How much is the game held back by technical constraints?

[Catwho]

Sometimes it's easier to build your new stuff from scratch and figure out how to migrate all the old data to the new system than it is to gradually update the system piecemeal.

The technical debt - the engine, the net code, the table structure, etc. is enormous, and its rapidly becoming an insurmountable problem. I suspect this is what Yoshi P is referring to with a new ARR.

Blow the whole thing up, start over from scratch, and figure out how to port the old data after you rebuild it properly a third time.

[Bubline]

I always assumed this was also a massive factor in why getting talented devs on FFXIV is so damn difficult. They have to learn to work on a very weird, bespoke game engine and can't take that experience elsewhere, even within SE.

It definitely won't help, although any long running MMO will have weird archaic and often bespoke tools. Back then MMOs were bespoke codebases and it's only a relatively recent thing that could consider using Unreal for an MMO or whatever.

All that to say: Yes, those are issues, but those are very common issues to have in the industry, and other companies have managed to keep improving their own tools, engines and pipelines as their games grew.

I really hope some of what Yoshi P has been hinting at for 8.0 involves having actually invested in seriously working in that area to help their team make more interesting stuff and get rid of whatever issues are hindering them

[Bubline]

Sometimes it's easier to build your new stuff from scratch and figure out how to migrate all the old data to the new system than it is to gradually update the system piecemeal.

The technical debt - the engine, the net code, the table structure, etc. is enormous, and its rapidly becoming an insurmountable problem. I suspect this is what Yoshi P is referring to with a new ARR.

Blow the whole thing up, start over from scratch, and figure out how to port the old data after you rebuild it properly a third time.

Definitely possible (and it doesn't have to be a binary thing, there's a whole range of middle grounds between "remake the whole thing" and "keep the old thing"). but remaking things from scratch is a huge investment.

I've recently been involved in discussions and investigations on a live service with similar questions of whether we're better off migrating or rebuilding from scratch, with views of 10+ years in the future of live service... and even then, you are often better off slowly chipping away at it than rebuilding (not only for technical reasons but often because it's hard to convince people to do such monumental work, and it's hard to keep aateam motivated if they have to restart from scratch. It's also really hard to reimplement every single tiny detail etc)

[RedLolly]

I think that's why the mobile remake exists.

It's ARR fully remade from the ground up in UE4. And the great majority of the complaints we have with the main version (especially UI and netcode) and the suggested changes from the recent interviews are accounted for and/or already implemented in the mobile version. I really, genuinely, think they're going to start pushing it more once its localizations completed and let retail fade off as Mobile catches up. The KR and CN retail versions are going to have patch parity with us very soon, too.

[Bubline]

Maybe, but I would expect the mobile version will inevitably turn into a microtransaction infested, dumbed down version of the game that will barely be recognisable.

It's cool that mobile players will get to experience FFXIV, but I hope we'll get to keep our PC/Console traditional MMO isolated from all the predatory things happening in the mobile space

[RedLolly]

Maybe, but I would expect the mobile version will inevitably turn into a microtransaction infested, dumbed down version of the game that will barely be recognisable.

It's cool that mobile players will get to experience FFXIV, but I hope we'll get to keep our PC/Console traditional MMO isolated from all the predatory things happening in the mobile space

https://youtu.be/JZK_2E8uMms?si=tcnzm7ne-0Ae-nWD
https://youtu.be/nqaTzfhl1Hg?si=Jszzcho70_iiTUko

A lot of the glam prices have parity with what we pay in our Mogstation but they have so many exclusives already. It's all the mobile quirks.

[Bubline]

https://youtu.be/JZK_2E8uMms?si=tcnzm7ne-0Ae-nWD
https://youtu.be/nqaTzfhl1Hg?si=Jszzcho70_iiTUko

A lot of the glam prices have parity with what we pay in our Mogstation but they have so many exclusives already. It's all the mobile quirks.

Cosmetics are one thing, but sooner or later, with a mobile game, and if it does pick up, you'll start to see the more sinister parts of F2P games show up. Roadblocks added to your progression to make you pay for some currency or some item that relieves it.

On a traditional MMO they can't do that because the playerbase wouldn't accept it, but on a mobile game it would be completely normal. Pay to uncap your tomestones, pay for the daily roulette battle pass... Who knows, they could even invent a new feature just to add gacha mechanics to the game

[SyferU]

I also think that XIV mobile will replace the retail version at some point. The global release will probably be less aggressive with the micro transaction than the Chinese version.
But I think it's gonna be at least a few more years until that happens.

[DPZ2]

Question: Why didn't SE utilize a Cloud Computing infrastructure?!? [based on this quote: "For example, they decided not to use cloud servers"]

Answer: It was pretty much untested on a global scale when the game came out. Core cloud-native MMOs didn't start coming out until the late 2010s. (One reference mentions Fortnite in 2017, but not for the core game, and New World, running fully on Amazon's cloud, in 2021). A number of current MMOs rely on dedicated servers supplemented by cloud infrastructure. An expanding number of current MMOs appear to be utilizing a hybrid model. NCSoft, for example, still uses the traditional MMO server infrastructure for Blade & Soul, but has integrated cloud computing in the 'rerelease' called Blade & Soul NEO earlier this year.

Fully cloud-native MMOs is a more recent thing. It's been 4 years since New World released on AWS.


NOTE: be aware that if you consult an AI such as CoPilot, it will lie to you. Or, as it "confessed" when called out after presenting a purported quote attributed to Naoki Yoshida during a PAX West Interview as recorded on a specific web site source: "I should not have presented it that way. What I was trying to convey is consistent with what Naoki Yoshida has said in multiple interviews, but the phrasing I gave was my own synthesis rather than a direct citation."

[Jeeqbit]

I think he's pushed for improvements for a while. This leaves me with the only explanation being that it's unreasonably difficult to do, which would mean they haven't done a good job of maintaining a good codebase that could stay modern

He doesn't need to "push for improvements". He's the leader. He can direct those improvements.

You're a programmer. So am I (used almost all languages over 25 years). A lot of the things that need improving I could do in minutes, hours, or 1 day in any codebase. And for larger undertakings, AI can shorten those timeframes by reducing the time it takes to go from what's in my mind to the output. Certainly, I could do a lot in a month, given I recently overhauled some bad python code really fast. So, yes, my initial assumptions are that maybe they aren't very good at programming.

But a longer distance view of this leads me to a different conclusion:

• They only ever work on the next patch.
• The only exceptions seem to be specifically approved projects such as revamping 1 old sidequest dungeon, or the Graphics Update.
• Adding flying to ARR and Viera/Hrothgar headware was done without Yoshi-P's approval, according to Yoshi-P. That is the sort of thing that displays passion, and ever since this happened we've not anything like it since. It seems as if he shut it down and asked them not to do things without approval like that.

or, that Squenix has been refusing to give them the budget.

They have often said things like "we would pay double the market price for this" and Yoshi-P has said "even if we doubled the size of the team, we wouldn't necessarily double the output". He's said that he tries to recruit (have often seen a lot of jobs going until recently), but that the recruitment process doesn't keep pace with the growth/needs of the game and people retiring, due to recruitment taking time. He's also mentioned something about a lack of leaders - that if he recruits lots of people, who will be able to lead them?

A lot of people on XIV haven't played other MMOs for comparison and so they don't realise the huge gap in combat feel between FFXIV and other MMOs.

One of Yoshi-P's main criticisms of the previous 1.0 leadership was that they did not play other MMORPGs like WoW and modernise the game and he often boasts how their team play other games and this is even required. Yet, as you point out, it is incredibly obvious that they don't, and when confronted with WoW's introduction of housing in an interview, Yoshi-P was unaware and said they'll have to check it out. He was that unaware of it despite the community talking about it for the last year or so and how the WoW team had taken numerous public digs at FFXIV.

Even LOTRO which is an older and almost abandoned MMO maintained by a small team with no budget has recently migrated their servers to new 64 bit servers and improved lag to the point that they have super snappy spell activation times.

Yes, I've played more polished MMORPGs that are maintained by much smaller teams. It's 100% a leadership and mindset issue.

I'm never quite sure when to trigger my AOEs to grab all the mobs, as I don't know exactly when it will get resolved (if you get what I mean).

GCDs tend to be instant (see, they can do it, but they only design GCDs properly and not abilities). So I use my AoEs to align with when the enemies pass through me and it tends to catch them successfully regardless of ping and even when sprinting. Only time this fails is if the party pull first from behind me.

From my understanding, FFXIV is one of the few remaining projects running on Crystal Tools

That understanding is incorrect. 1.0 used Crystal Tools, so they abandoned that engine and created a brand new one which is similar in structure to the Luminous Engine except adapted for multiplayer.