Yoshi P in a nutshell

[LilimoLimomo]

If they don't acknowledge biggest outlier, which even has relatively easy solution, why should we expect they'll listen to any lower magnitude of our input?

With respect, I don't think there is an easy solution to the Kaiten issue. I assume that you mean that the "easy solution" is to just add Kaiten back to the game? But the developers had reasons for removing it, reasons that they stand by. It's fair for you to disagree with that; in fact, it makes sense that you would, considering those reasons were to improve the game's accessibility — which is something that you personally don't directly benefit from — and the method to increase that accessibility was to remove something you liked. A rollback would be positive for players like you, but be negative for the players the devs made the change to improve the experience for; there's nothing easy about deciding which demographic of players to inconvenience when push comes to shove.

Additionally, I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "biggest outlier", but if the magnitude of negative feedback for Kaiten is only a few hundred out of the millions of players the game has, then it wouldn't be ranking among the highest magnitude of feedback. So yeah, I would say it's reasonable not to expect CBU3 to act on feedback provided by any group that's even smaller than that. My best advice would be that when you provide feedback for a game, never, ever expect anything to come of it. At best, you can hope they'll listen and consider your feedback. But replies and changes are a rarity.

I'll also say that if I were Yoshi-P, I wouldn't respond further to this issue. If Yoshi-P did give you an additional response and told you something along the lines of

"Thanks for the feedback, as expected there were some players who felt negatively about the changes, but that was only a minority of players, so we're sticking with our design,"

...would you be satisfied? I can't speak for you, but I'm guessing most of the pro-Kaiten players wouldn't be. The response they want is a response they agree with, and they've already made it clear they disagree with Yoshi-P's stance. And those players are going to pick apart every last word of what Yoshi-P said, which will fuel a new wave of backlash. The smarter move is to say nothing at all. Especially since the message is only directed at a small subset of players anyway.

but now they're not responding, so what now?

I guess I'd say to write in to the Live Letters, post a message in the forums every few months, respond to any surveys that FF14 sends out. I imagine that gives you the best chance of being heard. But it's just a chance.

And vitally, accept the fact that these efforts might never bear fruit, and find peace with that. Find ways to continue offering the feedback but to simultaneously allow yourself to move on. It's hard to do this. But it's probably the best path towards health and happiness. As the saying goes:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

[Rolder50]

With respect, I don't think there is an easy solution to the Kaiten issue. I assume that you mean that the "easy solution" is to just add Kaiten back to the game? But the developers had reasons for removing it, reasons that they stand by. It's fair for you to disagree with that; in fact, it makes sense that you would, considering those reasons were to improve the game's accessibility — which is something that you personally don't directly benefit from — and the method to increase that accessibility was to remove something you liked. A rollback would be positive for players like you, but be negative for the players the devs made the change to improve the experience for; there's nothing easy about deciding which demographic of players to inconvenience when push comes to shove.

Their reason for removing Kaiten was button bloat. But Samurai has other examples of button bloat that would have made FAR more sense to remove.

Some examples:

Have Ikishoten turn into Ogi Namikiri.

Merge Shoha and Shoha 2 (560 to first target, 200 to all nearby enemies).

Boom button/action bloat reduced, no change to the gameplay. Now you can keep Kaiten while meeting the original goal!

[LilimoLimomo]

Their reason for removing Kaiten was button bloat. But Samurai has other examples of button bloat that would have made FAR more sense to remove.

Some examples:

Have Ikishoten turn into Ogi Namikiri.

Merge Shoha and Shoha 2 (560 to first target, 200 to all nearby enemies).

Boom button/action bloat reduced, no change to the gameplay. Now you can keep Kaiten while meeting the original goal!

It really would be great if the devs could take the consolidation tech from moves like PLD's Confiteor and SMN's Gemshine and apply them to existing classes. I'm 100% onboard for this! Though there may be valid reasons they don't do it? Even though I'd love it? XD

Though even if they did such a thing, they might still feel like the lack of Kaiten makes things even better? Or there may be supplemental reasons in addition to the primary reason. Which is just to say, I would suggest tempering hopes. But it would be nice if a solution like this did work and made everyone happy! ^^