The Frustrating Thing About Trying To Give Feedback To De...

[[DE]Momaw]

We know that they listen to feedback. Many game changes have been made as a result of player suggestions (/frustration).

 

So when you have a seemingly flawless idea that kills an entire flock of birds with one stone, that isn't being adopted by the game, does it mean that nobody ever SAW your idea? So you need to keep bringing it up relentlessly in every possible context to increase the chances that the overworked devs will trip over it somewhere?  Or does it mean that your idea has some flaw that you aren't seeing; was considered, and rejected, and you will never know the reason why because feedback is 99.9% unidirectional?  Or does it mean that implementing your idea is too expensive in time or technology to be practical no matter how awesome it might be?

 

:-/

[Brimir]

Not really. I know for a fact that a lot of feedback (and bug reports for that matter) I have left may appear to have gone unnoticed but sure enough the very next hotfix that bug is squashed!

 

A good example was the Scindo (Prime) aerial melee not actually hitting anything; didn't see a single reply to my bug report about it but it got fixed right away.

 

TL;DR  - You can be sure they read your posts even if they don't reply.

Edited October 29, 2014 by Brimir

[Implodingbanana]

it could be that they found a better idea or they just didn't like it. it could also be possible that they just didn't see it.

[Satinpuppies]

The most annoying part is you never know...

[[DE]Rebecca]

Food for thought:

 

October 2014 Total Post Count (so far).

 

 

Consider the operation something along these lines:

Step 1: Is something on fire? Get more information forum wide to put it out (cross reference bug reports, merge, etc).

Step 2: Is something a great idea that the community has endorsed? Read, Reply if possible. Replying only possible if step one is being handled.

Step 3: Disregard Step 1 and 2 and reply in an Off Topic thread to assure established and known players that we are here, we're running at full capacity, we just don't always get to reply in presence 150K monthly posts but we read as much as we can.

Edited October 29, 2014 by DERebecca
clarified step 2

[Imaru]

I think it's kinda fitting that this really belongs in Feedback, but I digress. I will agree, it is rather annoying to see bug report threads get little to no response when it is a massive bug. I will say that it is very satisfying to see a fix for it come in a later patch regardless of the lack of a response. 

[--Q--JoeTheBanshee]

Food for thought:

 

October 2014 Total Post Count (so far).

 

 

Consider the operation something along these lines:

Step 1: Is something on fire? Get more information forum wide to put it out (cross reference bug reports, merge, etc).

Step 2: Is something a great idea that the community has endorsed? Read, Reply if possible. Replying only possible if step one is being handled.

Step 3: Disregard Step 1 and 2 and reply in an Off Topic thread to assure established and known players that we are here, we're running at full capacity, we just don't always get to reply in presence 150K monthly posts but we read as much as we can.

You guys reply to a lot, but a better method for identifying, sorting, and categorizing bugs would definitely be helpful. As some have said, large bugs sometimes get buried. There must be a better solution to get every bug reported, it's worth looking into.

[[DE]Rebecca]

You guys reply to a lot, but a better method for identifying, sorting, and categorizing bugs would definitely be helpful. As some have said, large bugs sometimes get buried. There must be a better solution to get every bug reported, it's worth looking into.

I would Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V my convos with Drew about what's coming, but will give executive summary to save everyone time:

 

Short Relevant Point: Better Bug tracking prototypes in progress, coming soon.

[7grims]

As far as feedback and even bug reports, I kinda lost the will to give any to DE.

 

In the past you were sure they were reading support tickets for bugs, nowadays posting on forums it gets lost in all the other posts.

Same thing with feedback, since there is so many posts in few hours many of those just go unread by the community and the devs.

 

 

And to end it all, lately I've been noticing some tendencies and decisions by DE that are so bad/wrong; some new features just are too distant from the old logic and way of thinking the game had 1 year ago.

[--Q--JoeTheBanshee]

I would Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V my convos with Drew about what's coming, but will give executive summary to save everyone time:

 

Short Relevant Point: Better Bug tracking prototypes in progress, coming soon.

Great to hear! Hopefully it will make diagnosing and prioritizing bugs much more effecient.

[Gryphticon]

I think that DE should make the community moderators sort out the worst bugs or best feedback and send them to DE so that they don't waste time on the forums but are actually fixing the game.

[Archistopheles]

I think that DE should make the community moderators sort out the worst bugs or best feedback and send them to DE so that they don't waste time on the forums but are actually fixing the game.

I'm sure Rebecca and Megan are fantastic at code and design, but DE is a big company. Each member has specific jobs, and one of those jobs is browsing the forum.

As for feedback, the silver bullet suggestions almost always float to the top, they just sometimes have more pressing matters on their plate when we come up with said suggestion.

[unknow99]

As far as feedback and even bug reports, I kinda lost the will to give any to DE.

 

In the past you were sure they were reading support tickets for bugs, nowadays posting on forums it gets lost in all the other posts.

Same thing with feedback, since there is so many posts in few hours many of those just go unread by the community and the devs.

 

 

And to end it all, lately I've been noticing some tendencies and decisions by DE that are so bad/wrong; some new features just are too distant from the old logic and way of thinking the game had 1 year ago.

 

The game has grown so much man...When I started, you could feel devs breath behind your back :p

 

Nowadays, if your post doesn't get attention very early or doesn't have an appealing topic, it's being drowned in posts & posts...

 

I would Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V my convos with Drew about what's coming, but will give executive summary to save everyone time:

 

Short Relevant Point: Better Bug tracking prototypes in progress, coming soon.

 

What we could also do is introduce a little notification that says "as seen by D.E." or something. If someone didn't tell me that you guys indirectly replied to my topic, I'd still think it'd be another veteran forgotten thread...

[CY13ERPUNK]

I think that DE should make the community moderators sort out the worst bugs or best feedback and send them to DE so that they don't waste time on the forums but are actually fixing the game.

 

u assume that the community moderators have better than average insight into what the 'best' feedback is...

 

while I happen to personally like the recent PS4 addition of Devoid and another of my clannies, i know many ComMods that i disagree with on a regular basis, I didn't vote for them, and i would not want them speaking on behalf of me or 'the community', they move posts and hand out warnings and bans for curse words, they should not be a filter between DE and the forums =/

[Sitchrea]

I would Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V my convos with Drew about what's coming, but will give executive summary to save everyone time:

 

Short Relevant Point: Better Bug tracking prototypes in progress, coming soon.

 

Do you think that it would be possible to add a function to the Forums that would let people know if a Dev has observed their post?

 

It might make the attention-grabbers be quiet.... lol

[SilentCircle]

I would Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V my convos with Drew about what's coming, but will give executive summary to save everyone time:

 

Short Relevant Point: Better Bug tracking prototypes in progress, coming soon.

 

You could set up a public bugzilla instance under bugs.warframe.com and let people open tickets there. Once a bug is confirmed a script could transfer the bug to your internal tracker. I guess the only tricky part would be to explain to people that a bug tracker is not a discussion forum or a way to pitch new ideas.

[MichaelSD]

Well some of the fires are home made. Many changes were not exactly like on the Hot Topic votes and were implemented, so while I understand bugs and mistakes, at the moment I have my doubts how much input is integrated and even required, beyond the "oh put out the fire".

But let's have the benefit of the doubt. :)

[Rakosta_Kai]

My personal outlook would be that adding the appropriate dev in the body of the text with an @Theirname should be enough to get that ball rolling provided that they respond in an as needed format.

At their very least it gives them a viable snapshot if it's not abused.

 

People who abuse the function or are rude receive disciplinary action. Simple.

 

CM's should be ensuring the health and atmostphere of the forums; not just taking it's pulse. Analytics tools only make the busiest threads then become the actual action items. That shouldn't be the case.

 

In the time I have played this game, I have seen issues that were trending topics (and not actually issues) get leapt on and real issues linger for months because they weren't trending topics.

 

The fact that Trending/Hot topics seem to get so much attention is a huge issue, to me, as it's common knowledge that those get looked at by DE.

Those issues are frequently specious

 

For my part, I want the forums to be a place where the Devs can come read and comment without needing therapy after.

I don't think they get that as an option presently.

Which is sad as they are, or were, gamers too.

[Janzer]

I think they're doing a pretty good job in making their presence known.

 

Remember this, if you at your job (or at your school work, chores, etc.) have to answer to a person every few minutes or hours, just to give them a status update that you did hear what they said, how much time do you think that takes? I do part development and part management. Just doing status updates takes quite a lot of time on it's own. Meetings with your client (us in this case) are distributed responsibilities through the moderators and managers, devstreams, design council, etc. I don't know their full structure, but just communicating with the public facing side is quite a lot on it's own.

 

And then they have to deal with communication coming from the community, that ends up being less than decent. Wording that you wouldn't ever talk to you mother like. But, that's the job.

 

They're doing a pretty darn good job. I'm not saying it's perfect, but nothing is perfect.

 

And, that's just my opinion of course.

 

Edit, funny but even today supports what I'm saying: http://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/2ksp3t/we_are_members_of_digital_extremes_and_we_develop/

Edited October 30, 2014 by Janzer

[EelPlus]

Step 3: Disregard Step 1 and 2 and reply in an Off Topic thread to assure established and known players that we are here, we're running at full capacity, we just don't always get to reply in presence 150K monthly posts but we read as much as we can.

Shots fired.

[Cleesus]

I think that DE should make the community moderators sort out the worst bugs or best feedback and send them to DE so that they don't waste time on the forums but are actually fixing the game.

We do already do that to a degree, atleast when it comes to bugs.

[[DE]Momaw]

Step 3: Disregard Step 1 and 2 and reply in an Off Topic thread

 

Makes it sound like you were frazzled about what I said? But I wasn't trying to imply that you weren't doing a great job as community herder or that you should drop everything to come sooth our (my) sadness. So far as I can tell you're amazing and pretty much working at 126% of rated capacity. It's frustrating to have less input/constructiveness/bidirectionality than I want to, but I'm not sure that what I was complaining about really derives from any solvable causes given finite time and manpower. Even if I worked at DE, ideation is faster and easier than implementation; and wishing for some kind of two way discussion about everything is hopeless when there's thousands of rants per day and the people I want to share minds with still need to actually do their jobs between reading essays. :-/

[-SLX-J3tAc3]

We know that they listen to feedback. Many game changes have been made as a result of player suggestions (/frustration).

 

So when you have a seemingly flawless idea that kills an entire flock of birds with one stone, that isn't being adopted by the game, does it mean that nobody ever SAW your idea? So you need to keep bringing it up relentlessly in every possible context to increase the chances that the overworked devs will trip over it somewhere?  Or does it mean that your idea has some flaw that you aren't seeing; was considered, and rejected, and you will never know the reason why because feedback is 99.9% unidirectional?  Or does it mean that implementing your idea is too expensive in time or technology to be practical no matter how awesome it might be?

 

:-/

Agreed with this. I have been pondering something like this for sometime - what suggestions are doable in the short term? How do things work there at DE? If I can get a better feel of how things work there, then I may be able to tailor my bug reports/suggestions into a more easily-digestible/doable format.

Edited October 30, 2014 by -SLX-J3tAc3

[Personwithhat]

Just include a little tag or checkmark or something, kind of like  a alternate upvote

upvote if promoted by a DE

downvoted if seen as meh

 

if there are some really important issues about why YES or why NO then the DE or someone will post it .

Other than that the up/downvote will at least let me know if ANY of my posts get read , XDDD

[Llyssa]

I'm sure Rebecca and Megan are fantastic at code and design, but DE is a big company. Each member has specific jobs, and one of those jobs is browsing the forum.

As for feedback, the silver bullet suggestions almost always float to the top, they just sometimes have more pressing matters on their plate when we come up with said suggestion.

This isn't really the case. I've had a number of ideas that have hundreds of views, and 12 posts, all of which say "OMG FANTASTIC! YES!" And like 20 upvotes... and then they fall off the front page of the forums, never to be heard from again.

 

I make a point of forwarding anything that's getting 100% positive feedback to the dev team directly, because it falls to the back. Many times, the response I get back is that it's the first they've heard of it.

 

The main problem is that the forum promotes bad ideas by design. If you have a post that EVERYONE agrees with, it generally falls by the wayside, unless you have a lot of pretty pictures in it. A few people tell you that it's awesome, and the rest have nothing meaningful to add--they agree, and it seems pointless to spam such.

 

If you have a post that some/many people disagree with, they will tell you that they disagree, and why they disagree, and why you should listen to them, and if anyone agrees with you, they'll respond back, or you can respond back, and then they'll respond back, and then you can respond back, and you'll spend 4 weeks arguing and be a "hot topic" with your mediocre-to-bad idea, accumulating pages and perceived importance.

 

Really bad ideas get a great deal of pushback, so you'll get dozens of people telling you why you're wrong, and explaining their version of why, building up dozens of pages in a few hours, and making you a permanent fixture on the front page for many days in a row.

 

So, while "oh, that was a great idea" will get referenced in something I've never seen before in the update notes, there are topics that any forum denizen knows are "not this again", and yet, "that was a great idea" will have 20 replies, while "not this again" usually only stops getting pages when it's finally locked by a com mod.

 

 

Just include a little tag or checkmark or something, kind of like  a alternate upvote

upvote if promoted by a DE

downvoted if seen as meh

 

if there are some really important issues about why YES or why NO then the DE or someone will post it .

Other than that the up/downvote will at least let me know if ANY of my posts get read , XDDD

Something along those lines would possibly help.

 

Posting on really good ideas tends to be under-done, yet much-needed. Showering accolade would be useful, even if it seems pointless--who knows, you might be keeping a good idea afloat.