On a scale of 1 to 5-- Do you feel SE listens to their western players? State why.

[hynaku]

1. Since they used my idea I left on solo duty quests. I left an idea that they should let you pick how hard they are. From easy to very hard

[Midareyukki]

2/3. And that's because I agree with Deveryn here:

Yoshi regularly makes reference to the western audience. We read about it here and there as well. Reaper is a western request. IS was handled as casually as intended in the west. We're getting one of two DC additions. Yeah... this take never checks out.

It only appears like JP is favored because JP has their shit together when it comes to feedback.

I'll even add that JP didn't hype Vieras much as the West did during Stormblood. It was so overwhelming that they changed their plans.

So they do listen, so it's not "zero" but it is still very selective hearing.

[kpxmanifesto]

I could probably give SE a 2/5. Way back in the day we requested a 1v1 dueling mode, and SE gave us that on the Wolves' Den Pier. It's a small request, but they followed through with it.

[Lazariah]

I don't know. I think they listen to us as much as they can. They do have to rely on translators after all. I think they are trying to make sure to listen to us all equally, but the truth is the JP community is far more accessible to them since they speak the same language. Saying they 100% listen to us is feels like denial and saying they 100% don't feels disingenuous.

[Meowdyj]

I don't know. I think they listen to us as much as they can. They do have to rely on translators after all. I think they are trying to make sure to listen to us all equally, but the truth is the JP community is far more accessible to them since they speak the same language. Saying they 100% listen to us is feels like denial and saying they 100% don't feels disingenuous.

Language should not be a barrier. Vast majority of the playerbase is able to communicate in English, it's the least you expect from a developer like Square Enix. Sure, their main language is Japanese, yet only represents like 15-20% of the playerbase.

They aren't listening enough based on complaints and suggestions made. A simple change to for example Paladin glitch in pvp took half a year to fix, even tho people mentioned it for months. Would say 2/5.

[Carin-Eri]

I can't find cause to complain at all to be honest. The fact that they digest player feedback at all is admirable. Although to be clear, I'm view this from the perspective of someone who played another MMO for over a decade.

Sadly, the CM/Dev- Player 'relationship' in that game was, frankly, awful. Whilst I fully acknowledge that much of the responsibility falls on the players in this case, I'd also argue that a professional response should be employed by those who work for the studio. In the latter case, this didn't happen. The CM (who was/is offended by even the most minor negative remark) and the Devs had/have a nasty habit of spouting nonsense about how (I quote) "The community is a minority and doesn't represent the playerbase as a whole". Needless to say, the community of that game took offense at this attitude and the, frankly moronic, CM and Devs seemed surprised by this. The result? A forum which has become largely pointless and barely used thanks to heavy-handed moderation of negative opinion by the moderators (the CM never goes anywhere near it) and a Subreddit where the few White Knights the community of that game loiter to be contrary for the sake of it.
Add to this the fact that one of their lead item designers has a terrible habit of ignoring what players ask for in favor of indulging what he, personally, would like to see in the game - and if anyone tries to address this the excuse is basically " but the metrics say...."

Frankly, you know you can't win when you have a CM who calls the community of the game he represents "venomous" for pointing out that their news blogs are, and have been for years, sloppy (due to the fact that they can't be bothered to proof-read or spell-check them) and inaccurate thanks to much of the info being badly copy-pasted from a previous blog.

[Rithy255]

I'd say 3/5 they sometimes listen they sometimes don't, I actually think they listen more then most companies (unironically), but I wish they were still communicated a bit more with some stuff, I don't know really though I feel like they do/can listen but other times it feels like people will keep complaining about something and it will not be addressed, I don't think they mentioned much about 2 minute meta, but they recently talked about reducing ranged "tax" (I believe correct me if I'm wrong).

I think they do actually tend to address some stuff but other stuff they don't sometimes i don't think they wanna make open statements about "controversial topics" unless it really really gets heated.

So they're kinda good at addressing stuff I guess? :s

[Deceptus]

1

Healers asked a relatively concise question regarding the healer playstyle in a live letter, it was completely misconstrued and brushed off.

[Semirhage]

2

Square listens to feedback they already agree with. It has nothing to do with being "consolidated in threads" or "being unified" or anything like that. It has nothing to do with number of upvotes. If Square disagrees with what the community has to say about an element of game design, it's going to be ignored.

[PirateRyanG]

To be honest, no.

But game developers shouldn't really listen to the player base anyway. Like, for anything.

Gamers never know what they want, and what they think they want is not what they want in the first place.