Should SE implement a way to poll the playerbase?

[HyoMinPark]

That you can say this should be example enough.

You have no experience in those other games. Therefore you cannot say whether or not that experience is valid.

And just like that, you understand why we shouldn't have qualifications for feedback. Let the feedback speak for itself, no need to pin a badge with "Qualified" on it.

I don’t think you are understanding what I am saying, so let me provide you with an example to illustrate. Maybe I’m not being clear, and if so, I apologize. It’s been a long day at work.

If the poll was to ask about the design of FFXIV WHM, for example, how would experience with a TERA healer or WoW healer help you here? Especially if you have never played WHM in FFXIV. What insight would healers from those games give you on WHM? What would they tell you about the design of WHM? I don’t think they would be all that important since they aren’t FFXIV WHM. They’re healers from a completely different game. The experience there doesn’t matter when the questions are about this game and their job designs. Outside of something like “suggestions on how to improve FFXIV WHM”, and then maybe you could provide ideas from TERA healers or WoW healers in terms of gameplay as suggestions. At best, maybe you could make comparisons—but with little to no experience with WHM, how accurate would the comparisons be?

Experience does matter depending on the scope of the argument.

I don’t think feedback should just “speak for itself” when it is more than possible to provide feedback that is completely irrelevant to questions that could be asked. There has to be some sort of qualification, even if loose. I don’t think developers should listen to feedback from non-healers over healers, for example. Or non-tanks over tanks. Not when it comes to how the job is designed or how it functions. A lot of the healer discussions on here have non-healers coming in and saying healers are fine and they don’t see the problems—which, of course they wouldn’t. They don’t play them. Why should the developers say “Oh, well the guys who don’t play healers say healers are fine, so I guess they’re fine”? Do you see what I’m saying here? Do you see how that can cause issues?


I appreciate you saying that you don’t think my feedback is meaningless. That is very kind. However, I respectfully disagree. At least depending on what kind of conversation is being had here. If you want to ask me simple or general questions about things like tanks or other stuff I don’t partake in (like PvP), then I think I can have a valid voice there. Just speaking in general. But deeper conversations are beyond my expertise, and I don’t think I can contribute meaningfully to them due to inexperience. Which I’m okay with. Generally, I don’t want to speak on things I don’t know too much about, so that’s why I tend to have the positions and opinions I have, I guess.

[Kabooa]

Do you see what I’m saying here? Do you see how that can cause issues?

Yes.

And again - I was merely providing you with a counter argument - You cannot say that experience is invalid, because you do not have it. I do. therefore, my word holds more weight. I am more qualified. Your feedback should not be weighed as heavily as mine.

That is the problem, and why I said you let the feedback speak for itself. The above sentiment should be minimized if not avoided at all costs.

If the feedback is irrelevant - You don't listen to it. This is the misconception you have formed. All feedback being read isn't the same as all feedback being listened to, nor is it the same as all feedback being acted upon. Attempting to say some feedback matters more than others, based purely on who it's coming from, is the flaw.

And, to counter point that last question: I find it far more harmful to meme one thing taken out of context, to hyperfocus on it, to spam factually incorrect information to rile up people to cause far more issues than someone who dropped conjuror at level 20 posting "I think healers are fine.". That causes far more issue to your forum and its usefulness than a throw away post by your random Nald, Thal, or Bol.

[HyoMinPark]

Yes.

And again - I was merely providing you with a counter argument - You cannot say that experience is invalid, because you do not have it. I do. therefore, my word holds more weight. I am more qualified. Your feedback should not be weighed as heavily as mine.

That is the problem, and why I said you let the feedback speak for itself. The above sentiment should be minimized if not avoided at all costs.

If the feedback is irrelevant - You don't listen to it. This is the misconception you have formed. All feedback being read isn't the same as all feedback being listened to, nor is it the same as all feedback being acted upon. Attempting to say some feedback matters more than others, based purely on who it's coming from, is the flaw.

We will just have to agree to disagree on this. I don’t really know what else more to say on the topic other than that. You have your opinions on it, and I have mine.

I don’t think it’s a misconception to tune out feedback that is irrelevant. Relevance to a topic matters, especially when it comes to feedback. And I also think it does matter where and who the feedback is coming from depending on what you are seeking feedback for.

You didn’t answer my question about how experience healing in TERA or WoW would help you with regards to providing feedback on FFXIV healers. Especially for a player who hasn’t touched healers in FFXIV. You also aren’t providing examples of how that experience would be relevant and valid to FFXIV.

And, to counter point that last question: I find it far more harmful to meme one thing taken out of context, to hyperfocus on it, to spam factually incorrect information to rile up people to cause far more issues than someone who dropped conjuror at level 20 posting "I think healers are fine.". That causes far more issue to your forum and its usefulness than a throw away post by your random Nald, Thal, or Bol.

I’m not sure what you’re saying here? Are you saying that I’m the one memeing on something here? Because that isn’t a meme—it’s an actual response I have seen and responded to in healer discussions. I apologize, but I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Again, it’s been a long day, so maybe I’m just not getting it due to that.

[Kabooa]

I’m not sure what you’re saying here? Are you saying that I’m the one memeing on something here? Because that isn’t a meme—it’s an actual response I have seen and responded to in healer discussions. I apologize, but I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Again, it’s been a long day, so maybe I’m just not getting it due to that.

No, I'm not accusing you of anything.

I am speaking of specific things that still make the circles in the various subforums, that frankly do nothing but stomp out any actual discussion happening that could lead to positive action for a majority of players. Maybe that's a lofty expectation of the forums.

And, simply put - Whether or not I agree with you doesn't matter. Your feedback on the subject got to be seen. So did mine. So did CJs, and everyone else's. No one got filtered out at the basic level. No one was removed from the pool because they aren't a streamer with a follower threshold, no one got filtered out because they don't take part in the circus that is the parsing community.

Filtering yourself out is fine. Being filtered out is not. The difference is "Kabooa doesn't play Astrologian so he has no insight on Astrologian" vs "I answered yes to 'Can you fit the hours you've played Astrologian at level cap on one hand across all four expansions?' ".

[cjbeagle]

Your feedback on the subject got to be seen. So did mine. So did CJs, and everyone else's. No one got filtered out at the basic level. No one was removed from the pool because they aren't a streamer with a follower threshold, no one got filtered out because they don't take part in the circus that is the parsing community.

Filtering yourself out is fine. Being filtered out is not.

Not to be overly pedantic, but literally billions of people got filtered out. The only people who passed the filter are people who presumably play FFXIV and care enough to visit its forums, and were filtered into the English forums based on their preferred language, and had enough interest in a DPS role to check this forum specifically.

imo that's relatively acceptable because this discussion is irrelevant to the vast majority of humankind and also because that same group has no idea what the topic being discussed even entails, but the same is true when filtering intentionally.

Why ask players who don't play FFXIV what they think about Kaiten? Why ask players who've never played samurai or ever actually used Kaiten what they think about Kaiten? In short, if someone has no idea what they're talking about, why consider their opinion?

Where to set the threshold is a valid question, but there IS a threshold, whether we like it or not - the argument is where it should be, not whether or not there should, or even will, be one.

[Kabooa]

Where to set the threshold is a valid question, but there IS a threshold, whether we like it or not - the argument is where it should be, not whether or not there should, or even will, be one.

As low as possible, is the answer.

As few arbitrary gates as needed, and then let the players sort themselves out through their answers as needed.

Kabooa likes to occasionally drop into the healer subforum to sneer at anyone repeating the "111111111" line, because he either poo-poos its existence or thinks it isn't a problem, and all we plebs who keep repeating that meme are the real problem with the role. Something something "whatever, your downtime rotation was never fun so you shouldn't care about it anyway". That's the "unproductive discussion enders" we're talking about.

Believe it or not, no, that isn't the one I'm referring to, because that's still a discussion that can lead itself to more productive waters. Button allocation, interaction, desired gameloop, etc. All things we can see the positives on in the current PVP kits, once the jank gets worked out.

[cjbeagle]

As low as possible, is the answer.

As few arbitrary gates as needed, and then let the players let themselves out through their answers as needed.

So basically what HyoMinPark offered before:

Questions that have a 1-to-5 rating scale can be qualified a bit more with questions on experience levels.

“Do you play SAM in FFXIV?”
1. Yes
2. No

And then further questions like “How often do you play SAM” on a scale of Very infrequently/Never to Very frequently/All the time; and “what types of content do you play SAM in? Check all that apply.” So the qualifications can exist with more specific questions; data can then be filtered based on answers to the above.

Perfect, works for me!

I could be wrong, but I think polling could be a valuable tool if used for simple litmus tests.

It's easy to assume that the vast majority of samurai players hate the 6.1 changes based on the ratios in the forums, but it'd be a lot more powerful if they could actually poll the playerbase and see if that sentiment holds up at scale, and if it does, perhaps they'd take the forum outrage more seriously.

[HyoMinPark]

No, I'm not accusing you of anything.

I am speaking of specific things that still make the circles in the various subforums, that frankly do nothing but stomp out any actual discussion happening that could lead to positive action for a majority of players. Maybe that's a lofty expectation of the forums.

Fair enough. I do agree that there are a lot posts that fail to add to the discussions to be had here—and I do think that turns off any members of the dev team (or anyone who may report to them) a fair bit. I think that is true of any forum to an extent. While I’m certainly guilty of having my heated moments, I should try to not succumb to them as often as I have in healer threads. They don’t add to fair discussion.

And, simply put - Whether or not I agree with you doesn't matter. Your feedback on the subject got to be seen. So did mine. So did CJs, and everyone else's. No one got filtered out at the basic level. No one was removed from the pool because they aren't a streamer with a follower threshold, no one got filtered out because they don't take part in the circus that is the parsing community.

Filtering yourself out is fine. Being filtered out is not. The difference is "Kabooa doesn't play Astrologian so he has no insight on Astrologian" vs "I answered yes to 'Can you fit the hours you've played Astrologian at level cap on one hand across all four expansions?' ".

At the end of the day, though, data will be filtered. Should surveys be ever conducted in this manner, the data will be subject to filtering; and it will be subject to exclusion should it prove to be irrelevant to the questions being asked or the general scope of the survey. That will always be the case. That’s just the nature of research.

I don’t think labels like “streamer” or “content creator” or “follower threshold” hold any more bearing than those who don’t have those labels or a whole lot of followers. I think it all boils down to experience, aptitude, and the relevance of said experience and aptitude to what’s being asked. For example, I don’t think Momo is qualified to speak on healers purely because he’s a streamer. I think he’s qualified to speak on healers because he plays them, he plays them very well, and he’s extremely knowledgeable about their functionality and toolkits. And in a very productive way. I’d like to see him at media tours discussing healers with the developers since I think there is a lack of knowledge on the dev team regarding healers.

The fact of the matter with regards to your first statement (“Kabooa doesn’t play Astrologian so he has no insight on Astrologian”) isn’t entirely without its merit with regards to whether or not your feedback on the matter of AST should be considered relevant or bear a significant amount of weight to those reading and considering the feedback.

The way I see it is like this— we’ll say that you don’t play AST, have no experience on it, and you don’t even have it unlocked. What gives you credence to speak on its design? What weight do your survey responses in regards to AST’s design hold? Compared to, say, someone who has played AST since 3.0 launch, has cleared various types of content on it from dungeons to Ultimate, and who has an above average performance on the job? There is a difference between the weight of your feedback versus the weight of the other AST’s feedback. Regardless of things like “you’re a streamer and they aren’t” or “they’re a streamer and you’re not”. And the amount of weight does need to be considered when looking at feedback.

As an aside, I think there are people that feel like those who play the jobs (and are good at them) are listened to less than those who don’t routinely play them. Or who play them casually, but not very well or very seriously. And that has caused contention between the former group and the development team.


Anyways, that’s just the way I look at these things. My saying that there should be filtering and some feedback does hold more weight than others doesn’t come from a stand point of trying to be toxic or hatefully exclusive.

[Kabooa]

The way I see it is like this— we’ll say that you don’t play AST, have no experience on it, and you don’t even have it unlocked. What gives you credence to speak on its design?

And my answer to you is simply give me the survey and let the first five questions answer that.

Filter out the responses.

Don't filter out the person.

I'm already likely to not be assed to fill it out, but then it's my fault, and not theirs.

[HyoMinPark]

And my answer to you is simply give me the survey and let the first five questions answer that.

Filter out the responses.

Don't filter out the person.

And by nature of your responses being filtered, you will be filtered. Either way, you are still getting filtered. Either in or out depending on the context.