The devs arent your friends. Stop pretending everyone is wrong and the devs are right

[Jeeqbit]

There is a difference between them being friends and just thinking they are fellow human beings that should be treated with respect. You can say something critical without being rude about it.

And then there is whether the criticism is even constructive, which means can a person reasonably take what is said and use it to improve anything - does it acknowledge the challenges and difficulties involved in addressing it, does it provide a reasonable and realistic suggestion on how to achieve it and overcome any challenges involved? Does it take into account the fact that the game is catering to multiple types of people interested in different things, rather than just catering to people only interested in one thing ie. raiding.

If the constructive arguments are not provided then they are brought up in the debate later on. Someone has to play the role of seeing it from a developer's point of view and someone has to play the role of seeing it from a player's point of view to see where the debate ends up. Otherwise it is too one-sided and doesn't consider the counterarguments a developer might have, so why wouldn't they just dismiss it then.

[BaconBits]

All of you are my enemies, and my friends.

[Voltyblast]

[...]You can say something critical without being rude about it.

And then there is whether the criticism is even constructive, which means can a person reasonably take what is said and use it to improve anything

If the constructive arguments are not provided then they are brought up in the debate later on

When private housing got released, I criticized how faulty it was and how bad it was but in a polite way without attacking anyone, simply saying that it wasn't what was promised.
The response: "Don't buy it then"

Expressed my opinion regarding the story which differs from the norm, without attacking anyone and simply stating my opinion in a non-rude way, and even saying why I thought could've been different.
The response: "You're wrong" and that I have no idea how jrpgs stories work. Despite having over a hundred jrpgs under my belt

Once I kindly asked a tank to press one aoe button because me, the healer, was dying from the lack of aggro and we were wiping at a level 30+ dungeon
The response: "Chill he's new"

Before the unskippable cutscenes, I reminded the tank of the group that there was a few people behind watching the cutscene, and that we could have trouble later on (this was ARR)
The response: "shut up" and got kicked.

Told a dps to let me aggro first or else he'd overaggro and die. Which he did because tanks aggro wasn't like today.
The response: "Do your job" and got kicked.
Cherry on top: despite being an abuse of power, I was told that "I might be wrong" on the report. Sure, of course.

Bottom line, that's not how it works in practice.

On paper yes, you can be critical without being rude. However ANY sort of negative criticism in this game is like a personal attack, therefore no matter how well articulated or how well developed your argument is, as long as your criticism is negative then it's a problem. This applies on every single game, not just here, as proven by my different opinions and criticism of other games which are beloved by many.

Only exception is when everyone collectively dislike someone - like criterion or how relics work in this expansion (which I ironically like!). Otherwise no, your opinion is negative? Then you're the problem. Go back to wow and shut up.

As a matter of fact, I stopped talking or criticizing the game altogether for this very reason: if the game gets worse, I know sure it's not my fault since everything I said was wrong.

[UkcsAlias]

On paper yes, you can be critical without being rude. However ANY sort of negative criticism in this game is like a personal attack, therefore no matter how well articulated or how well developed your argument is, as long as your criticism is negative then it's a problem. This applies on every single game, not just here, as proven by my different opinions and criticism of other games which are beloved by many.

Far too many players dont even know everything well enough. They think they know how something works, but they only see a 1 sided thing.

For example with the healers: they see they need to do more damage, as their damage isnt competing, and healing often just isnt needed. the real issue being the engine not being able to apply a more sustained damage output and demanding more healing that way. Its very staggered bursts is a way they worked around it, and while it works for 90% of the players, it doesnt work for the 10%. But as long as the 90% is happy, that is a good sign.

They also think that someone who doesnt play a certain job/role/gamemode cannot tell anything about those jobs. Yet in plenty of cases you can because while you might not play a certain job in this game, you can in an other one, and have a reference point from that. These reference points can on that be a very good argument. Someone that never played healer can on that even say that the healer job has an issue when he noticed healing is rarely needed at all.

Devs only try to do 1 thing: try to keep the game fun and popular, and whatever they do, its all for that purpose. Whatever they do (or refuse to), it can be good, or it can be bad, but it is often impossible to tell the actual result of a certain change, while being very risky to change it.

Arguments often however become personal as its more about 'proving you are better' than actualy about balance. Most of the balance aspects dont care about the skill of a player, they care about a skillcurve. A realy bad player therefor can have equaly valid arguments towards a pro.

[Jeeqbit]

When private housing got released, I criticized how faulty it was and how bad it was but in a polite way without attacking anyone
The response: "Don't buy it then"

Just like a lot of people's criticism isn't constructive, sometimes the responses people have to it aren't either, unfortunately.

Expressed my opinion regarding the story which differs from the norm, without attacking anyone and simply stating my opinion in a non-rude way, and even saying why I thought could've been different.
The response: "You're wrong"

That is much too simple of a response and should find an answer with more depth about why the story was alright, rather than strictly saying "wrong". Just not useful to the debate otherwise.

Once I kindly asked a tank to press one aoe button because me, the healer, was dying from the lack of aggro and we were wiping at a level 30+ dungeon
The response: "Chill he's new"

That is a difficult situation, because people in dungeons are strangers and don't know if you are a nice person or not, so first impressions make a big impact here and how you word it can make a big difference. Obviously, you need them to do the aoe or alternatively heal through it. This and the rest of the examples aren't relevant to discussing feedback for developers though.

Before the unskippable cutscenes, I reminded the tank of the group that there was a few people behind watching the cutscene, and that we could have trouble later on
The response: "shut up" and got kicked.

I don't think most parties would have done that, but people were more rude in ARR and HW because the game hadn't necessarily attracted the casual players it now has and the rules were not as vague.

Told a dps to let me aggro first or else he'd overaggro and die. Which he did because tanks aggro wasn't like today.
The response: "Do your job" and got kicked.

Everything is about perception. Unfortunately, in ARR the game had a lot of intricate things that caused people to attack you for doing it wrong, when you weren't. For example, I was told to face my shield at the enemies to block them, despite that one of them was at NW and one of them at NE and they wouldn't move, then they left the dungeon before I could answer. It was impossible to block them all. SE since made you block from all directions.

On paper yes, you can be critical without being rude. However ANY sort of negative criticism in this game is like a personal attack

It's really about establishing your intentions first because first impressions affect perception.

Just like feedback can lack any sort of depth, so can the responses to that feedback ie. saying the feedback is "wrong" or "bad" without any sort of proper articulate argument as to why or how.