Where does the mentioned feedback actually come from?

[Rekh]

The "we'll do it later" only leads to ruin. Art can only carry a game so far. After dawntrail msq what will keep that expansion alive?

[Arkdra]

They are going to take your feedback and then compare it to metrics and then decide from there. They aren't just going to listen to the feedback without doing any critical analysis.

Let's take Valence here for example. Valence posts nonstop about how homogenization is killing the game and everything is simpler and dumbed down and this is bad for REASONS. Some moderator or some other team member reads this feedback and the 100 other people on this forum who incessantly bring this up in every topic regardless of relevance and hands it off to yoshi p. Yoshi P reads the feedback and then goes hmm, maybe Valence is correct, I should check the numbers. So then Yoshi P would then go and check any number of metrics to see if this feedback is corroborated. Things such as:

1. Subscription count.
2. Players who cite homogenization and dumbing down in their cancellation survey.
3. Per Capita savage clears in each expansion.
4. Per Capita failed instances.
5. In the case of specific job changes like summoner, shifts in the number of players who main that job after major changes.
6. Average player damage floors across expansions. I.e. if the average hw mch only approached 40% of the theoretical best dps while the average EW mch might be at 50% (or potentially the inverse but let's be real here) then that would be a point of consideration.

And any number of other metrics that they could think of. Forum posters could post 10,000 anti-homogenization posts a day but if the sub numbers aren't dropping catastrophically with people pointing this out as the reason why they are leaving, or content clear rates are noticeably higher now than they were prior to all this homogenization and dumbing down, then they aren't going to de-homogenize things if those are the metrics they primarily care about.

[Kaurhz]

You can have the best battle and job designers on the planet but it won't matter nor amount to much if it is not wholly their decision to make.

That being said, I think a lot of it is just selective feedback being relayed.

[Sjol]

They are going to take your feedback and then compare it to metrics and then decide from there. They aren't just going to listen to the feedback without doing any critical analysis.

Let's take Valence here for example. Valence posts nonstop about how homogenization is killing the game and everything is simpler and dumbed down and this is bad for REASONS. Some moderator or some other team member reads this feedback and the 100 other people on this forum who incessantly bring this up in every topic regardless of relevance and hands it off to yoshi p. Yoshi P reads the feedback and then goes hmm, maybe Valence is correct, I should check the numbers. So then Yoshi P would then go and check any number of metrics to see if this feedback is corroborated. Things such as:

1. Subscription count.
2. Players who cite homogenization and dumbing down in their cancellation survey.
3. Per Capita savage clears in each expansion.
4. Per Capita failed instances.
5. In the case of specific job changes like summoner, shifts in the number of players who main that job after major changes.
6. Average player damage floors across expansions. I.e. if a hw mch only approached 40% of the theoretical best dps while an EW mch might be at 50% (or potentially the inverse but let's be real here) then that would be a point of consideration.

And any number of other metrics that they could think of. Forum posters could post 10,000 anti-homogenization posts a day but if the sub numbers aren't dropping catastrophically with people pointing this out as the reason why they are leaving, or content clear rates are noticeably higher now than they were prior to all this homogenization and dumbing down, then they aren't going to de-homogenize things if those are the metrics they primarily care about.

I literally have a friend to mains SMN because, "it's braindead and lets me focus on the boss instead". And no, he doesn't ever visit the forums.

[sindriiisgaming]

Streamers who don't use hair products have exactly been asking for a lot of these things.
Combo's on 1 button, gap closer potency removed, more homogenisation, consolidation of abilities..
Etc etc.

is this aimed at who i think it is :>

[Tsurayu]

Very true.

It becomes harder and harder to have constructive arguments around here, especially ones spun in a positive light. The OF has long become an echo chamber of people complaining about one thing or another in this game. It's already rare for people to come to a place like a forum with a positive opinion. Fewer people feel the need to sing praises for something they like as opposed to people coming to a forum because they are upset about something. Not that the latter is wrong to do so, but it gives a very skewed view of the forums at a glance. it's easy to take a precursory look at the forums and think it's nothing but people bitching from dawn to dusk - even I'm guilty of making that assumption and calling it out at times even though I know it's not entirely true. There are people here who enjoy the game and the direction it is going, but they are more often than not completely drowned out by the cries of the people who are upset, and in some instances even ran off.

Point is, there are just as many people out there - in the wider world of the web - that enjoy the direction FFXIV is going. The developers are seeing that feedback as well as the less-than-kind ones that are often found here. I think it's probably fair to say that there are more people who are pleased, or otherwise indifferent, than there are those who are upset.

[Rekh]

They are going to take your feedback and then compare it to metrics and then decide from there. They aren't just going to listen to the feedback without doing any critical analysis.

Let's take Valence here for example. Valence posts nonstop about how homogenization is killing the game and everything is simpler and dumbed down and this is bad for REASONS. Some moderator or some other team member reads this feedback and the 100 other people on this forum who incessantly bring this up in every topic regardless of relevance and hands it off to yoshi p. Yoshi P reads the feedback and then goes hmm, maybe Valence is correct, I should check the numbers. So then Yoshi P would then go and check any number of metrics to see if this feedback is corroborated. Things such as:

1. Subscription count.
2. Players who cite homogenization and dumbing down in their cancellation survey.
3. Per Capita savage clears in each expansion.
4. Per Capita failed instances.
5. In the case of specific job changes like summoner, shifts in the number of players who main that job after major changes.
6. Average player damage floors across expansions. I.e. if the average hw mch only approached 40% of the theoretical best dps while the average EW mch might be at 50% (or potentially the inverse but let's be real here) then that would be a point of consideration.

And any number of other metrics that they could think of. Forum posters could post 10,000 anti-homogenization posts a day but if the sub numbers aren't dropping catastrophically with people pointing this out as the reason why they are leaving, or content clear rates are noticeably higher now than they were prior to all this homogenization and dumbing down, then they aren't going to de-homogenize things if those are the metrics they primarily care about.

The classic "the data tell us" out of touch businessman fallacy. Just like the data told them attracting teenagers with FFXIII, XV, and and now XVI would make them a healthy profit? We know the opposite is true. Sure, those 3 games "sold a lot," but "a lot" is relative to the cost of production as well as value depreciation of your product.

This kind of "let's filter FFXIV 1.0 complaints through businessman filter" is exactly how FFXIV 1.0 ended up being the product it ended up being.

[Lyth]

...

Feedback tends to define a design problem rather than a design solution. I think as players we tend to focus on the solutions that the community requests, while in a lot of cases they're looking at our collective reactions to changes.

Consider this. Many melee players have specifically weighed in this expansion as wanting to see more challenging job designs. Yet there are a number of non-melee players, including yourself, who have recently cited positionals as being a barrier to entry. I know that they tried to upsell VPR as being fast paced and challenging, but they did that for RPR as well. What's to say that designing a new job with simpler gameplay, fewer buttons, few/no positionals, and part time physical-ranged gameplay isn't the direct impact of trying to cater to people who don't play/aren't currently interested in the role? (I hope I'm wrong, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if that's how it turns out.) It's not necessarily that they're ignoring melee players input, it's just that they're trying to cater to too many people at once. And then when said job eventually gets indirectly nerfed (i.e. everyone else gets buffed) on the basis of 'lower difficulty', then both groups pull back and you end up catering to an audience that never actually existed in the first place.

It's hard to tell what the specific intention of some changes are without additional detail. For example, why do you think the 30% mitigation tools were selected to be upgraded? I don't think it's because tanks need more mitigation. Currently, they're all identical except for Vengeance, which has an additional thorns effect. This game balances nearly exclusively through upward balance. So you 'upgrade' all of them, add in job-specific additional effects, and then remove the thorns effect on the pre-upgraded Vengeance when nobody is looking. This may seem like an unnecessary amount of legerdemain for something that could have been openly adjusted years ago, but that's how they roll.

Naturally, in some cases, changes aren't made on the basis of direct feedback but rather in response to performance gaps within a job or role. The most common reason for this is if there is a less intuitive way to optimize. The obvious discussion point here is BLM/non-standard, but I strongly suspect that the new additions to RPR were deliberately introduced to interfere with the setup for Double/Triple Enshroud. These things do erode job complexity and leave players frustrated, but also make the optimization strategy more transparent and move the focus to performance/execution over rotation design. I don't agree with it but I'm also not surprised by it.

It's a combination of factors most likely, but the biggest ones are trying to cater to too many people at once and being reluctant to openly (and quickly) roll out changes that people may get upset over.

[Arkdra]

The classic "the data tell us" out of touch businessman fallacy. Just like the data told them attracting teenagers with FFXIII, XV, and and now XVI would make them a healthy profit? We know the opposite is true. Sure, those 3 games "sold a lot," but "a lot" is relative to the cost of production as well as value depreciation of your product.

This kind of "let's filter FFXIV 1.0 complaints through businessman filter" is exactly how FFXIV 1.0 ended up being the product it ended up being.

Capitalism rules everything around us. If they had data indicating that people thought this was a real problem and it was costing them significant subs, they would do something about it. And maybe it is! Maybe it wasn't a problem of relevance early in EW but it has grown to be one now but it's too late in dev to do anything about it for DT. Maybe they actually will do something about it in 8.0. It is a mystery, I don't have any hard data, all I got is cynicism for businesses.

Also 13 and 15 were profitable and 16's problems stem from the small install base of PS5 so your examples aren't great.

[Jojoya]

The "we'll do it later" only leads to ruin. Art can only carry a game so far. After dawntrail msq what will keep that expansion alive?

Same things that have kept the game going all along. Story and accessibility. Having fun.

As long as players are engaged by the story, they'll want to return to see what happens next. As long as minimum system requirements and the basic content remains accessible to players regardless of financial means and skill level, there won't be barriers to continuing.

If people are having fun, why would they choose to leave?

Certainly there are those who decide over time they're ready for more intense displays of skill. That they're no longer having fun playing the game. But that's the point where they need to make a change and find the game that provides what they want instead of expecting a game to change from what it has become.