The forums are flawed as the main way to collect player feedback.

[Volgia]

Mao does nots like playing FFXIV anymore.

Then what are you doing here?

[TomsYoungerBro]

its not just forums. Reddit, twitter, etc. is also bad. It should be done via in-game polls to players who actually play the game. There should also be restrictions to providing feedback (1 character per account, character has to have certain level requirements, etc.).

[Eraden]

Then what are you doing here?

Mao already playings WoW again. Mao just comes back to FFXIV forums to give feedbacks because Mao USED to likes FFXIV and is still hopings will someday be funs again. Everybody whats played FFXIV should be allowed to gives feedbacks else Devs mights never know that game might has troubles.

[ronibosch]

The forums are not a good resource of feedback, and it's because as players we aren't developers. We don't really know how to create, balance or guide a game to become fun and enjoyable, all we can say is if something felt fun, unfun, janky or if we liked it or didn't like it.

To give an example, a lot of people here will tell you there's nothing for casual players to do. They will name the amount of time it realistically takes to eat through the content is no more than 10 hours this patch. But the casual players I know aren't here complaining about this, they don't have the time. They'd rather go in and play the content and when they get bored or when life calls they go do something else.

Which means that the people who are complaining about "nothing for casual players to do", aren't playing the game casually, so their feedback is just not useful.

EDIT: This place is for you to vent out your feelings off the game and that's fine and valid.

Wouldn't that mean the majority of feedback from buyers of a product or service isn't good either?

User feedback of any kind is important, regardless if it comes from someone well-informed or not. That'd be like librarians overlooking the feedback of their patrons because they don't have a degree in LIS. You don't do that if you want to retain your customers.

[Jeeqbit]

I'm just going to put this here because of how relevant it is (SE wrote this for the beast tribe!):

[ShadowyZero]

i hate to be that guy who address the elephant in the room an i my get a suspension for this but may not depends on how the moderator's here are feeling. then again they've let ppl get away with alot of heinous comments over these past years...
the issue here isn't the collection of feedback its the people who collect it THAT ARE the problem so if you ever want things to truly change in your favor then file ethics complaints against the teams responsible for collecting our feedback/criticisms(i.e. localization, and community) an blame SE itself cause they probably have the WORST ever implemented policies in regards to what's considered "valid" and "invaluable" feedback.

to put into perspective there is stuff here that has been complained about for LITERAL YEARS and has been completely ignored. so your only chance to fight back is to file ethics complaints as well as consumer reports an if they do ignore that use your wallet as the weapon an stop subscribing completely that will send the strongest message of all to them that you're done and leaving

[Volgia]

Wouldn't that mean the majority of feedback from buyers of a product or service isn't good either?

User feedback of any kind is important, regardless if it comes from someone well-informed or not. That'd be like librarians overlooking the feedback of their patrons because they don't have a degree in LIS. You don't do that if you want to retain your customers.

User feedback is important for sure, but this forum isn't a good place for feedback because the people who complain here are 80% not doing it to improve the game, they're here to express their frustration, cuz if you took this place as indicative of player's feelings the only conclusion would be to burn down FFXIV as a whole and do a new MMO because it's a "Lost cause".

Most of the "feedback" we get here is that a story they didn't like should mean we should fire an entire dev team, or we should kill off the MC cuz we didn't like her, or we should rehaul the whole healing system wtihin a patch or "They lost me as a customer". It might feel good to say out loud, but it's not helpful at all.

[Supersnow845]

User feedback is important for sure, but this forum isn't a good place for feedback because the people who complain here are 80% not doing it to improve the game, they're here to express their frustration, cuz if you took this place as indicative of player's feelings the only conclusion would be to burn down FFXIV as a whole and do a new MMO because it's a "Lost cause".

Most of the "feedback" we get here is that a story they didn't like should mean we should fire an entire dev team, or we should kill off the MC cuz we didn't like her, or we should rehaul the whole healing system wtihin a patch or "They lost me as a customer". It might feel good to say out loud, but it's not helpful at all.

You tend to reach that point when actual legit feedback is ignored patch after patch after patch. People get annoyed on here because feedback never seems to go anywhere

“We should rehaul the entire healing system in a single patch”

WEVE. BEEN. OFFERING, FEEDBACK. SINCE. 5.0

[ronibosch]

User feedback is important for sure, but this forum isn't a good place for feedback because the people who complain here are 80% not doing it to improve the game, they're here to express their frustration, cuz if you took this place as indicative of player's feelings the only conclusion would be to burn down FFXIV as a whole and do a new MMO because it's a "Lost cause".

Most of the "feedback" we get here is that a story they didn't like should mean we should fire an entire dev team, or we should kill off the MC cuz we didn't like her, or we should rehaul the whole healing system wtihin a patch or "They lost me as a customer". It might feel good to say out loud, but it's not helpful at all.

You've got a good point there. I really wish there was more engagement from FFXIV's team sometimes, which can help with regulating the content and feedback on here (like getting threads back on topic).

Like Supersnow85 said, a lot of legit feedback is getting ignored, which sadly builds up resentment. Then you have all of the bait threads that pop up here and there (thankfully that's gotten better, at least), serving to only stir the pot.

[Rueby]

It's funny cause I think people think the devs just take the feedback and implement it blindly and not make 0 design choices and don't consider 'yeah maybe it was overstated'.