Developer lack of communication

[Moonlite]

The devs do pay attention to our concerns. Its pretty damn clear from what we hear in Live letters that they pay a lot of attention to community feedback, which frankly is the most important thing.

The reason devs probably don't communicate much, particularly through their CMs, is because they often don't 100% know for sure what changes they might make and any thing they post will be taken as gospel by the community even if they stress it only might be what they are doing. A lot of the time the only answer they can give is 'we are looking at it' and most people aren't going to be happy with that.

Really that is what you take away from the live letters and community management? You know how many times questions get ignored because they don't want to answer them. Or when they implement major systems and put little fore thought into how the community is going to play it and having someone who can respond.They can plan to hang out in Germany/UK/US but can't have a dev and translator when new content goes live. I don't mean a patch with two dungeons and some clicking on npcs.

Hunts and the pure server melting system they were at launch. No one could have fore seen it and been ready to respond? Housing and reclamation? Diadem v2 was slightly faster. But I chalk that up to timing/luck, not them planning and responding.

[Reaperking386]

Really that is what you take away from the live letters and community management? You know how many times questions get ignored because they don't want to answer them. Or when they implement major systems and put little fore thought into how the community is going to play it and having someone who can respond.They can plan to hang out in Germany/UK/US but can't have a dev and translator when new content goes live. I don't mean a patch with two dungeons and some clicking on npcs.Hunts and the pure server melting system they were at launch. No one could have fore seen it and been ready to respond? Housing and reclamation? Diadem v2 was slightly faster. But I chalk that up to timing/luck, not them planning and responding.

Devs have been paying attention to us and have made changes. A good example is the changes to summoner and bard. The Dev's do listen to us, but they do not have to listen to us all the time. If they listen to us all the time we would have romper wearing bunny boys running around our streets.

[Moonlite]

Devs have been paying attention to us and have made changes. A good example is the changes to summoner and bard. The Dev's do listen to us, but they do not have to listen to us all the time. If they listen to us all the time we would have romper wearing bunny boys running around our streets.

You consider expansion balancing listening? Listening would have been 3.1 Bard population has dropped off the face of the earth we fixed it. Two years for balancing REALLY REALLY. I want to type more really's. That is not a defense that's an example of not listening. Anything as simple as cast bar making it two patches is not listening. That is head in sand and hoping people adapt so you don't have to fix it. This is literally why I can't take any defense of the dev team serious.

[Welsper59]

You consider expansion balancing listening? Listening would have been 3.1 Bard population has dropped off the face of the earth we fixed it. Two years for balancing REALLY REALLY. I want to type more really's. That is not a defense that's an example of not listening. Anything as simple as cast bar making it two patches is not listening. That is head in sand and hoping people adapt so you don't have to fix it. This is literally why I can't take any defense of the dev team serious.

It's a priority thing. It always is, and it always will be. Conflicts with design goals are generally not going to be changed quickly if the current product is acceptable (it was). Minor balance changes or job-killing imbalances are often going to be addressed far sooner than later, simply because it's a quick tweak to static potency numbers that you can easily redo if it's still a problem. It'd be nice to fix any problem quickly, regardless of severity, but that's unrealistic to expect.

Listening and taking action are two completely different things. You are right, it is a "head in sand and hoping people adapt" situation. That's how it always is. If developers for any game have literally nothing better to do than immediately appeal to every criticism and adjust games based on the public's image (not their own), then the game has no future. If they simply listen however, they can prioritize things and watch how it unfolds over time. There's a strategy behind it, which as a saving grace for them, affords them time to work on other things. You don't want to knee-jerk reaction your changes because random people think something is bad. I would hope anyone sensible would agree with that. Hence why I'd argue they are listening. It's not an all or nothing thing. It rarely ever is, in life. Nor does it mean they must listen and act on everything. At that point, that's not listening, that's "obeying".

As you noted, you (or anyone) shouldn't be taking their defense as the only thing there is to it. They're not going to tell us exactly what's going on to the smallest detail, especially since it'd almost always involve something the public would not like but that the devs have to adhere to. The thing is, while it may not be all there is to the situation, I'd argue that it's at least a true statement in general usually. Your mention of two years for BRD was in regards to a major gameplay change that, while many did not like it (myself included), some did enjoy it. It didn't break the jobs ability to perform, obviously. What they did change frequently though was potency in light of the play style. They did the same for MCH and AST as well. Meaningful, yet simple changes that can result in consequence if left unfixed, like breaking the ability to perform effectively. They probably just decided from the beginning to let the turret playstyle linger through HW, in light of how fights were balanced and how they could freely change it with a new expansion.

[SendohJin]

You consider expansion balancing listening? Listening would have been 3.1 Bard population has dropped off the face of the earth we fixed it. Two years for balancing REALLY REALLY. I want to type more really's. That is not a defense that's an example of not listening. Anything as simple as cast bar making it two patches is not listening. That is head in sand and hoping people adapt so you don't have to fix it. This is literally why I can't take any defense of the dev team serious.

that has to do resources and they don't want to jeopardize the balance of the raid groups. the design was hugely flawed but it was functional. there's a difference between listening and doing. people who work for me can ask for raises/promotions, i always listen, doesn't mean i can always give them out when they ask.

[Leigaon]

...Seriously I think people take this nonsense too seriously. It's a video game. You want to know why the devs don't take us seriously? Cause of the over dramatic reactions ideas of things that are not even out yet.

Some of us have nothing better to do until 4.0 but be dramatic. But this time it's..really out of hand.

This brings up a very important topic. Developer communication...

....

[Lexia]

You know this is not a SE only problem lots of game developers do it show off trailers or game footage sometimes years before the game comes out and then later when actually comes out things been changed or completely cut from the game. As for XIV I agree with some other posts about how people over react way too much.

[Kaonis]

There has been some bad communication for a while now. But the thing that would probably rectify it, and I am baffled they stopped doing it, is player surveys on the state of the game and it's future. They did some surveys back in the 1.X days, which is why it's odd they don't ask for our feedback anymore. More and more I question how much the devs care or even want feedback, as I have quit in the past and there was no exit survey. Even now I am letting my sub lapse just a bit till SB, and there was nothing but a joke of an exit survey. This to me is baffling as every major MMO I played had some form of a survey to try and better understand why you were quitting and what would get you back.

Now of course it doesn't mean they will interpret that data in a meaningful way, but at least shows some semblance of caring why people are leaving.

[RukiaFae]

Greetings!

First off, thank you all for the continued feedback regarding the upcoming changes to white mage in Patch 4.0. We've been reading through it all and sharing it with the team.

As some have already pointed out, Yoshida recently made a comment about how casting Cure II will now grant a lily 100% of the time. The information and data revealed during the recent media tour was from a build made in late April, and various actions have been modified since then. While we continue to collect and relay your valuable feedback to the dev. team, we ask you to keep that in mind and hang tight a bit longer, until the finalized information is revealed in the patch notes.

10 more days till the early access!

Hey look you got your feedback. We can go back to being a happy forum now?

[Vespar]

Hey look you got your feedback. We can go back to being a happy forum now?

Oh but the Dev's dont communicate..
Nope I dont see anything...
/facepalm

I swear sometimes they have to get hit with it, in the face, with a wrecking ball...