feedback? where?

[Arkdra]

So the logic is the messed up SB lilys so badly that they got rightfully clowned on by the community for what was and still is the worst job mechanic the game has ever given birth to and because they can’t design a healer mechanic to give a damn that is reason to………nuke the entire role from orbit then proceed to ignore the feedback the community gives on not liking it for the next 6 years afterwards

I don’t think this is the kind of dev response people are after

How you feel about the response is up to you! But it's there~

[WaxSw]

Literally both. They will listen to feedback but then see if it can fit into their vision or work with their vision.

It is the job of a director to decide what feedback should and should not be listened to. This is necessary. Listening to all feedback blindly would not be good, but ignoring all feedback is not good either. The right director is someone who can figure out what to listen to and what not to. I'd always have said this, but Yoshi-P knows this and has stated this too.

What is the point of giving feedback then?

Lets assume they have a vision (because what they said in EW about not knowing what to add to Sch suggest the opposite). If they only impose their vision and only take feedback that is in line with that vision, What is there to stop a flawed vision to ruin the game?

If what you say is true then the devs have forgotten about what to do to avoid another disaster like 1.0:



Because by forcing their vision despite the multiple criticism and proof behind that they are not doing (1) (2) and (3)

[Jojoya]

We literally, like 2 or 3 weeks ago, just had the benchmark come out. It lead to tons and tons of feedback being posted on this forum about it. The devs responded to that feedback fairly quickly and have shown some fixed examples between now and then and we are getting a fresh, updated benchmark next week. The claim they don't read feedback is specious.

You're going to get people debating whether the feedback from the NA/EU players was heard, or if they were only listening to the JP players who had the same complaints.

We've had past evidence that the NA/EU feedback isn't getting to them. The incident that immediately comes to mind is YoshiP referring to players flocking to a single data center for group content in each region as a JP only problem during a live broadcast several months back. Yet that had been the hot topic here in the EN forums with respect to Aether and Chaos for close to 2 months before the broadcast.

So are the developers listening to at least the JP player feedback? Definitely. But it seems unlikely they're paying much attention to feedback from the players outside of JP.

I'll be honest. It's hard to blame them if they aren't. Most of the EN discussions going on aren't really constructive, whether it's here, reddit, or the various social media platforms. The majority of their time trying to sort through what is said would be wasted because we seem to be incapable of doing the one simple thing they've asked us to do - keep all feedback on a single topic in a single thread and don't derail it.

[Arkdra]

According to some rando on reddit the JP players think they aren't being listened to and it's the dang gaijins getting all the attention.

I think the real answer is they have their priorities and they are going to disregard feedback that goes against them or at best, implement compromise answers. For example, healers been asking for more dps buttons forever, and they got them! Seemingly tied to 2 minute abilities which kinda misses the forest for the trees imo. But if their priority is keeping jobs simple for ease of use by new players then it's a reasonable compromise to come to. It's not actually going to appease the complainers (or me, but my opinion doesn't really matter since nothing outside of adding WHO battlepriest could get me to main healer), but bringing back more intense dps rotations was never in the cards if their top priority is roping in new players and not wanting them to get discouraged.

[Niroken]

I'll be honest. It's blame them if they aren't. Most of the EN discussions going on aren't really constructive, whether it's here, reddit, or the various social media platforms. The majority of their time trying to sort through what is said would be wasted because we seem to be incapable of doing the one simple thing they've asked us to do - keep all feedback on a single topic in a single thread and don't derail it.

And that's why I play DPS instead of healer rather then throw my voice into the void. It would exacerbate the issue with queues, if enough people do it then they have to look into the why. Even if no one else swaps over, I'm still having more fun on a role that does what it's designed to do in any content. I also have a disgusting amount of options to chose from.

[Jojoya]

What is the point of giving feedback then?

Lets assume they have a vision (because what they said in EW about not knowing what to add to Sch suggest the opposite). If they only impose their vision and only take feedback that is in line with that vision, What is there to stop a flawed vision to ruin the game?

If what you say is true then the devs have forgotten about what to do to avoid another disaster like 1.0:



Because by forcing their vision despite the multiple criticism and proof behind that they are not doing (1) (2) and (3)

1 - Different players want different things. There is no single vision consensus. SE can't make every player happy in a single game. Their best course of action is to make the game they feel that they are best at making. If there are players not happy with that best, then perhaps it's better that those players move to "Canada" if Canada is offering what they want.

2 - Don't ignore the clarity and vision parts of that statement. Being willing to listen to players doesn't mean their vision will be changed in accordance with what some of those players want. And there's always going to be some issues with clarity when you're dealing with players speaking multiple languages. How clear the vision comes across is going to depend a lot on the accuracy of the interpreters used.

3 - Adapting applies to players just as much as it does to the developers. Again, not all players want the same things out of the game. We need to be willing to compromise on what gets delivered knowing that they're trying to make a game that appeals to more than just our individual selves.

You know where I think they're really getting it wrong? With #4. What developers are playing on the NA and EU realms to understand what things are like here? Let's not forget that their stance on RMT ad spam was "it's not a problem" until YoshiP decided to do one of his walks on a NA realm and got blasted with RMT spam in chat. Suddenly, it became a problem. Let's not forget that YoshiP said that data center travel has only caused problems for the JP data centers even though NA players were also complaining about it long before he made that statement. To the best of my knowledge, he still hasn't acknowledged that it's a problem outside of JP.

The point of feedback is for them to see what is leaving players most unhappy and trying to find ways to address it while staying true to their vision. Because the game will always be their vision. You're going to get a crap game that pleases no one in the end if the developers aren't passionate about what they're making and doing what they feel they do best.

For example, healers been asking for more dps buttons forever, and they got them!

Except not all healers have been asking for more DPS buttons. Some of us have been asking for more reasons to heal. If I wanted to do more DPS, I'd be maining DPS in the first place.

Therein lies half the problem. We're not all looking for the same things and yet some will jump to conclusions that because a few players asked for something, everyone was asking for that something. That's almost never the case.

So who do the developers listen to? In the case of healers, they listen to those who want healers to be DPS because they've outright admitted that healing isn't a strength of their job design team. So we're getting more DPS tools while healing itself continues to be ignored.

For those of us who want a good healing experience, not DPS, we're better off going to (or back to) WoW because healing design is mainly ignored in this game in favor of DPS design. At least in WoW you feel valued as a healer and not as Green DPS there solely to resurrect players who can't figure out how to do a mechanic.

That doesn't do this game much good. The matchmaking systems are still designed around the Trinity even if the Trinity isn't strictly needed anymore. How are queues going to get filled when there are very few left willing to queue as healers?

[Sesera]

What is the point of giving feedback then?

Lets assume they have a vision (because what they said in EW about not knowing what to add to Sch suggest the opposite). If they only impose their vision and only take feedback that is in line with that vision, What is there to stop a flawed vision to ruin the game?

If what you say is true then the devs have forgotten about what to do to avoid another disaster like 1.0:



Because by forcing their vision despite the multiple criticism and proof behind that they are not doing (1) (2) and (3)

Ok here how it works

Data shows very few people play healer > lets check feedback
Data shows more people play healer > throw feedback to trashcan

[Jeeqbit]

What is the point of giving feedback then?

I mean, it's worth a try to give feedback.

Lets assume they have a vision (because what they said in EW about not knowing what to add to Sch suggest the opposite)

I would kinda agree about SCH.

If they only impose their vision and only take feedback that is in line with that vision, What is there to stop a flawed vision to ruin the game?

The answer to that question is the director. It always has been, is and always will be on the director to process feedback and decide what to, and not to, listen to. Feedback from two different people can contradict eachother and in other cases the feedback may be bad for a reason that most players cannot see or have not thought about. Sometimes listening to feedback can simply cause a game to fall.

It is on the director to draw the line and figure out what they should listen to and what they should ignore. In many cases they get it wrong and the game fails; what was new about Yoshi-P was getting it right for so long causing the game to increase in popularity while other MMORPGs were reducing in popularity.

An easy example as well is WoW was very popular and then they had a lot of changes in their leadership and team structure, which led to a string of decisions that progressively reduced the popularity of the game and caused a lot of them to start playing this (this started long before it went viral in 2021 btw). A simple change of leader can destroy an online game.

If what you say is true then the devs have forgotten about what to do to avoid another disaster like 1.0

Who knows if they have forgotten. They do listen to feedback, but obviously it often seems very selective and often confined to the JP audience.

Because by forcing their vision despite the multiple criticism and proof behind that they are not doing (1) (2) and (3)

So let's address those points, then.

1 is hard to really address. They either know people are leaving or they don't, but like any company they hold a lot of statistics and do market research/surveys.

2 is referring to keynotes and live letters. Like their vision or not, they present it regularly in slides and hours-long presentations with Yoshi-P himself. They have even taken to asking for feedback directly in the stream occasionally like "are these changes alright?"

3 is where it's on the director to decide what to listen to and what not to. But here are some examples of where they listened and adapted: reversing bowmage, reversing the removal of Energy Drain on Scholar, making healers have more work in Abyssos to the point some healers avoided PF, saying the hitboxes have become to big implying they will be reduced, saying content has become over-telegraphed to the point of not needing to wipe and discuss strategy and vowing to get the team to make it less sleepy.

[Maltothoris]

Except not all healers have been asking for more DPS buttons. Some of us have been asking for more reasons to heal. If I wanted to do more DPS, I'd be maining DPS in the first place.

But then you have issues with say them "increasing the healing requirements" as what happened with Abyssos. So they can't really increase healing without leading to people leaving the role. Also enemies are getting more hp oer expansion and if healers don't get more dps stuff, it will be a slog. But if you increase only the single target nuke potency, you're just giving more weight to the nuke on a gcd basis.

reversing the removal of Energy Drain on Scholar

Well the thing they tried to get rid of it twice both in Stb and Shb.

[Tracewood]

They do listen if the complaints become exponential, thing is in the end the producer and devs decide if criticism is valid, up for debate, or outright superfluous.

The recent benchmark is a good example, another is the item request/glamour megathreads. Not taking credit, but back in Heavensward I suggested MNKs to use tonfas for more weapon diversity. Uploaded some screenshots of tonfas, and come Stormblood... MNKs got tonfas, and still do to this day! It's coincidence, cool nonetheless. Also saw dye requests like more metallics and some neon colors added over time, same for some glamour options.

For battle content I see is where most of the complaints are centered. An example of this is the hardcore players want jobs and content to stay hard and complex (which unfortunately creates gatekeeping for endgame content once the math nerds min-max everything, playerbase copycats.) Heck, I would LOVE to have FFXI's merit point system to further boost your job abilities and stats, or something from Monster Hunter Rise's gear augment system where you can get things like an additional materia slot or randomized stats.

Then we have some players prefer simplified (which things become far too homogenized and samey). There's demand for "rewarding" midcore content, and the relic grind being tomes was another complaint they did address, so we're getting regular battle content back in DawnTrail.

When I read someone complain "they don't listen", what they're really saying is "they don't listen to me." Not saying anyone's complaints are invalid, it's just how you present it. I personally would like to see the endgame routine shaken up a bit, where there is more than just Savage to gear up your jobs completly.