This is a frustrating aspect of dev communication and I’m especially disappointed that they keep citing, “We are going to work on transparency” but never keep that promise.
Up to the day of the announcement that the class change fee was going to be removed, the devs maintained their position that they didn’t want to and would not change it. There was a huge thread about it just like this. They could have said, “We get it, we’re investigating it, please sit tight and we’ll tell you when we know a timeline for fixing it.” That would’ve made a lot of people very excited and caused the thread to lose steam for a while. Instead, they waited until they had a solution to say anything.
(I sort of get why they worked that way so I don’t want to criticize it too hard but the point is next.)
So as far as I know, they’re actually working on a solution to class weapons right now. But they don’t tell us a word about what is in a version until it’s finished and committed, and they never, ever talk about more than about 2 weeks ahead.
That makes players anxious, because it means the time between “we deliver feedback” and “feedback is implemented” is as long as possible. Players are happiest when that gap is minimized. It is certainly true that many, many players aren’t satisfied with statements like, “This is a priority but we don’t have a fix or timeline.” Those players are giant babies and will be unhappy with everything. It’s not worth upsetting every other player because of them.
That said, “We’re investigating and don’t have a timeline” only works for so long. We have to be able to trust it when the devs say it.
One thing to note: the major threads like this in my career have been:
- Dawnbringer in Arena
- Class Change Fee
- Weapon Costs
The two that have been addressed took at least six months of player focus to be prioritized. “Weapon Costs” is right at about six months old probably (I’m not going look up when Divine Protector exacerbated the problem and made it real.) So we’re entering the window that any day I expect a patch to be released where this is fixed, but it isn’t in the patch notes.
I have no clue why the devs tend to fix major player issues with ninja patches and no hype. I think that’s a big part of the perception that they don’t listen. I also think it’s a big part of why I detect dev perception is players hate all changes. We got a giant explainer about nerfing Legendary Tasks. Of course players hated that! We had zero official posts when Soulforge Rotation became a thing. I actually argued with a dev that it wasn’t implemented on the basis that it hadn’t been announced!
Announce the things players like, and you’ll get a lot more positive feedback! If the only announcements are nerfs, you can’t complain nobody likes the announcements.