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

[Sated]

The thing that bugs me with feedback is how combative people are towards things they allegedly "don't care about".

Players know there are only so many development resources, so they treat feedback like a zero-sum game and decide it's not enough to present an idea or request they'd like to see added; they want to shout-over, extinguish, disprove, or otherwise delete anyone elses' requests that don't align with their own for fear it will "waste" resources on something they aren't personally interested in.

I think this game has a good balance of content, and seeing them actually respond and act on player feedback is very reassuring.

[HeulGDarian]

im bored so ill write my piece of mind on this.

I dont think we got enough constructive criticism in order for people to be resistant at. Let me explain what i mean by that.
First of all we got the trolls , not that big of a deal just ignore them BUT you learn alot about the Forums community, the trolls keep pulling their stuff cause it works. To back this up ill bring a few examples, ill go by memory cause i didnt care enough to memorize their titles.
Thread that asked SE to ban players who teabagged her cause she is a rape victim, who also said that they should also go to jail. People white knighted the thread btw.
Thread asking how to Sue SE cause the scenes in the shadowbringer trailer werent in game and thus was false advertising. That was on these forums btw
Thread asking SE to put trigger warnings on their cutscenes cause one scary cutscene triggered their ptsd. This one is recent you can propably still find it
Thats the ones that were more memorable to me, but there are more, like every titansmen thread and his alts.

Lets go in some more serious stuff and how the Forums community handles the matter. For example
Mentor program.

Over generalization is the key word. If i go by the forums all mentors are terrible people , all mentors just want the crown to lord over people , all mentors are in there just for the mount , and all mentors in the novice network just ignore people cause they dont care or flame them or abuse kick them.

THIS isnt constructive criticism yet thats all you get from the majority of the forums. And like an angry mob their solution is not just strip them off of power and dont reward them, but also actively punish them for using the system or the best case scenario burn it all to the ground.


Hey How about we go into some more subjects like for Example player competency.

This is a gold mine heck trolls started to use it. Lets see if you ask the tank to pull more and they say no all other 3 players should kick him or otherwise they should just do as the tank says. Ye i think thats the general ghist of it.
The biggest gem in there that i watched and nobody reported them or even did anything to tell them off, is when 2 players actively talked how to get someone banned if he brought more adds for the tank. Nah instead lets report people who make third base jokes. How about we get even deeper on this matter how do people react to a skillfull player. Lets see i remember exactly the post that described that, " i stop listening when he said he was a rank 1 why should i care about that" and ofc the rest of it went the same way with elitism being called for every stupid thing imaginable, people confirming what that guy said without even watching the video that guy had made.
That thread birthed not 1 not 2 but 4 different more than 7 pages threads about players competency all of which devolved to petty insults .

As of now lets see the trolls showed us naivety, the mentor has showed us the mob mentality being spitefull against someone just cause of the group they belong to rather than on the individual, and player competency has shown utter maliciousness , willingly putting a blind eye and ,something that could be assigned to all 3, anti-intellectualism.

Im sorry but if you want to have constructive criticism this is not the place , as always a rule has exceptions and you can maybe find some semblance of it . For me however i stopped caring, a circular argument that finishes on agree to disagree isnt my definition of constructive criticism , its simply a lousy way to say we didnt end anywhere .

[NanaWiloh]

Ah, Shadowlands. Already they're starting to double down on and add things that their playerbase strongly disliked...

I don't get certain WoW fans, or indeed Blizzard fans, sometimes. They've been screwed over time and time again. Cataclysm was disappointing, WoD was an utter failure, Legion was endless grind, BFA was a massive flop, the Warcraft remake was one of the worst reviewed games, they've gone through content droughts of over a year, seen entire cities and ingame zones scrapped before release... yet "It'll be better this time, this is the expansion that'll revive the game!"

Have to almost admire that level of blind optimism.

Blizzard: Players please line up and get your Blind folds, ear plugs, faith and Panty hose.

Part of me still loves WoW just not the current Wow not by any measure of the word.

[ElazulHP]

It's quite simple OP. Because people in general are resistant to change. Some more than others, but even myself I have to examine my thinking constantly and measure expectations.

[Roda]

The thing that bugs me with feedback is how combative people are towards things they allegedly "don't care about".

Players know there are only so many development resources, so they treat feedback like a zero-sum game and decide it's not enough to present an idea or request they'd like to see added; they want to shout-over, extinguish, disprove, or otherwise delete anyone elses' requests that don't align with their own for fear it will "waste" resources on something they aren't personally interested in.

I think this game has a good balance of content, and seeing them actually respond and act on player feedback is very reassuring.

These kinds of binary trolls make me lose faith in humanity so much.. :T
I've learned to just ignore them when I identify them 'cause they literally cannot contribute to a discussion that they actively hold no interest in.

[linayar]

And that's where I'd disagree. They literally have a separate Patron goddess. Night Elves have are the only race-wide monotheistic society in the game. Inversely, all WoW Paladins are, in a sense, animist. They are more nearly shamans -- or, heck, Jedi -- than traditional priests, even if there can be some overlap within the WoW take on priests. WoW Priests can follow a deity, scion, archon, or a general force, but Paladins, while they may have patron saints of sorts only ever follow the force of light. For the Night Elves, all aspects of these forces, at least insofar as they can tap into them, are merely elements of Elune, boons specifically granted either directly through her favor or as a result of her world investiture. The predominant mission of their religion, moreover, is not the pursuit of good and defeat of evil, but a preservation of a much less bimodal variety. Even in the Tauren druidic or shamanistic views of the world, there is good and evil, and the glow of their plains at dawn and the "rightness" of that nature was only a couple steps short of light-worship. But in the Night Elf view? There is bane and boon, purity and taint, and there is corruption, but it rarely lends itself to the idea of good or evil, of the selfless and selfish. There is just the nature of things, and the natures we choose for ourselves (e.g. all-encompassing duty, so much deeper than even fits the word as humans might bandy it about). They're fundamentally different.

Again, I don't think it'd be impossible to make NE Paladins work, just... there would necessarily be some compromise in there, and I'm satisfied with how that has played out thus far. It honestly annoys me less than I may in some rare cases have to play a race other than Night Elf than that Night Elf lore would be retconned.

Ah, but you see, the events in BfA have already shaken some of their faith in Elune. Even Tyrande herself questioned why Elune "abandoned" them. And unlike in the real world, all the different magics and belief systems in WoW are rewarded on a daily basis with tangible proof of power. So it's not like believing in Elune would prevent them from seeing the power of the Light. So it's less of a narrower monotheistic belief and more of a henotheistic belief or even possibly a monolatry. (Of course, speaking of the belief itself, since the Light itself may not be considered a deity, so it may still be considered monotheism. The point is that Elune is not the only power in the universe, from what I can tell. They may reveal more of her nature in the future.)

And the fact that Night Elf belief system has more to do with purity and corruption means it doesn't conflict with another belief in the Light. Then again, the Blood Elf has shown, to my understanding, that you don't need to believe in the Light, but to believe in its power, to use it.

But, yes, that topic's certainly a decent microcosm of the larger span of discussions possible in regards to XIV. Oddly so.

Nothing odd about it. The specific content may differ, but the topics are still largely the same kind regardless of game.

[Shurrikhan]

Ah, Shadowlands. Already they're starting to double down on and add things that their playerbase strongly disliked...

I don't get certain WoW fans, or indeed Blizzard fans, sometimes. They've been screwed over time and time again. Cataclysm was disappointing, WoD was an utter failure, Legion was endless grind, BFA was a massive flop, the Warcraft remake was one of the worst reviewed games, they've gone through content droughts of over a year, seen entire cities and ingame zones scrapped before release... yet "It'll be better this time, this is the expansion that'll revive the game!"

Have to almost admire that level of blind optimism.

As far as I've seen, that blind optimism is almost entirely limited to matters of skill unpruning and character customization.

AP's getting the same cynicism as ever. The story's getting the same cynicism as ever. Conduits? People are ready to pounce on each flaw they can find with each successive iteration. And they should be. In regards to Conduits (Shadowlands expansion-specific powers system), the latest iteration is already far better than what was previously made public -- all as a result of public analysis, internal debate, and then statements and reasoned criticisms leveled by de facto community leaders through even brass-tacks interviews with the devs themselves. Nevermind that we don't have that kind of critical pipeline in our community, we wouldn't even have the opportunity to present it here. The devs are more than happy to dodge questions rather than risk losing face in a reasoned argument with a community leader.

Tbh, even then, I don't understand the blind optimism leveled at skill unpruning. For character customization, sure, any increase is a good thing, but I'll never understand those saying, quite literally "I just want more buttons" with zero regard for the gameplay that would emerge from them. By their argument, any Hunter ought to be thrilled just to have their Track Humanoids, Track Beasts, Track Dragonkin, Track Demons, Track Elementals, etc. skills simply pushed back onto their (quickly bloated) hotbars rather than just being additional options on the Tracking menu accessible from the minimap. Of course, I've had almost that exact same argument many a times here, for much the same reasons (X is iconic, so X must be good regardless of its actual emergent gameplay).

On the other hand, it's worth putting all these things in context. Even WoW's lowest rated expansion (Warlords of Draenor), in the midst of its content drought, well exceeded XIV's active character count during Heavensward, of all expansions, and WoD itself tends to be as highly rated across most game review sites as Shadowbringers was at launch for all its hype. Similarly, a major patch in WoW, despite nearly as frequent releases, will typically hold 12+ new bosses connected through a new, cohesive instanced raid zone and may hold up to 3 new open world zones or zone revamps for content purposes, new dungeons, and new side-content. With the content released each time so much higher, it's difficult to identify WoW content droughts relative to XIV; they can only be easily pointed out compared to other WoW expansions around the same time.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

For many this is their first MMORPG, so is the measure of things.
For many this is a Final Fantasy first and an MMORPG second, so that also influence on how certain systems or designs might be recived.

Im an old MMORPG player, played everything under the sun BUT world of warcraft.

I have deep issues with the constant powercreep, incessant tomestone grind, the irrelevant item level designs and the flawed sync systems of this game. Not to mention the disaster that housing and inventory in general is (one of which is a non-problem since is being monetized through retainers) i'm also critical of the addiction of SE to time limit so many rewards or achievements behind arbitrary time dates, leaving many things outside of players, be them veteran, returning, pausing/leaving or brand new players, like PvP achievements/rewards in those non-sensical seasons of nothing or this thing with the restoration achievements which any post 5.1 player will just miss forever.

Yeah, those things really need to change.
Is not like the game has any dry out of content, is not like there is nothing else to do, but that everything takes unrealistically so long.

Then again, probably cattering to certain gamer types: Whales, content producers and NEETs.

My reality is that i cannot dedicate 12 hours a day to the game and i still want to at least know, that if i wanted something in game i could get it giving it dedication and skill, not just "time".

[MonteCristo]

I think it s due to the current teenagers/young adults just dont know how to have a proper discussion. They have only experienced social media type posts. Jokes, trolls, or out right contrarianism. I dont know what values the younger generation are being taught in schools but with smartphones being in many peoples lives as much as awful social media interaction , normal discussions never go well because they seem to leap to accusations or opposing opinion ranting. Its got to a point that on sites like Twitter "my opinion is worth more than your fact".

Some join in topics here and fair points are made, then the opposing forces types come in and shout the loudest making a lot think that is the general consensus when its very far from the truth. People also seem afraid to call out crap behavior for fear of repercussions especially when it comes to sites that have upvote/downvote or like/dislike features, which is madness that people are afraid of losing virtual social points rather than speak their mind.

So when it comes to feedback/constructive criticisms the social media tribalism kicks in and the role assumed is "your attacking a thing I love, irregardless of the topic or words used, im going to attack you".

This was explained beautifully....

[Puremallace]

A lot of the suggestions I have seen are to make FF14 a mirror of WoW where subs are in heavy decline so yeah sorry if some get shot down from people who played the game and know some of these "offended" people will jump ship immediately on the next WoW expansion launch.

I'll never apologize for explaining to people why some ideas are straight up trash and would gut core aspects of this MMO and turn it into a WoW clone. Entire FF14 forums are full of people with ideas and complaints so honestly this all just seems like Twitch and Youtube streamers seeking out content by creating fake drama that does not exist.

Anyone who comes into a FINAL FANTASY mmo and their first suggestion is to gut the story so they can show off at end game can just go back to where they came from.