Communication from SqEx needs to change

[PaulusHamsteru]

I think they should have like a regional community managers, much like what the Monster Hunter team does. Have like 2-5 people that work as managing as the faces of the community.
Part of the issue is that alot of the stuff is lost in translation, be it either from what YoshiP says or what the western audiences tries to convey is the issue.

I think we have all heard the term "tone-deaf" tossed around when the devs adjust something, but it's from a completely wrong perspective and not at all what people wanted.
So community managers really could phrase these concerns i na way that translates well to Japanese.

But that costs them money and Square only wants our money, but doesn't want to actually invest some of them back into the game.

[Altina_Orion]

We need a system where devs actively do polls and then based on what community wants ,they decide if that will enter into the game or not. One game already does this system.
Then make it possible to create other polls by players and let others agree.

This way no matter what we say, they will never listen because it never mattered in the first place. 8.0 can have "good" story, I don't care about that if the combat and everything will be double downed to the point of /afk and press 1,2 spells.

I would argue this system works when the devs aren't doing well and hinders the game significantly otherwise. For SE, im not sure if it would work at all. The issue is the game in question ends up shelving content because of player feedback. Imagine if they polled a new DD and players said they didnt want that in 7.3, do you think it would be replaced with anything? I think it would simply be omitted and that's worse.

[Mawlzy]

I would argue this system works when the devs aren't doing well and hinders the game significantly otherwise. For SE, im not sure if it would work at all. The issue is the game in question ends up shelving content because of player feedback. Imagine if they polled a new DD and players said they didnt want that in 7.3, do you think it would be replaced with anything? I think it would simply be omitted and that's worse.

The point is to poll for long-term planning. You don't have to shelve content if you determine if it is desired before the planning stage.

[Minali]

Most of all we absolutely do need an easier way to give feedback (and an anonymous one at that to take peer pressure out of the equation.)

We need surveys, frequently. Maybe one a month or every two months for specific topics so sorting the results doesn't take forever. (We had one big one ages ago and I was hoping this might mean we might get more of that, but nope.)

It needs to have a very low barrier of entry for everyone, so they can finally get the voices of the people who usually don't comment in here or so.

Not a poll in the forum or on social media.
Not a link via a newsletter on an e-mail address I check maybe once a month or less.
Not a Q&A at a Fan Fest (you can still do this on top of things of course, the more the merrier.)

No, we need a link to a simple questionnaire you are able to open without registering anywhere else, and it comes with moogle mail (one with a blinking red envelope in the corner) or a pop-up when you log into the game. Once you've done it you are getting, idk, some extra good cookies for leveling or a time limited XP boost or whatever, anything small that doesn't disrupt the market or encourages some bs replies but adds some extra incentive for the average WoL to take part. (Obviously it needs to have some sort of measurement against people exploiting this by using multiple browsers, creating a ton of alts etc., it needs to be tied to an account, but that's details the devs can figure out on their own.) With a feedback option that easily accessible, jumping right into every active player's face and without social pressure attached to it, SE has a chance of getting somewhat representative data because people would give feedback who usually don't do it elsewhere for various reasons. I am sure they have a ton of telemetry data, but if a player finished content A or crafted amount of B doesn't tell SE much about why that player did this. This would give them access to that "why".

Now, will this questionnaire cause them to implement whatever everyone would like to have? Of course not, considering some of these wishes are probably very contradicting. However, they can make informed decisions based on actual feedback of a big part of the player base, not of that small number of people commenting here or on reddit or bluesky or wherever, let alone the super tiny number of streamers. And in my opinion this would be a very helpful step into the right direction.