The Devs aren't your personal friends and valid criticism isn't "harrassment"

[Grizzy]

I agree so much!! I think the devs are devs. Devs deserve praise when they get something right, and criticism and complaints when they do something bad. There should never be insults, but don't mistake criticism and complaints for insults.

[Osteichthyes]

"If you present criticism in a way that actively makes the other person not want to listen, your criticism has failed." - CritCrab

Being stern and honest is good. Yoshida actively welcomes this. Presenting it in a way that is useful is better. There is a difference between "Housing sucks and the devs don't care." and "Housing has some serious issues, and we would like more communication from the devs." One is identifying and proposing a solution or a reasonable action, the other is naught but whining and conjecture.

Same with SAM and WAR changes. Too many people were up in arms insulting the devs, saying the jobs were literally unplayable. From a dev perspective this isn't really useful and is very hyperbolic. The people who said "Removing Kaiten was a bad idea when other actions should be looked at first." is far more useful and welcome as it gives a basis from which to act. It shows rational thought and consideration had been given, and wasn't an over emotional reaction.

I always think back to seriously underrated movie: Megamind. "What's the difference between a villain and a supervillain? PRESENTATION". It all comes down to presentation in the end. If you present your criticism is a way that allows people to engage with it, your criticism will go far further than an emotional rant.

[EaraGrace]

I am shocked I have to say this again, but I will do so.

Criticism is fine, and needed! I've criticized the decisions by the dev team! Its part of a healthy community!

What I was responding to and criticizing (cause hey it doesn't only have to be towards the devs) is trying to reframe a plea for people to avoid death threats into a attempt to shut down discussion. The explicit point of that thread was to encourage people to call out detestable behavior. In no way did it try to push back against criticism. Responding to that thread by accusing the OP of trying to shut down criticism is either a case of horrific misreading because criticism /= death threats, or saying that a post trying to stop harassment would shut down criticism. Either he was bringing up a completely unrelated topic into a thread about harassment, or he was geniunely saying that calling out being nasty will lead to 14 becoming WoW. If you don't agree with my interpretation of that, that's fine, but at least try to understand why I would read it that way. Its the equivalent of going to a gun control rally and saying "quit being mean to gun owners ):." Like what?

At worst, these three people have different ideas of what "reasonable means" entails. Giving the benefit of the doubt, it seems Eara's concern was because Aveyond attempted to rebut the OP's claims that the devs are being harassed with the statement "reasonable means must be employed", that Aveyond was conflating those two things as a bad faith tactic. (I'm not a mind-reader, but that's what Eara's reply reads like they assumed.) If Eara was wrong, then the OP's point and the argument of harassment (including threats) being too far still stands.

This exactly. Thank you genuinely because this thread makes me feeling like I'm in bizarro world. People are going from "Eara was totally out of line for associating Aveyond's response with death threats" to "those death threats don't actually exist/aren't a big deal and you all are a bunch of white knights." I have had zero problem with constructive criticism. Whatever my feelings are about the housing issues or other problems those critiques are always good to have. Whats being said isn't constructive nor actually critique. Its lashing out.

[DamianFatale]

The recent issues such as housing, hrothgars, healing, or lack of job depth are all valid points of concern.

"But death threats" what death threats? This always gets brought up in this discussion when people in the community have issues with something in the game, yet there is never any of these type of comments in criticism thread. It's a baseless scapegoat that is constantly used to dismiss points of discussion and criticism.

These people need to stop taking these valid points of criticism as a personal attack to themselves nor do they need to find every excuse to let them slide. We are paying for a service and they are paid to provide a service.

Japan has a history of death threats on major studios. Just look at the arson that happened several years back. It gets brought up because devs are genuinely afraid for their safety at times, which I can respect.

[Wilford111]

Your criticism becomes a lot less valid when you use hyperbole.

[SherlottaEryut]

These people need to stop taking these valid points of criticism as a personal attack to themselves nor do they need to find every excuse to let them slide. We are paying for a service and they are paid to provide a service.

It's sad, but I do think the game's downfall will be caused by the people who are too positive to give the game any form of criticism. By not giving the developers feedback, the developers will think everything's okay and they should carry on as normal.
People keep speaking of these death threats that're always spoken of, but never actually seen. I'm not saying these things don't happen, but in the past 2-3 weeks I have not seen a single death threat towards Square Enix. I have only seen people expressing their frustration and rightfully so.

We pay a subscription, if the developers want our continued support then they should take our feedback into account, at the very least acknowledge it. Especially when it's the majority of the community giving the exact same feedback, and have been suggesting for years.

[jpr]

We pay a subscription, if the developers want our continued support then they should take our feedback into account, at the very least acknowledge it. Especially when it's the majority of the community giving the exact same feedback, and have been suggesting for years.

This, this is the biggest issue right now. If devs addressed any common topics on forums (if they are aware, if any changes are planned, why, why not, what statistics are they using), that would make big difference.
It may be that changes are already planned, or that only miniority is unhappy and it will not be changed. But now playerbase is blind, not knowing what to expect

[Ivtrix]

People long forget that this game was rehauled and made into the game it is precisely due to negative feedback and criticism of the game

[ForteNightshade]

Those are absolutely valid concerns. None of which are helped by calling the people involved in their implementation "idiots", "Incompetent", or talking about how their mistakes should never have been made. There is a line between abuse and criticism.

Neither of those words are abusive when used in proper context. Are they particularly harsh? The latter, yes. However, criticism tends to become harsher has time goes on and feedback is continuously ignored. Housing has been a known sore spot for half a decade now and we've seen once band-aid solution after another that never addresses the actual issues. Thus, players are becoming increasingly fed up.

In this specific circumstance, I feel "incompetence" is applicable. As is saying this "should never have happened." We're talking about a relatively basic coding error. If there were some random indie developer, I'd be far more forgiving. My expectations are significantly higher from a multi-billion dollar corporation. And as mentioned above, people's patience regarding housing is at an all time low due to yet another band-aid solution blowing up as the dev team stubbornly clings to a system that hasn't worked for years. What should be noted is criticism like this is usually isolated to a particular incident and not reflective of what people think of the dev team as a whole.

[StriderShinryu]

This, this is the biggest issue right now. If devs addressed any common topics on forums (if they are aware, if any changes are planned, why, why not, what statistics are they using), that would make big difference.
It may be that changes are already planned, or that only miniority is unhappy and it will not be changed. But now playerbase is blind, not knowing what to expect

Very much this. I don't think the developers need to explain every little thing they do, have done, or are planning to do. It's their game after all, and they should be the ones to design it. I also doubt we'll ever see any actual detailed statistics on things because that's just not something any company just gives out so it's silly to expect it (and most people demanding it are just doing so because they've convinced themselves that these "hidden" numbers will validate their own perspective). But what we do need is more actual two way communication and engagement from those whose job it is to do so.

We never really know what feedback from here is actually making it to the devs and, if it is making it, what form it's taking. Is it what's actually being discussed or is it a watered down, blunted, point form version? Take the Healer debate as an example. Healers have a variety of complaints and issues ranging from their role/necessity in combat to how lacking the healing jobs are engagement wise in all levels of combat encounter when healing isn't needed. It can be a lot to take in, but it's all important and there have been some very well stated examples and suggestions given by the players. But the message that actually seems like the devs are being given is "lol the healers are just saying the game's too easy again lol" which is potentially why Yoshida's response was "Well, they should just wait until Ultimate comes around."