Peaceful debate: Does the community complain too much?

[thunderbreak]

I believe the main issue is that negativity is louder than praise. People happy with the game don't come into the forums to say it often because they are content to play it.

Based on this statement, assuming people who are content don't voice, and people who is not content will voice. The the next question to ask is has the amount of complaints increased? And are the complaints justified?

[MrPresident]

I think people have many valid complaints, but whenever they make them they're immediately torn down by people defending SE. This only leads to both sides becoming more entrenched in their original view, leading to lots of the same threads being remade and restarted about valid, but over done, complaints such as raid tuning, egi glamours, etc.

So no I don't think people complain too much, they just get riled up by people telling them they complain too much.

[SpookyGhost]

I think people have many valid complaints, but whenever they make them they're immediately torn down by people defending SE.

Basically.

To be absolutely fair, though, it's like posting a thread about how much you hate Mario on the I Love Mario forums. It's a bit unfortunate that there's no other way to give personal feedback to the developers, as anything overly negative will either get locked/deleted, will be loaded with "BUT XIV IS PERFECT", or will fall into obscurity never to be seen by human eyes again.

Anyway, in regards to the OP, I think it depends on the scope of people you're looking at in terms of how they view the game. Generally I'd say that anyone actually playing the game (and able to post on the forums) is content with it, the outliers are generally people who either think the game will change for the better next patch/expansion or they're subbed for months and have no way out so might as well play the game/post on the forums/etc. In terms of ~the MMO community~ XIV generally doesn't fall under anyone worth a salt's radar, if I'm being 100% honest. It sits in the same category as F2P Korean FOTM MMOs, and this is largely because end game in non-existent and it's basically only appealing to FF fans and people who haven't played other MMOs before.

I think XIV is in a very weird and unfortunate spot, because it has a lot of potential, but SE/Yoshi-P/whoever is just playing it as safe as humanly possible. There's really nothing unique about the game, it pulls from WoW and just sort of dumbs everything down (which conceptually seems absurd but I guess it's working) and then it pulls all it's plot elements from other FFs. There's nothing in 2.0 or 3.0's plot that hasn't been done in a previous FF. I feel like this criticism wouldn't be as warranted if it weren't a numbered FF, but since it is we have to be a bit critical on it - like them or not, FF games are known for being polished and individual games all following various core ideas but exploring them in unique ways. XIV, to me, feels much more like a spin-off game and I think that if it were that then it'd have it's own niche community where people wouldn't bother it so much.

I dunno, I gave up trying to solve the XIV dilemma in 2.0. I think Yoshi-P is right in that you should subscribe for a month when the patch hits, then take a 2 month break. You could even feasibly do a 5 month break due to how the patches (predictably) work. Alternatively just don't sub all together and watch a recap or whatever.

On the other hand though, just really quickly - crafting in this game is actually a pretty unique little thing, but imo under utilized. I've never felt the want or need to level a craft and I've never felt penalized for not doing so. As interesting as the system is, I just don't see the point in going through all that trouble to make some housing items or food I could've just bought or whatever. Maybe this has less to do with the crafts themselves and more to do with the value of gil, though. Anyway, tangent aside, I think that if you're into the game for crafting then you've at least got a viable excuse since you can't really get that anywhere else, though I wonder just how much longevity you can get out of crafting. *shrug*

[Elim]

Nothing wrong with complaining.

If we only post about how amazing the game is, rainbows, puppies and sunshine, etc, then the devs would never know what the playerbase is actually thinking. And from what I understand, the devs want to know what we're thinking. If they didn't then all the complaint threads would be deleted.

[Aivi_lo]

I'd say if you were enjoying the game, you'd mainly be playing it. You share the fun in game with your friends - maybe come in the forum to share a fun story or new idea. When you find a problem or find you don't like how something is done (for me the cash shop) you come to the forum to see if you can find others that may share your opinion.

When I'm having fun, I don't stop to analyse it, I just enjoy it. However, if I'm annoyed I like to have a platform to express my feelings and see if others feel the same.

Does that make sense?

[Aylis]

I think XIV is in a very weird and unfortunate spot, because it has a lot of potential, but SE/Yoshi-P/whoever is just playing it as safe as humanly possible.

I've always said that same thing. As far as I know FFXIV is the only MMO that's trying to be a global MMO, IE the same exact game in different nations. Yoshi has taken on the impossible with it. Just because what say the NA/EU audience may enjoy, the JP and other nations audiences might not enjoy. Vice versa and mix and match all the smaller elements in between. So with that he pretty much backed himself into a corner and has no real choice other then to play it safe and keep things the standard its been now to avoid making too big of waves with the different audiences.

It makes me wonder if that's the reason he wont bring back player survey's. Just because they would bring a wealth of information from around the world that he probably doesn't want to hear since it may lead to a lot of re-balances, again trying to find the line between different peoples tastes. Or at worse, another re-re-release and going with the system South Korea and other nations use to handle MMO releases. The parent company hires a dev studio from the other nation. They give them the games source code, the sibling dev studio completely reworks the game to tailor to its nations tastes and enjoyments.

The questionnaire on the cancel page holds to my feelings. It asks why but it doesn't really /ask/ why. Granted some choices like "financial reasons" don't need an explination. Selecting "I don't wish to play anymore" or similar is too broad. What does it mean? Is the player unhappy with raids? PVP? Are dungeons too hard? Too easy? What? It asks but it doesn't really give anyone who may see it the reasons behind it. So the devs have nothing to work with.

In the end the game probably will survive as it is now I feel just simply because its a Final Fantasy game. It has the fan base and it has the history. To be honest there have been times I've wondered if this game wasn't called Final Fantasy and if it was made by another dev team that wasn't SE, would this have gone FTP years ago.

[Jim_Berry]

I used to complain about stuff, but my complaints were about the community itself and not the game. Now that I know how to blow people off and keep a permament Stoneskin, I have no issues.

I come to the forums to kill time while I'm at work.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Yes. Didn't even need to think about it.

[Spy]

I certainly wont complain about you in that butler suit! <3

Flirting aside, I haven't had much to complain about, honestly. The game is ripe with content (in my opinion) and when/if I get tired, I take breaks to go play Ark (for a change of pace), come back, and it's like a refreshing new game again!