Is this forums useful?

[Cephalycion]

Throughout my time in the forums, I have observed a very disturbing trend. With any post that asks for changes, there will always be a minority group of people who stand up to oppose the idea of change, regardless of how great or potentially good that idea sounds.

Of course as with all things on the internet, there will be people on both extreme ends of the spectrum, but I can see this starting to affect the usefulness of this forum and I want to bring the issue up for discussion.

I get that there are some really bad and dumb ideas that pop up here from time to time that the devs should definitely not listen to, but I have looked into the profiles of some forum users and they downright disagree with any and all ideas.

And it is this subsection of people, saying "we have to be satisfied with the devs" and basically opposing every proposed change, that worries me.

At the end of the day, the purpose of the forums is to provide ideas for change. And if we can't do that, we are nothing.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Cephalycion

[(NSW)Kromatia]

You are only half correct in what you think are the purpose of the forums. The forums are to propose ideas, yes, but they are also to discuss those ideas. You will never have every person agree with your idea, and if you think you will, you are disillusioned. The forums are also to provide feedback to the devs so that they can see what things look like in a broader spectrum than their tiny bubble. For instance, they know how things should work on paper and feel confident in how things work when they're shipped. The players have an idea of how we expect them to work based on the previews we see in Prime Time and on the Devstreams. Based on our feedback - be it a change or acceptance for how things feel good - the devs can move forward to making tweaks or not.

It's not that those who disagree with you are being toxic, it's that they simply do not share your point of view. It is 100% ok for people to disagree on things. That's how discussions and debates work. Each side is trying to convince the other that theirs is the appropriate side to take. Without this disagreement in view points, we would have nothing getting done that's worth doing. Warframe would be a very different game if everyone did what Steve said no questions asked. It takes a team to develop ideas based on what's good and what's not. Likewise, it takes a community to develop probable changes and a majority of people speaking out in favor of the change or not to give DE the information needed to make a good decision regarding the proposed change.

[Phatose]

I suspect the group of people against every change are illusory - a variety of people against a variety of ideas, mistaken for a single unit. 

I'd suggest providing ideas for change isn't the purpose of the forums, it's just part of what the forums are for. They exist to provide feedback on what is currently in the game.  Providing ideas is a subset of that - but a simple "I like this" or "I don't like this" is just as useful to DE.  Perhaps even more useful - players tend to play, and thus usually provide a decent viewpoint on existing things.  But as designers, there's no reason to expect any skill or talent, so the quality of design ideas will tend to be all over the map, tending towards the bad side of things.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Phatose

[UseNet]

20 minutes ago, Cephalycion said:

I have looked into the profiles of some forum users and they downright disagree with any and all ideas.

You realise that these people profiles you looked into, are the people that care about the game the most though right? Because they are against bad ideas and will not let them slide into the game without scrutiny.

A stupid idea can do major damage to a game, and should be criticised.
A good idea may not require a comment saying 'good idea have a cookie'. A simple like, upvote or applause could be enough.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 hour ago, UseNet said:

You realise that these people profiles you looked into, are the people that care about the game the most though right? Because they are against bad ideas and will not let them slide into the game without scrutiny.

A stupid idea can do major damage to a game, and should be criticised.
A good idea may not require a comment saying 'good idea have a cookie'. A simple like, upvote or applause could be enough.

But what about the good ideas? Like right now Baruuk’s 4 needs a buff, but there are some people here who are dead set and insisting that how they function in the game now is as good as they should be.

There are ideas that aren’t that great, they have potential but aren’t realized.

And then there are the straight up horrendous ideas. But there are people like me that are incredibly good at immediately shooting down those ideas, but can recognize a good idea of one with potential. It’s the people that shoot down any idea good or bad (like a certain individual with a Mag pic) because...well who knows why. Fear of change, trust issues, Lion King 1 1/2. The reasons are endless.

i’ve lost My train of thought. I’ll end my comment here.

[Thrymm]

A huge number of the ideas, particularly those that contribute to quality of life improvements, started on the forums.  If a list where made(and I can't pretend to remember everything), it would be impressively long.  Many things discussed here happen very slowly, but over time, and with persistence, they do happen.

And yes, there is always a minority that are against any given idea, or are completely dissatisfied with any iteration outside of their exact vision.  It will always happen, the only way to prevent it is outright censorship.

For obvious reasons, this would be bad.  What may not be so obvious is the intrinsic value that opposing viewpoints hold.  Sometimes it's as obvious as a problem with an idea that was not for seen by its creator, sometimes it's simply differences in play style or perception.  These things either keep bad ideas from taking root or allow good ideas to grow into things that are more palatable to all.

A great, and recent, example is universal vacuum.  No, we don't have it on our warframes like so many clamored for.  No, it isn't inherently equipped.  But it is universally available, finally allowing any companion without giving up a basic quality of life item that the vast majority wanted.  The iteration we have not only makes this possible, but also makes it a choice for those that where so vehemently against it---and being able to create that compromise solution made having any solution at all possible.  Do I think it could have happened exponentially faster?  Absolutely, it was obviously popular and asked for.  But just the same, it DID happen and it happened because we asked for it.

Ultimately, this is the direction that was taken to appease all levels of logic.  Using the vacuum takes up a mod slot, so it has inherent cost.  This also makes it a choice to use.  These two things essentially shoot down any of the "no vacuum" arguments that had any real value, the only other consistent theme seemed to be based upon some perception of difficulty(because somehow, some folks really thought game difficulty should revolve around pulling ammo out of clipping issues and such).

So you see, despite detractors, this much asked for change won.  Similarly, frames that have performance issues invariably get looked at---IF players continue to ask for them AND back up what they are claiming with a lack of usage or a direct avoidance of certain skills.  It takes time---sometimes way too long, but in the end, from a historic perspective of this games development, they do eventually get addressed.  Often it's what we ask for, sometimes a more creative approach is redesigned in.

But don't hold your breath for specific fixes.  Atlas is a good example.  His 1 has always been good, but the rest of his kit has always been mediocre in the minds of many players.  His rebuilds and fixes have made him much more functional in the ways he was intended, but ultimately he still doesn't draw a ton of interest which means his basic design just boils down to something players on the whole aren't yearning for. Baruuk may be in a similar boat.  If he's simply lacking in power strength or something, it'll probably get addressed.  If his powers do what they're supposed to do but just aren't all that useful....well, it doesn't seem as likely.

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

The only thing that bothers me is when people retaliate against suggestions with "but that's not how it's supposed to work!"

Like, no duh. The whole point is suggesting it to work differently.

[Heidelgard]

I think this feedback forum section is like a big pool of ideas and players points of view about the game, and the Devs/Mods will silently take a look around to see if there's anything good that can be used as in game concept or mechanic.

Recently I started enjoying creating topics and participating in some discussions, because I wanna also try to contribute in this big pool of ideas, and it's perfectly fine if people are against my suggestions, because sometimes even a negative feedback can actually help to improve, if the reasons are rightful and constructive of course.

[Teridax68]

I think it's perfectly fine to express disagreement with ideas, even very popular or well-formulated ones. The problem comes from posts or posters who take a contrarian position not because they genuinely have a disagreement or a perspective they want to share, but because they specifically want to generate conflict and attack other users. A common trait I've seen in problem posts here is that the user doesn't really discuss the topic, so much as target the people in the discussion, and make wild personal accusations. Often, this comes in the form of an elitist stance where the attacker places themselves as this grizzled veteran who's worked hard to get where they are in Warframe, and where everyone proposing a change to X or Y system is a noob trying to make the game easier for themselves. Sometimes, it's also because the people making the suggestions are somehow conspiring to ruin the achievements of veteran players, an accusation made with a complete lack of evidence, or because they somehow want to put DE out of business because the feature being discussed is tied to monetization via X degrees of separation (and with that much abstraction, the argument can be made for literally any part of the game, no matter how isolated or distant it is from any significant monetization stream). Often, the contrarian poster will gratuitiously accuse others of being unskilled, or otherwise not knowing or understanding the game properly, again with a total lack of evidence, and sometimes even in the stark presence of contrary evidence: I once had an instance where I was critiquing the current state of Saryn, and a poster accused me of not knowing the first thing about her... except they didn't even know Saryn got a rework this May.

Basically, the problem with these forums isn't that people disagree with each other (this is fine, and even a good and necessary thing), but that an overly vocal minority of forum-goers are just here to pick fights and attack other users. This too is fairly common in internet forums, especially videogame forums, the problem is just that moderation here appears to be generally non-confrontational, and prefers to shut down threads that devolve into arguments, sooner than directly target problem users. This, in turn, merely encourages these problem users to continue with their problem behavior, because they can simply go to a thread, derail it by attacking other posters, and if their posts aren't addressed early enough, the thread will get shut down, they'll go scot-free, and can continue doing the same thing immediately after with equally few repercussions. If these problem posters were to be addressed (and I'd say there are a handful of them here that can be easily identified, who make up the bulk of this forum's nastiness), the forums would likely become a much healthier place, where disagreement would not necessarily come with personal attacks and mud-slinging each time.

As for whether or not these forums are useful, I'd say they are, or at least are less useless than the forums for many other video games. Many complaints that get made eventually get addressed, so even if DE isn't necessarily reading every forum post in detail and rearranging their entire production pipeline to address every player concern, they do at least check the community's pulse and make changes to their game based on feedback, which is more than can be said for the near-totality of game development studios out there. The recent hotfixes to Fortuna part 2 I think are a clear sign that DE was very aware of what the community wanted, likely because they looked at their forums and other social media, and diligently responded just in time for the holidays. As such, while the forums are certainly not perfect, they're still among the more productive and positive environments I've seen in any videogame-related discussion space.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Teridax68