Peaceful debate: Does the community complain too much?

[Lunaxia]

snip

This. I don't think criticism or feedback is a bad thing at all, but I think the attitude and sense of entitlement players have can be pretty disgusting.
"SE, WHY does [region] have this and not us, I DEMAND this, it's not FAIR."
"SE, are you blind/ stupid/ dumb?!"
"This part of the game is TERRIBLE and KILLING this game and if you like it you're either STUPID or TERRIBLE too."
"I want THIS and SE is [insert derogatory word of choice] for not doing it the way I think it should be."

If I were SE, reading through these would just make me want to do the complete opposite. I'm impressed how much they listen to players' feedback, to be honest.

[ADVSS]

well they did put the forums here for debates, ideas and general info as a medium to adjust or fix parts of the game, its only natural that people would complain about things that seem broken, out of place or need to be fixed yeah? I dont feel at all that some complaints like the rmt report button were unjust. It only took 3 years to implement it in game, which deserves 3 years of complaints imo, especially if we get emergency hotfix maintenence because a piece of glam gear came out undyable instead. of dyable in the past .

[Kazrah]

I think there has been, and of course still is, some stuff worth at least a couple of complaints (eh, nothing's perfect). What negativity comes in through the forums I think is more or less a symptom found of every MMO, not just this one. That being said, as far as MMO communities go, the one for this game has probably been the friendliest and most peaceful I've ever seen. Despite what number of more typical cases of negativity arise, it's not much at all compared to what I've seen on forums for other games.

I also think that the secret lies in what the game doesn't have a whole lot of focus on: PvP. As an anthropologist studying communities developed through online gaming, one thing I've noticed is the level of focus on PvP content in a game being almost directly linked to the level of overall vitriol and animosity found within that game's playerbase, and most of it is reflected through the game forums. It's not to say that PvP is a bad thing in an MMO, but the lack of focus on it compared to other MMOs like WoW, Aion or LoL have definitely helped the atmosphere of the game.

[Keramory]

People complain because there is quite a bit to complain about in my opinion.
As for the happy people don't post argument, I would agree to it...to an extent..HOWEVER, honestly most people I talk to in game are not that happy with the same old updates over and over.

I think another big factor of it is, although Yoshi has done quite a bit to try and appease a large portion of the player base, theres quite a number of things the players seemingly want as a whole but Yoshi says basically "too bad, I don't agree with it". That, especially with me, causes quite a bit of negativity.

[Antonio_Xul]

Let's not forget that the forum posters are a tiny minority of the player base, so it could more people are actually enjoying the game than not. It's just that negative people tend to be louder than positive people.

[Alleo]

Well we also have to remember that a lot of people play this game so this also increases the chance to have more people that are disappointed in something. And like another poster said you will probably go to the forum to complain since you hope for it to change than just going there to post praise. (Or maybe you do both ) We also have the problem that people start new threads about a topic even if there is already another one open. This will give one the belief that there are way to much complains.

Criticism is good and necessary if its written in a nice way and have some arguments that back it up but at the same time people being humans can get a little to emotional about it and may post it way to over dramatic. This at the same time does not make the argument itself less worth a read, one just has to overlook the bad writing and see the point beyond it. Because often the users are taking the time to post something because they still care about the game and want it to get better or maybe they loved it in the past and are too disappointed to play further and just wanted to provide SE feedback as to why they are going. There are sometimes the really bad apples that are posting quite uhm interesting threads or are just really nasty, but we as the community should just try to ignore those and let the post disappear but instead some forum users love to put more oil in the fire.

And I dont want to sound mean but its kinda funny to then see people that complain about the complainers and post like its the most horrible thing to do and yet if you look at their post history or remember their name and see that they themselves have also already complained about something or even started a negative thread...its just like they forgot that not everything can be perfect and that sometimes they also had something they disliked and posted about it but if they like something they sometimes cant understand the other side. (I am not meaning everyone but there are some cases where I am only just sitting there shaking my head)

IMO it would be better if people would start to use the search function a little more and not start a new thread just because the topic is a little different or because they were a little lazy to search for existing ones, so it would keep the threads more combined together. It would make it even easier for the rest of us to notice the post and discuss it. I love to discuss things even though I am not a native speaker but its kinda stressful since everyday there are so many new threads and some of the interesting ones might get buried. But at the same time it would be nice if people then would stop the "omg necro" posts if someone uses the search functions and brings back an old topic..

I would also say that even if the other side might post something really negative or even suggest something really bad, is not completely at fault for a bad thread alone. People love to go into it, post some silly GIF's or something about popcorn or are outright attacking the OP. Maybe we should all just learn to start ignoring really hateful threads or threads that we have no real interest in discussion because if no one reacts it will fall back fast enough. Yet people somehow love to inflame such threads even more..

And at the end I am also someone that gets really annoyed at people that come into a negative thread only to post how they hate people complaining..they probably did not even read further than the OP and I often found that there were quite some good arguments in the whole thread. This brings nothing to the topic, might derail the thread into a real hate thread with lots of bashing each other and mods coming in..I would hate it too if someone has a positive thread for fun times and someone post something negative in it. It just feels like a part of the community or at least some people have no real self restrain and instead of ignoring a topic they need to further hold it active by posting off topic comments in it.

So I would love if every "complain" thread would start with a nice written first post full of arguments for their cases that you can discuss without any side throwing insults at the other one and that the posters that dont really have a real interest in posting a well thought answer to a post would just not post in it. These popcorn posts might be funny at first but in the end they keep the thread alive with no real content in their own post and might even be the reason for further insults along the way. (I am just thinking about that thread with the 3.4 clothes..)

The FF14 forum is still really tame to forums like Black desert..

[Theodric]

I think there's a lot of merit to many of the complaints. They're just not expressed in a reasonable manner - but that's understandable when most people in society are incapable of having a civil debate that doesn't devolve into arguments.

[Crysten]

OP is complaining about complaining, so yes, I believe he's contributing to the problem.

[Xiao_]

Reading people's ridiculous complaints is the whole reason I'm here

[Mysteltain]

Complaining about something isn't a bad thing, so long as it's expressed well. Of course, as others have said, some people can't seem to express themselves without sounding like a five-year-old who believes the sky is falling because the devs did something they don't like or disagree with.