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

[HyoMinPark]

A lot of complaints that seem to be common amongst the complaints is that the developers seem to go between not listening to any feedback at all, to just listening to whomever whines the loudest.

With Stormblood, there have been numerous complaints about the balance of some jobs compared to others within their competitive roles (DRK versus PLD/WAR, WHM versus SCH/AST, BRD versus MCH, RDM/BLM versus SMN, MNK/SAM versus NIN/DRG), and it has taken months for the developers to acknowledge some of the problems—and even longer still to do anything about them (see: RDM finally being buffed in 4.4 despite being weaker than BRD since launch; BLM and SAM finally being allowed to be a “selfish DPS” and deal high amounts of personal damage; MNK is actually giving NIN a run for their money now in 4.4, though some groups still prefer TA over MNK’s personal damage+Brotherhood, and no job can uproot DRG so long as there’s even a single physical ranged in the party; DRK taking until Patch 4.3 to get acknowledgment that it had problems; MCH still not being noticed; WHM still not being noticed).

This is in addition to them making dumb comments such as “We cannot give BRD/MCH piercing because then they will be too OP, since we do not balance them around having piercing”, but they seem to have zero issue with BRD/MCH being OP with a DRG in the party (and piercing as a whole has been a problem since Creator—them not balancing BRD/MCH with piercing/DRG synergy is exactly why they’ve been so strong).

Obviously, major job changes will not happen at this point in the expansion, but the complaints about some jobs (DRK, MCH, WHM and their Lily “mechanic”) have been present since Stormblood launch, and some still have never been addressed. Not even with a cursory remark.


With regards to content, people gave suggestions on how to improve Eureka (e.g., adding in a Daily Quests sort of thing for Elemental EXP or crystals; adding in crafting/gathering to Eureka; giving variety to the way you can earn your relics), and, instead, the developers buckle down harder on the most hated aspects of it (mob grinding and RNG), making it seem like they haven’t been listening to feedback at all. Pagos was a blight on the content itself, and it will be difficult for Pyros to redeem Eureka in the eyes of some players simply because of the dumpster fire Pagos was. Honestly, I feel like Pyros is going to be more damage control than much else in terms of Eureka, and I’m not sure how well said damage control will turn out to be. Personally, I don’t plan to complete Eureka or the relics this expansion, because I don’t want to deal with Pagos.

There is also the complaint about the content formula being the same since ARR and how boring/stale that has become, in addition to the ever-present “This content is too faceroll”/“Pls nerf this it’s too hard” bickerments—which stem from the extreme lack of any decent difficulty curve in this game from MSQ to dungeons to 8-mans/24-mans to Extremes/Savage. The only deviation the developers have done from the formula this expansion has been Ultimate. And, as much as I love the content (and I do still think there should be at least 2 per each expansion for the hardcore players), it’s still content for the 1%. There is no innovative content for the majority. Eureka was supposed to be that, but it’s more akin to Diadem than anything else. It takes all the aspects people hated from old-school MMOs and tries to implement them into an MMO that just doesn’t work with old-school design (by this, I mean FFXIV is too fast-paced to make mob chaining a la FFXI fun or enjoyable—instead it’s carpal tunnel-inducing).

The two biggest features of Stormblood—Eureka and Shirogane housing—were both flops on release. And while Anemos was far better received than Pagos, there were still plenty that didn’t like the shift of the relic to it. And Shirogane’s release was just a complete dumpster fire. The addition of new wards was nice, but it was still a band-aid fix to the housing problem in this game.


With regards to the DDoS, that’s just people looking for someone to blame, and not understanding how DDoS attacks actually work and what they specifically target. NA doesn’t have much room to complain about a significant loss of game time due to it—I think we’ve lost maybe a couple hours maximum since the attacks started. EU may have a bigger argument, and I wonder if, for them, it’s entirely DDoS and not infrastructure problems with their specific data center. But it’s difficult to say.

For DDoS attacks specifically, if the attacks are not specifically targeting SE’s servers or infrastructure, but another ISP outside of their jurisdiction (like an Internet backbone), all SE can do is try to put pressure on that ISP to fix the issues. And, even then, DDoS are hard to protect against given how they originate from random IPs and not always the same IP. But they cannot do more, and they are not responsible for offering compensation (i.e., free game time) for another ISP being under fire.



But some of the complaints that I have seen here and on Reddit have different degrees of merit, such as the job balancing and the trash heap that Eureka is. When you feel like your feedback isn’t being heard or is being blatantly ignored, I think people have a right to be frustrated about it.