Job identity, simplification and balance in general

[Alice9]

They have openly stated to have made adjustments while completely ignoring player feedback (e.g., Viper adjustments, which had a great many of people loudly asking Square not to do). Those changes still exist even as of 7.1. If they are willing to admit that, then imagine what they patronizingly think they know better than the playerbase regarding much older jobs?

While I'd like to think otherwise, there is a very big reason why whenever they announce job reworks, it fills those players with dread. They have a track record- and it's bad. However it seems that instead of analyzing why people tend to be more afraid of reworks rather than excited for them, they'll just start to not announce the rework beforehand until it is too late for the players to offer feedback. But I mean, it's not like they would listen to it anyway, right, given their history? I hope I'll be wrong.

[Carighan]

They have openly stated to have made adjustments while completely ignoring player feedback (e.g., Viper adjustments, which had a great many of people loudly asking Square not to do). Those changes still exist even as of 7.1. If they are willing to admit that, then imagine what they patronizingly think they know better than the playerbase regarding much older jobs?

Now without disagreeing at all that the current job designs are tepid, annoying and pointless, this particular point (ignoring player feedback) is genuinely not a bad thing. You do *not* want players to be listened to in MMORPGs, history has shown that. But also importantly, you want them to be heard. That's a big difference, and right now the devs aren't doing either.

Players in MMOs are ~okay at telling you if something is problematic or unproblematic. They are ~so/so at telling you why it is (usually it comes down to "it's underpowered", "it's overpowered" or "it's bad", which are all unusable input), and they're terrifying bad at explaining what to do instead.

But the first part still has to be heard. Player feedback is important in its relative quantities to find the hotspots and to okay changes afterwards. Just not at figuring out whether and even if yes, what to do when looking at changing things.

I do so not envy game devs. I work in business software development and I hate our customers already. But they're not gamers. >.>