This game is on a terrible state right now.

[R041]

They still have not learned.

2013 https://www.siliconera.com/square-en...m-kickstarter/

Matsuda: “There is a crowdfunding website called ‘Kickstarter,’ which does not only serve as a method of financing for developers, but I believe should also be seen as a way to unite marketing and development together by allowing us to interact with customers while a game is in development. Valve’s Steam Greenlight and Early Access, are also very interesting, in that they raise the frequency by which we interact with customers, increasing their engagement and reflecting customer needs. We are also looking at what initiatives are possible from this perspective. ”

“What should we present to our customers before a game is finished, how can our customers enjoy this, and how do we connect this to profitability, is something we are thinking about implementing, and which can improve our asset turnover in the process,” Matsuda says.

[R041]

They clearly do listen, which is why they did stuff like adding some female-only glamour to males. I think this is mostly a budget issue. FF14 is not getting the budget it deserves from SE.

Yoshi himself and JP were *****phobic until only recently. These changes were public stunts, virtue signaling. If they actually listened and cared, they would have made these changes when we were asking for them in 2013, not during an active revolution.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Yoshi himself and JP were *****phobic until only recently. These changes were public stunts, virtue signaling. If they actually listened and cared, they would have made these changes when we were asking for them in 2013, not during an active revolution.

Did you just pull a microaggression bro? Im gonna have to file a report for that, sorry not sorry

[Kickwars]

you can go onto reddit

I don't go on main sub, only discussion. Is the main sub actually discontent? It has always been like the most positive place. If so that's actually big.

Yoshi himself and JP were *****phobic until only recently. These changes were public stunts, virtue signaling. If they actually listened and cared, they would have made these changes when we were asking for them in 2013, not during an active revolution.

Sure, in that case. But they also listened to people's complaints of piercing meta (by deleting piercing, blunt, slashing), of AST cards (by making them all damage up), etc. And they quickly reverse course when JP rages. My point is that they listen to feedback if it's cheap to implement. People asked for a deep dungeon and now we have Orthos, which is presumably much cheaper to implement than exploratory content. Any feedback that is costly to implement gets ignored, all the way from better exploratory content to job balance (making jobs more diverse increases balancing costs). IMHO we can attribute 90% of this game's problems to the simplest economic problem that exists in humanity: budget. I'm pretty sure this game is not getting the "spare no expenses" treatment and it shows. If they double the budget for this game most of the not-listening-to-feedback problem would disappear if I have to bet.

And this is genuinely annoying when SE seems to be incredibly wasteful with its investments, from an FF7 battle royale to Babylon's Fall, Forspoken, Marvel... I don't even mind if money from FF14 is invested into quality single-player games personally (no, FF7 remake was unpolished at launch with seriously bizarre instances of lack of polish like the PS2-level pixelated background texture when climbing to the top plate, and the game was mostly carried by its excellent gameplay while being average in everything else with the insane padding), but they haven't made any, at least not until FF16 comes out and we can judge it for ourselves.

[Kazhar]

I don't go on main sub, only discussion. Is the main sub actually discontent? It has always been like the most positive place. If so that's actually big.

Not really discontent. Most of the "discussion" is about fanarts and cosplay. But you can criticize the current state of the game on the mainsub and not get downvoted to oblivion.
For some reason the mainsub is also slightly more open to story criticism than the discussion sub.

[Kickwars]

But you can criticize the current state of the game on the mainsub and not get downvoted to oblivion.

That's certainly a big change.

[Theodric]

That's certainly a big change.

It is, though as you've no doubt witnessed for yourself there's elements of the community who act extremely unhinged in response to any criticism of the game, particularly in relation to the story or certain characters. As such, feedback has been artificially stifled for years and has only recently reached a point where the number of people brave enough to poke their head above the surface of the crowd has become more prominent.

[RyuDragnier]

Not really discontent. Most of the "discussion" is about fanarts and cosplay. But you can criticize the current state of the game on the mainsub and not get downvoted to oblivion.
For some reason the mainsub is also slightly more open to story criticism than the discussion sub.

Because the discussion sub wants actual thought out reasoning for why you don't like the story, something that can be hard to put into words for a lot of people. And if the logic doesn't hold, things get downvoted there.

That's certainly a big change.

It has been like that for a while, at least 2-3 years I think.

[VentVanitas]

I myself still tend to avoid the ffxiv related reddits because I don't like how much the site is skewed in favour of moderators. Places like r/shitpostxiv and r/ffxiv are pretty guilty of the mods pinning/deleting posts just to project their opinions from time to time.

[R041]

Sure, in that case. But they also listened to people's complaints of piercing meta (by deleting piercing, blunt, slashing), of AST cards (by making them all damage up), etc. And they quickly reverse course when JP rages. My point is that they listen to feedback if it's cheap to implement. People asked for a deep dungeon and now we have Orthos, which is presumably much cheaper to implement than exploratory content. Any feedback that is costly to implement gets ignored, all the way from better exploratory content to job balance (making jobs more diverse increases balancing costs). IMHO we can attribute 90% of this game's problems to the simplest economic problem that exists in humanity: budget. I'm pretty sure this game is not getting the "spare no expenses" treatment and it shows. If they double the budget for this game most of the not-listening-to-feedback problem would disappear if I have to bet.

Sorry, I don't buy that it's only a budget issue. They may listen to frustration in general, but when they do they make no effort to understand it - So they just delete it entirely without understanding the overall ecosystem of mechanics of the game environment. I feel like they don't actually do focus groups, or rotate testing.

They always take the easy way out, instead of spending time and budget working on fun.

Why aren't cash shop items account bound again? Why can't I skip MSQ on my alts without paying money? Oh, the technology just isn't there yet? Alright.