Should SE implement a way to poll the playerbase?

[SargeTheSeagull]

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.

[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?

[Kabooa]

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.

[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.

[Dzian]

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.

That would generally depend on the scope of the questions. There would be samurai related questions you could provide solid feedback for.

What elements do you dislike about the job or would make you consider playing the job more? for example.

Answers could provide a variety of feedback. From I just don't like katana or the aesthetics. Right down the job feels clunky to play or is too shallow.

The trick then would be finding solutions to that feedback without impacting the things people said they liked about the job..

Honestly you'd need to ask everyone. Regardless of "qualifications." However you could split the results data based on answers to a specific question... such as how frequently do you play job x. Then segregated answers those who play it alot. Those who play moderately. And those who have never played or play it very rarely.

[HyoMinPark]

That would generally depend on the scope of the questions. There would be samurai related questions you could provide solid feedback for.

What elements do you dislike about the job or would make you consider playing the job more? for example.

Answers could provide a variety of feedback. From I just don't like katana or the aesthetics. Right down the job feels clunky to play or is too shallow.

The trick then would be finding solutions to that feedback without impacting the things people said they liked about the job..

Perhaps, but these seem to be more in regards to general feelings about the job versus something specific like SAM 6.1 changes or just job changes in general, which I think require a bit more experience and insight on. When it comes to job design, I think the best people to speak on that are those who actively play the jobs and play them at a decent level. Not someone like me who may not play it or randomly takes it into 24-mans every once in a while.

Honestly you'd need to ask everyone. Regardless of "qualifications." However you could split the results data based on answers to a specific question... such as how frequently do you play job x. Then segregated answers those who play it alot. Those who play moderately. And those who have never played or play it very rarely.

When it comes to specific feedback, though, I think a narrower scope is better. Asking everyone creates a lot of extraneous data that needs to be filtered out; at which point, said data is more or less irrelevant to the scope of the survey.

If the survey is something specific like “what are your thoughts on the 6.1 changes to SAM”, data from those who don’t play SAM or don’t care about them isn’t really needed. You want to see what the people who play SAM think about the changes, and how they feel. Everyone else is irrelevant.

[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.

[Dyvid]

Snip

Success has made SE arrogant. They have quickly forgot that it was the loyal customer along with dedicated developers that pulled SE from the Abyss. Not just FFXIV related either, but in all departments of the company. A few successful venture and now they are going full tilt into greed. NFTs, a $12,000 plastic Terra Statue, Mobile cash shops in fully priced games.

Snip

Not sure Content Creators should be the end all here. There has been enough data over the years for the devs to know who the mains of the jobs/roles are and who has been dropping good suggestion. You don't have to be a high end user to see the fundamental fails of a job. Maybe they should let Akihiko Matsui step in as battle director again because whatever they are doing now isn't working.

[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.