We need better comunication with the Community team

[Vhailor]

I have to ask: What anger and frustration? Apart from a few loud mouths here on the forums I am not seeing much anger or frustration.
I suppose I could be missing all of it, but from what I can see the majority of players are more or less happy with the current state of the game, and not angry at all.

If you'd bothered to read the post I was responding to, my "anger and frustration" statement was precisely in reference to the "few loud mouths here on the forums", as you so insultingly phrased it.

That said, there's a difference between not being angry, and being more or less happy with the state of FFXIV. The bland and predictable update cycles will generate anger in a certain subset of players - those of us who are very emotionally invested in FFXIV. For far more people, it will generate apathy. So, go through your Friend List. See anyone who hasn't logged on for months? That's someone who quite possibly are picking up on the same problems as forum loud-mouths like me - they're just choosing to unsubscribe and play something else, as opposed to providing feedback and attempting to fix the problem.

For me personally, that's most of my FC, most of my Linkshells, and most of my Friend List. There was a renaissance around the time Stormblood released (as always), and then a return to apathy for most of them. Eureka, incidentally, did not draw anyone back. And I know of at least four close friends who left permanently because they were bored with SE's content cycles, and two others who frequently take long breaks.

To draw this back on-topic, this is a good example of why SE needs to solicit more feedback. Those of us who get angry, we make ourselves visible. Those who are head over heels for the game, tend to make it clear via purchases (Mogstation, multiple accounts, alts we actively play, etc.). There's very little concrete information about those who just stop playing, though - not even so much as a survey sent to someone's email account once a subscription expires. So neither SE, nor the community, knows whether these players left because of solvable problems, or because of external reasons. This game's player base is like an iceberg; only a small portion of players is visible at any one time. SE should be making far more efforts to reach those who naturally remain quiet.

Do we need better communication with them, or do they need to reach out more, to us?
Community Managers should do THREE things:

1) Should be able to figure out a way to collate as much feedback information as possible whilst filtering noise.

2) Forwarding that information regularly to the Developers.

3) Engaging with the community, constantly, and giving them a reason to contribute back.

Wholeheartedly agree.

I've said it so many times on different threads; being noisy doesn't make you right.

There is no 'right' or 'wrong' when speaking of feedback, which is the purpose of this thread. On occasion there are objectively clever ideas or objectively poor implementations of game systems, but by and large, whether someone enjoys a piece of content is very subjective.

Nevertheless, it's very much in SE's interest to listen to its players. If those players are noisy, great - engage with them. If those players are quiet, go reach out to them. This effort would offer only upsides, even if absolutely nothing about FFXIV's development changes. The only bad feedback, is no feedback.

[Alleo]

Guys...this thread is about better communication with the fanbase and not Eureka..please post the discussion about Eureka itself in the many threads about this and stay on topic. It was only used as an example and not as the main point.

[Vstarstruck]

I've said it so many times on different threads; being noisy doesn't make you right.

You keep spamming every single thread giving "feedback" and then expect your wishes to become true (I think I've seen you posting on every "negative" thread...). This is not how it works.


People was lost at the start of Eureka. It was a new system that needed some time to understand for some people, but then people understood it and now it's fine.

Do you remember when even the JP community said that you needed like 80 hours of playtime for each relic? Lies.
People was just confused, and the noisy ones started making threads few hours (or even minutes) after Eureka was released, talking about stuff they didn't even understand, while the real players just played Eureka to figure stuff out.

Eureka is not perfect and it needs some improvements, yet this is not the end of the world, it's a good new system for the relics and I bet they'll improve the next step. You just can't expect them to rebuild it entirely in a week just because some noisy players want to.

Driving a thread off topic with flame war bait does not make you right. I will happily rip your logic to shreds in the correct thread.

Guys...this thread is about better communication with the fanbase and not Eureka..please post the discussion about Eureka itself in the many threads about this and stay on topic. It was only used as an example and not as the main point.

[Xiomara]

Can we start a GoFundMe so SE can hire a translator (or two) to live translate the Live Letters. That's the only community interaction that actually matters. It's odd how Yoshi-P complains about NA/EU players having odd expectations due to mistranslated statements, yet he does nothing about it other than clam up further, when they could just hire someone to sit off to the side who can translate what he says, going off the same set of notes he has to ensure there are no issues.

[Rofel]

Hell naw, I spend enough with this game as it is.

They should work to retain their public, we are already giving them the hint.

[Stormfur]

I posted this in PVP after we got a community manager to comment on the need for a "burst ready" quick chat command (they said the dev team was positively considering it), but it applies here too:

I wish I knew what things got forwarded to the dev team (and got their consideration) and what didn't (and why).


Like, look at all the threads about Eureka. There's a ton of them in General Discussion, and a handful in Exploration. They keep popping up because people are feeling like their concerns aren't being addressed..or that they're "shooed" away like flies. One of the community members said that they were looking into fixing the loot from lockboxes...as if that was the only thing "wrong".

Awhile back there were a lot of complaints about the user interface on inventory being "expanded" - but people didn't like how it looked and complained about it. The UI designer stepped in and actually explained why those changes were made and why they couldn't go back to the way it was before. He shared what considerations had to be made and other things they needed to keep it mind. It wasn't like he could just "flip a switch" and the UI could go back to normal. People quieted down because they understood why it happened and what the details were.

PVP hasn't gotten any of that and I really wish we did. Like, whoever designed the new crystal tower map -- it's beautiful, but the Wolves Den isn't about beauty. There are these cute little Alphas on pedestals while we're down there slaughtering each other!

As others have said, it's very bright and tiring on the eyes. The job icons are too hard to read and it's too straining to try and focus on the text -- is that a DRG or a DRK?

And Kaposhipi and others kindly relay our feedback to the dev team, which is great...but what feedback gets relayed? and why do we not get a response from the PVP team?

Do they know of the problems that plague PVP (not just Feast but Frontlines as well)?
Do they know our wishes regarding the leader boards, reward structure/availability, and getting chat back?

There are pages and pages and pages of conversation among each other and some of the community team, but nothing else.

[ToriiMiyuki]

Do we need better communication with them, or do they need to reach out more, to us?
Community Managers should do THREE things:

1) Should be able to figure out a way to collate as much feedback information as possible whilst filtering noise.

2) Forwarding that information regularly to the Developers.

3) Engaging with the community, constantly, and giving them a reason to contribute back.

[Alleo]

I remember that one big post from someone of the FF14 team. It was about the change to the inventory look and why they had to do it. It was a good and detailed post and at least I could understand it much better after that. Yet this was not posted before the change or directly with the change. It felt like it was posted after a bit of an discussion in the forum about this change and people wanting it to go back. Why not at least tell us about incoming changes like that before they happen? Why often only when the rage and anger is already starting up in the forum?

[Stormfur]

I think they probably fear that for every question they posed to us, they'd get 1,000 different answers. Of course, that's the nature of a community. I just wish that we could see the impact we, as both fans and subscribers, have on the game.

[Vhailor]

I think they probably fear that for every question they posed to us, they'd get 1,000 different answers. Of course, that's the nature of a community. I just wish that we could see the impact we, as both fans and subscribers, have on the game.

Honestly, the most concerning part to me is that SE isn't even trying. There are no post-cancellation surveys, no official forum questionnaires, very few official interviews in which SE actually discusses their internal reasoning. There's nothing.

Now, perhaps the hypothetical fears you posed turn out to be warranted. Maybe, at the end of the day, surveys come back with a large number of wholly distinct answers that can't really be grouped together and used to inform development. OK - then SE goes with their gut, as they currently do. But even IF that happens, they've still got a win under their belts, because now they've got data they can share with the community, and the community knows they asked the questions.