MrHappy State of Endwalker w/ Zepla podcast

[Renathras]

...

Well, you might note that's why I included three categories (the neutrals) not just two.

Honestly, there's a lot of nuance. Most people - even on the negative side - offer some good stuff. I forget the name (sorry!) but the Hyur male with the picture in his sig tends to be fairly measured, for example. Some others CAN be measured but sometimes get in a...mood or something, and go from being generally respectful to being snarky bullies and get stuck in that mode for a while.

There are really just a handful, though, that are really nasty and refuse any nuance, call people names like shill all the time, etc. The problem is, while there are only 2-4 of those, they have TONS of alts. They also upvote each other's posts, quote each other's posts with agreement badmouthing people, and generally engage in short and really meanspirited posts of snark and memes, calling people all sorts of really meanspirited names. Because of them getting around the post limit and giving the appearance there are more of them and they're more popular, they tend to command the conversation for worse.

The other problem is the people who are critical but respectfully so would rather side with those people no matter how mean and harassing they are than speak up for their victims. This gives the impression to the non-negative folks that all the negative people, even the more measured ones, agree. Note here I'm not talking about agreeing with the hyper-negative toxic people on POINTS OF ARGUMENT, I mean when they not only don't call out their snarky and off topic attacks of other posters, but often agree with them, either tacitly or directly (quoting and supporting the attacks). That makes it far more difficult to believe those people are acting in good faith. It's like a political party with extreme elements and the moderates refuse to call out the extremists and, instead, support them and their arguments and attacks on people, even when their attacks are indefensible.

If the "We criticize because we love the game" crowd would actively NOT support and positively reinforce the snark posts, that would clear the problem up overnight. I genuinely believe that. Everyone would quickly identify the toxic alt people and disown them, and so everyone else could then have good conversations and the toxic alts would either recognize they aren't popular anymore and moderate themselves, go out of control so the forum moderators would moderate them, or get bored with the lack of drama and personal upvotes and depart. Either way, good conversations could then occur.

It really takes the neutral or "center-critical" moderates NOT siding with the extreme toxic negatives to make this happen, though, and thus far, they've largely been unwilling to do so. I can only speculate on the reasons (maybe they think it would make their arguments seem weaker, maybe they've bought into hating on the positive people, idk), but as long as the "moderate" critical voices continue to give cover to the extreme toxic negatives, we will keep having threads like this and keep having no productive conversations here. The irony is, it would actually get the respectful critics' points more likely to be heard by the Devs if they did this, but for fear of weakening their arguments or making their positive opponents look good or SOMEthing, they thus far haven't done it.

God knows I've tried to have nuanced and respectful conversations, had my posts mocked by the toxic ones, and then instead of the respectful ones coming to my defense, saying that isn't fair, and engaging in conversation, they cheer on the toxic ones posting gifs of babies crying and wall of text memes and the like. It just makes actual and respectful conversation impossible.

[Troxbark]

Okay - if thinking that is how people think makes the forums more exciting for you, have at it. Most of us can actually understand nuance that I guess others aren't capable of.

Says guy who completely missed the nuance. LMAO

[ZephyrMenodora]

Says guy who completely missed the nuance. LMAO

No, there wasn't any nuance there. If anything you just tried to extend your absurd comment to even more people who don't act anything like your hyperbolic post.

Nuance is understanding that people can also be happy with the game and still think aspects can be improved.

Your post is just an attempt to insult others, and there no nuance whatsoever. Waiting on these imaginary people who post that the game can't improve in any way.

[IkaraGreydancer]

Says guy who completely missed the nuance. LMAO

How can you call him out on nuance when you just said this?

Anyone who doesn't think the game could do better is basically saying this.

The quote still stands.

There is no nuance when you make general (as well as false) statements.

[Jeeqbit]

I have no idea when we got so polarized.

I think we only get polarized when people don't explain it properly. For example...

• They say there is "no content". That clearly isn't true, so our natural response is the list of content that SE has worked very hard on. Maybe that content doesn't have much longevity, but many people neglect to clarify that is what they mean.
• Even so, there has in truth been plenty of raid content to prog through and farm this expansion, including 12 savage floors, 2 ultimates, 7 extremes, and 3 criterion/criterion savage, and arguably floor 31-100 of Eureka Orthos. So again some people don't clarify they mean non-raid content.
• Some people say the developers are "lazy". If you know what goes into developing models, textures, environments, visual effects, animations, dialogue and localization, voice acting, scenario design, scripting and programming all the things we get... clearly they are not lazy. What is lazy is suggesting that they are lazy instead of identifying the real issues.
• Not being able to say anything remotely positive, even where it would be reasonable to do so, or at least being constructive (ie. making a realistic post explaining how they could improve the game instead of just being negative for the sake of it). I feel this is much better now than it used to be (maybe the unreasonably negative posters just quit over time, explain it better or got more constructive, but at least now we can have proper debates).
• That and relatively newer players are obviously going to defend the amount of content in the game because they have a backlog of it.

If these points seem familiar, it's because Zepla went through them and clarified exactly what she meant, to where even if you are being positive you can agree with the argument about longevity and midcore content.

Whenever I see someone praise Yoshi-P, I ask myself, "Why are you doing that for someone who doesn't care about you think, or this game when you actually look into it? You're being tricked, misled.

I can read people pretty well and in live letters it's pretty obvious none of that is true. I honestly think he is just unaware of a lot of the English feedback due to the language barrier and where he is, he probably sees reasons why he can't do it (such as making the game intuitive for new players) because he is someone who considers all the different sides ie. not just veterans' perspective but new players' perspective (as someone in his position should). He has shown in many broadcasts and writings that he is a deeply considerate person that tries to look at all the different factors involved. Disagreeing with a decision he is consistently making doesn't make him a bad person. It's just a disagreement.

But people say that I hate the game and want it to fail.

No, I think you articulate yourself better than a lot of posters have over the years.

[SophiaDL]

Says guy who completely missed the nuance. LMAO

You poked the hive, how courageous of you, good luck ! You'll need it

[Avoidy]

You need an original thought to have a YouTube channel.

God I wish this were true. Nowadays you can just "react" to things that other actually creative people have made and make a living off of that. It's so bad right now.

... I actually have no thoughts on the podcast since I haven't watched it yet, but thanks for the link. I'll give it a listen while I play a different game.

[ElysiumDragon]

Yes yes, we get it, the game's Literally Dying, you've said so a thousand times, you don't have to repeat yourself.

[Aword3213]

You heard the boss above, you better get his authorization before you post a thread criticizing the game, they're in charge apparently, you will post toxic positivity and you will like it !

It’s okay when you do it right?

Remember that kaiten thread?

[CStrife912]

It’s okay when you do it right?

Remember that kaiten thread?

Shhhhh they have selective memory or avoid answer and when they answer it’s just to be condescending or passive aggressive but they can outpost you with their alts

Seriously though why do we need posts for every streamers opinion just put it in a big mega thread…this was going to happen once one person spoke up. However I think Zep really has some rose tinted glasses on that I was glad Happy and Sly were like no just no it wasn’t any better back then in certain instances and she was humbled for it, but at least they could see common ground. Good luck getting common ground here lol