Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Fcret]

I don't pay much attention, but has there been any excuse given for the release schedule for 8.0 being longer than the usual 2 years now that FFXVI is out of the way?

From what I've been able to glean from the rumor mill - a ton of veteran staff members of have left due to disagreements with the direction of the game and/or lack of opportunities for real advancement. The big names like Yoshi-P, Ishikawa, Soken, Nakagawa, etc. have cemented their positions on top in the limelight which leaves the people directly below them in the pecking order kind of stuck being unable to advance their careers without going elsewhere. In a normal company, a lot of these people would be pushed up to lead new teams and we would be experiencing the opposite of what's currently happening (ie an increase in content). This is a very common problem in Japanese corporations where divisions are boxed in and not allowed to expand their direct reports once they hit a predetermined size..

This also explains why Yoshi-P is pretty much always talking about hiring. Everyone knows that progression has a very finite limit and so you start to see people lower and lower on the totem pole bouncing whenever they can.

Now I'll be fair here for Yoshida and saying the blindsiding of payment processors hitting you would make anyone shit themselves out of pure fear. With all that being said, it really does beg the question:
How the fuck were they not ready for this???
They knew the Shadowbringers/Endwalker high wasn't going to last forever. Did they really think Xbox was going to be like another half a million players? Was opening Dynamis really that smart, even more so when you're bitching about paying the power bills in the most retarded state in the union about power? There was so much here you could've easily prevented if only you put your fucking foot down! Now we have 3 years of nothing but an ultimate, Crescent and Beastmaster to hold back the boredom, and seems like there's a new drama coming out of this game every month or even every other week.

They've already been hit by the payment processors which is why you can no longer buy gift codes and have to have the person you're gifting on your friends list. People would buy a ton of gift codes to resell on third-party marketplaces with stolen CCs.

PPs don't care about mods. If they did, Skyrim would be unpurchaseable right now because youtube is full of loli vampire sex slave skyrim mod vids.

 

[Golfing on the Moon 1971]

From what I've been able to glean from the rumor mill - a ton of veteran staff members of have left due to disagreements with the direction of the game and/or lack of opportunities for real advancement. The big names like Yoshi-P, Ishikawa, Soken, Nakagawa, etc. have cemented their positions on top in the limelight which leaves the people directly below them in the pecking order kind of stuck being unable to advance their careers without going elsewhere. In a normal company, a lot of these people would be pushed up to lead new teams and we would be experiencing the opposite of what's currently happening (ie an increase in content). This is a very common problem in Japanese corporations where divisions are boxed in and not allowed to expand their direct reports once they hit a predetermined size..

This also explains why Yoshi-P is pretty much always talking about hiring. Everyone knows that progression has a very finite limit and so you start to see people lower and lower on the totem pole bouncing whenever they can.

Why is CBU3 having this problem, and not other fixed long running JRPG teams like Nihon Falcom? There you have the two lead creatives, Kondo and Takieri, the usual director Kusano, etc, and they pretty much never change. But then you combo through the credits and a lot of the staff under them like the programmers or the artists appear to remain there for 15+ years.

 

[Well Intentioned]

Why is CBU3 having this problem, and not other fixed long running JRPG teams like Nihon Falcom? There you have the two lead creatives, Kondo and Takieri, the usual director Kusano, etc, and they pretty much never change. But then you combo through the credits and a lot of the staff under them like the programmers or the artists appear to remain there for 15+ years.

It's more an issue that MMOs aren't hugely popular in Japan and there are issues with finding experienced talent as a result.

There was a MrHappy video I linked a little while back where he dives into this but basically SE are shooting themselves in the foot by limiting themselves to JP ONRY. I really feel that SE should open a NA (or EU) branch for devs so that they have a larger talent pool.

 

[Chizubaga]

Personally the game for me ended in Endwalker and i would have been happy. Instead we got Dawntrail Mexico simulator. I feel FF14 has already reached the "keep the story going" trait.

Recently i got the sub again to play witha friend the new alliance and play with a friend that got into the free trial. Mightas well keep leveling Scholar and Miner while im at it.

Same here, I will re sub randomly throughout the year. I've decided to just do everything left in older expansions, I skipped a lot just to keep up with friends that refused to play older content with me. I'm sure I will be helpful to people joining the game and ease the queue times for older dungeons and such.

 

[Fcret]

Why is CBU3 having this problem, and not other fixed long running JRPG teams like Nihon Falcom? There you have the two lead creatives, Kondo and Takieri, the usual director Kusano, etc, and they pretty much never change. But then you combo through the credits and a lot of the staff under them like the programmers or the artists appear to remain there for 15+ years.

Falcom's a much smaller company and requires fewer people to work on stuff - their games are single-player, generally lower tech, have simpler assets (most of their 3D stuff was made in the Vita era), and their release cadence is one or two games a year. Scale is completely different.

Also, Falcom seems like a much more fun place to work. That goes a long way to retaining people. SE Japan doesn't pay a ton more and it seems like it kinda sucks to work at.

Oh, and Falcom has a history of having its staff poached. It was basically gutted via poaching in the early 1990s and had to be completely rebuilt (which is why there was such a long gap between Ys V and Ys VI). The current president was one of the Falcom diehard fanboys who came in during this rebuilding of Falcom and I imagine he's hypersensitive to things that would make employees leave as a result.

Bonus round - would you really want to work around Kate for 50k/year?

 

[Tanner Glass]

It's more an issue that MMOs aren't hugely popular in Japan and there are issues with finding experienced talent as a result.

There was a MrHappy video I linked a little while back where he dives into this but basically SE are shooting themselves in the foot by limiting themselves to JP ONRY. I really feel that SE should open a NA (or EU) branch for devs so that they have a larger talent pool.

I mean, not really.

MMOs are a very small talent pool even if you were willing to deal with the language barrier/culture barrier/relocation costs you're really only going to get some people who tangentially worked at Blizzard or Arena Net (some other horrible studio that failed) - which is generally the worst kind of cancer you could import into a company.

It's much better to get a Japanese Game Dev and train them up on MMOs then to try and get an American MMO Dev and get them to work on a Japanese anything.

In a normal company, a lot of these people would be pushed up to lead new teams and we would be experiencing the opposite of what's currently happening (ie an increase in content). This is a very common problem in Japanese corporations where divisions are boxed in and not allowed to expand their direct reports once they hit a predetermined size..

Yoshi-P was able to expand his team and a lot of his FFXIV staff are people filling in for people who worked on FF16, who all reported up to him anyhow. A fair number of them (allegedly) moved over to work on FFT:Remaster as well. Most of his "heavy hitters" came from smaller roles early on in FFXIV and he absolutely gave some people (aka Hiroi) a chance at the plate in FFXIV Dawntrail.

The main issue with FFXIV isn't FFXIV - it's that Square is a pretty awful place to work and if you're on FFXIV/CBU3 you're already on the "best" team. CBU2 has been working on Dragon Quest 12 for nearly a decade, and CBU1 is in some kind of special hell juggling Kingdom Hearts 4 and Final Fantasy 7 - Remake Part 3 (which is FF7 part 7?).

I'm a fairly on-the-record FF16 hater, but for a FF game - it was finished and released in a somewhat human amount of time instead of some conceptual mess (FF15), pile of garbage (FF14), unfun series of hallways (FF13) and it was good enough?

I'd imagine that being transferred from CBU3 to help one of the other teams is becoming a leading cause of quitting - because you never know how bad it's going to be. There was an entire studio working on Forspoken - imagine being one of those guys. You get pulled off, you know this game is an unsalvageable pile of shit, and then it's so bad they close your studio (and possibly rehire you to work on Dragon Quest 12 for another decade).

 

[Well Intentioned]

I mean, not really.

MMOs are a very small talent pool even if you were willing to deal with the language barrier/culture barrier/relocation costs you're really only going to get some people who tangentially worked at Blizzard or Arena Net (some other horrible studio that failed) - which is generally the worst kind of cancer you could import into a company.

- The language barrier is a pretty substantial barrier. And I mean, if the overall talent pool for MMOs is small, then the JP ONRY MMO talent pool would be microscopic comparatively.
- If we're only looking at Triple A studios, sure. My understanding from both what Yoshi P said in that Famitsu interview and MrHappy's own anecdote is that they want people who understand MMOs, not necessarily folks who have strict MMO experience. The genre is nowhere near as popular in Japan as it is in other parts of the world.
- Keep in mind that ARR came off of Yoshi P essentially copying WoW's homework. I get that current era Blizzard is pretty haram at the moment, but accounting for everything, those sorts of things would be seen as positives by SE/Yoshi P, IMO. My (misguided) hope is that as CD he'd be having final say on shit (although we've seen how much Kate has abused being given the proverbial inch.)

It's much better to get a Japanese Game Dev and train them up on MMOs then to try and get an American MMO Dev and get them to work on a Japanese anything.

Apparently not, though, because that's the issue Yoshi P is having at the moment -- there's a need for experienced/seasoned developers and there's apparently a dearth of them in Japan.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Apparently not, though, because that's the issue Yoshi P is having at the moment -- there's a need for experienced/seasoned developers and there's apparently a dearth of them in Japan.

I'm saying I don't think that Yoshi-P can or would go into an interview and say "We're having issues retaining talent because working at Square sucks". I do wonder if for as much as they milk FFXIV players, they also milk the FFXIV dev in terms of salary and such.

The whole "getting MMOs" is blatant cope because that's ignoring that Square Enix as a whole (as well as most of the current industry) is having retention/execution issues. Square in particular is having massive issues with getting teams to make games in a timely manner and have had the problem for 10+ years. If FFXIV was Square's "problem child" then sure, it's because it's an MMO - but considering that FFXIV is Square's current tentpole and has been generating positive press, sales, and hitting virtually every release milestone - it's head and shoulders over the entire company.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

Why hire western people if you can hire the chinese for half the cost without losing half the PR?

 

[healing rain]

Against my better judgement I got the urge to resub and check out Forked Tower before all interest in it died completely, but then I got cucked by a i2501 error on the mogstation before I could even enter my payment information.

I got the message loud and clear Yoship, thank you. I will continue staying unsubbed from XIV and its shitty, archaic systems.

 

[RIPRhongoBongo]

Against my better judgement I got the urge to resub and check out Forked Tower before all interest in it died completely, but then I got cucked by a i2501 error on the mogstation before I could even enter my payment information.

I got the message loud and clear Yoship, thank you. I will continue staying unsubbed from XIV and its shitty, archaic systems.

I would have said good luck GETTING IN the fucking dungeon

 

[Agarathium1066]

I would have said good luck GETTING IN the fucking dungeon

Yeah you aren't gonna without having to find a shitcord group right now. Maybe the next version but its not worthwhile right now. I don't think they'll bother going back to fix it either.

 

[Froggy Fresh Sextape]

This is a very common problem in Japanese corporations where divisions are boxed in and not allowed to expand their direct reports once they hit a predetermined size..

Square seems to have it particularly bad, there's been some very obvious managerial problems since FF12

We got the FF13 sequels because they had leftover art assets they needed to use, DQ12 is now Duke Nukem Forever, there seems to have been very little oversight for TO: Reborn's English VA direction (Haborym, the old blind swordsmaster from another continent, is voiced by Balthier...and sounds exactly like Balthier...) etc.

The company might just need to dissolve so they can reconfigure shit.

 

[Emet-Selch]

the peak of dawntrail so far for me has been that i finally got my necromancer title. which is awesome because that is not dawntrail content.

i want to like occult crescent really badly because eureka is my favorite content in the game but this shit is some trash im ngl.

 

[King Of Braves]

OC is mostly dogshit because it's the same thing it always is. Endless FATEs with sporadic boss fights and everything is locked behind the standard nip grindfest RNG.

 

[00R-Gundam]

Bozja is still peak after all this time. I want to like Eureka but it is annoying since i have limited time or i play little and i tend to miss shit.

 

[RIPRhongoBongo]

Now it's time to drag my White Mage through the XP crater we call Stormblood

 

[Well Intentioned]

I'm saying I don't think that Yoshi-P can or would go into an interview and say "We're having issues retaining talent because working at Square sucks". I do wonder if for as much as they milk FFXIV players, they also milk the FFXIV dev in terms of salary and such.

The context of the interview was that Yoshi P has been able to expand his teams and hire as needed but that there was a need for senior/leadership types, which aren't available. Given the number of people who have been there for eons, I don't think retaining has been the issue, but you allude to what I do think are the bigger issues.

This is all assuming that Yoshi P's take on things is accurate, mind.

The whole "getting MMOs" is blatant cope

I'm just going off of what was said in the video I had mentioned.

because that's ignoring that Square Enix as a whole (as well as most of the current industry) is having retention/execution issues. Square in particular is having massive issues with getting teams to make games in a timely manner and have had the problem for 10+ years.

Yeah, that's a management issue. And not like, a department management issue, but like senior leadership. It's not really a secret that Square is poorly fucking run, but I don't see how there can't be two concurrent issues causing problems.

If FFXIV was Square's "problem child" then sure, it's because it's an MMO - but considering that FFXIV is Square's current tentpole and has been generating positive press, sales, and hitting virtually every release milestone - it's head and shoulders over the entire company.

The other way to be looking at it is that XIV has been successful that they haven't been able to keep up with staffing needs.

 

[Ravana]

Necron weapons and wings acquired. The only ex primal I didn’t have to clear 100 times to get the wings for so far

 

[Emet-Selch]

Bozja is still peak after all this time. I want to like Eureka but it is annoying since i have limited time or i play little and i tend to miss shit.

idk why but i didn't really like bozja. conversely i probably just love eureka because i'm a neet. on release pagos was my fav content in the game so clearly i have some sort of brain damage.