speak with your wallet if you feel unheard

[AnimalsALot]

Sadly it wont, they have a system of not having forum posts if you're not subbed. This creates a positive feedback loop to all their changes, because eventually only the die hard yes-men stay and post. Then when sub figures do decline, they have no way of knowing what their playerbases actually wanted because they have no reasonable means of interacting with the players that have dipped. Locked forums on subs is a terrible idea from a quality perspective. This is the reason why WoW is struggling so hard to sort out their game, they have no real idea what their playerbase want to get them back because they have no engagement with them anymore.

But this isn't an issue because of locked forums. No one has a reason to stay on /r/ffxiv if they already quit the game. It's the same everywhere. If they want genuine feedback they need to find lapsed players in other games, and boy, when you play other MMOs and find FF14 refugees, there are a lot of complaints.

[Evergrey]

I think there's a pretty big gulf between an actual "strategy" game like Civilization VI where you plan your game hours in advance and wanting more than one button to push in an action game.

I remember back in ARR when doing dungeons the group had to plan the pulls ahead and utilize spells like Sleep to make it so the encounters wouldn't run amok.
This kind of tactical thinking is not something that should be considered "too much" when it comes to an MMORPG imo.
I miss those days, now it's just braindead wall-to-wall pulls and mashing buttons.

[Vyrerus]

Just gonna drop this study here again. I personally don't like the direction the game is heading but it makes sense from this viewpoint if this research is anything to stand by. More and more gamers aren't interested in deep thinking or complex strategy and it's been on a downward trend for like 10 years.

https://quanticfoundry.com/2024/05/21/strategy-decline/
Gamers Have Become Less Interested in Strategic Thinking and Planning

Nah, that study is bunk. They don't actually present the same set of gamers to us, and there's no control group either.

Reality is that gaming hit the mainstream in the early 00s, and it's been getting controlled more and more by suits and distributed and made for the lowest common denominator of people.

Education and literacy levels are also trending downwards. Scholarly and intelligence oriented pursuits have never been popular. This, "trend" as they call it is just indicative of both that and human nature on a large scale.

People not only are able to read less, they are wanting to not read at all. Gaming is downstream of that.

Like heck, it's been a thing since this game came out, "Did you read your tooltips?" Common answer: "Not really."

[Battler-Ushiromiya]

I think there's a pretty big gulf between an actual "strategy" game like Civilization VI where you plan your game hours in advance and wanting more than one button to push in an action game.

U-URGHH ZODIARK....TRANCE...!

[Rekh]

Gamers ARE getting stupider

Not gamers, society. But I can't blame them, when they're injected with 50+ patogens before they're 5 years old it makes sense.

[AnimalsALot]

lowest common denominator of people

Playing FF14 is a good way to see how the other half of the population lives

[Limecat]

Holding your line is important, and is laudable. You just also have to realize that no matter how much speaking you do with your wallet, the masses without standards will be shouting with theirs.

[Aravell]

I just want to point out that "speaking with your wallet" is a big fallacy.

If you unsub, the only message you're sending is "I don't care anymore, do whatever you want". If you want things to change, giving feedback is more important than radio silence and hoping things will change eventually.

But if you really don't care anymore, then unsubbing is fine.

[Striker44]

Sadly it wont, they have a system of not having forum posts if you're not subbed. This creates a positive feedback loop to all their changes, because eventually only the die hard yes-men stay and post.

Umm, have you read this forum? It's practically an echo chamber of negativity outside of times like when new benchmarks get released and we get flooded with those posts. Try posting something positive here and watch the cabal swarm you for daring to speak good of this game...

Then when sub figures do decline, they have no way of knowing what their playerbases actually wanted because they have no reasonable means of interacting with the players that have dipped.

Actually, they do. You can post for up to 2 weeks after your last login, and anyone who actually uses the forums has a good chance of posting before they leave. Once people do leave...who wants to go back and post afterward? The dev team has far more data available on engagement numbers and the like than we'll ever imagine. If people leave in any meaningful numbers, they'll have a good idea why.

If they want genuine feedback they need to find lapsed players in other games, and boy, when you play other MMOs and find FF14 refugees, there are a lot of complaints.

Well, of course there will be a lot of complaints. You're sampling specifically those who have left the game. There's also plenty of genuine positive feedback through the data they have and, if nothing else, general sub numbers. If I play any game and find "refugees" from another game, I'd expect them to say something negative about the game they left. It doesn't mean the game itself needs to change anything if they're still charting in the positive direction (as FFXIV is doing).

I remember back in ARR when doing dungeons the group had to plan the pulls ahead and utilize spells like Sleep to make it so the encounters wouldn't run amok.
This kind of tactical thinking is not something that should be considered "too much" when it comes to an MMORPG imo.
I miss those days, now it's just braindead wall-to-wall pulls and mashing buttons.

I hate to say it, but this is a "living in the past" kind of thing. Society has moved on, mainly because of the core demographic. Back 10-20 years ago, the primary MMO gamers were teenagers, college kids, and young adults with lots of time on their end. Today? It's the same people, except now they're primarily adults with families and full-time careers. They as a general group don't have the time nor the inclination for "complex" design or artificial slowdowns (which, in the end, is all needing to CC certain mobs did). They want a game they can play after a long day at work and just kick back, relax, have simple fun, and feel like they're making progress on something.

[xbahax92]

How am I supposed to leave feedback without playing the content myself. I know a lot of changes dont appeal to me at all, there are so many jobs with identity crisis and lame rotations. But canceling my preorder is the least thing, that would help making this game better. And I'd like to prevent FFXIV becoming even more casual by voicing my opinion in this hell.