The Developers Need to Start Surveying Players After Every Patch

[therpgfanatic]

I have been registered since Feb 2014 and looking in my email box, I have never once been surveyed by Square-Enix about how I feel about the game.

That's two years as a customer having never been surveyed about what I think about the game and how it has changed.

I can't help but feel the reason the developers are at a complete loss on how to address the issues facing tank players which lead to tank classes as the most unpopular job, is largely because the developers do not have any system in place to survey players about what they like and dislike about the game.

If you try emailing the customer service department with a complaint, they tell us to make a post on the forums. What, then, is your system for monitoring what players like and dislike? A forum post? Someone has to take the time to write a lengthy forum post, copy it to a Word processor document, and then (to get past the character limit on initial posts) actually make a three sentence post, then edit that post and paste the whole op-piece in?

That isn't a system that encourages player feedback. It discourages feedback, and it doesn't even create a good method for gauging player interest across the board. How do you track if a player likes or dislikes something by reading forum posts all day? You can get a general idea, but unless you are asking the questions you can't get any commonality from the responses. You also fail to get any feedback from those players who aren't willing to jump through the hoops on this forum of needing to edit a post twice to overcome this awfully silly character limit restriction on posts.

I believe arbitrary decisions like nerfing tank DPS -- which feedback on the tanking forums shows is a largely unpopular decision with the regular posters-- would simply not occur if the developers properly surveyed all players about what they liked and disliked about playing tanks. I have a strong suspicion that DPS is a critical issue and the devs have only made the issue worse with the recent nerfs. But as the devs don't survey players they have no way of knowing this.

I work as a business consultant for entertainment companies. It perplexes me that Square has failed to survey a long-time customer such as myself when it is a commonly held quality assurance practice in software related entertainment companies (such as gaming, or app development) to email survey customers after any kind of software update such as a new content patch that makes substantial changes to game mechanics.

How can the FFXIV dev team possibly be performing an accurate feedback loop cycle of "Build, Measure, Learn" if they don't solicit customer opinions during a Measure phase? As a Japanese company I cannot imagine they are unfamiliar with this process and it makes me wonder if they simply do not survey non-Japanese players?

To be perfectly honest, I've decided to discontinue playing FFXIV because I have come to the realization the developers are not listening to its customers. This tanking nerf has only highlighted the real problem on why no amount of bear mounts, DF bonuses or introduction of a third tanking class has addressed the underlying complaints tank players have about being a tank; the real problem is that the game is being developed in a bubble where customer surveys are not used to rationalize changes.

[Sensual]

Here we go again

[mirta000]

I believe arbitrary decisions like nerfing tank DPS -- which feedback on the tanking forums shows is a largely unpopular decision with the regular posters-- would simply not occur if the developers properly surveyed all players about what they liked and disliked about playing tanks

I for one, welcome the change, as so does my static. Our main tank wanted to switch to a Paladin from a Dark Knight for a very long time now, however he couldn't because of the DPS loss that would follow. With encounters having far less DPS checks this time around, more heal checks and tanks being forced back into their original job it actually feels much better.

That being said about surveying. They're a primarily Japanesse company. Meaning if they would survey, they would survey their Japanesse player base. However I had noticed that the developers are tracking both reddit and the forums. If there was an outrage (like it was with original Alexander Gordias) they would notice. And they do. There's no need to collect feedback from a few million people, because if something is wrong enough the majority do notice and complain.

[SecretCrowds]

I don't mind having more avenues for feedback.

However,

I believe arbitrary decisions like nerfing tank DPS -- which feedback on the tanking forums shows is a largely unpopular decision with the regular posters

Which regular posters? The tanks? Of course tanks are not going to be happy with nerfs to their class. So were WHMs and BLMs with aoe nerfs. So were WHMs with stoneskin. No one likes nerfs to their class. I see non-tanks being perfectly fine with the tank dps nerfs. You really don't think tank dps was getting out-of-hand?

Making decisions based only on what players want or like will not be healthy for the game.

[Aryalandi]

Sooo you don't like tanking because you are expected to be a tank and not a dps and are thus leaving?

I would say "can I have your stuff?" But you are a strength tank, and as a vitality tank who never used strength gear and feels godly already i would never have a use for it anyway sooo take it with you.

Or sell it, can I have your gil from the now useless strength gear tanks were never meant to be using to begin with?

[Kukajoo]

but they do listen to the players, they do in fact read the forums! so many things in this patch and many previous were additions because they listen to the player base, like adding previous event items like the lightning event ones to the mogstation, or the requests for a jukebox like housing machine and now here we have the orchestrion! even the tank changes were heavily influenced by the player and the players feedback here on the forums. i believe square takes only what they believe to be the best course of action AFTER listening to the players. but you cant make everyone happy and that is a long standing truth, and im sorry you found yourself on the unhappy side. personally im very excited to pick up a tanking class now! its much less intimidating now that i dont have to fuss over whether im using the right combination of strength/vitality.

[therpgfanatic]

but they do listen to the players, they do in fact read the forums! so many things in this patch and many previous were additions because they listen to the player base, like adding previous event items like the lightning event ones to the mogstation, or the requests for a jukebox like housing machine and now here we have the orchestrion!

The vast majority of players do not post in game forums; only specific types of personalities use internet forums, and many people avoid forums because of the toxic environment player communities have become (See the example of the first post response to this thread is someone trolling), or people who want to argue about my opinion on tanking versus the actual issue that SE doesn't survey its customers about the changes it makes.

Also most players don't care about jukeboxes in guild halls when the majority of FC can't get a house because the servers are full of people who camp property to resell it. I could really care less about the special snowflake content like that, and its addition makes no impact whatsoever on my decision to be a customer.

My first job in the game industry was to read the player suggestion forum for the game, and I learned quite quickly that while the non-critical game mechanic features are nice additions, they are not the issues players are most concerned about.

The majority of players are most concerned about the core game features (i.e. PvE and PvP design), and less concerned with whether they can have a jukebox in their guild hall instead of just listening to the music they want on their computer. It's not a bad feature, but it's not core to gameplay; it simply does not consume a substantial amount of player time. So trying to use jukeboxes as an example is quite bad.

[dayspring83]

Every current player gets surveyed once a month...when they pull that money from your account.

[LaylaTsarra]

I welcome the change back to vitality. Long overdue.

[Uriel_Kross]

This has been bothering me for awhile, Tanks did not get nerfed they returned to what their class was meant to do. Sure they took a hit to dps but now hold aggro better and get more HP with the new gear. And the devs have nothing to do with tanks being unpopular, tanking is a hard job with little room for mistakes because a mistake by a tank can wipe the group and not everyone is cut out for it. Lastly you don't play a tank to dps just as you would not play a dps to tank or a healer to dps.