Provide a warning about garden crops dying during extended server downtime

[AzhiDahaki]

There is no need to be so hostile with anyone who shows a shred disagreement with you.

I don't think your feedback is trivial. What I do know is that numbers talk and there just aren't enough players affected by the issue often enough for this to be flagged as a serious problem. Unless SE have already planned it and it's coming in Stormblood, I don't think we will see anything done about this any time soon.

I want to see something done about it. I'm just being realistic about my expectations.

Oh come on, I'm hardly being hostile, if anything I'm being persistently assertive about my thesis in the face of criticism.

This stuff about numbers and issues being important enough to be "flagged", maybe that is how it is, idk, this is the first feedback I've tried to offer. When I made this thread the timing of it was important-- the issue had just occurred with the most recent downtime, meaning this would be an ideal time to bring awareness to it because probably the maximum amount of players would have been affected by it. The testimonies given by others in this thread who were negatively affected by this issue represent a fragment of the total players affected by it, and I think any dev who reads this thread will agree that providing a warning would be simple, time/cost-effective, and would give official acknowledgement to the problem that we all (apparently) agree exists.

[Penthea]

Oh come on, I'm hardly being hostile, if anything I'm being persistently assertive about my thesis in the face of criticism.

If you want to call snide sarcasm about my familiarity with SE's methods assertiveness, okay. You could have made your point without that though.

Anyway...

the issue had just occurred with the most recent downtime, meaning this would be an ideal time to bring awareness to it because probably the maximum amount of players would have been affected by it

Not sure what you mean with this. Surely more players would be affected during times like when an actual major patch hits at the start or middle of an expansion when player population peaks, and not when the game is very quiet due to pre expansion down time and servers are only down for maintenance. Or do you mean you wish to bring up this issue while it's still fresh in people's minds from the most recent maintenance?

[AzhiDahaki]

If you want to call snide sarcasm about my familiarity with SE's methods...

You're reading the snideness into it. If I was sarcastic at any point, maybe it's because I'm getting a little tired of the repetitive pushback against my suggestion? I'm pretty sure everything that needs to be said in this thread has already been said days ago.

... to bring up this issue while it's still fresh in people's minds from the most recent maintenance?

Yes that's right.

[AzhiDahaki]

... Surely more players would be affected during times like when an actual major patch hits at the start or middle of an expansion when player population peaks, and not when the game is very quiet due to pre expansion down time and servers are only down for maintenance.

Yes, that's probably true, all the more reason to address this issue sooner rather than later. I guess my feeling was that right now, during the pre-SB lull, others like myself are trying gardening for the first time, it's a nice additional reason to log in every day while waiting for SB, so I figured this recent downtime (because it was so long and because of its timing) probably affected more gardeners than usual.

[Lexia]

Oh come on, I'm hardly being hostile, if anything I'm being persistently assertive about my thesis in the face of criticism.

This stuff about numbers and issues being important enough to be "flagged", maybe that is how it is, idk, this is the first feedback I've tried to offer. When I made this thread the timing of it was important-- the issue had just occurred with the most recent downtime, meaning this would be an ideal time to bring awareness to it because probably the maximum amount of players would have been affected by it. The testimonies given by others in this thread who were negatively affected by this issue represent a fragment of the total players affected by it, and I think any dev who reads this thread will agree that providing a warning would be simple, time/cost-effective, and would give official acknowledgement to the problem that we all (apparently) agree exists.

Welcome to the forums, responses you get won't vary much from here on other topics either. Oh and the devs don't read the forums, only the community reps check the forums and then pass information along if it a hot topic.

[AzhiDahaki]

Welcome to the forums, responses you get won't vary much from here on other topics either. Oh and the devs don't read the forums, only the community reps check the forums and then pass information along if it a hot topic.

Oh yeah thanks for the welcome, you've been really helpful and encouraging.

I don't harbor any illusions that the devs are constantly monitoring the forums for ideas. The fact remains that the only in-game support I've received is being directed to this forum to offer feedback, so that's what I'm doing. I simply meant that if any dev DID read this thread, they'd agree my suggestion is a reasonable one.

What exactly qualifies as a "hot topic"?

[Penthea]

Oh yeah thanks for the welcome, you've been really helpful and encouraging.

I simply meant that if any dev DID read this thread, they'd agree my suggestion is a reasonable one.

Like it or not that person is telling the truth. Community reps are literally hired to read the forums and give feedback to devs if anything becomes popular enough or appears to be an issue that should be brought to their attention.

Also the devs are japanese...so I don't think many personally read the english forums.

What exactly qualifies as a "hot topic"?

Anything that a large number of players talk about in a short space of time. Unfortunately this thread or the issue it is about doesn't qualify for that. It may be a hot topic in this particular corner of the forums, but compared to other parts of the forums it's very quiet here. Likely because most players don't have access to housing so they don't feel what goes on here affects them much. A hot topic is also usually brought up in other places too like twitter and reddit. It rarely stays contained in one place.

[AzhiDahaki]

Like it or not that person is telling the truth. Community reps are literally hired to read the forums and give feedback to devs if anything becomes popular enough or appears to be an issue that should be brought to their attention.

I have no problem with community reps, that makes perfect sense. I guess I just find the apparent cynicism on these forums, particularly that people (players) are so eager to jump to defend the status quo, distasteful.

[Penthea]

I have no problem with community reps, that makes perfect sense. I guess I just find the apparent cynicism on these forums, particularly that people (players) are so eager to jump to defend the status quo, distasteful.

The cynicism comes with years of playing mmos and being active in their forums. You eventually pick up how a lot of things work in the forums themselves, what sort of things community reps communicate to the devs and the circumstances that usually lead to it happening. One major factor is of course numbers.

As I said in another post; numbers talk. A lot of the time truly excellent feedback can be lost in the ocean of threads and posts because not enough people relate to it, so it doesn't get promoted with responses, likes or reposts in other media platforms.

This shouldn't deter you from giving feedback but if what you're talking about is experienced by only a very small number of players and they don't experience it very frequently (once every few months isn't frequent, which is the case with this plant issue) you can't expect it to get fixed anytime soon. Especially if it's something working as intended and not a bug. The plant issue is working as intended, it may not be good design but it's working exactly how it was designed to. If it was a bug then it would get fixed quickly because bugs can create more malfunctions over time if they're left untouched.

[AzhiDahaki]

... if what you're talking about is experienced by only a very small number of players and they don't experience it very frequently (once every few months isn't frequent, which is the case with this plant issue) you can't expect it to get fixed anytime soon.

Mm, perhaps. I get that numbers draw attention. But I feel like we're underestimating SE here. Making assumptions about their corporate workflow based on outsider/player observations is understandable, yet the fact remains that addressing this issue with a simple warning would immediately benefit SE & it's players, both in terms of showing goodwill towards gardeners/housing enthusiasts (which you've admitted is an oft-neglected segment of the playerbase) and by improving the integrity of FFXIV's design (which includes community interactions through media like downtime notifications). Yes, it's an issue of minute importance in the grand-scheme of FFXIV, yet it's also something which can be addressed swiftly and with minute effort to yield immediate benefits.

I'm talking about seeing SE as a company that is capable of acting with flexibility-- after all, that's a hallmark of any good MMORPG. It's also a matter of degrees-- one who can only see the "big issues" and is blind to the "little issues" is letting those little issues snowball into bigger issues. As you and others in this thread have brought to my attention, this plant issue is another in a long line of problems that paints the picture of FFXIV's housing system as "bad."