Do the dev's actually play this game?

[Aegrus]

This is an honest question. When I ask this, I specifically want to know what classes they play.

I honestly believe, they do not play support classes. (i.e. tanks and heals).

For tanks this is due to the seemingly obvious problems in class design. DRK is put in a position where it has worse CD's than PLD (arguably also WAR's that use inner beast well).

However, this pales in comparison to AST, who straight up under performs compared to WHM and SCH. The shields are weaker, the heals are weaker, and I am not even going to touch utility or dps which is abysmal.

For DPS. I don't know, the BRD/MCH nonperformance was obvious from the get go as BRD got about 30% of their damage from auto-attacks from the old barrage/2.0 system, so a buff of 30% would be a reasonable start for keeping performance equal.

This is more a plea. In WoW they actually consult and deal with top raiding guilds for feedback. The test servers iron out alot of issues before live. The developers actively play the classes they enjoy and are open about it. They are also quite honest about the fact that players will always be better than them at the game. It is time to consider some realistic testing practices and feedback systems, as in-house testing leads to bias (playing classes in an intended manner) and results that cannot be replicated by 1000's of players in just a few days of testing.

[Tagihi]

Yes even Yoshida him self a director playing his own game.

And if you have something that can help game use support section!

[Aegrus]

Playing a tank is not the same as playing a healer. Playing Monk is not the same as playing Black Mage. I ask this because having a diverse point of view is important, especially when tanks and healers are often lynchpins of good groups.

If you want another specific example, the aforementioned Monk still has obvious issues with greased lightning, and prolonged phase shifts such as Living Liquid in A3. The phase transitions are so long, that it is quite easy to drop greased lightning, and they are designed around a ramp up to 3 stacks. Just the extra ~2sec of cast delay in it being applied at the start instead of the end of the animation alone makes a huge QoL difference in the class. This is something you wouldn't know unless you play or work with players who play monk often.

The bigger point of the OP was also that Dev experience is also not the end all, player feedback is really important.

Yes please, another comparison to WoW we all know how great this[that?] game turned out.

Other MMO's exist, and set standards and expectations, you would be a fool to not acknowledge what works well for others.

[Lantia]

Other MMO's exist, and set standards and expectations, you would be a fool to not acknowledge what works well for others.

Yeah lost 5 Million users from autum to summer (expansion release 12 mio and may 7,1) is really something to look at ;D

[Remus]

Yeah lost 5 Million users from autum to summer (expansion release 12 mio and may 7,1) is really something to look at ;D

They will come back when the expansion comes out it always happens lol

[Tuathaa]

They will come back when the expansion comes out it always happens lol

Unless they do some dev changes or snipe their BC\Wotlk dev team back from LoL they are just hammering nails in their coffin

[Duelle]

Yeah lost 5 Million users from autum to summer (expansion release 12 mio and may 7,1) is really something to look at ;D

Have you wondered and looked into why that happened? I'll clue you in: they promised a bunch of stuff and never delivered for Warlords of Draenor, reduced the game world just to Garrisons and removed game features (like flying) to try to hide the fact the expansion was small compared to others.

The same would have happened here if after promising Ishgard the devs decided to use it only for cut scenes and prohibiting you from entering the city. That's how the people who were promised Karabor and Bladespire Citadel and then got crappy little bases using garrison assets felt.

[Gunspec]

Have you wondered and looked into why that happened? I'll clue you in: they promised a bunch of stuff and never delivered for Warlords of Draenor, reduced the game world just to Garrisons and removed game features (like flying) to try to hide the fact the expansion was small compared to others.

The same would have happened here if after promising Ishgard the devs decided to use it only for cut scenes and prohibiting you from entering the city. That's how the people who were promised Karabor and Bladespire Citadel and then got crappy little bases using garrison assets felt.

I like to stay in my house and manage retainer ventures and airship voyages. It feels just like WoW!
... and then I leave the house and play in an actual mmo.

[Kaurie]

Yeah lost 5 Million users from autum to summer (expansion release 12 mio and may 7,1) is really something to look at ;D

That just shows they had 5 million subscribers + which is an arm and a leg above what FFXIV has. They still have waaay more than FFXIV. This is an MMO that has had multi-million subscriber bases for over a decade. Ignoring it would be silly.

Look at what works, what hasn't worked. What brought in subscribers, what lost subscribers? etc.

[Tuathaa]

That just shows they had 5 million subscribers + which is an arm and a leg above what FFXIV has. They still have waaay more than FFXIV. This is an MMO that has had multi-million subscriber bases for over a decade. Ignoring it would be silly.

Look at what works, what hasn't worked. What brought in subscribers, what lost subscribers? etc.

They still have over 7 mil