Comparing Final Fantasy XIV with the EVE-online community.

[Aron73]

So, first of all, I do wanna say this is not a bad thing at all matter fact it's a compliment to you all.
So I have been playing a few games in my days and some of the forums, there are one of two things 1. a constant pour of salt that never ends and no one wants anything to change or 2 *sounds of crickets*
This forum reminds me so much about the EVE forum; it is almost uncanny, and again it's a good thing. I'm glad to see discussions going on here about game changes and improvements and questions that make me so happy. Now my question is, does Square listen to us do some of these changes make it in-game? If that's the case, I will most lightly never leave this community because not only is democracy working here I must give you all a massive shout-out for being by far the friendliest community I have ever been a part of, so thank you all!

[RitsukoSonoda]

Player feedback has had influence in regards to things like choices of new jobs and races to add. There were also contests where artists in the community could submit designs for gear, furniture, hairstyles. (one currently going still I think for weapons).

However player complaints have also resulted in unnecessary dumbing down/nerfing of various duties in game and the removal of skipping cutscenes in the 2 duties that appear in the MSQ roulette.

[Krotoan]

Developers are supposedly made aware of topics that pick up support and momentum here. Only the devs themselves could tell you if it influenced their decisions though.

Some things that have been popular here have happened.. but with all the stuff that gets talked about it's hard to imagine that we wouldn't suggest something they were planning to do already.

From what gets implemented and the amount of interaction we get VS the JN forum, I would hazard they're more in-tune with their JN fans due to similar culture and lack of communication barriers, but the EN team does work hard and I'd say probably does their best to relay our wants and complaints to the people in charge of making those final calls.

[Jeeqbit]

Now my question is, does Square listen to us do some of these changes make it in-game?

Definitely. The community teams read the forums and deliver feedback to the development team. The development team may search the forums to find out things regarding player interest, such as what they want dyed.

When there is a Letter From The Producer, the community team make a post where we ask questions and some of them get put to the producer or other people from the development team.

The producer (who only speaks Japanese) has the top most hottest threads translated every week, from what I understand.

If there is a really hot thread with 100 pages of posts, there is usually a prompt response or fix to the problem.

[AlyaNimfa]

I think they do listen, and try to do what they can for us. I like the communication from them.

As far as this compared to the EVE community goes, I don't know. I don't really care what other gaming communities are doing since this is what I play. I'd imagine they feel the same.

[Risvertasashi]

So, first of all, I do wanna say this is not a bad thing at all matter fact it's a compliment to you all.
So I have been playing a few games in my days and some of the forums, there are one of two things 1. a constant pour of salt that never ends and no one wants anything to change or 2 *sounds of crickets*
This forum reminds me so much about the EVE forum; it is almost uncanny, and again it's a good thing. I'm glad to see discussions going on here about game changes and improvements and questions that make me so happy. Now my question is, does Square listen to us do some of these changes make it in-game? If that's the case, I will most lightly never leave this community because not only is democracy working here I must give you all a massive shout-out for being by far the friendliest community I have ever been a part of, so thank you all!

SE has taken tons and tons of feedback, from here and other channels, and implemented it.

With that said, in a game that has hundreds of thousands of active players (*As of last census. Wouldn't be surprised if it's broken 7 figures now), SE isn't going to be able to make everyone happy, especially when the wants of some are opposed to others. Case in point, the "dumbing down" comment above. And some people get exceptionally salt when their particular pet idea isn't acted on. And some people get very angry when the devs spend time developing content that many others enjoy, but not them personally.

The forums can be reasonable enough if you avoid the particular threads like above.

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With all that said, if there's changes you'd like to see, they do need to be discussed somewhere visible to square. Could be reddit rather than here if you prefer. But complaining in private discord channels and whatnot isn't going to get things changed.

The other thing to note is changes can be sloooow. SE typically won't do class overhauls until it's time for an expansion. And we were asking for a "right click -> report" option for 3 years before it happened. But it did eventually happen.

So, yes, if you want your feedback to influence the game, stick around here or another public channel SE can watch. It does mean wading through seas of salt sometimes, and be careful to not be baited into saying something that could get you banned. Good luck.

[Aron73]

I can only agree with you all here, and it makes me glad to hear that the devs do so much for us and listening to us. Now obviously, not everyone can be happy, but what's so good about democracy is that everyone has a chance to make their voice heard. Again I can only ref to one game similar to this community, so here is one example of when they removed cruise missiles on stealth bombers in eve. I was not too fond of it and was voting against it. Still, in the end, the majority wished for stealth bombers to have torpedoes instead of cruise missiles, so again, not everyone can be made happy. Still, again, everyone got to be a part of that decision, and in the end, I believe that makes everyone happy.
Now obviously, there is a balance to be considered here. Not everything can come up as a community vote lets say someone finds a bug in the game allowing you to gain a profit not meant to be, then obviously it's up to the dev's to remove it asp¨or if it is not as bad, just call it a feature.

[Ferra]

Bear in mind the forums is a very, very, very, very small part of the FF14 community. There's a lot of subcommunities out there and this is just a tiny slice of that. Vast majority of players won't know the forums exist.

Even then, there is a vocal minority that want to cry foul at even the tiniest things! It happens, but I'm gonna go on a limb and assume most folks are enjoying the game just fine.

[Aron73]

Bear in mind the forums is a very, very, very, very small part of the FF14 community. There's a lot of subcommunities out there and this is just a tiny slice of that. Vast majority of players won't know the forums exist.

Even then, there is a vocal minority that want to cry foul at even the tiniest things! It happens, but I'm gonna go on a limb and assume most folks are enjoying the game just fine.

I have to agree yet again. It is easy to tell when people enjoy a game.
I have three chars for RP purposes, and even though most of the beginning of the game is the same, I still enjoy playing it over again mainly because I do discover things I did not see/hear the first time and the number of easter eggs to the other Final Fantasy games are insane, and I love it.
Here is a thing for the devs I would pay 20$ for a Ragnarok mount (Spaceship from FF8). I love the looks of it and would not mind if it got downsized.