The Devs Listen to Us

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

If it's any consolation, consider that most of the negative criticism is indication that there is a desire for improvement, rather than just a desire for a vindictive reckoning.

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Outside of genuine trolls, this is probably a good 90%+ of the more 'negative' people here on the forums.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

Personally you should stick around here and observe. Underneath half of the troll posts are legit opinions and thoughts on the game that don't really get to see the light of day. Reddit tends to be a head pat circle regardless of the situation and we all know how talking about criticism in game can go. XD

You might gain a few new perspectives you didn't have before.

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To be fair you can get the same “dooming but there is legit criticisms there” from r/ffxivdiscussion and r/shitpostxiv, it’s only mainsub that’s recently become completely unable to critique the game

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

To be fair you can get the same “dooming but there is legit criticisms there” from r/ffxivdiscussion and r/shitpostxiv, it’s only mainsub that’s recently become completely unable to critique the game

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Isn't the discord also in a bad shape or am I thinking of somewhere else?

The devs absolutely do listen. What throws people off, though, is that they listen to everyone and everything, not just the select few of us that post on the forums. They "listen" to commentary on a wide variety of social media, they "listen" to subscriptions, and perhaps most notably, they "listen" to engagement metrics they have on their end which shows what people are doing (or not doing) in the game.

For example, say I didn't like the Bicolor Gemstones grind associated with FATEs. So I come on this forum and make a post calling it trash. I get a couple dozen likes and a few other posters agreeing with me. The next expansion? Yep, another bicolor gemstone grind, so I go whining the devs "obviously" didn't listen to us and our little echo chamber here. Meanwhile, on their end, the dev team sees that a sizable portion of the playerbase actively completed the grind in both ShB and EW and actively uses the rewards from it. Perhaps that represents a few tens of thousand people. Put in that perspective, suddenly my whining that the twenty or so of us here on the forum didn't get our way looks like what it is - immature whining.

Now, if people didn't engage with the bicolor gemstone grind and it fell short of their goals on engagement, then it makes sense for them to do detailed follow-up and see what specific complaints people might have (is the grind too long, are the rewards not enticing enough, is the general idea itself just a non-starter, etc.) to see what changes might be in order.

But overall, it's just incredibly short-sighted to think the minuscule few of us on the forums here are representative of anything. Take for example the poster right above me with comments like:

"Healers are boring and they haven't changed for multiple expansions."

"2 minute meta is boring and they keep playing into it."

"Every relic step is tomestones."

And so on. Most of the comments are straight-up one person's opinions, nothing more, and others that are actually facts (e.g. tomestones) may be seen as a good thing by more people than not. Personally, I could turn most of those statements around and point out that I personally find healing enjoyable, I'm really liking the Variant Dungeons, I appreciate the relic this expansion just being tomestones, and I couldn't care less about housing or the 2-minute meta. That likewise wouldn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, because it's just one other person's opinion.

We need to step back and realize that we here on the forums are effectively a single grain of sand on an enormous beach. The dev team looks at the whole beach, not just the one grain of sand, when they make decisions.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

The devs absolutely do listen. What throws people off, though, is that they listen to everyone and everything, not just the select few of us that post on the forums. They "listen" to commentary on a wide variety of social media, they "listen" to subscriptions, and perhaps most notably, they "listen" to engagement metrics they have on their end which shows what people are doing (or not doing) in the game.

For example, say I didn't like the Bicolor Gemstones grind associated with FATEs. So I come on this forum and make a post calling it trash. I get a couple dozen likes and a few other posters agreeing with me. The next expansion? Yep, another bicolor gemstone grind, so I go whining the devs "obviously" didn't listen to us and our little echo chamber here. Meanwhile, on their end, the dev team sees that a sizable portion of the playerbase actively completed the grind in both ShB and EW and actively uses the rewards from it. Perhaps that represents a few tens of thousand people. Put in that perspective, suddenly my whining that the twenty or so of us here on the forum didn't get our way looks like what it is - immature whining.

Now, if people didn't engage with the bicolor gemstone grind and it fell short of their goals on engagement, then it makes sense for them to do detailed follow-up and see what specific complaints people might have (is the grind too long, are the rewards not enticing enough, is the general idea itself just a non-starter, etc.) to see what changes might be in order.

But overall, it's just incredibly short-sighted to think the minuscule few of us on the forums here are representative of anything. Take for example the poster right above me with comments like:

"Healers are boring and they haven't changed for multiple expansions."

"2 minute meta is boring and they keep playing into it."

"Every relic step is tomestones."

And so on. Most of the comments are straight-up one person's opinions, nothing more, and others that are actually facts (e.g. tomestones) may be seen as a good thing by more people than not. Personally, I could turn most of those statements around and point out that I personally find healing enjoyable, I'm really liking the Variant Dungeons, I appreciate the relic this expansion just being tomestones, and I couldn't care less about housing or the 2-minute meta. That likewise wouldn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, because it's just one other person's opinion.

We need to step back and realize that we here on the forums are effectively a single grain of sand on an enormous beach. The dev team looks at the whole beach, not just the one grain of sand, when they make decisions.

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I hate the variant dungeons because there isn't any good rewards for it afterwards. The devs don't listen because people complained about it and rightly so.

They've never asked me to complete a feedback survey and I've had this character since 2012. I've heard they exist but only for people who quit the game for a long time. I think paying customers should have a voice too.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

They've never asked me to complete a feedback survey and I've had this character since 2012. I've heard they exist but only for people who quit the game for a long time. I think paying customers should have a voice too.

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No, I received one a while ago that was aware of how long I had played. It was aimed at veteran players and finding out what veteran players want. Several other people said they got it too.

The way that surveys work, they don't need to ask everyone. Just a sample gives them the required data.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The way that surveys work, they don't need to ask everyone. Just a sample gives them the required data.

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I must've been unlucky every time. I like how pso2 just links surveys on their site for anyone who wants to participate. We've done those about 4 times so far and the global version of the game is only 3 years old.

To be honest, I'm not even sure they have a way to look at/dump metrics programmed in...so I'm not even sure they do THAT. Looking back how spaghetti some of the programming is in general...a simple boolean check(true or false) in housing error. (That's only one line and they messed that up) [no testing]. It's hard to believe they do, and if they do, questions if their methodology of retaining said results is also spaghetti and what it actually factors in. (Bots, people just spamming actions for the heck of it, etc {would be some things need to consider})

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Originally Posted by Striker44

stuff

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Basing decisions off of KPIs isn't a good thing, it's why nostalgic jobs like ever-popular white mage receive less dev attention compared to other jobs with less cachet unless some big streamer makes them a pet project.

It's not a coincidence that the jobs actually mained by people inside the dev team at a high level are better designed. It's not because KPIs have indicated that those jobs just need to be designed better, coincidentally; it's because considering feedback from job veterans is actually really important.