Are We Wasting Our Time?

[Selzak]

I know this isn't the first time SE has been accused of favoritism on this forum, but I feel like this needs to be discussed. I think we definitely deserve an explanation for this:

BST Poll: Vote for which jug you would like to be implemented.

This vote was introduced in both the Japanese and English forums in running threads.

The Japanese thread.
Where it was introduced on page eleven and voting continued until page eighteen.
(seven pages of votes)

The English thread.
Where it was introduced on page eight and voting continued until page fifty-two.
(forty-four pages of votes)


Somehow, the Japanese favorite (Hippogryph) won over the English favorite (Scorpion).

44 English pages versus 7 Japanese pages, yet their vote won out.

I took the time to count votes on both forums. If every single JP that voted had voted for Hippo NA votes for Scorp would have still beaten them. Counting votes for Slime Ruszor Scorp and Hippo from both forums it would have looked like this:

#1 Scorp
#2 Ruszor
#3 Slime
#4 Hippo

In other words the only thing that mattered at all was which won on the JP forums.

That really doesn't make much sense at all but either way it was 46-2 in the EN forums and 0-20 in the JP forums. 46-22 total.

Are we just talking to a wall here, where SE is inside talking to its Japanese players on the other side? How can they justify neglecting a large section of their paying player base in favor of "their people" or whatever it is that's going on here? Are we wasting our time? If so, should we continue doing so without a good explanation and/or a sincere apology?

If they're not listening to us (and it appears blatantly obvious that they aren't), there's no reason for us to waste our time begging them to consider our suggestions. The English forum seems like it's just a place where translations go after they've discussed things with the Japanese players. Check out the English job forums like PLD and DRK, where there are some genuinely good ideas about how to fix things- yet nobody is listening. Compare this to the Japanese SCH forum, where we get our constant SCH translations from.

Guess what? It looks like SCH is the most popular job on the Japanese forum.


This is really starting to go overboard.


edit: for accuracy


EDIT:
Obviously we're disgruntled, and I think rightfully so. However, to whoever might come here tomorrow and give us a response, I believe the following best sums up the questions that we have:

There is a problem with the communication between this board and the development team that is on a whole different level than whatever neglection the Japanese players have felt.

Are we wrong in feeling that way? If so, can you help us to understand why whatever we hear from the development team is actually just a translation of responses exclusively to Japanese posters- despite the huge threads here filled with questions that are totally different and never get a response (ex: job manifesto discussions)? Also, can you adequately explain why this situation with the BST poll isn't as blatant an example of favoritism (the development team picked the fourth choice overall, which "happened" to be the favorite of the Japanese posters?) as it seems?

If we're right* and there is some kind of issue hindering (or altogether killing) our line of communication- can you tell us where the problems lie? I don't want to believe that this is some kind of subtle racism because it just seems ridiculous to me, but the idea that we weren't shafted specifically in favor of the Japanese posters seems equally ridiculous.

The situation with this BST thing just happens to be blatant enough to warrant an actual response. Before this, one could make the argument that SE was just inadequate and lacked the ability to properly communicate with its English-speaking players or read what they were saying. Now, it's apparent that the problem goes at least a little bit deeper.

What's going on, and can we please finally begin to discuss how we might fix? I don't care if you tell me that the development team just actually hates everyone who isn't Japanese but they're sorry now- as long as there's a solution involved I think we'll all be happy with just the prospect of being heard from now on. No matter what, we just want this to be fixed. We do not care about the scorpion, we don't care about the past, we care about being heard now.


*Unless you come with some very hard evidence that we aren't, we will maintain that we are and remain very upset until you admit and address it.

[Zatias]

The BST jug also had me confused, though I had voted for Hippogryph early on. Maybe they like me. XP~

Honestly though, discrimination like this has shown itself multiple times.

[FrankReynolds]

If it makes you feel any better, I personally don't think they listen to the JP either. I think they just plan updates, then they look at the JP threads. When they find one about something that is going to be in the update, they pop in and go "HAI GUYZ! We totally listen to you. look at this cool thing we did just because you asked for it!".

[Selzak]

If it makes you feel any better, I personally don't think they listen to the JP either. I think they just plan updates, then they look at the JP threads. When they find one about something that is going to be in the update, they pop in and go "HAI GUYZ! We totally listen to you. look at this cool thing we did just because you asked for it!".

That's pretty much how I felt too before this vote was "tallied."

[Vold]

Shouldn't be too hard for someone who speaketh/read Japanese to check for themselves and tally up the votes.


I'm still trying to figure out wtf is going on. I sort followed all of this and people are like, damn Hippo won and not Scorp but yet I remember reading a vote between Ruz vs slime but yet I read "ok guys scorp won I'm informing the devs!" then the next post is "here's the winnahs, turtle/pen/hippo!" and I don't know anymore.

Edit: oh ok I see they asked for a revote on everything and not just between certain monsters. Still, "Scorp wins!" came after. Anyway.

I'll just say you are mistaken when you think we out number the JP in this game. Now, you're probably right in the sense that BST NA vastly outnumber BST JP. I can see that considering the nature of English speaking players. Just looking at the two threads speaks volumes on JP vs NA support for the BST job. Also, using lol google NA was highly in favor for Scorp and the JP were all over the place.

Maybe SE saw all the hope NA had for scorp and were like, gee wiz we should go with Hippo instead because we can't give them half of what they are wanting out of Scorpy. Maybe that's what happened. I can't see them going with the inferior support crowd that had like 3 or 4 votes in favor of Hippo that I could see in translation. Remember that they announced Scorpion had won, and we got Hippo instead. Sometimes we NA really should shut it in the name of getting what we want. Assuming this is the case, of course.

[Leonlionheart]

L2SPEAK JP

and go complain somewhere where they'll read it

[Zumi]

Who cares its bst? Not like it mattered if they went by the JP poll and not the US one. Probably were lazy and didn't want to have to tally up all the votes in the US one.

[Greatguardian]

I apologize for having to bring this up, but the Paladin forums are an absolutely terrible example of an "informed NA board". 95% of the suggestions there are epic-tier terrible and generally consist of either "YE SHALL BE AS GODS" or "Give us Provoke and moar enmity kthx".

Edit:

Who cares its bst? Not like it mattered if they went by the JP poll and not the US one. Probably were lazy and didn't want to have to tally up all the votes in the US one.

Camate tallied the NA votes. They didn't have to do anything but read his results. Apparently, they just didn't really care.

[Krashport]

Final Fantasy XIV < $$$ < Final Fantasy XI < JP Forums < US Forums.

[Yugl]

Not a BST, but I imagine it's beneficial to get your preferred pet later because you can make them level 99 at that point.