Should We Have A Monthly Poll?

[PR0JAX]

There's been a lot of talk lately about the current state of the game, content, what that word means to certain people, and what should be prioritized for future updates.  It has been a fascinating rollercoaster to watch (and I've been guilty of going along for a ride).  I think most of us have legitimate points to make, but are more or less talking past each other.

So, do you guys think a monthly poll or something would help by giving DE more info on feature requests/concerns?

 

For example:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) What features do you want to see most in Warframe next?

• Open World
• Revisit Game modes
• Bugfixes
• Other
• Etc.

2) Do you prefer smaller + more frequent updates?  Or larger and less frequent ones?

I Want It Now  /  A Mix Of Both  /  I Can Wait

3) What kind of player do you consider yourself?

New / Experienced / Veteran

4) Is there anything about Warframe's current direction that concerns you?

...

5) On a scale of 1-10, how are we doing so far?

Meh  1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10  Perfect

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

This could be displayed publicly (or privately) so that DE may have a better idea of what the community really wants.  It can be related to feature requests, anticipated updates, or any other subject currently on our minds, and offer a baseline so DE has data on whether or not they are on the right track, all in an easy to find place rather than scattered across multiple threads.

I'm curious what you guys think.

Edited October 8, 2018 by PR0JAX
Added #5

[trst]

The community does not know what it wants.

 

But what's most important is DE maintaining their bottom line. Warframe needs constant updates to maintain player counts.

[Tsukinoki]

11 minutes ago, PR0JAX said:

so that DE may have a better idea of what the community really wants

Or at least a really small subset of the community wants.

After all the largest part of the community simply won't bother to come onto the forums and use the polls or make threads, and yet you can hear their commentary inside the game where some are decently vocal in the chats.

Just having a poll on the forums wouldn't really do much to tell DE anything...other than the forum community really doesn't know what it wants.

Putting a poll on the forums just causes the "focus group" problem.  For example if you ask a focus group what type of coffee people want you get all sorts of "Rich, dark, full bodied" and similar, and yet when you watch the average customers buying habits they buy the lighter, smoother, and sugar filled coffees a lot more.
You would see a similar thing with updates, or with anything relating balancing problems, or features.

Further DE has data directly from player counts that addresses your second question and they have talked about it before:
People in general want small and frequent updates.  After all its the updates that keep players coming back because "Oh hey, something new is here."
The player numbers show that quite clearly where you can see when updates drop because of the spike of user activity that dwindles away until another update hits which has another spike of player activity.  Meanwhile players when asked directly want larger well tested updates instead of smaller ones...even though player numbers show the opposite is true when it comes to keeping people playing the game.
So if DE put a poll out and the majority of the forum sided with "We can wait..." that would only lead DE down a path of lower player retention in the long run...which isn't good for anyone.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Tsukinoki

[SneakyErvin]

No a monthly poll isnt needed or useful. Many games have had bad outcomes due to public polls. DE should look at the metrics and see what needs to be done.

Players tend to be too dense when it comes to game design. Many think that everyone at a company can do everything, so come up with stupid ideas like stopping map design to fix weapons, or release less skins to make more content etc. It is there in every single game, players with no real clue how a company works and which person does what.

This was a constant nag when I played Marvel Heroes. Idiots popping in bashing the game and saying "Stop making costums so we can get new things for X content", or "stop making heroes and bring us new game modes". Never mind that there were 5 seperate teams or something doing those things, all with seperate skill sets. I mean, people should really just take a quick look at job postings for any game development company and see what they are actually looking for. Maybe, just maybe then they'll understand that the character artist simply cannot go and make up skills for a new playable character, balance weapons or make a massive map.

edit: I think the worst I've seen was still on the WF forums. Someone with the bright idea of stopping Tennogen stuff so we could get more playable content. Major /picardfacepalm when I read that.

Edited October 8, 2018 by SneakyErvin

[PR0JAX]

1 minute ago, Tsukinoki said:

Or at least a really small subset of the community wants.

After all the largest part of the community simply won't bother to come onto the forums and use the polls or make threads, and yet you can hear their commentary inside the game where some are decently vocal in the chats.

As a former statistics enthusiast, I know exactly what you mean.  I don't anticipate it will ever be perfect (after all getting a decent n value and avoiding non-report bias is next to impossible), and the most vocal amongst us are the ones on the forums to begin with, but is it still better than a bunch of threads with hundreds of replies to sift through?  From DE's perspective, maybe...?

[(PSN)Pizza_Parker]

12 minutes ago, trst said:

The community does not know what it wants.

neither does DE.

at least with a poll they would have an excuse, people wouldnt blame them since it wouldnt be their fault that something got more upvotes

[kaldewej]

 

vor 14 Minuten schrieb trst:

The community does not know what it wants.

 

But what's most important is DE maintaining their bottom line. Warframe needs constant updates to maintain player counts.

Yep, dont leave those decisions to the forum community. Only bad decisions will be made from people who dont think and just demand stuff.

Also not all Players visit the Forum that frequently.

Edited October 8, 2018 by kaldewej

[Lazarow]

I just say DE do what DE does. The unexpected things they give sometimes is nice

[trst]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Pizza_Parker said:

neither does DE.

at least with a poll they would have an excuse, people wouldnt blame them since it wouldnt be their fault that something got more upvotes

DE knows more than we do. They have usage stats and the full player counts.

And deflecting blame for a bad update on the community because "they voted for it" doesn't work since DE would be the ones allowing the poll to exists and for it to sway their decisions.

[(XBOX)Skippy575]

18 minutes ago, trst said:

The community does not know what it wants.

 

But what's most important is DE maintaining their bottom line. Warframe needs constant updates to maintain player counts.

Amen to that ^^^

[(PSN)reddragonhrcro]

8 minutes ago, trst said:

The community does not know what it wants.

 

But what's most important is DE maintaining their bottom line. Warframe needs constant updates to maintain player counts.

True.

Maybe DE should try to do what they did around Tennocon with the Sacrifice release. They had multiple teams working on different projects. One on The Sacrifice, one on Fortuna and one on Railjack.

Now with them mainly focusing on Fortuna and also Railjack they should probably consider of dedicating a team that would be responsible for smaller updates to release new content. Gear, weapons, warframes and quests.

But stuff would need to be something that will keep us interested. Like for example the last 2 frames that released didn't have a proper quest tied to them. Khora was teased with a lore entry that was leading us on to a potentially interesting quest only to be released as onslaught rewards and Revenant had a mini quest that was fairly short.

And we still don't have syndicate quests for Steel Meridian and Arbiters of Hexis.

[Oreades]

 

24 minutes ago, PR0JAX said:

So, do you guys think a monthly poll or something would help by giving DE more info on feature requests/concerns?

Not really no, consider the fact that the bulk of the games player base never visits the forums at all. Unless they pushed it into the game itself their poll data would be incredibly limited and incredibly skewed. 

[Tsukinoki]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Pizza_Parker said:

neither does DE.

at least with a poll they would have an excuse, people wouldnt blame them since it wouldnt be their fault that something got more upvotes

And what would happen when things go sideways and people are angry?
Instead of going "Why did DE decide to do this?!?" it would become "Why did DE listen to the people in the poll!?!" and if DE didn't listen "Why didn't DE listen to the people in the poll?!?"

Basically it would be opening up a whole new can of worms that would get people angry at DE, either for listening too much or not listening enough, and once that can of worms is open good luck closing it again...

It wouldn't be a good excuse and would only lead to more drama.

[Oreades]

23 minutes ago, trst said:

The community does not know what it wants.

It's almost like the community consists of a bunch of individuals with their own wants/desires instead of being a singular entity.

[PR0JAX]

11 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

And what would happen when things go sideways and people are angry?
Instead of going "Why did DE decide to do this?!?" it would become "Why did DE listen to the people in the poll!?!" and if DE didn't listen "Why didn't DE listen to the people in the poll?!?"

Basically it would be opening up a whole new can of worms that would get people angry at DE, either for listening too much or not listening enough, and once that can of worms is open good luck closing it again...

It wouldn't be a good excuse and would only lead to more drama.

In anticipation of this, I suggested making the poll private as an option.  If we are concerned about how the community views it or affects it, maybe don't make the results public?

Edited October 8, 2018 by PR0JAX

[stormy505]

18 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

Or at least a really small subset of the community wants.

After all the largest part of the community simply won't bother to come onto the forums and use the polls or make threads, and yet you can hear their commentary inside the game where some are decently vocal in the chats.

Just having a poll on the forums wouldn't really do much to tell DE anything...other than the forum community really doesn't know what it wants.

Putting a poll on the forums just causes the "focus group" problem.  For example if you ask a focus group what type of coffee people want you get all sorts of "Rich, dark, full bodied" and similar, and yet when you watch the average customers buying habits they buy the lighter, smoother, and sugar filled coffees a lot more.
You would see a similar thing with updates, or with anything relating balancing problems, or features.

Further DE has data directly from player counts that addresses your second question and they have talked about it before:
People in general want small and frequent updates.  After all its the updates that keep players coming back because "Oh hey, something new is here."
The player numbers show that quite clearly where you can see when updates drop because of the spike of user activity that dwindles away until another update hits which has another spike of player activity.  Meanwhile players when asked directly want larger well tested updates instead of smaller ones...even though player numbers show the opposite is true when it comes to keeping people playing the game.
So if DE put a poll out and the majority of the forum sided with "We can wait..." that would only lead DE down a path of lower player retention in the long run...which isn't good for anyone.

Larger updates tend to bring in more players then smaller updates and newer players spend more on the game then vets as a whole. When you ask someone  new why did they join Warframe the answer I get is "I heard they added open world" not " I heard they added this small event that will last me 30 minutes to an hour at best"

[Tsukinoki]

10 minutes ago, stormy505 said:

Larger updates tend to bring in more players then smaller updates and newer players spend more on the game then vets as a whole. When you ask someone  new why did they join Warframe the answer I get is "I heard they added open world" not " I heard they added this small event that will last me 30 minutes to an hour at best"

And what is DE supposed to do in the long content droughts when no one is playing because nothing new is happening?
They need some players to spend money to keep the game going...and small updates cause a spike in players and a spike in people paying for things.

Sure a large update with a massive event pulls in new players...but guess what keeps those players playing in the longer term?  The smaller updates that add something to the game.

And in a F2P game like warframe frequent recurring players that pay into the game are as important as new players.

Sure a large update pulls in players..but something needs to be there to keep those players.
And time has shown over and over and over again that the small updates do keep those players playing.

WF couldn't survive off of large updates alone.
It needs those small updates to keep people coming back once they've done a large majority of whats there.
Player numbers have shown time and time again that the smaller more frequent updates keeps an overall higher player count than the sparse and larger updates.
And when it comes to paying the bills the smaller updates do a better job in the long term compared to the sparser and larger updates.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Tsukinoki

[(PSN)Pizza_Parker]

1 minute ago, trst said:

DE knows more than we do. They have usage stats and the full player counts.

knowing more doesnt mean that they fully know tho, right now they are in a situation were they keep throwing random content all around without fixing what we already have, and i dont think this will end anytime soon.

they would make the poll, hence they could decide what options to put there, at least to know what they should focus on. (so they wouldnt put things like fashion and updates at the same poll)

7 minutes ago, trst said:

And deflecting blame for a bad update on the community because "they voted for it" doesn't work since DE would be the ones allowing the poll to exists and for it to sway their decisions.

 

11 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

And what would happen when things go sideways and people are angry?
Instead of going "Why did DE decide to do this?!?" it would become "Why did DE listen to the people in the poll!?!" and if DE didn't listen "Why didn't DE listen to the people in the poll?!?"

Basically it would be opening up a whole new can of worms that would get people angry at DE, either for listening too much or not listening enough, and once that can of worms is open good luck closing it again...

It wouldn't be a good excuse and would only lead to more drama.

when you vote for something in real life you dont blame the people that made the poll, you blame those who voted for one of the options, we just need to get used to the polls after not having them for so long (it could start small, like what syndana looks cooler, and it would grow from there, asking people who they should rework first). 

this whole can of worms thing is an over exaggeration, specially if they know how to start things off.

[stormy505]

21 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

And what is DE supposed to do in the long content droughts when no one is playing because nothing new is happening?
They need some players to spend money to keep the game going...and small updates cause a spike in players and a spike in people paying for things.

Sure a large update with a massive event pulls in new players...but guess what keeps those players playing in the longer term?  The smaller updates that add something to the game.

And in a F2P game like warframe frequent recurring players that pay into the game are as important as new players.

Sure a large update pulls in players..but something needs to be there to keep those players.
And time has shown over and over and over again that the small updates do keep those players playing.

WF couldn't survive off of large updates alone.
It needs those small updates to keep people coming back once they've done a large majority of whats there.
Player numbers have shown time and time again that the smaller more frequent updates keeps an overall higher player count than the sparse and larger updates.
And when it comes to paying the bills the smaller updates do a better job in the long term compared to the sparser and larger updates.

The thing that keeps the new players here is litterly the 100's of hours of content there is in the game. There not vets they haven't done everything or actually anything yet. Large updates pulls players in and the current content in the game keeps them playing. 

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_IGN]

I think DE actually involving the community does nothing but make the game stronger.   I dont understand why they dont do polls or toss out their crazy future content ideas regulary.

Every developer just largely ignores their playerbase,  does whatever the hell they wanna do and only tweak anything if their is a huge outcry after the fact.  

Look at how busted are UI still is after all this time.  Now we are finally getting infinite K-drive/archwing?  Why not in the previous months/years??   They have people working on Fortuna and they have people working on BEYOND(railjack/new war etc).  One half of the team should be dedicated to the immediate future, and the other half should be dedicated to bugs/QOL/balance.

But atleast asking us questions or for feedback BEFORE they do stuff would save a ton of time and effort.

Like the Vent kids sound cool as hell but it would have been so much cooler if there wasnt just one group,  if there were 2-3 different k-drive clans/factions that would be dope. 

[Hypernaut1]

35 minutes ago, (PS4)AbBaNdOn_IGN said:

I think DE actually involving the community does nothing but make the game stronger.   I dont understand why they dont do polls or toss out their crazy future content ideas regulary.

Every developer just largely ignores their playerbase,  does whatever the hell they wanna do and only tweak anything if their is a huge outcry after the fact.  

Look at how busted are UI still is after all this time.  Now we are finally getting infinite K-drive/archwing?  Why not in the previous months/years??   They have people working on Fortuna and they have people working on BEYOND(railjack/new war etc).  One half of the team should be dedicated to the immediate future, and the other half should be dedicated to bugs/QOL/balance.

But atleast asking us questions or for feedback BEFORE they do stuff would save a ton of time and effort.

Like the Vent kids sound cool as hell but it would have been so much cooler if there wasnt just one group,  if there were 2-3 different k-drive clans/factions that would be dope. 

This is an example of why community input wouldn't help. Community has no idea of work flow and will just want more and better of everything. 

Edited October 8, 2018 by Hypernaut1

[trst]

38 minutes ago, (PS4)Pizza_Parker said:

knowing more doesnt mean that they fully know tho, right now they are in a situation were they keep throwing random content all around without fixing what we already have, and i dont think this will end anytime soon.

they would make the poll, hence they could decide what options to put there, at least to know what they should focus on. (so they wouldnt put things like fashion and updates at the same poll)

 

when you vote for something in real life you dont blame the people that made the poll, you blame those who voted for one of the options, we just need to get used to the polls after not having them for so long (it could start small, like what syndana looks cooler, and it would grow from there, asking people who they should rework first). 

this whole can of worms thing is an over exaggeration, specially if they know how to start things off.

They still "fully know" more than the community does. And they add more content than they fix because the game needs to maintain player counts in order to maintain their income.

Fixes don't bring in newer players and it doesn't bring more new and returning players than new content does. Plus they've been working on Fortuna for a long time now which is a lot of content. As soon as Fortuna drops we're going to have a very extended period of just fixes.

 

Also this community gets very irrational over changes and proposed changes. That on top of the groups that follow every word from content creators (who rile people up over things because it gets views) would make the polls extremely inaccurate anyways.

[Firetempest]

14 minutes ago, (PS4)AbBaNdOn_IGN said:

  Look at how busted are UI still is after all this time.  Now we are finally getting infinite K-drive/archwing?  Why not in the previous months/years??   

It sure isn't like they had to take time programing instant transversal on open roams and mitigating potential problems. Oh wait. That's a new mechanic that hasn't been used before because sharkwing used specific entry points between air and water and beacons still required a stationary transition point and Railjack transitions teleport the player. But hey, it overlaps what k-drive is going to do... oh wait they where in the middle of programing that. Wonder how many will still get stuck in objects as they transition into archwing. It's one thing to program for a very specific scenario. And another where tens of thousands will be activating it in tens of thousands of directions all over the place.

It's not black and white, click permissions to "yes" for anywhere and be done with it. Majority of players have little idea what goes on in the background. I'm sure they know exactly what DEs priorities should be.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_IGN]

49 minutes ago, Firetempest said:

It sure isn't like they had to take time programing instant transversal on open roams and mitigating potential problems. Oh wait. That's a new mechanic that hasn't been used before because sharkwing used specific entry points between air and water and beacons still required a stationary transition point and Railjack transitions teleport the player. But hey, it overlaps what k-drive is going to do... oh wait they where in the middle of programing that. Wonder how many will still get stuck in objects as they transition into archwing. It's one thing to program for a very specific scenario. And another where tens of thousands will be activating it in tens of thousands of directions all over the place.

It's not black and white, click permissions to "yes" for anywhere and be done with it. Majority of players have little idea what goes on in the background. I'm sure they know exactly what DEs priorities should be.

Are you on crack?  All they had to do was change AW Launcher from a number to infinite.  In fact it would be alot cleaner code since you dont have to check inventories and subtract from inventories when you use one.  

Now it looks like they went one step further and I am absolutely stoked for it.  Activating either from your gear wheel just auto-equips.  Sure that took alot of brain power and time coding but that isnt something we needed way back at the start of poe.  Just having infinite uses would have been good enough.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_IGN]

1 hour ago, trst said:

 

Fixes don't bring in newer players and it doesn't bring more new and returning players than new content does. Plus they've been working on Fortuna for a long time now which is a lot of content. As soon as Fortuna drops we're going to have a very extended period of just fixes.

I disagree.  Fixes keep players from leaving and if you have a really well run game with a large population that IS a draw for new players.  

As far as a ton of fixes after Fortuna.  Sure glaring issues will be hammered out.  BUt if your talking about polish and QOL look at every single thing they have ever released in the past year to see how long they stick around and polish things lol.  They already have atleast 2 more big projects to move on to.  Your nuts if you think we are magicly getting polish after Fortuna lol.