Player and developer communication

[Excaliburnina]

I'm going to preface this post with something important: the actual numbers jobs do at any given point aren't really the aim of the topic here. The purpose of this thread is to try to come to some sort of understanding on--and maybe request more of from the devs--the communication or lack thereof between the developers and the playerbase when decisions relating to job balancing and design are made.

There's a severe lack of "whys" given by the developers to the playerbase when decisions about the game are made, and the playerbase is left with the burden of only being able to assume why something is the way it is. Searing Light not coming from SMN is a burden the playerbase has been left to deal with and play around similarly to DRK's Living Dead, and most people would probably say "well, those skills are like that for flavor."

Are they, though? Have the developers ever actually said concretely that these awkward skills exist for flavor purposes?

Take physical ranged's general balance the last couple expansions, for instance. Based on how those jobs are balanced, most people would assume "well, they can move around freely, and that's why they're weaker."

Same question as above: is that actually the reason? Has that ever been communicated?

The support-oriented casters RDM and SMN. They provide a lot of strong utility, so they're weaker, right? They're balanced by a mix of utility and range.

What's going on with MCH, then? It isn't providing the same utility as BRD, DNC, RDM or SMN, so is it being neutered for reason of uptime alone? Why isn't SMN lower then, since it's got near physical ranged movement *and* utilities?

RPR shipped as--and still is--one of the highest DPS with both a raid buff and a heal over time. Shouldn't RPR's utility put it lower if that's the logic? Or is its uptime so difficult that it justifies its performance? Is uptime the only consideration in the case of both RPR and MCH? Is it the only consideration period? Why was RDM one of the worst DPS in the game for a majority of Stormblood, then? Its uptime justified it to be higher by this logic, but surely it was balanced by its raise utility, then? Is everything a case-by-case basis?

There isn't really any logic, just assumptions. The developers don't really explain to us the reason behind balance or design changes, they just push them out. The playerbase is left with the responsibility of working around these changes without any real hope of communicating how to fix the problems to the developers.

[van_arn]

Most developer commentary is through live letters and interviews. They certainly do respond to feedback, but it’s not something that’s done off the cuff.

They do have a good track record for job balance, so stick with them for a few cycles. The beginning of an expansion is usually a bit wonky while things get dialed in, but they’ve shown us multiple times now we’ll end up in a pretty solid spot sooner rather than later.

As for the secret sauce on how they balance, that’s probably best left undisclosed. That’s the sort of thing players would latch onto and try to lawyer changes with.

[Jybril]

I gotta wonder if they have anyone on the "Healer" development side of the team lol.

[Kolsykol]

Compared to basically any Western dev studio they do A LOT of communication.
At least they don't need to go through five suits or read a script approved by them.
Yoshi and the other devs have a surprising level of freedom when it comes to this.

I think a problem is they talk about so much that they often don't have time to go in depth into things.
I'd like to hear why too tho.
But I also think we should wait until 6.1 before saying too much, it's entirely possible they have some reworks in mind and don't want to touch the numbers too much because it'd be even more work.
They do seem to have a better safe than sorry mentality and are careful with buffs and nerfs.
I get the disappointment in 6.08 but it's also not a patch where big changes are meant to happen.

[Ransu]

The devs of this game communicate quite frequently.....Significantly more than any other MMO community I've been a part of.

[Kes13a]

just curious, sounds like you feel that the direction the devs take for their game requires player approval and clearance before implementation.

in my opinion that has ruined games more often than made anything better.

in case you have missed live letters and other releases from the producer, this game, compared to NA offerings, is virtually crystal clear in terms of transparency for changes. plus, the NA player has hardly covered themselves with glory when reacting to any change, no matter how well communicated.

why? well, its their game, their house, if they want to paint it pink and make us all wear large bows and tutus, thats within their scope.. and they dont exactly have to explain it to you

[StriderShinryu]

While I'm generally in full support of the devs and their ability to make the game they want to make (and make the game that will make them the most money), and I do believe they are pretty good at talking TO us, I still feel they're pretty bad at actually talking WITH us. This is an especially notable issue through official channels, like these forums or regulated Q&As. It shouldn't take a couple of years and a coming expansion pack to have the developer (or, really, just Yoshida) sit down with community reps and answer questions and/or explain development priorities. We shouldn't have to parse through fan translations of Japanese language only radio shows to try and figure out what the developers are thinking. We should have real and legitimate interaction at least with an official community team here on the Official FF14 Forums as opposed to them being completely abandoned/ignored like they have been for years now where the only "official" connection we get is through semi-consistent moderation.

So, yeah, I do feel that the developers are largely doing a good job of actually making the game. I don't, however, feel that their community engagement staff are even close to earning their keep.

[KageTokage]

While I'm generally in full support of the devs and their ability to make the game they want to make (and make the game that will make them the most money), and I do believe they are pretty good at talking TO us, I still feel they're pretty bad at actually talking WITH us. This is an especially notable issue through official channels, like these forums or regulated Q&As. It shouldn't take a couple of years and a coming expansion pack to have the developer (or, really, just Yoshida) sit down with community reps and answer questions and/or explain development priorities. We shouldn't have to parse through fan translations of Japanese language only radio shows to try and figure out what the developers are thinking. We should have real and legitimate interaction at least with an official community team here on the Official FF14 Forums as opposed to them being completely abandoned/ignored like they have been for years now where the only "official" connection we get is through semi-consistent moderation.

So, yeah, I do feel that the developers are largely doing a good job of actually making the game. I don't, however, feel that their community engagement staff are even close to earning their keep.

The fact that it took someone pressing them in person about the PF RMT spam to get them to do anything about it after years of it being an issue says enough about how poorly information is relayed between them and the general playerbase.

It wouldn't surprise me if similar lack of awareness is the main reason why cheaters are thriving in the current environment.

[Jeeqbit]

There's a severe lack of "whys" given by the developers to the playerbase when decisions about the game are made, and the playerbase is left with the burden of only being able to assume why something is the way it is.

That's what interviews are for. Yoshi-P does more interviews than any game producer I've ever known. Going back to when the game released, he has answered almost every question you could imagine and whenever someone asks a question, I can usually remember a time Yoshi-P answered it clearly and honestly.

Searing Light not coming from SMN is a burden the playerbase has been left to deal with and play around similarly to DRK's Living Dead, and most people would probably say "well, those skills are like that for flavor."

It's slightly annoying but if it is that much of a problem it will most likely be fixed. That's also what the forums are for, to let them know you think it's a problem.

[Connor]

If the devs are listening to player feedback so intently what exactly happened to healers? I don’t remember people asking for their entire playstyle to be reduced to literally a single button and they’ve never given any kind of explanation as to why we have insane amounts of healing output when every single piece of content outputs tiny damage amounts.

Saying ‘because we don’t want to stress healers with complex healing’ is quite frankly nonsensical because how can you stress healers with complexity when encounter design strictly forbids any kind of stress on the healer role anyway.

Or Bard for that matter. Yes I’m bringing it up even here

Last I checked literally nobody asked for it to be a high dps, middle-of-the-ground rDPS Dragoon style attacker (slight support good/high dps)who supports the party passively / through their own damage rotation so they can focus on their pure dps rotation and not have to spend brain cells on supporting anyone. Then when players gave their feedback that it was a dumb idea (nobody plays Bard to be a pure dps just like they don’t play Black Mage to be a support dps)…so they slapped some passive buffs they have taken from us back on our dps stances (aka songs), which completely ignored the point… and then they nerfed our DoTs in retaliation lol. Then this expansion they slapped Bards with Technical Finish to shut the players up. Which really wasn’t the issue; nobody asked for Bard to literally be Dancer. I mean I’m genuinely surprised Radiant Finale doesn’t give all affected party members a chance of generating Song Gauge for the Bard. It didn’t seem fair that Bard had to have its support kit demolished for Dancer to have it, while they get to run with utility that’s actually marginally useful like Waltz and Improvisation / Finish. And that’s not considering the multitude of other issues that have flat out been ignored for several expansions (i.e Warden’s Paean is basically an anachronism, Minne has been useless for a long time, Bloodletter which they essentially still haven’t fixed because half charges)

So I mean, sure, the devs do ‘answer’ a lot of questions. But how often do they actually give an answer instead of just skirting around the issue? There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that they either aren’t aware or just aren’t taking player feedback into consideration; they also very rarely give us any kind of insight into why they decided to do what they do (I.e healers). I’d say Bard too but technically they’ve already said that they hate the job and regret ever adding it to the game which is hilarious but absolutely shows. And I mean I can’t deny that it’s a genuine answer lol