Let’s talk about the importance of FFXIV Developer Morale and why you should care.
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I was surprised to find out that he is, to a large extent, talking to the Japanese playerbase. Apparently a lot (not all, but a lot) of the toxicity toward the developers was on the Japanese forums. That's actually kind of shocking. Just shows that anonymity can make jerks out of anyone.
I honestly didn’t even know the FFXIV community could have these toxic elements that need to be called out.
I’ve run into nothing but pleasant experiences
Giving feedback on problems is important, but the official forums are a cesspool and by far the worst part of the ffxiv community. Like, I main gunbreaker and have a lot of issues with how clunky the endwalker changes have made the job feel if you try to play it optimally, since no mercy is not long enough to fit every skill needed for it, so the weakest skill to cut is the first hit of gnashing fang combo, which feels awful to cut.
Some people are just a**holes and the larger the group the larger the number of a**holes you'll need to deal with. These people are really terrible in real life and if people dealing with them in real life can't make them change then calling them out or asking them to stop is a wasted effort and is probably only encouraging them by giving them the attention their fragile minds crave. Ignoring them and focusing on the positive fans is the best solution, of course besides banning them, muting them etc.
“Toxic” has gotten so lame once normal ppl start to use it. Well newsflash, you can’t stop ppl from being assholes, did you know that? Sure, do the banhammer…..oh wait, the forum just ends up being full of “yes-men”. Who would want that? How about ban the forum all-tog….uhh, how do we supposed to communicate what the the consumer? This is a no win-situation so SE better pick their poison…
I was confused at first, then realized it was from Japan. As much as I'd like to believe the typical slice of life anime, the japanese are really harsh when it comes to standards, there's a reason why they have worryingly high suicide rates.
The only toxicity I seem to see from the FF14 fanboys tends to be directed at games other than their own. If there's even a hint that there might be other good competitive games out there, some wind up losing their minds.
mostly just come from hardcore community, i did run into some and it just their thing, the more hardcore the more competitive no one wants to lose and when the frustration peaks toxicity comes out. it's kinda bad
It's worth pointing out that even if YoshiP was specifically referring to the JP side of the fanbase (and I somehow doubt he was), there's also more than enough garbage on the EN forums as well. It only takes a minute to find posts about the developers being stupid, incompetent, and lazy. Saying they're lying about actually playing the game because of the "inexcusable" job balance issues. Saying that Ishikawa should be removed as lead writer because of how "terrible" the EW story supposedly is. Etc. It's not just a JP only thing.
I AM taking my time. Almost done with 4.0 MSQ by now. I must say, Stormblood has been somewhat mediocre, but i was not prepared for Doma Castle. Took me proper offguard. First time I started to cry XD.
Respect
Young weebs: I'm shocked that JP forums are so toxic. Old Otaku: Have you been to 2ch?
I mean im angry about how much they fucked with the drk nerfs they did which puts into question if they even really play their game but that being said i still believe that criticism should be presented in a respectable manner
Regarding those teams that have your respect, what do you think about Larian and Baldur's Gate 3?
I've seen a mix, but I've seen a slight, but severe difference between the NA and JP fanbase when they're toxic.
With NA playerbase I usually see people rage at things, and respond with calling people/devs useless, wasting time, don't know what they're doing, waste of time, etc etc.
With JP playerbase there is very similar response like calling devs useless and asking for refund, but OCCASIONALLY, you see much harsher ones like "Go kill yourself for ruining this game" or "Hey dev that designed this job, you literally ruined the game for me, well done go fuck yourself."
NA usually calls out the dev as a whole and usually it's thing that majority of the player actually has to deal with. Long que time, error 2002, getting DC'd, etc etc, which the FFXIV team ALSO feels terrible about. While it still SUCKS, there's still that level of everyone understands what the problem is.
But with JP recently, especially regarding the more smaller individual things, the fact that some of the toxic-comment is more directed to a smaller part of the Dev team, specifically the people who worked on Samurai design for Endwalker. This is much different, seeing how the comment literally is aiming directly at people rather than raging at the entire company itself.
It's a small part that's different, but my lord the difference is very severe. Keep in mind, in Japan "bullying" literally goes from singling one person out and pushing them easily over the edge, done behind spamming text with terrible messages and it still is a problem.
Why should be FIFA devs excited about football when they work on soccer game.
Surprisingly, most of is NOT coming from WoW refugees but is instead coming from the Japanese community.
the nutjobs of our community sent the dev team knives…really?
I hear you. I don't play mmo or much online aside from occasionally mhr. The anonymity of internet make people desensitized to humans and social interactions. Many of them have no life outside of the games and make this online gaming platform/forums their literal life. Sadly but true.
Don't let FFXIV become WoW.
I have browsed the english forums on occasion, and I have seen the toxicness a lot. IT IS BAD…REAL BAD. From your white knights, to your Karens, and your bobs, it was bad. I was surprised honestly. I have not seen such toxicness since MMO-Champion, and WoW forums. But I get what Yoshi-P is saying. People act like jerks when they are behind a computer screen.
I just think it's inescapable to have anger about balancing because X job is missing 5% of damage according to the parsing, and often these frustrations are expressed in memes. You'll see a meme reddit post about what was X job's balancer doing instead of their job, and speculating not even trying. This is a personal attack, and the dev responsible probably shouldn't see it. They really should have staff responsible for gathering community feedback to try to find how to respond to the criticisms.
Policing memes and arguments about how good of a job was done in a portion of the game sounds like a losing recipe. Devs just can't be exposed to everything or they may get offended because the internet is a brutally negative place.
I started FF in Shadowbringers and I’m a casual player with only a little over 1100 hours played and I’ve made zero forum posts. There’s zero reason to be a twat in the forums but there’s also zero reason for the devs to be slow reacting to issues. Blizzard is notoriously slow and they deserve every abuse plus some. Sqenix is ok but need to pick up their pace.
This is a trial to Yoshi-P, three main mechanics, increasingly malicious comments, high table NFTs corporate bullsh!t meeting, server expansion, at the same time keeping the team rotations up.
I have a lot of respect to him in terms of management perspective and passion.
Verbal abuse should NOT be tolerated in any situation, no matter the metal fortitude of others. Just be a decent human being! It’s no secret; treat others how you would want to be treated.
Well think on this – act like a bunch of peckers, your game will suffer the effects of WoW. Is that what you want? Appreciate what you got, or games will start too look like food store shelves filled with NFTs. Give them the chance to fix stuff. Mostly be patient. It's hard I know, but if you want the game to work right and be fixed – put your weapons (mean spiritedness) away. If you wanna be a grown up – apologize to the FFXIV devs.
Also, to counteract the negative on their side, we need to be FFXIV cheerleaders on this side. Give them all the support we can create, speak, opinions, writing, or being a streamers – show the love for the development team. Make Yoshi-P proud with our support and our hearts.
This is something that Western fans are usually not aware of: Japanese toxicity can be very extreme. I think most of you in the West remember the anime studio fire a few year back that killed a lot of innocent people. That is the depth of Japanese toxicity. The problem is also that it is hidden very well, because nobody in Japan often talk about it. In fact, this toxicity stems from Japanese society’s high pressure and the need for perfection causing a lot of people to lose their sense of self-worth and in turn lash out. I have to give YoshiP applause for speaking out against it so clearly, because not many people do in Japan. The silence continues to make many people suffer in Japanese society and that’s why they have such high suicide rate. The enormous expectations and pressure are placed on every single Japanese person the moment they set foot in school, to the point that violence against the well performing students are rampant because they have the mentality that one less competitor is better in the long run.
If you understand all of this, go watch or replay the quest segment with Hermes in it, you can see him in a very different light. He lives in a society that seeks perfection and harmony, yet individuals are taught to suppress their feeling and wills as to not impose on one another. Side questing in Elpis shows that a lot of the problems they have can be solved by talking to one another. In fact the Meteion conflict wouldn’t have happened if Hermes had someone to talk to. He briefly connected with us but it was not enough. Hermes lives in a metaphorical Japanese society, so to speak. And look how his lashing out turned out. Much like the anime studio fire, or the various mass stabbing and psychotic violence that happened in Japan, the individuals are often repressed, isolated and shunned by society.
Yoshi P is admirable, yet he is not the first in Japanese entertainment to speak out, there are countless manga, anime, games made by Japanese that contain this subtext.
Sadly an increasing trend in online platforms is trolling, hate mail and toxicity I try to avoid most of these things but unfortunately it’s the world we live in right now. It’s gotta be blocked out sooner or later though we can’t let it win so I praise the FF team for trying to beat it.
While YoshiP was talking about a subset of the JP community, I've definitely seen a lot more toxicity in the West in regards to balance. There were several WoW refugees in the Balance discord for example that completely lost their minds because of PLD damage, crying about how they can't meet DPS checks on an inferior job despite the fact that all jobs are able to clear content. Its unfortunate and the FFXIV community needs to stand up and tell people that treating damage meters like you do in WoW is something that isn't acceptable here. There is so much fear over "gatekeeping" that we just allow bad behaviour to run rampant.
love you ruri ex wow player here, no problem i don't miss the toxic nature that wow had. i love the community in ff14
any fanbase that gets big enough eventually reaches critical mass and this sort of problem becomes inevitable
Do the devs have issues on things like job design? Absolutely. Look how many attempts they needed to get SMN right, and how there's still issues with things like DRK dungeon mitigation at the moment, and how the typical solution seems to be the "buff damage band-aid" they apply to jobs until they can figure stuff out.
It's still no excuse to act like that on social media. Honestly if it's really that bad that it would make you want to lash out in that level of aggressiveness (over a videogame, nonetheless) maybe you should stop playing and walk away, find some other game that makes you happier. Or learn anger management or something.
I've listened to takes on this 3 or 4 times now. It seems to be people who see a lot of changes and
Improvements on every other qspect except their job/class. I can't even imagine the ego someone would have to not only voice their opinions about a job (or any part of the game honestly) being neglected, but which such animosity that you'd resort to threats or badmouthing the devs about it.
I love when people come to a stream and tell streamers they are doing things wrong. Imagine someone going with workout clothes to a Yoga studio and ask "where are the weights? We're working it aren't we? You're doing it wrong" …. thats what they look like to me
looks like the wow diehards have found ff14 forums.
Even though the situations are similar, there are stark differences from the outset.
1. Yoshi's addressing it and not ignoring it.
2. Yoshi's statements aren't snarky or insufferable. They're understanding and to the point.
3. I'd bet Yoshi's handling it much better internally with his staff at BU III than Ion has at any level at Blizz.
This has nothing to do with the video's topic … But you lot (meaning many) Are really wearing out that Sharlayan theme.
I think the difference in WoW vs FF14 is that in FF14, the complaints are coming from a very vocal minority from the JP servers mad about class tuning this expansion. It's a flash in the pan, and it'll simmer down after adjustments have been made (hopefully.)
In WoW, the feedback has reached full blown nuclear levels of toxicity because the players expansion after expansion express dislike and aggravation with the systems that Blizzard continue to implement. It's not like it came out of nowhere. It's a decade of players watching a game they grew up with get crushed by terrible decisions and poor direction. When you ask normally to have someone stop ruining something you enjoy, and they ignore you, the natural response is to ramp things up.
There is alot to be critizised about the game, but attacking the devs personally and spreading lies definitely won't help anyone.
My personal opinion
Players/content creators MUST PROMOTE POLITE COMUNICATION with the devs
Yoshi P/SQUARE ENIX must hire more tough skinned MODERATORS (psychological tests, and test for objectivity thought process and training) to compensate the increasing player base
The percentage for toxic players are small
But
The bigger the player base the bigger is that small percentage of toxicity
I am not trying to justify the hate or anything, but those who worked on the DRK are better to do something else…
On nasty comments shutting people down;
It's so incredibly easy to remember negativity than positivity because we're wired to try and avoid that "danger" at all costs. I can tell you as someone who's been posting doodles for years that I still remember negative comments from ten years ago better than I remember a positive comment from last week. I have to keep reminding myself that the positives vastly outnumber the negatives and one teenage bozo who's terminally online and doesn't know any better shouldn't be dictating what I put in my work.
So for FFXIV's team, I can't imagine how they feel to get both a surge of genuine praise and terrible criticism at the same time, because as humans they'll only remember the criticisms. And for a Japanese team in which their culture has a near-zero tolerance mindset about failure, it's gotta be hell.
lol i also respect those 3 companies and also should add in smilegate rpg
There could be a million positive comments and 10 negative ones and believe you me you will completely forget about the 1 million and focus on that 10 its weird how negativity will get focused and highlighted in our brains while positivity gets smothered and forgotten, I guess it's a thing we need to be aware of and try to train our brains to focus on the positive and ignore the negative, the devs really don't deserve to be attacked or abused they made one of the best games out there and the best Final Fantasy game period, amazing gameplay amazing music amazing story and great content overall, and the game has and still is receiving constant praise and love from so many people, they stopped selling the game because they couldn't provide it to as many people as those who want to play it I never heard of this thing ever happening before if that is not proof of how incredible this game is then I don't know what is, but ofcourse the toxic minority gets the attention and their abusive comments hurt the most. They need to higher other people who go through and filter the forums and give summary of what the players think and completely forbidding the Devs from reading them directly this way they prevent the anxiety and stress but at the same time deliver player criticism to the devs without the abusive toxicity like how much the players dislike the DRK job and it needs major adjustments but there's no insults or personal attacks or any negativity it's just neutral feedback.
We get taught as children, to treat others how you would like to be treated. Often called the "Golden Rule". It seems this lesson is fading into history, and this is sad.
Im being around in final fantasy since Arr, and after all this time, I can definitely tell u all, the dev team does not deserve such toxic behavior. They are doing so much for the game, and u can feel that in everything they do. Nobody is perfect so are dev teams. So u can’t insult them for such stuff,since especially FFxiv dev team is doing so much to give us the best they can. And in general spread <3 not hate. Sounds cringe maybe, but the world would be a kinder place peace.