Why does everyone complain about STORY based MMO's?

[ZedxKayn]

You people sure love to dismiss any opinion you dislike with the same old "muh minority".

Sure, but why bring metacritic in the first place then? Endwalker's user rating is based on 1.4k reviews, which are also less than 1% of the "millions who play". It's less than 0.1% actually.
If you want play the numbers game, don't use such blatant double standards.

Forums are not the whole community, but there are representative of a certain demographic of players. Same for Reddit. Same for Twitter. Same for Metacritic. Same for your server's Novice Network. You can't use one as the definitive judge of quality (which is stupid in the first place, because being popular has never shielded anything from criticism like you always love to imply), and ignore the others.

There's also massive survivor bias within the community, what about the opinions of those thousands who tried and got utterly filtered by the combat or the MSQ or whatever?

My personal experience is that not one single person I've got to try the game out finished the MSQ because of just how long it is for how it's presented no matter how much they push themselves. Point being XIV is very far from being all praises, but it's all people in the community tend to hear because most people who have criticism towards the game either already moved on and/or got backlash, because I've seldom seen a community so allergic to criticism.

[Nav_Fae]

There's also massive survivor bias within the community, what about the opinions of those thousands who tried and got utterly filtered by the combat or the MSQ or whatever?

My personal experience is that not one single person I've got to try the game out finished the MSQ because of just how long it is for how it's presented no matter how much they push themselves. Point being XIV is very far from being all praises, but it's all people in the community tend to hear because most people who have criticism towards the game either already moved on and/or got backlash, because I've seldom seen a community so allergic to criticism.

That's because it's non-constructive criticism

[ZedxKayn]

That's because it's non-constructive criticism

So? Not all criticism has to be constructive. Saying "x is not fun" doesn't make the criticism worthless, it's player feedback. It's as constructive as "wow I enjoyed the story so much!" yet you never see people say "tHaT'S nOt CoNsTrUcTiVe CrItIcIsM" to that. It's up to the devs to figure out what to do with any type of criticism positive or negative, constructive, neutral or abrasive, to ignore it, acknowledge it, think about it, because the statement "x is not fun" doesn't stop being true for the player because it wasn't presented with a wall of text on how to perhaps make x more fun. Additionally, I'd reckon the feedback of players that quit can be extremely valuable for the devs, probably more than the positive criticism.

Besides, white knights find way to call even constructive criticism "non-constructive" through mental gymnastics and disingenuity just because they can't stand any criticism of the game. Like how can you call any and all criticism from this subset of the playerbase "non-constructive"? Did you read every criticism from people who quit be it at lv27 or lv78? What makes you think that? Because they aren't entirely up to date with every piece of content there's out there? If so then no criticism is constructive until the game's development is thoroughly over, and the positive feedback of the sprout that's still lv40 being thankful for the addition of trust and/or streamlining in ARR stuff isn't constructive either... But you'd never even think about replying to an enthusiastic sprout that's saying nothing more thought out than "this is neat" that their criticism isn't constructive, would you? People who don't even have 20 minutes into the game can give feedback regarding an aspect of the game they have reached, aka character creation, about as well as someone who has thousands of hours into the game. Doesn't make it worthless or not valid.

So yeah, I have seldom seen a community more allergic to criticism.

[Supersnow845]

So? Not all criticism has to be constructive. Saying "x is not fun" doesn't make the criticism worthless, it's player feedback. It's as constructive as "wow I enjoyed the story so much!" yet you never see people say "tHaT'S nOt CoNsTrUcTiVe CrItIcIsM" to that. It's up to the devs to figure out what to do with any type of criticism positive or negative, constructive, neutral or abrasive, to ignore it, acknowledge it, think about it, because the statement "x is not fun" doesn't stop being true for the player because it wasn't presented with a wall of text on how to perhaps make x more fun. Additionally, I'd reckon the feedback of players that quit can be extremely valuable for the devs, probably more than the positive criticism.

Besides, white knights find way to call even constructive criticism "non-constructive" through mental gymnastics and disingenuity just because they can't stand any criticism of the game. Like how can you call any and all criticism from this subset of the playerbase "non-constructive"? What makes you think that? Because they aren't entirely up to date with every piece of content there's out there? If so then no criticism is constructive until the game's development is thoroughly over. People who don't even have 20 minutes into the game can give feedback regarding an aspect of the game they have reached, aka character creation, about as well as someone who has thousands of hours into the game. Doesn't make it worthless or not valid.

So yeah, I have seldom seen a community more allergic to criticism.

I’ve been trying to figure out for a while if this persons comment was in reference to “saying the story is bad” is pointless criticism or “Burger King told me cure 1 spamming is wrong what a toxic elitist” but honestly you’ve more eloquently summed up my opinion on both sides of that discussion better than I ever could considering according to at least 1 person I have a reputation on the forums as a toxic Elitist myself apparently

[LittleImp]

So? Not all criticism has to be constructive. Saying "x is not fun" doesn't make the criticism worthless, it's player feedback.

It's just a cheap way to dismiss negative sentiment.

At my work, we maintain a very close relationship with the people who use our software. We spend a lot of time tailor building or tweaking features to accommodate our customers particulars, and it would be laughably irresponsible for us to ignore negative sentiment towards a feature just because the criticism "Wasn't constructive enough". Customers, particularly in the entertainment space, may not be equipped to understand or communicate effectively exactly why they don't like something. Professional designers/developers are supposed to have the skillset to contextualize and understand negative sentiment about their product, even when it's not particularly descriptive or nice.

[Lauront]

It's just a cheap way to dismiss negative sentiment.

At my work, we maintain a very close relationship with the people who use our software. We spend a lot of time tailor building or tweaking features to accommodate our customers particulars, and it would be laughably irresponsible for us to ignore negative sentiment towards a feature just because the criticism "Wasn't constructive enough". Customers, particularly in the entertainment space, may not be equipped to understand or communicate effectively exactly why they don't like something. Professional designers/developers are supposed to have the skillset to contextualize and understand negative sentiment about their product, even when it's not particularly descriptive or nice.

Exactly. At the end of the day it's up to the business to figure out why the feedback is the way it is. Yeah, sure, they won't lose sleep over a handful of people leaving, but a customer saying they dislike something, or simply ceasing to consume your product without even saying anything, is a data point in itself, and one to explore further. Larger businesses devote entire departments to extracting insights out of their customers' behaviour, because it is so uncommon (particularly in mass retail relationships, like this) that they will give you enough to go on with just the first pass of feedback - and that's assuming they offer any besides their actions. Nonetheless, you as the business are still faced with the fact that they may cease the relationship, they may be spending less than they otherwise have been/could be etc., so whether you like how "constructive" the feedback you're getting or not, it couldn't matter any less. Grow complacent and dismissive about it at your peril. There's other things for a consumer to spend their money/time on. It's very easy to turn that kind of thing into an excuse to not do proper research into what your customers are telling you, either in words or through actions.

[Supersnow845]

Exactly. At the end of the day it's up to the business to figure out why the feedback is the way it is. Yeah, sure, they won't lose sleep over a handful of people leaving, but a customer saying they dislike something, or simply ceasing to consume your product without even saying anything, is a data point in itself, and one to explore further. Larger businesses devote entire departments to extracting insights out of their customers' behaviour, because it is so uncommon (particularly in mass retail relationships, like this) that they will give you enough to go on with just the first pass of feedback - and that's assuming they offer any besides their actions. Nonetheless, you as the business are still faced with the fact that they may cease the relationship, they may be spending less than they otherwise have been/could be etc., so whether you like how "constructive" the feedback you're getting or not, it couldn't matter any less. Grow complacent and dismissive about it at your peril. There's other things for a consumer to spend their money/time on. It's very easy to turn that kind of thing into an excuse to not do proper research into what your customers are telling you, either in words or through actions.

Especially in a game like this where the sub barely keeps the lights on

I wouldn’t be opposed to spending more in the cash shop if I wasn’t pretty much on my last legs with the game because of the design decisions they have made, sure I’m one data point but I’ve also had an unbroken sub streak since the second legacy beta, losing me won’t cause them a wink but it’s still data they should be considering

[Striker44]

So? Not all criticism has to be constructive. Saying "x is not fun" doesn't make the criticism worthless, it's player feedback. It's as constructive as "wow I enjoyed the story so much!" yet you never see people say "tHaT'S nOt CoNsTrUcTiVe CrItIcIsM" to that. It's up to the devs to figure out what to do with any type of criticism positive or negative, constructive, neutral or abrasive, to ignore it, acknowledge it, think about it, because the statement "x is not fun" doesn't stop being true for the player because it wasn't presented with a wall of text on how to perhaps make x more fun. Additionally, I'd reckon the feedback of players that quit can be extremely valuable for the devs, probably more than the positive criticism.

My take is the main difference is how you proceed as a developer. When people say they're really enjoying something, even though it would be nice to know more specifics, it's passable to simply translate that as "the approach we're using right now is working, keep doing more of the same." When someone just says something is "bad" on the other hand, without specifying what, it's a lot more difficult to make changes. Knowing "everything is likely good" is much more informative than "something is not good, but who knows what or why."

I see the issue as less a community "allergic to criticism" (the multiple threads providing specific, constructive criticism on things like certain races, for example, show a community completely accepting of criticism), and more taking issue with people who directly insult and attack the dev team while proclaiming themselves the all-knowing arbiters of what is "good" or "bad," and frequently it ultimately boils down to "the devs wrote a different story than I wanted them to write, so I'm going to call it bad."

And for every person who seems to get on people's cases for disliking something about EW, I can likely equally point to another person who seems unable to accept that many people enjoy it.

Exactly. At the end of the day it's up to the business to figure out why the feedback is the way it is. Yeah, sure, they won't lose sleep over a handful of people leaving, but a customer saying they dislike something, or simply ceasing to consume your product without even saying anything, is a data point in itself, and one to explore further.

This is also a great point. The data points at the moment, though, show that the current expansion is their most successful. The opening and patch-release peaks have seen the largest playerbase yet, and even the between-patch troughs are still significantly higher in terms of active players than similar troughs in any past expansion. Taking specific critiques under advisement is useful, but completely altering your approach when the overall feedback is overwhelmingly positive is generally a terrible strategy.

[SentioftheHoukai]

My take is the main difference is how you proceed as a developer. When people say they're really enjoying something, even though it would be nice to know more specifics, it's passable to simply translate that as "the approach we're using right now is working, keep doing more of the same." When someone just says something is "bad" on the other hand, without specifying what, it's a lot more difficult to make changes. Knowing "everything is likely good" is much more informative than "something is not good, but who knows what or why."

I see the issue as less a community "allergic to criticism" (the multiple threads providing specific, constructive criticism on things like certain races, for example, show a community completely accepting of criticism), and more taking issue with people who directly insult and attack the dev team while proclaiming themselves the all-knowing arbiters of what is "good" or "bad," and frequently it ultimately boils down to "the devs wrote a different story than I wanted them to write, so I'm going to call it bad."

And for every person who seems to get on people's cases for disliking something about EW, I can likely equally point to another person who seems unable to accept that many people enjoy it.



This is also a great point. The data points at the moment, though, show that the current expansion is their most successful. The opening and patch-release peaks have seen the largest playerbase yet, and even the between-patch troughs are still significantly higher in terms of active players than similar troughs in any past expansion. Taking specific critiques under advisement is useful, but completely altering your approach when the overall feedback is overwhelmingly positive is generally a terrible strategy.

Oh, Striker why must you spurn me like this?

taking issue with people who directly insult and attack the dev team while proclaiming themselves the all-knowing arbiters of what is "good" or "bad," and frequently it ultimately boils down to "the devs wrote a different story than I wanted them to write, so I'm going to call it bad."

Once again, I must humbly request that you either provide proof that one of us has declared ourselves Ultimate Arbiters of Morality or modify thy catchphrase. It's beginning to grate and contributes naught to the discussion at hand.

Your fellow Venatori refuse to deign to acknowledge you exist. Surely you see this as the issue it remains?

[Striker44]

Oh, Striker why must you spurn me like this?

Umm...oops?

Once again, I must humbly request that you either provide proof that one of us has declared ourselves Ultimate Arbiters of Morality or modify thy catchphrase. It's beginning to grate and contributes naught to the discussion at hand.

All the more reason to continue using it! Seriously, though, just the name of that one infamous thread with the "what's the point of that quite lackluster story" etc. is exactly it. It's declaring the quality of the story as if it's a fact, when it's an opinion (and an opinion shared by a minuscule minority of the playerbase at that!). It would be just as messed up if someone made a thread like "Why EW is the greatest xpac of all time"...that would also be an opinion masquerading as a fact.

But you don't see that version as much. The people who praise the game note it's their opinion. Heck, we just got a new thread today called "In Endwalker I loved..."; it's all about people mentioning the things they personally enjoyed. Nobody is claiming to have any objective say over the narrative, just giving their (positive) opinions.

Heck, even in the thread noting the growth in FFXIV due to EW this past year, you have comments like "I'd like to see quality go up" and "Not much of a 'conspiracy' when the opening post is derogatory and dismissive of absolutely any criticism towards the game whatsoever." (note: it wasn't any of those things). I feel sorry for the people who are so sad they can't even stand the thought that other people might be happy.