I have a question for the "community".

[Raven2014]

...

Ok, I will stop replying to you in this thread because you had misunderstood the intention of this thread, and seem pretty determined of taking it to that direction. I will clarify one last time, but that's it:

- This is not a "let's make peace and understand each others" thread.
- This is not a "let's try to bridge the gap between the community" thread.
- This is not a "an attempt to communicate with the other side" thread.

You seem to think I'm pretending to be do some kind of ... chivalry act ... I'm not pretending, I flat out not doing that at all. If you want any of that, my respect, but maybe you should make your own thread for that? I'm not shutting you down, I "can not" shut you down, I just ask you respect the intend of my thread and not derailing it.

The complainers, the other side, people I disagree with .etc. sure, whatever terminology that float your boat because it's more politically correctness, I don't care ... it doesn't matter because they are not the people I'm trying to address in this thread. The people I'm trying to address here are those who generally like the game and enjoy it. And my message to them is very simple:

If you like the game, don't just stay silent, speak out what you like more, give the dev that positive reinforcement

That's it, simple. This is not some kind of grand standing that you're trying to make it to be. Again, I can't shut you down if you still insist (so please don't pull that victim card), just give you a fair notice that you will understand I will no longer response to you.

So the narrative that they deleted the content because people complained too much on the forums is rather unconvincing. If they really did, I have concerns about their decision-making process. A game which smooth out every feature to be as inoffensive as possible has no future.

Like I said, it maybe a causation, or just a mere co-relation. But the silence doesn't help. And I'm willing to bet if there is an overwhelming of visible support for a content, not just some "statistic", it can certain affect the decision making. Just like people who don't vote citing "it doesn't matter, it won't change anything". It may, it may not, but that kind of thinking will not help.



Also, if we assume the relic steps will be kept this simple through out the the whole process this time, I do think the completion rate will break all previous record. Do you want SE to interpret it as "oh, this proved the majority like things this way"?

[ForteNightshade]

4) The devs have proven that positive feedback is not as effective as negative feedback. (although both have proven to be immensely ineffective at times) It makes common sense that the more effective method will be the more common one, and that's not without good reason. If the devs want more positive feedback, then they should create an environment where positive feedback is the more effective method. And this does not mean ignoring negative feedback. Ignoring negative feedback is how you end up where WoW is.

This needs to be emphasized because it highlights a glaring issue with the feedback loop and contributes to why people can be so profoundly negative when things go awry.

A prime example is job design. Heavensward Dark Knight remains one of the most popular iterations of the job yet that praise was ignored in favor of people complaining it was too difficult to play, thus it saw its Stormblood rework that, surprise surprise, people hated. Likewise, Bard was at one point the most popular DPS in high-end content if not the game as a whole. Now it can't even surpass Black Mage, a job notorious for low play numbers. What happened? Once again, the devs ignored praise for Stormblood's iteration in an attempt to get players who didn't like Bard to begin with to give it a chance. Most of those same players still disliked the job come Shadowbringers, and now veterans also hated the changes.

While these are but two examples, it goes to show that loudly complaining gets you better results than praising aspects of the game. This extends to social media platforms too. Red Mage and Machinist were largely ignored this expansion despite both being woefully undertuned. Red Mage is still suffering, though Machinist finally saw some much needed improvements. Warrior, on the the hand, has been buffed in four separate patches. What's the difference? Tank players, especially a certain bald man, were very loud about how dreadful the balance was.

Now listening to complaints wouldn't be inherently bad... if they were the majority opinion. In some cases, they absolutely are. Pagos comes to mind. In other though, you have a situation like Bard where they listened to lower skilled players and/or people who didn't like the job in the hopes they'd like a new iteration. In the end, they're trying to appeal to everyone which is an impossible endeavour.

[Kosachi]

Bozja was a failure according to SE. If I recall, the JP side of the community HATED Bozja. So much infact that the guy in charge of Bozja was completely released from SE, the two additional zones Bozja was supposed to get were scrapped and the story was thrown away into field notes. Bozja was such a waste of SE's resources that they took the loss on how poorly it ended. I feel like the relic rabbit hole goes a lot deeper than wither or not we as players have been enjoying it. The easier relic steps is most definitely a result of whatever consequences happened during Bozja. I wonder if it's time to make a history dive and find out the mystery. Would make a good Youtube video.

That's interesting, do you have a source so I can read up on that? This is the first I am ever hearing of this because YoshiP said in the live letter before the release of Zadnor that he considered the engagement a success compared to that of Eureka.

Are you also talking about Matsuno per chance? He wasn't fired, he wasn't even part of the 14 team. He was just asked to help write the story. (Most of which, his ideas weren't used)
Source: https://www.famitsu.com/news/202109/27234807.html

[Asphhar]

Not on the forum. I was playing it.

Exactly this.

[TomsYoungerBro]

I wasn't playing the game at the time either were released. I started in early May of 2021 so I basically came in after all shadowbringers patches were done. I'm not exactly sure what the negativity was exactly regarding Bozja/Zadnor, but from what i experienced in game and on the forums, people seemed to love it in terms of a leveling experience. Gave a unique location to level up a class from 71-80 while playing at the Max level rotation throughout in very unique encounters. I mean just look at all the reapers and sages who used it when endwalker released XD. I remember people talking on reddit in excitement for a Endwalker equilavent zone that scales us up to 90 for leveling.

Regardless, if simple complaints on a piece of content will take it from existing to just tome grinds...Maybe the devs aren't cutout for a live service game. I'm sure there were valid complaints still about how it related to the relic and its overall implementation. Take the feedback into consideration and use that info to make an even better piece of content in the next expansion. Don't just throw it all away and say "Welp lets just implement a tome grind that will take us 5 minutes to code. That'll show em!!!.."

[Kazhar]

Bozja was a failure according to SE. If I recall, the JP side of the community HATED Bozja. So much infact that the guy in charge of Bozja was completely released from SE, the two additional zones Bozja was supposed to get were scrapped and the story was thrown away into field notes. Bozja was such a waste of SE's resources that they took the loss on how poorly it ended. I feel like the relic rabbit hole goes a lot deeper than wither or not we as players have been enjoying it. The easier relic steps is most definitely a result of whatever consequences happened during Bozja. I wonder if it's time to make a history dive and find out the mystery. Would make a good Youtube video.

Absolutely none of it is confirmed and some of your speculation is outright wrong. Matsuno was neither in charge of Bozja (he was only involved in the writing but we know that he didn't have full control like he did with the Ivalice raid alliance series) nor fired.

[Raoabolic]

Putting aside Bozja (which is, in my opinion, the answer for midcore content thanks to solo/group skirmishes), the biggest issues I have with the lazy step two of the relic is the fact that there is no reason to explore and group up in the overworld. I should not be wistfully wishing for more fate farms but at least that had people going out into the world and doing things. The second verse, same as the first, step of the relic just feels like more filler that leans way to hard on instance/roulette grinding. They should have just said, "It's a light farm, lol" and left it at that but I guess I don't blame them for going for the lowest hanging fruit if they can get away with it. lmao

[Axxion]

Doing Polls has the same effect as a Forum.
Not everyone is on a forum, or will do a Pull.
Both Polls and the Forum are ways of getting Feedback.
Regardless of if feedback comes from either one, they make decisions based on that feedback

And no matter what, nothing is guaranteed to 100% hit the mark. There will ALWAYS be a group that will complain, And moan and cry "They dont listen"

To chime in on that. If they tied like some reward to it. People will do it. You be surprise on how many people would do it.

For the topic. I was playing it just like you and other player as well. I created this account back in mid to end hw? Cant remember. The main reason is because of the feed back part. heck i remember when people turn the troll threads into cooking recipes. As person the relic back in aar to hw. I enjoyed them because it kept the world alive dungeons where queuing people helping one another in the steps. Also loved the story that went with and it continued. Like having a weapon with a soul that learns with you? that was amazing in my book.

However when they added the new steps it kinda killed it well for me anyway. I just didnt do it. I did not like the thought of me in a instance area all the time fate grinding (think that what killed my love for them) just to progress. And how the player base is and you should know. if you not doing it when it current or not doing it when the next expansion comes out because want to level alt jobs then its dead to a point.

You say "I feel like ... SE definitely listen to the community ... but the way we're doing it is purely from a "negative reinforcement" side" and it has been that way for a bit. Take in consideration with the raid tier where people had to switch jobs to clear it. Look how fast they changed it and the apology letter

[Shinkuno]

Its pretty simple really. The FFXIV community have no clue what they really want, which is why this is probably one of the hardest audiences to ever please.

Although really you wont ever please everybody in general no matter what you do but especially with this community.

the community that defends any lack of content is hard to please?

[Arkfrost]

Where were you many years ago when each and every of those contents got flak to hell and back?

I was here, playing the game, enjoying all of it, being totally baffled by people who hated on Eureka. Until this day I do not comprehend, why people hated Eureka so much. Like seriously, it's the best content this game has ever implemented. Heck, even Eureka Pagos was great imo.
The only problem Pagos had was, that the grind took too long. Aside from that, all the things people complained about (e.g. the dragons or the cave drops) were things I found to be damn cool and gameplay experience enhancing.

I feel relic content is one of those area that SE had constantly listen to feedback and try to adjust to player demand:

I agree, that SE was listening to players, only that they didn't get what players were complaining about.
People were complaining about Eureka, because you were forced to do it to get the relic. There simply was no other option. This however by no means meant, that players wanted the field ops zones to be completely irrelevant like Bozja was for the first couple of relic steps.

Doing Polls has the same effect as a Forum.
Not everyone is on a forum, or will do a Pull.
Both Polls and the Forum are ways of getting Feedback.

Well, then just do it like MiHoYo is doing it for years already with Honkai and Genshin (both extremely successful games - and undeniably WAY more successful than FFXIV):
Do ingame polls frequently, that also reward you for doing them. In Honkai & Genshin you get a bit of premium currency for doing those. In FFXIV you could simply award players like 100 capped tomes that don't count towards your weekly cap, for participating in a poll. It's the easiest and most engaging way to get feedback.