Where does the mentioned feedback actually come from?

[Catwho]

Big Streamers and Japan.
They do not read the Official Forums.

They DO read contents that come off the official forums, but not the General Chat channel. Several of my smaller UI requests have made it into the game over the years, submitted through this official forum through the correct UI forum discussion board.

[Rekh]

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.

"Final Fantasy XIII cost millions to make, but it sold over 6.5 million copies, which is around $350 million. If the average price per game is around $54, then Final Fantasy XIII may have earned around $350 million. Some copies sold for $70–80, while others were sold at a cheaper price."-Google AI search

"In its first week of sales, Final Fantasy XIII-2 sold only 1/3 as well as its predecessor."

"Most game developers would jump on top of their servers and dance for joy if their game sold 500,000 copies within its first week. Square Enix is not one of those developers. Final Fantasy XIII-2, the follow-up to 2010’s often-maligned Final Fantasy XIII, cleared the half-million sales mark in only four days. While these sales figures are not bad on their own, it’s a decline of roughly 66% from Final Fantasy XIII‘s 1.5 million units sold within the same time frame." https://www.escapistmagazine.com/fin...kluster-sales/

"While the critics may have liked it, and Square may have fudged the initial sales figures, this game did terrible as far as consumers are concerned. It is one of the few games in Japan to drop from its near 7000 yen price tag to under 500 yen within only 5 or 6 months. Most games, especially Final Fantasy ones, never drop in price to under 980 yen even years after release (and it'll take a couple of years to get to 980 yen). But with FF13, stores couldn't even give copies away." https://steamcommunity.com/app/29212...1/?l=brazilian

I can get more if you'd like. Moreover, I don't know why you even bring up ffxvi? If a data-driven stock exchange company like square enix has to blame the ps5 for not meeting their production costs then what does that tell us about data-driven decisions?

[Frost1800]

I know the 2 min meta has been addressed, I can’t remember if it was a previous live letter or somewhere else, but he said it came about due to player feedback, and now all the player feedback they hear is AGAINST it, so they’re confused about what people want.

Yeah, IIRC, back in the day people complained about DRG/MNK/BRD’s 90/180s buff cds made them hard to fit into a party and miserable to play. Something among these effects.

[Catwho]

The SE investors have been told for years that stuff like 7 Remake should "print money" and that the Final Fantasy brand should shit gold bricks.

But their decision to not release on PC is really starting to hurt them, same as what is about to hit EA Sports because they're not releasing the new NCAA game on PC. Those of us who already have a PS5 or Xbox One are like "cool' but someone who spent $3000 on a gaming system in the last year is justifiably upset that game companies are deliberately ignoring them as a primary market.

[Rekh]

Yeah, IIRC, back in the day people complained about DRG/MNK/BRD’s 90/180s buff cds made them hard to fit into a party and miserable to play. Something among these effects.

Raiding scene; the smallest group. Not saying they're not important but that's who essentially complained about buff exclusivity and windows. Square has gone overboard listening to that group, to the detriment of the non-raiding population.

The SE investors have been told for years that stuff like 7 Remake should "print money" and that the Final Fantasy brand should shit gold bricks.

But their decision to not release on PC is really starting to hurt them, same as what is about to hit EA Sports because they're not releasing the new NCAA game on PC. Those of us who already have a PS5 or Xbox One are like "cool' but someone who spent $3000 on a gaming system in the last year is justifiably upset that game companies are deliberately ignoring them as a primary market.

The multi billion dollar company uses moderators to filter their paying stakeholder's requests through data-sets.
Meanwhile data-sets used by investors to influence square enix are ignored.

[Asari5]

what i think is a big mistake is how they want to keep everything on the same lvl.... there will be 21 jobs in DT.
enough jobs for everyone one could think. but no, instead they want a everything for everyone... which is impossible.

[Jeeqbit]

I have been going through everything that's been brought up by the PLL and I am actually a little annoyed that it's so empty of anything truly daring or impactful

Could have been worse. Many of us fearing about the DRG changes a lot but they decided to keep jobs mostly the same actually.

much like the same PLL before Endwalker was all about how Addle was getting 5% physical mitigation like it was the greatest thing ever.

I didn't see it that way but it was a win in the sense that it just felt like if you used it well it wasn't always useful because the enemy didn't use that type of attack...

Why were so many hours of live letter spent actually talking how mitigation was going to be increased by 5% of 5s? Or how Second Wind is going to be more powerful? Or swiftcast getting a lowered recast?

It was a bit repetitive. They could have just said these changes were happening to all roles instead of repeating the slide, predictably, for all the roles.

The infamous 2 min meta has been number 1 contention for most players for years and even if I do think it's only the tip of the iceberg, not a word on it.

It was interesting that this wasn't mentioned, but we aren't really going to know about it until the media tour shows off the details in 2 weeks.

Healer gameplay: some jobs got some more actions added, but let's face it, nothing is truly changing on that front either. Can you tell us what we can expect to actually do as healers in Dawntrail besides spamming 1-1-1?

It wasn't a lot, but healers did get a little more in the attack department: aoe DoTs and more off-GCD attacks. It's not a lot, but it's better than nothing.

Tank gameplay: tanks are infamously unkillable, and do not require active healing from healers anymore, especially in casual content, yet they get even more mitigation and improved defensives.

To be fair, it may be due to increased damage output in Dawntrail associated with the higher level cap. But the chances are that tanks can handle this increased damage output from enemies as it currently stands.

Why is every change made to specifically keep them identical?

It's as I've been saying for a while. They're making 2 of every job play the same so that it's as easy to balance as ARR. I would have to admit I was surprised DRG doesn't seem to be changing completely into a RPR clone like I thought, although we'll have to see in the media tour.

SMN is the big culprit and has been under the spotlight since its inception in Endwalker, yet you double down on it without talking about it.

I think they did reference that some people want things harder, easier, etc, but that is the direction they go in. They have added a setting to adjust whether abilities change into other abilities or are separate to recreate some of the feeling that used to be there on jobs, but I think many of us will just save the hotbar/keybind space and not bother.

For SMN specifically, I was disappointed that Bahamut is the "new" summon. We were all getting excited for the other possibilities like Ramuh, Shiva or Leviathan and all they did was add an enhanced Bahamut? I hope they will at least expand on egi-glamour so we can disguise them all as different summons.

Us playing through scripted encounters with basic scripted rotations without much flavor?

Scripted is kinda how it's always been, especially since Heavensward.

[Valence]

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.

Way to completely miss the point.

1) I'm asking where is the feedback they mention and where does it come from, because unless i'm living in a parallel dimension, it doesn't come from those forums where they tell us to give our feedback. So it has to come from somewhere else, or perhaps the JP forums idk. I don't read japanese. I'm sure the feedback they keep mentioning comes from somewhere, but it doesnt come from there.

2) I'm asking for them to address extremely widely accepted core issues that I listed in the OP. It's not just Valence's issues. You'll find them everywhere on the internet, ingame, reddit, streamers, everywhere. Don't tell me the 2min meta is something I invented. Don't tell me healer problems is something I made up. Don't tell me you haven't seen any of those mentioned before.

3) I'm sure they have their reasons, I want to hear their side of the story, especially regarding those points they keep dodging and not addressing at all.

The point of this post was never to whine about how the devs don't listen to muh feedback.

[Equitable_Remedy]

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.

If your friend wants a job that allows him to focus on the boss, then the existence of a job that allows him to focus on the boss is good, actually. If your friend has 18 other choices (plus the option to not play the game at all), and chooses SMN, it's sounds like the SMN rework worked out well for your friend.

[Arkdra]

Way to completely miss the point.

1) I'm asking where is the feedback they mention and where does it come from, because unless i'm living in a parallel dimension, it doesn't come from those forums where they tell us to give our feedback. So it has to come from somewhere else, or perhaps the JP forums idk. I don't read japanese. I'm sure the feedback they keep mentioning comes from somewhere, but it doesnt come from there.

2) I'm asking for them to address extremely widely accepted core issues that I listed in the OP. It's not just Valence's issues. You'll find them everywhere on the internet, ingame, reddit, streamers, everywhere. Don't tell me the 2min meta is something I invented. Don't tell me healer problems is something I made up. Don't tell me you haven't seen any of those mentioned before.

3) I'm sure they have their reasons, I want to hear their side of the story, especially regarding those points they keep dodging and not addressing at all.

The point of this post was never to whine about how the devs don't listen to muh feedback.

1. These forums is the only answer they will ever give. Even if they are getting it elsewhere, to let that knowledge out would contaminate that as a source and then just open that place up to criticism from whoever disagrees with it and that's just a nightmare for everyone involved. Like if he came out and said that he has Aimi collate information from r/ff14discussion then that place would immediately get slammed by people looking to get his ear and whatever value it had is lost. Now it's just ff14 forums 2: with an even worse format.

2 and 3. They've talked about this stuff before already (well, 2 minute meta and healer changes specifically) but honestly, I don't disagree . It would have been good to address it again and I do generally enjoy hearing their view on things even when I disagree. If we're lucky, someone on the media tour will pick his brain about it.