We need a community rep that interacts with the community

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Tbh I just forgot to change my signature years ago and I just never really bothered. I'll get around to it eventually. Maybe.

I actually was typing that before you replied. Thought it was funny afterwards.

It gets brought up a lot tho, when people want to bag on the devs. (not saying you specifically) It was the same when people asked for harder content during one of the fanfests, after Gordias was a thing. Yoshi-P's response pretty much summed up how i felt about that particular question though. "REALLY?! I trust no one."

[Noodle_Trinidad]

We used to get a lot more feedback.

You know those people with the housing comment in their signatures? The ones who can't let go anytime the devs change something that's planned or something doesn't get implemented?

Yeah, that's why we don't get that anymore.

Nothing wrong in reminding Devs of claims they made. Why should everything the Devs get in terms of feedback be Positive? Sometimes you need the negativity so they can see the glaring flaws in their game on top of being reminded of the constant claims they make and never deliver on like the Housing or the PC Add-On support. Do you know what would remedy that even if they don't plan to add it in? Acknowledging that they have yet to do it and give a concrete answer about it like "While we originally did plan to add this we have changed our design in "X" way and have decided to scrap the idea. We are sorry about this but hopefully if it arises we could probably come back to it" It's frustrating to see so many claims made and then ignored in hopes that the community forgets about it.

As for the harder content I do think at that point we have gotten to a point of misunderstanding between the Devs and players alike. I think many can agree that most Savage content from Alexander:Midas to now is pretty fine difficulty wise with Ultimate offering that challenge hardcore players want. The issue arises when you look at the rest of the game and how faceroll everything is, even the Extremes. None of the gear starts matters in the long run if you're not raiding cause its faceroll and people want something to at least justify the grind theyre getting into. Hell even Savage suffers this issue as the gear in of itself is only good for clearing the same content faster. More than certain when people say they want harder content they want the Team to make sure there is less faceroll and stuff at the very least that requires a modicum of attention.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Nothing wrong in reminding Devs of claims they made. Why should everything the Devs get in terms of feedback be Positive? Sometimes you need the negativity so they can see the glaring flaws in their game on top of being reminded of the constant claims they make and never deliver on like the Housing or the PC Add-On support. Do you know what would remedy that even if they don't plan to add it in? Acknowledging that they have yet to do it and give a concrete answer about it like "While we originally did plan to add this we have changed our design in "X" way and have decided to scrap the idea. We are sorry about this but hopefully if it arises we could probably come back to it" It's frustrating to see so many claims made and then ignored in hopes that the community forgets about it.

They have done that. People just keep bugging them about it lol. That's why we have blue mage as it is now. They told us they had no plans to implement it. People persisted. They said if it ever was implemented it would likely be side content, and not a full on job. People persisted. We got EXACTLY what they said it would be. Now people are mad.

As to the dungeons. Pharos? Amdapor Keep? The Vault?

Any time harder dungeons were added people complained and whined. Hell, people STILL don't understand that you can complete the Chrysalis without ever spawning a sprite, and i cant count how many times i've died to people not healing through double and triple.

[Tiraelina]

We used to get a lot more feedback.

You know those people with the housing comment in their signatures? The ones who can't let go anytime the devs change something that's planned or something doesn't get implemented?

Yeah, that's why we don't get that anymore.

No. We didn't get a lot more feedback before, it was all cross posts just like it is now. That's been about as unchanging as the content release schedule after ARR came out.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... after 2 years of asking about the status of the male bunny outfit and not asking actual questions of the game or story when presented to the NA player-base, I can definitely say I am actually embarrassed to be part of this side of the community.

Yes, it's all the community's fault. It couldn't possibly be that they hand pick every question and aim for the most meaningless non-answers they can find. This is the same as trying to portray the forum as some kind of indecisive hive mind instead of individuals like they are.

[Kallera]

No. We didn't get a lot more feedback before, it was all cross posts just like it is now. That's been about as unchanging as the content release schedule after ARR came out.




Yes, it's all the community's fault. It couldn't possibly be that they hand pick every question and aim for the most meaningless non-answers they can find. This is the same as trying to portray the forum as some kind of indecisive hive mind instead of individuals like they are.

It is ironic that be trying to avoid some certain questions or to kick the can down the road, the devs only ensure that they will be asked again.

[Theodric]

Fair enough. I've had more than enough comments on the first page pointing out that what I'm suggesting would be a bad idea, so, I'm gonna go ahead and drop the argument entirely. I still hope that something does change with the community rep team, but that's just me.

To offer a different perspective, I'd point out that pretty much every single community rep appears to make ample use of Twitter. A site which is by far more prone to aggressive posting and drama than this place. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're not delicate little flowers who cannot handle working with the portion of the FFXIV community that flocks to this site. Things may get a little heated here from time to time, but they're nowhere near as bad as the arguments that take place on Twitter.

My theory - which may very well be mistaken - is that they've been told to promote the game primarily using major social media sites and this site is largely overlooked as a consequence. I don't doubt that our feedback here is passed along from time to time, though it's hard not to be a little cynical given how long people had to post about the way in which the European promotions were handled before getting an official response and that was, objectively, a serious issue in need of a timely response.

[Vahlnir]

No the forums are wayyy to volatile to have a rep, people would just railroad and stampede them with complaints and when they respond to someone then they would be belittled and berated!

So although we could use more interaction with a rep, this community first needs to first learn what they can and cannot do and know when to not attack someone for a difference in opinion or lack of understanding.

The same could be said about any forum on the internet ever...yet there are interactions between reps and players in many places. This is probably one of the more silent forums in regards to reps/players I have seen, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes it is indeed best to ignore what the forums have to say because people hate change. Any change. I think people just want to know if their feedback is heard or not and I can't really blame them for that. Having reps to interact with whether it's for fun or to provide feedback wouldn't hurt one bit.

[JunseiKei]

So we do have them. Okay, that's good then. That leads me to my next question, which is: are they allowed to bring direct feedback to the devs? Doesn't seem like it to me, but I'm open to having my mind changed on that. I have to reiterate, because I know how these forums tend to go, I am not suggesting that each and every little issue should be addressed and forwarded. That would be next to impossible because anything and everything in this game can become a subject of annoyance to somebody. But at the very least, feedback on something that a huge chunk of the community has an issue about: surely that could at least warrant being forwarded to the devs.

Or maybe that does happen anyway and the feedback is either ignored, doesn't make it to the dev team, or is misinterpreted?

First of all, I can't know or say in SE's case. I just have a limited scope from experience from another company.

Second, feedback is a very broad term and I'm not sure if what you may be suggesting is something that is actively sought by the team to begin with.

What comes to mind when I see a player mentioning feedback being directed to devs usually comes off as armchair development. Things like where players are under assumptions that BETAs are meant for players to input what they like and don't like to developers when most of the time BETAs are being used to stress test servers and having players interact with systems and see if they come across additional bugs that need fixes that in-house testing didn't turn up.

This is also not assuming that posters don't try to make community reps answer for the developers (IE: "Mr. Community Rep, explain to me XIV's decision for _.") as they [probably] aren't privy to that information, or in the very least, able to communicate reasons to players as NDAs are a thing.

However, that doesn't mean feedback doesn't reach the devs. We've gotten items and changes from players before, but it's generally things that community has agreed upon through tons of replies (not necessarily threads; JP forums tends to keep threads with topics very concise while ours are often new thread spam).

In terms of 'feedback on something that a huge chunk of the community has an issue about,' this is a grey area. While companies like SE probably want player feedback, there's a simple fact that often gets overlooked in your statement. A 'huge chunk of the community' is not something players can actually identify as perspective is often skewed. SE would, however, be privy to information like engagement rates, clear rates, longevity of the content, push-back from players across all demographics and regions. Players tend to surround themselves with like-minded players and it can end up being an echo chamber with a perception that something is much worse, or better, than is actually is.

TL;DR:
Feedback does get back to the devs, but it's largely stuff that gets universally agreed upon by all regions.

[JunseiKei]

Separating these two responses.

~snip~

Comparing Digital Extremes and Square Enix is nowhere near the same thing. DE is a smaller company with one game. They tend to be more approachable; not to mention they don't have a language barrier between them and English speaking players as Rebecca Ford (you know, THE community rep of Warframe as well as the voice of Lotus and streams for Warframe). With XIV and SE being Japanese in origin, we are immediately met with a language barrier. The Japanese players benefit in XIV the same way English speakers benefit with Warframe.

Yeah, I remember slash, pierce and puncture reworks announced. Yes, they absolutely didn't address any of Warframe's issues. They wanted to add more dynamics that didn't necessarily make you kill enemies faster, and in a game where a level 100+ bombard kills you in one shot, these dynamics were just awful - ragdolling doesn't help you kill them faster, they actually make it harder. What's puncture's damage reduction on one enemy going to do when you're fighting 20? Slashing's more-amount-of-it-on-a-weapon-directly-effects-damage fed more into the power creep issues and still rendered tons of weapons worthless (and actually made some that were viable thanks for a certain mod - which has since escaped my mind because I haven't played Warframe since just before the two new eidolons were released on Cetus). They got a huge amount of push-back for it and pretty much all of their partners said it was bad and gave ways of fixing damage 3.0 that were reasonable. On XIV, hardly any players can agree on what would fix issues with the game or even what is actually bad to begin with (actually bad and not subjectively bad).

Some of your other concerns I addressed in another post in regard to BLU. This is an example of players wanting their feedback taken more into account in development; armchair development. Again, I point to the problem that players aren't privy to all of the information. What seems like BLU is starting to be received poorly, or "mixed," for North America, Japanese forums seem to be OK with BLU as it feels like it set the stage for more interesting and provides something for players looking for just something different to do. This is what I mean by players' views are very skewed and sometimes come from an echo chamber.

Also, Square Enix is a massive corporation, however I said above why DE can be closer with their community why SE's is very limited. The last time I saw a direct response on an issue with the game (other than the BLU experience thing), it wasn't even with the game but with ticket sales for FanFest Las Vegas 2018. Someone went to the JP forums and posted there. I believe it was Foxclon that said the teams that run the events are separate from each other and is not something they are directly a part of. This is more of SE is a massive corporation; DE is not. Warframe's TennoCon is done by the same staff that work on Warframe directly.

The same thing with Spellbreak - you can literally play the game with the devs. It's because they are still massively small. Back before Fortnite blew up, my husband and I could directly communicate with Epic Games on the Save the World Campaign because the game was tiny (and next to their engine, there's very little Epic was working on at the time).

[KageTokage]

I'm still flustered that the most word we've gotten regarding the rampant botting problem over the past few years was what may as well have just amounted to "We're trying. Please understand".