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How does our feedback work


Icykill_

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Hi Keith,

 

I'm interested to know how our feedback affects your decisions. Ive seen lots of posts from your team saying youve wanted our feedback. But if you guys are already on the path, do you ever stop and say, "wow, look, the overwhelming feedback says we are going in the wrong direction, should we turn around or just ignore it?".

Where along the journey is the point of no return. Is it before the bus starts moving, before the bus approaches the corner, before the cliff, as you drive go off the cliff or when you crash?

Do you ever swerve, turn or put the brakes on?

 

I'll refer to a recent post as just an example - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9333794#edit9333794

Where at the bottom of the post it says "Let us know what you think of the changes coming to Arsenal and Gunnery in GU 5.3. Thanks!

Are the balance processes used and the changes outlined in the post locked in stone and will our feedback make any difference to the end result. I ask this because as I've read through the thread it seems that an over whelming majority of the feedback says the process is flawed and that you've not understood or listened to all the feedback about class balance prior to that post.

 

I think most players would agree that we love the idea that you listen to our feedback and value it. We also love that you are asking for it, so please don't stop. But if all our feedback does is "nudge" the steering a little, you'll still drive off the cliff and there was really no point in us giving it.

Edited by Icykill_
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It has been my experience that comments like "please keep the feedback coming" or "Looking forward for your valuabe comments" usually are just there to a) give an illusion of importance to the customer and b) contain all expected negative feedback in one location where it can be moderated/filtered appropriately.

 

YMMV.

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Hi Keith,

 

I'm interested to know how our feedback affects your decisions. Ive seen lots of posts from your team saying youve wanted our feedback. But if you guys are already on the path, do you ever stop and say, "wow, look, the overwhelming feedback says we are going in the wrong direction, should we turn around or just ignore it?".

Where along the journey is the point of no return. Is it before the bus starts moving, before the bus approaches the corner, before the cliff, as you drive go off the cliff or when you crash?

Do you ever swerve, turn or put the brakes on?

 

I'll refer to a recent post as just an example - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9333794#edit9333794

Where at the bottom of the post it says "Let us know what you think of the changes coming to Arsenal and Gunnery in GU 5.3. Thanks!

Are the balance processes used and the changes outlined in the post locked in stone and will our feedback make any difference to the end result. I ask this because as I've read through the thread it seems that an over whelming majority of the feedback says the process is flawed and that you've not understood or listened to all the feedback about class balance prior to that post.

 

I think most players would agree that we love the idea that you listen to our feedback and value it. We also love that you are asking for it, so please don't stop. But if all our feedback does is "nudge" the steering a little, you'll still drive off the cliff and there was really no point in us giving it.

 

This is a fantastic question! Keith, Charles, and I discussed this and we want to make sure we are really thorough in giving you the full picture on how feedback is gathered, where it is gathered from, and how the team uses it. What we are going to do is turn this thread into our discussion topic for the week.

 

Tomorrow, all 3 of us (Keith, Charles, and myself) will make posts highlighting how our job roles interact with player feedback as it relates to the team, decision making, etc. Then we can have a conversation about feedback in general.

 

Great question, now it's a rabbit hole we are going to jump down together! Look for our posts tomorrow.

 

-eric

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This is a fantastic question! Keith, Charles, and I discussed this and we want to make sure we are really thorough in giving you the full picture on how feedback is gathered, where it is gathered from, and how the team uses it. What we are going to do is turn this thread into our discussion topic for the week.

 

Tomorrow, all 3 of us (Keith, Charles, and myself) will make posts highlighting how our job roles interact with player feedback as it relates to the team, decision making, etc. Then we can have a conversation about feedback in general.

 

Great question, now it's a rabbit hole we are going to jump down together! Look for our posts tomorrow.

 

-eric

 

I have to give guys kudos on communication. Not much has changed, but maybe the future is good.

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Are yous gona acknowlage that 246 crafter relics have the same click/proc stats as 240 crafted it should have the same click/proc stats as the 246 command crate relics. cause all previous crafted relices mirrored there command crates counter part click/proc stats.

 

I reported this multiple times I know other have reported this too. ALL 246 relics are bugged and waste of mats cause of this !

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This is a fantastic question! Keith, Charles, and I discussed this and we want to make sure we are really thorough in giving you the full picture on how feedback is gathered, where it is gathered from, and how the team uses it. What we are going to do is turn this thread into our discussion topic for the week.

 

Tomorrow, all 3 of us (Keith, Charles, and myself) will make posts highlighting how our job roles interact with player feedback as it relates to the team, decision making, etc. Then we can have a conversation about feedback in general.

 

Great question, now it's a rabbit hole we are going to jump down together! Look for our posts tomorrow.

 

-eric

 

\o/ Good to hear as I have been wondering this as well. However, I imagine the answer falls along the lines of minor changes can be easily thrown in. Extensive changes have to be worked into the pipeline.

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Hi Keith,

 

I'm interested to know how our feedback affects your decisions. Ive seen lots of posts from your team saying youve wanted our feedback. But if you guys are already on the path, do you ever stop and say, "wow, look, the overwhelming feedback says we are going in the wrong direction, should we turn around or just ignore it?". .

 

Are you really asking that question with a straight face given the 5.0 fiasco?

 

Test server feedback said 5.0 was going to be a disaster.

Forum feedback said 5.0 was going to be a disaster.

On balance, across various fora, approx 99% of feedback said 5.0 was going to be a disaster.

 

Bioware went ahead with 5.0

5.0 WAS a disaster.

 

Bioware said they'd listen and address our feedback.

Then slapped us in the face with a "we think RNG is fun, suck it up" Livestream.

Tens of thousands of players unsubbed - many of them live in Twitch chat during said Livestream.

Despite claiming to listen to feedback Bioware's "disaster limitation" response was itself a disaster.

 

Now, I know the "front man" for that disaster has been "promoted sideways" and we now have a new hand at the helm. But if only the steersman has changed and the Captain remains the same is there really much hope that anything will be done differently.

 

I hope I am wrong, I sincerely do. I've re-invested in this game because of the change of "front man". And some of the signs are indeed promising, but is it enough? Or is too little, too late?

 

PS: And now two of the people directly involved in telling us how great 5.0 was going to be are going to explain how they actually do listen to feedback and how it affects their decision making process? Yeah, right.

 

All The Best

Edited by DarthSpuds
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This is a fantastic question! Keith, Charles, and I discussed this and we want to make sure we are really thorough in giving you the full picture on how feedback is gathered, where it is gathered from, and how the team uses it. What we are going to do is turn this thread into our discussion topic for the week.

 

Tomorrow, all 3 of us (Keith, Charles, and myself) will make posts highlighting how our job roles interact with player feedback as it relates to the team, decision making, etc. Then we can have a conversation about feedback in general.

 

Great question, now it's a rabbit hole we are going to jump down together! Look for our posts tomorrow.

 

-eric

 

Seriously. You guys rock. The communication is wonderful and I'm loving the "inside baseball" approach you are taking. It helps to know what's going on behind the scenes.

 

Keep it up!

 

~Vidnyl

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I have to give guys kudos on communication. Not much has changed, but maybe the future is good.

 

Well, when you grasp how hard it is to plan, budget, and develop for MMOs, you learn changes do not tend to happen quickly. However, that doesn't mean they won't happen.

 

Like for instance, there is a ton of unhappiness about the story direction for Iokath and KotFE and KotET right now.

 

Does it mean that the devs aren't listening when they continue to release Iokath stuff later this year?

 

Not at all - its just that those things were already in development, and since the $ and man-hours were already spent developing it, better to release it than go a while without content, because from planning to in-game, it probably would take 6 months to a year to cover that.

 

So what good is the feedback? Well, what may end up happening (and I hope it does) is that they take in that story feedback, and scrap the stuff in the planning stages that planned to continue the KotFE ongoing storyline, and instead post Iokath move everything back to the Sith Empire vs the Republic, which most players want. If they did that, we may not see the fruits of our feedback for a year or more, yet it would still be our feedback that allowed that to happen...

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I've always been of the opinion the bulk of the dev team knew what to do; they didn't have the authority to enforce it. Hopefully with Keith in charge they know have the freedom to pursue better decisions.

 

Even Charles' and Eric's posts have a very different tone than they did during the 5.0'calypse. I got the impression back then that they had to follow a very strict script on what they were allowed to say, not necessarily what they wanted to say. Not to mention I saw Ben actively shut Charles down when he tried to do the reasonable thing on one of the livestreams.

 

I think the change of hands will produce a much different regard for feedback.

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Are you really asking that question with a straight face given the 5.0 fiasco?

 

Test server feedback said 5.0 was going to be a disaster.

Forum feedback said 5.0 was going to be a disaster.

On balance, across various fora, approx 99% of feedback said 5.0 was going to be a disaster.

 

Bioware went ahead with 5.0

5.0 WAS a disaster.

 

Bioware said they'd listen and address our feedback.

Then slapped us in the face with a "we think RNG is fun, suck it up" Livestream.

Tens of thousands of players unsubbed - many of them live in Twitch chat during said Livestream.

Despite claiming to listen to feedback Bioware's "disaster limitation" response was itself a disaster.

 

Now, I know the "front man" for that disaster has been "promoted sideways" and we now have a new hand at the helm. But if only the steersman has changed and the Captain remains the same is there really much hope that anything will be done differently.

 

I hope I am wrong, I sincerely do. I've re-invested in this game because of the change of "front man". And some of the signs are indeed promising, but is it enough? Or is too little, too late?

 

PS: And now two of the people directly involved in telling us how great 5.0 was going to be are going to explain how they actually do listen to feedback and how it affects their decision making process? Yeah, right.

 

All The Best

 

It will take time. However a change of the person responsible for the vision of the game can indeed change the direction - but as I said, it takes time. We may not see the fruits of it for a year or more because they still need to publish what they already have in the works, and some non-ideal content is better than no content (which I can personally attest to, as post launch, it was almost a year before we got any new content).

 

Case in point - look at AMD, the chip company. Was floundering for a while. They hired Jim Keller, the designer of their last successful chip, to engineer them a new chip. All other AMD engineers were the same - its just that Keller was in charge of them now.

 

Fast forward to today - AMD's Ryzen chip is going toe to toe with their intel counterparts and put AMD back on the map. Just by a change of who was responsible for the vision. So it CAN work. But it will take time. All they can do for now is take in feedback, and all we can do is hope the person in charge of the vision listens (which looks optimistic) - but we won't actually start to notice in-game changes based on that feedback for a while, given how long development takes.

The good news is, even if we have to wait, if we have a Producer who really takes in player feedback, once we get to a point where the feedback we provided is actually being implemented on the live servers, it will be a continual stream of ideas and implementations that player feedback helped inform, and make the playerbase feel a lot more "listened to."

 

Its the waiting that's the hard part.

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Simply put even if the community hate a change but it's "too late" to tweak it expect it to go live as is.

 

Unless Erick changes the trend, they prefer deliver something (even bad) than delivering nothing or go back to the drawing board. Mostly because they can't really afford to delay publishes that much. It's a matter of time, budget, resources availability and business decisions.

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I've always been of the opinion the bulk of the dev team knew what to do; they didn't have the authority to enforce it. Hopefully with Keith in charge they know have the freedom to pursue better decisions.

 

Even Charles' and Eric's posts have a very different tone than they did during the 5.0'calypse. I got the impression back then that they had to follow a very strict script on what they were allowed to say, not necessarily what they wanted to say. Not to mention I saw Ben actively shut Charles down when he tried to do the reasonable thing on one of the livestreams.

 

I think the change of hands will produce a much different regard for feedback.

 

I think the #1 question I have is how the new visionary at the top will deal with the debacle that is the KotFE and KoTET story, and the top complaint that it just doesn't feel like "Star Wars", not to mention it ignores everything you did prior to that story.

 

My point being, even if you get the game back on track with a renewed focus on the Sith vs the Republic, do you keep referencing a spot in the story most players just want to forget? Do you double down and throw good money after bad and keep with the KotFE theme despite the majority of players who care about story hating it, like a money pit? Or do you have the leverage to go bold and scrap that story entirely and replace it with a new story that will bridge Shadow of Revan and Ziost to the new content focusing on the Sith-Republic war, if you decide to go that route, only this time with a story that makes sense given the context of your class stories and what's come before?

 

I love the open communication. I am curious with how willing the new head is to cut bait with story content that just doesn't fit with the Star Wars universe, let alone isn't even true to the story told up until that point...

Edited by ZionHalcyon
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Are yous gona acknowlage that 246 crafter relics have the same click/proc stats as 240 crafted it should have the same click/proc stats as the 246 command crate relics. cause all previous crafted relices mirrored there command crates counter part click/proc stats.

 

I reported this multiple times I know other have reported this too. ALL 246 relics are bugged and waste of mats cause of this !

I saw your message the other day, but needed to follow up with the design team. Definitely a bug as the crafted relics are using the wrong stats. I confirmed we'll fix them in Patch 5.3. Also note you will not need to remake your relics, so hang on to them and we'll apply the proper stats.

 

---Keith

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I saw your message the other day, but needed to follow up with the design team. Definitely a bug as the crafted relics are using the wrong stats. I confirmed we'll fix them in Patch 5.3. Also note you will not need to remake your relics, so hang on to them and we'll apply the proper stats.

 

---Keith

Nice Keith :) Thank you!

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I think the #1 question I have is how the new visionary at the top will deal with the debacle that is the KotFE and KoTET story, and the top complaint that it just doesn't feel like "Star Wars", not to mention it ignores everything you did prior to that story.

 

My point being, even if you get the game back on track with a renewed focus on the Sith vs the Republic, do you keep referencing a spot in the story most players just want to forget? Do you double down and throw good money after bad and keep with the KotFE theme despite the majority of players who care about story hating it, like a money pit? Or do you have the leverage to go bold and scrap that story entirely and replace it with a new story that will bridge Shadow of Revan and Ziost to the new content focusing on the Sith-Republic war, if you decide to go that route, only this time with a story that makes sense given the context of your class stories and what's come before?

 

I love the open communication. I am curious with how willing the new head is to cut bait with story content that just doesn't fit with the Star Wars universe, let alone isn't even true to the story told up until that point...

 

Well that is hard because the complaints about the story are subjective and only apply to a portion of the playerbase with likely no clear majority. Yes we may all have our contentions with the story but they are not all the same.

 

However, whether or not they do it this way, it is a semi straight forward thing to roll back the story without cutting it out (I had to change a perfectly harmless word, the forum filter is a little overzealous as of late) entirely. It only requires certain loose ends to be addressed: The Commander has to lose control of the eternal fleet and eternal throne and so does everyone else, the Republic and Empire need time to rebuild strength and resources so they can wage new wars without plot holes, and Arcann and senya have to live their lives quietly should they be alive.

 

After that the Zakuul arc becomes a footnote. It happened but that doesn't mean it drives events in the future. However, while I do want the people who want it to be Pub vs Imp to be happy, I want everyone to get what they need to have fun, I do have one concern.

 

When all is said and done, there will have to be periodic breaks in that narrative. No war lasts eternally going full tilt. Someone slips up, someone runs out of resources, someone gets a clear advantage, something! To keep that story from jumping the shark as well, there will have to be lulls in the action, while both sides regroup if nothing else. During that time our characters will need to go clean up some other mess.

 

I think Rise of the Hutt Cartel was a good way to handle it. It wasn't galaxy threatening but it was relevant. It was small and contained. Once we finished that, the story was wrapped up there. I hope that such a model will be implemented in the future

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Hi Keith,

 

I'm interested to know how our feedback affects your decisions. Ive seen lots of posts from your team saying youve wanted our feedback. But if you guys are already on the path, do you ever stop and say, "wow, look, the overwhelming feedback says we are going in the wrong direction, should we turn around or just ignore it?".

Where along the journey is the point of no return. Is it before the bus starts moving, before the bus approaches the corner, before the cliff, as you drive go off the cliff or when you crash?

Do you ever swerve, turn or put the brakes on?

 

I'll refer to a recent post as just an example - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9333794#edit9333794

Where at the bottom of the post it says "Let us know what you think of the changes coming to Arsenal and Gunnery in GU 5.3. Thanks!

Are the balance processes used and the changes outlined in the post locked in stone and will our feedback make any difference to the end result. I ask this because as I've read through the thread it seems that an over whelming majority of the feedback says the process is flawed and that you've not understood or listened to all the feedback about class balance prior to that post.

 

I think most players would agree that we love the idea that you listen to our feedback and value it. We also love that you are asking for it, so please don't stop. But if all our feedback does is "nudge" the steering a little, you'll still drive off the cliff and there was really no point in us giving it.

 

Very nice post Icy :) one of your best I think and this was something I also thought about glad someone posted such a great write up.

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I saw your message the other day, but needed to follow up with the design team. Definitely a bug as the crafted relics are using the wrong stats. I confirmed we'll fix them in Patch 5.3. Also note you will not need to remake your relics, so hang on to them and we'll apply the proper stats.

 

---Keith

 

Every time I see something like this I'm making the effort to commend the team. Communication is at 100%. Even if every problem doesn't get fixed at least we know that someone is listening. THANK YOU!!

 

~Vidnyl

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When we are on the subject I did have a question about player feedback: I am aware that the Devs are monitoring the Suggestion Thread, or at least I hope and assume that is the case as they assured us they did. But, does the same apply for the Cartel Market Suggestions thread? Does Bioware from time to time ook there at the threads posted to gather feedback about that feature of the game as well?

 

I will quickly take the opportunity to briefly advocate for new facial designs to the added to the CM for the Appearance Designer, like the high-res ones we see on Lana, Senya, Arcann, Valkorion, Vaylin etc etc as well as to state how absolutely epic it would be to have a Acina/Valkorion-style Dark Side Corruption Eye Colour made available as a new Eye Colour option for all species with humanoid eyes on the Cartel Market ^_^

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When we are on the subject I did have a question about player feedback: I am aware that the Devs are monitoring the Suggestion Thread, or at least I hope and assume that is the case as they assured us they did. But, does the same apply for the Cartel Market Suggestions thread? Does Bioware from time to time ook there at the threads posted to gather feedback about that feature of the game as well?

 

Given the number of thins Cartel Market related that have been released to players that directly address often pressed suggestions... the answer is YES. But it is a qualified yes, because they will read all suggestions but not agree with and deploy content in game in response. The first time you know they listened and deployed is when you see something you wanted actually go live. >>>> One example: direct sales of highly coveted weapons and armors previously only available as random drops from cartel packs.

Edited by Andryah
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ha nice joke i believe when i see it.....

 

i can count the number of games where devs actualy listen to player feedback on 1 hand.... and i play allot of games in every single existing genre.....

Edited by Zolxtren
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I saw your message the other day, but needed to follow up with the design team. Definitely a bug as the crafted relics are using the wrong stats. I confirmed we'll fix them in Patch 5.3. Also note you will not need to remake your relics, so hang on to them and we'll apply the proper stats.

 

---Keith

 

sweet

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IS BW still not aware that 240 and now 246 Sythweaving and Armortech have the SAME EXACT NAMES for the armor scheme.... it been like this since 5.0 and now that error has passed on too 246 armor
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