Yoshi-P Statement on Player Feedback

[Senn]

And if the individual is sensitive to any criticism whatsoever? This is a rather subjective sort of thing. I'm curious - if a developer can't handle reading feedback even when it's bereft of insults and simply because they weren't phrased a particular way (which?), should they be reading feedback in the first place? How is this now not a matter of tone policing? It can be easier to disregard someone who is just venting, for some people, than someone who is actually pointing out flaws in their work.

I remember when there was a bunch of people accusing the devs of sexism and homophobia when female viera and male hrothgar were first announced.
Some would argue that the lack of male viera and female hrothgar was a flaw, and some genuienly believed it was sexist (not that I would agree). So naturally, these people left feedback... but it was laced with vitriol towards the devs.
I don't think the feedback in regards to adding male veira/female hrothgar was unjustified, but the attacks and accusations towards the devs were. And some of those posts flew under the radar because they were disguised enough to the point where it wasn't technically against the ToS, but it was still rude and uncalled for.

Yoshi P is just asking people to be polite when leaving feedback. Negative feedback is ok, but there's no need to attack the devs. That's all there is to it.

[CrimsonGunner]

sorry but when they ignore complains over the years, don't give answers to portions of the community that gave feedback and did not address core issues over a whole expansion or way late in the expansions(some were quite small fixes on their part that could have been patched right after), they should not expect hugs, kisses and worship but rage and maybe scorn from their negligence.

[Snorky]

I have seen plenty of forum posts calling out the devs in very insulting ways. Take a look at the person who was upset about reaskins of gear sets in that thread plenty of people called the devs lazy. The poster above me maybe doesn't understand the difference between constructive feedback and insults. Some people are going to all kinds of lengths to justify why they think it's their right to insult other people's work ethics. Seems a bit like not wanting to accept responsibility for their language or lack of self control to me.

I'm a pretty blunt person but I canstring together sentences without insulting or swearing in them. The tone of my posts come off as pretty straight forward and some people take it as rude but mostly I am speaking my mind.

[Caurcas]

The. Customer. Is. Right.

[StriderShinryu]

As seen in this thread, the biggest issue here is that some people don't seem to realize that FF14 is not their game. Feedback should always be given in as constructive a manner as possible. But regardless of whether you give the feedback in an angry, threatening, demeaning, immature way or if you give it in the most eloquent 20+ minute long professional presentation, it's still just feedback on someone else's product. While I'm sure they, as anyone, would prefer the latter, they're under no real obligation to follow through on your requests or respond to your criticism. Maybe they aren't doing what you suggest because of technical reasons. Maybe they aren't doing what you suggest because of resource reasons. Maybe they aren't doing what you suggest because they just don't feel like it goes along with their design philosophy. Maybe they're just not doing it because they don't think it will make them money. At the end of the day, it's their decision to make. And your decision, as an intelligent, mature consumer, is to just stop supporting their product if you don't feel like you're being treated well or if you don't feel like their vision aligns with yours.

And if you ever do feel that the people who make a video game are ever worthy of rage or threats then, frankly, it's not the developers of the video game that need help.

[LianaThorne]

The. Customer. Is. Right.

Being a customer doesn't give you the right to treat people poorly. Not sorry about it.

[Lauront]

Don't know about you but I wouldn't appreciate being called lazy by folk that don't understand the field I work in, or the challenges presented during WIP by people that only see an end produce. Nor would I appreciate being accused of not playing my own game simply because the expectations aren't met. Nor would I appreciate my work being called sloppy by people when said work is still arguably in development. Just to name a few examples.

On one side of the coin should people read feedback because they can't handle criticism, but on the other hand should people be issuing criticism if their only criticism is tossing around nonsense like lazy, sloppy, and baseless accusations? Need to understand that their work is already subjected to criticism from early as design, prior to the launch and quality checks

People have a very loose understanding of what criticism or feedback actually is

I have a fairly good appreciation of what it is, as I have quite a bit of background in dealing with customer feedback within larger firms - the threshold for what feedback is, is not particularly high. It is simply the customer's view/experience of a product or service, whether it is welcome, constructive, articulated well, written in frustration, etc. Whether you or I appreciate such commentary, it is separate to the fact that, particularly on sites the company does not control (e.g. reddit), there are going to be instances of customers who don't phrase their views in the most delicate of ways and the advice to employees who have a low threshold for such things would be to have someone else gather the feedback if they're of a sensitive disposition or go in with the realisation that people often vent when they're frustrated about something. Even if they don't expect this of their back-office staff, if they know they go about reading direct customer feedback on their work, it would be a good idea to provide some advice on how they go about that. On their own forum SE can try police that should they wish, but they have to be mindful of not creating the perception that they want nothing but an echo chamber or that they are too heavy-handed about it. As it is, the in-game TOS are pretty vague and we're reliant on posts from GMs on what they will or won't clamp down on, which is not a great situation, IMO.

What I can't understand is why people here always fall from one extreme to another with no middle ground inbetween.

Yoshida never said that criticism is unwelcome. However, there's a huge distance between a criticism and suggestion written in a polite manner and a tantrum full of poorly hidden aggression, if hidden at all. Even if you aren't particularly happy about given feedback, it's much easier to accept it when those who wrote it treat you like a person with emotions rather than a soulless punching bag.

Yes, and the concern is that some elements on the forum might make use of such comments to browbeat anyone with dissenting views on the game, because it makes the devs sad, or somesuch. So it'd be nice if he were specific as to what instances he has in mind rather than leaving this up to us to divine. At the end of the day, only so many people will comply with such a request simply because he made it, but clear examples would be nice.

I doubt any of these people who are rude at Forum write letters to their boss or customers in such a manner. What makes people think that game developers should be okay with it? They're people, not robots. You don't need to sugarcoat your words to insanity, but common, basic level of decency isn't that hard to grasp.

No, but they might on a forum or elsewhere (albeit anonymously to avoid being identified). It is seen as particularly egregious when businesses hound customers on third party social media sites to try police feedback left for them. I never said anyone needs to be "okay" with it. All I want is for them to be clear on what kind of thing it is that they mean, so that we don't see the usual attempts on this forum at stifling criticism/feedback they don't like for scenarios he didn't really envision his words applying to.

Saw one yesterday criticising healers where the person talking said the devs doing it should be fired. Those calls to sack them, I do see a lot.

Yes, which is a very common occurrence in complaints. To the point that you learn to shrug that kind of thing off pretty quickly. I understand that some of their staff might not be familiar with this kind of thing, but in that case it would be advisable to either have someone who knows their way about this stuff to sit with them when reading it, or to have such a person comb through the feedback and extract what is of use. A very typical way in which larger businesses handle feedback...

Most companies don't have the luxury of lecturing their customers on how to leave them feedback on sites they don't control, or for that matter even on sites they do control (because they have no obligation to buy their product at the end of the day), and can distinguish between language said in the heat of the moment from genuine malice, and thus it is atypical to go beyond simply stipulating to not abuse their staff and give staff the right to discontinue direct communication should they fail to abide by that.

[Darthgummibear]

Having spent the better part of my adult life working with the public, this sentiment really hits home. There's a significant portion of human society that operates under the delusion that their personal viewport on the world is the only one that matters. You also have a fair amount of latent hostility with people not knowing how to deal with whatever their frustration may be, combined with the inherent disassociation of only communicating with others via bite-sized blobs of text on anti-social media and forums. How often do most people actually talk to others anymore? I mean really talk, with actual voice, having a real conversation. The general detachment of how you affect the world around you is a serious problem.

Just because they might only appear as pixels on a screen, that doesn't mean there isn't a very real person with very real hopes/dreams/emotions on the other end. As a whole we really need to make more of an effort to be decent human beings.

[Krotoan]

Same people who complain about how they can't criticize people in dungeons and then are revealed to be absolutely abusive when doing so are probably the same people in this thread saying "ARE YOU SAYING I CAN'T COMPLAIN!?!?!"

[Kaurhz]

Snip.

If a post contains naught but derogatory terms, or terms that are strictly only inflammatory, sure you can construe it as feedback, but no amount of gymnastics is going to translate that into something constructive.

Saying that the healer design is shambolic because the damage rotation consists of nothing but DoT > 1, 1,1.. 1, > reapply. That is constructive feedback. To take it a step further, if you introduce examples of how you would make the set more engaging, be it through reworking the encounters in the game so there is a heavier demand on actually healing, or through the introduction of some new damage spells, then that's great. However, if your only statement in this regard is that the developers don't play their own game, and that they should be fired because their design philosophy does not align with your own. Then as per my initial statement, no amount of gymnastics will make that feedback any good.

There's a big distinction between venting your disappointment, or annoyances and just electing to take the stand of attacking both the community and/or the developers. It's also quite glaringly the absolute worst thing you can do for yourself, the developers and the community you're apart of.

An echo chamber will only occur if their purpose is to very selectively listen to feedback, which I'm pretty sure is not the case. But whilst we're on this final section though. Arguably there is already a level of echo chambering going on within the community. Taking into account that in many cases views opposing are either met with nonsensical remarks such as "Find a new game", or "White Knight." These levels of remarks serve no other purpose than to attempt to undermine an argument. - Arguably in this respect, some of the community are already in the state where they're unintentionally creating this environment.

What is not a great situation is to create and entertain the notion that your disappointment, or disapproval in a product gives a token to be disrespectful and rude with your criticisms.