Should they add a survey in-game?

There seems to be some sort of disconnect between the developers and the players over the last years, and recent events have kind of brought that to light (questionable job changes that no one asked for, the hrothgar hair debacle...) Yoshida often asks people to give their feedback in the forums, but these forums arent the best for discussion and most people dont even consider actually posting in them unless something goes really bad. Many also feel like anything not written on the JP forums gets ignored, regardless of what reality is.

A similar idea was brought up in JP, but i thought to expand a bit on it. I think if they added a survey some days after a patch drops, or before taking certain decisions (like amputated hrothgars), in a one-time popup on login or in the launcher, it would really help to communicate our opinions to the developers as a complement to the forums.

For instance:

- forums are inefficient.
Very little people actually go through the trouble of making an account and posting threads or replies, and a lot of those threads/replies often have people arguing in circles, trolling, or not really adding much of substance. A survey would probably gather more people's opinions simply because its less effort, and it could have more direct feedback too.

- forums are overly negative
People that are content, indifferent or even mildly discontent with the game are not wont to go and post on the forums. This makes the forums overly biased and its hard to tell the true opinion of the majority of the playerbase. A survey could gather milder opinions so they dont get drowned out by a loud minority.

- New dimension of data
I dont know how the developers gather the data they use for making decisions, but it's most likely a mix of participation and success statistics. While those numbers do give a lot of insights, the truth is that such data can be misleading because participation does not equal satisfaction. For example, I've been playing AST since Heavensward, and while im still playing AST i think Endwalker's is the worst iteration of the job up to date. Similarly WHM was objectively the weakest healer before 6.1 but it remained the most popular.

- Feeling ignored
A lot of players often feel like the feedback in the forums doesnt reach the developers, or worse it gets disregarded completely. The truth is that having to parse through dozens of threads and hundreds of replies on multiple languages and maybe even social media is too much for anyone to properly do. Add in language barriers and lack of consensus from the playerbase and its a recipe for disaster. A survey could better collect data to be easier analyzed.



Now, I'm not saying a survey would solve every miscommunication, nor should it. Make a survey too extense or too often and people won't fill it. A survey also runs into the risk of being "for or against" and since people are generally averse to change, it might seem counterproductive. In the JP forum it was pointed out that more casual player might not even care to fill the survey so the data collected could be skewed.

Nevertheless, despite the cons and pitfalls, i believe a well implemented survey could help the developers to have better idea of what the players want and how they feel, even if its a mostly general one.

what do you guys think?

I'd be 1000% for this, particularly since we have sites which either skew positive or negative but nothing really to objectively base where the majority sits on a lot of topics, and whether any sites we do have make for good samples of that.

Believe it or not Forums do generally paint a "reasonably" accurate picture of the games wider community. There's been billions invested on research into consumer feedback and satisfaction trends that prove it.

From Another thread

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These forums are terrible and do not reflect the FFXIV community.

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Actually they do with a decent degree of accuracy. It's been proven time and time again, that's why people dont really throw around the old buzz words of "vocal minority" and such anymore becuase they've been proven to be bs.

People make the mistake of counting forum users as one sub set of the games player base and that's innacurate. The forum users consist of playrs from almost every subset you can imagine. Male, Female, Non Binary, Old, Young, Crafters, Gatherers, Casual players, Hardcore raiders, Speed runners, Role Players, Weekend warriors you name a sub set and there will be users of the forum who represent it.

What this does is it actually makes the forums a reasonably accurate representation of the playerbase as a whole.. Dissmissing the forums as a singular subset would be a big error and a common mistake.

A real world comparisson could be if I went to stand outside a Wallmart store and surveyed 1,000 customers about a chocolate bar... If the comon opionion opinion was it was flavorless you wouldn't dismiss that as just a Wallmart customers opinion. nor would you call it a "vocal minority" because the millions of people who didn't take the survey or dont shop at Wallmart must think the chocolate bar is amazing.

Companies have spent billions on consumer research and the results of all that rresearch often says that for every person that complains there's 25 people that share the same complaint but remain silent about it.

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“Only 1 out of 26 unhappy customers complain. The rest churn. A lesson here is that companies should not view absence of feedback as a sign of satisfaction. The true enemy is indifference.”

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Source

That last part is important and a mistake many people make. Silence or lack of feedback does not mean satisfaction or happiness. neither does participation..

You could take healers in XIV as an example. Lots of complaints Lots of silent people, Lots of people still playing healers...
You can not assume that all the people playing healer or are silent think the job is great..
the evidence shows that's just not true. Many will play the job simply because its needed by there groups or raid statics, Many just for faster queues on roulettes for tomes, other for completion sake. get every job to 90. many reasons.

So to dismiss the forums as an innacurate representation of the general playerbase is a huge mistake and one that many companies and games developers have learnt the hard way, All the consumer research proves that it's more likely to be accurate than not becuase forum users aren't a single subset.
It's the reason terms like "vocal minority" have died and no one with any sense uses them anymore.

The thing with a survey though is they'd really need to survey everyone if they wanted to get any meaningful data.
Not just currently active players but everyone who has dropped there sub or quit also.

For example: To make the game "less boring" you first need to understand why Players get bored so quickly and leave or quit playing.
Admittedly Players who have quit are less likely to provide answers but even if just 10% of them answered that'd give SE alot more valuable information than just asking the active playerbase at that time.

The first step to solving problems is to identify them. And who better to ask why the game is boring for example than players who have quit playing because its boring.. The same goes for a variety of other game issues.
I know many people who have quit because combat is just "weightless button mashing" and many more who have quit because the game is to braindead easy. you can afk and still win a solo instance.. and others who think the lack of a challenge detracts from the story.. OMG the world is doomed >> effortless roflstomp >> the world is saved... REALLY?!?!?!

Active players alone can't provide anywhere near enough information.

Absolutely PROVIDING the following points are addressed

-The survey must be fair. One returned survey per service account. Dont want botters etc skewering it
-Questions and given answers (for closed questions) within the survey must not be tailored to the developers preferences. This survey is designed to reconnect devs and players and so the devs WILL need to acknowledge some uncomfortable truths
-Further more the results must be publicly available if possible. We don't want any manipulation of results now
-An effort must be made to get the survey to players that left and would like to rejoin if their concerns got addressed for particular important ones like job changes or housing

I've brought up the idea of a survey in shb but it never really got anywhere. with EW now is a good time as we're looking for another 10 years

+1
I agree.
I still remember when OSRS launched, the developers actually implemented a ‘poll’ and left the decision making to the players. I think there had to be 75% of people who voted yes, any lower wouldn’t be put in the game. I thought it was an interesting way to get the players involved/submit feedback.

Sorry for ranting about another MMO, it just reminded me of it :)

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Originally Posted by Dzian

*snippity snip*

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I'd agree on both counts. I believe the forums probably are reasonably accurate as a representation of player views, but equally I don't think it'd hurt to have some transparency about surveys to validate that this is the case (or not), and I would also agree with the scope you propose.

I received an in-game survey, maybe a month before Endwalkers dropped.

I remember they did surveys and polls during when Yoshida took over 1.0 and during the beta I think?
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/46936

A survey would be good, just because it would allow input about specific questions, but I would have concerns about what questions they would ask and how they'd word it.

Until surveys become a thing (which I don't think is very likely), I highly recommend sending in feedback as a suggestion in the game's support menu while also continuing to voice concerns in the forums.

Sure, I don't see why not. I doubt it would do much at all to change the development of the game but I see no real harm in more ways to give feedback.

Mobile Games such as Arknights, Fate Grand/Order, Genshin/Honkai, etc. do this a lot. Though I cannot attest to how often they actually listen to the feedback, I mean, Genshin still hasn't buffed the OG4 (Traveler, Amber, Lisa, Kaeya). It none the less is always nice that it is there. They also give incentives to give your feedback and participate- a literal 'Penny for your Thoughts'.

It's also a good way to check with the community about your upcoming ideas so stuff like the SAM changes and such can be looked at by the playerbase to decide if that'll kill their enjoyment. I'm aware YoshiP said they don't mind if you unsub or stop playing, but they should probably care if the players no longer have a class they enjoy playing when they do.

It would also help compile data. most of the example games will give "Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Neutral/Agree/Strongly Agree" sliding scales, but then a text entry on some of the more complex things.

I've been thinking that polls would work better as well, such as a poll to see the popularity of each ability for each job. Then the developers would have a clear idea of which abilities people like or think should be changed or removed.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

- forums are overly negative
People that are content, indifferent or even mildly discontent with the game are not wont to go and post on the forums. This makes the forums overly biased and its hard to tell the true opinion of the majority of the playerbase.

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When I play the game, everyone is happy but when I come to the forums a lot of people are negative and rude and paint a picture of the game being in a really bad state. It's not in a bad state at all and there are so many things that are good. It's important to acknowledge the good things and to be polite and understanding of the challenges developers face when making a criticism, but that is lacking on these forums.

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I've been playing AST since Heavensward, and while im still playing AST i think Endwalker's is the worst iteration of the job up to date.

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I enjoyed AST in Shadowbringers. It can still be enjoyed now but it was better at the start of 5.0 where you would work towards Divination and put cards you don't want into Lord/Lady.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

When I play the game, everyone is happy but when I come to the forums a lot of people are negative and rude and paint a picture of the game being in a really bad state. It's not in a bad state at all and there are so many things that are good. It's important to acknowledge the good things and to be polite and understanding of the challenges developers face when making a criticism, but that is lacking on these forums.

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That's largely been my experience as well. Pretty much everywhere you look except the forums you see a largely very positive perspective on the game, and I would imagine any in game polls would probably reflect that mostly positive attitude. I do think the devs could absolutely do a better job communicating their thoughts and intentions with the players, and I would never turn down another tool to give feedback, but I highly doubt there would suddenly be some massive development shift just because a poll existed.