Viper Changes Thread - Share your thoughts

[Mondschnee]

Ok folks, apparently we have our answer. I pulled this quote from a recent interview with Eurogamer.
The community said „we don’t want these changes“ and the developers apparently did it anyway because idk, duh.
I don’t know what to say.

According to Yoshi-P: „Don‘t worry about it.“

“With regards to the changes for Viper, we had adjusted right until the last minute and we did have in mind the possibility that some players might provide feedback that it was too busy to play. We did release the job in that state, and then we found a lot of players say it was very busy to play to the extent that they were not able to see mechanics.

The battle team, right until the last minute, were considering whether to make any adjustments to the job. The battle director actually consulted with me because he was quite torn about whether they should go through with an adjustment or not. We announced that we were considering making adjustments to the job, but the response to that was a lot of feedback from players who had already reached the level cap and were already used to playing with the job, and they were happy with the way it played. However, we had already identified some actions which would inevitably be a cause of stress for players. Eventually, we just went through with adjusting what we had initially planned, and that was unrelated to the community feedback. However, I believe probably there was some misunderstanding on the community's part.

I do remember on social media, especially in North America and in Europe, some people were saying, 'Hey, Yoshida, you're listening too much to community feedback', but that was only a little bit so really you don't need to worry.“

[ovIm]

Ok folks, apparently we have our answer. I pulled this quote from a recent interview with Eurogamer.
The community said „we don’t want these changes“ and the developers apparently did it anyway because idk, duh.
I don’t know what to say.

According to Yoshi-P: „Don‘t worry about it.“

Here is the interview in question, in case people want to read the full thing.

I am not just speechless, I am actually pretty mad. Same thing that happens to healers, or with DRK feedback - a wonderful "You think you do, but you don't" mentality on the developers part. The disconnect is real.

[Carighan]

I am not just speechless, I am actually pretty mad. Same thing that happens to healers, or with DRK feedback - a wonderful "You think you do, but you don't" mentality on the developers part. The disconnect is real.

Where do you get that from?

He quite literally says they were adjusting until right on release, and had already discussed removing the need to mentally track a debuff before. Then they got that exact feedback they had feared the job with the debuff might get, so they removed it:

With regards to the changes for Viper, we had adjusted right until the last minute and we did have in mind the possibility that some players might provide feedback that it was too busy to play. We did release the job in that state, and then we found a lot of players say it was very busy to play to the extent that they were not able to see mechanics.

Do we want the devs to listen to their playerbase now, or not?!

[ovIm]

Where do you get that from?

He quite literally says they were adjusting until right on release, and had already discussed removing the need to mentally track a debuff before. Then they got that exact feedback they had feared the job with the debuff might get, so they removed it:

Do we want the devs to listen to their playerbase now, or not?!

A little bit later:

We announced that we were considering making adjustments to the job, but the response to that was a lot of feedback from players who had already reached the level cap and were already used to playing with the job, and they were happy with the way it played. However, we had already identified some actions which would inevitably be a cause of stress for players. Eventually, we just went through with adjusting what we had initially planned, and that was unrelated to the community feedback. However, I believe probably there was some misunderstanding on the community's part.

He openly admits that despite players wanting to keep the job the same gameplay wise, they wanted to force their vision without taking in feedback from the customers that were using and enjoying their product.

[AddictedToWitches]

A little bit later:



He openly admits that despite players wanting to keep the job the same gameplay wise, they wanted to force their vision without taking in feedback from the customers that were using and enjoying their product.

Hot take
I think the job design in this game has always been best when they follow their own vision and don't bow down to player feedback. Player feedback gave us the awful DRK rework and other awful reworks and homogenization. When SE is free to design jobs the way they intend they are great. I think they should listen to players less actually.

[CKNovel]

Hot take
I think the job design in this game has always been best when they follow their own vision and don't bow down to player feedback. Player feedback gave us the awful DRK rework and other awful reworks and homogenization. When SE is free to design jobs the way they intend they are great. I think they should listen to players less actually.

I don't think so. A lot of time there's changes that makes players goes "who asked??"
Kaiten being removed, Dark Arts being completely removed, MCH micro-management of turret completely gone...

Noxious gash is another example. Based on them that debuff was too stressfull to maintain.
But instead of making it less stressfull they straight up removed it.

That's why I'm not convinced by player feedback being the cause of bad changes.
PLD being able to block magic, the Living Dead rework, merge of Shoha and Shoha II, buff that grants a free use instead of 50 gauges... All of those are community feedback.

[ovIm]

Hot take
I think the job design in this game has always been best when they follow their own vision and don't bow down to player feedback. Player feedback gave us the awful DRK rework and other awful reworks and homogenization. When SE is free to design jobs the way they intend they are great. I think they should listen to players less actually.

Counter point for this specific scenario (Viper changes):
imagine you own a bakery, and you sell killer donuts with chocolate frosting. People love them, you constantly sell out.
At some point, you decide you want to make donuts with strawberry jam filling instead, because that was your vision, not because people asked you to, and you inform customers that since you only have the capacity to make one type of donut, there will be no more chocolate covered donuts. People complain as they do not like strawberry quite as much and much prefer chocolate.
Then, despite people telling you that you already did a perfect job with the chocolate donuts, you change them all to strawberry. People tried them, some are allergic and can't, and pretty much most of them tell you that this ain't it, chief. You may have gained a few new customers, but lost quite a lot more older ones.
In that situation, would you consider going back to chocolate, or would you keep forcing your own vision for what a good donut is?

You see what I am getting at? I can hardly imagine any baker going to gaslight their customers into liking strawberry instead.

[AddictedToWitches]

Food analogy.

Opinion discarded for using a food analogy.

I don't think so. A lot of time there's changes that makes players goes "who asked??"
Kaiten being removed, Dark Arts being completely removed, MCH micro-management of turret completely gone...

Noxious gash is another example. Based on them that debuff was too stressfull to maintain.
But instead of making it less stressfull they straight up removed it.

That's why I'm not convinced by player feedback being the cause of bad changes.
PLD being able to block magic, the Living Dead rework, merge of Shoha and Shoha II, buff that grants a free use instead of 50 gauges... All of those are community feedback.

Dark arts removal was because players complained about dark arts
SB DRK was basically fine, the only issue being weaves with dark arts, but people whined
the other changes are small QoL things, not full on reworks.
MCH turret change was part of their rework which was also a result of players whining
Noxious gash removal? Also player whining.
Except this time, the devs are putting their foot down after the change with a "You complained, we fixed, so deal with it."
Look no further than at any job in this game that has not had a major rework done to it since it released. Notice anything? (most) of them are still fun to play.
Is player feedback essential? Yes. But sometimes you should know when to not listen to them, and that's when their feedback impedes your vision.

[W00by]

Hot take
I think the job design in this game has always been best when they follow their own vision and don't bow down to player feedback. Player feedback gave us the awful DRK rework and other awful reworks and homogenization. When SE is free to design jobs the way they intend they are great. I think they should listen to players less actually.

I actually don't disagree with this sentiment. A lot of the time, feedback is a really poor motivator to make certain changes, and many of the best changes don't come from feedback (I don't think anyone was asking for the Tsubame change, for example, but it's really good). But the problem here is that they're listening to some feedback and not others. We're all saying we didn't want VPR changed/want it to be reverted, and they have admitted openly they are currently ignoring our feedback. Simultaneously, they said they made the change in response to feedback, in both the Job Guide and the initial announcement of the changes.

So, they are listening to feedback, just not all of it. And that's why people are frustrated, I think. Also, I wrote a whole thread about this that's currently on the front page, but I would be a lot more comfortable in them "sticking with their guns" if they knew what their guns even were. Yoshi-P claims they were working on VPR, agonizing over what to do with it until the very last day, and I mean, hell, clearly even after the very last day judging by the fact that it's received changes in every patch with adjustments so far. So how can I feel good about them sticking to their guns if, by their own admission, they aren't confident when they ship things? You would hope the Job that was announced first, the flagship Job of the expansion, would've had a confident design direction from day one that they were planning to implement and that it would've been finished earlier and only need small adjustments after. The fact that a Job was reworked a few days after release when they had plenty of time to sort out what they wanted it to be internally should be all the proof you need that they're not currently capable of deciding what to do by themselves. (If you want more detail on this subject, please refer to my other thread.)

If they don't know what they're doing, they should try to form a consensus with players about what everyone wants. I'm not confident in their ability to steer things by themselves after this expansion.

[ovIm]

Opinion discarded for using a food analogy.

Thank you for this wonderful display of discussion etiquette.

I actually don't disagree with this sentiment. A lot of the time, feedback is a really poor motivator to make certain changes, and many of the best changes don't come from feedback (I don't think anyone was asking for the Tsubame change, for example, but it's really good).

I am not sure I entirely agree here. Generally, yes, having a clear vision and following it is a good thing and developers should strife for that. At the same time, feedback can bring attention to issues that devs may have overlooked.
Take for example current Reaper - with the level 100 skill, Reaper is now gauge negative. Unless Square Enix says that this is intended, this could be seen as unintended side behaviour that has been overseen.
Or, Endwalker Gunbreaker. With the addition of a 3rd cartridge, the rotation changed noticeably compared to Shadowbringers in more ways, and I heard asking for a fix in their cartridge economy, which they got with the Reign of Beasts combo this patch around.

Or, a different game example would be Helldivers 2. It came out, people had fun, Devs patched a lot of the "fun" out of the game, people provided feedback, and the shotcallers in the company (at least publicly) agree, working to return the game to a state where it may be enjoyed by more people again.

I do agree that bending over backwards to take in every feedback is bad form and will result in a mess of a game. After all, most gamers are not game designers, and its a job of a game designer to create a good fluid loop of fun. Completely ignoring feedback from your customers however may also cause you to alienate those that you want to reach.