Is there a community management team?

[LioJen]

"We plan on doing it by X" leads to massive raging if anything happens to push that date back, no matter how low-priority the work is.

"We plan on doing it eventually" leads to massive raging when it doesn't appear quickly enough, usually within 6-12 months, especially if any patch feels particularly light on content (regardless of whether that content was actually light work or not, or what other work is going on).

"We don't plan on doing it" sentences the argument to the woe-is-me-the-devs-hate-us-specifically list of grievances for the indefinite future.

"We would like to do it, but it's low priority" leads to, again, massive raging whenever a patch feels light because clearly the work could have been done then (see previous caveats).

"We might do it, we might not, who can say" is perhaps the most truthful response for low-priority requests. For obvious reasons, it is also not something that typically goes over well.

Therefore: silence.

Unfortunately this is the most accurate assessment. Especially since they have to prioritize their domestic fanbase, they cannot say anything to the rest of the world since it will either be construed as an unbreakable promise or a middle finger. Also consider than some things we consider flaws, the devs consider a feature.

[Arzalis]

If there is something they consider a feature that others consider a flaw, then they should be confident enough in their game to express that.

The whole "they won't say anything because they're afraid they might upset people!" is a bad excuse.

[Aravell]

"We plan on doing it by X" leads to massive raging if anything happens to push that date back, no matter how low-priority the work is.

"We plan on doing it eventually" leads to massive raging when it doesn't appear quickly enough, usually within 6-12 months, especially if any patch feels particularly light on content (regardless of whether that content was actually light work or not, or what other work is going on).

"We don't plan on doing it" sentences the argument to the woe-is-me-the-devs-hate-us-specifically list of grievances for the indefinite future.

"We would like to do it, but it's low priority" leads to, again, massive raging whenever a patch feels light because clearly the work could have been done then (see previous caveats).

"We might do it, we might not, who can say" is perhaps the most truthful response for low-priority requests. For obvious reasons, it is also not something that typically goes over well.

Therefore: silence.

Avoiding communicating with your playerbase on the off chance that people will rage is really just an excuse. Them not responding at all makes it look like they're not listening at all, if they did respond and tell the playerbase whether or not they're actually planning to fix certain grievances, then players that are on the fence can decide immediately whether or not they want to stay with the game.

Besides, if their reason for not confirming anything is to not make people angry, well, people are already angry now due to the lack of communication, so people are angry either way, why not just talk with the playerbase?

[Fawkes]

They also want to keep it a secret so they can get a big pop at fanfest if/when they announce they're doing it.

[Sindele]

Avoiding communicating with your playerbase on the off chance that people will rage is really just an excuse. Them not responding at all makes it look like they're not listening at all, if they did respond and tell the playerbase whether or not they're actually planning to fix certain grievances, then players that are on the fence can decide immediately whether or not they want to stay with the game.

Besides, if their reason for not confirming anything is to not make people angry, well, people are already angry now due to the lack of communication, so people are angry either way, why not just talk with the playerbase?

I think the history of online games and company communications is, at this point, a bit too long and has a few too many case examples to call it an 'off chance' and an 'excuse' as though it's trying to chart an uncertain future. It's not a guess at what will happen. It is what people will do on any forum for any large game that isn't very tightly moderated. It is especially certainly something that will happen here, because the game is quite large, and the moderation is quite loose, and you only need to take a few minutes reading just about any random thread around here to figure that out.

You don't have to like it. But it is absolutely the state of things. There's nothing to be gained by talking about it.

[DrWho2010]

Avoiding communicating with your playerbase on the off chance that people will rage is really just an excuse. Them not responding at all makes it look like they're not listening at all, if they did respond and tell the playerbase whether or not they're actually planning to fix certain grievances, then players that are on the fence can decide immediately whether or not they want to stay with the game.

Besides, if their reason for not confirming anything is to not make people angry, well, people are already angry now due to the lack of communication, so people are angry either way, why not just talk with the playerbase?

Have you seen some of the people that post here? ughghgh, I would hate to subject the community team to those people. *shudders*

If people are on the fence is some post from a community gm really going to make that much of a difference? "Oh, oh my they actually said something to me, I'll stay subbed I guess." Please.

[VerdeLuck]

Avoiding communicating with your playerbase on the off chance that people will rage is really just an excuse. Them not responding at all makes it look like they're not listening at all, if they did respond and tell the playerbase whether or not they're actually planning to fix certain grievances, then players that are on the fence can decide immediately whether or not they want to stay with the game.

Besides, if their reason for not confirming anything is to not make people angry, well, people are already angry now due to the lack of communication, so people are angry either way, why not just talk with the playerbase?

Yeah it should be a lesson to other companies with what happened to blizzard with overwatch 2. They hid the fact they were cutting PvE for a very long time, cut communication, kept facts hidden, etc to avoid pissing off the community. The result was a 10x larger issue with the community when they found out not just the bad news, but that the devs hid the bad news from players for months to a year until it was too late to hide.
Communicating it early is always better to avoid escalating tensions. There's no gain to hiding things from your community or not acknowledging issues.

[Sparrowsong]

Something we've become accustomed to is hearing about changes made with player feedback in mind, but we as a community have no real idea how that feedback is being collected and from what sources. Our only understanding of FFXIV's feedback collection process comes from the in-game support desks which directs players here, to the general discussion on the official forums as the main hub for submitting feedback, but there is absolutely no acknowledgement of any feedback at all from any sort of community management staff. We get the occasional introduction post of someone introducing themselves, but then we never hear from them again.

So I'd like to pose a question for any community team members: Are you actually here? And what I mean by "here" is, are you ever reading the threads on this forum? Is this information that is ever being collected? How frequently does information get collected and delivered? What does that process look like? Are we not allowed to know if any specific feedback is being communicated over to Japan? And if not, why not? What can we do to better communicate feedback about the game?

From my perspective, I find the years of radio silence disheartening. I wish FFXIV had a healthy and transparent line of communication between player and developer. Of course, not every instance of feedback needs to be responded to, and not all feedback necessarily should be listened to, but I don't understand why we're left in the dark in 2023 where so many games are doing the exact opposite and establishing open and healthy communication lines between player and developer.

Sorry to bust your bubble buddy but the feedback they work on only comes from Japanese people and forums .your best bet is to learn Japanese language and post in Japanese forums .

[Sparrowsong]

Yeah it should be a lesson to other companies with what happened to blizzard with overwatch 2. They hid the fact they were cutting PvE for a very long time, cut communication, kept facts hidden, etc to avoid pissing off the community. The result was a 10x larger issue with the community when they found out not just the bad news, but that the devs hid the bad news from players for months to a year until it was too late to hide.
Communicating it early is always better to avoid escalating tensions. There's no gain to hiding things from your community or not acknowledging issues.

Lol lmao there is fanfest coming up in 7 Jan and you can't wait for that for news ?

[Sparrowsong]

If there is something they consider a feature that others consider a flaw, then they should be confident enough in their game to express that.

The whole "they won't say anything because they're afraid they might upset people!" is a bad excuse.

Then vote with your wallet .its a japanese company that will always prioritise japanese people .just like blizzard always priortises feedback from their usa fan base in world of warcraft as it is an American company. The European community on wow forums cries the same thing in wow forum .