Is there a community management team?

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What can we do to better communicate feedback about the game?

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Convince the entire english speaking community to stop making so many threads and just click the like button on a post that describes an issue well the way the japanese community does.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Written by someone with their own agenda. People write about things in the game because they don't like X, want more of Y, and, at times, want to be contrary as heck.
Face it. We are the influencers, whether we do so consciously or not. The forums can't force an immediate change in plans for the current expansion, nor should they.

And sentiment expressed about the game comes to Square Enix in a multitude of forms, not limited to these forums. Some are more forgiving than these forums. That feedback is as valid as what we read here.

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We are not the influencers and I do not expect every single post and poster to be taken seriously. What I expect is that someone from SE reads the forums every other day and gets a vibe of the direction of where things are trending. The fact that there is a 280+ page thread on viera and hroth headgear and hair with hundreds of posters complaining about it, and there's not any kind of response or action on it is dumb. Having a huge long megathread that encompasses thousands of posts of people upset about the issue should communicate pretty clearly where the community stands on it, and it's the eaisest to show where the cracks are other than the ping and connectivity issues that have plagued the NA part of this game for a decade.

It's feedback that for 4 years now, and 2 years pretty intensely, the players have been communicating that they want to be able to use the AF gear, raid rewards, tome rewards, shop rewards, etc on every character regardless of race. It has been such a huge amount of feedback on the EN side from Reddit, Twitter replies to SE posts, on the Forums here.
It is literally impossible to ignore that there is a large sentiment about this from players who play these races and not just the bias of a few players. Is anything done about it? not reallly! That's the issue is you can play by all the rules the posters say here, you can be clear, honest, and concise with your feedback, you can make megathreads to communicate what you want and have hundreds of others voice the same thing, but there's no one home. No one is communicating this up the chain if you aren't a streamer or content creator, or I guess if Yoshida experiences it himself like is the case with the RMT ads.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

Convince the entire english speaking community to stop making so many threads and just click the like button on a post that describes an issue well the way the japanese community does.

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The hrothgar/viera megathread has been unheard dispite it's length. Sure, there were more conversation on the matter after the April hrothgar hair disaster, but after that the issues raised in the megathread are still unaddressed. The fact that Yoshi-P said "Is this not what you wanted?" tells a lot about how badly the communication from the forums is.

By the way, wouldn't multiple threads about a matter raise alarms about something that matters to the community? I understand the perspective of "just act like the Japanese forum" despite having completely different and varied culture. If that really was the case they'd tell so this wouldn't be an issue. I'd like to remind again that the English forums aren't just for NA. They should know this.

"Not acted on" and "unheard" are two different concepts. Be careful about mixing them up.

i'm sure the Viera/Hrothgar head piece issue pains them greatly. but silence on the matter doesn't mean it isn't being worked on in some capacity.

What is a better response? Nothing? or a mention every two months saying "we're still working on it, please look forward to it"?

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

i'm sure the Viera/Hrothgar head piece issue pains them greatly. but silence on the matter doesn't mean it isn't being worked on in some capacity.

What is a better response? Nothing? or a mention every two months saying "we're still working on it, please look forward to it"?

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What people expect is when a thread gets to a certain size, there is a response from a CM saying "thanks for the feedback I will pass this to the devs". That's not a huge ask and it makes people not feel like they're shouting into the void. It promises nothing but it still shows that they aren't just ignoring the forums.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

"Not acted on" and "unheard" are two different concepts. Be careful about mixing them up.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

i'm sure the Viera/Hrothgar head piece issue pains them greatly. but silence on the matter doesn't mean it isn't being worked on in some capacity.

What is a better response? Nothing? or a mention every two months saying "we're still working on it, please look forward to it"?

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This issue is more about optics to player feedback. The issues might as well be unheard when the community has no idea if they are noted and brought to the attention of the developers. So the point is just moot.

At the monent the silence on the matter is what they are doing nothing on the hroth/viera head piece issue. If it's worked on, tell. If you have no plans to do so, tell. This issue is discussed in length in the megathread.

too much transparency is a double edge sword. damned if you do, damned if you don't. most likely the balance tips towards keeping things quiet until it's ready to be launched/implemented. I don't see the situation changing anytime soon.

"We plan on doing it by X" leads to massive raging if anything happens to push that date back, no matter how low-priority the work is.

"We plan on doing it eventually" leads to massive raging when it doesn't appear quickly enough, usually within 6-12 months, especially if any patch feels particularly light on content (regardless of whether that content was actually light work or not, or what other work is going on).

"We don't plan on doing it" sentences the argument to the woe-is-me-the-devs-hate-us-specifically list of grievances for the indefinite future.

"We would like to do it, but it's low priority" leads to, again, massive raging whenever a patch feels light because clearly the work could have been done then (see previous caveats).

"We might do it, we might not, who can say" is perhaps the most truthful response for low-priority requests. For obvious reasons, it is also not something that typically goes over well.

Therefore: silence.

Just letting you all know. Current WoW team is kicking so much ass in the communications department than FFXIV has even been.

Its very sad and I wish theyd start talking with the community more rather than just barely address feedback in LLs and interviews.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

"We plan on doing it by X" leads to massive raging if anything happens to push that date back, no matter how low-priority the work is.

"We plan on doing it eventually" leads to massive raging when it doesn't appear quickly enough, usually within 6-12 months, especially if any patch feels particularly light on content (regardless of whether that content was actually light work or not, or what other work is going on).

"We don't plan on doing it" sentences the argument to the woe-is-me-the-devs-hate-us-specifically list of grievances for the indefinite future.

"We would like to do it, but it's low priority" leads to, again, massive raging whenever a patch feels light because clearly the work could have been done then (see previous caveats).

"We might do it, we might not, who can say" is perhaps the most truthful response for low-priority requests. For obvious reasons, it is also not something that typically goes over well.

Therefore: silence.

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Unfortunately this is the most accurate assessment. Especially since they have to prioritize their domestic fanbase, they cannot say anything to the rest of the world since it will either be construed as an unbreakable promise or a middle finger. Also consider than some things we consider flaws, the devs consider a feature.

If there is something they consider a feature that others consider a flaw, then they should be confident enough in their game to express that.

The whole "they won't say anything because they're afraid they might upset people!" is a bad excuse.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

"We plan on doing it by X" leads to massive raging if anything happens to push that date back, no matter how low-priority the work is.

"We plan on doing it eventually" leads to massive raging when it doesn't appear quickly enough, usually within 6-12 months, especially if any patch feels particularly light on content (regardless of whether that content was actually light work or not, or what other work is going on).

"We don't plan on doing it" sentences the argument to the woe-is-me-the-devs-hate-us-specifically list of grievances for the indefinite future.

"We would like to do it, but it's low priority" leads to, again, massive raging whenever a patch feels light because clearly the work could have been done then (see previous caveats).

"We might do it, we might not, who can say" is perhaps the most truthful response for low-priority requests. For obvious reasons, it is also not something that typically goes over well.

Therefore: silence.

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Avoiding communicating with your playerbase on the off chance that people will rage is really just an excuse. Them not responding at all makes it look like they're not listening at all, if they did respond and tell the playerbase whether or not they're actually planning to fix certain grievances, then players that are on the fence can decide immediately whether or not they want to stay with the game.

Besides, if their reason for not confirming anything is to not make people angry, well, people are already angry now due to the lack of communication, so people are angry either way, why not just talk with the playerbase?

They also want to keep it a secret so they can get a big pop at fanfest if/when they announce they're doing it.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Avoiding communicating with your playerbase on the off chance that people will rage is really just an excuse. Them not responding at all makes it look like they're not listening at all, if they did respond and tell the playerbase whether or not they're actually planning to fix certain grievances, then players that are on the fence can decide immediately whether or not they want to stay with the game.

Besides, if their reason for not confirming anything is to not make people angry, well, people are already angry now due to the lack of communication, so people are angry either way, why not just talk with the playerbase?

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I think the history of online games and company communications is, at this point, a bit too long and has a few too many case examples to call it an 'off chance' and an 'excuse' as though it's trying to chart an uncertain future. It's not a guess at what will happen. It is what people will do on any forum for any large game that isn't very tightly moderated. It is especially certainly something that will happen here, because the game is quite large, and the moderation is quite loose, and you only need to take a few minutes reading just about any random thread around here to figure that out.

You don't have to like it. But it is absolutely the state of things. There's nothing to be gained by talking about it.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Avoiding communicating with your playerbase on the off chance that people will rage is really just an excuse. Them not responding at all makes it look like they're not listening at all, if they did respond and tell the playerbase whether or not they're actually planning to fix certain grievances, then players that are on the fence can decide immediately whether or not they want to stay with the game.

Besides, if their reason for not confirming anything is to not make people angry, well, people are already angry now due to the lack of communication, so people are angry either way, why not just talk with the playerbase?

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Have you seen some of the people that post here? ughghgh, I would hate to subject the community team to those people. *shudders*

If people are on the fence is some post from a community gm really going to make that much of a difference? "Oh, oh my they actually said something to me, I'll stay subbed I guess." Please.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Avoiding communicating with your playerbase on the off chance that people will rage is really just an excuse. Them not responding at all makes it look like they're not listening at all, if they did respond and tell the playerbase whether or not they're actually planning to fix certain grievances, then players that are on the fence can decide immediately whether or not they want to stay with the game.

Besides, if their reason for not confirming anything is to not make people angry, well, people are already angry now due to the lack of communication, so people are angry either way, why not just talk with the playerbase?

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Yeah it should be a lesson to other companies with what happened to blizzard with overwatch 2. They hid the fact they were cutting PvE for a very long time, cut communication, kept facts hidden, etc to avoid pissing off the community. The result was a 10x larger issue with the community when they found out not just the bad news, but that the devs hid the bad news from players for months to a year until it was too late to hide.
Communicating it early is always better to avoid escalating tensions. There's no gain to hiding things from your community or not acknowledging issues.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Something we've become accustomed to is hearing about changes made with player feedback in mind, but we as a community have no real idea how that feedback is being collected and from what sources. Our only understanding of FFXIV's feedback collection process comes from the in-game support desks which directs players here, to the general discussion on the official forums as the main hub for submitting feedback, but there is absolutely no acknowledgement of any feedback at all from any sort of community management staff. We get the occasional introduction post of someone introducing themselves, but then we never hear from them again.

So I'd like to pose a question for any community team members: Are you actually here? And what I mean by "here" is, are you ever reading the threads on this forum? Is this information that is ever being collected? How frequently does information get collected and delivered? What does that process look like? Are we not allowed to know if any specific feedback is being communicated over to Japan? And if not, why not? What can we do to better communicate feedback about the game?

From my perspective, I find the years of radio silence disheartening. I wish FFXIV had a healthy and transparent line of communication between player and developer. Of course, not every instance of feedback needs to be responded to, and not all feedback necessarily should be listened to, but I don't understand why we're left in the dark in 2023 where so many games are doing the exact opposite and establishing open and healthy communication lines between player and developer.

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Sorry to bust your bubble buddy but the feedback they work on only comes from Japanese people and forums .your best bet is to learn Japanese language and post in Japanese forums .

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Yeah it should be a lesson to other companies with what happened to blizzard with overwatch 2. They hid the fact they were cutting PvE for a very long time, cut communication, kept facts hidden, etc to avoid pissing off the community. The result was a 10x larger issue with the community when they found out not just the bad news, but that the devs hid the bad news from players for months to a year until it was too late to hide.
Communicating it early is always better to avoid escalating tensions. There's no gain to hiding things from your community or not acknowledging issues.

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Lol lmao there is fanfest coming up in 7 Jan and you can't wait for that for news ?

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Originally Posted by Arzalis

If there is something they consider a feature that others consider a flaw, then they should be confident enough in their game to express that.

The whole "they won't say anything because they're afraid they might upset people!" is a bad excuse.

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Then vote with your wallet .its a japanese company that will always prioritise japanese people .just like blizzard always priortises feedback from their usa fan base in world of warcraft as it is an American company. The European community on wow forums cries the same thing in wow forum .

It's weird because community management team members will occasionally, rarely, post an introduction thread and imply that they've always lurked but never posted for some reason (probably job agreements). They'll say "nice to meet you" and then ... never post again! It's bizarre. I don't understand why this pattern occurs so often. If I had to bet, I'd say there IS a team of some kind, but they don't check the forums often, aren't allowed to post freely, and barely have a way to relay our concerns or probably don't want to given how fractured we are on *literally every issue*.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

It's weird because community management team members will occasionally, rarely, post an introduction thread and imply that they've always lurked but never posted for some reason (probably job agreements). They'll say "nice to meet you" and then ... never post again! It's bizarre. I don't understand why this pattern occurs so often. If I had to bet, I'd say there IS a team of some kind, but they don't check the forums often, aren't allowed to post freely, and barely have a way to relay our concerns or probably don't want to given how fractured we are on *literally every issue*.

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I think its just simply they're just not allowed to freely speak to the public unless they get permission from PR team to do so

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Originally Posted by Sindele

I think the history of online games and company communications is, at this point, a bit too long and has a few too many case examples to call it an 'off chance' and an 'excuse' as though it's trying to chart an uncertain future. It's not a guess at what will happen. It is what people will do on any forum for any large game that isn't very tightly moderated. It is especially certainly something that will happen here, because the game is quite large, and the moderation is quite loose, and you only need to take a few minutes reading just about any random thread around here to figure that out.

You don't have to like it. But it is absolutely the state of things. There's nothing to be gained by talking about it.

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So you're saying that just because some parts of the community prefer to behave like petulant children, that it's fine for the community managers to not engage with the community? Still sounds very much like an excuse to me. Let's keep in mind that this is a platform owned by Square Enix, and as such, if people choose to rage irrationally and refuse to stop, they can be banned, that is a thing that can happen, they can moderate their platform. So what's a good reason that they don't engage with the community?

That would be the 'very tight moderation' I mentioned, which does not exist here. We can speculate on why that is, but it doesn't change the reality of the situation.

You do the job you can with the tools you're given, within the parameters of the forums as they exist and the community as it exists. It would be nice if all of those things were better. They're just not.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

We can speculate on why that is, but it doesn't change the reality of the situation.

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get hired to new job
its some sort of community moderation at some mmo
have an idea
what better to learn about people and community than watching them
go incognito / stealth mode into some of the venues
sneak into someone's fc room
shortly after <someone> and <someone> enter the room
they can't see you because you're gm
start reading what they talk about
uuhhhh...
......
well...
...


maybe they have seen enough to think the playerbase is not worth the interaction at all.

just because the possibility exists that a GM/community team member *could* post/respond on these forums, doesn't mean they should. I wouldn't if I were one. ewwwwwwww

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Them not responding at all makes it look like they're not listening at all

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They regularly talk about feedback in live letters and interviews as well as implement changes based on that feedback so they're quite obviously listening. Giving people here a written pat on the head for every thread wouldn't change anything other than opening the messenger up to being flamed constantly.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

So you're saying that just because some parts of the community prefer to behave like petulant children, that it's fine for the community managers to not engage with the community? Still sounds very much like an excuse to me. Let's keep in mind that this is a platform owned by Square Enix, and as such, if people choose to rage irrationally and refuse to stop, they can be banned, that is a thing that can happen, they can moderate their platform. So what's a good reason that they don't engage with the community?

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Perhaps it's because the job is advertised as a job mostly involving Fan Fests and Twitch Streams, with some "check the Forums" on the side? Perhaps because they are neither moderators of the forums nor paid to respond in the forums? Perhaps because Square Enix considers other social media just as important, if not more so, than the forums?

I can think of any number of reasons they don't engage specifically in the forums.

That this doesn't sit well with you is evident. If you base your like or dislike of a game based on the interactivity of some PR management team in the forums for that game, you are going to be disappointed. Frequently.

It's "damned if you do", and "damned if you don't". Since blowback is never more than "I'm angry nobody appears to be listening to me" if you don't, which would you choose?

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Perhaps it's because the job is advertised as a job mostly involving Fan Fests and Twitch Streams, with some "check the Forums" on the side? Perhaps because they are neither moderators of the forums nor paid to respond in the forums? Perhaps because Square Enix considers other social media just as important, if not more so, than the forums?

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Did I say they had to respond? I said I want them to acknowledge. Something as simple as a tick next to the thread showing that it has been seen by a community manager would do wonders.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Did I say they had to respond? I said I want them to acknowledge. Something as simple as a tick next to the thread showing that it has been seen by a community manager would do wonders.

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I'm sorry. I usually use the word "engage" to imply a two-way communication, rather than a simple acknowledgement. If you meant the word "acknowledge", use that word.

So, what happens when your post gets a tick mark and nothing happens after that? Are you still going to complain they don't listen to anyone on the forums if they don't act on your complaint/suggestion? Or will that little bit of effort appease you?

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

So, what happens when your post gets a tick mark and nothing happens after that? Are you still going to complain they don't listen to anyone on the forums if they don't act on your complaint/suggestion? Or will that little bit of effort appease you?

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The tick would show that a community manager that reads through forum threads does actually exist, so people can be certain that they're not yelling into a void. And so what if they don't act on suggestions immediately? Most people understand things don't happen instantly. Nothing's stopping people from continuing to give their feedback. Remember that Yoshi P once said it wasn't possible to make the game display damage types, years later, we got damage types display.

The point is to show the players that the official forums actually has any official presence. You may be fine with the forums being full of trolls and doomposting every other day, but I'd rather see the forums be the place for feedback that Yoshi P claims it as.

"With the 10th anniversary of FFXIV's rebirth behind us, we are taking the first determined step towards our next ten years of service. We've been accompanied on this epic journey by Warriors of Light from across the globe, and we intend to maintain that partnership by placing an even greater value on communication as we expand the world of FFXIV."

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

"With the 10th anniversary of FFXIV's rebirth behind us, we are taking the first determined step towards our next ten years of service. We've been accompanied on this epic journey by Warriors of Light from across the globe, and we intend to maintain that partnership by placing an even greater value on communication as we expand the world of FFXIV."

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I imagine that means more one directional communication, in where they tell us what they are planning (like live letters), and not by means of some sort of bi-directional or confirmation of feedback being read, received, or even recognized. I would be okay being wrong though :p lol.


Source for those who wanted it: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...de5458637fc944

I'll believe it when I see it, as far as any of us know it could just be Yoshida promising to listen to JP more than he already does, since that's the way they normally operate. And that does a whole lot of nothing for NA players who feel unheard.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

I'll believe it when I see it, as far as any of us know it could just be Yoshida promising to listen to JP more than he already does, since that's the way they normally operate. And that does a whole lot of nothing for NA players who feel unheard.

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Considering that YoshiP logged into the JP servers and did an impromptu Q&A for JP players, that does seem to be the case.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Considering that YoshiP logged into the JP servers and did an impromptu Q&A for JP players, that does seem to be the case.

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Its always been the case..

he doesn't go around walking around NA/EU servers because of his lack of english skills.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

he doesn't go around walking around NA/EU servers because of his lack of english skills.

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He's done it plenty of times.

WoW's community council was PR stunt

I have crazy idea: show, don't tell.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

he doesn't go around walking around NA/EU servers because of his lack of english skills.

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If only they had higher up employees who did speak English, who could either do it themselves or act as a translator. Crazy thoughts.