Yoshi-P Statement on Player Feedback

[Lauront]

Mmm, a lot of people are bilingual or polyglots. Non-community JP Staff - the backend people - will be reading these forums, will be reading Reddit, will be reading other English fora about their work and will be feeling bad.

Yes, well part of the issue here is that he is being a bit vague, IMO. Personally, I have my doubts that it's anything to do with the forum, as such. They set the TOS here, it is their (SE's) responsibility to enforce them and by and large I've seen very little here directly insulting the devs. Criticising some of their work, e.g. healers who are not satisfied with the design of the job? Sure, but I can't think of many occasions where it turns into insults and the like.

[Halivel]

Yes, well part of the issue here is that he is being a bit vague, IMO. Personally, I have my doubts that it's anything to do with the forum, as such. They set the TOS here, it is their (SE's) responsibility to enforce them and by and large I've seen very little here directly insulting the devs. Criticising some of their work, e.g. healers who are not satisfied with the design of the job? Sure, but I can't think of many occasions where it turns into insults and the like.

You don't need to insult developers directly to make them upset.
There were plenty of cases when people absolutely didn't check on their tone while venting about whatever they disliked about the game. It's not any better than cursing at staff directly.

[Lauront]

You don't need to insult developers directly to make them upset.
There were plenty of cases when people absolutely didn't check on their tone while venting about whatever they disliked about the game. It's not any better than cursing at staff directly.

And if the individual is sensitive to any criticism whatsoever? This is a rather subjective sort of thing. I'm curious - if a developer can't handle reading feedback even when it's bereft of insults and simply because it wasn't phrased a particular way (which?), should they be reading feedback in the first place? How is this now not a matter of tone policing? It can be easier to disregard someone who is just venting, for some people, than someone who is actually pointing out flaws in their work.

[Kaurhz]

And if the individual is sensitive to any criticism whatsoever? This is a rather subjective sort of thing. I'm curious - if a developer can't handle reading feedback even when it's bereft of insults and simply because they weren't phrased a particular way (which?), should they be reading feedback in the first place? How is this now not a matter of tone policing? It can be easier to disregard someone who is just venting, for some people, than someone who is actually pointing out flaws in their work.

Don't know about you but I wouldn't appreciate being called lazy by folk that don't understand the field I work in, or the challenges presented during WIP by people that only see an end produce. Nor would I appreciate being accused of not playing my own game simply because the expectations aren't met. Nor would I appreciate my work being called sloppy by people when said work is still arguably in development. Just to name a few examples.

On one side of the coin should people read feedback because they can't handle criticism, but on the other hand should people be issuing criticism if their only criticism is tossing around nonsense like lazy, sloppy, and baseless accusations? Need to understand that their work is already subjected to criticism from early as design, prior to the launch and quality checks

People have a very loose understanding of what criticism or feedback actually is

[Halivel]

And if the individual is sensitive to any criticism whatsoever? This is a rather subjective sort of thing. I'm curious - if a developer can't handle reading feedback even when it's bereft of insults and simply because they weren't phrased a particular way (which?), should they be reading feedback in the first place? How is this now not a matter of tone policing? It can be easier to disregard someone who is just venting, for some people, than someone who is actually pointing out flaws in their work.

What I can't understand is why people here always fall from one extreme to another with no middle ground inbetween.

Yoshida never said that criticism is unwelcome. However, there's a huge distance between a criticism and suggestion written in a polite manner and a tantrum full of poorly hidden aggression, if hidden at all. Even if you aren't particularly happy about given feedback, it's much easier to accept it when those who wrote it treat you like a person with emotions rather than a soulless punching bag.

I doubt any of these people who are rude at Forum write letters to their boss or customers in such a manner. What makes people think that game developers should be okay with it? They're people, not robots. You don't need to sugarcoat your words to insanity, but common, basic level of decency isn't that hard to grasp.

[Senn]

And if the individual is sensitive to any criticism whatsoever? This is a rather subjective sort of thing. I'm curious - if a developer can't handle reading feedback even when it's bereft of insults and simply because they weren't phrased a particular way (which?), should they be reading feedback in the first place? How is this now not a matter of tone policing? It can be easier to disregard someone who is just venting, for some people, than someone who is actually pointing out flaws in their work.

I remember when there was a bunch of people accusing the devs of sexism and homophobia when female viera and male hrothgar were first announced.
Some would argue that the lack of male viera and female hrothgar was a flaw, and some genuienly believed it was sexist (not that I would agree). So naturally, these people left feedback... but it was laced with vitriol towards the devs.
I don't think the feedback in regards to adding male veira/female hrothgar was unjustified, but the attacks and accusations towards the devs were. And some of those posts flew under the radar because they were disguised enough to the point where it wasn't technically against the ToS, but it was still rude and uncalled for.

Yoshi P is just asking people to be polite when leaving feedback. Negative feedback is ok, but there's no need to attack the devs. That's all there is to it.

[Shibi]

Sure, but I can't think of many occasions where it turns into insults and the like.

Saw one yesterday criticising healers where the person talking said the devs doing it should be fired. Those calls to sack them, I do see a lot.

[Lauront]

Don't know about you but I wouldn't appreciate being called lazy by folk that don't understand the field I work in, or the challenges presented during WIP by people that only see an end produce. Nor would I appreciate being accused of not playing my own game simply because the expectations aren't met. Nor would I appreciate my work being called sloppy by people when said work is still arguably in development. Just to name a few examples.

On one side of the coin should people read feedback because they can't handle criticism, but on the other hand should people be issuing criticism if their only criticism is tossing around nonsense like lazy, sloppy, and baseless accusations? Need to understand that their work is already subjected to criticism from early as design, prior to the launch and quality checks

People have a very loose understanding of what criticism or feedback actually is

I have a fairly good appreciation of what it is, as I have quite a bit of background in dealing with customer feedback within larger firms - the threshold for what feedback is, is not particularly high. It is simply the customer's view/experience of a product or service, whether it is welcome, constructive, articulated well, written in frustration, etc. Whether you or I appreciate such commentary, it is separate to the fact that, particularly on sites the company does not control (e.g. reddit), there are going to be instances of customers who don't phrase their views in the most delicate of ways and the advice to employees who have a low threshold for such things would be to have someone else gather the feedback if they're of a sensitive disposition or go in with the realisation that people often vent when they're frustrated about something. Even if they don't expect this of their back-office staff, if they know they go about reading direct customer feedback on their work, it would be a good idea to provide some advice on how they go about that. On their own forum SE can try police that should they wish, but they have to be mindful of not creating the perception that they want nothing but an echo chamber or that they are too heavy-handed about it. As it is, the in-game TOS are pretty vague and we're reliant on posts from GMs on what they will or won't clamp down on, which is not a great situation, IMO.

What I can't understand is why people here always fall from one extreme to another with no middle ground inbetween.

Yoshida never said that criticism is unwelcome. However, there's a huge distance between a criticism and suggestion written in a polite manner and a tantrum full of poorly hidden aggression, if hidden at all. Even if you aren't particularly happy about given feedback, it's much easier to accept it when those who wrote it treat you like a person with emotions rather than a soulless punching bag.

Yes, and the concern is that some elements on the forum might make use of such comments to browbeat anyone with dissenting views on the game, because it makes the devs sad, or somesuch. So it'd be nice if he were specific as to what instances he has in mind rather than leaving this up to us to divine. At the end of the day, only so many people will comply with such a request simply because he made it, but clear examples would be nice.

I doubt any of these people who are rude at Forum write letters to their boss or customers in such a manner. What makes people think that game developers should be okay with it? They're people, not robots. You don't need to sugarcoat your words to insanity, but common, basic level of decency isn't that hard to grasp.

No, but they might on a forum or elsewhere (albeit anonymously to avoid being identified). It is seen as particularly egregious when businesses hound customers on third party social media sites to try police feedback left for them. I never said anyone needs to be "okay" with it. All I want is for them to be clear on what kind of thing it is that they mean, so that we don't see the usual attempts on this forum at stifling criticism/feedback they don't like for scenarios he didn't really envision his words applying to.

Saw one yesterday criticising healers where the person talking said the devs doing it should be fired. Those calls to sack them, I do see a lot.

Yes, which is a very common occurrence in complaints. To the point that you learn to shrug that kind of thing off pretty quickly. I understand that some of their staff might not be familiar with this kind of thing, but in that case it would be advisable to either have someone who knows their way about this stuff to sit with them when reading it, or to have such a person comb through the feedback and extract what is of use. A very typical way in which larger businesses handle feedback...

Most companies don't have the luxury of lecturing their customers on how to leave them feedback on sites they don't control, or for that matter even on sites they do control (because they have no obligation to buy their product at the end of the day), and can distinguish between language said in the heat of the moment from genuine malice, and thus it is atypical to go beyond simply stipulating to not abuse their staff and give staff the right to discontinue direct communication should they fail to abide by that.

[Kaurhz]

Snip.

If a post contains naught but derogatory terms, or terms that are strictly only inflammatory, sure you can construe it as feedback, but no amount of gymnastics is going to translate that into something constructive.

Saying that the healer design is shambolic because the damage rotation consists of nothing but DoT > 1, 1,1.. 1, > reapply. That is constructive feedback. To take it a step further, if you introduce examples of how you would make the set more engaging, be it through reworking the encounters in the game so there is a heavier demand on actually healing, or through the introduction of some new damage spells, then that's great. However, if your only statement in this regard is that the developers don't play their own game, and that they should be fired because their design philosophy does not align with your own. Then as per my initial statement, no amount of gymnastics will make that feedback any good.

There's a big distinction between venting your disappointment, or annoyances and just electing to take the stand of attacking both the community and/or the developers. It's also quite glaringly the absolute worst thing you can do for yourself, the developers and the community you're apart of.

An echo chamber will only occur if their purpose is to very selectively listen to feedback, which I'm pretty sure is not the case. But whilst we're on this final section though. Arguably there is already a level of echo chambering going on within the community. Taking into account that in many cases views opposing are either met with nonsensical remarks such as "Find a new game", or "White Knight." These levels of remarks serve no other purpose than to attempt to undermine an argument. - Arguably in this respect, some of the community are already in the state where they're unintentionally creating this environment.

What is not a great situation is to create and entertain the notion that your disappointment, or disapproval in a product gives a token to be disrespectful and rude with your criticisms.

[Lauront]

If a post contains naught but derogatory terms, or terms that are strictly only inflammatory, sure you can construe it as feedback, but no amount of gymnastics is going to translate that into something constructive.

But you're now qualifying it as "constructive", which is raising the bar. If we simply say "feedback" or "criticism", it isn't mental gynmastics to say it doesn't have to be constructive.

Saying that the healer design is shambolic because the damage rotation consists of nothing but DoT > 1, 1,1.. 1, > reapply. That is constructive feedback. To take it a step further, if you introduce examples of how you would make the set more engaging, be it through reworking the encounters in the game so there is a heavier demand on actually healing, or through the introduction of some new damage spells, then that's great. However, if your only statement in this regard is that the developers don't play their own game, and that they should be fired because their design philosophy does not align with your own. Then as per my initial statement, no amount of gymnastics will make that feedback any good.

There generally isn't an expectation when a customer complains for them to provide an answer as to how to resolve the issue or even a detailed understanding of what they dislike about it. The business can ask what would improve matters, it might even probe further to identify what if anything went wrong, but it's absolutely not a requirement for something to be constructive for it to count as feedback, and even SE's own mechanisms of gauging customer dissatisfaction e.g. on unsubbing, are pretty minimalist. If they are content with that level of feedback when a customer terminates a service with them, it's a bit bizarre to expect more of a forum, which is not really seen as anything other than a venue to discuss the game with no particular expectation that feedback provided will be constructive... even if as an ideal it is. Thus my point that if their employees are going about reading social media feedback, while he can certainly request that consumers be considerate, but he cannot ultimately control what customers say and so the way to address this is to coach them on it or have staff who specialise in this sort of work to do it. It's only natural for people to become attached to their work creations, and it's good to see he is supportive of his staff, but generally speaking it is advised to either go in with a steeled mindset when reading feedback or to have someone who is detached from creating the work to do so to avoid situations such as this. And I think for the avoidance of any ambiguity, he should provide examples of the general behaviours he mentioned.

There's a big distinction between venting your disappointment, or annoyances and just electing to take the stand of attacking both the community and/or the developers. It's also quite glaringly the absolute worst thing you can do for yourself, the developers and the community you're apart of. Inflammatory remarks, regardless of whether constructive will just get ignored because they serve no purpose whatsoever. I'm pretty sure the majority of the community is of the appropriate age where this should be something seemingly obvious.

An echo chamber will only occur if their purpose is to very selectively listen to feedback, which I'm pretty sure is not the case. But whilst we're on this final section though. Arguably there is already a level of echo chambering going on within the community. Taking into account that in many cases views opposing are either met with nonsensical remarks such as "Find a new game", or "White Knight." These levels of remarks serve no other purpose than to attempt to undermine an argument. - Arguably in this respect, some of the community are already in the state where they're unintentionally creating this environment.

What is not a great situation is to create and entertain the notion that your disappointment, or disapproval in a product gives a token to be disrespectful and rude with your criticisms.

And all that goes back to what is the purpose of a forum? You may think it is to elicit constructive feedback. They may simply see it as a way to increase customer engagement that occasionally produces some feedback that is of use to them. Same with third party social media. At the risk of repeating myself, unless they want to enshrine it in the TOS, simply offering vague references to members of staff finding some comments hurtful in an interview only a tiny proportion of this community will even be aware of, isn't going to achieve much. They would be better served either tightening up the TOS or training their staff on the matter.