Quote Originally Posted by Hurlstone View Post
snippy
You're right in that we shouldn't take the forums, or any small group as a sample to collectively refer to the whole community. Youtube's FF14 community sings Endwalker's praise, Reddit is somewhat mixed but on a favourable hill, while the forums definitely is split with people whose opinion of the game was lowered by Endwalker's flaws, people who agree EW has flaws but their opinion of the game hasn't been lowered by them alone, while others see no problem and so their opinion remains favourable.

But we also need to know where those people come from:
- Youtube is made up of Content Creators whose main focus is to enjoy and broadcast the game. Unless they have something else they and their fanbase enjoys, they likely won't say anything too negative.
- Reddit's environment is full of people who like the game and hold almost no criticism for it. Whenever there is criticism, either it gets promptly justified and downvoted and we never see them again, or it gets discussed a bit and it doesn't lead anywhere. Also, it's not a place the devs look into for feedback, so there's little point in complaining there.
- The forums are specifically what the devs claim to pay attention to. So there is an incentive to post criticism of the game and complaints here. So it's far less filtered.

I will say that only one of my friends even sets his eyes on the forums, but all of them collectively are a mixed bag. You have the ones who are displeased, you have others that agree there are flaws but carry on because it doesn't affect them and you have those who just say "the game's a game" and move on. And you'll likely see this from the majority of the fanbase with varying intensity. All in all, we all keep playing and paying a subscription for a reason. If we didn't like it, given how supposedly more on the adult side the FF14 fanbase is, we'd know it's not for us and we'd drop it.

And I think that's the positivity we should all have: if we play it, it's because we like something about it. If we complain, it's because we want improvements. If we have zero faith, then it's just simply not for us and we're wasting time.

Even in controversial threads, you have people reasonable enough to draw a line between a complaint and an unreasonable expectation. If you do nothing but stick to your guns and not try to get the other side and concede when they're right, then that's on you. The issue is that for a lot of people, the mere fact you agree with the topic at all means you're seeking an echo chamber. And it's way too easy to accuse others of doing that when you really only read one or two of their posts. You don't know where they stand at all, you only know where they stand on one particular answer with a character limit.

Some people are obvious trolls, but that's not the case every time. So many threads get derailed and people in them get insulted just because people disagree with the topic and think those who agree just want an echo chamber.