Yoshi-P Statement on Player Feedback

[Atelier-Bagur]

How is this thread still going? Just kill it already

oh wait...

[Connor]

As someone who has had posts deleted recently, I can verify someone is watching and reading. While they do not listen to everything we say.. and possibly not even MOST things we say, there are too many changes that line up with popular topics here to think there is NO influence from us.

I do want to believe this. Maybe - hopefully - I’m just not seeing the forest for the trees lol. In that it feels like nothing is happening because I check the forums quite frequently, so by the time someone has been reported or banned I’m seeing a new person posting something along the same lines.

And of course I do try and temper my expectations given that the forums are ‘online’, and as such nobody can ever really have complete control over what others (cuz it’s the internet etc lol). So even though there are posts that just don’t seem right (abusive, harassing, etc), that doesn’t necessarily mean that all posts that ‘don’t seem right’ are allowed.

In a similar vein, it can feel like we’re not being listened to when giving job feedback. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not listening, just that they’re not able to implement things in the way people wanted. Personally the main problem I have with this is that the developers create jobs with a specific ‘identity’ for them in mind but then design the job or encounters in a way that’s completely contrary to their ‘identity’. Scholar and Bard come to mind (though that’s for another thread lol). But just because they’ve yet to find a reasonable answer doesn’t mean they haven’t looked. Or, they simply can’t find it yet. The developers are still humans lol, so they have their limits just as we all do. Thinking about it, it’s unfair to just expect them to conjure an answer to that sort of thing that’s going to satisfy everyone involved.

That’s why I think it’s good to consider this kind of thing as players/posters though, even if it wasn’t aimed directly at us. Even without meaning to sometimes we can have unrealistic or unfair expectations, or we let ourselves believe something without really considering the people on the other side. Or, well, I do lol. It’s not until you ‘air out’ those thoughts that you’ll ever see the mistakes in them though.

[CrimsonGunner]

No. I said that it is a term of derogation, with a long history of being so.

The context of its use here, in this forum thread, is derogatory, with nothing in the way of actual 'criticism'. You yourself have acknowledged this fact because you complained "should I have used .... instead?". Where the answer would be "Yes".

In English one could say "indolent", which means pretty much the same thing, without the historical cruft attached directly to the word "lazy".

you expect everyone to know the word "indolent" or bring out the big dictionary and look it up?
or your expecting him to be a happy ,nice person when he posts his feedback after if his and others previous feedbacks have been ignore for years or left unanswered only to be replied it was read and completely ignored?
there is a limit to how much a person can take until he burst and denying feedback cause a person feel unheard is just folly.

not saying that a person should continue batting and insulting people is ok cause its not but disregarding a solid feedback with actual alarming concerns cause it did not fit your way of expressing is plain ignorance.
also treating them like they are not valid or members in the community is just as toxic, we all have our moments when we are really upset and vent but none the less those are genuine thoughts and concerns that come from a place of love to the game and the jobs design in this game.

[Semirhage]

It is entirely a relevant, valid and fairly constructive criticism to make. Healers are largely fairly stale jobs, but then the only concern surrounding this is.. How would you then design the system that allows for the leeway on people making mistakes and then having to interrupt your own rotation and sacrifice your own DPS as a result of other peoples' mistakes? The way I view this conundrum is that once you've learned the encounter, you're presented with oversimplification (which yes they are notorious for doing - Especially taking the opposite end of the spectrum for crafting), and then when you're learning or when groups are vastly less talented and prone to making mistakes, then, well that's where I personally would see issues coming into play. I think the only thing that would really need to be taken into consideration here is those designing the jobs are not necessarily the same people testing, and the very people testing the jobs arguably might not have the same proficiency as you do, or many of the people playing at a semi-competent level. Or arguably their design and testing methodology and philosophy might not take these things into account, where as per your second point inferring, may only be testing for barebone functionality and usability. <- Also a constructive argument to be made about their design philosophy.

I would answer this point by making a series of Vanna White gestures at the healer subforum. You could make GCD healing spells proc a Verfire-ready style spell that's a double potency instant Glare so GCD healing has a lossless reward attached to it. Provide a stacking buff for maintaining your casts. Create kits with spells that, shockingly, actually interact with one another, instead of a collection of disjointed abilities that largely only perform "this spell does X potency damage/healing" functions that affect nothing casted before or after. Other MMOs have systems that attempt to solve this problem, with varying degrees of success.

The oft-snarked at craaaaaaazy healer forums have been suggesting all that and more since Heavensward, and they still get "but there's just no way to possibly make lower skilled healers not a-scared of the very hard scary bad impossible task of Cure spamming while thinking of literally anything else, so 1111111111111 is what you get!"

The only possible conclusions are that they don't read the healer forums at all, or that they think healer players are cabbage heads who must be padded with the softest of downy pillows at all times.

[IdowhatIwant]

The game just focuses to much on casual content, that is not even that great in my opinion. Dungeons are now 2 mob packs and a boss, ARR had more dungeons post MSQ than the entire SHB expansion while we also received a new job mid expansion and Gold Saucer. Do you see where I am coming from where I feel everything has feels much more lazy? Gearing feels relatively pointless when the crafted set replaces it all before each raid tier so it makes the point of raiding pretty much just for glamour. I am not seeing where the budget increases have been going, I am not seeing where the larger team is being utilized. I am not seeing very good QA as far as class design and balance goes. Every one seems to forget this is a multi-billion dollar company and a team of close to 600 people working on this. It's not Yoshi P and 4 dudes in his parents basement. If they are going to produce less content at least produce good balanced class design, well thought out and intricate dungeons, and fix issues that have existed in this game since ARR.

I would not be surprised is Island Sanctuary was some how tied into the relic quest.

[CrimsonGunner]

Eureka is about the same as fates, Save the queen same thing. Faux Hallows(do more of this cause this was a good idea but add mechanics so it feels a little more fresh), firmament is basically collectables and you get a scratch off and rank... Most of that stuff was already in the game. Sure the new 24 mans were cool but we had those too. The only new thing in all that was really just the 40 man dungeons.

How do those things compare to stuff like deep dungeon, which was unique, heaven on high its crappy reskin, a new class, and golden saucer? It's not about whether I like it its about if its good or unique they used to do that sort of stuff. I don't like deep dungeon but that is an example of good interesting content that could have been even better with polish. Whens the last time we even got something simple like a new choco race track? So yeah I think I am justified in my complaint that I lost content for the current stuff they are adding.

I don't know if your not seeing a problem with us getting less than we did when the game had a smaller team and budget then I don't know what to tell you, but I have seen better out of this game so I maintain those sort of expectations, as I feel I should.

If you just accept that Yoshi P does no wrong then you will let the game go down hill as it has been with post MSQ content. Next will be the MSQ.

what he said just applies in different content to play but they should have another team that is responsible for balance and job design.

dps got different abilities all around, tanks and healers got the same thing across all jobs for example all healers got are potencies buffs to existing spells, 1 ogcd buff and 1 spell is that u call hard work? not to mention those spells already exist in the game in given forms and nothing truly new about them.
and for balance issues whm dont keep his lilies or charge them outside of battle or when dead, not to mention his mp costs were not adjusted or assize mp regen adjusted cause of the thin air changes making him the worst prog healer among the 2 pure healers.
something that could have been already easily alleviated in 6.01 or at 6.05 yet not done despite given feedback.

[Ayche]

I do wonder. I mean, you are never going to like all different kind of content that Creative Business Unit 3 cooks up for the game, that is an eventuality.
But as much as I will accept the fact that we are living in the games as service era, and community connections feel more and more necessary for the success of any game right now, I don't think it will ever be possible to have players truly have the ability to change drastically the direction of the game.

I know it is hopeless, but please do not take these things personally. Sometimes people post stuff like "This is the last straw! I am leaving" as like the ultimate dig, but actually... That is how you ought to behave, just quietly and politely. Just ... stop playing the game when you no longer find joy in it. Then either return or not depending on if it ever changes. I used to be a huge fan of League of Legends, but only for a specific Dominion mode the game had. One year Riot Games removed the game mode from the game, and I quit playing the game. That is it. I did not try to petition for its future, that would had been hopeless. You get something, you accept that. You lose something, you accept that. They are not doing it out of malice, out to get YOU. Relationship between game devs and players will never be truly personal, because players are merely a massive mass of nameless people and for devs it is a dayjob that you work paycheck to paycheck.

[Deceptus]

If the staff wants civil conversations they have to want to actually have a conversation first. Most cases you see a new staff member tell you how they look forward to working with the community before they ghost you forever and fade into the background.
.

Especially when there doesn't seem to be any community engagement reps.

Communication is a two way street.

And what type of feedback is that other than being unhappy about the way the class is currently. How would you improve it? How would you balance it? How would you go from there once it is balanced/improved?

See, just saying "what were you thinking" doesn't do anything except say "you're an idiot", thus insulting the person on the receiving end. If anyone came up to you at your job and only said that to you, with absolutely ZERO elaboration, how would you feel about it? Especially if there are hundred, if not thousands, of things you are responsible for?

They don't have to come up with solutions because they don't get paid to do that job.

The worst part about it? When the developers tell US the players WE are playing it wrong. This has happened at least once, if not more, every single expansion.

And the vast majority of these shortcomings? They could be easily detected if the FFXIV devs swallowed their pride and put out a public test server. They've been wrong before and they can't possibly think of everything hundreds of thousands / millions of players are going to do with their game.

But they're so protective of their "precious story" (that people by and largely blast through) that they won't put out a Test Server.

So please. Spare me. Don't tell me to be civil in a conversation when you're not even willing to have a conversation with the players in the first place.

[Theodric]

Especially when there doesn't seem to be any community engagement reps.

Communication is a two way street.

I made a thread on that particular subject, here:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...epresentatives

Putting aside the fact that it could benefit from a nudge, I'd note that it never received an official reply. Not that I was necessarily expecting one.

[SigilBaram]

The worst part about it? When the developers tell US the players WE are playing it wrong. This has happened at least once, if not more, every single expansion.

And the vast majority of these shortcomings? They could be easily detected if the FFXIV devs swallowed their pride and put out a public test server. They've been wrong before and they can't possibly think of everything hundreds of thousands / millions of players are going to do with their game.

But they're so protective of their "precious story" (that people by and largely blast through) that they won't put out a Test Server.

For this I always think back to 4.0 launch healers... Lillies/Confessions being procs off critical cure casts and Aldoquium/Succor costing 1/4 SCH's MP bar. The media tour sparked outrage, but nothing changed before release. WHM I ignored basically every new ability because they all used those statistically impossible to get proc stacks from abilities that are rarely/never used. SCH I actually removed the shield skills from my bar because even trying to use them less I was constantly going OOM, which was just a party wipe anyway, so why bother trying to shield at all? At least with using only Physick I could MAYBE heal enough without going OOM... But half the time I ended up with dead tanks because Defense scaling at those levels was ridiculous and tanks refused to upgrade their gear before level cap. Was a GREAT time to be a healer. T.T

There generally hasn't been anything THAT broken since then and props to SE for learning/improving in that regard, but maybe make the media tour a public test? It can focus on combat systems while hiding story from view. Get more eyes on board and then actually listen to the feedback afterwards. There are still oddities sneaking through that should be addressed sooner, like hard cast Flare being a DPS loss compared to High Fire 2, which seems really counter designer intent or at least counter intuitive design. It's kind of sad that we didn't get a balance patch BEFORE the raid tier started and they locked stuff in.