DRKs talking to a brick wall

[Vallamaria]

A community manager would not have the right to say anything about confirmed class changes, unless told to by their superior. Their job is to moderate the forums, not make changes to the game. They should be giving feedback of the players to the appropriate staff, not replying to us on here.

I am fairly certain the community is calling for a developer’s input, not the community managers, though I realize the OP is looking for a community rep.

You guys seriously seem to be missing the point I was trying to make entirely. I wasn't trying to say I expect specifically a Community Rep's input. I was just trying to point out the fact that the last time anyone working for SE has ever responded to a thread in this sub-forum was back in February 2016. Which is almost 2 years ago.

Although it would certainly be nice to get at least a response from a Community Rep saying that they've noticed our outcry and have let the developers know there's an issue. So that the developers can then look into it. Since Community Rep's can at least do that much. Given a Community Rep did very much so respond to the outcry over the housing issue over in the French sub-forum and said that Yoshi-P would be notified of the issue.

[Vallamaria]

You mean the Q and A where they PR handpick questions that don't matter?

Actually they have picked out some questions that do matter before in past Q&As. Some past examples include:

• The issue of Tanks having no STR on their accessories in 4.0. Which was causing Tanks to use STR accessories rather than VIT.

• Players feeling like Tenacity as a stat wasn't effective enough.

• The player concern at the start of 4.0 about WAR/DRK feeling sub-par compared to the offensive and defensive capabilities PLD.

Aside from those 3 Tank related issues they also responded to questions concerning other Jobs too in this particular Q&A: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Update-Thread

So please don't falsely claim that they never pick any questions that actually matter. Since that thread I linked alone proves that they do actually take notice of important issues if enough people are asking about them. So if during the next Q&A all the upset DRKs let their outcry be heard there's a very high chance that some of those questions will be noticed. Which is likely to bring more attention to the problem.

[Karshan]

Well, they did respond through the forum for SMN (we heard, we're working on it, check dev tracker) after the big mess they made on it at 4.0, so just continue the threads and maybe they will communicate a bit about DRK.

[Chrono_Rising]

Also, this isn’t only about getting developer attention. People also build consensus, discuss issues in different contexts and build off each others ideas. Stopping the conversation is a bad idea. The live letter should an extension of the conversation people are having here, not the only conversation people are having.

[347SPECTRE]

Don't let these threads die. Keep the conversation going and the ideas flowing.

[TouchandFeel]

I'm sorry but "just wait until (patch 4.01, patch 4.05, patch 4.1, this live letter, that q&a, until whenever as long as it is later and not now)" has been told to us over and over, and the only place it has gotten us is being ignored. We were told to quietly wait, so many of of us did and because we didn't raise a clamor we were not heard. Meanwhile others pitched a fit over their favored job and were immediately placated. Seeing that tells us that being quiet doesn't work.

The point of us voicing our issues through these threads is so that we can be heard and noticed. We speak up so that others may see what we are saying and add in their voices in support. We speak up so that when all our voices are raised together as one, we cannot be ignored.

Only when it cannot be ignored that there is a problem, will it be admitted there is a problem and the path laid for working towards a solution.

If we wait until the Q&A to speak up we will just get drowned out by people asking about housing, glamour and when they will get to play as bunny-people fashion models. If we speak up now and continue to speak up we have the chance to garner awareness and support, so when the q&a does come we won't be a few stray voices lost amongst a sea of grievances.

You cannot be heard if you choose to say nothing.

[Vallamaria]

The point of us voicing our issues through these threads is so that we can be heard and noticed. We speak up so that others may see what we are saying and add in their voices in support. We speak up so that when all our voices are raised together as one, we cannot be ignored.

Only when it cannot be ignored that there is a problem, will it be admitted there is a problem and the path laid for working towards a solution.

If we wait until the Q&A to speak up we will just get drowned out by people asking about housing, glamour and when they will get to play as bunny-people fashion models. If we speak up now and continue to speak up we have the chance to garner awareness and support, so when the q&a does come we won't be a few stray voices lost amongst a sea of grievances.

I suppose maybe I didn't word my opening post in the best manner. What I feel is a truly complete waste of time are all the people flooding this sub-forum all sorts of ideas of how to fix/balance/improve DRK. Many of which are just down right ridiculous or flat out imbalanced. As a result the threads where people are discussing the main core issues get drowned out. Since fact of the matter is the developers aren't going to use any of those ideas.

In short I'm saying I feel like keeping threads focused on the core issues and making sure we make ourselves greatly heard during the next Q&A is our best shot at getting changes.

Edit: Since I've been getting tired of all the misunderstandings I decided to finally slightly revise my opening post.

[SplittingSkies]

In short I'm saying I feel like keeping threads focused on the core issues and making sure we make ourselves greatly heard during the next Q&A is our best shot at getting changes.

Aye, however lets say it happens and the class gets mentioned in the next Q&A. I just hope that these discussions and threads don't stop, the ideas may seem ridiculous to some but at least shows we care about the class and are not going to stop until we get a reaction. That is how other players in the community have done it, why not DRK?

[TouchandFeel]

I suppose maybe I didn't word my opening post in the best manner. What I feel is a truly complete waste of time are all the people flooding this sub-forum all sorts of ideas of how to fix/balance/improve DRK. Many of which are just down right ridiculous or flat out imbalanced. As a result the threads where people are discussing the key core problems get drowned out. Since fact of the matter is the developers aren't going to use any of those ideas.

In short I'm saying I feel like keeping threads focused on the core issues and making sure we make ourselves greatly heard during the next Q&A is our best shot at getting changes.

The vast majority of the threads are talking about what are generally seen as the "core problems" of DRK though. In fact I would say they have been pretty concise. The differences come in when people try to express their ideas on what they feel would make these core problems no longer problems. I see nothing wrong with that. While I myself disagree with a lot of the ideas that get tossed out, I welcome people to express their ideas. Not only does it bolster the fact that there are some fundamental problems with DRK that many of us agree upon, but it presents the direction that people would like things to go in when a solution is looked at.
The devs don't need to take exact ideas presented by players, nor necessarily should they, but they should look at what the suggestions point to as what players generally want and would potentially find fun and use that as a foundation for coming up with their own ideas for how to fix things.

Add in the fact that some of the things that people feel are "core problems" are things that are more nebulous than just ability balance, things like "what is DRK's gameplay niche?" and "DRK doesn't have as fun of a playstyle anymore". These are things that require opinions, suggestions and discourse in order for the blurry, often unclear ideas of a single person to be given the chance to coalesce and become more clearly refined through the interaction with other's ideas.

Just because people are presenting themselves in a way different than what you prefer, that doesn't mean that the opinions they are presenting don't have value.
Should people bicker about menial things or semantics? No, of course not. Trying to enforce that people should quiet down unless they speak out in the way you want them to just will result in less people speaking out overall, which is the last thing that we need.

If you feel that the "core problems" aren't receiving enough focus then be a positive example of what you would like to see. Start a thread dedicated to it, try to broach the reasons why behind people's suggestions which will point to what they feel are the core issues, try asking the questions that illuminate the foundational problems of the job, get people thinking of what is really the problem that lies beneath all the suggestions. Telling people what they should say is not doing any of that and will not yield the results that you or any of us really want.

[MagiusNecros]

Actually they have picked out some questions that do matter before in past Q&As. Some past examples include:

Mmm yes. These questions are more generalized. But I think it's merely stuff we knew they were going to address prior to SB launch. But as we've seen PLD at launch got a big facelift and WAR's complained about the Stance swap cost being stupid and got changed.

DRK however has always been performing like shit since launch though. People only tolerated it through lvl up just to see if it got better. And not by much. TBN might be wonderful but it's more a 1 step forward 2 steps back kinda thing with all the changes in functionality from HW to SB.