I have a question for the "community".

[AwesomeJr44]

Your last sentence above is why everyone is expert at pointing out the problem, but not many willing to take part in a solution.

Like I said, you have the misconception that the issue you think you found even is an issue that needs to be solved. Not everything is a nail in need of a hammer.

I already stated that this thread isn't about "the complainers", and I meant it. But given the nature of the topic, it's impossible to NOT mention them at all.

Again, like I said, you're assuming that the people on the 'other side' are 'regular complainers' rather than players who are unhappy. You're not banned from mentioning them, but you're showing that you don't understand them when you use terminology like this. Why would someone want to follow your lead if you clearly don't understand them?

So here, someone decide to say "hey, instead of keep talking about the other party issue, how about we do some self-reflection?".

And I'm pointing out that the foundation of the self-reflection you did was flawed. Your OP's points are based on misconceptions.

I just hope this thread won't devolve into another one of the gazillion thread trading blame between my side and your side.

Personally I'd prefer that there wouldn't be any official 'sides' to discussions. Do I agree with some people more than others? Sure, I am more likely to agree with Aveyond than I am with Atelier or Midare. The only actual division I have with other people here is with people who have already given me a reason to dislike them. For example:

- If you're constantly trying to shut down discussions I'm interested in like Striker does, I won't like you.
- If you prove yourself to be unstable like Midare did, I won't like you.
- If you give me an angry rant on a daily basis like VelKallor does, I won't like you.
- If you are consistently intentionally disingenuous like the entirety of the lore forum is, I won't like you.
- If you try to dogpile someone I am on good terms with like everyone under the sun does with Aveyond, I won't like you.

People keep giving me reasons to not like them, and then wonder why I could possibly not like them. Then they wonder why I'm on 'the other side'. I'd be willing to let bygones be bygones with certain people if they stopped giving me reasons to not want to. If people want to have a genuine discussion with me, I'm usually up for it as long as you don't give me a reason to not want to have said discussion. That doesn't mean I guarantee that I will agree with you, but if that's what someone expects from me, that's just unreasonable.

Maybe I should take some pages out of Aveyond's book one of these days and just pretend like certain people don't exist.

[Raven2014]

...

Ok, I will stop replying to you in this thread because you had misunderstood the intention of this thread, and seem pretty determined of taking it to that direction. I will clarify one last time, but that's it:

- This is not a "let's make peace and understand each others" thread.
- This is not a "let's try to bridge the gap between the community" thread.
- This is not a "an attempt to communicate with the other side" thread.

You seem to think I'm pretending to be do some kind of ... chivalry act ... I'm not pretending, I flat out not doing that at all. If you want any of that, my respect, but maybe you should make your own thread for that? I'm not shutting you down, I "can not" shut you down, I just ask you respect the intend of my thread and not derailing it.

The complainers, the other side, people I disagree with .etc. sure, whatever terminology that float your boat because it's more politically correctness, I don't care ... it doesn't matter because they are not the people I'm trying to address in this thread. The people I'm trying to address here are those who generally like the game and enjoy it. And my message to them is very simple:

If you like the game, don't just stay silent, speak out what you like more, give the dev that positive reinforcement

That's it, simple. This is not some kind of grand standing that you're trying to make it to be. Again, I can't shut you down if you still insist (so please don't pull that victim card), just give you a fair notice that you will understand I will no longer response to you.

So the narrative that they deleted the content because people complained too much on the forums is rather unconvincing. If they really did, I have concerns about their decision-making process. A game which smooth out every feature to be as inoffensive as possible has no future.

Like I said, it maybe a causation, or just a mere co-relation. But the silence doesn't help. And I'm willing to bet if there is an overwhelming of visible support for a content, not just some "statistic", it can certain affect the decision making. Just like people who don't vote citing "it doesn't matter, it won't change anything". It may, it may not, but that kind of thinking will not help.



Also, if we assume the relic steps will be kept this simple through out the the whole process this time, I do think the completion rate will break all previous record. Do you want SE to interpret it as "oh, this proved the majority like things this way"?

[Jojoya]

The complainers, the other side, people I disagree with .etc. sure, whatever terminology that float your boat because it's more politically correctness, I don't care ... it doesn't matter because they are not the people I'm trying to address in this thread. The people I'm trying to address here are those who generally like the game and enjoy it. And my message to them is very simple:

If you like the game, don't just stay silent, speak out what you like more, give the dev that positive reinforcement

Which is nice, but your message isn't going to reach the majority of players that you want to hear it because they don't visit the forums in the first place.

You want to know what the real positive reinforcement is for the developers? Renewing your subscription. If you were genuinely unhappy with the game, you wouldn't renew it. You'd spend the money elsewhere. When you're willing to keep paying, they know they're doing something right even if maybe it's not all right in your eyes.

They know that it's the forums and similar media that players will go to when they feel the developers are doing something wrong.

Think about your own dive into the forums. What originally prompted it?

For me, it was housing. I enjoy it and yet I see so much room for improvement that I wanted to leave feedback. Eventually I started adding some feedback on other things I was interested in discussing. My feedback does go both ways but I can't deny most of it is going to be related to things I think could be better.

The forums may be filled with Negative Nancys but they're still paying a subscription and that alone speaks loudly. Negative feedback doesn't bring them down. What brings them down is the personal attacks that some launch (calls for people to be fired and the like).

As I said earlier, feedback is going to tend to be negative and the developers are well aware of that.

They should, but equally, they should use better methods for gauging feedback/direction. Simply asking players to provide feedback is a recipe for disaster, seeing as the scope is so large. But if they were able to narrow this scope with polls (not constrained to the OF) then that would be a better alternative.

Logging in to play the game is a poll in itself. They can tell what content players are doing, and what content is getting ignored.

If a particular piece of content is getting ignored more than they expected, then they have the Community team to scan the forums, social media, YouTube/Twitch, etc. to find out why it's getting ignored. If there's a topic in the forums here or on reddit that's getting hundreds of responses, the Community team will pick up on it and condense the feedback to pass onto the developers.

The unsolicited feedback players voluntarily post in the various locations is going to be a lot more honest in nature than solicited feedback. Behavior and responses change when people are very much aware they're being specifically watched.