Genuine Question Here

[Ivtrix]

I never really understood or grasped those forum arguments like "game is dying" / "game is the worst ever been" / "game is way too easy" lol. Not saying those opinions are invalid...but golly gee wilakers lol, there's plenty of other things to play. If it's not jingling your bells or tickling your pickle, it's alright to search for greener pastures in other directions, right? Idk, *shrug*

Counterpoint: are people not allowed to want to play this game too? I think a lot of the whole “this game is dying” is sensational over exaggeration, but at least in myself I want to continue to play this game and I want to see improvement that I feel would help the game to be the best it possibly can be made so I can enjoy this game to the fullest.

[Hurlstone]

In theory we should be free to post both positive and negative feedback here, without fear of being called a simping ‘white knight’ for daring to like some of the games fetures ect. Alas, thats not how this forum seems to work. There are more trolls here then at a national bridge convention, people who seem to forget this is a video game and not a life/death situation, and those while will demand one type of behaviour from others whilst not practising what they preach, via bad-faith arguments etc. Sure you will find such things on almost every forum, but you can tell how the lack of moderation has cultivated a more… spiteful approach to such things.

[Teraq]

I never really understood or grasped those forum arguments like "game is dying" / "game is the worst ever been" / "game is way too easy" lol. Not saying those opinions are invalid...but golly gee wilakers lol, there's plenty of other things to play. If it's not jingling your bells or tickling your pickle, it's alright to search for greener pastures in other directions, right? Idk, *shrug*

To be fair, there is a notable difference between negative feedback on these forums in particular versus negative feedback anywhere else like Reddit or Twitter: everyone posting here has logged in in the last 14 days. We have all here given money to Square-Enix in the last 44 days at the very worst.

Those making their displeasure known here, specifically, very likely are fence-sitters for one reason or another. The motivation for doing so is likely to be because they want to like the game again like they used to. Now, of course, how long a person might stay in such a state depends on the individual, when they finally accept they aren't being listened to and the game isn't going to revert to how it once was when they liked it, unsubscribe and go play something else.

But in the meantime, Square-Enix very much has a motivation to listen to these people rather than heavily moderate negativity: they want to keep the paying customers, including those who are susceptible to throwing the towel in in the immediate future.

It is also for this reason that whatever people might think, the nay-sayers are never going to outnumber or "bully out" the forum members sporting a whiter shade of armor… because the nay-sayers will eventually unsub at some point, while people who keep playing will always be able to post here.

As for claims of the game dying… though I've unsubbed from FFXIV myself, I have also played WoW long enough to know that claims of a big MMORPG death are to be taken with a grain of salt, and should at best be interpreted on a continuum of MMO "life" and "death", especially when content is still being actively released. I think WoW has been dying for 17 years by now…

"We don't want an echo chamber!! We genuinely want to understand the criticisms!!"

man I am so sorry people are unable to understand sarcasm and context, apparently.

[ZephyrMenodora]

In theory we should be free to post both positive and negative feedback here, without fear of being called a simping ‘white knight’ for daring to like some of the games fetures ect. Alas, thats not how this forum seems to work. There are more trolls here then at a national bridge convention, people who seem to forget this is a video game and not a life/death situation, and those while will demand one type of behaviour from others whilst not practising what they preach, via bad-faith arguments etc. Sure you will find such things on almost every forum, but you can tell how the lack of moderation has cultivated a more… spiteful approach to such things.

I completely agree with you. I was surprised to see that you received moderation for just a bad word though - though I guess that thread is gone now. Seems they will let certain types of people really antagonize/threaten/insult/annoy others for months on end but then moderate good people over technicalities? Disappointing.

I'm continuing my trend of coming here less frequently and focusing more on those I want to engage with over those who clearly just want attention/reactions from others due to whatever personal issues they suffer from.

[TaleraRistain]

Ok, if you're being genuine, I'll bite. For one, people who have criticisms for the game are not in the majority as yet no matter how loud we may seem. Some of us get aggressive because we have been attacked, shouted down, called fascist, called genocidal, called Trancers, just because we think the Ancients got crapped on by the dev team and Venat got elevated far more than she should have and did not get called on her crap. For two, no, I don't think they should "go away". I just want them to desist in shouting us down and actually understand our point of view and admit hey, there may be a grain of rightness in what we're saying and that we may just have a point.

People shouldn't be name-calling like that for a difference of opinion. That said, your last sentence seems to imply that you think it's not possible to understand your point of view and still disagree. You sound like the only way someone can show they understand your point of view is by agreeing with it. Again, attacks are uncalled for. But insisting on agreement as acknowledgment of your point of view may tell you why you're getting push back on it.

As to the OP, why should anyone care if one side or the other does want dissent to leave? That's not the point of a forum intended for open discussion.

[IkaraGreydancer]

People shouldn't be name-calling like that for a difference of opinion. That said, your last sentence seems to imply that you think it's not possible to understand your point of view and still disagree. You sound like the only way someone can show they understand your point of view is by agreeing with it. Again, attacks are uncalled for. But insisting on agreement as acknowledgment of your point of view may tell you why you're getting push back on it.

As to the OP, why should anyone care if one side or the other does want dissent to leave? That's not the point of a forum intended for open discussion.

I think you completely miss the point of the question. It's not a question of people caring about others leaving...its the fact that it would seem counterpoints are drowning out what people feel are game issues. Some claiming theyre being silenced so I'm asking if these folks would prefer those who don't share their view to leave. And if not how do we find a compromise of fairness in how we go about our feedback. You're on a whole different thought plain

[Aravell]

I think it would help a lot if everyone stopped thinking in terms of "positive" and "negative" feedback, we could instead think of feedback in terms of "usable" and "unusable". "This game sucks" is unusable feedback, so is "This game is great". If the devs only cared about positive feedback, that's as little use as an echo chamber, negative feedback is necessary as well, so why not just view things neutrally on whether or not the feedback is usable and worth engaging in?

It would also naturally clean up the forums if people only ever engaged with usable feedback, since trolls want to get reactions, so they only ever bait sensitive topics to make people angry, so most of their posts would be unusable feedback.

[BaconBits]

I think it would help a lot if everyone stopped thinking

Way ahead of ya sis.

[Iscah]

But in the meantime, Square-Enix very much has a motivation to listen to these people rather than heavily moderate negativity: they want to keep the paying customers, including those who are susceptible to throwing the towel in in the immediate future.

That logic only holds to a certain point. There is no value for them in changing the game to keep one currently dissatisfied customer if doing so would make it worse for the people currently enjoying the game as it is.

It makes far more sense for the creators to set their own big-picture vision of the game for themselves and stick to it, and let players come to it if they like it, and only adjust it if it is failing at a large scale – as FFXIV 1.0 did, for example.

[thevanguard]

I can't believe I'm saying this but VelKallor probably actually contributes to game discussion in a thoughtful way more than 80% of the people in this thread who basically never discuss anything and just participate in drama threads or post some meme lmao

If we replace you people with 50 aveyonds and 50 VelKallors the forum quality will unironically go up