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Request: Transparency from the Devs
bardaaron
Member Posts: 545 Bounty Hunter
I go around looking on the big forums, and I see lots of people complaining about this or that; class balance, bug fixes, lack of foundry updates, TOD, and on an on. To a certain extent, this is going to happen no matter what, but I believe that some of this is due to our frustrations at feeling like we are not being heard. Regardless of how much the Devs are actually listening to our requests or not, and actually working on them or not, we hear almost nothing about what it is they are doing, until they've done it.
I propose that the Devs provide monthly or at most weekly (don't want to use up too much of their time) updates on what projects they are working on. If they are trying to fix bugs, let us know which bugs they are working on. If anyone is working on foundry features, let us know what features are being actively worked on this week/month. If they are doing event planning, or if their sole focus is the next mod, then they should tell us that too.
I think I, for one, would feel better knowing from them what they were working on, instead of just sitting in a jaded silence wondering if they will ever get around to fixing that bug, or adding this feature, without any indication at all. And I imagine a lot of other people here would agree with me.
Devs, you don't have to spend all day on the forums "explaining yourselves," or leaving lots of comments, just designate someone to keep us appraised of the situation.
I propose that the Devs provide monthly or at most weekly (don't want to use up too much of their time) updates on what projects they are working on. If they are trying to fix bugs, let us know which bugs they are working on. If anyone is working on foundry features, let us know what features are being actively worked on this week/month. If they are doing event planning, or if their sole focus is the next mod, then they should tell us that too.
I think I, for one, would feel better knowing from them what they were working on, instead of just sitting in a jaded silence wondering if they will ever get around to fixing that bug, or adding this feature, without any indication at all. And I imagine a lot of other people here would agree with me.
Devs, you don't have to spend all day on the forums "explaining yourselves," or leaving lots of comments, just designate someone to keep us appraised of the situation.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by bardaaron on
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MORE transparency is something that a lot of people want but in a company that has trade secrets and proprietary information that can damage the company if it is leaked, you'll never have 100% transparency. they provide what they can as it best fits the company. some might argue that lack of transparency is negative and hurting the company but that's usually an entitlement argument.
We don't want their secrets, we want some generic information and opinions from the developers, the type of feedback that GC provided lately, but more often if possible.
That is all.
The CM is not really suited for this type of activity. We need technically knowledgeable persons. Akro is very nice, but he is a PR person, not a tech.
So essentially they aren't working on anything?
I haven't seen anything posted that describes what is currently being worked on (other than the DC and TR which probably is a Mod 5 item).
It sure would be nice to know that various bugs that have been reported are being worked on, etc. I often wonder why the soulforged bug (where you die with Res sickness and take damage) has not been fixed despite having been reported well over 6 months ago. Perhaps if there was some transparency (instead of beer and burgers) these things might get worked on?
Also, many people will take "we're working on this" as an etched-in-stone promise that the bug will be fixed on the upcoming patch...and when it isn't: "why hasn't this been fixed yet? you said you were working on it!!" "what, no fix for (X) bug? you guys don't even care"
Another reason is the simple reality that the devs' priority and what they see as needing to be fixed quickly as opposed to what can wait is going to be different from yours, mine, or any other player's. Requesting a "fix list" is going to give some players the impression that they have the right to dictate the workflow of the QA or dev team, and that simply isn't going to fly with any company.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
just, wow, the resistance for an innocent request for just keeping it's customers apprised is depressing
show me another company with an MMO...and a forum where the community mods/devs don't occasionally come in and give an idea of future plans, or things being potentially worked on...(rather than going around "cleaning" the forum from "negative" posts)
it's just something they do to keep people updated, it's honestly, just courtesy
to come up with the first response about "company secrets" and divulging them...what the heck? haha
i agree with OP
it's infuriating having to sit here wondering if things are actually being looked at, in terms of balance...but i also appreciate that no real timetable should be given, or nothing set in stone, just give an idea that you guys are listening/reading...so as to keep players interested and aware of the level of activity from the designers/devs
e.g. the glyph balance, the piercing damage fix, the control wizard balance
don't get me wrong, it's great that it's being fixed, but gives people really bad impressions when not a single word is said about it until it's released....not only from a standpoint of a "finally! they fixed/nerfed (whatever)" but from the standpoint of "oh, they're thinking about doing that? let me try to adjust my playstyle" or "nice, devs are actually listening and paying attention to their design choices, it's so awesome that i can look forward to fixes/balances"
instead, the modulus operati right now is "well, let's all sit here in the dark, and wait and hope that one day it will just get fixed/nerfed" <<< this drives people AWAY from the game
I was incredibly happy seeing spirals999 Staff Audio Designer dropping in audio threads, discussing ideas or explaining a system. Describing what they've tried and what didn't work.
This is exactly the kind of action that makes players happy.
We know that devs don't have time to monitor and reply to everything, but at the same time, we get frustrated by the complete lack of attention to various matters that get brought up time and again. Even a "no, here's why" is preferable to silence.
One reason Spirals999 is able to be so responsive is the dedicated audio issues thread, which he can monitor regularly. I assume he's subscribed to it so he can pop in whenever it gets bumped. It's wonderful.
I have thought that a dedicated art design issues thread would be helpful, for example, to consolidate all the problems like gear that doesn't show up on one sex of character, upside-down shields, and wonky hair. But in the absence of any confidence that the people in charge of those things would even see it, I haven't been motivated to put in the work to put it together.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
You misunderstand the reality, though.
Devs don't always have the time to peruse the forums. If they're lucky they might get the chance to pop in once a day--if that. They also need the flexibility of being able to do as their needs require. That means they don't get the luxury of making implied promises to the players and something else come up that precludes it.
We know that if the devs were to come on the forums and say "oh yeah, sure, we'll get to work on this" that many are going to read that as "yep! we'll get that fixed in this week's patch for sure!!" Consider as an example the Roar issue. The devs acknowledged the issue about a month or two before it was actually patched--and people were groaning for weeks as to "why hasn't it been fixed in THIS patch? you acknowledged this already!!" Yes, they did--but acknowledgement is not the same as a promise it will be fixed in the next upcoming patch, or any patch within the foreseeable future; it simply means they are aware of it. However, the reality of the situation is twofold.
One, the devs may not see an issue as game breaking or problematic as the players do. Let's go back to the Roar issue to explain. Sure, it was an issue to PVP players--but the devs know that PVP does not make up a large portion of the game. Yes, a vocal minority, perhaps, but let's be real...the devs have the numbers that we don't have access to, and they also have the ability to look at the bug reports that we don't get to see (e.g. the ingame bug reports submitted). Simply because you or I or anyone else may see something as "broken" does not mean it is so. The devs are looking at the larger picture.
Second, they have to squeeze in fixing bugs alongside debugging and testing new content. If something critical comes up in upcoming content, they have to devote their resources to fixing that first. Then, if something comes up in existing content, they have to fix that--and that's assuming nothing new comes in that needs to be fixed. It's like triage in an emergency room. What that means, usually, is that a lot of minor, cosmetic, and "annoyance" bugs get left almost perpetually at the bottom of the priority list.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
and there clearly isnt enough communication between devs and players, its mostly about gentlemancrush, we could use a few more awesome ppl like that
CM should be much more active in forums, but atm its just posts about events and thats about it, 2 much PR and not enough communication
all we ask is more like this post(example below), clears up an issue, explains what they are doing about it, i know gentlemancrush alone cant answer all questions but would be nice seeing more devs showing up, that is why we have CM and mods to bring issues to them so they dont have to go through all the stuff in forums, but there are many ppl who do write good feedback explaining problems
Yet asking the devs to publish their priorities...we all know that there will always be someone demanding "why isn't MY bug a priority?" and then they will be expected to publicly explain and defend their decisions...and that takes from the time that could be better used working on bugs and issues. Bottom line, though, is that those are the decisions of the dev team.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
(The same applies to PVP, and bug fixes, content issues, and whatever else may be someone's gripe. The Foundry is just what *I* am most interested in, so it's what I want to hear about)
You seem pretty adamant on how important secrecy is. But the fact is that there are companies trusting their playerbase and saying them honestly if they see issues, if they can fix it, how they're planning to improve the game, and yes, sometimes there are change of plans and they're explained. I've seen several games doing that, including one on the brink of failure. Now the game is very successful.
Usually transparency keeps the most involved players playing the game. It would probably requires the devs to spend half a day to be trained in community management to prevent them from saying something that makes people acting super entitled but the fact that it works/worked on many games should be a sufficient proof in itself. I can't post about other games per the ToS (another PWE unique feature
Let's take an example: the ToD campaign design is horrible, almost no one likes it. Several weeks to unlock new content, up to 2h to do dailies on one char... A dev could just pop on the forums, apologize for the inconvenience and say that they acknowledged the issue and will make it less of a pain in the *** for the next campaign. Or they could say "no it's going to be the future of neverwinter" and then make us run away as fast as we can.
All in all it would be a step in the right direction because the game isn't in a great shape at the moment. The forums looked better 6 or 12 months ago and people were slightly less upset about the state of the game. Yeah I remember BoP caused a lot of drama but that wasn't a major issue like how much time is this game going to suck out of your life to see meaningful character progression, poor content balance, lack of challenge, or stuff like that.
Bugs could be ACCURATELY reported in the tool along with actual details the devs could use, and if (and WHEN) a dev or qa person got around to validating the bug - the bug tracking tool would record that AND THE USERS WOULD BE AWARE THE ISSUE WAS EVEN SEEN.
Then, when bugs actually get fixed, the development department (read, unpaid intern and/or monkey in a cap) could simply press a button or select a "summary" report that could get included in the RELEASE NOTES which would SAVE LOTS OF DEVELOPER TIME instead of crafting/summarizing/forgetting a manually edited patch notes.
It is beyond baffling why they don't leverage and benefit from such tools which have existed out here in internet-land for DECADES.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Cranking out new content (like Mod 4) and not listening to your customers is what causes the playerbase to decline. Many folks came back to check out Mod 4 but left after sitting around waiting for dragons to spawn and pretty much only getting coins and enchants as a reward.
True enough. Akro is very personable and certainly one of the more active community managers I've encountered.
I too want transparency, but my definition is slightly different than the OPs. I don't want Devs writing weekly "State of Neverwinter" blogs. I'd rather they spent their valuable time programming. I simply want transparency about game mechanics. Neverwinter has several aspects where lack of knowledge needlessly harms players. Let me provide examples.
You see the vagueness. What percentage is "a chance" or "a bonus"? I posted three instances for brevity's sake, but can certainly provide dozens of similar examples spanning every single class. These are basic game mechanics where vagueness prevents informed decisions. Transparency in these matters doesn't hurt Cryptic/PWE and actively helps players. Please lift the veil.
Another situation where vagueness harms players are special items such as lockboxes, scroll cases, and chicken eggs. What's the chance of finding Tenser's Floating Disc? What are the odds we'll get that Duegar Theurge? These examples are slightly different. Ignorance again injures players, but of course that same "a chance" actively makes money for Cryptic/PWE. Transparency in these matters, while a good thing for players, isn't necessarily good for Cryptic/PWE. It's a judgment call, but I personally believe clear-cut lockbox percentages leads to fair drop percentages, thereby benefiting both parties.
Nor am I necessarily asking for a list of priorities and the order in which they will be worked on.
What I would want is some separation by categories (that need to include Foundry. Even if nothing is being worked on, you need to TELL us that.) Possible categories could go like the patch notes & be something like this:
Content:
*Mod 5 Testing
*Mod 6 Development
Class Balance:
*We are working on an overhaul of DC and TR
*We understand people's concerns about CW, but we aren't that concerned. We don't plan on making changes for a while.
Bug Fixes:
*This Mod 4 thing isn't working right, we're working on fixing it.
Items & Economy:
*We want to provide some uses for Dragon Hoard Coins, so we have that in production.
Foundry:
*Bosses--We want to get this added, but the Foundry isn't set up for it, so it's hard to implement at present. Can't say when it will be finished.
*Better Rewards--We aren't going to change this. We nerfed them for a reason, and we don't intend to change it. (we'd be sad, but we'd know)
And this is all hypothetical, just involving a few issues that have been big on the forums.
Just ignore the people who complain that "But you already acknowledged this issue! WHY ISN'T IT FIXED YET?" because such people don't understand that things take time and testing, and will never be happy.
Ok. so how about other MMO games? Im not gonna post here any advertisements but in any other mmo game I had played I saw such things as
- balance must be made. There is no such thing as totaly unbalanced game as we see now.
- bugs? you got it reported. It is stated as noticed and confirmed. You got personal thanks from dev- either small. And this is also devs from same country as Perfect World btw. Yet still did anybody got anything for reporting AD Rift vulnerability?
- feedback threads? Why do cryptic even copy paste same "we want to get more feedback" stuff if it is totally ignored really? Most of current issues -refinement, BI drops, Unbalance was reported monthes ago on preview.
- marketing models. Moderators or anybody can close or delete as much as they what these posts. But players will remember Dragonborn sale. And this is top payable people of game just saying. So delete this if you want to prove statement.
- Devs reviews? Advices from LoL made it LOL. Just showed one more time how much devs have no clue on their game.
- Class advocates? Who are they?
So this company need to work on transparency and communication.
- start responding on feedback. State that is herd and show progress and decisions made on it.
- work with players. Play with them. Include them in public discussions. Make player work on balance as advisers. Don't put information entirely open about secrets. Put discussions with both sides involved.
- make public planes about reported issues known to players!
- make support for game work. Not "yeah well it is by design"
- Listen to your community. Make then want to stay and play the game. Make them play D&D if you tend to keep D&D logo still.
- make reporting bugs and defect valuable. not ignored.