Feedback on suggestions

[Angelus_dead]

Thing to remember is that we have a lot of balls to juggle, and we are usually working 2 or more updates ahead of what's released on live.

That's the reason why communicating on the web is valuable; to get around the slowness of software releases to show us that you're doing something.

Because such a post becomes a "promise" and then it becomes a subject of complaints for months to come: "but you proooomised! where's my x and y?"

That can be avoided by inserting qualifiers into the text, such as the obvious "no promises". Say ideas are "interesting" or "have possibilitiy" instead of being "good" or "have value". It can also help to type up a single longer disclaimer and then link it from posts, or even from a signature.

Once that is done, any customers who express unwarranted expectations will have the reality explained to them by other users who point out that disclaimer and show what it means.

In addition, a suggestion can warrant a reply even if you think the idea is no good for DDO at all! That way the player knows that reposting it in similar forms won't be helpful (and he gets the satisfaction of seeing a developer take him seriously). When doing that, it helps to soften it by saying the idea "would have trouble working with our mechanics/budget/theme", instead of saying that it's bad overall. (For example, here we see a developer saying no to a player suggestion. That can be better than saying nothing)

And if I may make a suggestion - try to sound constructive. If X is not fun, tell us how you think it should have worked.

It is notable that aside from Lamannia forums (which are only sporadically activated), the DDO forums includes no "feedback" section. Where should a player go if he wants to complain that Weapons Shipment is a boring quest or Dreaming Dark lacks loot rewards? To make it fit in Suggestions he'd need to come up with a way to fix it, which is a higher bar than just pointing out the problem.

Hijacking threads or starting multiple topics to spam the same idea over and over is not how to get a dev's attention, trust me.

Look at it from the player's perspective:
According to MadFloyd above, developers are not able to read every thread. Unless there is a developer reply (which hardly ever happens), players have no way to tell if a developer has looked at the thread or not.

Given that the player believes the idea is a good one, what other option does he have than to repeat the suggestion from time to time?

For example: the Bluff skill. A very weak skill, which players do not believe performs the game role it should have. Bluff wasn't even buffed back when the other active-combat uses of charisma skills (Intimidate and Diplomacy) were. How can a player guess if the nonresponse to suggestions regarding Bluff is because
1. The developers haven't happened to see it
2. The developers already have a change coming in a future update
3. The developers don't want it changed

While I'm at it, topic titles like 'Attention devs' and 'Turbine please fix' don't work. There's too many and they don't tell us what's inside. Put your issue in the title, and the chances of the topic being read by the dev team go from 0% to "most likely".

Although I'm a big supporter of thread titles which indicate the thread topics, I must point out that historically on this forum, threads which call out a developer by name have a higher chance of getting a reply.

[Coldin]

I, for one, never forget my suggestions.

I'm still waiting on...

Shrieking Defenders
Player created Traps
Rogue UMD enhancements
Manyshot changes
Bow RoF changes
Human Weapon enhancements
ect.

Soo...just a few months more on those?

Edit:

Although I'm a big supporter of thread titles which indicate the thread topics, I must point out that historically on this forum, threads which call out a developer by name have a higher chance of getting a reply.

Just wanted to chime in, that I do think that is mostly true. I usually see more negative toned threads getting responded to than the dozens of positive or neutral threads. I do think there is a hesitation among devs to respond to player ideas. Perhaps the super secret forums see a better dev to player communication, I'm unsure about that. But from the forums I do see, I usually do not see much dev interaction unless it's something new on Lamannia.

[Bogenbroom]

Thanks for the response Flimsy.

May I suggest that whiny nasty threads be locked with a special little lock that identifies them as "whiny little b****-fests content of which is ignored".

Those things annoy the snot out of me!

[Schmoe]

This has been an interesting discussion so far. I think the fact that we've had response from several Turbine staff is overwhelming proof that they read these forums regularly and take them seriously - so thanks for that. And, as a software developer myself, I completely understand the reluctance to be held to unrealistic expectations, and how easily those expectations can be set at an unrealistic level

However, I also agree with sephiroth and Angelus_Dead. While this thread is good for people that have read it, and for the next month or so, what about 6 months from now? What about for all the players that never see this thread? For the long term, some indication a suggestion has been read would go a long way toward making us (the players) feel that our time here on the Suggestions board is not wasted. I'm sure that there is a way to do so that would be non-committal yet at the same time let people know that their thoughts have been heard. I feel pretty strongly that doing so would really help to build goodwill and a sense of community between the players and Turbine.

[Angelus_dead]

Dungeon Runners is a bad example, last I heard they weren't doing so well

For an alternative example, one could look at World of Warcraft, a game that is doing pretty well financially. (Of course, to some extent their massive profitability makes them a worse model, as that income means the luxury of paying more forum staff to sort through things).

But but still, look at these numbers: In the past 5 days I see 19 developer posts on the WOW forum replying to substantive gameplay topics, in addition to some that aren't replies and a lot of assorted chitchat. They include such things as explaining the motivation for systems and even enumerating failures in current designs.

What do we have on the DDO forums in a 15 day time period?

1 Minutes ago, you pop into a suggestion thread to say that it's already been decided against. Good of you to let the players know that (perhaps you did it because of this thread). There isn't an explanation as to why the suggestion won't be used, although it was talked about long ago when hirelings were new.
2 Eladrin mentions some game mechanics that are somewhat relevant to the suggestion (although only insofar as they're an option that's not enough to work in that situation). No mention as to developer intentions or their satisfaction with the situation. But again, it's better than nothing and shows that the thread was (partially?) read.
3 This thread. Not actually game-related, as it's just about forums and developer behavior.
4 Acknowledging a bug and mentioning fix.
5 Acknowledging a bug and mentioning fix.
6 Inquiry as to bug.

Those posts aren't bad, but they don't do much to satisfy players that their time spent typing ideas and feedback isn't being wasted. That is, they show that a developer has seen the thread, but they don't discuss it in any meaningful way. The one about hirelings doesn't say why the developers think its better to keep them out of raids. The one about sneaking doesn't say why the developers had ranged attacks break sneak or if it was intentional to have a stationary lever-guard in Iron Maw.

For comparison, this WOW thread contains nine developer posts. The developer disagrees with a player ("where you go astray") three times, and agrees with others three times ("That's a good way to sum it up"). There is specific and general information provided. In short, the replies have characteristics of a conversation.

PS. It is notable that WOW devs have the ability to delete player posts that they feel are messing up the thread they'd like to reply to... the player accounts aren't heavily penalized for that. They're just pushed from that one thread.

[Borror0]

And if I may make a suggestion - try to sound constructive. If X is not fun, tell us how you think it should have worked. Hijacking threads or starting multiple topics to spam the same idea over and over is not how to get a dev's attention, trust me. Nobody likes spam.

Each time I had a conversation with a Turbine employees in PMs, they seemed to remember only the most repeated suggestions and comments but never thorough and more polite posts that tried to make sense of all the chaos - even when those were QFT'd several times in the thread. Often, I had to reexplain something that I had seen been explained several times on the forums before.

If you want to challenge that perception, it would be a good idea to single out particularly good posts while you're reading the forums to make the players feel like being constructive and thorough is actually worthwhile.

Hijacking threads or starting multiple topics to spam the same idea over and over is not how to get a dev's attention, trust me. Nobody likes spam.

It has been over three years that S&B and ranged combat have been ridiculously overpowered. By that I mean that the playerbase reached what is closest to a consensus as possible that those two fighting styles are drastically weaker than TWF, THF and many forms of spellcasting. Yet, nothing resembling a fix has been done yet. A few tiny tweaks left and right, yews, but nothing of the magnitude required to resemble an attempt to restore balance.

If you guys got around to fixing stuff pretty fast, there would be a lesser interest in repeating ourselves. However, when what is seen by all as a major balance issue goes unaddressed for literally years why would we stop repeating suggestions? All it would achieve is leave you with the false impression that we don't care.

Although I'm a big supporter of thread titles which indicate the thread topics, I must point out that historically on this forum, threads which call out a developer by name have a higher chance of getting a reply.

Just wanted to chime in, that I do think that is mostly true. I usually see more negative toned threads getting responded to than the dozens of positive or neutral threads.

Exactly. When there is a response to a player issue, more often the developers seem to pick the larger thread by default. Often, this means the thread with a bad OP and a huge flame war going on rather than the smaller thread that makes good points with a more healthy discussion going on. Perhaps it's intentional from the devs to avoid derailing a good discussion but it sends the message that, the bigger the thread and the angrier you sound, the more likely you are to get a response from Turbine.

Dungeon Runners is a bad example, last I heard they weren't doing so well

If by "[aren't] doing so well" you mean "offline since January first 2010" then, yes, they "[aren't] doing so well." It's apparently another case of NCsoft's HQ having poor communication and unwillingness to help one of its American studios. Like we have never seen that before.

[SableShadow]

The suggestion itself might not be hard to implement, but a dev's schedule is filled up for a couple months ahead, if not more.

Agreed, people tend to forget that inspiration is only 1%...

So yeah. We read, but we rarely post, because we take our own words with responsibility.

I agree, for all the various points mentioned. Hence, the +1.

Doesn't mean that you should stop posting them.

My comments on "waste of time" have nothing to do with devs posting in threads, and a whole lot to do with changes that have actually made it into the game.

[Borror0]

My comments on "waste of time" have nothing to do with devs posting in threads, and a whole lot to do with changes that have actually made it into the game.

You should elaborate on that.

[SableShadow]

You should elaborate on that.

Why, did you miss the "feeling like a complete waste of time" comment?

[Borror0]

Why, did you miss the "feeling like a complete waste of time" comment?

Did you forget the part where you said it had to do with recent changes and not the forums themselves?

[SableShadow]

Did you forget the part where you said it had to do with recent changes and not the forums themselves?

Nag, nag, nag... :P

A couple come to mind:

Epic Trap DCs. We debated these on Llama, and I personally found it *awesome* that they took lock, stock, and barrel the recommendations of someone who stopped playing the class years ago over someone who plays it every gd mf'ing day....

Assassin ToD Set. We pointed out the Enervate was proc'ing on Reds/Purples on Llama, and the damage/to hit weren't stacking. Got a whitewash, and now sometime later, a "fix" to the Enervate, but not the stacking. Win!

Bluff. Do I need to say more?

Mechanic PrE. Pages and pages of how to make this PrE useful w/o pumping trap DCs...so we get.../drumroll....trap DCs.

Assassin PrE. Useful when introduced, kinda fun...but fairly pointless even when introduced, as banishers/vorpals became cheap at roughly the same time. And are only cheaper now.

Cheap Death. C'mon! Really? A usually-but-not-always self-rez is supposed to encourage people to stay pure rogue?

Defensive Roll. As I've said before, over and over again, even making it the equivalent to a non-dispellable Stalwart Pact would make it useful.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've a rant to work on elsewhere.

[Chelsa]

Gotta give you guys credit for consistency.

Dev+post=players writing dissertations on said post.

[sephiroth1084]

Gotta give you guys credit for consistency.

Dev=post=players writing dissertations on said post.

And yet I have 3 overdue papers for classes.

[Auran82]

One item I remember fairly clearly from the producers from when things were changing to ftp.

"We are going to see how popular Drow and Warforged are in the DDO store and that will affect our planning for Half orcs". (paraphrased I dont have the exact quote)

That one statement was very depressing about how the game is being planned...by what will sell in the store rather than a) what was promised, or b) what should be in the game already. (A basic race, and essential to Eberron lore, the Half orc also Druids)

The implication that if Drow do not sell, then Half-orcs would NOT be added as a result is a really poor statement of the game and how it is being planned out.

Colour me crazy, but could this kind of thinking be why we have not seen a new raid since September (and before, that, the september or so before)?

They release 'MOD 9' along with the Amrath pack, pack doesnt sell so well because the raid isn't really pugged that often (and the quests are actually challenging, heaven forbid) and with the boot change, I would guess it would be run even less.

Someone up high points at sales of that content pack compared with Inspired quarter/dreaming dark so the decision is to make more short quests with low xp (due to length) with some kind of named items and pretend raids dont exist? As far as I am aware, the next update has a low/mid level chain involving pirates (from what accidently ended up on Lama)

State of the game address anyone? Hello?

[sephiroth1084]

Colour me crazy, but could this kind of thinking be why we have not seen a new raid since September (and before, that, the september or so before)?

They release 'MOD 9' along with the Amrath pack, pack doesnt sell so well because the raid isn't really pugged that often (and the quests are actually challenging, heaven forbid) and with the boot change, I would guess it would be run even less.

Someone up high points at sales of that content pack compared with Inspired quarter/dreaming dark so the decision is to make more short quests with low xp (due to length) with some kind of named items and pretend raids dont exist? As far as I am aware, the next update has a low/mid level chain involving pirates (from what accidently ended up on Lama)

State of the game address anyone? Hello?

If their game decisions were motivated by sales, wouldn't it have made sense for the devs to make getting into, and completing, ToD easier, not harder?

Although, the design of the last couple of content sets seems to support a trend away from difficult, complex (interesting) content, disappointingly. Well, in terms of new quests anyway; epics are clearly aimed at players looking for a challenge...well, the desert ones anyway.

[Auran82]

If their game decisions were motivated by sales, wouldn't it have made sense for the devs to make getting into, and completing, ToD easier, not harder?

In some ways it would make sense.

However, since EU we have had:
Release:
ToD Raid and associated quests, pretty much the last real challenging pack we have seen, though this would most likely have been finished for 6 - 9 months or more, and would probably have been designed under the pre-EU model.

Update 1:
Path of inspiration, set of easy, quick quests worth a low amount of xp, last quest has a number of relatively interesting items, with a grind mechanic required to access the final chest, items promise 'suppressed power'

Epic DQ2, first attempt at epic, interesting idea regarding the upgrading of items, but (IMO) there are simply too many items and too many of them are just not even worth bothering with, highly dislike the scroll mechanic introduced (first to grab it gets it, no actual notification that the person actually picked up the item, would have been a great chance to implement a need/greed roll box like many other MMOs have) Epic quests are quite difficult and challenge the top level players, it is still dissapointing to slog your way through an OOB and get no shards at all in the end chest though.

Update 2:
Dreaming dark, continuation of the path of inspiration and once again a handful of really short easy quests, suppressed powers released and are (IMO) mostly not worthwhile. (100,000 non wf battle wizards cried in pain when the titan gloves were upgraded)

Update 3:
Handful of free high level quests, which were once again quite short, from what I heard the DQ one was quite hard on elite initially, but was toned down hugely.

Epic Vons, compared to the epic desert quests, these are not even in the same league, I guess people found the desert ones too hard so we got these? Epic items were many many times better than the desert ones, though a smaller sample would have helped.

Its looking more and more to me like they are trying to shy away from 'hard' quests and make things easier all around which is just odd to me, especially if they want to sell more store items.

[sephiroth1084]

Stuff like this:

Like I said in my last post, it's been a pretty prominent thread. It's very possible the devs could be reading it, but not commenting for one reason or another. Which is kind of frustrating.

(from this thread) is why we get so frustrated with the devs. We have a 29 page thread discussing a game mechanic, with little consensus, which a dev could probably clear up quickly, but which has had no official comment, even to say, "We need to examine this, because it is supposed to function in X manner."

It's just incredibly frustrating.