SE: Holding back information won't stop criticism, it will only delay it and is bad.

[Deceptus]

TL : DR We as players need MORE information from a company that supposedly already learned this lesson, not LESS.

In the recent Live Letter, Yoshi stated:

Special Note

Regarding Job Balances and Adjustments

YoshiP, in his previous Patch 5.1 Note Reading segment has confirmed that he will no longer detail the job balances and its adjustments in preliminary notes and maybe/likely during PLL as well because he does not want players to be overly concerned about how their job will end up getting nerfed or buffed just by looking at the paper, or the numbers itself. As pre-announcing it will just make people work up on details that shouldn't worry them until they play the actual job on release, they've decided to omit all job balance details until they patch day itself.

Therefore, while the translation staff, will put in as many details as we can from the PLL, don't be surprised if you see no job balance details (like what skill or ability will receive adjustments) more than maybe "this job and that job will be buffed", et cetera. If there is information to be had, the translation team will be sure to relay it to you. Otherwise, don't be surprised because YoshiP decided to keep things a little bit private for the sake of the playerbase.

This is an extremely bad decision for the SE development team to make. There have been multiple instances where they released pre-patch notes and the player base largely said they don't like what they see.

"But wait until it's live!" The white knights always claim.

And then it becomes live and the player base who was concerned is largely proven right.

Remember when SE thought it was a great idea to implement a GREED ONLY rule in all of the 24 mans? Yeah that was announced pre-patch and it was thoroughly lambasted and SE rightly had to reverse course shortly after implementation.

2.0 Warriors we were "playing wrong"
3.0 Bard Bow-Mage / AST were a mess along with Ninja. Remember when we were "doing it wrong then" as well?
4.0 WHM (useless Lilies) / MCH / DRK (and monk a bit).
5.0 SCH was a complete mess. Healers in general were extremely disappointed, RDM's had extreme mana issues.

I know I'm missing some situations.

What was the overwhelming majority of the problems in almost EVERY case of the above? Numbers. Tuning. There were some overall job gameplay issues at hand but it was largely numbers.

For example, this happened in 6.1:


Pay 200 extra MP for diff VFX :3c

Credit: Rein_eon_Osborne

Which is exactly what SE wants us to have less information regarding.

So much of this can be attributed to SE's absolute defiance for a public test realm. They can't possibly predict how millions of people will react to their product but only having less than 25 people (being extremely generous) play test it, and only four job designers for 18 battle jobs, something is bound to fall through the cracks.

[Skivvy]

Honestly, the playerbase as a whole is annoyingly uppity. I can't blame them for deciding to hold back information.

[Deceptus]

Honestly, the playerbase as a whole is annoyingly uppity. I can't blame them for deciding to hold back information.

Possible, the most uninformed often shout the loudest but mixed in with those shouts are other people who are legitimately informed and want the best for the game.

[MomomiMomi]

It seems they learned nothing from telling MCH that they were playing the job wrong.

[SDaemon]

Whether they release the info early or wait till patch release it wont really change much in the long run. All this really does it delay the forum meltdowns of class balance woes till patch day instead of the PLL.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I'd point to the cries of SAM being OP on the forums before stormblood launched but people like to ignore that

[frostmagemari]

Whether they release the info early or wait till patch release it wont really change much in the long run. All this really does it delay the forum meltdowns of class balance woes till patch day instead of the PLL.

It only changes nothing in the long run if SQEX just chooses to ignore peoples concerns. If they actually did something sensible and have the more drastic game changes on a PTR realm (Class balance, etc, primarily), then they could get actual feedback on their decisions. They could see how things shake out before they flip a switch that they have no intention of ever reversing once it's flipped.

[TheMightyMollusk]

While a PTR would help find bugs and such before content goes live, it's also more servers and more resources being tied up, which would mean SE would have to put money down first. Good luck.

[MomomiMomi]

It only changes nothing in the long run if SQEX just chooses to ignore peoples concerns. If they actually did something sensible and have the more drastic game changes on a PTR realm (Class balance, etc, primarily), then they could get actual feedback on their decisions. They could see how things shake out before they flip a switch that they have no intention of ever reversing once it's flipped.

Even if they had a PTR, like they had for FFXI, they would still ignore concerns just as they did on that game's PTR. That's just how they roll.

[DRKoftheAzure]

TL : DR We as players need MORE information from a company that supposedly already learned this lesson, not LESS.

In the recent Live Letter, Yoshi stated:



This is an extremely bad decision for the SE development team to make. There have been multiple instances where they released pre-patch notes and the player base largely said they don't like what they see.

"But wait until it's live!" The white knights always claim.

And then it becomes live and the player base who was concerned is largely proven right.

Remember when SE thought it was a great idea to implement a GREED ONLY rule in all of the 24 mans? Yeah that was announced pre-patch and it was thoroughly lambasted and SE rightly had to reverse course shortly after implementation.

2.0 Warriors we were "playing wrong"
3.0 Bard Bow-Mage / AST were a mess along with Ninja. Remember when we were "doing it wrong then" as well?
4.0 WHM (useless Lilies) / SCH (Abysmal) / MCH / DRK (and monk a bit).
5.0 SCH was a mess.

I know I'm missing some situations.

So much of this can be attributed to SE's absolute defiance for a public test realm. They can't possibly predict how millions of people will react to their product but only having less than 25 people (being extremely generous) play test it, and only four job designers for 18 battle jobs, something is bound to fall through the cracks.

5.0 DRK and AST lost a lot of what made them unique in the first place and need to be re-worked to their Heavensward versions, MCH gadgets could just be oGCDs and bring back/re-work the ammo system for dual gun combo paths if they don't want an actual gunslinger job/class to be a thing, and NIN Mudra system requires a guide on another monitor to know what Mudra combinations do what Ninjustu, and MNK's Tornado Kick and Forbidden Chakra need to be re-worked into entirely different abilities for when you acquire Six-Sided Star.

But that's more of what I want for these jobs since they do interest me somewhat... and if not GNB second single target combo, I would have switched to either DRG or SAM, or finally gave healing an honest try...