Petition/Request for GGG to show that they actually read the official forums and not just reddit

Yea Fruz it is cringy that a player must be a youtube/reddit memelord in order to be ALLOWED by the hivemind to do ODD STUFF IN PATH OF EXILE, like offmeta hc ssf ladder pushing, my favourite fun source, ... or else facing bullshit accusations from reddit and twitch.

First of all /signed

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Pizzarugi wrote:

Or, maybe, this kind of toxic accusatory behavior levied at the devs as you've demonstrated and can be found in abundance here on the forums, which often gets downvoted and buried, is exactly why they prefer Reddit?

Umh... but... that's literally their job though? The world isn't all sparkly-pink rainbow-fluff, there's more then enough people being toxic. It's their job to differentiate between the toxic part and the actual complaints and suggestions.

You can't do that with Reddit as the voting-system skews it even further then a forum does.

Reminds me that a poll-system is generally superior to all of those.

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Pizzarugi wrote:

Civil conversations = echo chamber

Reddit is NOT 'Civil conversations' and probably never was it either.
At times Reddit is a literal cesspool of people whining for things which have already been given a specific date where it'll be fixed, or complaints about design-choices which are very obviously positive. Like the sheer existence of a death-penalty of SOME sort, or the limitation of trade in SOME form.

Those discussions revolving after those aren't possible on reddit because it is purely opinion-based via the voting-system... and not every single person has a single vote, viva-la bot-networks which are a big issue there.

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Pizzarugi wrote:

Do you really believe that snarky attitude of yours is incentive for GGG to want to engage in conversation with you and a number of other users here?

I'm not saying you should kiss up to them. However, you can make criticisms towards their design behaviors and philosophies without accusing them of something nefarious, insulting, or adding a mountain of snark and sarcasm that comes off as overly hostile.

Once again, to a degree their jobs. It's not like a customer screams into their face, it's a bit of text on the internet... reminding you, the INTERNET. If game-devs don't know how behavior-inhibition (or rather the lack of it) works there then they're fairly much not fit to be in any position of interacting with customers in the first place.

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Telzen wrote:

Oh course they read the forums, but with how most of the people here act its no surprise they don't bother to post here.

Once again, communication and feedback with irritated customers is literally part of the job while interacting with any sort of customer-service.

It's not like people here are asking for them to answer every single post which is done. It would just be nice to see life-signs especially in large-scale topics like the bigger ones about trade or the absolutely massive ones about lab or game-balance. You know, the main topics which are repeated over and over.

Also it would be nice if ideas presented by people in the forum would at least be acknowledged if they only miiiiight come to be interesting in the future, keeps creativity alive.

That's not much which is asked there, just at least a part of the activity they show in the bug-section of the forum.

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Cyzax wrote:

When the game grows large, they have to step back.
Too many people inevitably pounce whenever they see a developer response, and either take it as a promise that something will be done and angrily start flaming the next day when nothing has been done, start barraging with unrelated personal bugbears, start trolling the developers because that's what gives their life purpose, or are just complete *beep*s.

...Like the *beep* who is always responding with wanting 'Frozen Orb' mechanics in PoE on Facebook...

It simply can't be done once a game reach this size. Non-committal responses on an unofficial forum (like reddit) is the best you can hope for, and GGG is actually quite good at that compared to other games.

I call BS here. Especially because the size of GGG allows for a sole spokesperson who is in charge for such issues.

Namely accruing the suggestions via the forum and Reddit, acknowledging the existing issues and keeping up-to-date with progression for each of those individually.

This not only allows a far superior amount of efficiency in dealing with any form of problem before it spirals out of control (like performance does since a while) but also increases the goodwill of the community and keeps a hardcore fan-base far bigger then otherwise.

The cost of a single full-time employee which has nothing else to do then gather information and putting them into a detailed and easy to read format is far less then the amount of lost free advertising from people recommending the game because of it having 'awesome devs which communicate properly'.

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007Bistromath wrote:

Spoiler

There's a thing adults like to do with toxicity: ignore it. There's plenty of genuine feedback on here, including well-intentioned and level-headed criticism. They have a responsibility to consider it. Frankly, there are some topics on which we are wholly justified in calling them out as being rather stupid; is there anyone who honestly accepts the bullshit in the trade manifesto vs. having a system that at the very least makes map trading less diseased? I get that this thing is big enough that they don't have alot of time for it. It is also big enough that it should be somebody's job to have time for it. When's the last time you felt like the community manager was managing this community?

Exactly! Thanks for that comment, +1.

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Boem wrote:

And being toxic shouldn't imply a free-pass to ignore the message, since most people can hold a fragment of the truth coated in various less than savory ways.

Also exactly! Another +1!

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Cyzax wrote:

I VERY much doubt it is ignored. It would be stupid to do so... Someone from GGG will be reading it. Maybe not all comments, but at least most/all of the posts.

The issue isn't about doubting or not doubting it here, there's only one big question for that:
Do you absolutely know it's true?

When that one is answered via the actions of GGG then the issue is solved, otherwise not.

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Cyzax wrote:

It should... but it can't... at least not as a two-way discussion between developers and players.

'It can't' is fairly harshly worded, especially since other games manage to do it despite having an extremely active community.
The suggestion-section of PoE isn't one of the biggest, if you want to take prime examples of absolutely massive projects just take a look at 'Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead' for example.
While it is a community-project it still has a single person as head-lead which decides any sort of large-scale implementation beforehand. And for them it's not about 'A league every 3 months', that game progresses in leaps and bounds, there are over 100 programmers working on that game as their main hobby, not to speak of the thousands of people who release content which needs to be managed and merged who are doing it on and off.

Nonetheless that one single guy manages all of those, every single bug-fix, re-work, merge, feature. And you know what? He even does all that for free in his spare time.

So... I would say a professional person tasked with that job should AT LEAST manage to bring it up to that standard.

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Orbaal wrote:

Why would you think GGG doesnt read these forums?

Where do you think are those "[Removed by Support]" thingies are coming from?
So they do read the forums for sure.

There is a difference between mandatory moderation of the forum (which has also legal reasons) and actively showing that the suggestions are acknowledged or best-case even used.

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Cyzax wrote:

In those jobs, you're not faced with a constant barrage of 'you suck', 'your work is shite', 'you don't know anything', 'even an idiot could do this better', and so on... and it never ends...

Welcome... to customer-service 101!

Ever tried to work for an insurance-company for processing insurance-claims? Oh damn, if that doesn't become personal then I don't know. A good 40% of the day is ONLY being yelled at while trying to get customers who are too dumb to read their own contract to realize why the worker at their place told them 'You should at least take the medium-plan rather then the mini-plan'.

IT... IS.... THEIR.... JOB!

And your notion that someone working at any emergency-line isn't invested personally is just repugnant. Sorry for using that word but maybe you should go and speak to a few people who've worked in that sector and then repeat your words. They're not very close to reality.

Reading the accusations going on in this thread, if I was working at GGG I would just avoid reading the forum to keep myself sane.

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Kulze wrote:

First of all /signed

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Pizzarugi wrote:

Or, maybe, this kind of toxic accusatory behavior levied at the devs as you've demonstrated and can be found in abundance here on the forums, which often gets downvoted and buried, is exactly why they prefer Reddit?

Umh... but... that's literally their job though? The world isn't all sparkly-pink rainbow-fluff, there's more then enough people being toxic. It's their job to differentiate between the toxic part and the actual complaints and suggestions.

Yes and No.

In the case of somebody in charge of scrapping some feedback and make a report of it, then yes.

In the case of one of the devs actually creating the game, likely not, and even though it could be healthy for an actual dev to spend a little bit of time in the forums interacting with the community ( as it used to be in some cases, but I guess not regarding player feedback ), it's quite easy to understand how devs might not want to come here themselves.

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Kulze wrote:

"

Orbaal wrote:

Why would you think GGG doesnt read these forums?

Where do you think are those "[Removed by Support]" thingies are coming from?
So they do read the forums for sure.

There is a difference between mandatory moderation of the forum (which has also legal reasons) and actively showing that the suggestions are acknowledged or best-case even used.

I dont get it.

Do you really want Gamedesigners, Programmers and so on to read the forums or work on the game? They cant do both at the same time.
And let´s be honest here: The vast majority of topics on these forums are garbage and total waste of time for devs.


Ofc its going to be the Support reading here and possibly recommending worthy threads to devs, which then might read those suggestions.
That said, they will never and should never reply here. If they did, even a nebulous reply like "We are looking into it" will be regarded as a promise and those people will then demand solutions, apologies if its not happening quick enough, post petitions to garner support for their demands and pressure the devs into doing something.

Thats not how it works nor how it should work.

/signed

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diablofdb wrote:

Reading the accusations going on in this thread, if I was working at GGG I would just avoid reading the forum to keep myself sane.

oh don't worry I can imagine reading other opinions than positive rainbow things might hurt others eyes..

but alas, not all in this world is pretty.. specially on the internet.

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Orbaal wrote:

I dont get it.

Do you really want Gamedesigners, Programmers and so on to read the forums or work on the game? They cant do both at the same time.
And let´s be honest here: The vast majority of topics on these forums are garbage and total waste of time for devs.


Ofc its going to be the Support reading here and possibly recommending worthy threads to devs, which then might read those suggestions.
That said, they will never and should never reply here. If they did, even a nebulous reply like "We are looking into it" will be regarded as a promise and those people will then demand solutions, apologies if its not happening quick enough, post petitions to garner support for their demands and pressure the devs into doing something.

Thats not how it works nor how it should work.

No, I don't want Chris to go along and read the suggestion forum while writing on it. I also don't want Jonathan to do that.

As I've written... it needs a dedicated person in charge of exactly that, one who has the ability to extract possibly useful information for the dev-team and write it into concepts which could be worked into the game in the future. Who also has the job of keeping himself up-to-date of what every major section of devs are up to, able to write that up for the community to see.

This way not only - as mentioned - is it far more effective for the devs as they get more options (and thus the chance to create a more effective but simple system, needing less time with more effect), but also the community on the other hand is always informed on what GGG is working on, which issues are known already and while also showing where their priorities for the game lies.

That's all not done at the current state and helps both sides at the same time.

Thats what the "What we are working on" threads are for.

They will never give you details before anything is done and final - simply because things may change for various reasons during development and people would not understand it.

Its better to not state anything in terms of details, just stating vague and nebulous ideas/goals with plenty room for speculation.



I get your idea. Its just not very smart to do so.
It will limit their creative freedom and set them up for outcry, if they cant achieve whatever they publicly stated as their goals for whatever reasons.


Cheers

"

Orbaal wrote:

Thats what the "What we are working on" threads are for.

They will never give you details before anything is done and final - simply because things may change for various reasons during development and people would not understand it.

Its better to not state anything in terms of details, just stating vague and nebulous ideas/goals with plenty room for speculation.



I get your idea. Its just not very smart to do so.
It will limit their creative freedom and set them up for outcry, if they cant achieve whatever they publicly stated as their goals for whatever reasons.


Cheers

Yes, I understand, but those are by far not enough. They don't show the necessary interaction with the community, they only inform one-sided.

As for the 'outcry', this can be handled very easily by making sure the information isn't a promise, that does suffice.

To clarify how that could be done a bit more in detail (Just an example as it's a rough system and not something completely fleshed out, adjustments are what make a decent thing fantastic after all):

First of all, acknowledgement inside the suggestion-form. Making the community know that their personal input is appreciated. The proverbial 'pat on the head' a simple 'you did well and we appreciate it' notion. That isn't done at the current state.

Secondly, in-detail descriptions of the 'big' workings done in the background, no matter of those are systems which are implemented in the next league, or stuff which the devs are trying to work out solutions for which work.
This means mentioning the working of those systems as far as possible (even if 95% of the community will have no clue about the technical part os it) since a few people can provide dedicated suggestion for workarounds the devs might not've thought about, thus saving time for them and increasing efficiency.
Also it means having a steady train of information for the players, they can see a large portion of things which they can be hyped to look forward to, AS WELL as getting informed about issues which might arise so already mentioned planned changes get on hold.

People will obviously still complain, but that's people complaining for the sake of complaining. Providing proper reasons why for example 'asynchronous trading' which has been promised to be implemented years ago isn't coming would be nice to see. As well as keeping people informed on how the damage-calculation (which is one of the major causes for bad performance) is adjusted in the background. It shows they are working on it and eases the people who have complaints.

Third, the flow of information needs obviously to be put into proper formatting, not only for the devs to work with it but also for the customers to at least have a chance to understand it. A good example of such a system provide the makers of 'Factorio', their friday-information is massive and usually shows 1-2 mechanics in more detail then GGG reveals during their whole 3-month league.
Which... isn't quite something to commend GGG on since they have a humongous amount of resources compared to the makers of Factorio.


It's a simple system for regulating the flow of information properly, it warrants a dedicated person in charge of it and barely takes any time away from the devs, or rather... the time which it takes away is easily made up by the saving in time from getting external input which doesn't need to be paid.