That Which He Does Not Play

[aveyond-dreams]

Because yeah, it is unfair that Male Viera has this much quality to them while all Hrothgars got were laughing at bad renders and poor choice of hairstyles. Even if Male Viera share the same limitations as Viera, in no way are they as bad as Hrothgar have been, nor have they been treated the same way. Him saying "Oh, we were surprised at your response" doesn't help; even if all you play is Lalafell, you can still have some level of empathy for other players and understand what's a bad choice from what isn't. You mean to tell me that he and an entire board room + the people he had working on this, none of them thought that was trash and would be poorly received and thus needed to really think of their approach? Same as how it's downright daft for anyone to be told consistently "Healers aren't doing well, please add more challenges" and the one thought he can conjure is "lol do ultimate". You don't need to play a healer to understand that players at higher levels aren't happy with the current design and want you to reassess it. It's just basic empathy, putting yourself in the others' shoes. There's just so much disconnect between what he says and thinks versus what the community expects.

I mentioned how he had other people in the room with him for these things. Sure, he's their boss, but at the same time, they're still making the game together and deciding on how to go by things. If he isn't capable of mustering up empathy for others, odds are their team can. And some have. But we shouldn't expect them to go rogue, we shouldn't be asking them to. And if it's true that some members of the team went behind his back to make basic headgear work for Viera and Hrothgar, he shouldn't see it as a thing for us to praise, but rather something for he himself to acknowledge the work done and the expectations he's setting up for his own game. As in, "great that you're telling us that your team worked harder than you asked, but rather than have us lick their boots over it, are YOU appreciating the work done and understand what the team cared about?". Assuming, of course, that even happened as he claims it did.

Overall an excellent post, and yeah empathy seems to be...exclusive to only some races/classes/pieces of content. All it takes really is a superficial grasp of what FFXIV players want (and the basics of WoW's character creator) in order to come up with a set of options that would allow for a bestial race to release in a state that's complete. Villagers and other sorts of NPCs along with a high degree of variability and customization are readily apparent when I look at what people do in Animal Crossing or that new Disney game. Same goes for healers, when I play one it's with the expectation that there's going to either be enough damage for me to heal or enough stuff I can do to play support.

This game is in sore need of a red T-shirt Blizzcon guy moment. The "relaxed living" content that was supposed to sustain so far while battle content stagnates has been about as engaging as a McDonald's kiosk machine. For once can both battle and crafter/gatherer players receive stuff to do outside of high end raiding or lackluster islands like a Deep Dungeon *and* a Restoration early on in an expansion's life cycle? I'm not saying stuff like this because I hate FFXIV or want to see it fail, I want for the obvious problems we're facing to be resolved. It sure would be nice if the director running this show were a bit more clued in on them. Instead they continue to focus on Twitter, the content creators who refuse to much if anything negative about the game unless there's a two year gap between the start of a problem and when it starts bugging them like Zepla barely making a video on limited race hairstyles prior to the 2nd Endwalker fanfest. I guess the following is the future of the game in more ways than one. Just need to make it G'raha Tia and the Last Stand themed.