On a scale of 1 to 5-- Do you feel SE listens to their western players? State why.

[KokonoeAiyoko]

I want everyone to feel welcomed to express their true feelings either positive or negative.

Are you satisfied with SE's communication and implementation of our ideas? Or do you feel they ignore a lot of very important things we suggest?

Do you feel the western players are treated equal to the Japanese players in terms of voicing their concerns? Or do you feel there is bias of any kind towards Japanese players?

I'm uncertain on how I feel about this as of yet, but I would like to create this thread to kind of get an idea of what the western player base feels regarding if they are listened to by SE, ignored, or somewhere in-between.

[Noshpan]

I feel that they listen to the community about as much as any other MMO developer. I am Japanese-illiterate, so I cannot get a feel one way or the other.

Despite flaws, I do enjoy playing this game very much.

[Ametrine]

3. The developers are sure to be inclusive to the Western player base in content in and out of the game however, it is easily seen on the forums here that the JP speaking players get a more direct line to the dev team.

Which makes complete sense as the devs are JP themselves.

I don't really take issue with this, though it is a bummer when great concepts put forward by English speaking fans are unnoticed because of a language barrier.

[Norleas]

Give us 1.0 butts back and they get a 5 :^)

[KitingGenbu]

2: mainly because of the language barrier, but the NA forums dont help much making it worth the time to even translate half of these threads. Even if you could read English natively, you don't want to read 5 threads on the same topic on the very first page just because each OP believes they have something so special to share on the issue that it couldn't fit into one thread. Probably why they tend to respond to the JP community at least first before everyone else, since if they have an issue, its usually in one thread.

[Colorful]

Either a 2 or 3, while they do listen they often misinterpret what players are asking for or implement it in a less than desirable way. I feel the best example of this is Lords of Verminion, people wanted pet battles but we got a clunky and rather simple RTS. I can't say if that's what the Japanese players requested, a mishandling of our community team or the FFXIV team not wanting to copy Pokemon though. From a few Japanese speaking people on Reddit the Japanese community feels they listen to us more, and that applies globally to SE titles over there. The grass is always greener on the other side.

What they could do to improve? I'd personally like to see the NA/EU community teams interact more with their respective communities, both WoW and Runescape have done this great in recent years with Runescape's team actively posting in the Subreddit and visibly responding to feedback, though I don't know how they manage with their always unhappy community. We do have SE_Kahuna though, he seems fairly active but acts more of a guide rather than one to collect feedback (though he could be doing both). I really don't know why NA put Japanese players on a pedestal, they're regular people just like everyone here. I've made a few English speaking Japanese friends on Tonberry and by all means they share a lot of the complaints we do, many of them are split on what they want for the game but that's how it is when you build an MMORPG that appeals to as much people as you can.

I hope this doesn't add to my many other posts that make no sense or exist to instigate arguments.

[Laerune]

I give them a 2 out of 5. If you listen to the Live Letter, may it be the one at E3 or the one that they do at Square Enix HQ or other events, they always respond with: "We do this and that based on the feedback that we have received from the Japanese community" This makes me think that they look at what the Japanese community thinks first. Which is what they did back in FFXI aswell.

Just look at how they released the Maid promotion items, they released it first in Japan 4-5 months earlier then the other regions and they screwed up the EU promotion events. If this was a company that valued all the regions equally, then they would have released the promotion at the same time for each region. The 1# complain that the NA/EU/AU community had was about the ATMA RNG collection method at the end of 2.55, we thought they had listened, but they still brought it back with the Anima Relic questline and even brought it back with the the Yo-Kai event. This gives me the impression that the Western voices do not matter at all.

SE says that they are listening, but honestly, to me it feels our words goes in one ear and out of the other ear.

How can they improve?

1. If there is a promotion going, release it at the same time for all the region, do not make one region feel inferior.
2. Do not add stuff to the game that players dislike. We have expressed dislike for the RNG debacle many times.
3. Fix the stuff that we have requested of you. Just because the Japanese community (Yoshida's word, not mine) are oke with the GC requirement for PvP, does not mean all of us are.
4. Have more discussions with the community, both Diadem and Lord of Vermillion are failures, when you want to add new stuff ask for feedback, throw some ideas and let the players participate.
5. During the BETA there was a ingame poll, release more of those in the game, ask what the players want and what they think of the recently released content.

SE needs to listen to the feedback and not only to the ones from the Japanese community.

[mosaicex]

OF COURSE they do.

All the nerfs we're getting, even in the easiest of easy content? All Western players complaints.

[KokonoeAiyoko]

4. Have more discussions with the community, both Diadem and Lord of Vermillion are failures, when you want to add new stuff ask for feedback, throw some ideas and let the players participate.
5. During the BETA there was a ingame poll, release more of those in the game, ask what the players want and what they think of the recently released content.

SE needs to listen to the feedback and not only to the ones from the Japanese community.

I definitely agree with this. It would be nice if they had more discussions with their English speaking player base. As a FFXI veteran, most of the changes were favored from Japanese players, like particularly Beast Master pets ideas where as the polls on the western side wanted a certain pet, they only cared about the Japanese poll despite creating the poll for both groups and we had far more votes. There were many instances like this and it would be nice if they listen to our more bolder ideas. (Essentially I don't want FFXI to be repeated.)

We definitely need to be treated equal, and if there is a language barrier problem, get the translators to do their job because we surely out number Japanese players and deserve our fair share. (Have nothing against Japanese players)

Your idea of a in-game poll to return is also a fantastic idea and it would let people show an opinion without coming to this site and it would allow every region to participate equally.

[Laerune]

I definitely agree with this. It would be nice if they had more discussions with their English speaking player base. As a FFXI veteran, most of the changes were favored from Japanese players, like particularly Beast Master pets ideas where as the polls on the western side wanted a certain pet, they only cared about the Japanese poll despite creating the poll for both groups and we had far more votes. There were many instances like this and it would be nice if they listen to our more bolder ideas. (Essentially I don't want FFXI to be repeated.)

We definitely need to be treated equal, and if there is a language barrier problem, get the translators to do their job because we surely out number Japanese players and deserve our fair share. (Have nothing against Japanese players)

Your idea of a in-game poll to return is also a fantastic idea and it would let people show an opinion without coming to this site and it would allow every region to participate equally.

Thanks for your response.

I think a great start would be to have a dialogue between the developers and the players. An ingame poll is a good way to do this. I like to have AMA type of thing going between the Western players and the developers. If the developers do not understand the language, then they can get a translator, this way we can have a direct discussion about the game and not feel left out.

Right now it feels like FFXI, where the Japanese community opinions -----------------------------------> Western community.