Should the devs appologise to the community

[Carin-Eri]

its a character flaw I suppose. that and I have been to this kind of dance before. seen games where the devs listened, and the game became unidentifiable garbage no one wanted to play, and see where the company said "our way or the highway" and became a game no one wanted to play.

there are some serious issues, there are legitimate beefs, there is also a LOT of whining. its a game forum so that is rather expected. everyone, some of us more than others, have views of the game WE personally want... but the stark reality is, its not our game. I am sure if some of the more vociferous doomsayers came up with their own game, Yoshi would love the competition.

but I will not hold my breath while they do.

Same. I mean, I came to FFXIV from a game where the Community Manager was (and probably still is) a spiteful POS. Said CM outright said, in a livestream, that there was no real point in the game's forum/social media communities asking for anything as the only feedback they really cared about was the in-game metrics, with the underlying implication that players should stop asking for anything.
That CM even went so far as to create two (2017 and 2021) polls on Twitter asking what players most wanted to come next... and then completely ignored the results.

And the moderators on that game's forums? Totally adverse to any/all forms of negativity or criticism on any level. I was permabanned from that game's official forum for expressing a negative opinion; in a thread the CM created pertaining to "better communication" I commented that the CM (same one I've described above) needed to learn how to use a spellcheck and how to proof-read his sloppy blogs and news posts (since they were/are always filled with spelling errors, poor grammar, and incorrect dates), and actually learn how to make a professional looking customer-facing product. I also noted that there wasn't really any viable excuse for said CM's work to be so sloppy after six years and a promotion. My account became inaccessible the next day.

And thanks to the Devs doing whatever their cherry-picked metrics told them and nothing else, that game turned into a gamblebox fueled mess.

[aveyond-dreams]

That being said, given that they're in charge of the game if they truly believed that the current offerings in Endwalker would be enough 'staying power' then I think that'd be rather worrying. They've also deliberately gone out of their way to make every relic weapon step revolve around tomestones with no attempt to tie it to any of the new content.

This is what happens when the target audience shifts from Final Fantasy fans and mmorpg players to people who actually care about adventurer plates and sit in venues all day. How could they possibly be burdened with the thought of having to invest time in battle content when they can entertain themselves for hours on end by treating the game as a chat lobby?

[Midare]

You woulda been flabbergasted at all the apologies they put out for 1.0

Also do none of you guys actually read at all can you not look up and read Theodrics post which makes some good points as to why “send a message with your wallet” is not nearly as powerful as you think it is?

What is exactly more powerful than not giving them money? If you truly think something needs changing, if the numbers drop, they are bound to rethink their tacticts. If there's no demand for what they're supplying, they have to adjust to the demand, it's capitalism 101.

And I've seen the apologies and how far they went with those, but if anyone thinks current time XIV needs the same level of apologies... that's just weird.

[ChonkGoblinSuprem]

lmao I just realized the irony of the OP asking for constructive posts in this terrible thread lol

[Connor]

What is exactly more powerful than not giving them money? If you truly think something needs changing, if the numbers drop, they are bound to rethink their tacticts. If there's no demand for what they're supplying, they have to adjust to the demand, it's capitalism 101.

The thing more powerful than devs/SE not getting money…is devs/SE getting money lol. And however they seem to be doing it, it’s working for them. I mean, there’s already (supposedly) been major player drop-off and lapsed subs as Endwalker continued. If such a thing were to happen wouldn’t it already have happened? If that isn’t enough to make them change tactics, I don’t imagine they’ll really care if they drop a few more subs. Not when they can just put some sexy glamours in Mogstation to make the ‘young players’ start whaling. Which, again, seems to be working out for them lol.

For better or worse they’ve all but confirmed Dawntrail is going to be the exact same design-wise as Endwalker, even though there’s very blatant issues with Endwalker. Even if the sub count literally hit 0 I genuinely think they would just huff some heavy copium and say ‘oh young people just don’t like ff or mmos anymore’ (like how they apparently all ‘don’t like JRPGs’ lol), and never actually admit it was caused their own ignorance and complacency

[Ivtrix]

What is exactly more powerful than not giving them money? If you truly think something needs changing, if the numbers drop, they are bound to rethink their tacticts. If there's no demand for what they're supplying, they have to adjust to the demand, it's capitalism 101.

And I've seen the apologies and how far they went with those, but if anyone thinks current time XIV needs the same level of apologies... that's just weird.

They supplement from other revenue sources. This would be a more powerful tactic if XIV/CBU3 was a closed loop on cash. It isnt. This is like.... econ 101 lol.

[KitingGenbu]

What is exactly more powerful than not giving them money? If you truly think something needs changing, if the numbers drop, they are bound to rethink their tacticts. If there's no demand for what they're supplying, they have to adjust to the demand, it's capitalism 101.

And I've seen the apologies and how far they went with those, but if anyone thinks current time XIV needs the same level of apologies... that's just weird.

I always find it funny that people like the one you responded to feel its better to keep giving people money they have issues with as opposed to not (cause it takes money to post on this forum if some people weren't aware). People like that think that if money from subs stop then everything will change which is honestly not as much money as they hope it will be. Keep in mind that SE updates their cash shop MONTHLY (doesn't take more than 5 mins to see how often they put out 'optional items' updates). That essentially means that even if 1k people quit that month, if 250 ish were buying from the cash shop from that same month, they really wouldn't feel the sting.

I think the more critical point some people need to admit to themselves is that this game will never be whatever it is they want it to be. Whether you like Yoshida's development style, at least the man has been straight forward about it and doesn't give fake apologies/promises to do 'better in future updates' like other developers do (WoW comes to mind). So again for 10293473928374 time, if people aren't jiving with the game and its development direction, take a break or move on because if you really dig and compare between expansions, a lot of core things have remained the same (like tomes, trials, raid sizes, when each type of content is released on which patch number, etc).

[lennit]

I don't think they need to apologise. I think we just need to have patience. take's them a long time to make a mmo , how long do you think it take them to make a dungeon, this is not runescape classic

[Jojoya]

They supplement from other revenue sources. This would be a more powerful tactic if XIV/CBU3 was a closed loop on cash. It isnt. This is like.... econ 101 lol.

Regardless of what impact it might have on the game's financial health, as player feedback it can send a message. "The game is no longer enjoyable".

Small numbers will get written off as normal attrition. Unusually large numbers will draw attention - what has changed so these players no longer want to play. Does something need to be changed to try to draw them back or at least avoid further cancellations.

Sticking around thinking things will change if people are loud enough in the forums isn't very likely to accomplish anything. The gap in feedback communication between the devs and NA/EU players has become very noticeable in the wake of the latest round of interviews that YoshiP did.

Easy to say "devs aren't listening to us" but I wonder if it's more that the Community Team is spending too much time playing marketing/PR and not enough time being the link between devs and players that a Community Team should be. Even that may not be their fault depending on who wrote their job descriptions.

[ZephyrMenodora]

No. They are doing what is making them money as a business. They should keep doing that.

That said I don't think the game is for me anymore so once.my sub expires in December I'm pretty much done.

I'm not the playerbase. I'm a drop in the ocean.

Will this be an Aveyond situation where we countdown to December and then you'll be back by March 2024? lol

(Just to be clear, I have no issues with you as a poster. Just being snarky).