Where does the idea that Forums are for posting feedback to SE come from?

I've read messages like the following on any number of threads, more so in the last year or two:

"I've posted a lot of feedback in the forums over the years ... but they're very critical of the direction of the game, and the devs just didn't really care for it."

I find nothing in the Forum Welcome to Topic X messages to indicate the various forum topics are an official means of communication with Square Enix developers. Still, I've found a lot of complaints that say developers ignore their feedback, despite the clear topic descriptions that indicate it is for communication between players.

And yes, there are whole sections of topics that are specifically a means of communication with Square Enix. The Information, Technical Support, and Bug Report sections come to mind.

So, where does the idea that the forums are for posting feedback to SE come from? Was there an official posting or Live Letter comment that lead to this belief? Are players coming from other games simply used to communicating directly with developers? Has feedback in other games' official forums resulted in such great changes that players figure it should work here?

The game itself literally says to come here to post feedback and suggestions regarding the game.

https://files.catbox.moe/e1ltum.PNG

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

The game itself literally says to come here to post feedback and suggestions regarding the game.

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I feel like that's pretty vague and probably more relates to the support sections of the Forum. For example, the "Lore" section or "New Player Help" section wouldn't make sense for posting "suggestions". General Discussion is for General Discussion, not suggestions. The role threads are for, as stated here - https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ealer-Roles%21

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Welcome to Forum: Healer Roles!

The purpose of this forum is for players to hold discussions on Healer roles and its tactics with other players.

Please take time to read the following rules and the FINAL FANTASY XIV Forum Guidelines(North America/UK) before you post or start a discussion.

General Forum Rules:
Please refer to the following thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/63104

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Discussions on the Healer Role and tactics.

...not endless negativity and black knighting or attacking positive posters or some combination of asking for and demanding changes to the Jobs within the role - the things that ACTUALLY happen there. I feel like the Mods don't even go there, as if they did, 99% of the threads there would be shut down for not falling under the point of the thing.

This is why the complainers are correct about white knights running around here, it's just not an echo chamber.

Yoshi-P and Dev's themselves said that we should go to the Forums and give them their Feedback, encouraging us to try out ( whatever good or horrendous changes they made ) and post it on the Forums. Format apparently doesn't matter. Western Forums use endless amounts of Threads and the JP forums use Mega-threads. We even have Video feedbacks of x topics in multiple languages, it doesn't really matter? because its not clear what feedback they actually listen to exactly where. A lot of unwanted changes to Jobs they claimed were based on Player-Feedback, but when they happened? are met with negative feedback that got ignored by Square. So the way I see it? They do listen, but what they do with it? is not in our interest for best player-experience.

It's " Their wallets and Status-quo first " then " Whatever makes x easier to develop or Balance for the Devs " then " Our desires as the Players " in that order. The customer is not right. So the Forums, while it should be the source of feedback? somewhat devolves into a place for Venting and Sharing frustrations by many that feel like their voices aren't ever being heard no matter how loud they try to be.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I feel like that's pretty vague and probably more relates to the support sections of the Forum. For example, the "Lore" section or "New Player Help" section wouldn't make sense for posting "suggestions". General Discussion is for General Discussion, not suggestions. The role threads are for, as stated here - https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ealer-Roles%21

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You can feel like it's vague if you want I guess, but it's where the game tells you to come leave feedback, and the stickied post in this subforum says the same as well. General Discussion is literally for suggestions and feedback on the game.

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Originally Posted by Gildrein

Welcome to the official FINAL FANTASY XIV forums!

Welcome to the official FINAL FANTASY XIV forums!

These forums are a venue for players of FINAL FANTASY XIV to communicate with each other and submit feedback on the game, as well as being a centralized location for the development and operations teams to gather user suggestions concerning current and future game content.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I feel like that's pretty vague and probably more relates to the support sections of the Forum. For example, the "Lore" section or "New Player Help" section wouldn't make sense for posting "suggestions". General Discussion is for General Discussion, not suggestions. The role threads are for, as stated here - https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ealer-Roles%21



Discussions on the Healer Role and tactics.

...not endless negativity and black knighting or attacking positive posters or some combination of asking for and demanding changes to the Jobs within the role - the things that ACTUALLY happen there. I feel like the Mods don't even go there, as if they did, 99% of the threads there would be shut down for not falling under the point of the thing.

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"feedback and suggestions regarding FFXIV can be posted on the FFXIV official forums"

bro ? Lol, please explain in what way its vague ?

dont forget this one https://support.na.square-enix.com/c...382&la=1&fty=3

and in the live letters. Yoshi said himself that it easier to see post if its a mega post. however as you can see in the na side of things, we cant keep one post going until it gets swallowed(pause) by some trolls posts etc

million dollar question is were they pulling the feedback from cause its not here.

I feel official forums have always had a feedback element to them, since my days of vanilla WoW. How much feedback they take is another question. We are always a very small percentage of the games population, and never free from trolling, bias and the threat of becoming an echo chamber. One would hope they gauge opinion from a number of places, both official and not, plus the in-game metrics we are blind too.

Typical Midqo'te L.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

This is why the complainers are correct about white knights running around here, it's just not an echo chamber.

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This doesn't support the complainers' claim at all, though. o.O

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

You can feel like it's vague if you want I guess, but it's where the game tells you to come leave feedback, and the stickied post in this subforum says the same as well. General Discussion is literally for suggestions and feedback on the game.

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I'm not saying it doesn't say to come to the forum to post feedback. I'm saying that it may be talking about specific parts of the forum. Further, when was that text blurb added to the game? Was it while the old forums were still in operation? They were arranged differently...

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

bro ? Lol, please explain in what way its vague ?

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See above.

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Originally Posted by Hurlstone

I feel official forums have always had a feedback element to them, since my days of vanilla WoW. How much feedback they take is another question. We are always a very small percentage of the games population, and never free from trolling, bias and the threat of becoming an echo chamber. One would hope they gauge opinion from a number of places, both official and not, plus the in-game metrics we are blind too.

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This is probably accurate.

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And one thing is for sure:

No where does it say (a) that the feedback or suggestions MUST be negative, (b) that only negative posts are allowed, (c) that negative posters should attack positive posters, or (d) that only critical posts/criticism is allowed.
(Also, is it just me, or are people attacked much more here for being positive than for being negative... I mean, it's clearly not just me, and that's a rhetorical question so rhetorical I didn't put a question mark on it to avoid any possible confusion.)

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Originally Posted by Renathras

(Also, is it just me, or are people attacked much more here for being positive than for being negative... I mean, it's clearly not just me, and that's a rhetorical question so rhetorical I didn't put a question mark on it to avoid any possible confusion.)

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I feel you are incorrect. negative posters do get attacked, its just people being positive have far more buzzwords that can be attached to them it seems. if you post a positive thread, you are usually clearly delusional, a company shill, a white knight, being disingenuous with your post, just posting to troll the negative posters etc... but it all goes in phases, currently, there are more trolls and negative people posting. their theory that they like to put forth is they love the game and everyone who doesnt complain.. doesnt love it as much as they do.

no matter how you look at it, given the complete lack of moderation, I do not expect anything to change. no one in their right mind would come here for feedback, not sure about other language forums, but the NA one is a longstanding dumpster fire

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

I find nothing in the Forum Welcome to Topic X messages to indicate the various forum topics are an official means of communication with Square Enix developers.

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They literally tell us it is in live letters regularly. They tell us to leave our feedback on the forums. They talk frequently about how they read the forums, or use the search feature to find feedback relating to something they want to do.

The issue is that the development happens in Japan where they obviously speak Japanese, which leaves the English feedback subject to what is translated or the developers who can read English. Typically, the 10 most popular topics are translated, from my understanding, although I see no reason for them not to just glance at it with Google Translate.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

This doesn't support the complainers' claim at all, though. o.O



I'm not saying it doesn't say to come to the forum to post feedback. I'm saying that it may be talking about specific parts of the forum. Further, when was that text blurb added to the game? Was it while the old forums were still in operation? They were arranged differently...



See above.



This is probably accurate.

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And one thing is for sure:

No where does it say (a) that the feedback or suggestions MUST be negative, (b) that only negative posts are allowed, (c) that negative posters should attack positive posters, or (d) that only critical posts/criticism is allowed.
(Also, is it just me, or are people attacked much more here for being positive than for being negative... I mean, it's clearly not just me, and that's a rhetorical question so rhetorical I didn't put a question mark on it to avoid any possible confusion.)

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Generally speaking, Players don't go to the Forums to gush about how insanely amazingly good XIV is that they cant' stop playing it... Well, except when they have to post about how great it is and disagreeing with anyone who doesn't feel the same way because everyone should feel this way about XIV being flawless ( obviously ). Most players who are happy with the game? just don't ever go to the forums. Which leaves a good portion of Forum posters with players who aren't as happy with the game as they could be, or have been due to changes.

Thus " Feedback ". Players believe x can improve the game or their experiencing. Posting why something didn't happen this way sharing frustrations and expectations not being met. Or experiencing Patch changes with let downs about content or Job changes they aren't liking. Posting continuously because this is what we're being told to do. That does not mean all Feedback is or must be negative, but that they can come off as negative. You also have troll posters because,... well that's a good one... I think cause... huh... people have weird Kinks is all I gotta say =u=;

Forums exist for feedback. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Most of us have some unfulfilled requests that we would like to see in game, and the more invested we become, the more likely we are to post about it. Many of these requests are going to be at odds with each other, because we often have competing interests. Job balance discussions are the perfect example of this.

I think if you open with a vague statement about how you're unsatisfied, you want to be listened to, and you want to see changes, you'll get a lot of support. Everyone knows that feeling. It's only when you actually put your demands on the table that the differences in opinion will actually come out in the open. But you cannot bludgeon people with your views to get them to agree.

The people who are posting about being generally happy are providing their own feedback as well. Their feedback is that they don't want to see some of the lower quality takes expressed in here actually make it into the game by accident. And let's be real, being prolific is by no means a mark of having a valuable take. It's usually the opposite. If you're constantly hitting post cap trying to win over the forums, nobody is buying what you're selling.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

You can feel like it's vague if you want I guess, but it's where the game tells you to come leave feedback, and the stickied post in this subforum says the same as well. General Discussion is literally for suggestions and feedback on the game.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

"feedback and suggestions regarding FFXIV can be posted on the FFXIV official forums"

bro ? Lol, please explain in what way its vague ?

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Except that what people like you do isn't providing feedback. It's complaining and complaining because FF14 doesn't fit YOUR vision of the game <3

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Originally Posted by subatomic

Except that what people like you do isn't providing feedback. It's complaining and complaining because FF14 doesn't fit YOUR vision of the game <3

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I'm sorry who are you again ? Apparently you decide what is feedback or not ? Didnt know you were part of the dev team, guess they hired some new people

Also lol @my vision of the game, please shush and stop trying to be a smart butt, it aint working, go cry somewhere else about the "negative forums"

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

I'm sorry who are you again ? Apparently you decide what is feedback or not ? Didnt know you were part of the dev team, guess they hired some new people

Also lol @my vision of the game, please shush and stop trying to be a smart butt, it aint working, go cry somewhere else about the "negative forums"

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Who are you? Do you have any experience in game development :O

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Originally Posted by subatomic

Who are you? Do you have any experience in game development :O

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Lol, does anybody else get the feeling this is just titanmen/skiros but arguing from the opposite position?

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Lol, does anybody else get the feeling this is just titanmen/skiros but arguing from the opposite position?

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I was thinking of that + everything reads like one of those bots generated replies in twitters that's designed to write obtusely.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

I was thinking of that + everything reads like one of those bots generated replies in twitters that's designed to write obtusely.

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gawd damn. they have a massive case of DiD then

i think the worst case is from I've been seeing alot is one provides a suggestion and/or qol and then get shot down. I good example of this.

A :Se should add a material storage. it would help with inventory problems.

B: no, you need to mange it better. you not suppose to be hoarding any old material and armor.

A) but you can store all mats ,materia. and bait. You can craft and fish anywhere and you dont have to go back to your retainer.

B) no just mange your inventory better and use you chocobo saddle for bait.

The good ole ARR launch event and Titan challenge. It was a time when they couldn't even fill up a conference room in Seattle. YoshiP and Koji were candid they would add more servers and they appreciated the forum feedback as they work adding many new features towards the huge 2.1 patch. Bayohne was the NA community lead and Foxclon is still worldwide, both were there.

I can't remember if it was a community stream with Bayohne and Foxclon but it was explained they looked at most talked about topics and would bring it up in their reports. There usually was the same things talked about in other languages as well.

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Originally Posted by subatomic

It's complaining and complaining because FF14 doesn't fit YOUR vision of the game <3

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Thank you for defining feedback.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

no matter how you look at it, given the complete lack of moderation, I do not expect anything to change. no one in their right mind would come here for feedback, not sure about other language forums, but the NA one is a longstanding dumpster fire

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Another big company called "A... on" is closing its official forums for a discord forum/discussion channels, thus things could change.

For now, everyone is free to write what he thinks about the game, good or bad, true or false, white knight or hater.
We aren't a Vath colony with one mind and who doesn't think like us must be erased.

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Originally Posted by Mr_Gyactus

Another big company called "A... on" is closing its official forums for a discord forum/discussion channels, thus things could change.

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Amazon had forums?

These forums at this point are just a placebo for those who think their feedback is being read.

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Originally Posted by Axxion

gawd damn. they have a massive case of DiD then

i think the worst case is from I've been seeing alot is one provides a suggestion and/or qol and then get shot down. I good example of this.

A :Se should add a material storage. it would help with inventory problems.

B: no, you need to mange it better. you not suppose to be hoarding any old material and armor.

A) but you can store all mats ,materia. and bait. You can craft and fish anywhere and you dont have to go back to your retainer.

B) no just mange your inventory better and use you chocobo saddle for bait.

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Either I dont remember the Thread this came from, or I simply wasnt there. But to give a reply to this.....

No, this is NOTHING...but a Good Idea. Inventory is pretty small, or at the very least it does fill up very quickly. a Separate Materials Storage is a good idea, that way inventory space doesnt get taken up.
But yes, because we currently dont have this kind of system, you should be keeping a better eye on your inventory and managing it accordingly. And why ARE you hoarding Armor? At least put it away in your retainers, your Chocobo Bag or your Dresser...which has kind of become a glorified Inventory Box Ill admit I put stuff in there cause space.

I support the A idea, but also echo B only because we dont currently have it.

An internet forum is a place where people may spend their lives arguing with each other unsuccessfully.

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

Amazon had forums?

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The Lost Ark forums were an absolute dumpster fire compared to the worst you see here.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

These forums at this point are just a placebo for those who think their feedback is being read.

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Woah now. It's also an excellent source of amusing drama and trolling.

It's for feedback. It's also for community discussion. Someone could leave feedback and the rest of the community has a chance to discuss their own take on the subject.

The Community team probably scans on a regular basis for new topics that may actually include feedback/suggestions on topics that the development team hasn't already addressed in some way. Some may end up missed in the general chaos but we know some do make it to the developers because we've seen responses.

The problem is the players who demand that their thread become an echo chamber supporting their idea and that those who disagree shouldn't post. That's not the way it works. If you can't handle disagreement with your ideas, then don't post them in the official forums. Post them through the Suggestion portion of the Support Desk instead.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

The problem is the players who demand that their thread become an echo chamber supporting their idea and that those who disagree shouldn't post. That's not the way it works. If you can't handle disagreement with your ideas, then don't post them in the official forums. Post them through the Suggestion portion of the Support Desk instead.

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Well, that's ironic considering you're from one of the handful of factions around here that tries to stifle any disagreement.

oh they take feedback, but you're better off having someone translate your feedback to Japanese and posting it on the Japanese forums.

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Originally Posted by MsMisato

oh they take feedback, but you're better off having someone translate your feedback to Japanese and posting it on the Japanese forums.

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Pretty much this, we have complaint megathreads that go on for years still without much change.

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Originally Posted by Mr_Gyactus

Another big company called "A... on" is closing its official forums for a discord forum/discussion channels, thus things could change.

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I used to be on the Insomniac Games official forums until they shut it down in favour of a Discord server. I gave up even trying to talk there. It's a miserable substitute for a forum.

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

Either I dont remember the Thread this came from, or I simply wasnt there. But to give a reply to this.....

No, this is NOTHING...but a Good Idea. Inventory is pretty small, or at the very least it does fill up very quickly. a Separate Materials Storage is a good idea, that way inventory space doesnt get taken up.
But yes, because we currently dont have this kind of system, you should be keeping a better eye on your inventory and managing it accordingly. And why ARE you hoarding Armor? At least put it away in your retainers, your Chocobo Bag or your Dresser...which has kind of become a glorified Inventory Box Ill admit I put stuff in there cause space.

I support the A idea, but also echo B only because we dont currently have it.

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well here you go also forgot to mention. dont forget the housing items

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-own-inventory

also to mentioned to increase space as well.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...nventory-space
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...nventory-space

please note it can be more however these are the only ones that im subscribed to. now there is one that is more recent but i cannot find it. I just need to wait for one person to chime in here and then i can find it

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Originally Posted by Iscah

It's a miserable substitute for a forum.

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true, but from the company point of view is a win:
- no laws issues
- no moderation to pay
- no hardware costs
- other

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

I find nothing in the Forum Welcome to Topic X messages to indicate the various forum topics are an official means of communication with Square Enix developers. Still, I've found a lot of complaints that say developers ignore their feedback, despite the clear topic descriptions that indicate it is for communication between players...

...So, where does the idea that the forums are for posting feedback to SE come from? Was there an official posting or Live Letter comment that lead to this belief? Are players coming from other games simply used to communicating directly with developers? Has feedback in other games' official forums resulted in such great changes that players figure it should work here?

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Where else are they going to go? Even without specific mention to come here to leave feedback and suggestions, these are the official discussion forums for FFXIV. People will naturally gravitate here to mention what is on their minds.

The disconnect comes from thinking that as far as suggestions and feedback goes, that this is the place to go to communicate directly with the dev team. In terms of that, this place is nothing more than a 'suggestions box' in the company breakroom. The term echo chamber doesn't necessarily derive from posters parroting off of each other, but rather that your shouts echo from the vastness of the void, and are to be heard by anyone within your vicinity rather than the devs themselves. It's the term "hivemind" that applies only to those who just repeat what is heard instead of challenging it with their own critical thinking.

What's said here that actually makes it to the dev team is anyone's guess. But to say that none of it does is erroneous thinking, especially when a person's specific suggestion or complaint is not addressed. It is not the job of the dev team to cater to every single person with the next 'ground breaking' idea to add or change the game with. Nor are they obligated to succumb or apologize to a mob of dissatisfied players within its community. When they actually eff something up such as Hrothgar hairstyles, or the last raid series. That kind of feedback is responded to very quickly and addressed. If you're going to talk about how you're going to unsub if they don't bring Kaiten back? Well, I guess "Bye Felicia".