Dark Knight Megathread

[ThorneDynasty]

Yeah, that is my number 1 pet peeve on these forums, shooting down criticism if you don't write a cringey rework suggestion document no one will actually read. It's not the movie critics job to go reshoot and edit a scene that they don't like, the point of criticism is to figure out what doesn't work. The movie director will then do whatever they will with that.

You can't ask forum feedback to design a game either, it's the game developers job.

[Archwizard]

It's not the movie critics job to go reshoot and edit a scene that they don't like, the point of criticism is to figure out what doesn't work. The movie director will then do whatever they will with that.

Sure, but it is the movie critic's job to clearly illustrate why they don't like a scene or what specifically they don't like about it. For instance, "this is a weird divet in a character's arc and not at all where the story was leading," or "the scene is hard to follow along because X and Y are happening all at once, W has no impact on the rest of the plot and Z is a plot hole," or "So-and-so didn't emote and had weird line readings, and it dragged down the whole scene." They may even suggest what they expected from a characterization, or what plot elements to trim or emphasize earlier, or say "Show us more of X in the sequel."

Constructive feedback should be actionable, not just critical. Otherwise, as Lyth has made the point before, the devs can't know what you object to and just hear "rip everything out root and stem."

[ThorneDynasty]

Sure, but it is the movie critic's job to clearly illustrate why they don't like a scene or what specifically they don't like about it. For instance, "this is a weird divet in a character's arc and not at all where the story was leading," or "the scene is hard to follow along because X and Y are happening all at once, W has no impact on the rest of the plot and Z is a plot hole," or "So-and-so didn't emote and had weird line readings, and it dragged down the whole scene." They may even suggest what they expected from a characterization, or what plot elements to trim or emphasize earlier, or say "Show us more of X in the sequel."

Constructive feedback should be actionable, not just critical. Otherwise, as Lyth has made the point before, the devs can't know what you object to and just hear "rip everything out root and stem."

That's not the same thing as explaining exactly how, say, the script should be rewritten. You can simply say "the character's motivation for doing X was not established" and it's a perfectly good criticism, the critic doesn't then need to write the character's backstory. "Darkside is a completely pointless system that the player doesn't engage with" is valid without coming up with a whole new system. If the dev's hands need to be held to that degree on how to "interpret" criticism, this game is dying.

[Shurrikhan]

If the dev's hands need to be held to that degree on how to "interpret" criticism, this game is dying.

It would be pretty reasonable to argue that job design is indeed dying and largely for that exact reason. Most large changes end up including as many steps back as forward precisely because context, understanding of kit nuance, and critical reading skills go suspiciously missing somewhere down the communication tunnel.

Doing something to counter that issue isn't our obligation, but it is something we can do. That doesn't mean coming up with any and every concrete detail (and generally, laying out thresholds in optimal behavior is more useful than a smattering of potencies... from which we'd simply attempt to judge optimal behavior anyways), but including context and giving at least some vivid illustration of the ideas is certainly helpful -- especially to refining our preferences here.

[Lyth]

...

I agree on your main point, that the consumer helps define the design problem, but not its solution.

That being said, feedback isn't always negative. Sometimes the design problem comes down to how to implement something that players really want to see in game that doesn't yet exist.

Part of this game's strength as an MMO comes from series nostalgia. That's why it's one of the criteria that features in the game's marketing surveys. I remember seeing a Magitek Reaper run past me in Western Thanalan back in 2013, and instantly recognized it from my childhood memories of FFVI's art. A few expansions ago, one of the things that MCH players discussed was the idea around using Edgar's tools as part of the job's toolkit. That's one of the things that's since made its way into the game, and it's a really charming addition. I'd actually love to see more references brought in from other games in the series. What would it be like to use Cloud's Omnislash, Tifa's Dolphin Kick, Squall's Lionheart, Noctis' Warp Strike, Gafgarion's Shadowblade/Duskblade, or Celes' Runic? Could you do something interesting with the likes of Reflect or Float?

There are gameplay related points worth discussing as well. This expansion, one of the design goals was to make tank cooldowns that rewarded you for correctly timing their use. Most of the new Lv. 82 upgrades have a 4s window where you mitigate extra damage. It's a neat idea, but pressing a mitigation button at the last second doesn't really add anything to skill expression. If anything, for longer recast cooldowns you generally want to catch the tankbuster on the last few seconds, to trigger the recast cooldown early. You might pop Rampart 18 s before a tankbuster lands so that you have it up again 18 s earlier. What if we took this a step further and suggest that if a tank correctly times a short recast mitigation move on a 'red arrow' tankbuster, it temporarily unlocks a special counter attack along the same lines as BLU's Cold Fog/Chelonian Gate?

The dev team can absolutely figure out the specifics. That's why I wouldn't waste my time going into potencies and recasts. But if there's something that you want to see gameplay-wise in game that hasn't been done yet, putting it out there simply plants the seeds of the idea. The dev team can decide for themselves whether it's worth bearing fruit.