this slide presentation tell a lot:
in this GDC presentation, Naoki Yoshida talk about FFXIV 1.0 failure but the stuff he mention also 100% related toward other game like FF13 and FF15. he talk more about this in
noclip documentary where he critisized the approach and mindset of Square Enix's management that time. now, same devs team is behind FF16 development.
simply to say FF15 devs done lot things that should never been done at first place:
- announce game when it never even started in development
- changing director in middle of development
- the devs has no clear of direction in middle of development, even during full production. both gameplay and narrative aspect. they even end up asked for player feedback in middle of development lol.
- mindset of released first, and patch things later. like those slide. what make it worse is, that this is bad for MMO and yet they do this for single player game which is, WORSE. for example those update that 'improve' combat based on feedback, add DLC to cover story plothole and other stuff. this things should be finalized beforehand before full production not afterward once the game is released.
- treat the game like a live service game during development and even after game launch despite FF15 is single player game, not MMO. even for MMO, this is bad like how Yoshida mentioned in slide above. they keep doing livestream presentation to present the game development progression like FFXIV's live letter and even asked for player feedback over it. its like they also unsure at what they are doing. i still remember that they even asked fans whether to include moogle or not in the game LOL. should that they know this better than fans?
- unhealthy obsession with visual at the cost of other fundamental aspect like gameplay and story. similliar problem with FF13 and this trend is actually become huge topic in industry that time.
- engine or simply to say their tech not complete yet that time. compared to FFVII Remake where they use finished, complete and proven engine.
- go for open world approach despite has no experience for it. Tabata also aware of the risk over it and even devs team that time worry the game would end up 'empty' and yet he still keep going on with it.
while FFXVI:
- announce game when it close to final phase of development.
- no changing key staff. they started with small team of key staff that later expanded once they want to further the development scope. Yoshida know before hand that he is handsfull with FFXIV so he hand over the task to his right man instead of trying to shoulder it alone.
- has clear direction over the game. the design, story and gameplay. the writer finalize the world map and the story first before enter full production and expanded the team. this process is similliar with how they do preproduction of FFXIV's expansion and obviously others studio too.
- they makesure everyone in the team has clear view over the game despite everyone has different vision of what Final Fantasy should be.
- hire right person for the combat.
- they didnt treat the game development like a MMO despite they has wealthy of experience and fanbase over it.
- they has firm grasp of what should be done instead of keep asking for player feedback. for example like how Yoshida talk about 'diversity' in the game. they not even budged against fans complaint. this level of confident is lacking with FF15 team.
- no unhealthy obsession toward visual. the visual is improving but the first trailer already tell alot.
- itseems they developed new engine but considering this is not first time they develop new engine alongside new game since they already did it with FFXIV A Realm Reborn with no issue, so they know what they do. especially if it is an evolution to whatever tools they already used to before.
- not go with open world for sake of trend. instead they go with different approach that work the best for the game.