Communication from SqEx needs to change

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Originally Posted by BedtimeBear

Enough plans to last the next decade, it would be nice to see even a very rough or loose road map of things they hope to implement and update over the decade but we all know any changes would backfire on them.[/URL]

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SE learned early on that rough road maps are a disaster of "But You Promised!(tm)", which is why they apparently don't announce anything until it's out of Beta and moving on to QA testing.

"We think it would be really cool to do X", followed by "sorry, we found we couldn't do X" is more of a PR disaster than one might think.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Sure, there are three possible responses to the "resources" claim in the LL.

1. Shrug.

2. Demand SE allocates more resources.

3. Unsubscribe.

My guess is 3 has a better chance of causing improvements than 2, but even if I'm wrong, at least I don't feel I'm being scammed.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They already said they are doing #2.

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Yes, they implied that, and it would be a wonderful opportunity to "earn back the trust of the players." We will see.

But one issue is the bizarre approach they take to resource allocation.

Going back to at least company chocobos and Grand Companies, SE has acted as if resources are almost unlimited, by first developing complex systems, then completely abandoning them.

Island Sanctuary is the classic example. That was a huge chunk of content that must have soaked up resources. It annoyed many (I personally liked it), in part because it appeared to take resources away from other areas of the game (simplified relics, nothing Bozja-like).

So how do the devs take advantage of this massive resource investment and build on it?

They don't. Get the island to level 20, thanks for playing, you're done unless you want to set your weekly workshop to farm dyes. (The only purpose of which is to generate gil, which is useless because there is a massive overabundance of gil.)

Net result: those who liked the content are sad because it dies, and those who didn't can point to it being a colossal waste of time that took resources from content they like.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Going back to at least company chocobos and Grand Companies, SE has acted as if resources are almost unlimited, by first developing complex systems, then completely abandoning them.

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I was really surprised when they didn't just turn the NPCs you get from Grand Companies into Trusts. Or integrate the two somehow. Instead, the older system was completely left to rot.

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Originally Posted by BedtimeBear

Enough plans to last the next decade, it would be nice to see even a very rough or loose road map of things they hope to implement and update over the decade but we all know any changes would backfire on them.

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I'm not sure changes would backfire. DT has had a more significant population drop than any other expansion and that is a fact. Keeping on the same track won't reverse that.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Is still a myth that normal players don't clear these things. Pretty sure I've seen people in CWLS and my FC that have cleared. It's fair to say that a lot of people (20,000 per data center) find themselves able to join discord servers for this sort of content. If I compare this with the active level 100 population of each data center, it's about 25% for EU, 25% for NA, and oddly almost 40% for Aether (probably due to everyone using DC travel to Aether).

But there are many players that are afraid of discord despite that, don't understand the discord processes, or don't have the time or desire to deal with signing up and being available at a certain time, and for them there should be a raid that doesn't require that sort of thing. Most people were expecting a version that is easier to enter and complete casually.

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It is not a myth, if you take content like Forked Tower then the clear rate should be closer to 60-80% of the population going to that place alone due to it is not savage/ultimate and nor even Ex.

So you are still in a bubble on that part, what people was expecting was maybe stuff alike Castrum, the need of discord should not even be a thing for content like this, unless it is years old content that no one is doing anymore and need to be player revived for a clear.

It merely seem like you, yourself and possible others in the same bubble, is far off from reality of the actual playerbase.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

It is not a myth

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It is a myth because otherwise there would be 0 clears and SE confirmed otherwise.

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if you take content like Forked Tower then the clear rate should be closer to 60-80% of the population going to that place alone due to it is not savage/ultimate and nor even Ex.

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I agree that there should have been a normal version but there wasn't. A normal version would have been cleared by 100% of people that attempted it. Unlikely that 20-40% would fail it.

But again it's also wrong to say that a lot of regular people don't clear it through discords given each data center's server has such huge numbers of members usually exceeding 20,000. They wouldn't draw that many if the servers were useless since they are word of mouth.

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So you are still in a bubble on that part

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I'm not in a bubble. I think you just didn't understand what I meant.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

It is not a myth, if you take content like Forked Tower then the clear rate should be closer to 60-80% of the population going to that place alone due to it is not savage/ultimate and nor even Ex.

So you are still in a bubble on that part, what people was expecting was maybe stuff alike Castrum, the need of discord should not even be a thing for content like this, unless it is years old content that no one is doing anymore and need to be player revived for a clear.

It merely seem like you, yourself and possible others in the same bubble, is far off from reality of the actual playerbase.

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It seems very much like you are in your own bubble as well, take a look at yourself in the mirror. You sound like Crocker from the fairy oddparents with your Elite 1% thing.

I don't think the Community Team has interacted much with the forums since Stormblood. We'd see them introduce themselves and then they'd go radio silent. The company is gradually losing all of the good faith they have built since 2.0 recovered the game.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

First, it requires players to acknowledge that different playstyles and commitment levels are legitimate. While there seems to be almost universal acceptance that those who enjoy high-level PvE are "good players" that are playing the game as intended, that courtesy does not appear to be extended to the rest of us, who are variously referred to as "braindead," "parasites" and worse, not to mention the resurrection of this mysterious Cure-I spamming healer in level 100 dungeons who nobody has actually ever seen.

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Would it kill you to stop playing victim every time there's discussion about raiding? The one who insult other players are the loud minority, and guess what? Those people will insult *everyone*, including people who raid. Most people won't care about the casual vs raider thing, nor do they care if you are not super good with your job.

It is a fact though that casual also don't really care about how the gameplay is. That itself is fine, but considering this is a pve focused mmo, naturally people who can play their job properly is seen as good.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

Would it kill you to stop playing victim every time there's discussion about raiding? The one who insult other players are the loud minority, and guess what? Those people will insult *everyone*, including people who raid. Most people won't care about the casual vs raider thing, nor do they care if you are not super good with your job.

It is a fact though that casual also don't really care about how the gameplay is. That itself is fine, but considering this is a pve focused mmo, naturally people who can play their job properly is seen as good.

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I'm not a victim, honey, I escaped this shitshow.

This MMO is PvE-focused for those who enjoy PvE.

Sure, we're the warrior of light rather than the goldsmith of light, but the entire point of a MMO is you engage with it how you see fit.

That said, I would agree the direction is heading much more into the action-combat realm. That is one reason why next year the player count will collapse to one third the EW peak.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

This MMO is PvE-focused for those who enjoy PvE.

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Literally no. Regardless if you enjoy pve or not, this game has been and always be pve focused. If anything, it's only recently that they streamline and qol non combat activities (such as crafting) so that it's more accessible. Oh and adding content like island sanctuary and restoration project.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

Literally no. Regardless if you enjoy pve or not, this game has been and always be pve focused. If anything, it's only recently that they streamline and qol non combat activities (such as crafting) so that it's more accessible. Oh and adding content like island sanctuary and restoration project.

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It's a story-based MMO with all the typical MMO features including combat.

What's the ratio of MSQ combat to quests and cut-scenes in terms of time-on-task? 1:40?

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

It's a story-based MMO with all the typical MMO features including combat.

What's the ratio of MSQ combat to quests and cut-scenes in terms of time-on-task? 1:40?

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What even this argument?

In order to progress MSQ you have to do combat. You can't progress it using other methods. How long the cutscenes are is irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

What even this argument?

In order to progress MSQ you have to do combat. You can't progress it using other methods. How long the cutscenes are is irrelevant.

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I guess you're going to pretend to be dim, and I give you credit for being somewhat intelligent.

If progressing the story predominantly involves cut scenes, fetch quests, and talking to Minfilia at the Waking Sands, it is a story-driven MMO, not an action-combat game.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I guess you're going to pretend to be dim, and I give you credit for being somewhat intelligent.

If progressing the story predominantly involves cut scenes, fetch quests, and talking to Minfilia at the Waking Sands, it is a story-driven MMO, not an action-combat game.

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Man, you're genuinely being dim, aren't you?

Story driven and combat focused aren't mutually exclusive. Even from the beginning of msq, you were tasked to kill mobs. You have to do trials and dungeons. All of them are PvE.

No one say ff14 is pure action combat game like soulsborne/elden ring.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

Man, you're genuinely being dim, aren't you?

Story driven and combat focused aren't mutually exclusive. Even from the beginning of msq, you were tasked to kill mobs. You have to do trials and dungeons. All of them are PvE.

No one say ff14 is pure action combat game like soulsborne/elden ring.

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Yes, I'm dimly trying to inject a quantifiable metric to get a handle on the focus of FFXIV.

I chose time. In progressing the MSQ, one spends far less time engaging in PvE than quests and the visual novel aspect of the game. This is massively magnified if one also levels crafters and gatherers in parallel to the MSQ, as is usually recommended.

I never suggested a story-driven MMO and PvE in an MMO are mutually exclusive. If you're going to throw up straw men, please don't attribute them to me.

My point is simply that claiming PvE is the focus of FFXIV is inconsistent with the time spent engaging in PvE. A subjective corollary, although one that is accepted by many, is that PvE in FFXIV is one of its weakest features. I know of nobody who decided to play FFXIV because they heard the PvE was good. It can't even compete with Tera.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Yes, I'm dimly trying to inject a quantifiable metric to get a handle on the focus of FFXIV.

I chose time.

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So not only you pick a subjective metric that only applies to your experience, you also never bother to mention it during argument and instead immediately resort to personal insult. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised considering your attitude..

If chose time, then I choose which type of content is the most common one, is required to progress the story, and is the one that get most attention/updates.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

So not only you pick a subjective metric that only applies to your experience, you also never bother to mention it during argument and instead immediately resort to personal insult. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised considering your attitude..

If chose time, then I choose which type of content is the most common one, is required to progress the story, and is the one that get most attention/updates.

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I have no idea where I injected personal insult; I am extremely good at self-censoring. In contrast, you have called me genuinely dim, whereas I have suggested you're simply pretending to be so.

So you have managed to progress the MSQ without cut scenes, fetch quests, finding out how 3 NPCs feel about the current situation in the village, and all those interminable journeys that could have been avoided if people just used their damn linkpearls?

Clearly I cannot compete with that.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I have no idea where I injected personal insult; I am extremely good at self-censoring. In contrast, you have called me genuinely dim, whereas I have suggested you're simply pretending to be so.

So you have managed to progress the MSQ without cut scenes, fetch quests, finding out how 3 NPCs feel about the current situation in the village, and all those interminable journeys that could have been avoided if people just used their damn linkpearls?

Clearly I cannot compete with that.

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"I'm PrEtENdInG". Cut the BS lol. There's 0 reason for you to say that if you genuinely don't want to resort to insults.

See? You said that you dont think story driven and combat focused to be mutually exclusive yet your argument is pretty much that.

FF14 is story driven but also focus on PvE the most. They are two seperate thing. Just like how game like Clair Obscure is narrative driven yet put emphasis combat (or honestly, like every RPG games). Whether or not ff14 pve is good or not is irrelevant.

Using your logic though, I want to ask if you manage to progress the MSQ without doing any combat at all? No dungeons, no trials, no "kill X mobs" instanced events.
And what about content outside of MSQ? Extreme trials, savage, ultimate, alliance raid, relic, deep dungeons, (combat) beast tribe? I guess they don't count for you? Also, pretty funny though that you use time as metric, meanwhile savage and ultimate prog requires much more time to beat compared to msq.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

"I'm PrEtENdInG". Cut the BS lol. There's 0 reason for you to say that if you genuinely don't want to resort to insults.

See? You said that you dont think story driven and combat focused to be mutually exclusive yet your argument is pretty much that.

FF14 is story driven but also focus on PvE the most. They are two seperate thing. Just like how game like Clair Obscure is narrative driven yet put emphasis combat (or honestly, like every RPG games). Whether or not ff14 pve is good or not is irrelevant.

Using your logic though, I want to ask if you manage to progress the MSQ without doing any combat at all? No dungeons, no trials, no "kill X mobs" instanced events.
And what about content outside of MSQ? Extreme trials, savage, ultimate, alliance raid, relic, deep dungeons, (combat) beast tribe? I guess they don't count for you? Also, pretty funny though that you use time as metric, meanwhile savage and ultimate prog requires much more time to beat compared to msq.

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No, that's what you do. The game doesn't.

You don't beat a MMO. That's the whole point.

I like deep dungeons.

I've acknowledged your viewpoint - the primacy of PvE and raiding in particular - is in the ascendancy and has been adopted by SE. It's a major contributory factor to why the game is failing.

Where do you think all these complaints about the story, and seasonal events, and other content originate?

Content creators and others have been howling for more combat, and in this terrible phase of resource scarcity, we end up with a poor raid simulator and nothing more.

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Originally Posted by YovelaLindswood

In wow I know months in advance whats going to come out and they even have public test realms so anyone can try the new content ahead of time and give feedback. We've also had just about every major concern from season 1 of this xpac addressed and corrected leading into a successful and well received season two. The newest story was dissatisfying in the ptr build and to my surprise they actually rewrote the story critiques by the community and its actually pretty good now. I wish square enix had even a tenth of that transparency.

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I don't know how much has changed since WoW's Cataclysm, but for the many years I played WoW the developers did indeed communicate, but that communication usually came in the form condescending developers who clearly thought players were idiots. Also, the developers would claim that the next update made the classes perfect and that the current balance had to be thrown out because it was garbage.. a claim which they would repeat prior to every expansion.

But, yes, there was technically communication.

FFXIV communication could certainly be better, but I wouldn't want it to be like the communication I remember coming from Blizzard. At least you make it sound like it's improved.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

I don't know how much has changed since WoW's Cataclysm, but for the many years I played WoW the developers did indeed communicate, but that communication usually came in the form condescending developers who clearly thought players were idiots. Also, the developers would claim that the next update made the classes perfect and that the current balance had to be thrown out because it was garbage.. a claim which they would repeat prior to every expansion.

But, yes, there was technically communication.

FFXIV communication could certainly be better, but I wouldn't want it to be like the communication I remember coming from Blizzard. At least you make it sound like it's improved.

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Its hard to know what to expect, but any communication can be better than radio silence which is what we get here. Like, If a dev came onto my seasonal event post and was like "You're an idiot and your opinion is shit kekw" at least I'd know they read it and the direction it was going to go as hurtful as that would be.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Its hard to know what to expect, but any communication can be better than radio silence which is what we get here. Like, If a dev came onto my seasonal event post and was like "You're an idiot and your opinion is shit kekw" at least I'd know they read it and the direction it was going to go as hurtful as that would be.

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Again, it's not even the radio silence that bothers me - its the fact that when we DO get 'answers' (most recent Live Letter Q&A for example) they're generic non-replies - the sort of rubbish you expect from your average Politian who doesn't wish to be held accountable/take responsibility for anything and doesn't want anything they say used against them at a later date.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Again, it's not even the radio silence that bothers me - its the fact that when we DO get 'answers' (most recent Live Letter Q&A for example) they're generic non-replies - the sort of rubbish you expect from your average Politian who doesn't wish to be held accountable/take responsibility for anything and doesn't want anything they say used against them at a later date.

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To me its both. The community can rage for 6 months before we hear anything about it and then when when we do we get "We hear you..Something generic.. look forward to it"

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Originally Posted by Gyson

I don't know how much has changed since WoW's Cataclysm, but for the many years I played WoW the developers did indeed communicate, but that communication usually came in the form condescending developers who clearly thought players were idiots. Also, the developers would claim that the next update made the classes perfect and that the current balance had to be thrown out because it was garbage.. a claim which they would repeat prior to every expansion.
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To be fair to the wow developers (and to think I am defending them here), their communication style has changed in the last few years ( in response to how they blew up shadowlands, but hey they atleast learned something from it)

They tend to be good at talking to each type of player.
They don't make claims that the "class changes are going to be perfect" anymore, instead they make a few changes, state why they did it ( player feed back), add changes to ptr, and respond to the feedback on the ptr.
They don't claim the balance is perfect, and work every couple of weeks to update balance ( the player base is still going to meta the crap out of the game, but they are more responsive to the "community" meta by updating biweekly instead of waiting 4 months to say " maybe we should nerf the broken class")
And they give a current state of dev like every 2-3 weeks ( it does slow down on the second half of the patch, then the next patch trailer drops and its every 3 days)

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Originally Posted by Kozh

It is a fact though that casual also don't really care about how the gameplay is.

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That's definitely a take.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

No, that's what you do. The game doesn't.

You don't beat a MMO. That's the whole point.

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...... I am talking about clearing a fight.

What even do you mean by "you don't beat MMO"? What is the relevance to this whole argument?

Also, I could say the same to you. There are people who don't play for the story, otherwise MSQ skip won't be a thing in the online store.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I've acknowledged your viewpoint - the primacy of PvE and raiding in particular - is in the ascendancy and has been adopted by SE. It's a major contributory factor to why the game is failing.

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This I agree. CBU3 simply fails at delivering good quality combat content, which includes job design.

[QUOTE=Mawlzy;6719379Where do you think all these complaints about the story[/QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure DT story sucks because it has shit writing. I mean, SB was said to have good content but the story is still the weakest part of that expansion.

I seriously don't get what you want. It's obvious that since the beginning, ff14 depends a lot on pve content for players engagement. I don't mind if people are asking for more casual non combat content. I do like the concept of island sanctuary, for example. If you don't want combat, then what kind of content you think ff14 should have.

My main point is, stop demonizing raiders and paint them all as this rude, toxic evil you keep claiming them to be. It's on CBU3 for mismanaging things and fk up in regard of OC and FT. I assure you, not all raiders like having do discord thing for that content.

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Originally Posted by Valence

That's definitely a take.

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The amount of people on other threads saying all they want for 8.0 is a good story begs to differ. I even argued that we need more than just a good story and got flamed.

This doesn't mean that they all do. I know a crapload of casuals that do care about it. In fact a lot of my casual friends have already left the game because pve sucks.

We need a system where devs actively do polls and then based on what community wants ,they decide if that will enter into the game or not. One game already does this system.
Then make it possible to create other polls by players and let others agree.

This way no matter what we say, they will never listen because it never mattered in the first place. 8.0 can have "good" story, I don't care about that if the combat and everything will be double downed to the point of /afk and press 1,2 spells.

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Originally Posted by Kirutsuki

I think they should have like a regional community managers, much like what the Monster Hunter team does. Have like 2-5 people that work as managing as the faces of the community.
Part of the issue is that alot of the stuff is lost in translation, be it either from what YoshiP says or what the western audiences tries to convey is the issue.

I think we have all heard the term "tone-deaf" tossed around when the devs adjust something, but it's from a completely wrong perspective and not at all what people wanted.
So community managers really could phrase these concerns i na way that translates well to Japanese.

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But that costs them money and Square only wants our money, but doesn't want to actually invest some of them back into the game.

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Originally Posted by MayuAmakura

We need a system where devs actively do polls and then based on what community wants ,they decide if that will enter into the game or not. One game already does this system.
Then make it possible to create other polls by players and let others agree.

This way no matter what we say, they will never listen because it never mattered in the first place. 8.0 can have "good" story, I don't care about that if the combat and everything will be double downed to the point of /afk and press 1,2 spells.

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I would argue this system works when the devs aren't doing well and hinders the game significantly otherwise. For SE, im not sure if it would work at all. The issue is the game in question ends up shelving content because of player feedback. Imagine if they polled a new DD and players said they didnt want that in 7.3, do you think it would be replaced with anything? I think it would simply be omitted and that's worse.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

I would argue this system works when the devs aren't doing well and hinders the game significantly otherwise. For SE, im not sure if it would work at all. The issue is the game in question ends up shelving content because of player feedback. Imagine if they polled a new DD and players said they didnt want that in 7.3, do you think it would be replaced with anything? I think it would simply be omitted and that's worse.

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The point is to poll for long-term planning. You don't have to shelve content if you determine if it is desired before the planning stage.

Most of all we absolutely do need an easier way to give feedback (and an anonymous one at that to take peer pressure out of the equation.)

We need surveys, frequently. Maybe one a month or every two months for specific topics so sorting the results doesn't take forever. (We had one big one ages ago and I was hoping this might mean we might get more of that, but nope.)

It needs to have a very low barrier of entry for everyone, so they can finally get the voices of the people who usually don't comment in here or so.

Not a poll in the forum or on social media.
Not a link via a newsletter on an e-mail address I check maybe once a month or less.
Not a Q&A at a Fan Fest (you can still do this on top of things of course, the more the merrier.)

No, we need a link to a simple questionnaire you are able to open without registering anywhere else, and it comes with moogle mail (one with a blinking red envelope in the corner) or a pop-up when you log into the game. Once you've done it you are getting, idk, some extra good cookies for leveling or a time limited XP boost or whatever, anything small that doesn't disrupt the market or encourages some bs replies but adds some extra incentive for the average WoL to take part. (Obviously it needs to have some sort of measurement against people exploiting this by using multiple browsers, creating a ton of alts etc., it needs to be tied to an account, but that's details the devs can figure out on their own.) With a feedback option that easily accessible, jumping right into every active player's face and without social pressure attached to it, SE has a chance of getting somewhat representative data because people would give feedback who usually don't do it elsewhere for various reasons. I am sure they have a ton of telemetry data, but if a player finished content A or crafted amount of B doesn't tell SE much about why that player did this. This would give them access to that "why".

Now, will this questionnaire cause them to implement whatever everyone would like to have? Of course not, considering some of these wishes are probably very contradicting. However, they can make informed decisions based on actual feedback of a big part of the player base, not of that small number of people commenting here or on reddit or bluesky or wherever, let alone the super tiny number of streamers. And in my opinion this would be a very helpful step into the right direction.