#player feedback

You're correct... kind of. It boils down to the developers wanting to give the players what they will play with. Our goal isn't to give players what they say they want, but what they will actually play with. These two things are often not the same. If you want to persuade the developers to make more of a thing, you need to show them that more players will play with that thing. If you want to do that, let's consider what would make them think that lots of players are playing with a particular thing.

If you were a dev, you would want to see a lot of players playing with that thing. If you want a specific kind of character, you would need to show a lot of different accounts (players) all creating that kind of character. A single account (and/or IP address) creating lots of that character isn't the same as many individual accounts each creating that kind of character. But it can't just be character creation either - to persuade the developer that players want to play with that kind of character, you would need to have all of those accounts actually play that character after creation. The further into the game each character and account get, the more persuasive it is. We track all that through our [telemetry] - every choice you make, every quest you take, we'll be watching you.

Also, worth remembering - player engagement is only one factor in the decision-making process. License, design pillars, project scope, technology limitations, all kinds of other constraints go into the decision-making process. Even if you do everything in your power and do it all right, it still may not make a difference in the end. That said, trying still has a better chance of a good result than not trying at all. If this kind of thing is important to you, then do what you can.

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https://www.fogaminghub.com/post/discover-the-new-eso-companions-tanlorin-and-zerith-var-in-update-44

🚀 New ESO Companions are coming with Update 44! Meet Tanlorin, the High Elf with Dragonknight and Soul Magic abilities, and Zerith-var, the Khajiit Necromancer emerging from a mysterious past. Their quests and unique perks will surely make your adventures unforgettable! 💥

I have to first state that I don’t play enough Maeve to say that I’ll immediately feel the difference in the dagger drop, but I can absolutely see where making the drop and subsequently the arc of the throws will mess up her gameplay.

I will however openly say that them making Retribution now work through Maeve’s ult is absolute horsecrap.  I don’t care if it was a bug or not, it was the one and only thing in the game that provided any kind of counterplay to that absolutely overpowered garbage ability.  This means a passive ability that requires zero input, requires zero skill to use, has no risk, and yields nothing but rewards can now freely run slip-shod over four separate characters.  And I’ll say it again for good measure:

Retribution revealing stealth completely is actually a bug and they have made no attempt to fix it since Lex was released.

I feel for Maevers right now, I really do.  This, them shackling Skye to the floor after already breaking her legs, breaking Evie’s staff in half, hell– even the Ash change.  The Ash change is completely asinine and runs counter-current to the intent of a close range brawler.

Why is a close-range flak cannon user now going to be dependent on accuracy and skillshots?

There’s maybe one or two things in the Balance section on this patch that even remotely make a lick of sense.  I am openly encouraging people to go the fourms and the patch notes thread and leave your feedback.  Get it in writing where you stand on these changes:

http://forums.paladins.com/showthread.php?45738-Open-Beta-53-Patch-Notes-June-28-2017

I’m in a difficult position in regards to the Essence issue, as well– as a Tier 3 Founder for the game I’ve never had an issue getting Essence or having enough Essence to outright buy all of the cards and legendaries for a new champion, but I absolutely empathize and understand how hard they’re making it to get Essence and gold now.  Their discussion on the stream was nothing but a closed loop with a noncommital answer and this is one of the biggest topics that they need to tackle with the community, like, five days ago.

Player feedback contradicts data all the time. Players love using hyperbole because it often either feels real to them or makes them think they're more persuasive. Players will happily lie to us in an attempt to get their agenda carried out. Thus, feedback should never be the only thing we consider when we decide to act. We do several things with our feedback - we consider it and we validate it against our other means of gathering information like our internal data, surveys, playtester feedback, and so on. Once we have a clearer picture of the actual situation, we have more context to decide what we will do.

One thing to note is that the process typically does not involve having a big discussion about our findings and our process with the players. Not all players read our posts - only around 20% will read patch notes. Instead, our best bet to reach players is to push the changes live (once they do so). Silence (or very controlled posting) is actually very normal for most live services because it takes time for changes to be effected.

Another important thing to remember is that developers and players have very different perspectives on the game. Players typically only see what is currently live and care more about their own experiences and less about the overall health of the game. Their complaints are about what's so awful about playing a Sentinel right now. They are not considering what playing a Sentinel will be like in six months after we introduce a new skill advancement system and the new Dreadnaught class. We can't reveal that kind of information to the complaining players ahead of time for obvious reasons, so it's just another reason things play out the way they do.

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Example that is given:

“Wow is gay” or “wow is feminine”

really translates to

“I’ve been your core audience for a long time and I enjoy your game [world of warcraft] and products but I feel the style and direction of the game does not try to make content that interests me and is almost a rug pull for the core fan base.”

Is that true?

This is partially true. Player feedback is totally right about the things they like or dislike, but is almost always wrong about how to fix any problems that they have identified or why those problems exist. If a given dev is dealing directly with public feedback, then the answer is absolutely yes - we must parse the feedback to isolate what the actual problem is, decide whether the problem needs addressing and, if so, come up with a reasonable solution for that problem. Devs that directly engage with the public are representatives of the company and the franchise, which means they are held to a higher standard than a typical shitposter on social media.

However, not all devs deal directly with the public. There are thousands of game devs that don't talk to the public about their work or collect feedback directly - I'm one of them! In fact, the few public-facing devs at AAA studios must undergo fairly extensive community management training because of the amount of ragebait they must deal with as a public-facing representative of the franchise.

Most sufficiently-large games have at least one community manager (or up to a whole team) whose job it is to collect player feedback (even the ragebait) and translate it into actionable information for the devs. Essentially, the community management team tanks all the crap for the devs so we can concentrate on working on the game. They get the recognition among the community for being the player community "face" of the franchise, but their work is often thankless and difficult in the rough times.

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Unfortunately, there really isn't much you can do realistically if your favorite isn't as popular as the others - all you can really do is maximize your engagement and hope that it's enough. Let's go over the levels of engagement you can do if you want to show the developers that you want more stuff for this character. Engaging with these will absolutely not guarantee anything, but will help optimize and increase your chances of seeing more content for your favorite.

At the very base level, you need to play the game and use that character a lot. All live services keep metrics of play, so we want to see which characters are used and how often. You'll get bonus points if your favorite character isn't top tier in comparison, it shows more interest.

Beyond the base engagement layer, if possible you should be spending on that character - on new content especially. If you have the budget, buy skins, emotes, stickers, whatever. Remember the old adages - "talk is cheap" and "put your money where your mouth is". If you want to convince the developers to make content for a character, you need to show that there will be people who will spend on it.

Engage with character content both in game and outside. Be a character evangelist and talk with others in the community about the character. Get into the details in public conversations, show the devs that you care and are interested. Try to persuade others to think about things. Get some healthy discussion going.

If you already spend on character content and engage both inside the game and outside through official and unofficial channels with character content, then that's already doing as much as you can really hope for. If you really want to maximize your chances, you can make your own fan-created content - fan art, fan fiction, cosplay, user-generated/mod game content, and so on. Cosplay especially goes over well - it requires significant dedication and craftsmanship and it shows well to help sell the game to outsiders too. It also has a higher level of virality than fan art or fan fiction - people are much more willing to share cool cosplay pics.

Finally... be willing to accept that doing all of this probably still won't move the needle very much. When we're building content for a game, there are generally a lot of other factors at work beyond popularity that determine what we choose to include. We need a good amount of content coverage because live service player bases tend to be a bunch of various partially-overlapping sub-communities. As we build content to release, we distribute what we can to each kind of sub-community to keep them fed. We do what we can with what resources we have, but the thirst for new content applies universally.

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I can't find the tweet nor recall the specifics, but it was about an not related developer talking about how the fanbase should be better in how to boycott or else it would damage the franchise long-term wise in ways nobody wins. Even if what the fanbase was angry about is valid.

The answer to your question entirely depends on what your goal actually is. A boycott isn't a goal by itself, it is a means to an end - usually the players are mad about something and the boycott (or whatever else - review bomb, harassment, doxxing, death threats, etc.) is an attempt at applying pressure to make the developer do something else (among other things like venting a bunch of hurt feelings).

If an angry player wants to vent hurt feelings, then the usual anonymous retaliation methods - review bombing, harassment, threats to quit, petitions, calls for boycott, etc. - are what they usually settle on. These forms of feedback have the lowest overall chances of actually enacting any change and they are the most adversarial of the options, but they are also the way that feels the strongest, like the fan is "fighting back".

If the angry player actually wants to provide feedback, they can do so in a reasonable manner on any officially monitored channel - usually reddit, twitter, official forums, etc. Being honest about what you dislike and why you dislike it is usually enough. If there's enough feedback from enough people, the devs will actually take it into consideration and do it. It's worth noting that this is also the method that takes a really long time to show results. Devs usually don't post responses immediately, and we're [usually working two patches in the future].

Often, the best thing a player can actually do is to find a different game to play. We live in a time where there are so many good games being released that finding a new and interesting game to play should not be difficult. There is often little more than mindset tying a player to a particular game or franchise. Emotional engagement with the players is good for us because it keeps players interested, but the players don't really get that much out of it. I don't think it's super healthy to make a game or franchise a significant part of my identity, so I think it's best to put a little emotional distance between myself and any given franchise. I can enjoy them when they're good, but I can go do something else when things take a turn for the worse. I think more people would do better to take a similar approach.

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Valve is pretty notorious for being an industry unicorn doing their own thing. They're a privately held company, meaning they have no shareholders to answer to besides their own founders. They make money hand over fist because they own a major distribution platform that maintains a plurality of customers on PC, meaning that angry player feedback has significantly less effect on their bottom line. Valve is also notorious for allowing their developers to work on whatever they want to work on. In aggregate, these factors combine into a company whose devs can basically do whatever they want, without needing to be beholden to any external pressures to do this or that.

Many gamers mythologize this kind of "perfect game development environment" where the devs aren't beholden to shareholders or publishers or politics or whatever else. Well, this can also be a double-edged sword monkey's paw kind of situation as well. Such an environment also makes the devs not beholden to the players of their games either. They can choose whether they want to listen or not, and the TF2 players can choose to take their business elsewhere. The unfortunate truth is that Steam will continue to pay Valve's bills for the foreseeable future, which gives them license to ignore the TF2 players for as long as they want. Unless the players can somehow persuade enough of Valve's developers (and the right developers too - a character artist certainly isn't going to write bot detection code) to drop whatever they've chosen to work on and switch over to fixing TF2, it's probably not going to happen unless something major changes.

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