Should SE be a little more transparent?

[gifthorse]

By the way, I apologise in advance if this thread seems ungrateful. In fact, I do think SE has made attempts at transparency, but it still seems inadequate. They have told us how they intend to change the armory system (either by adding traditional jobs as specialisations to existing classes or adding advanced classes), but they haven't told us how they intend to change the battle system nor what companies are. And considering that they are implementing the last two very shortly, we as players might have already lost our chance to provide feedback on the idea. If the idea was something everyone hated, for example, we could have said so and spared them to formality of actually developing it.

While I am all for surprises, perhaps it's in SE's best interest to run some things by the players first to see if it's something people actually want. Nobody likes bad surprises.

I mean, what if Grand Companies turn out to be another rendition of Guildleves, for example? Or what if the new combat system reverts back into the tedious "combat" (and I use that term loosely) that was FFXI?

What if they run this game further into the ground because we didn't warn them before it was too late!?

At least they gave us a vague idea of what to expect in regards to changes to the Armory System. All I know about Companies is that they aren't player-run anymore, and all I know about combat is that it involves auto-attack. Perhaps we should know more than this so we can direct our efforts into making suggestions for things the development team are actually working on.

After all, I am getting sick of hearing the same comment everytime I make a suggestion: "well it's not a priority so they can't add that into the game until after they get companies and combat out of the way" when companies and combat are not things we can even begin to discussing, having no material to work with.

[Griss]

Transparency is a good thing. To much can be harmful or even counter productive.

Look i crave info on the upcoming changing as much as the next person, but there going to tell us when there ready to tell us and that's the length and width of the situation. It comes from yoshida's stance of not wanting to make promises they cant live up too. Like you said, there sort of keeping us in the loop about whats going on. and thats a far sight better then it use to be. And while i would love to know the nuts and bolts of the changes, i will take what i can get in this case

[Jinko]

What if they run this game further into the ground because we didn't warn them before it was too late!?

Then they do.

I think they have been more than transparent enough, people are now taking this too far, the developer doesn't need our permission to do things and some people are acting as if they have a right to have a say in how this game turns out.

It's at SE's discretion to inform us and involve us as they see fit, we aren't paying a monthly subscription either lets not forget that.

[Benji]

Then they do.

I think they have been more than transparent enough, people are now taking this too far, the developer doesn't need our permission to do things and some people are acting as if they have a right to have a say in how this game turns out.

It's at SE's discretion to inform us and involve us as they see fit, we aren't paying a monthly subscription either lets not forget that.

It would be in their best interest to keep their fans eager and excited. They haven't been releasing anything REALLY substantial yet. Screenshots of upcoming content or concept designs in progress would be great, even if it's a month or two away. Just something to look forward to.

[Jinko]

They said they plan to show screenshots of the dungeons and raids when they had more to show, so its just a matter of time and being patient.

[Cairdeas]

Right now, SE is more Transparent then most MMO Developers to be honest.

[Betelgeuzah]

Indeed. this whole forum is basically set up for a) players to give feedback and community reps to gather said feedback as efficiently as possible and b) for developers and community reps to give feedback on the most commonly found issues, which they have. The crown and the dev tracker only emphasize this.

Nothing more is needed. If they can't fix this game by themselves, we are not going to be able to change that. Further, making a game according to the playerbase's whims is the worst idea there is. They need to have a vision of their own and they need to follow it. We can affect what they will do- up to some point. And we have.

You will keep asking for more. That's how the community works. Only developers can decide when enough is enough- to us, they can always do more. More, more, more.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

They can't tell us what they don't have. They are still fine tuning things. They did release SS for the icons and batlle effects size boost to get playerfeed back. And really theonly thing ppl did was complain, complain, complain. And so far all this forum as been reduced to is silly fights over nothing. Personally why do we need to know everything? They don't need our permission to do stuff in their game which they are using their money on. People need to give it a better chance it let stuff grow on them.

If people were more open to how the game was now, there would have been more content. Sure stuff happen and the release was less then disreable. But since they need to remake the game sorta w/o doing a character wipe, just gotta wait.

If you can't wait take a break from everything. Let the game get fixed up.

[gifthorse]

Well I would like to be able to discuss things like Companies and the new combat system but it's not possible to give feedback on things when I don't even have a vague inclination of what they are. If SE wants to avoid complaining, the probably ought to say what their ideas are now so we can either encourage them or denounce them, rather than having SE implement something nobody wants and then have to deal with the complaints later.

I realise the developers have to take some artistic ownership over their own game, and only listen to players when they need to, but they should also strive to open discussion over things to prevent the situation where they realise that what they thought we wanted wasn't what we actually wanted at all. And it's not that I don't trust SE, it's that I don't trust their interpretation of the polls.

Their desin philosophy of late has been one of appeasement. They are releasing content in response to demands. But it would be good if they could explain their ideas - even just ideas they are brainstorming - so that players can weigh in on the discussions while they are still in conception phase, rather than when it's too late.

[Betelgeuzah]

If SE wants to avoid complaining

It would do them well not to want to avoid it.

Really, they did that once already. Movement, position, direction affecting the combat? We got concept pics and all that. We know how it ended up.

The playerbase doesn't want to get hyped on things it will never see come to fruition. It's a delicate road but one they can not rush, even if they wanted to. The worst case scenario is "we were planning on implementing cool feature X, but had to dumb it down a lot and now you get X-1". Cool feature on it's own right, but the developers LIED to us by PROMISING we get the X. We don't care whether they said "are considering" or "we promise". To us, everything they say is a promise. Everything they said they may do and don't end up doing is a betrayal.

They may have a lot of ideas and concepts, but if the specs and costs are a problem their brilliant ideas need to be watered down or changed altogether. At least the core systems are going to be implemented only partially, so we can nudge them on the right direction for the second phase. That's as good as it can get, I'm afraid.