Polls for future game changes

Some MMOs already implement this feature, Runescape (for example) has ingame poll booths where active players can voto on game changes, regarding to combat, PVP, etc., specially, no major change to game mechanics are ever made unless there is at least ~70% approval among voting players.

Would be nice if every MMO had this, also, make players voto count more according to how old their subscrition in the game is, so for say, every ~6months of subscription time, your voto counts as one vote extra, that way someone subscribed in the game three years ago would have a vote that counts for 6, and someone that has a one year subscription would have a vote that counts for 2 and so on. People that have subscriptions from way back into 1.0 would have the most impact when voting.

That way the game can keep their loyal fanbase that will actually play the game for years on from now happy and give a fair voting for everyone.

I see it as a way to be much more in touch with the community.

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Originally Posted by Fabbro

make players voto count more according to how old their subscrition in the game is, so for say, every ~6months of subscription time, your voto counts as one vote extra, that way someone subscribed in the game three years ago would have a vote that counts for 6, and someone that has a one year subscription would have a vote that counts for 2 and so on.

give a fair voting for everyone.

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How exactly is it "fair" voting, if not all the votes are equal?

They already do listen and there is impact based on community feedback.

They are not, and should not however, listen to Everything the community says.

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Originally Posted by KatieConnr

How exactly is it "fair" voting, if not all the votes are equal?

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Exactly fair because of that, people that play for a longer time deserve more weight, and are probably a minority, so they need some extra voting weight to balance out against people whom will probably only ever play the game for a few months ~ one year and give it up. People whom already play the game for a longer time since launch are probably the same ones that are going to keep the game alive in the long term, so it makes sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

They already do listen and there is impact based on community feedback.

They are not, and should not however, listen to Everything the community says.

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For example, I don't know anyone whom liked the way they changed the PvP, and that's just one example. I could talk about many others (changes to Dark Knight, streamlining and dumbing down mechanics that had potential such as cross classing and shared class abilities... list goes on) that clearly show how they simply don't ever care to go back about changes most of the active players dislike. Having a voting system like other MMOs have, and Runescape does it very well, would really ensure the community agrees with futures changes.

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Originally Posted by Fabbro

For example, I don't know anyone whom liked the way they changed the PvP, and that's just one example. I could talk about many others (changes to Dark Knight, streamlining and dumbing down mechanics that had potential such as cross classing and shared class abilities... list goes on) that clearly show how they simply don't ever care to go back about changes most of the active players dislike. Having a voting system like other MMOs have, and Runescape does it very well, would really ensure the community agrees with futures changes.

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I mean.... I have my gripes with the game I feel its a bit too easy sometimes and I'd like the a graphics update that would also fix all the technical limitations with the glams and other bits but they are reworking PVP because they know people don't like it, they apologized for 1.0, They do job adjustments and reworks based on complaints, like the SMN changes that are coming. They are upgrading the servers, working on a stat squish because the game is at its limits, developing the expansion with the largest MSQ yet, they're holding a weapon design contest which allows you to tell them what weapons you want to see in game... they have brought some collaborations back because players wanted them (although imo they shoulda made new ones so we get new content and sell past ones in the mog station), They are adding Male viera and Fem Hroth based on complaints.

They're not sitting idle. And this community has a huge divide between casuals and more hard core folk so the "community" is not exactly in unison about most things. So if there were votes in fact, you'd see this game getting even less complicated and more simplified rather than difficult, because the truth is the casuals outnumber the hardcore. A lot of people want to see ultimates gone in favor of using those resources for casual content more people would enjoy but I think they know they need hard challenges for fans of raiding, it also brings a lot of views on streams and its free advertising for the game.

It's a hard balance to keep...

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

They already do listen and there is impact based on community feedback.

They are not, and should not however, listen to Everything the community says.

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This is key. Especially if they listen only to those vocal minorities here on forums and other social media plattforms.

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Originally Posted by Fabbro

For example, I don't know anyone whom liked the way they changed the PvP, and that's just one example. I could talk about many others (changes to Dark Knight, streamlining and dumbing down mechanics that had potential such as cross classing and shared class abilities... list goes on) that clearly show how they simply don't ever care to go back about changes most of the active players dislike. Having a voting system like other MMOs have, and Runescape does it very well, would really ensure the community agrees with futures changes.

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Most people disliked the cross class system, there is only a minority who enjoyed it. That's... why it was removed....

fairly bad idea. we dont play in a democracy. this is their game. if they make a change you dislike, the option you have is to unsub.

(as well, I actually dont know anyone who pvps...so... your example doesnt seem to go very far lol)

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

fairly bad idea. we dont play in a democracy. this is their game. if they make a change you dislike, the option you have is to unsub.

(as well, I actually dont know anyone who pvps...so... your example doesnt seem to go very far lol)

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Somthing about this comment just doesnt resonate with me...I can’t explain it

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Originally Posted by Fabbro

Exactly fair because of that, people that play for a longer time deserve more weight, and are probably a minority, so they need some extra voting weight to balance out against people whom will probably only ever play the game for a few months ~ one year and give it up. People whom already play the game for a longer time since launch are probably the same ones that are going to keep the game alive in the long term, so it makes sense to me.

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length of play time getting more votes is not actually fair.
Fair voting involves everyones vote having the same weight.
Your idea is like someone who has been around for 10 electoral votes having a weight of 10 votes vs the person voting for the first time having 1

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Originally Posted by Fabbro

Would be nice if every MMO had this, also, make players voto count more according to how old their subscrition in the game is, so for say, every ~6months of subscription time, your voto counts as one vote extra,

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This sounds like a great way to get the game to stagnate.
This would also mean that the majority become the game designers, and the devs lose agency over their vision.
I'm not a fan of this idea.

No thanks. I don't like everything they've done with the game, and I anticipate I won't like everything they will do in the future, but it's still their game to make. They have access to far more information both about player activity and about what is actually possible in the game code than I do, and they have to create a product that works for as many people as possible.

In the end, though, I do have a vote. We all do. If the game isn't what you want it to be, and you don't feel the developers respect your wishes and/or tastes then just stop playing the game. Stop paying them. There's your vote.

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Originally Posted by Fabbro

Exactly fair because of that, people that play for a longer time deserve more weight, and are probably a minority, so they need some extra voting weight to balance out against people whom will probably only ever play the game for a few months ~ one year and give it up. People whom already play the game for a longer time since launch are probably the same ones that are going to keep the game alive in the long term, so it makes sense to me.

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And what about players with multiple accounts? Many have had them for years. They're not a majority but if an issue is almost 50/50 then they could tip it in their favour with their extra accounts.

Also I am not fond of the idea of seniority perks in games. Just because you have been playing for a long time doesn't mean you're super knowledgeable about the game. A new player who has raided for just one tier has more raid knowledge than a veteran casual player who never raided. I know people who played since ARR and know nothing about crafting. Do you want them to have a strong vote on crafting issues? Do you want someone who has never played a healer to have a strong vote in healer issues?

The system we have is fine. We provide feedback and SE reacts accordingly. They're actually really good at listening to feedback, a stark contrast to the devs of the other big mmo on the market.

The problem with Runescape's ingame polls is that 95% of the time, the playerbase always voted "yes" just off of that, without going to the forums and reading the threads discussing the implications of X. They just see a tagline "do you want X in your game?" and just vote yes. So ingame polls were to the detriment of Runescape, and lo and behold, the bad things that people in the discussion threads feared came about, but they couldn't do anything about it because they were an informed minority while the majority of people who voted didn't know what they were voting for.

Players are notoriously bad at judging what changes will actually do to the game.

Longer subscription does not equal more important (and I'm saying this as someone who was in the beta and has subscribed ever since).

I don't trust data from a poll that most people will simply click out of or pick an option to get rid of to base gamechanging decisions on.

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

The problem with Runescape's ingame polls is that 95% of the time, the playerbase always voted "yes" just off of that, without going to the forums and reading the threads discussing the implications of X. They just see a tagline "do you want X in your game?" and just vote yes. So ingame polls were to the detriment of Runescape, and lo and behold, the bad things that people in the discussion threads feared came about, but they couldn't do anything about it because they were an informed minority while the majority of people who voted didn't know what they were voting for.

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Doesn't that sound suspiciously like real life elections?

No.

No, no.

Nonononononno

I think it would be an excellent idea. MMO's, by their very nature, are designed to appeal to a broad audience. By polling more players, we'd see less focus on niche pursuits and the development team might come to learn that social media mobs are, in fact, a minority. A very vocal one, but a minority nonetheless.

Getting feedback directly from players would also eliminate the gatekeeping that comes from many vocal individuals within the community.

Agreed - just need to ensure the questions are structured appropriately and costs/foregone alternatives are clearly outlined.

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

The problem with Runescape's ingame polls is that 95% of the time, the playerbase always voted "yes" just off of that, without going to the forums and reading the threads discussing the implications of X.

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The problem with OSRS where it's not directly applicable to FF14 is that OSRS is a game primarily based around preserving the classic experience of the game, so they're pretty abstemious about new additions in the form of content and new items and skill training methods anyway.

It's not even a perfect system because of the amount of player politics that surrounds it- OSRS player base routinely votes against pvp content based on the pure merit of that it's content for people that enjoy pvp, and I don't see it going any differently here, except replace 'pvp content' with the large, loud majority of people that don't want anything added unless it appeals to them. There's already an obscene amount of apologists on the forums yelling about things like male viera, or the implementation of things like Bozja, the Diadem, or ocean fishing, saying that the extra dev work that went into them is why we don't have two dungeons per patch any more- whether or not that's correct is irrelevant, but I'd just as soon not give people any power over the game development by telling them what they can and can't deny the dev team the ability to create with a vote.

Last thing we need is a 6.3 Ultimate failing the poll because it's not something geared toward casual players, or a new limited job not ever seeing release because it's not a full, unrestricted job that people can grind in dungeons to 90 then forget about, or any proposed change to any class never, ever passing because of, say, active unrestrained vitriol and disdain toward SCH players.

Out of all the games in development right now, this one's direction should *especially* never be left up to the great community.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

I mean.... I have my gripes with the game I feel its a bit too easy sometimes and I'd like the a graphics update that would also fix all the technical limitations with the glams and other bits but they are reworking PVP because they know people don't like it, they apologized for 1.0, They do job adjustments and reworks based on complaints, like the SMN changes that are coming. They are upgrading the servers, working on a stat squish because the game is at its limits, developing the expansion with the largest MSQ yet, they're holding a weapon design contest which allows you to tell them what weapons you want to see in game... they have brought some collaborations back because players wanted them (although imo they shoulda made new ones so we get new content and sell past ones in the mog station), They are adding Male viera and Fem Hroth based on complaints.

They're not sitting idle. And this community has a huge divide between casuals and more hard core folk so the "community" is not exactly in unison about most things. So if there were votes in fact, you'd see this game getting even less complicated and more simplified rather than difficult, because the truth is the casuals outnumber the hardcore. A lot of people want to see ultimates gone in favor of using those resources for casual content more people would enjoy but I think they know they need hard challenges for fans of raiding, it also brings a lot of views on streams and its free advertising for the game.

It's a hard balance to keep...

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I agree with most of what you said. However, it's 30~40% more dedicated hardcore players that actually keep the game alive, just look at FFXI for example (still alive thanks to the loyal fans). While casuals play the game for one or two months, maybe six months to a year tops (very rarely more time than that), the hardcore crowd play the game for 2~4+ years and stays loyal to game.

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Originally Posted by Aurida

The problem with OSRS where it's not directly applicable to FF14 is that OSRS is a game primarily based around preserving the classic experience of the game, so they're pretty abstemious about new additions in the form of content and new items and skill training methods anyway.

It's not even a perfect system because of the amount of player politics that surrounds it- OSRS player base routinely votes against pvp content based on the pure merit of that it's content for people that enjoy pvp, and I don't see it going any differently here, except replace 'pvp content' with the large, loud majority of people that don't want anything added unless it appeals to them. There's already an obscene amount of apologists on the forums yelling about things like male viera, or the implementation of things like Bozja, the Diadem, or ocean fishing, saying that the extra dev work that went into them is why we don't have two dungeons per patch any more- whether or not that's correct is irrelevant, but I'd just as soon not give people any power over the game development by telling them what they can and can't deny the dev team the ability to create with a vote.

Last thing we need is a 6.3 Ultimate failing the poll because it's not something geared toward casual players, or a new limited job not ever seeing release because it's not a full, unrestricted job that people can grind in dungeons to 90 then forget about, or any proposed change to any class never, ever passing because of, say, active unrestrained vitriol and disdain toward SCH players.

Out of all the games in development right now, this one's direction should *especially* never be left up to the great community.

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That's why older player's votes would have much more weight.

We seem to like the same things in terms of content. I wish the game was harder overall and that we had a more dynamic and dangerous open world, full of content, and areas such as Eureka and Bozja were more organically integrated into the open world, etc..

I love when they add challenging content.

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Originally Posted by Fabbro

That's why older player's votes would have much more weight.

We seem to like the same things in terms of content. I wish the game was harder overall and that we had a more dynamic and dangerous open world, full of content, and areas such as Eureka and Bozja were more organically integrated into the open world, etc..

I love when they add challenging content.

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Eureka is a pretty bad example of "challenging content" as most of it's "challenge" comes purely from the fact that the mobs outlevel you too hard, even when fully leveled the last quest in the zone throws mobs above the max level that can two shot you because it's "challenging".
The mobs having bigger numbers than the players doesn't really translate into challenge.

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Originally Posted by Fabbro

That's why older player's votes would have much more weight.

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Okay but when the Legacy goblins ask for dev time to go into re-creating 1.x as an experience instead of adding Beastmaster or whatever the trendy thing is to ask for nowadays...

With the level of diverse content that gets added to the game and people that play it for myriad reasons and want different things out of the gameplay there's no reconciling that with a democracy, especially given that the majority of the player base does not actually play the game at a level of competence that would lead them to make informed decisions about the changes that should be made to it.

I have no idea how you could even do this reliably, big streamers alone could sway things unfairly.

The issue too is that you get a lot of clueless people who don't even play what they're complaining about and have an extremely limited understanding ( or none at all ) of it.
MNK discussions is a good example of this... It's so clear that a very large group of people who talk about MNK both here and on the subreddit don't play it and they'll often even admit to it or that they've just tested it a bit.
And yet they have VERY deeply rooted opinions and ideas about how it '' should '' play that go completely against what active MNK mains want.

This is just one example, but this applies to pretty much everything else too.

This is a great idea, and I saw it implemented in EVE-Online to some extent, but locking it to players with less time than you to play is wrong in my book. So instead, I propose that it should be open to everyone.

i dont trust most of the playerbase to know what fun is

I think something like this would be a huge mistake if they actually implemented it, and would result in the westernification of the game and it would end up being another WoW experience

it is, at its base, a JRPG, and that comes with its own direction and design philosophy. if they add in some kind of voting system, it would likely be aimed at primarily Japanese players of the game and the direction its heading in because thats the culture they are more familiar with.

in the end, I doubt we would ever see the implementation of this kind of idea. If you dont like a movie franchise or its direction, dont go see the next movie, its that simple. If you dont like a game direction, unsub or stop playing. there is no difference. there is no player voting, and especially not one based on length of sub. this has got to be one of the dumbest ideas. I mean in whatever country you live in, would you want ONLY the old to vote, or maybe have 2 votes? I mean by your logic they have lived in the country longer so should have a better idea of whats best for the country right?

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I think something like this would be a huge mistake if they actually implemented it, and would result in the westernification of the game and it would end up being another WoW experience

it is, at its base, a JRPG, and that comes with its own direction and design philosophy. if they add in some kind of voting system, it would likely be aimed at primarily Japanese players of the game and the direction its heading in because thats the culture they are more familiar with.

in the end, I doubt we would ever see the implementation of this kind of idea. If you dont like a movie franchise or its direction, dont go see the next movie, its that simple. If you dont like a game direction, unsub or stop playing. there is no difference. there is no player voting, and especially not one based on length of sub. this has got to be one of the dumbest ideas. I mean in whatever country you live in, would you want ONLY the old to vote, or maybe have 2 votes? I mean by your logic they have lived in the country longer so should have a better idea of whats best for the country right?

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Pretty much this a billion times.
It's something that bothers me a lot about some games from the East that gets brought over, either by the devs themselves because they want to '' appeal to Westerners '' or by an overly-zealous localization team.
We already have Western games for that... Most of us who are fans of these games want to play them *because* they're Eastern it's a significant part of the appeal of the games.

Japanese games in particular have been on a big increase in popularity, in fact not only games but other media too like Anime and Manga.
So maybe the Japanese and other creators from the East are filling a void we have in the West and people like it because it's different.

Not saying that there's literally no room for it, the whole depiction of underage characters in sexual ways is really contentious.
But I think that there is a huge difference between sexualizing an adult and a minor and in some cases it's even a legal issue.
I think it just enters different territories where I have more of an understanding if they censor it.
Another good example is microtransactions, I think it's a lot more understandable to change the business model in the West for a Korean game for example.

But I think there is a problem when the content gets '' Westernized '' in ways that aren't a matter of legality for example or things that don't affect the content but is on the business side like microtransactions.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I think something like this would be a huge mistake if they actually implemented it, and would result in the westernification of the game and it would end up being another WoW experience

it is, at its base, a JRPG, and that comes with its own direction and design philosophy. if they add in some kind of voting system, it would likely be aimed at primarily Japanese players of the game and the direction its heading in because thats the culture they are more familiar with.

in the end, I doubt we would ever see the implementation of this kind of idea. If you dont like a movie franchise or its direction, dont go see the next movie, its that simple. If you dont like a game direction, unsub or stop playing. there is no difference. there is no player voting, and especially not one based on length of sub. this has got to be one of the dumbest ideas. I mean in whatever country you live in, would you want ONLY the old to vote, or maybe have 2 votes? I mean by your logic they have lived in the country longer so should have a better idea of whats best for the country right?

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What? The game is already as western as can be...

FFXI is a WAY, WAY, more Japanese MMO experience for example.
Sekiro is another example of what the pinnacle of modern Japanese gaming is, and so on. Nothing like FFXIV.

This game is slowly turning into a WoW clone more and more and getting more and more westernized every new update. Zero toon actual customization aside from looks (no custom abilities set, feats, talents, skill point distribution, nothing), extremely dumbed down and easy with zero complexity and challenge outside some few areas like extremes, savages and Eureka, etc..

Nope.

And for a lengthier answer:

I think this is a horrible idea and I also think the only reason you want weighted votes is because you think the 'hardcore' 'loyal' fans will be the ones who have played the longest and are likeliest to agree with you, you likely also realize that your preferences are likely to be outnumbered and thus seek to remedy it that way. Ergo, you want a weighted voting system that will preferably produce the results you want in as reliable a way as you can think of.

There's nothing fair or representative about it. I trust Yoshi P and his team to deliver, I don't trust you or anyone else to know better than them. Also, just as an amusing note, in an actual fair voting system.. I am pretty sure one of the first things to go would be Ultimates, probably followed by Savage.

Fair voting means every vote counts for exactly one. My grandmother doesn't get an election vote that counts for four just because she's four times my age, that's not how democracy works.

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Originally Posted by Fabbro

This game is slowly turning into a WoW clone more and more and getting more and more westernized every new update. Zero toon actual customization aside from looks (no custom abilities set, feats, talents, skill point distribution, nothing), extremely dumbed down and easy with zero complexity and challenge outside some few areas like extremes, savages and Eureka, etc..

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As someone who played during the time that the game allowed cross class and point allocation.....everyone picked nearly the same thing anyway. if you didnt put all your points into str as a melee you were doing something wrong and needed to spend 10000 company seals to reset your point allocation. This isn;t the freedom of expression you think it was, it was just an extra imaginary step.

also all the jank thats been removed from xiv were ideas borrowed from wow. if anything xiv is an evolution and what wow could be if it stopped harrassing women and turning them into fruit

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Originally Posted by Lanadra

Nope.

And for a lengthier answer:

I think this is a horrible idea and I also think the only reason you want weighted votes is because you think the 'hardcore' 'loyal' fans will be the ones who have played the longest and are likeliest to agree with you, you likely also realize that your preferences are likely to be outnumbered and thus seek to remedy it that way. Ergo, you want a weighted voting system that will preferably produce the results you want in as reliable a way as you can think of.

There's nothing fair or representative about it. I trust Yoshi P and his team to deliver, I don't trust you or anyone else to know better than them. Also, just as an amusing note, in an actual fair voting system.. I am pretty sure one of the first things to go would be Ultimates, probably followed by Savage.

Fair voting means every vote counts for exactly one. My grandmother doesn't get an election vote that counts for four just because she's four times my age, that's not how democracy works.

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Bingo. Nailed it in one.

Topics like this, and pretty much all of the threads complaining that "the devs just don't listen to the players!" are all written with the explicit or implicit assumption that "the players" all actually think along the lines of what the topic creator themselves wants. And, yes, it's often the more "hardcore" "old school" players that have that perspective. There's also a reality that if there was an optional vote of some kind, it's pretty likely that the more "hardcore" players are the ones who would respond so pretty much any vote conducted in this manner would be at least biased in that direction.

Let's be real, if the devs really did put out a vote that every single player of the game absolutely had to answer in a fair manner, the more casual players would carry simply because there are vastly, vastly more of them.

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Originally Posted by Fabbro

Some MMOs already implement this feature, Runescape (for example) has ingame poll booths where active players can voto on game changes, regarding to combat, PVP, etc., specially, no major change to game mechanics are ever made unless there is at least ~70% approval among voting players.

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Oldschool RuneScape does this exceptionally well, but only because they don’t want another situation to happen where they lose even more players, like what happened when RS3, Evolution Of Combat and micro transactions launched. Runescape went from WoW’s rival to basically being a ‘forgotten’ MMO with no where near as many players as it used to have.

OSRS has become way too dependant on the poll and they should have learned ages ago they can take the training wheels off and regain control on their game - I have seen OSRS come up with fantastic ideas that should have been put in the game but because of the 70% upvote requirement, they never saw the light of day. The game should be in the developers hands unless they’re in a dire situation and require the feedback of the community.

I don’t think Final Fantasy has a reason to implement the poll idea because they seem to do a good job listening to the community & putting in content we all love. If by chance SE were losing their magic touch and was chasing players away, I’d think this idea would be fantastic and could be a quick fix to the game but I’d never have it as a permanent thing.