The Devs Listen to Us

[LianaThorne]

You know when I made this I knew that people were going to be negative but damn some of you are like beyond frustrated with the game at the moment. Like the Devs should do something about this, and I don't mean ban you guys or anything like that but like how did they let things get this bad. Like I barely use the forums since I first bought ARR when it released. Though I do admit now that I think about it I was part of the Beta but it did take me a couple of months to save enough to buy the game.

That's besides the point. I see a clear issue here. Lack of communication from the Devs part. Something I did not know about until now if I do say so myself. I remember that the Devs would post here at least once a week. I can't say I've seen anything like it while lurking the forums this past week.

I'm going to go back and play FFXIV, but reading everyones responses have gotten me thinking... but also worrying... but mostly thinking! I may or may not lurk on this thread, and the forums. But I think I got everything I could get from this thread tbh. I wish you all a good night.

Personally you should stick around here and observe. Underneath half of the troll posts are legit opinions and thoughts on the game that don't really get to see the light of day. Reddit tends to be a head pat circle regardless of the situation and we all know how talking about criticism in game can go. XD

You might gain a few new perspectives you didn't have before.

[Rolder50]

There's so much evidence to the contrary. Here's what immediately comes to mind:

Healers are boring and they haven't changed for multiple expansions.

2 minute meta is boring and they keep playing into it.

Viera/Hroths don't get hats.

Perpetual housing crisis and they still refuse to do instanced housing.

All the drama around Kaiten removal.

Another V&C dungeon added and still has crud rewards and no reason to do more then once.

Every relic step is tomestones.

[Zarkovitch]

Idk about this one chief. DRK & MCH have finally got some changes in EW due to Mr.Happy talking to Yoshi P about it and the best part is... Yoshi P say he didnt get feedback from it. When there already thread talking about it for 4 years for those changes. It means there something off with our feedback. I'm sure NA and EU do there job to giving feedback but I'm sure japan is the one who blocked hard due " It's not proper way to say it". Oh boy they will cry if they are learning french lmao.

[Nizzi]

Healers have been this way since ShB launch, or arguably Stormblood if you take into account the unnecessary heal bloat that they've been getting that runs contrary to the amount of healing the game actually requires. Depending on how you look at it, that's over 4-6 years they have been outright ignoring healer feedback or responding to it by misrepresenting it and saying "Go play Ultimate and suffer" like Yoshida said when a question about the state of healing in Endwalker was the most upvoted in the "ask the developers" liveletter thread.

I don't disagree that they do listen to some things; the recent changes to Savage gearing show they definitely do when its things that don't effect the core vision that they have for the game at the moment in time. However, there's a lot that they don't listen to, and it often comes with Yoshida outright lying about the reasons given for the changes or reasons why they won't do something, as they did for the reasons of removing SCH's DPS kit as "Scholars DPS away and force White Mages to pick up the healing" when the numbers showed that Scholars were actually healing more than White Mages with the free healing built into their kit (later his reasoning was because they wanted to "give Scholar a more heal oriented playstyle"), or more recently the reasons given for why they removed Kaiten from Samurai, "Action bloat" where SAM is pressing Shinten more now and the amount of actions has barely changed for Samurai. The most frustrating part about this, is that Yoshida will always give his classic line of "Please try it out and give us your feedback!" and then none of it goes acknowledged in any fashion or seems to be heard when it comes to gameplay systems such as that.

It's completely understandable why so many people feel like they just don't listen. There's no communication, and in the rare instances there actually is, it will never be brought up again and players are left to wonder what all of their feedback actually amounted to. Yoshida asked for SAM players feedback on the Kaiten changes, and not a word has been heard about that since. Nothing has been said about the gutting of healers in 5.0 outside of Yoshida saying "We know there are some of you who like 3.X era job design, but we're never going back to that." which doesn't even really address the issues people have with healers. When you think about it, half a decade is a long time to go with near radio silence.

[DiaDeem]

There's no communication, and in the rare instances there actually is, it will never be brought up again and players are left to wonder what all of their feedback actually amounted to

This is the issue, mainly.

[FlutterYuu]

Healers have been this way since ShB launch, or arguably Stormblood if you take into account the unnecessary heal bloat that they've been getting that runs contrary to the amount of healing the game actually requires... Yoshida asked for SAM players feedback on the Kaiten changes, and not a word has been heard about that since. Nothing has been said about the gutting of healers in 5.0 outside of Yoshida saying "We know there are some of you who like 3.X era job design, but we're never going back to that." which doesn't even really address the issues people have with healers. When you think about it, half a decade is a long time to go with near radio silence.

Tbh I'm one of those people who like the 3.X era of job design. It is a very long time to be near radio silent. I don't refute that. And it does feel like they won't listen to us. But I'm sure they are. Maybe they can't respond for one reason or another. But the Devs can be trusted. The game wouldn't be where it is if they ignored us at every turn. PvP is more playable then ever, and that's because they listened. The SMN rework, though many may not like it, has been a good change. I love the Healer jobs and I do hate that Yoshi-P thinks all we should do is heal.

But tbh I can't be negative when SMN is right there, its job identity feels so on point, when I play it I feel like a Summoner. Maybe if we think about what we want out of each healer they'll rework them for the better. Make better changes. I know that sounds overly optimistic but reading your post made me think. We aren't ever going to get 3.X Healers back, but maybe we don't need them back. Maybe we can think about what we want our jobs to feel like. Maybe they'll listen then. We shouldn't have to post in a way that will make them listen, but if we want change we have to play by their rules. I know I don't want healers to only heal its super boring. And if that means we have to change how we think about things to get what we want then we should do just that.

[Theodric]

I wish I could believe otherwise but Yoshi-P was surprised by his own admission that people wanted more stubble/beard options for male characters...something that has been requested as a character customisation option as far back as ARR.

There's a lot of similar situations.

He was very dismissive towards the concerns expressed by healer focused players and even lore related questions have him quip in surprise that people...pay attention to the story in a game that openly pushes itself as a story focused game.

[Kaliesto]

I wish I could believe otherwise but Yoshi-P was surprised by his own admission that people wanted more stubble/beard options for male characters...something that has been requested as a character customisation option as far back as ARR.

There's a lot of similar situations.

He was very dismissive towards the concerns expressed by healer focused players and even lore related questions have him quip in surprise that people...pay attention to the story in a game that openly pushes itself as a story focused game.

You mean to tell me that Naoki Yoshida is becoming like Akira Toriyama of forgetting his own lore?

I just can't anymore with this developer.

I'll be a little fair when you have a gameworld with a very large amount of lore that it is hard to keep track of everything, but he has left some loose ends that have been loose ends since 2.0.

Specifically something like Gelmorra.

[Jeeqbit]

I hope I don't sound preachy but I think there are too many people who think the Devs don't listen.

They do listen, but the question is where they listen and what they listen to. The argument is they don't pay much attention to the English forums.

They used to listen to things about job complexity and uniqueness, but they admitted themselves in a live letter in the last few years that they listen to veteran players too much when the majority of people are casual (forums mostly contain veteran players, so that means they listen to the forums too much). At that time you could already see the trend of greater focus on casual players who haven't taken the time to understand abilities very well.

You have to understand that the community used to be far smaller - 300,000 active characters. Now we are well over a million actively subscribed at any given time.

A larger community means more voices. With such a cacophony of voices in the community now, it is much harder to please everyone as well so they have to try harder to identify feedback amongst all the voices.

Maybe changes aren't happening as fast as we'd like them to.

Development takes months or years. The complaints on these forums are mostly saying things that have been an issue for years and are complaints that were being provided years ago as well. They have had time to take it on board.

But I also know that a lot of our content is planned and made ahead of time.

Did you come here from MrHappy's video?

the 2 minute meta won't be fixed until then either as pretty much all of the Endwalker Content is made with the 2 minute buff window in mind.

Nobody is saying fix it right now. They know it can't be. They are saying for 7.0. But they already committed to it by changing PLD. What are they going to do, change PLD back suddenly?

I'm sure the FFXIV Devs are reading these forums

Even though they are Japanese and we write in English?

[FlutterYuu]

They do listen, but the question is where they listen and what they listen to. The argument is they don't pay much attention to the English forums.

They used to listen to things about job complexity and uniqueness, but they admitted themselves in a live letter in the last few years that they listen to veteran players too much when the majority of people are casual (forums mostly contain veteran players, so that means they listen to the forums too much). At that time you could already see the trend of greater focus on casual players who haven't taken the time to understand abilities very well.

You have to understand that the community used to be far smaller - 300,000 active characters. Now we are well over a million actively subscribed at any given time.

A larger community means more voices. With such a cacophony of voices in the community now, it is much harder to please everyone as well so they have to try harder to identify feedback amongst all the voices.

Development takes months or years. The complaints on these forums are mostly saying things that have been an issue for years and are complaints that were being provided years ago as well. They have had time to take it on board.

Did you come here from MrHappy's video?

Nobody is saying fix it right now. They know it can't be. They are saying for 7.0. But they already committed to it by changing PLD. What are they going to do, change PLD back suddenly?

Even though they are Japanese and we write in English?

I.. I don't know what to say to this. You just commented about MrHappy like it was nothing. I'm just kind of taken back. Like you know they do English interviews right? Like they have translators? Honestly speaking why would they have an English forums if they had no plans on reading them? Like they've posted in English Forums before its not like its never happened. I get being frustrated but this is on a whole other level, friend.