I think it's time we start seeing some data in regards to the changes being made.

Not defending them but their changes are still more informative than Nintendo.
At this point my switch is so stable it's ready to start a family.

Whether they do or don't read feedback is something I can't exactly comment on. Sometimes it really does look like they read it, sometimes it just looks like they elected to ignore it.

But about the topic of wanting the devs to provide data on the changes made. We did have them showing what they would do to the combat classes on Live Letters, but after some point in Stormblood, they just stopped doing that. The reason they gave us was because people were freaking out (paraphrasing btw) over the changes, making all sorts of assumptions and claiming it would break the class. And that would put pressure on the devs who got criticised before the changes were even implemented. From then on, the changelist would only ever be posted on the de-facto final Patch Notes as the patch dropped, and they've been vague about changes to the classes. Just "we're thinking of implementing this\changing that. You'll have to wait and find out how".

So right off the bat, this isn't a team that seems keen on presenting data. They were vague enough beforehand, but now player feedback usually being negative without getting the chance to play through their vision and making constructive feedback caused a further divide. And this is on the combat system alone. Sometimes they do have the department come in and explain their reasoning at the end of the Live Letter, but mostly for new types of content like PVP, housing or minigames.

And even if they did start doing it, the answers may not be satisfactory. A lot of people stuck for three years with Yoshida's answer that the way Hrothgar and Viera models were designed made implementing hairs too difficult. Yet on the very day he said it, I was already seeing people working with 3D models for videogames explain why it's not hard at all, with modders backing it up by saying they were already in the works of finishing mods to make it happen and that the models made it easier than it would be for some races. And right now that information is travelling around, with people dissecting exactly how these races are built, and modders explaining their process and showing their work. So all it takes is Yoshida being informed that "something cannot be done because of XYZ reasons", people will interject with "That's wrong".

And what I just said is only one of the cases that has led to people lately asking Square's departments to come forward and explain their method and reasoning. While it would be appreciated by fans for sure, Square already has some bad faith in giving out information like this. And they could just come in, say the exact same thing as before, be dismissive, be vague or potentially even lie and leave the room with no further comment. Which. in turn, would only cause further and further demand from players, as well as comments saying Square either didn't care or that people are incompetent all over again.

So as much as people may want it, I don't think we'll ever truly get it.

One indisputable fact is that there is a...blind spot...to put it charitably, when it comes to non-JP concerns (and even likely to some JP concerns). The biggest offender of this was the rampant RMT spam that existed up through early HW. Anyone who played in ARR on an NA or EU server had to deal with it. We all had that blacklist macro that just blocked the last person to /tell you, and we all had to periodically, maybe once a week or so, go into our blacklist to clean out all the now-deleted names of all the spammers we had recently added, to make room for the new batch no doubt coming down the pipe.

Major stinks were made about this, right from 2.0 release straight up until Yoshi P. himself logged onto his character on an NA server during E3 and immediately got spammed with an RMT advertisement in /tell, before he had even finished loading in no less. And wouldn't you know it, the issue was fixed in the next patch.

To be clear, I don't blame Yoshida-san for this. I do think there is a bit of "groupthink" mentality going on though, particularly in regards to the role known as the "mindguard." Aka someone(s) who purposefully withholds information that they believe a superior won't like, or will somehow reflect badly on the "mission." I highly suspect that a good deal of the disconnect that appears comes from this sort of behavior. After all, Yoshi P. can't be expected to peruse every single complaint thread. He's obviously got people setup to do that for the development team, and this creates a few different filtering layers that information has to percolate through before it reaches someone who can make a meaningful decision.

I don't say this to forgive or make excuses. While Yoshida-san, and by extension his team, have accrued a great deal of good will over the years, it's something that can be easily lost, particularly in light of a number of job-design decisions that have been made in recent years and months. Honest, transparent communication is the best way to preserve that good will.

I do feel like the teams are curating information and feedback they don't think is important enough to make known to the higher-ups when there's historically been several cases of changes not being made until questions are targeted directly at the devs via Q&A sessions or interviews.

I want technical data on why Miqo’te can have their ears appear through Snow’s hat but Hrothgar can’t.

Twitter and social media is where most of their feedback comes from. Even people on the English forums here have trouble sifting through these threads. Everyone starts their own threads on the same topics over and over. The same people have complaints about every aspect of the game. It’s probably difficult to differentiate between the trolls and people with legitimate complaints and concerns. It’s basically the cry wolf syndrome. Cohesive threads with a main theme, like the male viera thread, are better than several threads saying similar things but can’t agree on a main concern or what they want done about it.

What do you think the players will do with that information that's useful?

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

What do you think the players will do with that information that's useful?

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Create more threads about the Doom and Gloom on FFXIV
"Sometimes" is does feel like people just Need a Target & Excuse to complain about something

Honestly, I think the devs vision for the game differs from what the forums want in some cases. While I don't agree which Yoshi's stance on healer design for example, what more do people expect him to say if changing course is not on the table.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

What do you think the players will do with that information that's useful?

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Quit the game.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

Honestly, I think the devs vision for the game differs from what the forums want in some cases. While I don't agree which Yoshi's stance on healer design for example, what more do people expect him to say if changing course is not on the table.

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Tell me up front so I'm not wasting my time hoping for a better tomorrow.

it's most likely in their best interest to not give everything away, not even a morsel other than what they deem necessary via media interviews, live letters, etc. give people an ilm, they'll take a yalm lol

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

Quit the game.


Tell me up front so I'm not wasting my time hoping for a better tomorrow.

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OK.. so what incentive does the company have then to do this?

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

it's most likely in their best interest to not give everything away, not even a morsel other than what they deem necessary via media interviews, live letters, etc. give people an ilm, they'll take a yalm lol

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WoW's decline arguably coincided with the development team growing distant and refusing to engage with its player base as well as showing contempt towards their customers and thinking they themselves knew best at every turn.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

OK.. so what incentive does the company have then to do this?

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Continued relevance and good will. The relationship between a business and a customer is one built on good faith and mutual respect, after all. Yet for whatever reason many people give video game companies a free pass for things they would never allow other types of companies to get away with.

Then many gamers wonder why we end up with concepts such as loot boxes...or entire features being removed/changed.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Continued relevance and good will. The relationship between a business and a customer is one built on good faith and mutual respect, after all. Yet for whatever reason many people give video game companies a free pass for things they would never allow other types of companies to get away with.

Then many gamers wonder why we end up with concepts such as loot boxes...or entire features being removed/changed.

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I have experienced again and again that a small amount of data without relevant context, experience, and perspective is usually more harmful than no data. People take numbers and create the narrative they wish.

I think the company has far less reason to provide us with their metrics or reason to make their information available for every armchair developer to pick apart and theorize with than not. .


It would be NICE... but as someone who works in a field where numbers are important but only as useful as the experience of the person processing them, I don't think this will ever happen.

They have plenty of goodwill as far as the front they present and the actions they take to provide what people visibly demand, but as to why they seemingly deny common problems the playerbase has or going AGAINST what possibly is "common sense".... while I bet there are mistakes a plenty there.. I don't think we can help with MORE outside coaching. We are already plenty vocal enough and giving people ammo to be even more obstinate about it (and likely blindly ignoring other metrics) is probably not what they want/need. People already do this with metrics other games make available, hardheadedly sticking to that one metric they think proves their point when it's very obvious that there's much more to the problem.


As to lootboxes or other supposed "consumer hostile" practices.. we get what the market accepts. As far as rallying against those people need to think less about being vocal and more about actively NOT participating in those things. We are where we are because people do the thing. Asking a company NOT to do the thing when people are willing to do the thing misses a pretty big part of why a company is a company and not a charity.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

This thread isn't about any one particular issue, though a simple look at the front page of general discussion as of the time of this post will show that there's mixed reactions to a number of proposed additions and changes being made to the game.

Now, I'll start by saying that I have been playing this game for almost a decade and have never been sent a survey asking my opinion on pretty much anything related to game. I've certainly spoken up about what I'd like to see added or changed though such was never framed as a demand.

I find myself increasingly curious about something. Who, exactly, is being asked for their opinions in regards to changes and additions to the game and what numbers are we looking at to justify them?

I believe this is information that could be revealed during a Live Letter. After all, there's ample time spent detailing that additional MSQ's are arriving in a new patch and showcasing merchandise so I don't doubt that a slide could be squeezed in somewhere to give some insight into what sort of data they're drawing upon.

Assuming this happened, I'm curious as to what sort of data other players would want to see put forward and explained. So have at it!

In the spirit of avoiding influencing the debate, I'll keep my own specific thoughts to myself for the time being in favour of posting them later.

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I don't think that will happen because the changes in the game most people are happy with. The only people who are upset are the hardcore minority. If they put out a survey, chances are the majority that would respond are the people who thought FFXIV 1.0 was a good game. Right now its not helping they bulit a game for you people Stranger of Final Fantasy which is meant to be a hard as nails Dark souls game and yeah no one bought it except you people. We are seeing they are starting to address Dark Knights thankfully and healers will be getting better at healing.

One thing Yoshi P supports that you people support (BDSM Hardcore Minority) is the fact he wants healers to do less healing and more DPS but the Healer DPS push for Endwalker is getting people who as a majority paying for the game pissed as we got DPS Healers out mainly Sages running around often refusing to heal. Thankfully 6.1 will be the first patch to address this and Healers will get increased healing which is great!

Double edged sword;

The problem comes that it can lead to tension between the player base when they tell the players what they're thinking about doing and that gets misunderstood as a promise for future content. Star Citizen is a great example of this and how they've had to change their way of communicating with the player base because exactly this.

Moreover, it just makes more muck for the devs as we can see on this very forum... people complain about EVERYTHING: "Give us our own servers! OMG these OCE servers suck! Give us MOAR housing! Camping for Housing SUCKS! OMG housing lotto system sucks!"

IMO, the less people know about what's going on behind the scenes, the better. That said, I would like some means of them at least acknowledging certain large scale requests, and for them to comment specifics..sort of like a Director's/Behind the Scenes commentary like you get on DvDs.

As in "Yeah, there were a LOT of requests for a Necromancer, Berserker, a Chemist and even to make Thief a full job pre Shadowbringers. We decided we aren't going to do this, but to acknowledge this we added three bosses and a small quest in Crystarium with specifically those jobs. Playful trolling!"

All that said, I do agree it would be nice to be able to give feedback in a multiple choice format.

I tried bringing this up 2 years ago. Not much came of it then.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

IMO, the less people know about what's going on behind the scenes, the better. That said, I would like some means of them at least acknowledging certain large scale requests, and for them to comment specifics..sort of like a Director's/Behind the Scenes commentary like you get on DvDs.

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I think a Job Role Deep Dive / Water Cooler series of discussions would go a long way. A place where they can lay out their visions of what everything is supposed to do and we can provide feedback in one thread. Because right now a decent chunk of the player base thinks they're not being heard and their concerns are being ignored. Mostly tanks and healers but some DPS as well.

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Originally Posted by HisShadowX

Right now its not helping they bulit a game for you people Stranger of Final Fantasy which is meant to be a hard as nails Dark souls game and yeah no one bought it except you people.

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:confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:

Ah, the Dark Souls canard - an orphan ever in search of a parent, since virtually no one is asking for that.

I remember we got in game surveys during closed beta, maybe bring those back?