Oh Square Enix… (A Heartfelt Open Letter To The Developers…)

[SyzzleSpark]

It is with the utmost of any and all possible due respect that I must ask…
…What… precisely… is your major malfunction? Are you blind? Perhaps hard of hearing?
Were the advances of the resident Adonis on your job balance team spurned by a DRK main?
Yo! Spock to bridge! Is your universal translator malfunctioning?
Did you all leave extremely expensive sets of noise-cancelling headphones on?
Are you alright? Have you been kidnapped and blindfolded? Should somebody dial 911?
Knock knock… anyone alive in there? Hello…?…
…
In other news, while you were preparing to release patch 4.1, Trump finally got Kim to nuke us. The entire USA has been Fell Cleaved. We’re all dead and can’t pay our subs anymore. Except for all of our anti-vaxxers. They escaped, cancelled their subs and used the savings to buy jetskis, and are riding them to Japan with their kids as we speak. Adam Jensen called. He says he never asked for this. Meanwhile, every Japanese car in the U.S. has transformed into a Decepticon and they are establishing their own society here to start a new world order after they have wiped out all the humans and glassed every major world government. Latest intelligence says they may have discovered how to summon Bahamut IRL.

Now that I (hopefully) have your attention…

Ahem. There is a nearly-60-page feedback thread with more views than Zalera has active players that has been sitting on the front page of this forum for more than 2 months, about a job whose name you didn’t even so much as whisper in your most recent live letter, and now with the patch notes many of us were anxiously awaiting, it still goes completely unmentioned in the list of job adjustments, whilst generous buffs were given to its primary competition for a teamslot, a job which was already rapidly pushing it out of even the midcore meta. With these changes (or lack thereof) the job is pretty much indisputably the worst in its role in every possible category (damage, mitigation, team utility) other than (some would argue) ease of use during early prog. I’d say these changes easily put WAR on par with PLD overall, making the weakness of DRK an elephant in the room of 2001 Xbox proportions, which I’m incapable of fathoming how you’ve managed to ignore. Short of hacking the official forums and coding the title of that thread to flash in rainbow bubble-gum font, I for one am fresh out of ideas.

That feedback thread is not alone either. Since SB’s launch there has not been even a moment where a feedback thread on DRK of some form or another has not been sitting pretty on this forum’s front page. At times there have been several. At the point that the main DRK feedback thread had been created, there had already been multiple metric gigatons of threads on the topic, but even after several minor patches with no fixes to people’s primary complaints, we dutifully nuked that thread in a fool’s hope that somebody was watching.

What is the reason for this level of stoic neglect that you can’t even verbally acknowledge the fact that you have gotten so much feedback in any of the public addresses to your fans known as live letters? I would argue that even PLD got more attention than this in 3.x. They weren’t the right buffs or particularly helpful, but at least it was some acknowledgement of feedback. You didn’t have to dig through the forums to know people were complaining about that job, all you had to do was look at the patch notes. Speaking of PLD, have we not learned from our mistakes? Seriously, what is the reason? Where is the logic? You’re getting feedback, a lot of it - do we stutter? No? Then respond to it please. If we wanted to mindlessly vent into the abyss, get into multi-page internet arguments, or pontificate endlessly into echo-chambers destined to never be seen or heard of by the developers, we’d post on Reddit. The forums are touted as a place where feedback is actually reviewed, although I gotta say, my ability to make such a statement with a straight face is waning.

I know that balance in MMOs is considered by many to be a myth. But this particular MMO is made by you, Square-Enix, the company that released FFXIV 1.0, failed, issued a heartfelt and honest apology, and then rebuilt the entire game from the ground up (both IRL and in the lore) into what it is today, an MMO giving most if not all others a run for their money. I for one have higher expectations, expectations that have largely been met up until the release of this expansion.

Kindly get your fingers out of your ears and onto to pulse of your playerbase. This is a colossal disappointment and slap in the face, except a slap in the face would technically be a form of acknowledgement. People have been blowing up that thread here for months, with the sole hope that you might listen, and you have gone above and beyond in doing the exact opposite, effectively wasting the time of everyone who bothered to give the feedback that you ask for. I’d like to see some formal statement of design intent explaining to us all what the perceived purpose of DRK even is at this point. If the development team believes, by whatever wellspring of blind and unquestioning faith, that this job is working as intended and/or balanced, do us the courtesy of declaring as such, so that we may all heartily LOL and move on with the proper perspective and expectations for the future, however bleak they may be.

P.S. -to my fellow players of FFXIV, let this thread be ever-living proof that “LOL wait for the patch notes.” is not and never will be a valid statement in any discussion of PvE balance.

[EuronTribal]

Yea, this was really disappointing. I read the forums a lot and this is my frist time posting. I think this patch was a chance for them to show that they were listening. Like not a huge rework but anything really. Dark mind also working on physical dmg, or even that one extra second to the blackest night. Now I’m not against the changes warrior or paladin received. I think pally really is in a good spot now and shake it off sounds awesome. But drk is my favorite class and I genuinely feels like they’re just leaving them behind. I would have even settled for a sentence in the live letter that was simply “ dark knights we hear you” but nothing. It’s just disappointing. I’m probably gonna switch tanks for 4.1 maybe then they’ll pay attention to that.

[Sarcatica]

I would argue it was about the same as how PLD was neglected. I am already switching to WAR to familiarize with the kit for 4.1++. All good. It is always good to adapt to the meta anyway.

Gentle reminder that DRK is still fine. Stop circlejerking like DRK was as weak as the HW PLD, especially for Gordias. Speedrun contents don't matter to most of you and I don't see why you are so aggrevated by SE doing anything to this. The only reason why I switch to WAR is mainly to speedrun for better damage tbh.

[Mekhana]

What's insulting if you CTRL+F everything they have done the past weeks you won't get a single mention of DRK. They aren't even showing us the simplified gauge for 4.1

We don't exist extra-officially.

[347SPECTRE]

As PLD was the Red-headed step-child of HW, it would seem DRK is the red-headed step-child of SB. At this rate we won't see any worthwhile changes to DRK until 5.0 which is just bad considering they forwent making a new tank to balance the current ones. THIS is not balanced, it's HW tank balance with different names.

I guess we might see some sort of result if we whine as much or more than WAR at 4.0 launch.

[RLofOBFL]

The tanks are sooooo close tbh. This is nothing like HW. DRKs aren't entirely irrelevant but they are definitely weaker than the other two in nearly every way. The difference being they're aren't quite as weak as the difference between PLD and WAR/DRK for HW....but it's getting there at this rate.

[SplittingSkies]

Thing is, do we now start urging DRK mains to switch mains in order to get them to notice? I can't believe we have to go that far in order for them to even lift a finger. As you said, its one thing being ignored but its another for them to not even mention DRK once. DPS wise we aren't far behind the other three tanks which is true but I don't get the silence on everything else that has been brought up as a concern way before the job adjustments coming on tuesday. Is it simply a case of they do not know where to take the class, or do they feel our current kit is acceptable enough? I would rather of been told we are getting potency buffs for damage as an absolute minimum, that would not of solved the problem but its a start. But nope, nothing. I'll stick and not twist with DRK because I don't want them getting the impression that the other two are preferred to then DRK.

[Chrono_Rising]

Saddly yes, I think its going to take people not playing the job and putting the issue out even on social media and game review sites for people to take notice.

[MagiusNecros]

May as well switch to another Tank. The only thing the devs care about is statistics. If they see a large percentage of the playerbase just drops Drk they probably will have to take a look at things. Devs won't even actively communicate with players. MMO indeed. Such communication. Much teamwork.

[FallenWings]

I wouldn't be surprised if this neglect is intentional to sow these seeds of desire for change. Just so they can unleash a patch or expansion where "DRK IS FIXED" just like PLD went through in HW to SB when they could've done some simple changes way, way earlier..

Gotta make some hype to sell their next patch/expansion right?