Constructive: Why your MMO sucks...and why that's okay

[Raelsar]

I did see that video, and it does bring up a lot of good points... but at the same time, it overlooks a basic approach that usually avoid a lot of the pitfalls whenever a prospective player asks the question of "Which game should I play?"

Ask the prospective player what they are interested in.

Of course, this is assuming that the player in question is willing to cooperate with the line of questioning and participate in the discussion. The more detail you can get from their expectations, the more reasoned a response you can give. There's usually a few biases and assumptions that sneak their way through to the response, but getting additional information from the interested party at least gives you some guidelines to follow; you won't be entirely relying upon those biases and assumptions.

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To use a fairly basic example, you have player asking if they should play FFXIV.
What do you tell them to try and convince them to give the game a shot?

You could go on about how the game has a great story, a free trial, and some visually impressive battles in the endgame... but at the same time, you have no idea if that's what the player is interested in.

So how do get more information?
Ask the person what other games they've played and enjoyed before.

It's a simple detail, but knowing which games those are gives you something to frame your talking points around (provided you know about the games yourself); you can readily make comparisons, both positive and negative. You can establish if it's similar or different, and whether or not the game hits the same notes.

Sometimes you need more information, perhaps due to the response either being limited or the example game being given is known to be rather divisive. An easy example of the latter would be WoW, which has undergone massive structural changes over the years and is currently in the middle of a huge content drought (though that'll be over in a week or so). You need to find out whether or not they're looking for something different than what WoW has become... or if they're simply bored and want an equivalent to WoW to tide them over. So have to follow up with question about specifics about the game (what they like and what they dislike), or perhaps asking about other examples outside the MMORPG genre (for example, opinions of past FF titles and the Diablo games) to see if you can find a trend or other commonality.

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All in all, you're looking to solve a problem.

The issue is that most of the time you're only being given the superficial symptoms, it's not enough to find out what the root cause is. So you keep asking questions until you feel that you've found that root cause, at which point you can give a more constructive answer.

[Kaliesto]

There is a lot of positive things about FFXIV I love, but there is some things about it I wish both the developers and even the players would take into consideration.

I have kind of accepted it for what it is though, the tech and software they use currently is all they can really do for FFXIV and I don't think it can be improved any further at this point without some major fundamental change that may or may not go very well.

Either SE gives a bigger budget (though I don't think that is actually the main issue) or make a FFXIV-2 to do the things they want to do or just make a new FF-MMO

Besides that I think its the design philosophy they strictly follow (Familiarity, etc), like as much as a lot of people hate doing FATEs but its a unfortunate major fundamental part of the game and will probably see more of that in Endwalker and beyond.

[Liam_Harper]

To be fair, expectations for MMO's are probably a bit too high nowadays. The expectation for a great MMO would be no bots, good customer support, balanced in all areas of gameplay, both accessible and engaging and rewarding to master, a wide variety of content, not too heavy on cash shops, lots of customization, good graphics, no glitches, managing to retain challenge even when full guides and/or mathematical breakdowns become available within days, a great story that can also be skipped if the player doesn't like story, lots of fun side content, lots of rewards to obtain and so on. This is taking into consideration that player preferences vary wildly and can sometimes be polar opposites.

Games 20+ years ago were much more simple on graphics and didn't need much balance because we didn't all have full guides, so they could create 100 hour rpgs that kept us happy. But the amount of work needed to qualify for being a "great" game has skyrocketed over time.

Devs are a team of human beings. They'll make mistakes, get things wrong sometimes, have good ideas and bad ideas and there's only so much content they can make within a limited timeframe. Throwing more and more staff at it isn't a fix either and tends to ruin games with multiple developers having conflicting ideas. So while games such as FF14 have many flaws, could indeed improve and constructive feedback is a positive, saying they flat out "suck" despite being here having fun overall is a bit disrespectful to the team that's put endless months of effort into their work.

[Puremallace]

There is a difference between tribalism and just really terrible game design made for f2p mobile games. Your damn right I am going to be negative on WoW when the game director is telling the community to either git good or that they do not understand his vision that is clearly not working going on 3 expansions.

Ion reminds me way too much of John Smedley that ruined SWG. I got issues with FF14 but none of them are truly existential problems with their vision for how it should be played.

[Eric_Riot]

Here's the thing about housing. The only thing bad about housing is the accessibility. Which is a huge problem. Other than that Housing is actually pretty cool.

If housing sucked in the game then people wouldn't be crying about not having one. Every month there's a new "Housing" thread, that says a lot about how desperate people are to get their hands on one.

Ergo Housing is awesome in this game. I completely agree that the accessibility of housing is a major problem. Yet, the Housing itself is very fun and creative.

[Theodric]

Here's the thing about housing. The only thing bad about housing is the accessibility. Which is a huge problem. Other than that Housing is actually pretty cool.

If housing sucked in the game then people wouldn't be crying about not having one. Every month there's a new "Housing" thread, that says a lot about how desperate people are to get their hands on one.

Ergo Housing is awesome in this game. I completely agree that the accessibility of housing is a major problem. Yet, the Housing itself is very fun and creative.

The lack of accessibility is the main issue, certainly, though that in itself makes it difficult to cast a light on the flaws and weak aspects of housing because whenever they're brought up the common retort is 'At least you have a house!'

[Eric_Riot]

"Not only that but the whole if you’re away for one month, you lose your house thing."

I guess this is debatable.. there are going to be people that like it and those that do not. Who is correct? Personally, I like it. I think if you cared about your house enough you should have to "refresh it". But that might be an old mindset.. my UO tower was the same. I had to log in and open the front door to refresh it which I did, for 10 years.

[Eric_Riot]

"Whether it comes to trying to teach people how to play their job, learn mechanics or what have you. This community a lot of the time just seems to have paper thin skin."

Agreed, but when it comes to giving advice it's better to lead them to a "discord" or website that can help. Unfortunately, we currently live in the age of disinformation and people believe all sorts of crazy stuff. So they are more inclined to only believe the "research" they do. So I guess it depends on how you chose your words to "Help" them. What I find that works best is to send them to "The balance" for example. A place where they can do their own research with a large group of people that can help.

If you are in a 4 man instance and try to give advice I can see how they could feel that they are being isolated and "Picked on". It's a tough situation to help people these days, so if you want to make the community better you have to put in more effort on the words you chose. The other option is to not say anything at all. The choice is yours. *shrugs*

[KizuyaKatogami]

Here's the thing about housing. The only thing bad about housing is the accessibility. Which is a huge problem. Other than that Housing is actually pretty cool.

If housing sucked in the game then people wouldn't be crying about not having one. Every month there's a new "Housing" thread, that says a lot about how desperate people are to get their hands on one.

Ergo Housing is awesome in this game. I completely agree that the accessibility of housing is a major problem. Yet, the Housing itself is very fun and creative.

Eh, not only the accessibility but the limitations on housing.The problems with the engine and the fact we have such a low item limit in small’s and mediums. It would all literally be fixed if we simply had instanced housing but because Yoshi P personally doesn’t like that, we can’t have it Even though it would be better for the players in the long run. The fact though they haven’t addressed the accessibility for 6-8 years is actually concerning. Not only that but the whole if you’re away for one month, you lose your house thing. Yoshi p preaches that he doesn’t want people to feel tied to this game and that’s why they got rid of veteran rewards yet they implement the housing restriction that if you unsub for only a month, say goodbye to your house that required you spending hours at a placard for. It’s such a contradicting statement.

[KizuyaKatogami]

To add to this overall topic. My main problem with ff14 isn’t even so much the game really, as it is the community. This community is quite possibly the only ive seen that takes constructive criticism and critiques for the game as some personal attack, and is also just overall highly sensitive. Whether it comes to trying to teach people how to play their job, learn mechanics or what have you. This community a lot of the time just seems to have paper thin skin. Try and give constructive feedback and they fight back and say well i don’t believe it, it’s an amazing game, you must be a troll etc. I think a main reason this game is so successful currently is that there just aren’t any good mmo’s available right now and this is the best option out there. I’m not saying this game is bad at all. It has its high points and low points, but i do think in the end of things don’t change the community will end up being it’s downfall. Criticism is what helps the devs know what they need to fix about their game, and if all they’re hearing is the loud outcries of “it’s perfect it’s amazing” and the people giving actual accurate critiques are being silenced and quieted down, it’s only going to be detrimental in the end.