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

[Deceptus]

uppity? my bad for wanting to get what a pay monthly for, guess I should just pay my monthly fee and not know what Im getting sorry!

You like that poop sandwich they give you dang it! You don't get to complain about the taste. Just say "thank you" senpai and shove it in! (heavy /s)

Well, I'll have to disagree with you on that point.

There's a 24-page topic dedicated to people complaining that their favorite choice didn't win in the vote for a seasonal event.

The in-game FFXIV community is definitely one of the better MMO communities out there, but the forum/reddit crowd seems to be prone to the same overblown reactions and backseat driving that most of the internet is known for.

A large portion of that thread isn't complaining that "their favorite" didn't win, most people are criticizing (with good cause) the terrible writing that was displayed and how SE had essentially rigged the outcome from the beginning. Thinking that the female, previously known NPC, sporting red on Valentines wasn't going to win is a pretty far fetch. Versus two new characters in not red coloring.

[Valorak]

I'll definitely agree to disagree. Personally, a 24-page reaction to an event is more reaction than any event has gotten in a while, and it shows that the players were able to invest themselves in these characters we only got snippets of. At the end of the day, I think even pure hatred is better than apathy; the day that the community is completely apathetic towards the game is the day Yoshi P has lost.

I hear what you're saying, and while I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment that passion/anger > apathy, I hesitate to use that in this situation. People disproportionately weigh in on things when they're angry so it doesn't necessarily indicate that people weren't enjoying events before. There wasn't much useful information to be found in that topic, imo.

I'm really glad that people are passionate about the game, but that doesn't mean that any and all complaints are immediately vindicated just because people are loud and passionate about it, nor does it make them qualified to accurately predict how class changes are going to affect balance. The community has been wrong about the effect of incoming changes just as many times as it has been right about them.

Maybe if I couldn't switch between classes then I would care more about quick turn-around on class balance and open dialogue about it, but between having all classes on one character and the fact that they've stated that they ultimately don't care if one class is 1% dps over the other one, I don't view it as a big deal. People who live for the meta like that are gonna be loud regardless of what they do (exhibit a: World of Warcraft), so I suppose it makes sense for them to limit the amount of noise that they have to hear until after the changes have actually hit.

A large portion of that thread isn't complaining that "their favorite" didn't win, most people are criticizing (with good cause) the terrible writing that was displayed and how SE had essentially rigged the outcome from the beginning. Thinking that the female, previously known NPC, sporting red on Valentines wasn't going to win is a pretty far fetch. Versus two new characters in not red coloring.

Hmmm... I saw a decent amount of people complaining about the writing (although there was also voter bias in some of those posts too); But I also read enough of that topic to know that the majority of posters were there to complain about people being too lazy to read text, or claiming that people had just picked Astrid because she was a girl, or that she was familiar etc. There was also a fair number of people proclaiming their hatred for office/work romances, and a smattering of people admitting that they just picked her because they knew her/wanted the red clothes. Personally, I didn't find much criticism in that topic that I would consider to be constructive. Definitely not enough for 24 pages and one or two spin-off topics.

[MomomiMomi]

Hmmm... I saw a decent amount of people complaining about the writing (although there was also voter bias in some of those posts too); But I also read enough of that topic to know that the majority of posters were there to complain about people being too lazy to read text, or claiming that people had just picked Astrid because she was a girl, or that she was familiar etc. There was also a fair number of people proclaiming their hatred for office/work romances, and a smattering of people admitting that they just picked her because they knew her/wanted the red clothes. Personally, I didn't find much criticism in that topic that I would consider to be constructive.

Most of that is useful feedback that could be used to learn how to better make future events, though I doubt that they'll even listen to it.

[Valorak]

Most of that is useful feedback that could be used to learn how to better make future events, though I doubt that they'll even listen to it.

Is it? If the large majority of people just voted for Astrid (for whatever reason) then wouldn't they be better off catering future events to the people that AREN'T complaining on the forums? It has the obvious "Not everyone liked this." type of feedback that they should consider, but that's probably the most useful thing that the topic has accomplished, imo. There haven't been any wildly creative ideas in there. I disagree that "most" of it has been useful.

[MomomiMomi]

Is it? If the large majority of people just voted for Astrid (for whatever reason) then wouldn't they be better off catering future events to the people that AREN'T complaining on the forums? It has the obvious "Not everyone liked this." type of feedback that they should consider, but that's probably the most useful thing that the topic has accomplished, imo. There haven't been any wildly creative ideas in there. I disagree that "most" of it has been useful.

You don't need to suggest ideas to give useful feedback. The devs seeing that people voted for Astrid based on color is useful feedback. If people voted for her because she was closer to talk to, that's useful feedback. If they voted because she's a girl, that's useful feedback.

It gives a better understanding of what not to do if you want to avoid creating another extremely biased vote.

[AnimaAnimus]

If people voted for her because she was closer to talk to, that's useful feedback.

Bert was literally outside the gate, you had to walk past him to get to her.

But I digress. It's no surprise that SE's wall of silence is expanding. Yoshida said a lot during the v1 to ARR transition that never came to fruition. But the problem with that is not that they were not able to do what they promised. Its that they never mentioned it again and refused to acknowledge any questions on the various subjects.

Telling us "hey we tried but we cannot get this to work, but look at this new thing we are working on" would go a long way as long as they were able to deliver on those promises more often than not. Instead they decided to just not talk to their customers and it makes them feel shady. Frankly I do not trust Yoshida anymore. While once I thought he was a rock star, now I think he is just a shill. A one hit wonder that did an amazing job at rebooting the game but has no idea how to manage it for a lifetime. I would love to see a new perspective and someone with some fresh insight take at least partial creative control. Someone with some people skills who is not afraid to talk to us like people and customers. Someone who can talk to journalists and not get all bent out of shape if they ask hard questions or go off the SE approved script. Someone who can produce some exciting content that is not just the same thing as we always get or allowed to be released broken. A lot of the new content we have gotten over the years from Diadem to Eureka to Blue Mage, has just shown they are completely deaf to their community and clearly have a severe QC issue.

Them being even less willing to talk, just proves so many things. Mainly that they cannot take criticism and no matter what you do, you are going to get criticism. You just need to be a big boy and learn how to take it and what to do with it. Esp when you are in a field such as game design. If all you want is rainbows blown up your backside, you are going to crash and burn sooner or later as the reality that you are not as great as you think you are, gets hammered home. V1 should be a lesson learned. They didn't talk to us then and now its happening again.

Just waiting for the next fatigue system to be implemented...

[MistakeNot]

But I digress. It's no surprise that SE's wall of silence is expanding. Yoshida said a lot during the v1 to ARR transition that never came to fruition. But the problem with that is not that they were not able to do what they promised. Its that they never mentioned it again and refused to acknowledge any questions on the various subjects.

Another problems is that lots of players treat "We are planning to do X, Y, and Z" as a promise that X, Y, and Z will happen. A plan to do something is not a promise it will happen.

[Valorak]

You don't need to suggest ideas to give useful feedback. The devs seeing that people voted for Astrid based on color is useful feedback. If people voted for her because she was closer to talk to, that's useful feedback. If they voted because she's a girl, that's useful feedback.

It gives a better understanding of what not to do if you want to avoid creating another extremely biased vote.

Yeah that's true(ish), although with how limited of a pool there is of people coming onto the forums to admit "I voted because I didn't read", I question how valuable that is. What's the split between people that picked Astrid because they liked her idea, people that picked her because they just like Astrid, people that didn't read and just clicked through randomly, and people that just wanted red/rose on their gear, etc? There are enough variables in there that they would basically just be guessing at which one was the most important factor if they wanted to fix that. If the only things that 24 pages of community feedback yielded was that some people didn't like it, and that Astrid won because of a bunch of reasons that we have no way to quantify, then idk, that still doesn't seem particularly fruitful to me.

I'm definitely not saying that the that the dev team is perfect at communication or that the community doesn't provide valuable feedback at times, but I don't think that it's as often as people like to believe, and I don't agree that players need to be constantly kept abreast of every design decision that the team makes. The devs still provide more regular updates in communication than any MMO that I've ever played. Typically a Live letter every 2-3 months and 3 physical events per year.

[frostmagemari]

Is it? If the large majority of people just voted for Astrid (for whatever reason) then wouldn't they be better off catering future events to the people that AREN'T complaining on the forums? It has the obvious "Not everyone liked this." type of feedback that they should consider, but that's probably the most useful thing that the topic has accomplished, imo. There haven't been any wildly creative ideas in there. I disagree that "most" of it has been useful.

No, they wouldn't be better catering to the people that aren't on the forums.
If they go by in-game numbers, they get no feedback as to why Astrid got her numbers. Was it because she was a female character? Was it because she had the easiest access to the red dyed outfit and people wouldn't have to waste time dying one of the other outfits? Was it because people actually liked the character? Was it because people thought the other choices weren't likable?
We do not know; the forums and peoples discussions give insight to to that. And while people say that the forums are only 5-10% of the actual user base, that is only in terms of the amount of interest they put into the game beyond the game itself; It is still a cross section of the community and can be used to guide future decisions based on the feelings and opinions discussed.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

Hmmm... I saw a decent amount of people complaining about the writing (although there was also voter bias in some of those posts too); But I also read enough of that topic to know that the majority of posters were there to complain about people being too lazy to read text, or claiming that people had just picked Astrid because she was a girl, or that she was familiar etc. There was also a fair number of people proclaiming their hatred for office/work romances, and a smattering of people admitting that they just picked her because they knew her/wanted the red clothes. Personally, I didn't find much criticism in that topic that I would consider to be constructive. Definitely not enough for 24 pages and one or two spin-off topics.

You conveniently forget to mention that, because of what happened with Astrid's landslide victory, no one can experience Bert or Rodrigault's storylines in the game ever.