Trying to understand the negative posts I keep seeing about the Dev Team

[Annah]

I realize FFXIV is not a perfect game/MMORPG... but I think its a pretty darn fun one. I'm not a super savage hardcore harder, I'm probably towards casual/light mid-core spectrum of things so my opinion might not mater much here, but I think the devs do a pretty good job. I appreciate the story and lore of FFXIV, I love going into a fun environment where I can jump into dungeons with my friends and chat and play for a while without hours of waiting around(I played FFXI back in the day) and I love the wonderful music Soken and Uematsu have composed for the game.

But going from a lot of posts I read it seems like the developers aren't looked very highly upon because the game sometimes has issues(like the recent DDOS attacks), people not liking Eureka, etc, but for me it seems the dev team has done way more good than bad though the posts I read seem to portray them as incompetent and people that should be replaced which doesn't seem right to me, can someone help me understand this?

For me, the simplest solution is to not visit the forums. I only visit it about two or three times a year (i started this practice last year and it was a godsend for me). These forums are toxic. Go to other areas where there are good constructive criticisms, ideas, and conversations about the state of the game. Speakers of Hydealen on twitch is great, podcasts, dev interviews, etc

Don't hang out here. It's bad for your health

[Rufalus]

Most games aren't even worth complaining about. That people feel inspired to complain about this one is somewhat a good sign, they want to see it improve. But calling the dev team stupid or lazy is greatly underestimating how hard game development is. There would be more games with very frequent large-scale content patches if it was possible to achieve this level of output while being lazy and dumb.

[Edax]

Most games aren't even worth complaining about. That people feel inspired to complain about this one is somewhat a good sign, they want to see it improve. But calling the dev team stupid or lazy is greatly underestimating how hard game development is. There would be more games with very frequent large-scale content patches if it was possible to achieve this level of output while being lazy and dumb.

Communication with the playerbase isn't hard. This is one of the easiest ways in informing people so they don't underestimate how hard game development is.
Take this video from World of Warships, where they showed us all how long it takes to model HMS Hood which they showcased on their news page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7YbHH4sh_s

Does SE even do that with FFXIV? It's easy to call people lazy and dumb if their hiding their work and their passion isn't felt in the final product.

[Solarra]

OP - I think one of the main reasons for the negativity is that people don't feel they are listened to as much as they were in the past.
In the early days of ARR there was a lot of communication from the dev team and they seemed very invested in getting feedback and responding to it. I think that has set our expectations rather high.
I was very impressed with the dev team when I first started playing (during HW) but over time, I noticed that the relationship between devs and players seems to have changed; it feels we have less communication from them, and feedback from the forum only gets a limited response.
eg - suggestions for housing items are often implemented into the game but bigger problems such as the housing shortage, house flippers, FC ranking system leading to exploits etc are not addressed unless the issue becomes large enough to get unfavourable publicity, like the Shirogane opening which ultimately got us extra wards.
While it's nice having extra fluff items added, it's frustrating living with issues that spoil your game experience and apparently spoil many other people's experience but which never get addressed.
If you were here when they changed the way the inventory displayed, you would have noticed they did acknowledge the complaints and once the reasons for the change were explained, the response on the forum was very positive. Most people expressed thanks for the explanation and accepted that changing things back might not be possible.

Recently, we've had Eureka. There have been huge threads not only complaining but also making many positive suggestions of ways in which this content could be improved.
We did have an official response that player concerns had been heard and we had some minor tweaks and nerfs but the gameplay has remained largely the same.
Since players have been expressing their dislike of Fates for years, the fact that this content revolves around them does make it looks like the devs are ignoring feedback. We've had Fates not just for levelling (for which they are pretty useless due to the low xp they give) but also for most Seasonal events, Yokai Watch, the last Relic, Diadem I & II and now Eureka. It's hard to look at all that and think,
'Yes, they really do listen to their players!'

Add in the language barrier, some interviews only being conducted in Japanese, fan-translation errors from those Japanese interviews and a general lack of official responses on the forum and I can understand why people get frustrated and feel their feedback is ignored. I don't believe that is true, but I think improved communication with the EU/US playerbase would do a lot to reassure people that their views are noted and listened to.
Even if we don't get what we want, knowing that what we said has been heard and considered, would foster a huge amount of goodwill.

The other thing is of course, that happy players with lots of content they enjoy, will be playing the game while players with issues tend to spend more time here.

[azura84]

...happy players with lots of content they enjoy, will be playing the game while players with issues tend to spend more time here.

^ this, truly. As much as I want to defend my criticizing of this game I know I'm here recently because I want to debate it's merits in tones of disapproval and start a rebellion for new player rights and.... more shit to do.