Do the dev's actually play this game?

[Aegrus]

Playing a tank is not the same as playing a healer. Playing Monk is not the same as playing Black Mage. I ask this because having a diverse point of view is important, especially when tanks and healers are often lynchpins of good groups.

If you want another specific example, the aforementioned Monk still has obvious issues with greased lightning, and prolonged phase shifts such as Living Liquid in A3. The phase transitions are so long, that it is quite easy to drop greased lightning, and they are designed around a ramp up to 3 stacks. Just the extra ~2sec of cast delay in it being applied at the start instead of the end of the animation alone makes a huge QoL difference in the class. This is something you wouldn't know unless you play or work with players who play monk often.

The bigger point of the OP was also that Dev experience is also not the end all, player feedback is really important.

Yes please, another comparison to WoW we all know how great this[that?] game turned out.

Other MMO's exist, and set standards and expectations, you would be a fool to not acknowledge what works well for others.

[Lantia]

Other MMO's exist, and set standards and expectations, you would be a fool to not acknowledge what works well for others.

Yeah lost 5 Million users from autum to summer (expansion release 12 mio and may 7,1) is really something to look at ;D

[Remus]

Yeah lost 5 Million users from autum to summer (expansion release 12 mio and may 7,1) is really something to look at ;D

They will come back when the expansion comes out it always happens lol

[Tuathaa]

They will come back when the expansion comes out it always happens lol

Unless they do some dev changes or snipe their BC\Wotlk dev team back from LoL they are just hammering nails in their coffin

[Duelle]

Yeah lost 5 Million users from autum to summer (expansion release 12 mio and may 7,1) is really something to look at ;D

Have you wondered and looked into why that happened? I'll clue you in: they promised a bunch of stuff and never delivered for Warlords of Draenor, reduced the game world just to Garrisons and removed game features (like flying) to try to hide the fact the expansion was small compared to others.

The same would have happened here if after promising Ishgard the devs decided to use it only for cut scenes and prohibiting you from entering the city. That's how the people who were promised Karabor and Bladespire Citadel and then got crappy little bases using garrison assets felt.

[Gunspec]

Have you wondered and looked into why that happened? I'll clue you in: they promised a bunch of stuff and never delivered for Warlords of Draenor, reduced the game world just to Garrisons and removed game features (like flying) to try to hide the fact the expansion was small compared to others.

The same would have happened here if after promising Ishgard the devs decided to use it only for cut scenes and prohibiting you from entering the city. That's how the people who were promised Karabor and Bladespire Citadel and then got crappy little bases using garrison assets felt.

I like to stay in my house and manage retainer ventures and airship voyages. It feels just like WoW!
... and then I leave the house and play in an actual mmo.

[Kaurie]

Yeah lost 5 Million users from autum to summer (expansion release 12 mio and may 7,1) is really something to look at ;D

That just shows they had 5 million subscribers + which is an arm and a leg above what FFXIV has. They still have waaay more than FFXIV. This is an MMO that has had multi-million subscriber bases for over a decade. Ignoring it would be silly.

Look at what works, what hasn't worked. What brought in subscribers, what lost subscribers? etc.

[Tuathaa]

That just shows they had 5 million subscribers + which is an arm and a leg above what FFXIV has. They still have waaay more than FFXIV. This is an MMO that has had multi-million subscriber bases for over a decade. Ignoring it would be silly.

Look at what works, what hasn't worked. What brought in subscribers, what lost subscribers? etc.

They still have over 7 mil

[Fendred]

Yeah lost 5 Million users from autumn to summer (expansion release 12 mio and may 7,1) is really something to look at ;D

Considering FFXIV:ARR's end game is a slight variant of World of Warcraft's (and I'd know, I played both games), that should be somewhat concerning.

[Belhi]

Playing a tank is not the same as playing a healer. Playing Monk is not the same as playing Black Mage. I ask this because having a diverse point of view is important, especially when tanks and healers are often lynchpins of good groups.

If you want another specific example, the aforementioned Monk still has obvious issues with greased lightning, and prolonged phase shifts such as Living Liquid in A3. The phase transitions are so long, that it is quite easy to drop greased lightning, and they are designed around a ramp up to 3 stacks. Just the extra ~2sec of cast delay in it being applied at the start instead of the end of the animation alone makes a huge QoL difference in the class. This is something you wouldn't know unless you play or work with players who play monk often.

The bigger point of the OP was also that Dev experience is also not the end all, player feedback is really important.

They do respond to player feedback quite often. The WM/Gauss thing is a perfect example and acted upon quite quickly. The Dragoon positional tweeks too. As for the MNK, didn't the whole new meditation thing resolve much of the issues with phase transitions and GL? I haven't levelled my MNK to 60 yet so I don't know the mechanic.

As for the design thing, its likely a number of the devs do play support roles. More than that, any class will go through a lot of peer review by devs and rigorous testing by the QA constantly provide feedback. All the class changes have probably gone through many iterations before going live. Player feedback is valuable but often one set of feedback will contradict another and in some cases its an issue of people still adapting to new systems and encounters.

WoW is a really bad example. Hell we even had one of their devs say recently in an interview that it was a particular specs turn to be underpowered. There balance has often been a mess, let alone most of their class design.