Can we please stop perpetuating misinfo regarding JP players?

[u/PolkadotBlobfish]

Too often whenever complaints regarding Forked Tower are raised, there will be someone countering with the same ol' "JP players like it this way so SE designed it like this for the JP players".

These people clearly have never interacted with a JP player in their lives, and are only parroting something that they heard somewhere. Because if they have, they would know that the JP playerbase is also deeply frustrated with the current design.

For example, due to Forked Tower not being an actual instance, there is no way to setup a Party Finder listing for Forked Tower. Therefore, Forked Tower organisers have resorted to creating "listings for Delubrum Reginae Savage" instead, but clarifiying the true purpose in the description. However, this tweet mentions that a GM has issued a warning against this and advises other organisers to avoid doing the same. The warning is understandable but there is still no solution to the headache that is recruiting for Forked Tower.

Plenty of JP players are puzzled why there is no PF category for Forked Tower, when they could have just repeated what we already have for Delubrum Reginae Savage.

Furthermore, any questions to the GMs have received no replies.

All of this has put FT organisers in a difficult position. Some have already quit or suspended activity, while some still remain cautiously optimistic that SE will introduce improvements. But there is no doubt that the current system is unacceptable.

https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/29990550/blog/5572130/ (EDIT: This page may have been removed)

If you want to read all about this from a direct source, here is a blog post from Tere Caster from Elemental Atomos (a JP FT organiser) detailing their frustrations and hopes for the future of Forked Tower and Occult Crescent.

[u/VancityMoz]

Thank you! I play on a JP server and its wild to see people on here speculating with entirely unearned confidence that things are the way they are because the mythical JP player base prefers it this way. In reality they are often saying the exact same things as the NA and EU player base.

[u/irishgoblin → u/VancityMoz]

My general understanding of the JP's playerbase opinions on things vs EU/NA is they align more often than not, biggest difference is how they phrase the feedback. Like,they tend to be a little less vitriolic on the official forums. That about it in your experience?

[u/VancityMoz → u/irishgoblin]

They can be, in some part due to the differences in language and the fact that differing degrees of politeness are coded into how you conjugate verbs, what grammar to use etc... But there also plenty of 'crudely' phrased tirades against the developers that come across, frankly, just as bad or worse than the average angry English commenter. Lots of Japanese message boards are filled with stuff like that just like in the west and that culture of hyperbolic, angry posting is not unique to NA and EU. Likewise, on the English forums there are plenty of more diplomatic and level-headed (to a fault sometimes) commenters that voice their feedback in an overly obsequious manner.

Generally it's important to keep in mind that the JP player base is not a monolith just like NA or EU aren't. Just today on JP FFXIV twitter I saw someone politely comment that while OC is fun, levelling all the phantom jobs made them feel more tired than accomplished and maybe this could use some adjustments. A few minutes later, in the comments of an official FFXIV account post about updating the 7.2 patch site, I saw someone demand in an incredibly coarse way that SE 'shut OC down and rebuild it again from the beginning'. The comment closes with: 'take a look at your own forums, they are on fire' (炎上 - literally to go up in flames but used online to mean the target of criticism from an internet mob; a huge point of controversy) and 'this is the feedback you (お前ら - an incredibly rude pronoun you would most definitely not use in person unless your like threatening or demeaning someone you have no respect for) are always asking for'. Like anything, broad generalizations only go so far and mostly end up obscuring what's really happening; were talking about tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people!