Considering FFXV has crashed on me three separate times, the story has obvious giant gaping holes, and it readily lacks the polish of many prior titles, I'd say the game feels "unfinished" to me.
I never had that feeling with The Witcher 3. It improved an already great formula, but even if it never received those improvements, it'd still be one of the best games ever released. Final Fantasy X and XII and other "international" versions were already satisfying and polished and felt fully realized upon release, so additional content literally felt like going back for desserts, not just getting the rest of your main course.
FFXV, thus far to me, feels incomplete. Like it launched with more work yet to be done, more polish needed bring it up to standards, more testing to minimize the jank and glitches and crashes I've experienced. Unlike Witcher 3 or any other Final Fantasy game I've ever played (which is all of them), FFXV truly does feel undercooked and not quite ready for prime time. It feels like it needs more development... and that's precisely what's happening, post-launch.
Eh, Witcher 3 is my personal GOTY but I think we'd both be lying if we said that it doesn't have its fair share of jank, glitches, framerate problems, and unpolished shit all around, especially what it had at launch. Combine that with the constant updates to get rid of that and make gameplay changes as well, I think you could very well make an argument that the Witcher 3 "launched unfinished" if we're using the same cynical logic.
I can't speak for FFXV's polish in relation to other FF games, but there's the obvious factor in the game being set in an open-world structure. Having played a good chunk of them, FFXV is not any more or less polished than most. It's certainly far, far more intricate in what it does than FFXIII (which I unfortunately played).
In terms of the story? Yeah, the story's a hot mess. Not making any excuses for it. But while I'm sure you're only bringing it up in terms of a contributing factor to the game feeling unfinished, I'm certain you don't think that alone is a reason for the game to be considered one. Not to mention the game's troubled history that resulted in the plot being a mess. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the story will continue to be a hot mess even after all these patches and updates, this game's story is what it is.
If you want unfinished, see something like KOTOR II. That's a game that REALLY launched unfinished. FFXV is just a mess of a story and your standard open-world jank, but "unfinished" is a stretch, and "early access" like some here are saying is just laughable.
Years down the line? It never bothered me. A week from release? That's completely different, why bother playing it at release at all then? The changes are major enough that they feel the need to spend money making them and get back in the voice actors for every language to record new scenes. That sounds like enough to make me wish I'd just waited for them to 'finish' before I played it.
I'm playing it at release and will continue to do so, this news is just letting me know that I have a reason to replay it some months down the line when they've stopped patching the game. Really don't see where I'm supposed to be frustrated at this.
SE just gave them additional resources to keep working on the game. And knowing how spliced together the final product was, these are welcome changes that are coming over the course of several months for free.
I understand the desire to play a GOTY version with all the updates and trimmings. I've certainly waited on plenty of games for that reason. But it'd be silly of me to expect "all updates and trimmings" on any game (single or multiplayer) at launch. I would've been surprised if they had never patched the game. That they're revealing the patches are substantial is a positive for me, not a negative.
