arguably the most beautiful area of the game in its entirety

But if you made forked normal you’d be cutting out the three puzzle sections and replacing them with DRN “here’s 2 pointless traps that may kill a random or a vet who stopped caring”. It just feels (at least to me) they wanted to make what became current forked and not be limited by what could conceivably fit in a normal mode

It’s not really a valid reason from the wider customer perspective but I can at least imagine it must get boring to create normal instances that are designed to be destroyed with little thought

Would a Normal mode necessarily have to be boring though? What is it about the puzzles that have to be high-end difficulty? You wouldn’t think a good puzzle would need a rez limit or wipe mech to make it more interesting… If the puzzles require certain phantom jobs to complete, just have Normal mode allow you to switch phantom jobs as long as you’re out of combat.

[Mawlzy]

Not a single video or creator, but they've been making changes based on feedback given by content creators since the dawn of time. Many of the oversimplifications to the combat system were implemented in response to "feedback" from Xeno, for example.

Makes sense. Basing changes on an unrepresentative sliver of the player base is a recipe for disaster.

[Jeeqbit]

Are they really making content decisions based on a single video or content creator? There were rumors that was why CAR had the characteristics it did. If so, a bizarre approach when surveying the player base as a whole is an option used by many companies.

I've no idea about Chaotic but it was the case for the Field Operation because they said so. In general, they watch a lot of videos on YouTube so they get a sense of all the memes and things like that.

When content creators go to Fanfests they tend to discover a lot of Square Enix staff are fans, regardless of the region they work in. That shouldn't be surprising when, after over 10 years, a lot of people working for Square Enix were just players of the game before that.

Not a single video or creator, but they've been making changes based on feedback given by content creators since the dawn of time. Many of the oversimplifications to the combat system were implemented in response to "feedback" from Xeno, for example.

I mean there were probably specific changes that he influenced. For example, the entire debacle with Strength vs Vitality that led to a series of plaster fixes culminating in the Shadowbringers stat rebalancing and the Tank Mastery trait, or that big rant on needing to switch to Gunbreaker to clear P8S. Maybe they eventually saw one of his DRK Living Dead memes?

But I think it's a lot bigger than Xeno really. I think their goal is to make the game playable by people who just returned to the game after 6 years, people who are not gamers but are dragged into the game by their partner, etc. And that goal has shaped years upon years of decisions, including the move away from status effects in Stormblood, where they added job gauges instead, aligning buff windows, giant hitboxes, bosses recentering themselves, etc. It's all to reduce stress for that 6-year returning player, or non-gamer partner that was dragged into playing.

I don't disagree that they should make it playable by them but they should make it also enjoyable for people who are actually gamers and give them options. And to a certain extent, dungeons were perfectly fine for such players in Heavensward despite these things not being the case... sure they may have died to things and done their rotation completely wrong, but it didn't matter.

If they listened to Xeno it's probably only because they agreed with it anyway.

[Supersnow845]

Would a Normal mode necessarily have to be boring though? What is it about the puzzles that have to be high-end difficulty? You wouldn’t think a good puzzle would need a rez limit or wipe mech to make it more interesting… If the puzzles require certain phantom jobs to complete, just have Normal mode allow you to switch phantom jobs as long as you’re out of combat.

Something like bridges really wouldn’t work without it being high end simply because of how the mechanic works, if you removed everything that made bridges high end (coordinating both sides, high damage from wildcharges, specific necessary jobs, inter tank coordination as examples) then bridges wouldn’t be bridges

You could probably get away on hallways just removing super traps and only having one hallway rather than splitting and having two mirrored hallways

Lockwards the rooms would probably be doable but the dance with the lockwards probably not, the map room is fine though

So it might work, but I wouldn’t definitively say it would work

[0blivion]

You can't have hypercasual content that is fun and engaging because, as Snow said, it's designed to be destroyed with little thought. All content becomes trivial if you remove the parts that makes it what it is. If you removed DPS checks, mandatory mitigation and coordination from Savage, you'd get boring slop. The same goes for Forked Tower. I think the devs designed it exactly the way they intended, but I wouldn't mind them giving hypercasuals a normal version.

But you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either you enjoy the challenges of the video game and put in the required effort to overcome them, or you can grind mindless content without access barriers, or non-combat content. Or PvP.

[ShadowyZero]

the suits don't like diverting resources to their cash cow cause people keep paying dozens of amounts for this game and its predecessor which to this day is still somehow live service despite its age lmao if people would stop paying subs then they'd be sweating again but obviously they make enough to not feel like "rocking the boat" i think honestly what YoshiP is trying to tell us is that he fought the suits but the suits won an diverted the resources away from this project to be withheld until 8.0 launch assuming they meet their pre-order quota that is.
its honestly the playerbase, content yappers, and community team's fault for why we are plummeting so hard in quality and quantity cause they refused to hold the game to a higher standard an boycott paying for the game to force SE to correct course afraid the only thing we can hope for is another 1.0 fiasco to make the game crash an burn all over again its the only option left to us at this point to salvage whats left otherwise look forward to this game following its predecessor's footsteps an fading into obscurity