Think companies like Square Enix pay to remove and report critique of thier bad games (like FFXIV)?

[Voidpriest-area-52]

So I am a longterm mmorpg player. I have played all the popular mmos. I was also unfortunately a hardcore player who wasted years of his life (though it was a troubled time for me) playing these mmos. My playtime in some of them was 2yr+ (Aion, Vanilla WoW, the last FF mmo). When mmorpg are liked by users they give it a thumbs up, but when they are disliked the game gets pummeled. People also like to complain for the sake of complaining and this is apparent for games like WoW and Call of duty.

I thought WoW was okay but most of its time I did not enjoy it as much. I did not complain about WoW much at all and would just take some time off because I don’t expect one mmo to satisfy me 24/7 and I think it is unreasonable to expect that. Though since shadowlands the game has actually become so fun that I can see myself playing it as my only game.

What I have found very interesting and somewhat odd is that when I played FFXIV I found it full of flaws. The combat was very clunky. The netcode had a legit 1sec lag on all abilities which would make the game something you memorize and not something you react to. They charge extra for more space, the game has pay2win elements where the best in slot gear comes from Auction House and paying more nets you alot more currency per month.

The AI does not exist. Every npc walks up to you and smacks. The quests have no flavor or personality, there are less than five quests which have any mechanics to them. The world has no roleplay element to it you find no toys, pets, notes or anything like that. The game has a very dated look to it. The community is abhorrent. You can’t send whispers inside a dungeon. The mass zones in the game are all dead and lifeless. Everything has a loading screen. You need to win lottery to get a house but you lose your house if you unsub. There is barely any content in the game worthy of it being subscription. You are forced behind story quests that you can only get around by paying for it. People tell you the game is a story game and that the story gets better but actually the story never gets better and you get bamboozled wasting your life doing the quests.

Much of the game’s content is centered around running errands for new players so the end game players become errand boys. I could go on all day long. The reason why I made this post is because I got tricked into playing the game because it was hyped by reddit, forums owned by curse (like mmo champion - which afaik does recieve advertisement money from gaming companies).

When you make a post criticizing the game or wondering why it is in such a poor state 10,000 years after it’s second launch (the first launch was a failure and they had to relaunch the game), the criticism is immediately reported and deleted. Their subreddit is basically an advertisement for the game. Their affiliated discords are all run by a short staff of people who excercise the same type of prejudice against criticism. The two streamers who critcized the game recieved threats, one of them had to move to a different country.

I know non-stop complaining gets old but when an mmo lacks basic ui elements so long into launch it makes you wonder why it never matured or evolved. And then you realize that it is because for whatever reason you are not allowed to criticize the game at all; anywhere. The moment you criticize the game it’s like a swarm or very angry bots mass report you, delete post or something along those lines.

I looked up their financials and realized that they paid 190 million dollars in one year for advertisement. Yet I dont remember seeing the game’s trailer on tv or youtube. So I do wonder if gaming companies spend some of this money to moderation staffs around the digital world, and if they also hire people to straight up bot positive opinion and negate negative opinion. Maybe this is how these discord and curse forums people make a living. Overwolf which swallowed all these forums like mmo-champion is essentially an advertisement platform.

[Xelphina-moon-guard]

I’m too a long-term MMO player. I have maybe close to 40 MMOs under my belt from the late 90s to current - both Western and Asian/anime MMOs; tab-target and action combat; open-world and dungeon-lobby playstyles; fantasy, modern-day, and sci-fi themes.

I’ve heard of some moments where some game companies do that with their games, but I haven’t heard of FFXIV being one of them. It wouldn’t be alive and as successful as WoW if they did so.

On the other side of the rope, it is just as bad with positive review bombing - your white knights, those with biased opinions, or the term I hear nowadays “toxic positivity” - acting like whatever they like can’t do any wrong. This is how some developers become complacent with their games, not realizing it’s on a downhill slope over the course of 5-years. Players like this exist in all games, WoW included. Reminds me of the meme with the dog sitting in the room that’s on fire saying everything’s fine.

Both behaviors are detrimental to the health of the game, with the only difference on whether that meme is with the dev (removing negative feedback) or the players (showering with unfettered positive feedback or downplaying the bad stuff).

There’s a grey area with negative review bombings. Most of the time it is from players venting their anger at a company for decisions they made. Only a handful of times is it about something genuinely negative about the game.

If a game isn’t for you, then it isn’t for you. That’s what it means to have personal preferences. Not every game will be the same nor should it be. Otherwise, what would be the point of its existence?

You made some valid points for FF, but others completely missed the mark. Most of the bullet points you made also exist in WoW as well - I don’t know how people do not see that.

• People have agreed on the slower combat in FF, but I find tab-target overall is slower and clunkier than action combat. Plus tab-target could never provide me the combat mechanics I’ve enjoyed from action combat.

• You mentioned charging for more space. It’s not a surprising thing. Its no different than why void storage in WoW can never truly be void or why the character cap isn’t being raised and have to pay for another account. It really does cost. WoW players have stated they wouldn’t mind paying an extra cost for extra character slots.

• I’ll be more tolerant for P2W over paying for endless grind from poor RNG. It’s suspected it’s designed this way so players keep playing. Nothing like spending the duration of WoW’s lifespan grinding for mounts that won’t drop…

• AI walking up and smacking - that’s every MMO in existence. WoW is prob the most annoying when you add the daze mechanic to that smack.

• Errand quests exist in every MMO too. Any quest that has you kill or collect is an errand quest. They just doesn’t feel as optional in WoW as in other games. I can stick with the main story quest in FF and ignore all the side errand stuff.

• FF has plenty of RP elements, all without the need for mods. Not too many WoW players stick with the game long enough to to enjoy it. They have pets, a pet battleground, housing… which includes apartments which no one ever talks about, military ranking system with NPC squadron recruitment that’s still being expanded on, a bard class where you really can play music with using your keyboard, animated emotes, group selfie mechanics, annual rotation of holiday event rewards and mogs (prior ones go in the shop; no FOMO here), nice looking mogs you can actually craft and not grind 90% of the game’s dungeons for, leveling professions as class with its own quest chains…and all this is just off the top of my head.

• Folks keep harping on FF’s dated look as if WoW wasn’t in that same boat up until only just a few years ago with its texture upgrades, and even then it’s only some stuff that got updated. So we have WoW new models still wearing old stuff, giving a tacky appearance of old and new. FF will be getting their texture update at version 7.x, I believe.

• I’m not critic on story writing, but people are tired of WoW’s constant retconning since the beginning, making it’s lore a huge convoluted mess full continuity errors for some, lack of lore substance for others, fanboyism for… certain characters and races, and having to turn to outside sources for off-scene happenings. . FF does have this nice seamless story linking between expansions, with its characters still referencing events that happened prior, while still remaining in-game.

• FF has its built-in UI customization. No mod needed.

• Blizz is know for mixing their WoW-specific financials behind Activision’s more successful titles when WoW isn’t doing too well. If game “A” gained 10% and game “B” loses 5%, let’s word the statement in a way to hide the loss:

“Game A and game B combined yielded the company a 5% gain in profits”

That sounds positive for gamers and shareholders alike.

• As for ads, if something is well known or is doing well, sometimes you don’t need ads as often. Makes one question how is FFXIV able to have MAUs in the ballpark of WoW without nearly as many ads…?

In the end, on one was really forced into playing a game nor should anyone give into hype ever. If joining a new game, listen to folks who can tell you both sides of the game and not just all the good stuff. I’m the one to first ask, “what are you looking to enjoy from this game”?

I originally joined WoW expecting open-world enjoyment and RP content, only to see the majority of stuff getting push behind a dungeon/raid and not seeing RP content common in MMOs without the use of mods.

[Voidpriest-area-52]

Good post. I agree with most of it but there are some things I disagree with and I will list them below.

1- Yes it is true that action combat is more fun than tab targetting. This is the reason why I have been enjoying New World so much these last two years. That game is unparalleled in terms of reflexive gameplay. But there is definitely something fishy going in in FF’s combat where it straight up lacks responsiveness. It feels really bad in PVE because you cannot react to mechanics in North America that people can react to in Japan. FF also has a favoritism towards wide screen monitor where you are able to see almost twice as much on a wide screen than you can on a normal screen. This isn’t a problem in WoW because our max zoom is pretty high unlike in FF (where devs actually use close camera as a way to make content somewhat difficult). But the camera tricks feel bad because they remind me of the old Japanese games which had similar camera problems. Games like Ninja Gaiden, Shenmue, Resident Evil and so on.

2- I believe the character limit in both games is 40 total though I am not sure of it. But transmog storage in FF has a pretty small limit and paying double enables you to put up 9x more items on auction house and almost 9x more space, which is an enormous advantage. Transmogs bought from store do not take up space anymore.

3- Right yeah wow has plenty of errand quests. The difference here is that we are not forced to do 1500 of them. We can pick and choose. Can skip theme entirely. The fastest record to max level afaik in wow is 3hrs. It probably takes 10 hrs in FF do the required quests alone excluding the leveling process.

Now I understand that people claim the story is required in FF for later expansions (so they make sense), but if that was the case then why did they put a paid story skip in the game? They could have found better alternatives to explain the story in a later expansion; it feels like an intentionally time sink.

Now the WoW story isn’t always great but I feel like it still has epicness to it. Each of the cutscenes and animations blizzard adds I do enjoy them. And they cost millions of dollars. In FF it feels like dialogues and hand waving. They lack an epic feel to it. Also the story of the expansions (this is subjective) became borderline absurd in FF. I don’t want to spoil it but it did feel like I had a hard time taking it seriously

Yes warcraft looked bad for a long time and for those years I actually unsubbed. I am big on looks and a game has to keep up. Another reason why I enjoy New World as my side game because it looks and feels amazing. I remember complaining about wow’s graphics. Shadowlands was the expansion where blizzard started making a game more insync with my vision for it.

I do not follow the relationship of roleplay in a game to mods. I have a feeling you are referring to mods people use in FF to alter their characters. They do not exist in WoW. I disagree that mods are required to enjoy the quests in wow. To be honest mods are heavily used in FF and they are considered illegal by the dev team. Mods were so common in FF that each year the top team was caught cheating on live stream using mods and were banned for it. So it’s kind of funny that not only are people cheating in FF but it is the #1 team that gets caught cheating after they clear and post their VODs. Square Enix went around copyright striking the world first clears one expansion after another. And these world first teams had company men playing with them so it is even more absurd

Mods are actually used for Roleplay in FF (unlike WoW), and much of that roleplay has led to events like Discord getting banned from ios and stuff like that. To be frank I wonder how FF gets away with its depiction of lalafels given the law in United States. I won’t discuss this part any further.

FF has built in customization but it is rather limited. The HP and MP bars cannot be separated for example. Small thing but very bothersome.

Now to answer your question I play mmos for fun. And yes that is subjective I know. When growing up I played mmos because they had me get addicted to them, and I ended up loathing that part of me and the addiction. WoW was like that at some point, maybe it still is for some people. But I think games should try to bring the best out of people because at the end of the day their customers are the closest thing to them; they should treat them with little bit of dignity. I am not an old guy who thinks gaming can lead to violent behavior but when you look at a game like GTA 5 and then see it’s audience steal cars in the US (when they do not even know how to drive), you can tell that the games are having an effect on an untrained and perhaps undereducated mind.

Regarding the roleplay being gated behind dungeons and raids. I mean there are bosses and events that happen inside them but is roleplay really hidden behind those things in wow? I thought most of the roleplay elements were present outside in the world, and the extra zones blizzard adds every now and then. Like in FF I have only ever looted a pet from a boss, or recieved it in mail or got it as an achievement. Pets do not battle either. But in WoW the environment has all kinds of toys, pets, transmogs and clues.

But yes you are right warcraft isn’t the best game. WoW is a long way away from it’s true potential. And this post was not meant to be game vs game but more about the censorship that revolves around FF. I have never seen anything like this before in my life. This game is unique in that aspect (a bad one at that). We can probably agree that there is no shortage of people who dislike wow, and they get a platform to share their opinions.

[Kixvar-moon-guard]

“I don’t know how to play this game, therefor it is bad.”

[Xelphina-moon-guard]

I remember someone had a live demonstration using Tera’s archer on how latency can affect combat, showing two side-by-side, with one getting off three arrows to the other’s one, so that netcode you mentioned is a huge prob that’s recognized by FF players. Though, one day if I ever have money to burn, I’d like to experience both games on a wide screen to see how it is.

WoW’s character limit is 50 the last I checked. Not sure about FF; never looked into it because of the all-classes-in-one design didn’t really have players pushing for alts.

I too do hate parts of their transmog system, having to still hold onto the original pieces. Players from both sides love WoW’s appearance-saving method. Though, I do like the potential to make profit off of the glamor prisms, on top of selling the gear themselves.

I guess the story skip from both games has similar intentions - enjoy it the first time, skip to the current stuff if you roll an alt. I’m currently in Stormblood, so I have still a ways to go. I’ve been distracted doing a lot of things on the side in-game, to experience everything.

I haven’t participated in using mods in FF, but I’ve been hanging out on Twitter/“X” to see the creations players have done. It’s illegal, yes, but FF said they’ll turn a blind eye as long as it isn’t disrupting other people’s gaming experience (unless you’re caught with your handle on those of those screenshots), nor do their client have a Warden-type scanner to scan changes in the client. I remember the ban wave that went out when WoW had done the same. Seeing the kind of appearances players pull off in both games, it seems like they would love an M-rated MMO with deep customizations along the lines of BDO and BnS.

I share you sentiment about the censorship, whether it’s reviews or actual content in-game. As long as it’s constructive and lead to improvements, devs have to be willing to accept even the harshest of critiques. Everyone who’s playing say what they say because they want to see the stuff they enjoy thrive and be successful, regardless on whether it’s something someone else may or may not enjoy.

As nice as it would be seeing housing done right, here in WoW, it needs to be done a certain way for it not to be a short-term thing (I know it’s an engine thing):

• Having deep, detailed customization - that means shaping the buildings and painting the walls
• Having content constantly developed for it throughout the game’s life
• Making it so you go out to do things to bring back, not keep you in there
• Making the content for it obtainable from all other sources (dungeons, raids, outdoors, professions, PvP, holiday events, etc), and actually rotate the rewards, and possibly putting old stuff in the store to avoid FOMO.

I’ve thought about giving New World a try, but I didn’t do it sooner because of what had happened to Nvidia GPUs at the beginning and the game’s economy being hyper-inflated. How is the game’s atmosphere nowdays?

I’m currently waiting for Blue Protocol as my next MMO to try.

[Voidpriest-area-52]

Yeah I would like to try blue protocol as well. I like what I have seen so far.

A very subjective list of pros and cons in New World:

Pros

Best terrain and environment I have seen in an mmo. Both the terrain and environment interact with how you play. Each herb, spice, wood and even fish look different. You value from knowing what each looks like (experience and reflexes). It is the first game where I gather just because it is fun. I have never enjoyed gathering before I played this game. I never took screenshots in a game before unless it was a troll harassing me. I have hundreds of screenshots in NW because I like the view

Environment interacts with your pvp. You can use shade and camouflouge to hide yourself, can use trees to dodge projectiles. You can even get a speed boost from picking up an herb and use that in pvp. You can bait your opponents into jumping off a wall and stuff like that.

Best combat system I have seen. Over time it becomes a battle of reflexes. You can outsmart your opponents who outgear you. Stats change strategies of not just how you hit your abilities but how you move in space and time. I think this is the first mmo where space and how you navigate interacts so much with how you interact towards your enemy’s abilities.

PVP is amazing because combat system is amazing. Also outpost rush is the best mass pvp I have witnessed since like warhammer online, it is better than that. It is also better than Aion’s siege system. Aion’s dredgion system is the only thing which comes close for me subjectively. You can tell these devs are former mmo pvpers. Outpost rush is like a zone filled with foilage and fortresses. It’s hard to describe what’s so good about it without playing it yourself. The way the specs interact in space is also pretty close to actual medival warfare.

Mounting feels fun, but dragonriding is pretty fun too. I think blizzard can take notes and implement land mounts with similar features in the future. They can also use the frog from shadowlands to put in hopping mounts. Though I have been told GW2 has superior mount physics. The mount system in NW isn’t unique or detailed but how it interacts with the environment adds another pro to the list. It is a minor thing though mounts are just something you ride on here and there.

It treats its customers with respect. You can go hard and play 24/7 but you don’t need to. If you are smart and do your season cards right (a really fun system) you can progress pretty fast. There’s no pay2win elements yet even though it is a free to play game. In the last two years I only paid $30 for an expansion and $10 for two extra gear sets. Everything else is equal. Your goal is to find gear with the desired perks, once you have that ilevel is not a big deal in outpost rush or arena because they are both level synced. In world pvp ilevel matters though.

PVE is great. There is a mutation system that sort of works like wow’s affixes. Raiding is still in the works, the raids aren’t very tough. Mutations are the toughest content. I don’t know if I can recommend this game for PVE but I stopped PVE in WoW and that led me to stop pve in all other games. I will only return to pve if there is a shuffle-type of system for mythics. And I understand that most people are against that idea so lol.

Housing is pretty chill

Cons

1- People say there are lots of bugs. I have only witnessed a bug once in my game time where last week there was a rollback and I lost an hr worth of progress on my activity card. So I can’t say much. But I have seen people complaining about it alot. I don’t know if that is just the times or if there are that many bugs. Because I am not a hardcore mutation runner and only do PVP I am honestly never in a rush to finish quests. So if there was a bug it would not bother me anyways. The activity cards I do for progresson have 30 different things I can do so questing is not required.

2- People say that they take a while to fix bugs. I think the company has done more changes in two years than just about any other mmo out there.

3- It requires a good system. I have never witnessed lags or fps issues. But I cap my FPS at 90 and run the game at moderate settings. I have a RTX 2050. My system is like 4 years old. But given how good the game looks no doubt in my mind that it would pummel weaker systems.

4- Loot does not get sent to your mailbox

5- Transmog system is incredibly restrictive. You get a 1% chance to get transmog token from an elite chest. Elite chests spawn once a day and I think there are 100 in the world that you can loot daily? you do get transmog tokens from activity card; two per season. Some skins do not require transmog token. The set I wear didn’t require tokens and I have no plans to acquire another one. They do sell transmog tokens and you can also get them from premium pass; this is where the game plans to make money from. It does not bother me because I usually go several years before changing my transmog. And with simple math I can see that I save $170 a year on subscription so if I was desperate to get tokens the $5 would not bother me.

6- There are other cons I am sure but I don’t remember them.

[Aurîcom-area-52]

No they don’t, at all. FFXIV doesn’t have near the censoring that WoW forums do, I would swear to that in court. First off, they don’t move talk about other games to a special forum, unlike WoW, which moves EVERY post about FFXIV into this Games forum.

Second off, there is no player based reporting system that automatically takes action, unlike WoW, which means ANYONE, even on their alts, can report your post and get it hidden.

You’re talking about a subreddit, i.e. reddit, which is not in anyway controlled by SE. WoW subreddit, or any other subreddit operates in a similar manner, you 100% agree to the rules of that subreddit, or they can ban your posts for whatever reason. There are a lot of “white knights” in FFXIV subreddit, I’ll agree, but as stated they aren’t related to SE.

[Voidpriest-area-52]

How does moving a post about FFXIV to this forum translate to censorship? and in-house forum censorship (if it were to exist) is a non-factor. I was actually wrong to make my post under general discussion and they were right to move it here. Most gaming companies intentionally promote in-house forum criticism because new buyers rarely read a game’s forums before buying a game. They do read discord, reddit and other mass-media brainwash and manipulation outlets though. When gaming companies do clean up their own forums they do it because they want more accurate feedback and less trolling (accurate use of the term).

FF does have censorship in game though. They have a novice network system which peddled positives of the game non-stop. There were rumors that it was GM managed. It would have a script where they would tell people to go through 3000 quests and that it would eventually get better; dishonest recommendations like that. They kick people from that channel over the slightest bit of disinterest or disappointment. Interestingly that channel also had the level of degeneracy I have never seen before; hence I had to leave that channel even when I could have used the advice. FF seems to be a part of the degenerate faith system these people are incredibly loyal to, the lalafel thing I posted above is related to that. Makes sense given the threats.

Many of the mods on reddit are also the mods on discord gaming servers. They have in the past worked closely with Square Enix community people. Ironically these people used to be mods for some of the wow stuff too and they turned those places into anti-wow propaganda outlets. “White knight” is putting it very lightly when these people are forcing streamers to move countries with their threats.

SE does not have control over reddit? Reddit and rules? there are no rules. It is a propaganda and advertisement platform willing to sell itself for the highest bidder. The reason why reddit advertisement is so lucrative is because it tricks people into thinking that the stuff you see on reddit is actually what people are thinking. It also feels like reddit mods can blackmail companies and actually force them into bringing revenue for the subreddit. I don’t think companies can even copyright claim the subreddits. Revenue is more than just handing money to people. It can also be promoting streams that are run by one of the affiliated mods. Donating anonymously. Excluding bots. The bots are an entirely separate dimension. How many upvotes can you buy with 9 million? still leaves you 181 million to spare. Anonymity ends up destroying freedom of expression. You just have to setup hostile subreddits and then force companies into buying upvotes and karma farms.

What makes it worse is that these media platforms demand protection through the constitution (title 230) claiming to be publishers. But how can a company like curse (which makes money from advertisement) claim that it’s mmo-champion forum for example is protected by title 230? it is a publisher and not a distributor because they 100% filter opinion when they feel like it.

If Square Enix is running ads and promotions on these outlets then it is 100% related to the suppression of critique on these outlets.