Should SE implement a way to poll the playerbase?

[HyoMinPark]

Generally, I think the idea of a playerbase poll with regards to job changes is a good idea. However, I wonder just what kind of results you’d actually get—and how would you filter out the more meaningful data from the data that isn’t as meaningful. I’m of the opinion that people discussing job changes need to have some level of “qualification” in order to discuss the changes and provide good constructive criticisms and feedback—and not everyone meets these kind of “qualifications”.

An example of someone “qualified” to speak on the SAM changes (to use the hot topic of 6.1 as an example), would be someone who mains the job and who plays it at (at least) an above average skill level. The latter qualification would imply that they have a deeper than surface-level knowledge of the job and understand it—someone like me, who plays SAM very infrequently and very casually, would not have the same kind of understanding needed to provide good feedback and criticisms. Another example would be someone who does not play healers cannot definitively give feedback on the state of the role, given that they do not play the role.


I’m putting a disclaimer in here that I don’t think one needs to be a 99th/100th percentile parse-level SAM in order to provide decent feedback. I just think that the person needs to actually play the job, play it regularly, and understand the way the kit functions and interacts. This goes for any job in any role. I don’t think that everyone is qualified to speak objectively and factually on every jobs’ changes. I know I’m not. I don’t play tanks or melee or casters, so I generally don’t join discussions for them, or try to provide feedback. My feedback would mean less than a tank main’s or a caster main’s or a melee main’s feedback.

That's really disheartening to hear - I'm relatively new to the game, so I'm not aware of the dev team's history with the playerbase - thank you for the insight. >_<

Sadly, Micah does have the right of it—especially when it comes to job changes.

In my opinion, the issue stems from the developers having a specific “vision” for jobs in this game, but that “vision” directly clashes with the playerbase and how they actually play the job. You see this a lot with the healer role: the developers seem to design healers around the idea that most healers either wait for damage or they primarily GCD heal when healing in this game is actually very much on the offensive. We don’t wait for damage, GCD heals are a last resort, and we primarily heal with our off-globals versus saving them for emergencies. As a result, healer gameplay is incredibly stale and boring for people who have been playing them for any extended period of time. Take it from someone who has played them for over six years in all kinds of content: I am a gimped damage dealer more than I am a healer.

[cjbeagle]

Generally, I think the idea of a playerbase poll with regards to job changes is a good idea. However, I wonder just what kind of results you’d actually get—and how would you filter out the more meaningful data from the data that isn’t as meaningful. I’m of the opinion that people discussing job changes need to have some level of “qualification” in order to discuss the changes and provide good constructive criticisms and feedback—and not everyone meets these kind of “qualifications”.

An example of someone “qualified” to speak on the SAM changes (to use the hot topic of 6.1 as an example), would be someone who mains the job and who plays it at (at least) an above average skill level. The latter qualification would imply that they have a deeper than surface-level knowledge of the job and understand it—someone like me, who plays SAM very infrequently and very casually, would not have the same kind of understanding needed to provide good feedback and criticisms. Another example would be someone who does not play healers cannot definitively give feedback on the state of the role, given that they do not play the role.


I’m putting a disclaimer in here that I don’t think one needs to be a 99th/100th percentile parse-level SAM in order to provide decent feedback. I just think that the person needs to actually play the job, play it regularly, and understand the way the kit functions and interacts. This goes for any job in any role. I don’t think that everyone is qualified to speak objectively and factually on every jobs’ changes. I know I’m not. I don’t play tanks or melee or casters, so I generally don’t join discussions for them, or try to provide feedback. My feedback would mean less than a tank main’s or a caster main’s or a melee main’s feedback.

I absolutely agree that filtering would be necessary, but I don't think that's a problem - there are countless ways that you could filter - finding the right one might take some trial and error, but I imagine that a good start would be to only target players who appear to "main" the job in question, so level 90, cleared current content as that job more than any other job, perhaps only 50%+ parsers to ensure they at least know how the job is supposed to function at its core, etc.

Sadly, Micah does have the right of it—especially when it comes to job changes.

In my opinion, the issue stems from the developers having a specific “vision” for jobs in this game, but that “vision” directly clashes with the playerbase and how they actually play the job.

Again, that's very disheartening to hear. It appears that I made the grave mistake of assuming that the devs actually wanted feedback to improve the game. u_u

[HyoMinPark]

Again, that's very disheartening to hear. It appears that I made the grave mistake of assuming that the devs actually wanted feedback to improve the game. u_u

Despite being a very jaded healer and phys ranged player, I still want to believe that the developers genuinely want us to provide feedback. I think it just boils down to does this feedback clash directly with their vision or not. I think the delivery of some feedback could be better handled. Some posts here are very well thought-out and constructive. Others are just pure raging. And while I think everyone succumbs to forum rage at some point in their frustrations over their role being neglected (I’ve certainly had my share of snarky comments about the current state of the healers), I think that also turns off the developers to feedback to an extent. I also do not know the extent of NA/EU feedback that makes it to them compared to JP forum feedback. The general consensus is that they pay more attention to JP than NA/EU—and there is merit to that… For example, DRK’s Living Dead and Blood Weapon have been areas of contention and complaint on the NA forums for years. JP got up in arms about both recently, and now suddenly both are much better than they were with Patch 6.1.

I also think that there’s a significant lack of experience with some jobs/roles when it comes to the developers play testing. This is one of the main issues surrounding healer design: no one on their team really plays/mains a healer, so they likely won’t have a deep understanding of the role the way someone who plays it extensively does. The jobs that have decent representation on the dev team (e.g., BLM) tend to be in much better states than jobs the dev team don’t play. Yoshida is a really good BLM from everything I hear, so he has that “qualification” I’m speaking of, I would think. But he doesn’t have the qualification to speak on healers or tanks or phys ranged, for example, because he doesn’t seem to play them.

[MicahZerrshia]

I also think that there’s a significant lack of experience with some jobs/roles when it comes to the developers play testing. This is one of the main issues surrounding healer design: no one on their team really plays/mains a healer, so they likely won’t have a deep understanding of the role the way someone who plays it extensively does. .

Don't forget when they did have a good healer testing with them, they were replaced for being "too good", which is the testing equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and going la la la la la la la la la

[HyoMinPark]

Don't forget when they did have a good healer testing with them, they were replaced for being "too good", which is the testing equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and going la la la la la la la la la

Yeeeeeahhh… this is also a problem.

I think I get what they were trying to do—like test around an “average” skill level. But their definition of “average healer” is basically the lowest common denominator healer that struggles to perform the role. I don’t think that’s a valid testing method either. Balance should at the very least be around average play when it comes to dungeons; and higher level play when it comes to higher-end content (Extremes, Savages, Ultimate). Not the worst play you could possibly have. I get that they don’t want players to struggle and feel discouraged for “failing”, but I think they respond to that with what is basically coddling. And that isn’t healthy either… But maybe I’m old-fashioned in the sense that accomplishment feels that much better after I struggle and overcome said struggle versus things just being easy…

I don’t know. I have a lot of thoughts about these things and not enough time to really lay them all out properly lol.

Ehhh sorta. I’d rather see the devs invite content creators like Xenosys, Woops, Drak, Momo, Zepla and Happy to have an honest, no holds barred, complain-athon talking about how much everyone hates all these new changes and how making the game more single player friendly is stupid. The average player sucks and these content creators, regardless of what you think of them, are all fairly decent at the game and have solid understanding of how jobs work. Whether or not the devs would listen is another matter. I remember during the media tour Woops and Drak talked really in depth about job changes. Drak (a former monk main) and Woops (a DRG main) told Yoshi P that losing the greased lightning aura and blood of the dragon auras sucked and asked him to give it to those jobs. He just kinda shrugged it off and went “yeah I’ll ask the combat team about that”. Like, that’s not a big ask and it couldn’t be difficult to put in.

They definitely need to use the Media Tour for feedback on jobs. And they need healer representation there. It is my understanding that that has been sorely lacking the last several media tours. I don’t think there were any healer content creators/mains present at the EW Media Tour.

[cjbeagle]

I also think that there’s a significant lack of experience with some jobs/roles when it comes to the developers play testing. This is one of the main issues surrounding healer design: no one on their team really plays/mains a healer, so they likely won’t have a deep understanding of the role the way someone who plays it extensively does.

I have a 90 white mage and a 90 sage - I can get through Trust dungeons without using a single GCD on healing as a sage, and have done easy-mode raids a bunch of times as a white mage, so I'm not completely inexperienced, but I'm also far from knowing the intricacies of either job.

From what I've seen so far my main complaint with healers is that you spend most of the time dpsing instead of healing combined with the fact that the dps options are beyond mundane - as a veteran healer, is a more engaging dps kit the general desire, or is the desire to actually have to spend more time healing? Or both?

[HyoMinPark]

I have a 90 white mage and a 90 sage - I can get through Trust dungeons without using a single GCD on healing as a sage, and have done easy-mode raids a bunch of times as a white mage, so I'm not completely inexperienced, but I'm also far from knowing the intricacies of either job.

From what I've seen so far my main complaint with healers is that you spend most of the time dpsing instead of healing combined with the fact that the dps options are beyond mundane - as a veteran healer, is a more engaging dps kit the general desire, or is the desire to actually have to spend more time healing? Or both?

It is true that you spend most of your time casting damage abilities compared to healing abilities. Even in the highest content (Ultimate raids), a healer that is playing it safe will spend over 50% of their casts on damage versus healing. An optimized healer spends even less casts on healing. As it stands, I can do Savage fights without casting a single GCD heal on SGE. P1S I can basically solo heal and let my cohealer play with their cards (they’re an AST) the entire time if they so wish. My group really doesn’t need two healers for P1S. The boss simply doesn’t do enough outgoing damage to warrant it. And this is the case for a lot of content. Healers feel unnecessary in good parties—at least with regards to being a healer.

Veteran healers have tried asking for both: more healing and more engaging damage rotations. The developers have gone on record saying that they have no plans to increase the amount of damage that needs to be healed, so the first option is out. Now, we advocate for something more interesting to do versus pressing the same ability 100+ times during a fight. If we are to spend so much time dealing damage, why not give us something interesting to do instead of pressing one button all the time? The suggestions for additional DPS skills vary from something as simple as a second DoT to manage to a 1-2-3 “combo” for healers.

I think the most concerning part about this thread is the insistence that feedback be gatekept, and then those same people not realizing that they themselves would be included in that gatekeeping.

The only reason I see for this is the concern that your voices are not among the majority, even among those closer to your own capabilities.

Give your feedback. If it's good feedback, it will be listened to, but not necessarily acted upon. There's no reason to try and qualify an individual or put all your eggs in one basket with whatever streamer you wanna stan for. They are not likely to make the game better for you.

I disagree with this. You can’t just accept feedback blindly from players when it comes to how jobs function and play. You need to consider the player’s own experience and expertise in regards to it. For example: why should you take feedback on healers from someone who doesn’t play healers? What gives them the qualifications to speak on the healing role when they don’t even play it? How do you know that they know anything about it: how healers play; how healers function in FFXIV; how their toolkit works/flows together? How can you classify their feedback as “good” when they don’t play the role or have the experience with it?

This isn’t “gatekeeping” so much as it is listening to players who know what they are talking about versus those who don’t really have a horse in the race. I wouldn’t want the developers to listen to me with regards to tank feedback because I don’t play tanks and I cannot offer good advice on how they should be played, how their kits should function, etc.. I only know the bare basics of tanks, which I don’t consider enough to speak on their design or on changes to them.

[Kabooa]

I disagree with this. You can’t just accept feedback blindly from players when it comes to how jobs function and play. You need to consider the player’s own experience and expertise in regards to it. For example: why should you take feedback on healers from someone who doesn’t play healers? What gives them the qualifications to speak on the healing role when they don’t even play it? How do you know that they know anything about it: how healers play; how healers function in FFXIV; how their toolkit works/flows together? How can you classify their feedback as “good” when they don’t play the role or have the experience with it?

This isn’t “gatekeeping” so much as it is listening to players who know what they are talking about versus those who don’t really have a horse in the race. I wouldn’t want the developers to listen to me with regards to tank feedback because I don’t play tanks and I cannot offer good advice on how they should be played, how their kits should function, etc.. I only know the bare basics of tanks, which I don’t consider enough to speak on their design or on changes to them.

I'll explain it quite simply.

I am a player with over a decade of MMO healing experience in more demanding games than this, and I don't play healers in this game as my main class. I play them competently enough - I can clear any of the savage tiers on them, with or without echo, just like I can with any other job in this game. If I whipped myself back into shape, I'd probably be just fine on them in ultimates too.

Should my feedback be preferred over someone else's? If someone mains healer, but doesn't touch beyond extreme, is their feedback more or less valuable than mine?

Who decides where we put the thresh hold for what feedback matters and what doesn't?

Using Kaiten specifically, Kaiten is not a Casual vs Hardcore, Skilled vs Non, End-game vs Housing enthusiast issue. Kaiten is an issue of GAMEFEEL, which has nothing to do with clearing ultimates, savages, or any of that.

So why should any one Samurai's opinion on Kaiten be worth less than another? Does the 4 year Samurai casual not get a say in how their class plays if a sweaty, hardcore, week 1 ultimate Samurai says "No Kaiten is fine"?

Once we say "Their feedback doesn't matter", it's only a matter of time until neither does yours, because most of us are far closer to the average player than we think.

[cjbeagle]

Who decides where we put the thresh hold for what feedback matters and what doesn't?

In theory that would be up to the devs who design the theoretical polls. Figuring out where to draw that line is non-trivial, but the line has to be drawn somewhere, even if it's as simple as "the player has samurai unlocked".

I can't think of a reason that someone who has never played samurai should be weighing in on something they aren't familiar with and/or have no personal investment in.

Depending on the specifics of the questions it might even make sense to exclude non-90s since their understanding of the kit is incomplete. For Kaiten specifically, it's acquired at level 52, so it wouldn't make sense to poll someone who has unlocked samurai but never bothered to level it at all, for example.

Given your point though, I do think I was mistaken in originally thinking that perhaps only people who main the job should be questioned since the issues at hand might be related to why a player stopped maining the job, or perhaps could cause them to start maining the job.

I have nothing against "the average player", but I do think it's important that the people whose opinions are being considered at least have a working knowledge of what they're weighing in on.

[HyoMinPark]

I'll explain it quite simply.

I am a player with over a decade of MMO healing experience in more demanding games than this, and I don't play healers in this game as my main class. I play them competently enough - I can clear any of the savage tiers on them, with or without echo, just like I can with any other job in this game. If I whipped myself back into shape, I'd probably be just fine on them in ultimates too.

Should my feedback be preferred over someone else's? If someone mains healer, but doesn't touch beyond extreme, is their feedback more or less valuable than mine?

I personally think that healing experience in other MMOs is irrelevant when it comes to providing feedback for the way healers function in this game. I don’t play other MMOs, but based on what I’ve read, the functionality of the role in FFXIV is different than it is in other games. If the survey was something along the lines of “what do you think we could add to the healing role to increase engagement”, then perhaps this experience would work in your favor. You could bring in what other games did with regards to healing and healing design and offer suggestions.

However, when it comes to the functionality of healers strictly in FFXIV, I think you need more experience in FFXIV. I don’t think experience in WoW or TERA or any other game will really help all that much if there is a lack in understanding when it comes to FFXIV healers.

Should you start playing healers, gain an understanding of them, and clear higher-end content on them, then I would say your feedback could be useful in polls regarding the healers and healing in FFXIV. Especially if we were to talk about things like FFXIV healer design and engagement. Experience matters depending on the context. If the survey was to ask about healing from a Savage or Ultimate perspective, then I wouldn’t say that the feedback of healers that don’t do that content is as important here compared to healers that participate in the content.

Who decides where we put the thresh hold for what feedback matters and what doesn't?

This is determined by the poll and its scope: questions and topics contained within would determine which feedback matters and which would be consider irrelevant to the premise being explored. Just like any research would be. Ultimately, the surveys would be a research study for the developers with regards to playerbase thoughts. You want data relevant to the research questions you are asking; you don’t want data that is extraneous or irrelevant.

Using Kaiten specifically, Kaiten is not a Casual vs Hardcore, Skilled vs Non, End-game vs Housing enthusiast issue. Kaiten is an issue of GAMEFEEL, which has nothing to do with clearing ultimates, savages, or any of that.

So why should any one Samurai's opinion on Kaiten be worth less than another? Does the 4 year Samurai casual not get a say in how their class plays if a sweaty, hardcore, week 1 ultimate Samurai says "No Kaiten is fine"?

I’m not going to provide answers based on Kaiten specifically because I don’t feel qualified to provide that. I’m not sure if you’re being rhetorical here, or if you want me to actively provide answers that I’m not qualified to give. However, I think that SAMs that don’t have an understanding or grasp on the job—I am talking about those hyper causal ones that barely know the rotation, play it freestyle, etc.—do not really have that much of a say. They aren’t playing the job correctly, so how much should they be considered when it comes to design? Especially over those that do have an understanding and can perform at an above average level or higher?

Once we say "Their feedback doesn't matter", it's only a matter of time until neither does yours, because most of us are far closer to the average player than we think.

My feedback already doesn’t matter for a lot of things in this game—I’ve already listed some examples in my replies in this thread where my feedback would be meaningless. And I am perfectly fine with that. I think my feedback is more valuable when it comes to healer gameplay and design versus something like tanks, casters, or melee gameplay/design; and that is because I play healers in all types of content and have invested time and effort into optimizing them. I might not be 100th percentile uber speedkill levels of perfect, but I don’t think I’m bad at them.

It seems like this is more of an issue of some people simply not accepting that it is okay to not have meaningful feedback on certain aspects of this game. I think everyone can have a voice—but not in regards to everything. And I think some just want their voices to be heard everywhere regardless if said voice is actually constructive or meaningful.