Black knighting on the forums

[Wasselin]

"there’s nothing the devs could do to satisfy the people who claim the game is ‘dead’"

To say that they cannot be satisfied implies the developers have been trying to satisfy them. By doing what, exactly? Telling people to play Monster Hunter, when they ask for content? Removing BLM's timers? Increasing patch cycles? Keeping the same formula after 10 years?

I’ll give you an example: Throughout Endwalker, one of the most common complaints was the lack of a field operation. People brought it up constantly. Then, when the devs announced that a field operation would be coming in Dawntrail, the complaints didn’t stop—they just shifted. Now, people are upset that it’s not coming soon enough.

To me, this starts to feel unrealistic. If the devs could have released a field operation in Endwalker without compromising other content, I’m sure they would have. But these things take time, resources, and careful planning. Now, instead of acknowledging that, the demand has simply changed to ‘we want it sooner.’

This is just one example of many. If people truly want to be constructive, I wish they’d take a step back and try to be a little more reasonable—or at least acknowledge that the devs aren’t personally out to get them. It’s okay to critique, but by grounding those critiques in reality and recognize the effort that goes into creating the content we enjoy I think that would improve communication for everyone and not harm the game by creating an echo chamber of ever escalating negativity.

[ovIm]

I’ll give you an example: Throughout Endwalker, one of the most common complaints was the lack of a field operation. People brought it up constantly. Then, when the devs announced that a field operation would be coming in Dawntrail, the complaints didn’t stop—they just shifted. Now, people are upset that it’s not coming soon enough.

To me, this starts to feel unrealistic. If the devs could have released a field operation in Endwalker without compromising other content, I’m sure they would have. But these things take time, resources, and careful planning. Now, instead of acknowledging that, the demand has simply changed to ‘we want it sooner.’

Then you have misunderstood the criticisms, i fear. People asked for a moderately grinding bit of content early in the expansion (something that is kind of an MMORPG staple), which the field operations is. Something they can spend hours in, if they want to, to work towards any kind of goal.
Now the first bit of content that allows you to spend a lot of time in (and that is not a room with boss raid) comes a year after the expansion release, which is definitely too late for a content that is designed to be played over a longer period of time. Non-Raid players will have had 11 months of no real repeatable battle content at this point. 11 months is a damn long time.

If CS3 had released something else in the meantime, like for example a Deep Dungeon in 7.1, or a smaller relic step, then those kinds of complaints would have been somewhat mitigated. Its not that the players want "field operations" sooner, they want "something to play" sooner than a year after expansion release.
Hope that makes sense!

[Wasselin]

Then you have misunderstood the criticisms, i fear. People asked for a moderately grinding bit of content early in the expansion (something that is kind of an MMORPG staple), which the field operations is. Something they can spend hours in, if they want to, to work towards any kind of goal.
Now the first bit of content that allows you to spend a lot of time in (and that is not a room with boss raid) comes a year after the expansion release, which is definitely too late for a content that is designed to be played over a longer period of time. Non-Raid players will have had 11 months of no real repeatable battle content at this point. 11 months is a damn long time.

If CS3 had released something else in the meantime, like for example a Deep Dungeon in 7.1, or a smaller relic step, then those kinds of complaints would have been somewhat mitigated. Its not that the players want "field operations" sooner, they want "something to play" sooner than a year after expansion release.
Hope that makes sense!

Don’t forget that releasing a deep dungeon in patch 6.3 didn’t seem to mitigate anything for those who wanted a field operation.

It doesn't clear anything up for me that people requesting a field operation in Endwalker shifted their complaints to asking for it sooner once it was announced. While it’s fine to express a desire for it to come sooner, the underlying issue is that many still don’t acknowledge the reality that these things take time to develop. The implicit criticism seems to be that the developers have a field operation ready to go but are choosing not to release it, which feels like an unfair assumption. In practice, it simply appears to me that people are looking for anything to criticize.

It’s important to give feedback, but it’s equally important to be reasonable and recognize the constraints of development.

[brinn12]

I’ll give you an example: Throughout Endwalker, one of the most common complaints was the lack of a field operation. People brought it up constantly. Then, when the devs announced that a field operation would be coming in Dawntrail, the complaints didn’t stop—they just shifted. Now, people are upset that it’s not coming soon enough.

To me, this starts to feel unrealistic. If the devs could have released a field operation in Endwalker without compromising other content, I’m sure they would have. But these things take time, resources, and careful planning. Now, instead of acknowledging that, the demand has simply changed to ‘we want it sooner.’

This is just one example of many. If people truly want to be constructive, I wish they’d take a step back and try to be a little more reasonable—or at least acknowledge that the devs aren’t personally out to get them. It’s okay to critique, but by grounding those critiques in reality and recognize the effort that goes into creating the content we enjoy I think that would improve communication for everyone and not harm the game by creating an echo chamber of ever escalating negativity.

The expansions before Dawntrail were all financial successes for Square Enix. You mentioned that things take time and resources, but SE has repeatedly shown that it has no intention of reinvesting those profits back into FFXIV. First they removed 15-week patches, then 16, and then 17. Despite being highly profitable, the game lacks resources.

Stormblood was released in late June, and Eureka arrived in March with patch 4.25. If you apply the same timeline to Dawntrail, the issue becomes clear: we haven’t received patch 7.2, when by this point in previous expansions, we should be in .25, maybe 1 or 2 weeks behind it. What did the majority of the playerbase get in exchange for waiting two extra months for the Operations Field? Nothing.

People are getting louder with time due to SE doubling down on their decisions of delaying and recycling content, but none of these complaints are actually new. People do not complain because they want new content. They complain because they want new content released at a reasonable pace. As someone mentioned above, if you think complaining about time between patches is a shift, you're misunderstanding the situation.