If you continue to dumb down the game, you will lose half your player base

[AnnaUK]

Having been trying soooooo fricken hard not to comment towards the myriad of disability posts that keep appearing but no. Just.. no. I do not need be catered to because I derive satisfaction from succeeding despite issues I may or may not have.

Post after post everyone appears to suffer from some crippling disability lately. Not everyone with issues will feel the same, would find it insulting actually. Partner stated biiiiiig difference between providing wheelchair ramp and banning stairs because some people cannot walk. Also.. for anyone who does this, stop please just.. stop. Stop wielding your disability like some kinda cudgel to smash others over the head with for sympathy it is not a good look.

It becomes too much. You cannot plan for all issues players may have it is simply impossible. Sure sure can make it easier but at what cost? Let me keep my buttons please because I found solutions that work for me already as did many friends and extended family. Those same solutions are there for anyone else should they put in enough effort to utilize them.

I am not disabled, but my daughter is.

[AnnaUK]

I highly doubt, a player thinking about buying FFXIV is going to look at reviews or the classes or anything and think, I don't know if I want to buy this, that button bloat.

My partner quit due to the button bloat recently. He hated it.. "why do we need so many buttons" he said. Noone is asking for 6 buttons active at once like ESO but I do feel there are too many buttons for some jobs.

[IdowhatIwant]

I am not disabled, but my daughter is.

Sorry about your daughter, but I don't know why you feel the need to share that with us or how it pertains to the game being dumbed down.

My partner quit due to the button bloat recently. He hated it.. "why do we need so many buttons" he said. Noone is asking for 6 buttons active at once like ESO but I do feel there are too many buttons for some jobs.

Did he quit after purchasing the game?
The free trial honestly is just a sample, by the and of HW most classes are still about 3 or 4 buttons.

[Theodric]

The developers should have the information what skills are used or just ignored because of way to much button bloat. So its normal to remove the button bloat to make the game play more fun, so we will still see more new players in FF14.

They've also been prone to taking a handful of comments as an excuse to change something even if the overwhelming majority of players are fine with it. Such as when they decided to change the Sage icon due to 'trypophobia' (despite leaving the leatherworker icon alone when it in itself has many more holes than the original design for Sage had!)

If that isn't enough, look how utterly obsessed they've become with the idea of removing the gender lock on hairstyles and gear despite many more people just wanting conventionally attractive options for whatever gender of character that they're playing.

[Rilifane]

Feedback is good when the feedback is a well-thought-out and coherent solution when thought about logically, and not out of spite for pre-existing systems. Not that I disagree, but there is a point where solutions become so outlandish that it is counterintuitive for getting a point across.

It is not and never will be our responsibility as paying costumers, the consumers, to deliver a 'well-thought-out and coherent solution' for the product we're consuming.
You are dumping the responsibility for the success of a product on the costumer.

If someone comes to me and wants a tailor-made dress to achieve a specific look it is my job and my responsibility to get all the data I need, to get the right fabric, to design a pattern that works and so on. And if the costumer is unhappy with the result, it is my responsibility to work with whatever feedback they are willing and able to provide as a person without any in-depth knowledge and make it work.
It is not their job to give me a design and pattern according to their vision. They pay me for doing it.

Feedback is feedback and not a spoonfed solution.
If someone says "I want more battle content with some longevity, preferably with different difficulty levels or scaling difficulty" it is the developers' job to find ways to make it work.
Not the costumers job to deliver a fleshed-out system that only needs to be coded. If there happens to be a costumer that is extremely good with such thing and maybe even has some firsthand experience with game developing and can provide a coherent solution that could be used with minor tweaks at best as it is, that's is a bonus an deserves respect but it is not our job.
A gaming company with many, many years of experience in RPGs should be able to work with feedback like "I liked this system that other game had, maybe withou issue X and Y but I liked the core system".

[StriderShinryu]

They've also been prone to taking a handful of comments as an excuse to change something even if the overwhelming majority of players are fine with it. Such as when they decided to change the Sage icon due to 'trypophobia' (despite leaving the leatherworker icon alone when it in itself has many more holes than the original design for Sage had!)

If that isn't enough, look how utterly obsessed they've become with the idea of removing the gender lock on hairstyles and gear despite many more people just wanting conventionally attractive options for whatever gender of character that they're playing.

You keep saying things like "overwhelming majority" and "more people" but how do you know that's the case? Not saying that aren't people who do feel that way, yourself being an example, but you're clearly an intelligent enough person to recognize that there's a massive gap between "I want it like this" and "most people want it like this." You've called for "the numbers" in your other thread so you are clearly acknowledging that you don't have, well, the numbers.

While I'd imagine the "overwhelming majority" probably aren't overly invested either way, they do appreciate having more options and more stuff they want in the game (or made available to them if it for some reason isn't available to them).

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

You have to remember a lot of youtubers that cover FFXIV content are endorsed by SE in some way. Do you really think if John Doe made FF content with a smaller channel that was not endorsed by SE went through the same experience as Zepla and lost the same FF merch. Do you think SE would have sent them anything? Do you not think it is weird that certain content creators are brought to interview Yoshi P but some one like Xenos is not invited? You have to be fairly ignorant to ignore these facts.

Lucy Pyre and MisshapenChair are about the only XIV content creators bothering to talk about the actual problems with the game, and they are unfortunately much smaller channels.

And they'll, of course, get written off as 'negative nancy tryhards' because god forbid they ask for the game to give even a modicum amount of challenge to its players, offer them better teaching tools to improve, and generally give us lasting content that people want to do for more than the sake of a carrot on a stick at the end.

Most other big name content creators for this game in specific just offer praise for anything and everything SE does. Even their personal dislikes get drowned out in the same breath by the praise. Honestly, I was almost shocked to see Zepla going completely off about the Hrothgar hair issue.

[Demetri_Delethorn]

This topic is a yikes and a half from me. The game isn't going anywhere just because they're making jobs more playable. A few people might leave because they mistakenly attribute "more buttons" as actual difficulty and skill, but if they leave over that, then they were probably going to leave anyway. I shouldn't have to be dancing my fingers around my controller and contorting my hands just to make a job playable. Many jobs have far too many buttons.

[MiaShino]

Many jobs have far too many buttons.

There is whoooole truck load of methods to reduce buttons without removing complexity. Astro for the example, why do I require four separate buttons to play and draw cards? Why did crown draw/play become separate buttons again? Why the heck is Oblation not trait that improves tbn?

Oh look at all the skills that could simply also do aoe with potency fall off. If I have to hear about 1,2,3 being complexity some how this Mia is going to explode! Look we get it, you can count higher then Valve but these could all be on one button. Yeeting core skills is what makes the jobs less entertaining. Skills that improve or modify other skills, skills you rotate through with varied order.

Besides you just hold L2 - R2 and press d-pad or face buttons anyways. Sometimes you press both triggers at same time then press the d-pad. If someone with my size hands can do this anyone can do this.

[SamsaraTrickstar]

having to press 500 different buttons during combat does not make the game fun

If it's an action game then yes. But 8n teb target you need to have lots of skills or it's boring. It's the reason all hate low level dungeons. No skills to use.