why are people so resistant to constructive criticism about the game?

[Skivvy]

My counter-argument is that new content is in no way more "relevant" that old content.
Those 800 hours of content? They are most of the game.

This is where the fact that this is an MMO comes into play. MMOs are supposed to have a wide variety of content in order to attract a wide variety of players. Story might be FF's thing, and plenty of people love them for it, but in an MMO that is simply one part of the whole product. I've not run across another MMO that forces 100% of the MSQ on you if you want to do relevant content. Even SE's only other MMO, XI, didn't do that.

However, your comment does touch on another point. The 'end-game' of XIV is really quite bare. The bulk of the 'active' content revolves around your weekly raid clearing and then getting your weekly tomes. Yes, there are some other activities you can do, but most of it's not going to take up much of your time at all.

I think XIV is rather content in the box it has placed itself, and regardless of what we want, it's probably going to continue down the same path. So ultimately it's up to each of us to decide if it's something we can still enjoy or if it's time to branch out.

[Arillyn]

Interesting question and one that I don't think has a one-size-fits-all answer.

For example, someone saying that story shouldn't be the main focus of the game or that things shouldn't locked behind it - while I can understand where they are coming from - that is a fundamental game design. It isn't something done on a whim - that's how SE built their game to function. So when people want that changed because they don't like that - people who play the game because of that game design are going to rail against it. As someone stated earlier - if a person doesn't want to do that and skips every cut scene or buys a story skip - that's fine. It doesn't impact me. But I don't want the fundamental game design that SE chose to do to change - I play this game because I enjoy the fundamental game design.

And also as someone said earlier - there are some people who don't know how to have a conversation and discuss differences. Some also like to troll and some people are just toxic. This isn't new to this game forum. It's not new to forums at all - some people just like to watch the world burn.

Edit: I've seen a lot of constructive criticism on the forums. Some have had really good ideas on solutions for things too - like the housing issue (adding instanced housing for example). But people need to remember - just because it's constructive criticism doesn't mean everyone is going to agree with it. I like how some are saying "people are too attached to the game". Maybe some are but I think that really boils down to some of the criticism is that of fundamental game design. Some people don't like some of the fundamental game design and that's valid - but at the same time - that's how the game was designed by the developers. So people who do like the fundamental game design don't want that changed - which is also valid.

[Jin-]

Constructive criticism is always a positive thing. Here too often it's like a red flag for a bull

[linayar]

I've seen a lot of debates recently between people about whether or not we should be getting more content, or just about people wanting different kinds of content to what we're getting right now, and while I don't necessarily agree or disagree with either side, there seems to be such a dramatic response to everything.?

Because the devs often say there is a lack of resource.

Even if different devs work on different parts of the game, Yoshida will still have to check on everything, so testing one content means less time to test on another.

There was also that one interview where they say the dev that was in charge of chocobo racing (the only one working on it) was moved to the raiding team, which is one example of one content being favored to the detriment of another content.

Conclusion:

Players have it in their mind (rightly or wrongly) that it's a zero-sum game. Thus, coupled with FFXIV's mostly predictable content cycle, there is some expectation for new people to know and mostly accept the amount each content will have (with certain variations from one expansion to another) and not "rock the boat" asking for more of their content (to the potential detriment of another content, more so than the already expected variance between each expansion).

If they run out of things to do, they can fill their free time playing other games or other activities. If they don't think that justifies paying for FFXIV, they can unsubscribe when they're not playing or leave FFXIV altogether and go (back) to other games.

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Anyways, that's my take on it. Besides that, I do agree with Vidu's post.

Also, sometimes constructive criticism isn't presented constructively, to its detriment. Thus, making discussions head toward nonconstructive directions.

[Arillyn]

This is where the fact that this is an MMO comes into play. MMOs are supposed to have a wide variety of content in order to attract a wide variety of players. Story might be FF's thing, and plenty of people love them for it, but in an MMO that is simply one part of the whole product. I've not run across another MMO that forces 100% of the MSQ on you if you want to do relevant content. Even SE's only other MMO, XI, didn't do that.

However, your comment does touch on another point. The 'end-game' of XIV is really quite bare. The bulk of the 'active' content revolves around your weekly raid clearing and then getting your weekly tomes. Yes, there are some other activities you can do, but most of it's not going to take up much of your time at all.

I think XIV is rather content in the tiny little box it has placed itself, and regardless of what we want, it's probably going to continue down the same path. So ultimately it's up to each of us to decide if it's something we can still enjoy or if it's time to branch out.

I haven't play XI since part way through Abyssea, but at that time you did have to do MSQ to unlock parts of the game. Granted it wasn't a continuous MSQ like XIV - but you weren't getting to Sea if you didn't complete CoP expansion's MSQ, for example. Maybe it's different now, but when I played, you were stuck behind a particular expansion's MSQ to unlock different areas and raids.

[zztoluca]

People are too emotionally invested in the game and any criticism towards the game is seen as a personal attack. Regardless of any merit that opinion may hold.

[linayar]

This is where the fact that this is an MMO comes into play. MMOs are supposed to have a wide variety of content in order to attract a wide variety of players. Story might be FF's thing, and plenty of people love them for it, but in an MMO that is simply one part of the whole product. I've not run across another MMO that forces 100% of the MSQ on you if you want to do relevant content. Even SE's only other MMO, XI, didn't do that.

That is what makes FFXIV unique (and why telling people to play other games is valid as there are other options for them if story requirement is a hindrance for them). Having a wide variety of content, which FFXIV kind of does, doesn't mean there can't be certain required contents.

What if I don't like leveling? Is FFXIV then supposed to make leveling optional too?

FFXIV is not just an MMO, but an MMORPG, a Final Fantasy MMORPG. Story will always be part of the game. Just because FFXI may not make story required doesn't mean FFXIV can't.

[Skivvy]

I haven't play XI since part way through Abyssea, but at that time you did have to do MSQ to unlock parts of the game. Granted it wasn't a continuous MSQ like XIV - but you weren't getting to Sea if you didn't complete CoP expansion's MSQ, for example. Maybe it's different now, but when I played, you were stuck behind a particular expansion's MSQ to unlock different areas and raids.

Obviously opinions will vary on this, but I don't think it's a bad idea to have some requirements for unlocking content. With XI, each major end-game activity had various reqs to get into. Many were fairly minimal, but Sea was one that took just about the entire CoP story line to get into. However, it didn't require full completion of everything that came before it.

I feel having options to how you approach story completion is never a bad thing. Let people take it more at their own pace. XIV does have a grand, overarching story line, so I can see how it would be more difficult to break things up, but I feel like they could tweak it at least a little where some of the additional dialogue gets put into side quests vs. in the main story. A bit like what they've done with the ARR revamp.

I do tend to mention XI with this topic mainly due to how often replies of "The story is their thing! You shouldn't play if you don't want to enjoy the story" crop up. I feel like comparing their single-player games to an MMO is rather disingenuous - far better to compare their two MMOs to each other since they are actually in the same genre of game.

But again, ultimately it's SE's decision how they release content. It's not necessarily going to be for everyone, and it's up to us to decide if we can hang or not. Doesn't mean we can't critique things and hope it improves, but we need to temper those expectations. (that last bit is just as much for myself as everyone else D: lol)

[Shougun]

This is where the fact that this is an MMO comes into play. MMOs are supposed to have a wide variety of content in order to attract a wide variety of players. Story might be FF's thing, and plenty of people love them for it, but in an MMO that is simply one part of the whole product. I've not run across another MMO that forces 100% of the MSQ on you if you want to do relevant content. Even SE's only other MMO, XI, didn't do that.

However, your comment does touch on another point. The 'end-game' of XIV is really quite bare. The bulk of the 'active' content revolves around your weekly raid clearing and then getting your weekly tomes. Yes, there are some other activities you can do, but most of it's not going to take up much of your time at all.

I think XIV is rather content in the box it has placed itself, and regardless of what we want, it's probably going to continue down the same path. So ultimately it's up to each of us to decide if it's something we can still enjoy or if it's time to branch out.

Which is while I personally enjoyed the story, and I know others have, I still have suggested that if they carry on much longer that they create a new, optional, start to the game that can, as best as possible with limited amount of time, create a grounded and accelerated start into the game (I also think it could be an opportunity to refine a start, since I think it can be a bit meandering and they could polish the stages of excitement to make the start hook sink deeper).

If we get into 8.0 and everything keeps stacking as it has so far then its going to be like 75 (2.0) + 50 (3.0) + 50 (4.0) + 50 (5.0) + 50 (6.0) + 50 (7.0) = ~325 + / - 100 hours of mostly just story walls (assuming you don't skip every cutscene and do a few quests here and there or try different jobs occasionally, I'm sure someone 'speed running' the MSQ and knew the game already could cut that down by 70%). Three hundred twenty five hours. I didn't spend half that much time to complete every quest and nearly all the sets and potions in Witcher 3. On the bright side if you were looking for an insanely long game, boy have I found you a treat lol. Even if you make that more accurate to our situation and say time to get to 6.0 (our next expansion), it's still roughly 225 hours (assuming a new person playing pretty standard, occasionally getting side tracked by other quests, and who isn't being guided / dragged at warp speed - not some FFXIV vet replaying the story again and beelining to everything they need while skipping most dialog).

I think this number is still a good thing for some people, as a player that's played it mostly as it's been released it's been great, but it is also can be a bad thing for others for varying reasons. Just a very daunting fact for example, like telling someone they need to invest $100 into a game upfront would turn away a lot of people even if it was absolutely worth it (not saying FFXIV is $100, I'm giving a comparison of daunting). Also some people, I'd say most, that come past a game's start come either due to friends, burned from their current MMO, or hype from an expansion pre and post release. If I was hearing about how amazing Shadowlands (WoW) was but then told I had to invest 325 hours of content that I wasn't sure would be as good as shadowlands just before I could even try it, I might sincerely think "yeah, no thanks". Especially if I heard combat from x to y is a bit boring by y to z is not, then you tell me I have to spend many many hours in the x to y area. Just a few of many many examples that could be made about someone coming in late and then being fronted with nearly 100%'ing witcher 3 twice just to catch up lol.

Alternatively it's also why when Yoshida has, multiple times, talked about another dalamud, and all the other side data- number of hours requiring significant time to catch up, this being an issue if people started to play specifically because of expansion hype, getting close to the distance from FFXI to FFXIV arr's release, number of jobs getting close to matching to FFXI, technological hurdles being probably easier, or at least less scary, to fix starting new (like glamour log), getting all those legacy players to pay full amount again (that's some nice $$), approaching the end of the MSQ we've been on for so long (doesn't mean there can't be more after that, of course- just this zodiark / hyd is coming to close), that I really do think it's high potential for something big coming, either another ARR like change expansion or a new mmo (and by coming I'm thinking like 1-3 years from now).

[dangadget]

Constructive is the key word here.
Walking into a McDonald's and complaining that they don't serve roast beef is not constructive, and being told that perhaps you would prefer to go to Arby's instead is not toxic, so long as you do so politely.