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

[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.

[Deceptus]

The devs seem overconfident to me. They haven't learned from 1.0 at all, especially with their doubling down on dumb changes to healers that have been ongoing since Stormblood, or recent PvP adjustments that are baffling, and uncalled for. Telling people to "Go play Zelda" and telling healers to "Go and play Ultimates" if they want their job to be engaging is insulting to say the least.

It'd help if the forums weren't constantly full of bitter people complaining or arguing while providing no solutions to their problems though. In the rare event they ever visited the English forums, they'd just ignore anything being posted here. The developers do not need to be white knighted for, but that doesn't mean that we can be d*** heads to em.

I think they did learn from 1.0 but in the hubris of their success they've gotten arrogant thinking they can do no wrong.

The Wheel of Time turns and the cycle repeats.

[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.

[Boblawblah]

They know us better than we do.

SE dev 1: You think the complainers will ever stop subbing?

SE dev 2: lol, of course not.

SE dev 1: nice, let's focus on other things then.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I feel that people who are ultimately unhappy should really stop giving the company any money. Otherwise youre giving them the wrong message that youre ok with whatever they do since youll still pay them.

But for us who criticize and complain while still generally enjoy the game without acting like total brats, its our job to provide the feedback without diminishing it with petty insults to the team, accusations without having any base knowledge and in general flood the forums with troll threads.

I wish whoever was in charge of moderating here did a better job at communicating, although Im sure the lack of community interaction was a call made by a higher up and its something they need to change to at least calm down the chaos in here.

[Voltyblast]

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.

That is unfortunately true. This is not my actual character, but my other character has all 90 on every job (except BLU, because it's a joke and I don't take it seriously), and I am able to speak from both sides - and dps side as well, as I have a couple of well geared dps too. But no matter what I say, my opinion doesn't matter because "it's not the right opinion". Many times before I said my piece only to be replied with negativity despite me being constructive. I sincerely stopped caring at this point, and letting people do what they want. Even recently I got attacked because my opinion on some story bits was apparently "wrong", despite the point being "doesn't matter, I still don't like it". It was clear that they treated it as a personal attack, but I wasn't really doing that: I just had a different opinion, a negative opinion, but apparently you can't have that anywhere nowadays. Everything must be good or you're a troll or a hater.

[Themarvin]

That's all.

Well you do not have to be the Developers friends, but it is absolutely not the players way to dictate how they should make their game, that they did develop and build, it is the other way around that thing work, either you like their work and play the game or you do not and find another game to play.

It can't be put more clear and as with MMO's you can't create stuff everyone would like to play... be it Criterian Dungeons, Savage, Deep Dungeons, Bozja and Eureka alike content... some like it, others do not, and that is just how it is.

Players are in no position to decide with polls or whatever should be the next big thing, however leave a suggestion instead, maybe it is a good one, maybe it will be used at some point, maybe parts of it would be used.

[Kes13a]

Well you do not have to be the Developers friends, but it is absolutely not the players way to dictate how they should make their game, that they did develop and build, it is the other way around that thing work, either you like their work and play the game or you do not and find another game to play.

It can't be put more clear and as with MMO's you can't create stuff everyone would like to play... be it Criterian Dungeons, Savage, Deep Dungeons, Bozja and Eureka alike content... some like it, others do not, and that is just how it is.

Players are in no position to decide with polls or whatever should be the next big thing, however leave a suggestion instead, maybe it is a good one, maybe it will be used at some point, maybe parts of it would be used.

this is probably the most accurate "take" I have read recently and cannot like this enough.

no, the devs arent my friends and SE IS a big company, its their money and they can do with it, and direct it as they wish. I play THEIR game, not mine. people always blather on about the devs being "out of touch" but its not them that are out of touch, we are. If you dislike a line of clothing, you stop buying it, if you think changes in your favourite food are bad, you stop buying it. If you dislike changes in a game, you come to the forums to complain about it endlessly and say you pay for the game so it should be to your liking. but really, how is that any different than a change in what sauce they put on your nachos? it isnt.... you dont like the taste, stop buying the sauce, plain and simple.

I am not friends with the devs, but they do something most of us do not, they make this game what it is, which many do actually enjoy mostly, including myself. they owe me nothing since I support their efforts by my own choice... and in turn, they at least should get respect for doing something many of us cannot... coding, design etc....

friends.. heck, I dont even like them and dont trust big or small gaming companies any more. as gamers we can make suggestions, and if they like them, who knows.. if they dont, does it really matter? gamers should never have that much input into systems in games they play, its a recipe for disaster. QoL sure, systems... no...

[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.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

They know us better than we do.!

I can only assume you say this as a joke given the tone of the rest of your post, but this is unironically the reality of it, whether you like the implications of it or not.

Statistics are the single most powerful tool game developers have at their disposal - they paint an infinitely more accurate picture than player feedback ever could. Every large enough game developer has literal terrabytes worth of player data, trends, content participation, etc to base all their decisions on. They literally know the playerbase of their game better than the playerbase ever could.

During my time working at Ubisoft, the team I worked with completely stopped looking at player feedback because it was useless at best and at worst contradictory to what the actual majority were interested in - the statistics data was the only source of feedback ever needed to see success / failures of certain content designs and how we should model future DLC / content designs on to produce continuously successful results. We knew what the players wanted better than they did, and every piece of content we released following the successful data trends mirrored the same success. More content that mirrored the unsuccessful data trends continued to provide less results comparatively.

The devs don't need to be our friends, they don't need to care about player feedback on somewhere as tiny as these forums - Their huge amounts of player data paint the exact picture of how to make FF14 successful - something that both Square Enix's yearly financial reports & bancho's censuses have been showing they've been extremely nailing in their game direction. A direction of accessibility & dumbing down game design that every single AAA studio in the industry has realized encompasses a year over year increasing majority of casual gamers and what they're looking for.

In this day and age, human feedback is effectively irrelevant - data collection is so powerful now that companies know what their audience wants better than they do.