why are people so resistant to constructive criticism about the game?

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Originally Posted by Yencat

There's probably several reasons for them not removing it, but I think a big one is they don't want to make unique totems and beast forms for every race, which is something people would definitely expect should they open up Shaman and Druid to everyone.

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If that's the reason, I can accept that, for those two. Just remove it for the rest then.

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Originally Posted by linayar

What do you think is their intent? (I've heard it say race-class restrictions had to do with balancing the race population so that people just don't end up as one popular race, but I feel like each race has enough following and it really shouldn't matter in the end.)

And with the new universal (mandatory for new players, optional for older players) starting area, I think Shadowlands is a really fitting point to remove all restrictions. Although the expansion after when players return to Azeroth (maybe) could also work.

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I think their intent was more or less just to protect the identities of those classes and races -- or, more simply put, to let everything make sense as well as they could with what time they had without scrapping any preexisting lore.

E.g. "Does your race have warrior-priests?" "Yes, but not in a way remotely like other warrior-priests (i.e. Paladins). We're literally antithetical to that, as we have been for multiple books and a, even more critically successful, video game prior to WoW." Well shoot.

What does one do in that case? Do Night Elves create their own Elunite answer to the Paladin, which other races would complain about lacking access to? Do they double-down on racial abilities, including adjustments to core class kits, for each class? (Honestly, that's still my preference.) And what of time constraints? And what of the game's metalanguage if Night Elf Warrior was seriously distinct from an Orcish Warrior who is in turn well distinct from a Troll or Tauren Warrior? I'd love it, but then we'd probably have lost a whole class's worth of playstyle to accommodate those nuances (i.e. to allow the playstyle of a warrior-priest among Night Elves within or through the existing classes). Would we even get Shaman or Hunter if, by manner of speaking, those are just two faces of the Troll tradition of warfare (each approachable through a very racially-specific form of Warrior)?

I don't it. The "what if" elements here are too many and to varied to point out intent by contrast. All I can say is, again, I feel like they did a good job (at least until perhaps right now, with Shadowlands) of stretching their limits within reason. Burning Crusade introduced the Blood Paladins, a pretty distinct style of the previously Alliance-unique Paladins. By its end, it had also brought spellcraft back to the Kaldorei, rather than them avoiding it as the art (alongside sorcery) that rent their world asunder. Thus, it returned to their class options in Cataclysm. Did whole plotlines arise just to lead into that extended customization? In some cases, maybe. In others, I'd argue it was no more than byproduct -- opportunities taken.

Now, with Shadowlands, if racial abilities hadn't already been compressed in the name of a fairer, more tightly balanced raid experience, I'd argue it's the perfect time to have a more racially-distinct Night Elf Paladin. We're about to learn a whole lot more about Elune. The Nightwarrior is unleashed. Everything is primed for it. And yet, I guess, they've decided that the aesthetic just still does not fit, that the Nightwarrior is more a thing of agility and mail and terrifying strength through simultaneous ferocity and stealth, quite opposite a Paladin. And while I'd prefer to be able to play that archetype on my Night Elf in some form, I'm okay with it not being bastardized just to suit the existing class structure. It sucks, a little, but I get it.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I think their intent was more or less just to protect the identities of those classes and races

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See, I think that's a good reason, if those races hadn't been so involved with other races of their factions. Even now, Night Elves had been displaced and there are refugees living in Stormwind. It just doesn't make any sense to me that that they don't share knowledge with other races or that there couldn't be a few who are interested. I don't even think having one's own distinct version of a class like, say, paladin, is necessary at all.

But yes, I've agreed that they've, for the most part, handled the increase in race-class combinations well, and I think that just serves to prove the point that, if they want to, they could do more to increase it while still being true (for the most part) to their lore and history of the races.

(On the other hand, the concept of a Lightforged Draenei Shadow Priest is also one of the reason why I'm fine with FFXIV's more "boring" races and classes/jobs.)

Anyways, just to relate it more to FFXIV or this thread, there can be several "criticisms" that can be discussed if people are willing, and this one from WoW would be an example as there are very opinionated WoW players who would be against increasing race-class combinations.

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Originally Posted by linayar

See, I think that's a good reason, if those races hadn't been so involved with other races of their factions. Even now, Night Elves had been displaced and there are refugees living in Stormwind. It just doesn't make any sense to me that that they don't share knowledge with other races or that there couldn't be a few who are interested.

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And that's where I'd disagree. They literally have a separate Patron goddess. Night Elves have are the only race-wide monotheistic society in the game. Inversely, all WoW Paladins are, in a sense, animist. They are more nearly shamans -- or, heck, Jedi -- than traditional priests, even if there can be some overlap within the WoW take on priests. WoW Priests can follow a deity, scion, archon, or a general force, but Paladins, while they may have patron saints of sorts only ever follow the force of light. For the Night Elves, all aspects of these forces, at least insofar as they can tap into them, are merely elements of Elune, boons specifically granted either directly through her favor or as a result of her world investiture. The predominant mission of their religion, moreover, is not the pursuit of good and defeat of evil, but a preservation of a much less bimodal variety. Even in the Tauren druidic or shamanistic views of the world, there is good and evil, and the glow of their plains at dawn and the "rightness" of that nature was only a couple steps short of light-worship. But in the Night Elf view? There is bane and boon, purity and taint, and there is corruption, but it rarely lends itself to the idea of good or evil, of the selfless and selfish. There is just the nature of things, and the natures we choose for ourselves (e.g. all-encompassing duty, so much deeper than even fits the word as humans might bandy it about). They're fundamentally different.

Again, I don't think it'd be impossible to make NE Paladins work, just... there would necessarily be some compromise in there, and I'm satisfied with how that has played out thus far. It honestly annoys me less than I may in some rare cases have to play a race other than Night Elf than that Night Elf lore would be retconned.

But, yes, that topic's certainly a decent microcosm of the larger span of discussions possible in regards to XIV. Oddly so.

The most hilarious thing that I've been noticing about this whole debate is the reaction to the FF14 anniversary media coverage that's been popping up lately. Every tweet or news article comment section is being bombarded by responses not from the supposedly fiercely defensive FF14 fanboy army but instead by WoW fans eager to bash FF14 because "their game" is still the best, FF14 is just for weebs, "once ShadowLands comes out!" etc. While it's true that some FF14 fans are too attached to the game, it's a complete bold faced lie to imply they're somehow alone in that (or are somehow worse than the wowheads out there).

My take is that there are two types of criticism:

- That which comes from a place of genuinely wanting to improve the game. These suggestions are usually done in their proper place on this forum (which is not General Discussion!) or done in such a manner that they can go directly to SE's feedback time, such as a tweet that tags the FFXIV community.

- That which comes from a place of wanting other players to agree with them. These discussions occur in public forums, but the person has not necessarily done their research on how to get their feedback into an appropriate channel, instead choosing the most public place possible (General discussion, Reddit, Facebook.... etc.)

SE will listen to feedback when it's presented in the appropriate channel. They may not ever make a grand announcement thanking YOU personally for the suggestion, but that's fine. Some of my UI suggestions made it into the game and I'm thrilled about that (like the ability to reorder retainers that was stealth added in another patch.) That suggestion was made in the UI discussion section - not General - here on this very forum.

I do not think that anyone is against changes or improvements - after all we enjoy the game.

However there are great many people who have suggested things from other games which they would like to see which would fundamentally change the FFXIV experience for everyone. Just because a feature was in the game they played and then got bored with does not mean it should exist in FFXIV.

Other changes are asked for which more experienced players know are just impossible to achieve based upon the history of FFXIV and the infamous spaghetti code.

Moreover suggestions for changes posted into "General Discussion" are more than likely to be picked over and debated - if people can not accept that other peoples opinions are valid even when they disagree with their own then maybe they should not post. Sometimes people with a different point of view can point things out which the original person did not consider and that therefore means progress is made - that's what impartial debate and taking other peoples views, opinions and experience into account is all about. Welcome to the real world.

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Originally Posted by HeulGDarian

"stares wondering" =w=

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UwU...

*wondering back what the question is*

Like more on SMN?

In ARR days (many many years ago, before demi and trances - the OG level 50 SMN) I asked for, among other people, for some stronger primal representation in the job and many lore-no people said SMN couldn't, that it simply is just not possible, have bigger more primal like pets because of lore. Not that it would take some time, or development of the job, but just nope no can't be done, impossible. I was also regularly told I was saying things I explicitly and almost regularly said I wasn't asking for (at one point I quoted every one of my posts in a mega thread (so like 50 posts lol) to prove that I never once, and regularly clarified the opposite, asked for 100% primal scale like what we see in the boss fights).

There was a huge amount of "I'm seeing what I want to see and not what is actually being said" mixed with "there is no possible way to interpret or evolve the lore in any fashion, no way for the story to unfold in any means possible, there is only one possible reading and that reading is mine" during that.

Now not to say SE was inspired by the idea but it got to the point I started writing lore and mechanics on how to make it work. And wrote about using the left over aether, either from Bahamut or from other mechanics summoner would gain (like pyreflies being released from their dots), in the air with battery like charging mechanics to be able to get summoner into a state that allows them to temporarily summon more powerful primal interactions (and that those didn't have to be 1:1 scale or literal primals, just closer to the actual primal representation rather than their caricature chibi form). Which happens to be very similar to what actually happened. Like I said though doesn't mean they 'were like, "not bad"' and used it, could just be like ideas coming out because it's a logical conclusion (could have been some influence, could have just been saying things that they were also thinking could be solutions). Similar thing has happened with a few other items like beast tribe interpretation (being told there is only one possible interpretation and so "sorry but not possible", being a bit let down with such a narrow view and so making up an interpretation on the spot to counter that concept, and then later SE releasing something that as very akin to that alternate suggestion).

The tunnel vision on lore-no's can get really intense sometimes. Hence I call them lore-no's, hyper restrictive interpretations of the lore that offer no room for development (not just restrictive but using that restriction to matter-of-factly shut desires and conversations down, rather than working within the framework to come up with potential solutions that could absolutely exist) and have on a few occasions been shown wrong (that there were actually potential solutions). Things don't need retcons in order to mutate/evolve/reveal, with the function of time, high creativity, and desire then nearly anything is possible. Which isn't to run so far to the opposite side to say lore isn't important, clearly is, the story is a major selling point for many people, the story should always be treated with respect (shouldn't run around trying to give people lore whiplash), but careful hands are not shackled hands. Creativity and time are powerful allies.

for sure, i can’t talk about how storms eye feels clunky, or how the entire game has a huge delay that makes pvp a pain, or hell, even personal opinions that don’t mean anything. mentioning how i wished lupin was added over hrothgar from sheer personal preference makes me a whiny, ungrateful complainer, even though its not a deal breaker and i still play anyways

it extends to players too, you can’t even tell someone that they’re not playing their job correctly, or that your not supposed to cast nothing but ruin on summoner, or that white mage has more spells than just cure 1 and 2 without me being yelled at, no matter how i frame it

it’s like, if you say something that has a hint of ill will no matter the context, you get snuffed out, you can only complain about things everyone else is complaining about. it’s not just ff14, but it sure feels like it has the most people like this

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

but instead by WoW fans eager to bash FF14 because "their game" is still the best, FF14 is just for weebs, "once ShadowLands comes out!" etc.

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Ah, Shadowlands. Already they're starting to double down on and add things that their playerbase strongly disliked...

I don't get certain WoW fans, or indeed Blizzard fans, sometimes. They've been screwed over time and time again. Cataclysm was disappointing, WoD was an utter failure, Legion was endless grind, BFA was a massive flop, the Warcraft remake was one of the worst reviewed games, they've gone through content droughts of over a year, seen entire cities and ingame zones scrapped before release... yet "It'll be better this time, this is the expansion that'll revive the game!"

Have to almost admire that level of blind optimism.

The thing that bugs me with feedback is how combative people are towards things they allegedly "don't care about".

Players know there are only so many development resources, so they treat feedback like a zero-sum game and decide it's not enough to present an idea or request they'd like to see added; they want to shout-over, extinguish, disprove, or otherwise delete anyone elses' requests that don't align with their own for fear it will "waste" resources on something they aren't personally interested in.

I think this game has a good balance of content, and seeing them actually respond and act on player feedback is very reassuring.

im bored so ill write my piece of mind on this.

I dont think we got enough constructive criticism in order for people to be resistant at. Let me explain what i mean by that.
First of all we got the trolls , not that big of a deal just ignore them BUT you learn alot about the Forums community, the trolls keep pulling their stuff cause it works. To back this up ill bring a few examples, ill go by memory cause i didnt care enough to memorize their titles.
Thread that asked SE to ban players who teabagged her cause she is a rape victim, who also said that they should also go to jail. People white knighted the thread btw.
Thread asking how to Sue SE cause the scenes in the shadowbringer trailer werent in game and thus was false advertising. That was on these forums btw
Thread asking SE to put trigger warnings on their cutscenes cause one scary cutscene triggered their ptsd. This one is recent you can propably still find it
Thats the ones that were more memorable to me, but there are more, like every titansmen thread and his alts.

Lets go in some more serious stuff and how the Forums community handles the matter. For example
Mentor program.

Over generalization is the key word. If i go by the forums all mentors are terrible people , all mentors just want the crown to lord over people , all mentors are in there just for the mount , and all mentors in the novice network just ignore people cause they dont care or flame them or abuse kick them.

THIS isnt constructive criticism yet thats all you get from the majority of the forums. And like an angry mob their solution is not just strip them off of power and dont reward them, but also actively punish them for using the system or the best case scenario burn it all to the ground.


Hey How about we go into some more subjects like for Example player competency.

This is a gold mine heck trolls started to use it. Lets see if you ask the tank to pull more and they say no all other 3 players should kick him or otherwise they should just do as the tank says. Ye i think thats the general ghist of it.
The biggest gem in there that i watched and nobody reported them or even did anything to tell them off, is when 2 players actively talked how to get someone banned if he brought more adds for the tank. Nah instead lets report people who make third base jokes. How about we get even deeper on this matter how do people react to a skillfull player. Lets see i remember exactly the post that described that, " i stop listening when he said he was a rank 1 why should i care about that" and ofc the rest of it went the same way with elitism being called for every stupid thing imaginable, people confirming what that guy said without even watching the video that guy had made.
That thread birthed not 1 not 2 but 4 different more than 7 pages threads about players competency all of which devolved to petty insults .

As of now lets see the trolls showed us naivety, the mentor has showed us the mob mentality being spitefull against someone just cause of the group they belong to rather than on the individual, and player competency has shown utter maliciousness , willingly putting a blind eye and ,something that could be assigned to all 3, anti-intellectualism.

Im sorry but if you want to have constructive criticism this is not the place , as always a rule has exceptions and you can maybe find some semblance of it . For me however i stopped caring, a circular argument that finishes on agree to disagree isnt my definition of constructive criticism , its simply a lousy way to say we didnt end anywhere .

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Ah, Shadowlands. Already they're starting to double down on and add things that their playerbase strongly disliked...

I don't get certain WoW fans, or indeed Blizzard fans, sometimes. They've been screwed over time and time again. Cataclysm was disappointing, WoD was an utter failure, Legion was endless grind, BFA was a massive flop, the Warcraft remake was one of the worst reviewed games, they've gone through content droughts of over a year, seen entire cities and ingame zones scrapped before release... yet "It'll be better this time, this is the expansion that'll revive the game!"

Have to almost admire that level of blind optimism.

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Blizzard: Players please line up and get your Blind folds, ear plugs, faith and Panty hose.

Part of me still loves WoW just not the current Wow not by any measure of the word.

It's quite simple OP. Because people in general are resistant to change. Some more than others, but even myself I have to examine my thinking constantly and measure expectations.

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Originally Posted by Sated

The thing that bugs me with feedback is how combative people are towards things they allegedly "don't care about".

Players know there are only so many development resources, so they treat feedback like a zero-sum game and decide it's not enough to present an idea or request they'd like to see added; they want to shout-over, extinguish, disprove, or otherwise delete anyone elses' requests that don't align with their own for fear it will "waste" resources on something they aren't personally interested in.

I think this game has a good balance of content, and seeing them actually respond and act on player feedback is very reassuring.

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These kinds of binary trolls make me lose faith in humanity so much.. :T
I've learned to just ignore them when I identify them 'cause they literally cannot contribute to a discussion that they actively hold no interest in.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

And that's where I'd disagree. They literally have a separate Patron goddess. Night Elves have are the only race-wide monotheistic society in the game. Inversely, all WoW Paladins are, in a sense, animist. They are more nearly shamans -- or, heck, Jedi -- than traditional priests, even if there can be some overlap within the WoW take on priests. WoW Priests can follow a deity, scion, archon, or a general force, but Paladins, while they may have patron saints of sorts only ever follow the force of light. For the Night Elves, all aspects of these forces, at least insofar as they can tap into them, are merely elements of Elune, boons specifically granted either directly through her favor or as a result of her world investiture. The predominant mission of their religion, moreover, is not the pursuit of good and defeat of evil, but a preservation of a much less bimodal variety. Even in the Tauren druidic or shamanistic views of the world, there is good and evil, and the glow of their plains at dawn and the "rightness" of that nature was only a couple steps short of light-worship. But in the Night Elf view? There is bane and boon, purity and taint, and there is corruption, but it rarely lends itself to the idea of good or evil, of the selfless and selfish. There is just the nature of things, and the natures we choose for ourselves (e.g. all-encompassing duty, so much deeper than even fits the word as humans might bandy it about). They're fundamentally different.

Again, I don't think it'd be impossible to make NE Paladins work, just... there would necessarily be some compromise in there, and I'm satisfied with how that has played out thus far. It honestly annoys me less than I may in some rare cases have to play a race other than Night Elf than that Night Elf lore would be retconned.

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Ah, but you see, the events in BfA have already shaken some of their faith in Elune. Even Tyrande herself questioned why Elune "abandoned" them. And unlike in the real world, all the different magics and belief systems in WoW are rewarded on a daily basis with tangible proof of power. So it's not like believing in Elune would prevent them from seeing the power of the Light. So it's less of a narrower monotheistic belief and more of a henotheistic belief or even possibly a monolatry. (Of course, speaking of the belief itself, since the Light itself may not be considered a deity, so it may still be considered monotheism. The point is that Elune is not the only power in the universe, from what I can tell. They may reveal more of her nature in the future.)

And the fact that Night Elf belief system has more to do with purity and corruption means it doesn't conflict with another belief in the Light. Then again, the Blood Elf has shown, to my understanding, that you don't need to believe in the Light, but to believe in its power, to use it.

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But, yes, that topic's certainly a decent microcosm of the larger span of discussions possible in regards to XIV. Oddly so.

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Nothing odd about it. The specific content may differ, but the topics are still largely the same kind regardless of game.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Ah, Shadowlands. Already they're starting to double down on and add things that their playerbase strongly disliked...

I don't get certain WoW fans, or indeed Blizzard fans, sometimes. They've been screwed over time and time again. Cataclysm was disappointing, WoD was an utter failure, Legion was endless grind, BFA was a massive flop, the Warcraft remake was one of the worst reviewed games, they've gone through content droughts of over a year, seen entire cities and ingame zones scrapped before release... yet "It'll be better this time, this is the expansion that'll revive the game!"

Have to almost admire that level of blind optimism.

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As far as I've seen, that blind optimism is almost entirely limited to matters of skill unpruning and character customization.

AP's getting the same cynicism as ever. The story's getting the same cynicism as ever. Conduits? People are ready to pounce on each flaw they can find with each successive iteration. And they should be. In regards to Conduits (Shadowlands expansion-specific powers system), the latest iteration is already far better than what was previously made public -- all as a result of public analysis, internal debate, and then statements and reasoned criticisms leveled by de facto community leaders through even brass-tacks interviews with the devs themselves. Nevermind that we don't have that kind of critical pipeline in our community, we wouldn't even have the opportunity to present it here. The devs are more than happy to dodge questions rather than risk losing face in a reasoned argument with a community leader.

Tbh, even then, I don't understand the blind optimism leveled at skill unpruning. For character customization, sure, any increase is a good thing, but I'll never understand those saying, quite literally "I just want more buttons" with zero regard for the gameplay that would emerge from them. By their argument, any Hunter ought to be thrilled just to have their Track Humanoids, Track Beasts, Track Dragonkin, Track Demons, Track Elementals, etc. skills simply pushed back onto their (quickly bloated) hotbars rather than just being additional options on the Tracking menu accessible from the minimap. Of course, I've had almost that exact same argument many a times here, for much the same reasons (X is iconic, so X must be good regardless of its actual emergent gameplay).

On the other hand, it's worth putting all these things in context. Even WoW's lowest rated expansion (Warlords of Draenor), in the midst of its content drought, well exceeded XIV's active character count during Heavensward, of all expansions, and WoD itself tends to be as highly rated across most game review sites as Shadowbringers was at launch for all its hype. Similarly, a major patch in WoW, despite nearly as frequent releases, will typically hold 12+ new bosses connected through a new, cohesive instanced raid zone and may hold up to 3 new open world zones or zone revamps for content purposes, new dungeons, and new side-content. With the content released each time so much higher, it's difficult to identify WoW content droughts relative to XIV; they can only be easily pointed out compared to other WoW expansions around the same time.

For many this is their first MMORPG, so is the measure of things.
For many this is a Final Fantasy first and an MMORPG second, so that also influence on how certain systems or designs might be recived.

Im an old MMORPG player, played everything under the sun BUT world of warcraft.

I have deep issues with the constant powercreep, incessant tomestone grind, the irrelevant item level designs and the flawed sync systems of this game. Not to mention the disaster that housing and inventory in general is (one of which is a non-problem since is being monetized through retainers) i'm also critical of the addiction of SE to time limit so many rewards or achievements behind arbitrary time dates, leaving many things outside of players, be them veteran, returning, pausing/leaving or brand new players, like PvP achievements/rewards in those non-sensical seasons of nothing or this thing with the restoration achievements which any post 5.1 player will just miss forever.

Yeah, those things really need to change.
Is not like the game has any dry out of content, is not like there is nothing else to do, but that everything takes unrealistically so long.

Then again, probably cattering to certain gamer types: Whales, content producers and NEETs.

My reality is that i cannot dedicate 12 hours a day to the game and i still want to at least know, that if i wanted something in game i could get it giving it dedication and skill, not just "time".

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Originally Posted by Peace-Division

I think it s due to the current teenagers/young adults just dont know how to have a proper discussion. They have only experienced social media type posts. Jokes, trolls, or out right contrarianism. I dont know what values the younger generation are being taught in schools but with smartphones being in many peoples lives as much as awful social media interaction , normal discussions never go well because they seem to leap to accusations or opposing opinion ranting. Its got to a point that on sites like Twitter "my opinion is worth more than your fact".

Some join in topics here and fair points are made, then the opposing forces types come in and shout the loudest making a lot think that is the general consensus when its very far from the truth. People also seem afraid to call out crap behavior for fear of repercussions especially when it comes to sites that have upvote/downvote or like/dislike features, which is madness that people are afraid of losing virtual social points rather than speak their mind.

So when it comes to feedback/constructive criticisms the social media tribalism kicks in and the role assumed is "your attacking a thing I love, irregardless of the topic or words used, im going to attack you".

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This was explained beautifully....

A lot of the suggestions I have seen are to make FF14 a mirror of WoW where subs are in heavy decline so yeah sorry if some get shot down from people who played the game and know some of these "offended" people will jump ship immediately on the next WoW expansion launch.

I'll never apologize for explaining to people why some ideas are straight up trash and would gut core aspects of this MMO and turn it into a WoW clone. Entire FF14 forums are full of people with ideas and complaints so honestly this all just seems like Twitch and Youtube streamers seeking out content by creating fake drama that does not exist.

Anyone who comes into a FINAL FANTASY mmo and their first suggestion is to gut the story so they can show off at end game can just go back to where they came from.

Because this game is perfect in every way and no negative opinions are allowed OP.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

A lot of the suggestions I have seen are to make FF14 a mirror of WoW where subs are in heavy decline so yeah sorry if some get shot down from people who played the game and know some of these "offended" people will jump ship immediately on the next WoW expansion launch.

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Let's take a look at some of those most common WoW-esque suggestions:

1. Glamours should be treated like achievements (immediately unlocked via binding the item or consuming a glamour prism for it) rather than as items, such that appearances storable in a glamour dresser are unlimited (rather than capped to 400) and need not deny inventory access to the original item itself.
2. Progressive difficulty in reiterative midcore light party content.
3. Instanced housing such that every player can have one.
4. A more integral and lasting open world (beyond merely leveling and gem tier grinds).
5. Dynamic questing (actually follow Bismarck, rather than just going from lookout to lookout, where none really even indicate the direction to the next lookout except via minimap).

Do those things really strike you as elements so inseparable from WoW, or unintegratable with XIV, that anyone who finally got them here would still be just as likely to jump ship back?

Yoshida stated specifically that he wanted to build his XIV rework in imitation of other MMOs, especially WoW. He traded out some more variably sourceable gather X item quests for delivery quests, forced more back and forth WoL-as-courier rather than using such only for intro or auxiliary-yet-major lore questlines, but the base is straight WoW / Ragnorak / Tera hub-to-hub questing. In-action storytelling and phasing are largely replaced by glowing clickable spheres, purple circles to step in (and be surprised!), and static cutscenes, but the core is the same. FATEs amount to no more than world quests, just over a much smaller area. Open world hunting as a meaningful means of progression is as dead as it's been since around Burning Crusade.

There is incredibly little, part by part, that is novel about XIV, and a lack of sensible polish or features should never be what sets one game apart from the others. Each of those WoW-based suggestions can be used to make XIV more unique by better doing what it does well, and bringing much of the rest nearer that level of quality.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Let's take a look at some of those most common WoW-esque suggestions:

1. Glamours should be treated like achievements (immediately unlocked via binding the item or consuming a glamour prism for it) rather than as items, such that appearances storable in a glamour dresser are unlimited (rather than capped to 400) and need not deny inventory access to the original item itself.
2. Progressive difficulty in reiterative midcore light party content.
3. Instanced housing such that every player can have one.
4. A more integral and lasting open world (beyond merely leveling and gem tier grinds).
5. Dynamic questing (actually follow Bismarck, rather than just going from lookout to lookout, where none really even indicate the direction to the next lookout except via minimap).

Do those things really strike you as elements so inseparable from WoW, or unintegratable with XIV, that anyone who finally got them here would still be just as likely to jump ship back?

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As someone who quit WoW years ago because it turned into a game I thoroughly disliked I would actually welcome any combination of these points in FFXIV, especially 1,3 and 4.
Does that help reinforce your point?

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Originally Posted by Astrus

As someone who quit WoW years ago because it turned into a game I thoroughly disliked I would actually welcome any combination of these points in FFXIV, especially 1,3 and 4.
Does that help reinforce your point?

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I mean, probably? Though I appended more of my own thoughts to it later, I'd originally meant to simply take a top 5, look at the spirit of the suggestions and word them accordingly, and see if they were really of no use to XIV (nor, as more relevant to whom I was quoting, anything that'd make a former WoW player more likely to stay in XIV).

Obviously, I too would like most of those, though it'd depend on how they're done and how much resources they'd consume. If I had to take just three, it'd probably be 2, 4, and 5, but only because I really love XIV's story (but often find its storytelling techniques -- e.g. as in-game interaction -- a bit lacking), I like its zone aesthetics but wish they were designed to be more lasting and had more "special" of areas beyond merely being spaces for some quests and then FATEs, and really think the game could benefit from progressive midcore content.

By the way, the 6 and 7 seem like they'd likely go to less blinding/gaudy VFX without losing detail/impact, and better antistrophic filtering. In fact the better AA options might be the actual #5...

People don't like to be called out for playing badly. Particularly by strangers in a game that takes a lot of time to be invested in.
SE themselves are partially responsible for this, due to how strict the terms of service are.
Its quietly encourages passive aggressiveness and if the community in general was allowed to speak their voices a little more honestly other players (that are playing badly) etc might listen.
You should not be allowed to report someone who tells you are playing poorly when it is pretty clear that you are.

OHHH lets also look at some other WoW suggestions
1. Get rid of this MSQ stuff
2. Unlock everything without having to do ANY story..screw the people leveling they are on their own
3. Lets spice up that gear and put some random procs on it.....yeah that is working great in WoW
4. Too many buttons time to prune these classes down to about 5 buttons
5. Allow people to use DPS meters and call out players for bad dps without fear of bans
6. Allow any addon that WoW does
7. Invest more time in raids and not storylines
8. Get rid of most of the quest from 1-70 to allow for speedy leveling
9. Spice up those classes with racial bonuses that affect raid progress
10. Get rid of the buff for bringing different classes in raiding so that we can stack classes
11. Get rid of the support classes like Dancer or Bard and turn them into pure dps classes
12. Give me my lvl 80 tool kit in a synced level 16 dungeon so I can chain pull the entire instance. Screw those lowbies trying to learn.

^ This is just SOME of the suggestions I have seen that would gut this MMO.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

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1. Comes from people who've not played WoW as much as have, and seems rare in either case. Most have asked for fewer time-sink fetch quests.
2. The story itself was one of those things they were requesting to not be locked behind other especially obstructive activities, though?
3. This tends to be something former WoW players in particular dislike. Chosen bonus features or more specialized or otherwise special gear (a la legendary items) see the occasional suggestion, but that comes even more strongly from the XI crowd.
4. You realize WoW uses about as many buttons for combat as XIV does? Asking that Mirage Dive share a button with Jump, Between the Lines with Ley Lines, Blizzard IV with Fire IV, Assassinate with Dream Within a Dream, or the like, when they literally cannot be used except in order or from conflicting stances =/= "we want only 5 buttons".
5. You realize harassment is likewise an offense in WoW, right? That fault-finding is wholly informed or not (i.e. parsed and eyeballed, both, or not) does not make harassment any more or less harassment.
6. I have yet to see this except as a last-resort workaround for the devs ignoring obvious QoL UI reworks such as to retainers and the market-board, auto-sorting, being able to right click on a quest area in the mini-map to load the relevant journal entry alongside it, and the like.
7. Asking that the dev team not invest increasingly less time into endgame combat-centric content =/= "Don't do any more stories." It can, however, reasonably be read as a request for the director not to siphon funds from one of his games (largely paid with the tacit intent of supporting and expanding it) into another.
8. By all means, link some of these. Equally anecdotal, perhaps, but what I've seen amounts far more closely to "Can we do fewer shitty fetch-quests?"
9. Link? That seems laughable coming from a community that mostly begged racial abilities to be de-emphasized, with even the anti-flying or slow-down-leveling portions agreeing that it was fine for them not to be as raid-prevalent.
10. Because woe be us if the game has to actually balance jobs themselves rather than rely on composition bonuses, or if there may be two physical ranged in the same group who each only enjoy one of that role's jobs? Is asking for balance enough to play the job you want without relying on 1% main stat party bonuses so abhorrent an idea?
11. At the same time, allowing for more support skills, and actually allowing them to have a place in fights, is also suggested by many a former WoWer. Just as the removal of CC was suggested by plenty who've never played WoW, to the horror of most WoW veterans here. We're talking about a community who, in majority, get hyped over having to hit an extra button every hour or after each death just to maintain a raid buff just because it adds a bit more "flavor" and "raid support".
12. Retaining abilities through level sync, albeit at variable potency or worth attached mob upscaling, has been suggested since ARR, and is thus difficult to pinpoint any particular population from which it may be disproportionately stem. It hardly seems an oppressive/invasive WoW idea only that we be allowed to use more than a tiny handful of abilities in scaled (e.g. roulette) content; such merely requires proportionate rescaling so that the helpers can still enjoy their game without that coming at expense of those they're helping.

You can cherry-pick as you like, but then the absurdities wouldn't stop, or even really even cluster, around former WoW players. They're not some monolithic boogieman; they're just people with experience from another MMO, likely among multiple more.

My experience with critique is been more positive on these forums than most tbh. its the way you word your criticism but i know some will simp for FFXIV to no end and Those people are truly the worst desiring no changes to a MMO no less is stupid. but they arent common or just type smug stuff like "then leave" or "its not for you bye" without thought or logic.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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This entire post tells me everything I need to know about you. You obviously play both MMO's but do not understand how minor changes have EXTREMELY long term consequences in MMO's.

Minor request to you "that do not seem that bad" or are easily explained away when people give legit criticism is how you kill an MMO. Daring to sit on these forums and suggest that gutting the MSQ is justified when you only ever play through it once is just ridiculous.

It is the core of this MMO and noone is stopping people from hitting escape to power level super quick through the MSQ.

You have to understand a lot of people here played so many MMO's and watched ideas that rip the soul out of an MMO to appease this person or that person just kill the soul of an MMO.

We have literal queue times to login with servers that are on par with anything WoW or other MMO's have. The game is EXTREMELY healthy and growing huge right under the vision of Yoshida and the very competent devs running this MMO.

If an idea has merit then post it and be ready to defend that idea if someone puts any type of criticism that is constructive. If people are negative then let the forum mods deal with it. My point of view on every single suggestion is how does this ripple through the community.

Any number of things I listed would make the leveling experience in FF14 a complete nightmare of infinite queue times requiring the devs to nerf a majority of the MSQ that has you unlock dungeons and trials so that by end game you literally no practice playing your character with other people.

Every decision ripples from wanting to spice up boring gear forcing devs to keep having to add new spice and change that an add something different the next patch then the next patch then the next patch. Every single suggestion that is taken serious has ripple effects.

People wanting threat changed "because that is why noone wants to tank" caused end game tanking to become chain pull fest from one side of an instance to the other side. This forced them to change dungeon design to add walls in random spots to slow people down. It made abilities completely useless that used to be used to control and cc mobs like sleep on Black Mages.

FF14 are so defensive about the current game because we consider it a unique MMO that is actually growing in a world where a lot of MMO's have died or are dying extremely slow and painful deaths. So you are going to get people coming at you with daggers ready to debate hard on any issue that we consider affecting core aspects of the MMO.

Also lets not pretend Square Enix is not addressing these concerns. They literally added flying to ARR in a patch. Do people understand Blizzard charged you $60 for that as an expansion feature in Cataclysm?!?!?They removed and fixed 30% of the quest in ARR in a single patch to address VALID complaints.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

This entire post tells me everything I need to know about you. You obviously play both MMO's but do not understand how minor changes have EXTREMELY long term consequences in MMO's.

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Oh, that's why I argued against so many changes going into ARR, HW, StB, and ShB for their potential to have... exactly the consequences they did?

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Daring to sit on these forums and suggest that gutting the MSQ is justified when you only ever play through it once is just ridiculous.

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And indeed it would be. But again, who's done that? Don't just give me an offhand "us vs. them" overgeneralization. Who?

A strawman does not form a solid argument. A couple outliers do not form a community.

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People wanting threat changed "because that is why noone wants to tank" caused end game tanking to become chain pull fest from one side of an instance to the other side. This forced them to change dungeon design to add walls in random spots to slow people down. It made abilities completely useless that used to be used to control and cc mobs like sleep on Black Mages.

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And I argued against enmity inflation and the removal of CC without relying on go off-hand comments like "just leave then".

But you realize end-to-end pulls were already a norm in ARR, right, when enmity modifiers were a fifth of what they are now?

CC was removed because low difficulty tuning generated community habits which in turn left no room for CC. Enmity was given the mercy-stroke not to enable wall-to-wall pulling, but because it was already reduced to mere bloat. They weren't removed to create the current paradigm. They were removed because that's been the paradigm since the game's rework from 1.x.

What did I personally, do about it? I argued against nerfing dungeons, outside of OHKO boss skills and unintuitive effects, on the basis that it'd have these tack-on effects down the line, and a rework of AoE (to cumulative mitigation) and diminishing returns as a system.

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You have to understand a lot of people here played so many MMO's and watched ideas that rip the soul out of an MMO to appease this person or that person just kill the soul of an MMO.

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Yes. And I'll be right there, alongside you, to argue against such red flags. I'd do that for anyone who actually wanted to gut the story (instead of merely make the worst of its fluff optional, as the devs themselves clearly agreed was a good goal), for instance.

But why generalize most bad suggestions into the form of an MMO you clearly know little about? Heck, unless you're posting from a second account you in all likelihood know relatively little about the design philosophies or consequences of changes present in this one.

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Do people understand Blizzard charged you $60 for that as an expansion feature in Cataclysm?!?!?

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They charged me $40 for an expansion. Redoing the main world's coding to allow for flight was a small part of redoing the main world's leveling experience to be smoother, more engaging, and make use of features made over the last two expansions, which was itself just a bonus feature of that expansion. It quite notably did not cost me content elsewhere unless that would-be content would have far exceeded what was promised, hinted at, or even expected.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

People wanting threat changed "because that is why noone wants to tank" caused end game tanking to become chain pull fest from one side of an instance to the other side. This forced them to change dungeon design to add walls in random spots to slow people down. It made abilities completely useless that used to be used to control and cc mobs like sleep on Black Mages.

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Chain pulls have been a thing since 2.0, to the point where you could mass pull all mobs into a boss room, then stand at the edge while someone pulls the boss in order to lock the mobs out when the room closes. That's why they changed dungeon design to add 'walls' or some sort of objective you have to complete first before you could proceed into boss rooms. Had nothing to do with threat changes. If anything with threat becoming easier, Tanks being able to AoE for free, and short CD mitigation tools, chain pulls have only been further encouraged.

CC abilities were gutted because, again, you could use it to completely bypass having to burn down mobs. Pull everything to boss room, put mobs to sleep, then by the time the debuff wears off the room is already sealed off so the aggro resets. Rinse and repeat for rest of dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Hanaya

I've seen a lot of debates recently between people about whether or not we should be getting more content, or just about people wanting different kinds of content to what we're getting right now, and while I don't necessarily agree or disagree with either side, there seems to be such a dramatic response to everything. If someone who's main interest is savage or ultimate raiding says they want more content on that side of the game, or more repeatable content, so many people will just say stuff like "well you might not care about the story, but final fantasy is a story game so that's the most important part" and so on, and do stuff like tell them to go back to wow and that ffxiv isn't made for them.

and like, while I do really enjoy the higher difficulty endgame fights in the game, I don't have the perspective of a story skipper. I love the story and it's my favorite part of the game, and I also love a lot of the more "casual" content (like crafting/gathering, map hunts, glamour, just socializing with people in the overworld and so on). But that doesn't mean that I like all the content in the game, or the direction it's taking everything.

Personally, I dislike shiva unreal for a variety of reasons, I wish we didn't get less dungeons with post-shb patches compared to stormblood, and I dislike the recent ast changes. I love the game, and I loved most of 5.3, but there are still things I would like to see changed about the game.

I love ffxiv, but nothing is flawless. Why do so many people act like having personal opinions on how the game could get even better is toxic?

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They're probably too obsessed with ff14