Dear SE, Stop Treating Us Like We Are A Single Community

[Kaurhz]

its not just SE. most mmos I have played have suffered from this kind of "fix". its an endless cycle of buff and nerf as they respond to player demands/"feedback"

you cannot call out SE for this, its the industry response... almost every single time. the driving force is us, the players... the ones screaming for "balance"

XIV is the only MMO I have been playing for a while, as I don't really have the time to invest in multiple MMOs as much as I'd like.

So they are the only ones that I am going to call out, if I see the behavior exhibited then I am going to call it out regardless of whether it is exclusive or a default response across the industry.

In any case, it doesn't really matter, the fact it is present, and the fact that in many situations it comes at a detriment to the game is the only thing that matters.

To put it in a way, there is a different between advocating for balance, which is fine, then there is taking that excessive step to where you aren't really doing it for the sake of balance, but rather for the sake of eliminating forms of expression, and to the point where you are actively trying to eliminate or compensate for laziness, or people that just don't want to engage.

If it's default industry response, then that's fine, the industry should try and do better, and to try and think in nuance.

[Ravenblade1979]

EDIT: For clarity, I am referring to the interview with Yoshi P with IGN Brazil where they asked him about the 2 minute meta and Yoshi P's stance on designing the game. For posterity I will post what was said here, I am mainly reacting to the last line starting from 'going forward...':



I've been doing a lot of thinking based on Yoshi P's words about us, as a community, needing to come to a consensus on what we want out of the game.

In no way is it reasonable to demand that the 1 and a half million players that have reached endgame (courtesy of ffxivcensus.com) all come to a unanimous decision.

At the end of the day there are many sub-communities within the Final Fantasy XIV community as a whole that all have different needs, and that is okay. That is just how it works when a community gets bigger.

There is no type of universal compromise that will appease casual, midcore, and hardcore players all at once. There is no single design philosophy that will appease everyone.

So Square, if you ever read these forums and ever stumble upon this post: Please Stop. Realize that you must design casual, midcore, AND hardcore content and it is up to the individual themselves to decide what content is for them and not.

I legitimately used to tell people "Hey man, Savage raiding isn't for everyone and that's okay. Just do what you have fun doing."

Ignore all the people that want things that are not designed for their demographic. It's not up to you to make one big homogenized subpar product to try to appeal for everyone. Instead focus on putting out the best content for specific demographics and try to ensure that everyone has something to do, but let them pick a lane.

I seem to remember that it was the Japanese forum users who brutally went after the devs over something they didn't like about samurai they wanted changed

[Commander_Justitia]

If fights wouldn't be designed around meeting dmg checks with bosses having massive HP pools, but would be dependent on how well you execute mechanics, and how little you die, or how efficiently you buff your character with buffs the fight gives you (think of collectable orbs that buff dmg, or e8 transition buff, or ucob last phase buff) - then the synergy between jobs wouldn't matter that much. Healing and Tanking should be more difficult, at the moment all the challenge is dealing enough damage.

Why is MP even existing? On most classes it is as good as endless anyway. Why does parry and block exist? Why is aggro management between tanks almost non existing? Why does tenacity and piety exist? When do positionals stop being a thing, they are getting less and less, and a lot of bosses dont even have a rear/flank anymore?! Why are there less and less dots? Why are pets removed?

They have a battle system with so many possibilities, but they rather keep it simple - flat potency skill #321.

[Colt47]

XIV is the only MMO I have been playing for a while, as I don't really have the time to invest in multiple MMOs as much as I'd like.

So they are the only ones that I am going to call out, if I see the behavior exhibited then I am going to call it out regardless of whether it is exclusive or a default response across the industry.

In any case, it doesn't really matter, the fact it is present, and the fact that in many situations it comes at a detriment to the game is the only thing that matters.

To put it in a way, there is a different between advocating for balance, which is fine, then there is taking that excessive step to where you aren't really doing it for the sake of balance, but rather for the sake of eliminating forms of expression, and to the point where you are actively trying to eliminate or compensate for laziness, or people that just don't want to engage.

If it's default industry response, then that's fine, the industry should try and do better, and to try and think in nuance.

MMORPGs inevitably run into the issue of trying to design a game that is meant for everyone, usually due to the company in question being publicly traded and trying to get as much out of a single project as possible. The reason that there's so much going back and forth between extremes is that there isn't an extreme as much as different audiences that have completely contradictory goals. Take the guy who comes on for the crafting market pushes and has a somewhat varied schedule from week to week to play, vs someone who is into combat and pushing themselves as hard as they can against a wall, often blocking out entire months worth of time to do so. It's impossible to create content that is going to please both ends of the spectrum so they make content dedicated towards one group or the other. In this case, the FFXIV devs made changes that heavily favor the latter group over the former.

[Katish]

Make the game easier so that you can design classes and content as cookie cutter content with little to no effort/cost on available assets while not running qc as that costs time and money then blame the player base and say it's their own fault for wanting that thing, check.

"It's your own faults that I am trying to make more money at your expense, b-baka."

How can you draft an opinion you have never surveyed but have the means to? You can't unless we are all a hive mind, unless that's true, then I must have missed that invitation.

[Bacent]

If they made the survey in game, and rewarded players for said survey. Then they might get some more feedback. But even then they'd have to sort through what feedback is garbo, like people filling it out just for the reward, and if they made it a 'Click between 1-5 boxes of the options listed below' that would still be a lot of work for them to look at

There's no feedback system that works 100% of the time, even paying with your wallets.

In a perfect world we'd have better feedback stuffs for ALL regions, not just at select times (More so when the forum isn't a mess), but...

[Katish]

If they made the survey in game, and rewarded players for said survey. Then they might get some more feedback. But even then they'd have to sort through what feedback is garbo, like people filling it out just for the reward, and if they made it a 'Click between 1-5 boxes of the options listed below' that would still be a lot of work for them to look at

There's no feedback system that works 100% of the time, even paying with your wallets.

In a perfect world we'd have better feedback stuffs for ALL regions, not just at select times (More so when the forum isn't a mess), but...

Don't need to reward players for feedback, the feedback to get content most people want or want to be changed is the incentive. Hsr does surveying, and does it well I would argue, they don't really reward the player there. If they do it's something insignificant such as credits (in game currency). But having the option to be heard promotes positive feedback...and seeing all the positive feedback I would imagine hsr's community appreciates the surveying...I have not see one negative point come from anyone in regards of it having no or a lackluster reward. I imagine they understand why it exists, and the reward is the means itself, to provide feedback. Don't believe me? Just Google hsr surveys reddit or hsr surveys I have not seen one negative post in regards to it not having a reward. The only negative thing I've seen is the questioning of the validity and results of them, but that was met with opposition and it's not the results at play but individuals having a different mindset on topic from what the majority thinks, that will happen, but at least the survey gives way to what most people want or feel at the time of that surveying.