My impression of English Forum

[EliaStormblade]

Took another peek at the WoW forums and theyre much saner than us. We desperetly all need to seek help and do better as a community.

"Our actions will speak louder, than words. Please look forward to us"

Those forums are more heavily moderated now, I think.

[OdinelStarrei]

I do understand your sentiment and message. I can assure you that I don't see Final Fantasy XIV in the same light as the religion or take it seriously as a kind of spiritual guidance. With that said, I do however have a special place in my heart for Final Fantasy XIV. As I've stated before, Final Fantasy XIV has helped me from the nasty place in the past, and well as has inspired me to live better and see life in a more positive note. And because of that, I do care quite a lot for, not only the game, but the official community around it as well, after all, I see Eorzea as another home, and if I feel like something is wrong with my home, I will not shy to express my opinion in a polite and careful manner.

I am grateful for your comment and reminding me to not get too attached to the virtual world. If my post has made you uncomfortable in anyway, I would like to apologize for such inconvenient as well.

A look at the other side of the coin, if you don't mind. I started in HW. FFXIV was not only my main game, it was something that kept me sane in a horrific spiral of unfortunate circumstances. I put a lot of hours in the game back then, was very active in my free company, tutored new players actively, did savage, did ultimates, absorbed exploration content like a sponge. Even when I started to ween off the game in Shadowbringers due to gameplay changes I didn't really agree with, I still challenged myself by going for Saint of the Firmament, Delubrum Delver, and eeking out as much depth as I could in my lobotomized job. (6/2 Dark Knight compared to sub 2.00 SkS Dark Knight).

It was for nothing, man. There is a gaping void in my heart where FFXIV was, apologies for the dramatics, that I've been constantly filling with other things. My life is in a slightly better position now, but there is nothing but apathy I feel towards XIV. My friends and comrades have quit. I'm a hold out of maybe, half a dozen, when before I was in a large community. I would be gone myself if that hold-out didn't keep paying a month sub for me, begging for me to stay and play every once in awhile as one of the only two tank players who remained. The reasons they all left became pretty similar after a point. "I don't like healers, I'm a healer main, I'm not listened to." "I don't like the reworks, they ruined all my jobs, I'm done." " I HATED Endwalker, ruined the Ancients, my investment was pointless." "The game is boring, I'm not interested in venues, I wanna play an actual video game that has a midcore scene ffs."

When people like say, Renathras (not going after him in particular, just an example), say that my feelings and experiences are not representative of the entire community, I have to think, well no **** they're not. God, I hope not! This has been AWFUL! At the absolute best, Odinel is a representative or epitome of a niche of Heavensward Dark Knight mains who are eternally bitter the game went in a different direction who just cannot let go.

Look, when it comes to things people want changed, it took seven years for Living Dead to not be a bad skill. That was a good win for my side. But it's also a great litmus test for the extreme in what it'll actually take for Square Enix to make sensible decisions from my perspective. That's one skill. Are tanks and healers ever going to get more depth? Is encounter design ever going to ask more of the players outisde of back-breaking ultimates? Is the skill ceiling ever going to allowed to be raised for jobs? Is the story going in a direction I find interesting? Are we ever going back to Heavensward/Stormblood? Those are big, systemic asks that would make me quite happy.

The answer is almost certainly a firm no. We will never go back, by their own admission as development staff. So, when it comes to things like the Official Forums being toxic, or whatever, I don't see why it's such a big deal, existentially. Square Enix will continue doing what they are doing, because there's literally no reason why they shouldn't. Eventually, the people who aren't masochists are going to leave if they don't like it. That's the natural order. We've been losing ground, and have lost much over the last two expansions, and it isn't coming back. I do not see the point in offering feedback when it goes the way of Kaiten or the "Just play ultimate" messes. There just isn't a point to it. So what's left? Screaming into the void, and at each other, since screaming at SE has minimal effect. And that's without getting into the chronic amount of trolling, and deliberate bad faith flinging going on.

You seem happy with things, and are trying to bring back a bit of compassion back to the board. That's admirable, but it's for the best that you go and enjoy yourself elsewhere instead of lamenting like some of us, or bickering meaninglessly like all of us. You're not being inconvenient, and there's no need to apologize. But you're just not the part of the community that feels like it was abandoned in the sweeping changes over time, however small that portion is. Wish I was never a part of that contingent, but c'est la vie.

[Jeeqbit]

I still challenged myself by going for Saint of the Firmament, Delubrum Delver, and eeking out as much depth as I could in my lobotomized job.

I did that sort of stuff in HW and like you I found whatever achievement or completion things I could over time to occupy myself, although for me personally they have been enough.

Odinel is a representative or epitome of a niche of Heavensward Dark Knight mains who are eternally bitter the game went in a different direction who just cannot let go.

I can relate to how Dark Knight was fun and dynamic, with something completely different for each situation instead of just doing the same thing all the time. I remember in A12S I was doing completely different things at different parts of the fight, whereas now I would just be spamming my 1-2-3 combo or my 2-button aoe combo with no thought, and the MP management is still there with edges and floods but it's braindead compared to then, effectively just another ogcd.

I suppose that, I just take an objective view of the whole thing. Dark Knight felt buggy and unpolished, like all jobs in HW. RNG mitigation that procs RNG mitigation that is locked behind certain stances which involve MP management that I could imagine many new players not even grasping long into their journey through the game. Not to mention we had players asking for parry buffs to go, for useless actions to go, and for cross-class to be overhauled somehow, and all of that is exactly what happened. Then Dark Arts got meme'd out of the game by players.

The only decision really that wasn't effectively asked for by players was the removal of DPS stances, but it wasn't hard to see how half of players used tank stance all the time and half of players used DPS stance all the time on tanks, and how people were fundamentally abusing the stat system to give tanks more strength than they were meant to have. So there was a long term project to overhaul it so that this wasn't possible which was completed by Shadowbringers by making tanks have the exact same amount of stats but then alter them through traits. Objectively, all these things created a giant skill gap among tanks that was far bigger than it is today, and a skill gap still exists but it's not as bad as it used to be because they are easier to play.

Because you could get a PLD in tank stance spamming Rage of Halone and another tank in their DPS stance with full strength accessories doing only their DPS rotation with food and pots and that was the sort of crazy difference you could see and although it's fun to have the ability to optimize and be better than someone who isn't trying or putting any work in, it seemed like a mountain someone had to climb to turn from an anxious tank that spams an enmity combo in tank stance to the latter. The pathway is a lot more straight-forward now, because when you jump into high-end content you are probably doing a lot of things right and just need to learn about food, pots and swaps.

I liked stance dancing, but I just gulped and accepted the skill gap needed addressing and I personally still enjoy tanking.

[Sotaris]

Those forums are more heavily moderated now, I think.

I wouldn't say heavily but they are moderated.

[Mika_Zahard]

Agreed. The amount of homophobia and transphobia on these forums is alarming.

Thank you for your contribution TitanMen, i would have been unable to read the OP without your colors. Now im finally able to read.

[Mcg55ss]

Took another peek at the WoW forums and theyre much saner than us. We desperetly all need to seek help and do better as a community.

"Our actions will speak louder, than words. Please look forward to us"

I do at work probably every day cuz bored....they are not saner

[Remish]

I feel like FFXIV has done more harm to my life with the people I met through this game and ended up associating with than it has good. Unfortunately for me, I am way to addicted to this game to get off. Even though I have taken breaks and played other games, I always return to this place to realize nothing has changed and it probably never will.

[Remish]

My theory,

Reddit has an upvote downvote system that silences dissent. Discord communities and twitch lobbies ban people who don't fit in. The forums are the only place that allows all posts to get equal representation. Therefore, they get the people that don't get attention for their hot takes elsewhere.

To be clear, I think reddit's visibility formula is disastrous for society in ways we do not yet understand. But it has caused official forums like these to get much worse.

Basically. Everyone here has a hot take. Most of these posts would be downvoted into oblivion elsewhere.

Reddit is a ceasepool with that too. I've had completely harmless posts downvoted into oblivion. Which begs the question if people just downvote to troll, witchhunt, or bots are used to do it. I don't really know. But for that reason, I can't ever support a downvote that filters posts out.

[Ath192]

My theory,

Reddit has an upvote downvote system that silences dissent. Discord communities and twitch lobbies ban people who don't fit in. The forums are the only place that allows all posts to get equal representation. Therefore, they get the people that don't get attention for their hot takes elsewhere.

To be clear, I think reddit's visibility formula is disastrous for society in ways we do not yet understand. But it has caused official forums like these to get much worse.

Basically. Everyone here has a hot take. Most of these posts would be downvoted into oblivion elsewhere.

I don't know that places that allow majorities to suppress minorities is better. Reddit is a huge echo chamber because of this. You could have someone with a very keen or truthful observation get downvoted just because it doesn't fit the narrative the thread is going for. This in turn causes negativity, hate, and depression in a person who was attempting to be rational.

It's true the forums have their downsides but at least it leaves it up to people to determine what information is worth interacting with instead of systematically eradicating voices.

[VerdeLuck]

The harsh way people talk on the EN forums has come from the fact that most EN feedback is put directly into the shredder in favor of JP feedback. EN players feel like nobody listens to what they post so it gets harsher and harsher without any recognition from the devs that they're listening.
There have been severe ping and latency related issues for the life of the game, especially for certain jobs that rely on double weaving, and the root cause has yet to be even addressed or acknowledged by the devs because JP is mostly unaffected.
Live Letters are in JP only and EN players have to wait for a translation or rely on amateur translators to get information about the next patch.
Housing has been an issue in NA for years but only when it affects JP do we get action.
Patches drop at 3AM NA time which is incredibly inconvenient for NA players on every single patch.
It feels like EN is an afterthought and JP is what the devs really care about. That's why the forums end up like this.

and also Titanman loves to make bait threads.