A few brief thoughts on "forum feedback" to MMO developers
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• Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – March 19, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – March 19, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
Jarryzzt
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Since the other thread was closed before I properly mounted my soapbox. In a non-sexual manner.
In general, this ought to be viewed as a) an omnibus response to the "ZOS does not listen to us!" threads or posts that periodically crop up on the forums; and b) a useful reference for me such that in future I can just "quote myself" and hyperlink to this thread instead of typing anything out.
Rant mode - engaged.
1. Forum posts are generally not as important a source of user feedback as many forum posters presume them to be.
- Most recently, ESO boasted 2.5 million "monthly active users", which - let us suppose - translates into a low-seven figure number of "active" players.
- Therefore, even one hundred or one thousand forum users posting on topic X represents a tiny sliver of the total player base.
- Large MMO developers therefore are more likely to rely on internal and external testing, user base surveys and other means of gathering feedback, with given forum post being viewed only in conjunction with these - if at all. [The mechanic obviously can be different for small MMOs that rely firstly on their handful of loyalists for revenue.]
2. Forum feedback is further undermined by our not being able to see server-side stats or internal development documentation.
- While each MMO is different, a good development team will generally gather and analyze a wide variety of server-side stats to see what is working and what isn't.
- We, the players, generally do not have access to such. [With notable exceptions, e.g. player-made WoT stat scrapers that imperfectly replicate some of what the developers are seeing.]
- Moreover, we surely do not have access to internal documentation that outlines how a given "thing" in ESO is intended to work, i.e. what server stats it ought to generate.
- All forum feedback, therefore, is vulnerable to falling into one of two traps: a) not correctly perceiving how a "thing" works across the entire player base; and b) not knowing whether the way a "thing" works is as ZOS had intended.
To belabor the point, I quote the phrase oft-repeated by the WoT development team: "forum posts just give us a reason to look at server stats".
3. Large IT projects, including ESO-type MMOs, typically have long lead times and development cycles.
- Even if a(ny) user submits a valid idea to the development theme, this idea must then undergo: design; implementation; integration; testing (possibly both internal and external).
- Given the size and complexity of an ESO-type MMO, each of these phases can take weeks, months or even years even in a "spherical vacuum", i.e. a situation when the developers are working only on that one idea.
- In reality, there are likely to be upwards of one or several dozen separate development teams working in parallel to implement different things into the game.
- Furthermore, there is likely an overall development calendar that dictates the order and timing of rolling out specific features or content.
- In other words, whenever user feedback is received there exists a not-small probability that the change in question is already somewhere on the development calendar or being worked on by one of the many development teams - but the work will not be finished for weeks, months or even years.
Useful reading on this subject can be found at (https://www.totalwar.com/blog/warhammer-ii-development-update), where Creative Assembly discusses a) the complexity of implementing updates for Total War: Warhammer II (not an MMO, by the way), and b) the way in which they found integrating "tab A into slot B" (the delayed Norsca update) to be a far more complex task than anticipated. Every time someone posts about a desired change on the forums, therefore, they ought to appreciate that even if ZOS picks up their comment and even if they agree with it (including based on server-side analysis), actually coding and integrating it into the existing build of the game is not instantaneous by any stretch.
4. Acknowledging forum feedback directly with "thank you" posts can be a double-edged sword.
- Thanking a poster for their feedback essentially incentivizes them to, down the line, inquire as to what had actually been done.
- In large companies retail user feedback tends to flow in one direction only (from the feedback gatherer to the development team). [Obviously sizeable corporate or internal departmental clients are a different beast, but then, these are not really applicable to MMOs.]
- Furthermore, per #3 above, even in the best case scenario (two-way information flow) there may not be much for the community manager to tell the users for months on end. At worst, the community manager themselves won't know as the development team will not talk to them about specific feedback items.
- Thus, a company like ZOS must ask internally the question: is it easier to not acknowledge user feedback at all, except retroactively in patch notes or an interview, at the cost of an occasional forum complaint?
Again, an exception must be made for the smaller scale. I specifically remember how the one (!) developer Blizzard had working on Diablo II 1.10 patch for a while interacted directly with a hardcore cadre of users - and today one may find the same level of two-way interaction with individual app or web extension developers, for example - but these situations are not really applicable to ESO.
None of which is to say that forum feedback is, quote, "useless" - until and unless ZOS discloses its internal feedback monitoring systems to us and these show it to be. Nor am I "defending" ZOS in any way, and I shall be the first to point out that a number of things in ESO or its support service could or should have been done differently.
Nevertheless, if one does post "feedback" on the forum without appreciating the points made above, then at best they are, in a way, being naive. At worst, they develop a sense of entitlement and begin to act out when their "feedback" is not "listened too" (immediately, of course; ours is the age of instant gratification). And, of course, with all sorts of poster varieties between these two extremes.
Rant mode - disengaged.
In general, this ought to be viewed as a) an omnibus response to the "ZOS does not listen to us!" threads or posts that periodically crop up on the forums; and b) a useful reference for me such that in future I can just "quote myself" and hyperlink to this thread instead of typing anything out.
Rant mode - engaged.
1. Forum posts are generally not as important a source of user feedback as many forum posters presume them to be.
- Most recently, ESO boasted 2.5 million "monthly active users", which - let us suppose - translates into a low-seven figure number of "active" players.
- Therefore, even one hundred or one thousand forum users posting on topic X represents a tiny sliver of the total player base.
- Large MMO developers therefore are more likely to rely on internal and external testing, user base surveys and other means of gathering feedback, with given forum post being viewed only in conjunction with these - if at all. [The mechanic obviously can be different for small MMOs that rely firstly on their handful of loyalists for revenue.]
2. Forum feedback is further undermined by our not being able to see server-side stats or internal development documentation.
- While each MMO is different, a good development team will generally gather and analyze a wide variety of server-side stats to see what is working and what isn't.
- We, the players, generally do not have access to such. [With notable exceptions, e.g. player-made WoT stat scrapers that imperfectly replicate some of what the developers are seeing.]
- Moreover, we surely do not have access to internal documentation that outlines how a given "thing" in ESO is intended to work, i.e. what server stats it ought to generate.
- All forum feedback, therefore, is vulnerable to falling into one of two traps: a) not correctly perceiving how a "thing" works across the entire player base; and b) not knowing whether the way a "thing" works is as ZOS had intended.
To belabor the point, I quote the phrase oft-repeated by the WoT development team: "forum posts just give us a reason to look at server stats".
3. Large IT projects, including ESO-type MMOs, typically have long lead times and development cycles.
- Even if a(ny) user submits a valid idea to the development theme, this idea must then undergo: design; implementation; integration; testing (possibly both internal and external).
- Given the size and complexity of an ESO-type MMO, each of these phases can take weeks, months or even years even in a "spherical vacuum", i.e. a situation when the developers are working only on that one idea.
- In reality, there are likely to be upwards of one or several dozen separate development teams working in parallel to implement different things into the game.
- Furthermore, there is likely an overall development calendar that dictates the order and timing of rolling out specific features or content.
- In other words, whenever user feedback is received there exists a not-small probability that the change in question is already somewhere on the development calendar or being worked on by one of the many development teams - but the work will not be finished for weeks, months or even years.
Useful reading on this subject can be found at (https://www.totalwar.com/blog/warhammer-ii-development-update), where Creative Assembly discusses a) the complexity of implementing updates for Total War: Warhammer II (not an MMO, by the way), and b) the way in which they found integrating "tab A into slot B" (the delayed Norsca update) to be a far more complex task than anticipated. Every time someone posts about a desired change on the forums, therefore, they ought to appreciate that even if ZOS picks up their comment and even if they agree with it (including based on server-side analysis), actually coding and integrating it into the existing build of the game is not instantaneous by any stretch.
4. Acknowledging forum feedback directly with "thank you" posts can be a double-edged sword.
- Thanking a poster for their feedback essentially incentivizes them to, down the line, inquire as to what had actually been done.
- In large companies retail user feedback tends to flow in one direction only (from the feedback gatherer to the development team). [Obviously sizeable corporate or internal departmental clients are a different beast, but then, these are not really applicable to MMOs.]
- Furthermore, per #3 above, even in the best case scenario (two-way information flow) there may not be much for the community manager to tell the users for months on end. At worst, the community manager themselves won't know as the development team will not talk to them about specific feedback items.
- Thus, a company like ZOS must ask internally the question: is it easier to not acknowledge user feedback at all, except retroactively in patch notes or an interview, at the cost of an occasional forum complaint?
Again, an exception must be made for the smaller scale. I specifically remember how the one (!) developer Blizzard had working on Diablo II 1.10 patch for a while interacted directly with a hardcore cadre of users - and today one may find the same level of two-way interaction with individual app or web extension developers, for example - but these situations are not really applicable to ESO.
None of which is to say that forum feedback is, quote, "useless" - until and unless ZOS discloses its internal feedback monitoring systems to us and these show it to be. Nor am I "defending" ZOS in any way, and I shall be the first to point out that a number of things in ESO or its support service could or should have been done differently.
Nevertheless, if one does post "feedback" on the forum without appreciating the points made above, then at best they are, in a way, being naive. At worst, they develop a sense of entitlement and begin to act out when their "feedback" is not "listened too" (immediately, of course; ours is the age of instant gratification). And, of course, with all sorts of poster varieties between these two extremes.
Rant mode - disengaged.
6
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Elsonso✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Yeah, but what happens here is that things will get ignored to the point where it starts a negative feedback loop and becomes it's own thing. On occasion, this has escaped the forum into the game, and even into gaming blogs and streams. And the silence continues. I think that everyone gets that the forum is a minority, but it is a minority that is actively interested in talking about the game. Just because the forum is a minority does not mean that when things start to fester, it is OK to ignore it.
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Ruckly✭✭✭✭I'm generally of the opinion that game developers should develop games and not players since they are better at it. There are exceptions e.g. Fallout 4 blocking unpaid balance or rpg overhaul mods for the sake of a paid mod pigeon seller booth. With MMOs temporalising sever stats gives an ontology that says this is and was and will be but doesn't quite get at the psychology which doesn't always follow first principles. Stats might say this but players aren't pure mechanical happenings. Rather they have souls and spirits and are subject to inauthenticity.0
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Tasear✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Synergies...I believe in you... someday you will be great again. ( Thinks back to forum...)
Asylum desto why are you so unsustainable ( thinks back to forum...wishes it was looked at again)
Circle of protection is useless skill (forum notice)
Blood altar is useless skill ( forum notice)
Let's have mundus stones in houses ( forum idea)
The list goes on and on, but really I worry they pay to much attention sometimes, but better than other waym
Edited by Tasear on December 30, 2017 8:26PM1 -
Doctordarkspawn✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭So this entire thing was to defend the practice of ignoring our feedback after directly asking for it.
Sod off.0 -
Ladislao✭✭✭✭✭Finally a good response to all whiners who say that ZOS don't listen them. Even nothing to add.
Unfortunately, the most persistent (and therefore the loudest) people will skip the information and continue to whine for nothing
Everything is viable0 -
Waffennacht✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Finally a good response to all whiners who say that ZOS don't listen them. Even nothing to add.
Unfortunately, the most persistent (and therefore the loudest) people will skip the information and continue to whine for nothing
MYSTERY BOXES????1 -
Jade1986✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Internal metrics are always skewed in mmos for one simple reason.
Story content is by default - always - active, dungeons, trials, and pvp , are not. This is the same thing BW tried saying in SWTOR " more people are constantly logged into story content ", which ended up disastrous for their numbers because the number is highly skewed in favor of story.1 -
Jade1986✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Finally a good response to all whiners who say that ZOS don't listen them. Even nothing to add.
Unfortunately, the most persistent (and therefore the loudest) people will skip the information and continue to whine for nothing
Well, they could send out official emails with polls attached to them to get a better idea of the numbers for any certain thing, or send out messages per sms. But they dont, so the best way to get an idea is through communication on their official forums, twitter, fb, and reddit pages.1 -
Kel✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I've never come to a forum...this one, or any other forum...thinking I held any sway or was holding any influence for a dev team.
Forums are a place to interact with other fans/users of a certain product or entertainment, and comment on things you find fun or entertaining or useful. And yes, things not so fun or entertaining...(that last one being way overdone, sadly).
I've never come to a forum thinking it's for change..I come to see what other players think. Seeing what players wish/want to see implemented.
We are just a collection of opinions, really...if we do suggest a change and it actually happens, it's got to be so small it can't be measured. You're right, thinking otherwise is just naive.3 -
DarcyMardin✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭A few years ago, I was part of the early testing of a popular MMO that shall remain nameless. We saw content (new maps areas, quests, raids and instances, class and skill changes) several months before the closed beta folks saw any of it. For example, I remember once entering a newly-open area of the map to see dozens of mobs all lumped inertly together in rows waiting to be distributed across the landscape.
We tested instances like raids, often with devs running with us as part of the team, and gave our feedback. Even that early, we did not have much say in the final product. They listened to us politely and occasionally changed something in a manner that we suggested, but more often the next patch went to beta, and often on to live, with the original build mostly intact.
The devs paid the most attention to our comments when we found actual bugs or possible exploits — those they cared about. But our comments about upping or reducing difficulty, changing skills, making aesthetic or practical changes (e.g., move the crafting area closer to the bank) were pretty much ignored.
So yeah, I would not be at all surprised if feedback to the live game in the forums does not result in many changes. But over time, changes do get made...it is just a very slow process that depends on a lot more factors than forum users’ comments.0 -
Doctordarkspawn✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭DarcyMardin wrote: »A few years ago, I was part of the early testing of a popular MMO that shall remain nameless. We saw content (new maps areas, quests, raids and instances, class and skill changes) several months before the closed beta folks saw any of it. For example, I remember once entering a newly-open area of the map to see dozens of mobs all lumped inertly together in rows waiting to be distributed across the landscape.
We tested instances like raids, often with devs running with us as part of the team, and gave our feedback. Even that early, we did not have much say in the final product. They listened to us politely and occasionally changed something in a manner that we suggested, but more often the next patch went to beta, and often on to live, with the original build mostly intact.
The devs paid the most attention to our comments when we found actual bugs or possible exploits — those they cared about. But our comments about upping or reducing difficulty, changing skills, making aesthetic or practical changes (e.g., move the crafting area closer to the bank) were pretty much ignored.
So yeah, I would not be at all surprised if feedback to the live game in the forums does not result in many changes. But over time, changes do get made...it is just a very slow process that depends on a lot more factors than forum users’ comments.
If that's true, then dont ask us for feedback.0 -
Dracofyre✭✭✭✭most devs now these days just went to 3rd party sites instead of home base forum. why using facebooks and tweets for early advance announcements then here first? THIS IS HOME! come on guys
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