Provide a warning about garden crops dying during extended server downtime

[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."