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

[Lauront]

Why would you even care when most of the english feedback is going into the trash bin anyway? Did they listened to gnb complains on sound? Nope
Did they listened on healers complains of oversimplifying dps? Nope
So why bother

They listened on the one thing that mattered, the 2B butt.

[Melichoir]

Peeps are not always right.
5.0 DRK was criticised and war changes praised, people were lamenting over drk and loved war changes before expansion release. It turned out to be complete the opposite, drk is in best spot right now 1 or 2 most played tank and war is pitful shadow of its former self played way less than any other job.

This caught my eye. I wont speak for anyone else, but I think DRK in its current iteration is trash to play, and Ive been playing it consistently since HW. I liked this class so much so from the get go, that I literally stopped the MSQ as soon as I hit Ishgard, went and picked up DRK, and leveled it to 50 before resuming MSQ cause I was that into the class as a concept and playstyle. Ive since played every single MSQ since then as a DRK. Even 5.1+ stuff, simply out of I dunno...loyalty?.. to the idea of what the class was for me.

To be clear, the class is functional. It does what a tank is supposed to do and isnt overly complicated. There is nothing wrong with the class from a purely functional stand point. I say it's trash because it has no soul and is incredibly boring to play. It is a knockoff warrior through and through IMO. Make sure you dont overcap on Rage blood, so spend that on Fellcleave Bloodspiller. About to cap on mana? Spam that EoS. Save enough for a TBN for tank busters. Delirium up? Hit that and press Bloodspiller 5 times. AD, CnS, BW, Plunge, off CD? Push it. Thats about it as a class. Not to say older iterations of DRK were exceptionally complex, but they were funner. Dare I say it, I preferred the DA spammo version of DRK over this. It just feels uninspired and bleh. If I wanted to play warrior, I would play warrior. The irony, to me, is that they dumbed down DRK a bit from HW to SB, gutting things like having a dot because it was too hard a class to play. They turned around for 5.0 and make GNB with a lot of what the old versions of what DRK had.

So yeah, it might be in its 'best place' from a purely functional point, but from an actual "I enjoy this class cause it's fun and with room for complexity", no. It's in its worst spot for that. If people love it? Great. It just think it sucks for players like me who liked older iterations cause it feels like the class I got to enjoy and loved to play got deleted and replaced with a knock off.

[Gula]

They intentionally keep info to prevent people from letting their imaginations run wild, and cue outrage still like they've been told to sit in time out.

Papa Yoshi-P knows what's up.

[MomomiMomi]

This caught my eye. I wont speak for anyone else, but I think DRK in its current iteration is trash to play, and Ive been playing it consistently since HW. I liked this class so much so from the get go, that I literally stopped the MSQ as soon as I hit Ishgard, went and picked up DRK, and leveled it to 50 before resuming MSQ cause I was that into the class as a concept and playstyle. Ive since played every single MSQ since then as a DRK. Even 5.1+ stuff, simply out of I dunno...loyalty?.. to the idea of what the class was for me.

To be clear, the class is functional. It does what a tank is supposed to do and isnt overly complicated. There is nothing wrong with the class from a purely functional stand point. I say it's trash because it has no soul and is incredibly boring to play. It is a knockoff warrior through and through IMO. Make sure you dont overcap on Rage blood, so spend that on Fellcleave Bloodspiller. About to cap on mana? Spam that EoS. Save enough for a TBN for tank busters. Delirium up? Hit that and press Bloodspiller 5 times. AD, CnS, BW, Plunge, off CD? Push it. Thats about it as a class. Not to say older iterations of DRK were exceptionally complex, but they were funner. Dare I say it, I preferred the DA spammo version of DRK over this. It just feels uninspired and bleh. If I wanted to play warrior, I would play warrior. The irony, to me, is that they dumbed down DRK a bit from HW to SB, gutting things like having a dot because it was too hard a class to play. They turned around for 5.0 and make GNB with a lot of what the old versions of what DRK had.

So yeah, it might be in its 'best place' from a purely functional point, but from an actual "I enjoy this class cause it's fun and with room for complexity", no. It's in its worst spot for that. If people love it? Great. It just think it sucks for players like me who liked older iterations cause it feels like the class I got to enjoy and loved to play got deleted and replaced with a knock off.

This sounds exactly like where AST stands for me. It was my favorite job in the game. Now it's my least liked. It may be functional, but playing it feels so awful.

[Lauront]

At least DRK can summon a shadow of its former self... AST can't even do that.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

They intentionally keep info to prevent people from letting their imaginations run wild, and cue outrage still like they've been told to sit in time out.

Not gonna stop people from complaining on patch day. This may have the possibility of backfiring spectacularly and causing even more complaints than the usual amount that I normally see.

And the withholding of information can create anxiety. I feel for Summoner mains because they won't know if their job is totally ruined or not until patch day. You know, a day that's supposed to be exciting and fun but may not be because of the job they love to play could be unrecognizable? It could just be small, and mostly harmless, potency nerfs but the devs track record of nerfing jobs or buffing them isn't exactly the greatest.

[Barraind]

Squeenix is probably the worst at communicating the right information to players.

I keep waiting for them to realize that the more info they give ahead of time (like, full patch notes well before the patch hits live servers), the less people go into half-informed panic mode, the the earlier people can run numbers on new things.

[Gula]

Squeenix is probably the worst at communicating the right information to players.

I keep waiting for them to realize that the more info they give ahead of time (like, full patch notes well before the patch hits live servers), the less people go into half-informed panic mode, the the earlier people can run numbers on new things.

You people keep saying Square Enix like the entire mega corporation is only for XIV. Cause it's not.

[Zazay]

Squeenix is probably the worst at communicating the right information to players.

I keep waiting for them to realize that the more info they give ahead of time (like, full patch notes well before the patch hits live servers), the less people go into half-informed panic mode, the the earlier people can run numbers on new things.

Are they, really? Ever noticed the latest drama of Warcraft 3? I think nothing can top that.

[Gemina]

Because if enough people voice their opinions against what SE thinks is the "best course moving forward" they have been known to change.

Can you name one time player '"opinions" lead to a change between the prelims and patch release?

As another poster pointed out, the devs do listen and will make changes based on player feedback. However, this process takes time as it involves compiling and filtering tons of information. The adjustments they determine needs to be made will then take place in a future patch. The information they absorb is never going to come from player predictions regardless of how accurate they have been in the past. They want field data, period. Many of the adjustments that will take place in this patch, will be based of the feedback obtained throughout 5.1. and prior. As an example, one of the first threads I remember seeing in the DPS forums after 5.1 dropped pertained to a concern that SMN was doing some serious deeps.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...o-much-in-5.10

In a thread this large, you already know you're going to get a mixed bag of opinions, back and forth bickering, voices of reason, and the whole nine-yards. But as the thread evolves, it starts to take on the data obtained from savage and ultimate. As usual, balance within the role becomes a focal point which lead to a lot of comments about RDM being undertuned. Lo and behold, the devs decided to disclose that both SMN and RDM are being adjusted accordingly.

In retrospect, these changes - whatever they are, have nothing to do with that thread. Superficially it can seem like it may have contributed to the changes, but again that thread eventually conforms to the true data obtained from the players participating in high end content. It is impossible for that to happen between the preliminary release and patch release.

The devs will never get the game all right. It's a continuous process of adjustments that are perpetuated by the release of new content. We would literally have to sit on zero new content for quite some time for them to perfect everything, and as soon as they release something new; the process starts all over again. The release of a new expansion being so large, warrants the most amount data acquisition, and ironically it also requires the most immediate attention.

Of course there is the frustration that has accumulated from changes that have needed to take place for several patches, which I believe is where the, "The devs don't/won't listen" come from. Understandable. Some changes such as the demand for AST cards to be changed, just will not happen until a future expansion. These take far more time, and I think a lot of us are aware of that, and so it is also understandable that more communication from the devs is desired. Why should they though? When we as a community have shown what we do with the information they do give us?