"This bickering is pointless. Lord Vader will provide us with the location of the Rebel fortress by the time this station is operational. We will then crush the Rebellion with one swift stroke." - Grand Moff Tarkin
And we all know how well that plan went - they'd have been better off sitting around bickering!
On the other hand, he DID make it through the entire film without getting Force Choked, so that's a plus.
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Branding anyone that gave strongly worded criticism as being a hater doesn't do your side of the argument any favours.
PS4 has just had a patch today which if we're lucky is only to flip the switch for the upcoming weekend events and possibly the elite starter pack.
If we're not that lucky we'll get to see exactly how badly the lander faceplants into the console version. Unless they decide consoles might want to have disable options its going to be even more in your face an unavoidable than on PC. But thats unlikely to happen as a lot of what appears on console is half done or simply carries over variations of the bugs that went into the live game on PC. And of course most of the devs focus will have been getting the myriad of bugs ironed out of VIL since it went live.
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Accepting that some people don't like something doesn't imply letting those people dictate decisions.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Accepting that some people don't like something doesn't imply letting those people dictate decisions.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
Its not unrealistic and devs with that attitude have killed other game before. Its also a great way to lose retention. Yes you cannot please everyone but writing off negative feedback comments as 'general grumbling', that's just people not used to change or you just cannot please everyone is just as bad if not worse.
In fact it was the devs attitude being like that which caused so many players to leave and stop spending money due to the poorly designed UI queue and another case the flash sales which has been treated the same way as this splash screen. Although granted the flash sales where changed recently but not until a lot of harm had been done and players left, all because negative feedback was ignored.
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Accepting that some people don't like something doesn't imply letting those people dictate decisions.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
People have, of course, come up with valid, reasoned arguments as to why they don't like it: way beyond your "I don't like it" strawman. But even "I don't like it" should ultimately suffice, really, when all you want to do, is let Cryptic know you don't like it.
Way I see it, landing page has no real function. Like I said, it's essentially just a glorified ad/promo screen. For instance, I don't need to slapped around the ears, for the umptiest time, about what's new in ViL (there's already a button for that in-game, one you can *choose* to click). Or hearing what's in the Vanguard Pack. Besides, as I have cogently argued before, the things on the new Landing Page, that's what the launcher is for. But they broke the launcher a long time ago, and keep it populated with stale news. So, the logical solution should have been to FIX the launcher, keep it properly updated, and then this whole console-type ad-screen could have been gone with.
See? That's a reasoned argument. Your objections in this thread, however, basically just amount to "I don't like it that ppl don't like it." Well, tough luck.
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Accepting that some people don't like something doesn't imply letting those people dictate decisions.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
Its not unrealistic and devs with that attitude have killed other game before. Its also a great way to lose retention. Yes you cannot please everyone but writing off negative feedback comments as 'general grumbling', that's just people not used to change or you just cannot please everyone is just as bad if not worse.
It is just general grumbling. The only significant issues brought up were the pop-up appearing too often (which was a bug) and the missing Mirror event (which they added).
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Accepting that some people don't like something doesn't imply letting those people dictate decisions.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
Its not unrealistic and devs with that attitude have killed other game before. Its also a great way to lose retention. Yes you cannot please everyone but writing off negative feedback comments as 'general grumbling', that's just people not used to change or you just cannot please everyone is just as bad if not worse.
In fact it was the devs attitude being like that which caused so many players to leave and stop spending money due to the poorly designed UI queue and another case the flash sales which has been treated the same way as this splash screen. Although granted the flash sales where changed recently but not until a lot of harm had been done and players left, all because negative feedback was ignored.
^^ Zactly! Your UI example was a good one. And when it comes to things like this, the customer really *is* always right. Which is to say, when someone tells you they don't like something, it's not something you can really argue with. It's like writing an instruction manual, and then being defensive about it, saying it really *was* clearly written, when proof readers tell you it isn't. That UI was close to an 'unclearly written manual,' in that it confused ppl, and thus began to annoy them. In those cases, you can't really say that you, the Dev, *think* the players should like it, and/or that it's perfectly clear to yourself. It just doesn't work that way.
At the very least, make an option then, to 'Show Landing Page' on login.' Now, before ppl retort "But then no one will enable it!", I say... bingo! There's your answer!
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Accepting that some people don't like something doesn't imply letting those people dictate decisions.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
Its not unrealistic and devs with that attitude have killed other game before. Its also a great way to lose retention. Yes you cannot please everyone but writing off negative feedback comments as 'general grumbling', that's just people not used to change or you just cannot please everyone is just as bad if not worse.
It is just general grumbling. The only significant issues brought up were the pop-up appearing too often (which was a bug) and the missing Mirror event (which they added).
That might be true for some people but you are very mistaken if you think all the negative feedback is just general grumbling. My complaints go beyond that and so does others and it will not go away over time. Like the queue UI this isn't complaining for complaining sake or just because something has changed. Just like the queue UI this too will drive some players away from the game and stop others spending money. Its that bad. Making STO feel like a cheap mobile game with pop up adverts is not a good thing that long term will do more harm then good. The devs seem to have made a lot of choices in the past years that are bad for long term player retention, the splash screen is yet another example and it concerns me if they keep going down this path.
The lander appearing too often is only partly a bug.
They build the damn thing into the ESC menu making in an actual feature that not even cryptic can claim was a bug even with their track record of fudging the lines between one and the other.
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Accepting that some people don't like something doesn't imply letting those people dictate decisions.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
Its not unrealistic and devs with that attitude have killed other game before. Its also a great way to lose retention. Yes you cannot please everyone but writing off negative feedback comments as 'general grumbling', that's just people not used to change or you just cannot please everyone is just as bad if not worse.
It is just general grumbling. The only significant issues brought up were the pop-up appearing too often (which was a bug) and the missing Mirror event (which they added).
That might be true for some people but you are very mistaken if you think all the negative feedback is just general grumbling. My complaints go beyond that and so does others and it will not go away over time. Like the queue UI this isn't complaining for complaining sake or just because something has changed. Just like the queue UI this too will drive some players away from the game and stop others spending money. Its that bad. Making STO feel like a cheap mobile game with pop up adverts is not a good thing that long term will do more harm then good. The devs seem to have made a lot of choices in the past years that are bad for long term player retention, the splash screen is yet another example and it concerns me if they keep going down this path.
If there have been specific issues in this thread, besides the ones they have already addressed, then I have not seen them. "Have to close it," "menu buttons moved to the left" and "OMG a lockbox ad, you monsters!!!!" are not significant. These are all the kind of things that, had the feature been in the game from day one, nobody would've ever cared to notice. In other words, people complaining just because it's something new.
The queue system revamp on the other hand actually had serious and well-documented functional deficiencies compared to the old system, some of which are still in there despite many incremental improvements. Most notably the cancel spam caused by the "queue group" mechanism. Not that it matters much at this point, only the most popular queues ever pop at all.
And the whole "driving players away" argument similarly pops up every single time something changes. Everything always drives masses of players away, supposedly. But nothing ever comes out of it. It's like, surprise surprise, the general playerbase doesn't share the priorities of the loudest forum posters after all. It doesn't seem to even drive the complainers away, the same names pop up again as soon as the next controversy. It's especially rich now that they did that thread asking about retention and the vast majority of replies stated they're just here for the name Star Trek.
You can't declare something as "bad for long term player retention" based on nothing but your own feelings. Some people like the landing page, others don't. Personally, I think one has been sorely needed and all it needs now is more/better info on it. And in the end, for better or worse, it's not even remotely as big a deal as it was made into in this thread. The average player isn't going to see an info screen at login as a crime against humanity.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
This whole thread seems to be devolving. I said it before, I'll say it again: negative feedback, positive feedback, neither is really useful unless it's constructive. "I love it!" is no more useful than "I hate it!"
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
“You can't declare something as "bad for long term player retention" based on nothing but your own feelings.”
That is not what I am doing. I have seen negative recent changes kill 6 fleets and drive almost everyone from my friends list away. When someone says they are leaving due to xyz and don’t come back that is not my feelings.
The player population has dropped so low that in my main playtime, battlezones are near empty with 1 zone and barely 4 active players and even the most popular queues like ISA and CE I have to wait up to 5 minutes to get in although after the ViL CE is down to 2 minutes. So it’s not just my feelings, retention has got so bad that’s its had a negative impact on my ability to play the game. A game that I want to see have continued major success.
Plus if you look at the mobile forum feedback thread you will see its suffering the same problem as here. It feels like all negative feedback is being written off in the same way as here even though the new mobile forum is 100% unusable for me and just about everyone else is saying its a step backwards.
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Accepting that some people don't like something doesn't imply letting those people dictate decisions.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
Its not unrealistic and devs with that attitude have killed other game before. Its also a great way to lose retention. Yes you cannot please everyone but writing off negative feedback comments as 'general grumbling', that's just people not used to change or you just cannot please everyone is just as bad if not worse.
It is just general grumbling. The only significant issues brought up were the pop-up appearing too often (which was a bug) and the missing Mirror event (which they added).
That might be true for some people but you are very mistaken if you think all the negative feedback is just general grumbling. My complaints go beyond that and so does others and it will not go away over time. Like the queue UI this isn't complaining for complaining sake or just because something has changed. Just like the queue UI this too will drive some players away from the game and stop others spending money. Its that bad. Making STO feel like a cheap mobile game with pop up adverts is not a good thing that long term will do more harm then good. The devs seem to have made a lot of choices in the past years that are bad for long term player retention, the splash screen is yet another example and it concerns me if they keep going down this path.
If there have been specific issues in this thread, besides the ones they have already addressed, then I have not seen them. "Have to close it," "menu buttons moved to the left" and "OMG a lockbox ad, you monsters!!!!" are not significant. These are all the kind of things that, had the feature been in the game from day one, nobody would've ever cared to notice. In other words, people complaining just because it's something new.
The queue system revamp on the other hand actually had serious and well-documented functional deficiencies compared to the old system, some of which are still in there despite many incremental improvements. Most notably the cancel spam caused by the "queue group" mechanism. Not that it matters much at this point, only the most popular queues ever pop at all.
And the whole "driving players away" argument similarly pops up every single time something changes. Everything always drives masses of players away, supposedly. But nothing ever comes out of it. It's like, surprise surprise, the general playerbase doesn't share the priorities of the loudest forum posters after all. It doesn't seem to even drive the complainers away, the same names pop up again as soon as the next controversy. It's especially rich now that they did that thread asking about retention and the vast majority of replies stated they're just here for the name Star Trek.
You can't declare something as "bad for long term player retention" based on nothing but your own feelings. Some people like the landing page, others don't. Personally, I think one has been sorely needed and all it needs now is more/better info on it. And in the end, for better or worse, it's not even remotely as big a deal as it was made into in this thread. The average player isn't going to see an info screen at login as a crime against humanity.
except, people gave specific issues, Warpangel, and even offered suggestions on improving the functionality. The end result is that it's still a pop-up-advert that shows at exactly the point that most people have zero use for it. If you're logging out, for example, you probably aren't interested in the latest zen sale, featured episode, etc. etc. and that's the key and menu they bound it to.
the 'esc' menu.
In what universe is that useful? It's not like putting candy bars next to the register so that harried moms will grab one to feed their spoiled offspring as a means to get out of the grocery store quicker.
do you get this? do you understand the perspective here? it's not clean design work.
Generally, if I'm going into the control menu to adjust my sound, I don't need to be reminded what the feature episode two weeks ago was, if I'm setting up my keybinds, I don't need a reminder that lockbox keys are 15% off, and if I clicked the annoying green blinker, I've already had a good chance to look at the latest updates in their description text.
It doesn't serve a purpose, what it does do, is annoy people. which is not good design work unless your objective is to annoy people.
It's always good to see you on the side of reason.
So have I. See. thread. People are free to disagree. See my explicit statements to that effect around this discussion and others on the forums. What more do I need to say to get that point across? Objective feedback is a process where you not only use your personal but some factual frame of reference that can place a subjective viewpoint in a wider context. It will never truly be objective but what we have in the English language is simply a reference to a less subjective approach to thinking.
I see this as important in feedback because an entirely subjective approach can miss major constraints and other interests. Therefore, it can refine what's asked to accommodate what's possible and what people besides oneself are concerned, and in so doing resulting in more actionable suggestions. This is not a bad thing and built into the fundamental compromise of attempting objectivity from a subjective viewpoint is the qualification "in my view, this is how things are." I've engaged in discussions attempting to refine that, incorporated other viewpoints as they are justifiable, and rejected others when I find them lacking. I'll maintain disagreement, but as a reiteration of the "in my view, this is how things are. You have not done enough to change that" which I respect that in others as well (at the end of the day, I'm only making a point with every limitation inherent to that scenario.)
I don't think we're going agree on this. We seem have a fundamental, meta-level disagreement on the purpose of feedback. To me, the purpose of a feedback thread is to post our individual opinions, plain and simple. We can debate, discuss, agree, disagree — but there's no need to come to a common understanding. This isn't a collaboration, and we're not on a committee.
Steering to the effect of "keep it passably level so me and others can have some kind of a functional dialog," yeah that's a real problem. Ie. sort through the facts as best we can, look at how people feel about this, and then say "okay, what's the best argument we can make to Cryptic?" as a synthesis that stands next to whatever others may be working on for themselves (with or without disagreement, it doesn't matter.) This is not about a consensus among the forum (once again, disagreement is not an issue) but just doing due diligence in constructing an argument outside of an individual setting.
If you have an issue with that, I personally don't care. I'll further note that this damn well is a tangent from the landing page. I've done more than any poster should to justify why they do what they do and if you (or Pottsey) still have an issue with me then I'll give you the same advice that Starsword gave me and that's "report for a TOU violation or move on."
I'm not so petty as to report you for something that doesn't merit reporting. I don't have a problem with you personally. I do disagree with what you're trying to do, and this goes back to our fundamental disagreement above. I'll try to explain as politely as possible why your behavior bothers me. Since this is a digression from the discussion about the landing page, it's the last thing I'll say about the topic.
and again on the main menu when I press Esc to switch characters or to log out. That's a lower bound.
Are we still circling around this one? Kael was referring to the pop-up, it's the only aspect of the landing page that has a set per character or per account frequency. See above. The ESC-bound landing page is a variable for which your own input determines the frequency. And mind you, this was the consensus opinion up until the landing page was updated. Then, this complaint emerged that Kael was supposedly referring to the ESC menu as well. I do have to question whether that's objective feedback or a sliding scale of discontent. Now that the page is less annoying (it only pops up once per account), another angle is needed to continue justifying the same level of frustration (in hopes the major point: remove it, isn't undermined by the change in situation.) Enter: selective re-interpretation of an old post and refusal to accept qualifications when offered (V'ger style.)
*Shrugs*
What we have now is more dynamic than the first landing page and provides more relevant information to the new season (ex. your next episode, new c-store content), and has a definite use which beats out the old analog (mission journal->side banner->scroll a place or two->click->transwarp button->done). It would be nice if we had the option to disable but I would personally downgrade it on the list of priorities to "Requested QoL feature" (and more relevant once we're back to a seasonal release schedule and the landing page has less of a content-plosion to assist with. It's useful working through 6 missions, but if there's only one that's fairly marginal.) Anyway, there's other areas of the game in more serious objective need and anyone who would like to argue otherwise might just want to poke around the foundry for 15 minutes for a bit of context. Maybe having some extra graphics on a menu isn't the worst thing that could happen to your favorite realm in STO.
Maybe, you didn't intend it that way, but this is how what you wrote above reads to me: "Why are you talking about this again? I thought we already settled this. We (the consensus) decided it's not a big deal. By talking about it again, you're undoing the progress that we've made. Please stop talking about it."
Yes, people posting their individual opinions may distract from the synthesis-building discussion you're trying to have. But this thread isn't for your discussion only, and the rest of us never agreed to be a part of it. If we bring up topics that you think you've already settled, that's because we don't consider it settled. You are free to continue constructing this synthesis if you so choose, but everyone else is also free to continue posting their individual opinions.
I dove back in here with specific points RE. the landing page and it's good that we've been able to touch on the pop-up frequency (I wasn't aware that was still an issue under some circumstances and I'll try to contribute to the troubleshooting effort.) That wasn't all though, but the rest is of course "take it or leave it, it's just something said by me."
I don't think you'll be able to reproduce the issue. I'm no longer seeing the "Welcome Back" window on multiple characters per game session. As I said before, I suspect it's controlled by a server-side switch that they have to toggle manually after every maintenance. We'll see if it comes back after the next maintenance. Or maybe, there will be a patch note saying they've fixed it permanently.
There's also the additional issue that the landing page doesn't work as described on characters below level 10.
Players who are below level 10 will not see this page upon log in.
This is not true. I see the landing page even on characters who are below level 10. My guess is that the determining factor is whether or not the character has finished the tutorial, where "finished the tutorial" means different things for Feds, Romulans, and Klingons. I see the landing page on my level 3 Ferengi, but not on my level 6 Reman. The last thing my Ferengi did was talk to Quinn after arriving on ESD; the last thing my Reman did was talk to D'Tan after arriving at the flotilla.
Not to mention that they have been recording player reaction to this system in Neverwinter (and lots of STO players play that too) for a long time now on both PC and console, if it really had that kind of negetive effects they would already know about it.
I've been talking to some people who play both Neverwinter and STO or both Champions and STO. They said their landing page appears only once upon first login. It doesn't pop up multiple times per game session, and it doesn't appear on the main menu. In Neverwinter, it's a separate window that you can bring up again if you so choose (I'm not sure if this part is the same in Champions). It seems that STO got the worst of the three implementations.
I said it before, I'll say it again: negative feedback, positive feedback, neither is really useful unless it's constructive. "I love it!" is no more useful than "I hate it!"
Why is a simple "I like it" or "I don't like it" not valid feedback? If you ask someone what they think of a certain color and they say they don't like it, do you really expect them to give a reason? Sometimes, people have reasons for their opinions, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes, people even have reasons for their reasons, but it doesn't go on ad infinitum. All feedback is fundamentally based on internal, subjective preferences.
For example, I've already explained why I don't like the landing page on the main menu: I find it distracting when I'm trying to do something completely unrelated.
The landing page on the main menu is a separate issue. Yes, the number of times one brings up the main menu is variable. But if I log on to N characters per day, then I see it at least N times (N-1 times for each character swap and once more when I log out of the last character). There's no reason to show the user the landing page that many times per day. Moreover, it doesn't really belong on the main menu. When someone is trying to switch characters, log out, exit the game, rearrange the HUD, or change the game's options, chances are they aren't looking to buy keys. Nor are they looking to play a mission. They have a specific task they are trying to accomplish, and a huge landing page that is unrelated to that task is an unwelcome distraction.
Why do I find it distracting when other people don't? Well, I can't really explain that. I can't give you a reason other than "People are different." And sometimes these differences don't go beyond a simple "I like it" vs. "I don't like it".
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Accepting that some people don't like something doesn't imply letting those people dictate decisions.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
Its not unrealistic and devs with that attitude have killed other game before. Its also a great way to lose retention. Yes you cannot please everyone but writing off negative feedback comments as 'general grumbling', that's just people not used to change or you just cannot please everyone is just as bad if not worse.
It is just general grumbling. The only significant issues brought up were the pop-up appearing too often (which was a bug) and the missing Mirror event (which they added).
That might be true for some people but you are very mistaken if you think all the negative feedback is just general grumbling. My complaints go beyond that and so does others and it will not go away over time. Like the queue UI this isn't complaining for complaining sake or just because something has changed. Just like the queue UI this too will drive some players away from the game and stop others spending money. Its that bad. Making STO feel like a cheap mobile game with pop up adverts is not a good thing that long term will do more harm then good. The devs seem to have made a lot of choices in the past years that are bad for long term player retention, the splash screen is yet another example and it concerns me if they keep going down this path.
If there have been specific issues in this thread, besides the ones they have already addressed, then I have not seen them. "Have to close it," "menu buttons moved to the left" and "OMG a lockbox ad, you monsters!!!!" are not significant. These are all the kind of things that, had the feature been in the game from day one, nobody would've ever cared to notice. In other words, people complaining just because it's something new.
The queue system revamp on the other hand actually had serious and well-documented functional deficiencies compared to the old system, some of which are still in there despite many incremental improvements. Most notably the cancel spam caused by the "queue group" mechanism. Not that it matters much at this point, only the most popular queues ever pop at all.
And the whole "driving players away" argument similarly pops up every single time something changes. Everything always drives masses of players away, supposedly. But nothing ever comes out of it. It's like, surprise surprise, the general playerbase doesn't share the priorities of the loudest forum posters after all. It doesn't seem to even drive the complainers away, the same names pop up again as soon as the next controversy. It's especially rich now that they did that thread asking about retention and the vast majority of replies stated they're just here for the name Star Trek.
You can't declare something as "bad for long term player retention" based on nothing but your own feelings. Some people like the landing page, others don't. Personally, I think one has been sorely needed and all it needs now is more/better info on it. And in the end, for better or worse, it's not even remotely as big a deal as it was made into in this thread. The average player isn't going to see an info screen at login as a crime against humanity.
except, people gave specific issues, Warpangel, and even offered suggestions on improving the functionality. The end result is that it's still a pop-up-advert that shows at exactly the point that most people have zero use for it. If you're logging out, for example, you probably aren't interested in the latest zen sale, featured episode, etc. etc. and that's the key and menu they bound it to.
the 'esc' menu.
In what universe is that useful? It's not like putting candy bars next to the register so that harried moms will grab one to feed their spoiled offspring as a means to get out of the grocery store quicker.
do you get this? do you understand the perspective here? it's not clean design work.
Generally, if I'm going into the control menu to adjust my sound, I don't need to be reminded what the feature episode two weeks ago was, if I'm setting up my keybinds, I don't need a reminder that lockbox keys are 15% off, and if I clicked the annoying green blinker, I've already had a good chance to look at the latest updates in their description text.
It doesn't serve a purpose, what it does do, is annoy people. which is not good design work unless your objective is to annoy people.
People did not give significant or relevant issues. So a few people have pointless knee-jerk overreaction to seeing a picture of a lockbox in a menu. Deal with it.
The landing page has to be available somewhere (because it has functions people will want to refer to beyond the initial popup) and the ESC menu had plenty of unused screen space. It's convenient to open, doesn't require rearranging the main UI or adding inconvenient text menus. The extra panels in the menu don't affect it's function in the slightest. There is absolutely no negative effect whatsoever to using that previously empty space for something and it doesn't become "not clean design work" just because some people are acting as if they're violently allergic to pictures of lockboxes.
guys, check t he date. the post is unpinned, they're not interested anymore.
Pssst, they never were.
Not in haters endlessly me tooing each others' demands for it to be removed, no.
Um, why not?! So, you're saying they'll only take the landing page feedback when we applaud it?! Or when we like stuff added to it? And that people wanting it removed, en masse, or even hating it, is not the feedback they were looking for?!
Pssst, that's not how feedback works.
Yes it is. If they gave veto power to everyone demanding things be put back the way they were, they'd never get anything done at all. People always complain about every change. It's inevitable.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
Accepting that some people don't like something doesn't imply letting those people dictate decisions.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
Its not unrealistic and devs with that attitude have killed other game before. Its also a great way to lose retention. Yes you cannot please everyone but writing off negative feedback comments as 'general grumbling', that's just people not used to change or you just cannot please everyone is just as bad if not worse.
It is just general grumbling. The only significant issues brought up were the pop-up appearing too often (which was a bug) and the missing Mirror event (which they added).
That might be true for some people but you are very mistaken if you think all the negative feedback is just general grumbling. My complaints go beyond that and so does others and it will not go away over time. Like the queue UI this isn't complaining for complaining sake or just because something has changed. Just like the queue UI this too will drive some players away from the game and stop others spending money. Its that bad. Making STO feel like a cheap mobile game with pop up adverts is not a good thing that long term will do more harm then good. The devs seem to have made a lot of choices in the past years that are bad for long term player retention, the splash screen is yet another example and it concerns me if they keep going down this path.
If there have been specific issues in this thread, besides the ones they have already addressed, then I have not seen them. "Have to close it," "menu buttons moved to the left" and "OMG a lockbox ad, you monsters!!!!" are not significant. These are all the kind of things that, had the feature been in the game from day one, nobody would've ever cared to notice. In other words, people complaining just because it's something new.
The queue system revamp on the other hand actually had serious and well-documented functional deficiencies compared to the old system, some of which are still in there despite many incremental improvements. Most notably the cancel spam caused by the "queue group" mechanism. Not that it matters much at this point, only the most popular queues ever pop at all.
And the whole "driving players away" argument similarly pops up every single time something changes. Everything always drives masses of players away, supposedly. But nothing ever comes out of it. It's like, surprise surprise, the general playerbase doesn't share the priorities of the loudest forum posters after all. It doesn't seem to even drive the complainers away, the same names pop up again as soon as the next controversy. It's especially rich now that they did that thread asking about retention and the vast majority of replies stated they're just here for the name Star Trek.
You can't declare something as "bad for long term player retention" based on nothing but your own feelings. Some people like the landing page, others don't. Personally, I think one has been sorely needed and all it needs now is more/better info on it. And in the end, for better or worse, it's not even remotely as big a deal as it was made into in this thread. The average player isn't going to see an info screen at login as a crime against humanity.
except, people gave specific issues, Warpangel, and even offered suggestions on improving the functionality. The end result is that it's still a pop-up-advert that shows at exactly the point that most people have zero use for it. If you're logging out, for example, you probably aren't interested in the latest zen sale, featured episode, etc. etc. and that's the key and menu they bound it to.
the 'esc' menu.
In what universe is that useful? It's not like putting candy bars next to the register so that harried moms will grab one to feed their spoiled offspring as a means to get out of the grocery store quicker.
do you get this? do you understand the perspective here? it's not clean design work.
Generally, if I'm going into the control menu to adjust my sound, I don't need to be reminded what the feature episode two weeks ago was, if I'm setting up my keybinds, I don't need a reminder that lockbox keys are 15% off, and if I clicked the annoying green blinker, I've already had a good chance to look at the latest updates in their description text.
It doesn't serve a purpose, what it does do, is annoy people. which is not good design work unless your objective is to annoy people.
People did not give significant or relevant issues. So a few people have pointless knee-jerk overreaction to seeing a picture of a lockbox in a menu. Deal with it.
The landing page has to be available somewhere (because it has functions people will want to refer to beyond the initial popup) and the ESC menu had plenty of unused screen space. It's convenient to open, doesn't require rearranging the main UI or adding inconvenient text menus. The extra panels in the menu don't affect it's function in the slightest. There is absolutely no negative effect whatsoever to using that previously empty space for something and it doesn't become "not clean design work" just because some people are acting as if they're violently allergic to pictures of lockboxes.
That is unfair and not true as there is absolutely a negative effect. For me the unnecessary added mouse tracking causes extra pain and discomfort multiple times per day. I have to accept so much pain to play but I shouldn’t have to accept extra pain from unclean design work like this splash screen. Not when there are so many better design options which could avoid that pain/discomfort.
The other negative effect is the impression of a cheap mobile game popup advert which leaves a negative impression on some people. Yet another negative one is its mess’s around with 8+ years’ worth of muscle memory. Which some people adapt to much slower than others. That is partly what causes so much frustration as some players are having to fight years worth of muscle memory. It would have been so simple to design a splash screen that didn't mess this up and that would have avoid most of the negative feedback.
Like I said before I agree with the idea just not how it’s been implanted. The splash screen breaks a number of rules which make good designs.
Since it can be accessed from a button on the GUI, maybe put the actually useful menu portion on the right side instead of the left, so it's closer to the default location of the button.
I said it before, I'll say it again: negative feedback, positive feedback, neither is really useful unless it's constructive. "I love it!" is no more useful than "I hate it!"
Why is a simple "I like it" or "I don't like it" not valid feedback? If you ask someone what they think of a certain color and they say they don't like it, do you really expect them to give a reason? Sometimes, people have reasons for their opinions, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes, people even have reasons for their reasons, but it doesn't go on ad infinitum. All feedback is fundamentally based on internal, subjective preferences.
For example, I've already explained why I don't like the landing page on the main menu: I find it distracting when I'm trying to do something completely unrelated.
I never said, "I like it" or "I don't like it" is not valid feedback. I said it's not particularly useful feedback. There's nothing really actionable there. You "like" it, great! What do you like about it? Maybe more of that can be done. Oh, you "hate" it. What do you hate about it? Maybe that's something that can be improved or changed.
"I like it" and "I hate it" do ok to give a general idea about how the populace feels about it, but it doesn't point to anything in particular that can be acted on, changed, or improved upon. There have been a number of great NEGATIVE feedback comments in this thread, that have pointed out failings in the Landing Page, some even with great suggestions for improvement. More of THAT is what's needed here.
And I just want to say thanks to all of you who have cared enough to give that feedback. Keep up the good work, guys!
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
OFF Topic, I think I just found a partial workaround for the Forum's own "editmonster" bug: After you lose a post, hit EDit again, and choose Cancel. Your previous wall of text will reappear. You still can't edit it, but you at least don't have to retype it, just amend it in your next post.
Patch day today lets see if this "bug" where it pops up on every character reappears when the servers come back up.
Also binding it to ESC menu is poor design. I don't need to see this page whenever I want to change settings or more importantly exit the game.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
I never said, "I like it" or "I don't like it" is not valid feedback. I said it's not particularly useful feedback. There's nothing really actionable there. You "like" it, great! What do you like about it? Maybe more of that can be done. Oh, you "hate" it. What do you hate about it? Maybe that's something that can be improved or changed.
"I like it" and "I hate it" do ok to give a general idea about how the populace feels about it, but it doesn't point to anything in particular that can be acted on, changed, or improved upon. There have been a number of great NEGATIVE feedback comments in this thread, that have pointed out failings in the Landing Page, some even with great suggestions for improvement. More of THAT is what's needed here.
And I just want to say thanks to all of you who have cared enough to give that feedback. Keep up the good work, guys!
I understand that, but isn't getting a rough idea of the sentiment of the populace also a function feedback? Maybe, some people don't have more to say other than "I like it" or "I don't like it". In any feedback thread, you get a mixture of comments from long exegeses to one-liners. Should we automatically disregard the latter? Is feedback for the articulate and the introspective only?
This whole thread seems to be devolving. I said it before, I'll say it again: negative feedback, positive feedback, neither is really useful unless it's constructive. "I love it!" is no more useful than "I hate it!"
The next time you see a feedback thread full of positive comments that amount to nothing more than "I love it!", will you rebuke them for their unhelpful and unconstructive comments?
Dude the landing page appearing more than once in STO is a BUG, this has been known since the first day it hit. Whats more both Neverwinter and Champions went through the same bug.
I know it's a bug. The problem is that we were still seeing that bug last Thursday after the patch. The weird part is that the bug stopped happening in the middle of the week without a patch. We'll see if it comes back after today's maintenance. I didn't know Neverwinter and Champions also had the same bug. How long did it take them to fix it?
OFF Topic, I think I just found a partial workaround for the Forum's own "editmonster" bug: After you lose a post, hit EDit again, and choose Cancel. Your previous wall of text will reappear. You still can't edit it, but you at least don't have to retype it, just amend it in your next post.
Good to know. I've taken to hitting Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+C right before posting, just in case the edit monster gets hungry.
If so and the lander bug has appeared in all three it kind of hints that they need to learn to talk to each other more often to share info on possible hiccups when adding stuff to the game like the lander.
Still doesn't give them an excuse for nailing it onto the esc menu though.
Comments
And we all know how well that plan went - they'd have been better off sitting around bickering!
On the other hand, he DID make it through the entire film without getting Force Choked, so that's a plus.
As I already said, they took what little constructive feedback there was on the subject and ignored the general grumbling. Exactly as they should.
In other words, "We really love to hear your opinions, but not really." If you truly want feedback, then you must be willing to accept that people do not like what you did. Otherwise, don't bother.
Your attitude is quite illustrative of that of the Devs here, though, working from the rather contemptuous assumption that only positive feedback is to be considered real, and the rest is just 'general grumbling.' Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe, just maybe, ppl not liking the new landing zone might actually have a valid point?! But, like I said, if they're only interested in hearing positive feedback, then, please, next time, don't bother asking the community at all.
PS4 has just had a patch today which if we're lucky is only to flip the switch for the upcoming weekend events and possibly the elite starter pack.
If we're not that lucky we'll get to see exactly how badly the lander faceplants into the console version. Unless they decide consoles might want to have disable options its going to be even more in your face an unavoidable than on PC. But thats unlikely to happen as a lot of what appears on console is half done or simply carries over variations of the bugs that went into the live game on PC. And of course most of the devs focus will have been getting the myriad of bugs ironed out of VIL since it went live.
"I don't like it" is not a valid point. It's just opinion. Everyone has one and yours is not more important than everyone else's just because it's yours. Nor does it become more important by repeating it over however many pages of thread.
Some people don't like it, they know that. Not much to do about it. It's inevitable. Can't please everyone.
And seriously, expecting anyone to just up and scrap all their work because some posters on an internet forum didn't like it is more than a little unrealistic.
In fact it was the devs attitude being like that which caused so many players to leave and stop spending money due to the poorly designed UI queue and another case the flash sales which has been treated the same way as this splash screen. Although granted the flash sales where changed recently but not until a lot of harm had been done and players left, all because negative feedback was ignored.
People have, of course, come up with valid, reasoned arguments as to why they don't like it: way beyond your "I don't like it" strawman. But even "I don't like it" should ultimately suffice, really, when all you want to do, is let Cryptic know you don't like it.
Way I see it, landing page has no real function. Like I said, it's essentially just a glorified ad/promo screen. For instance, I don't need to slapped around the ears, for the umptiest time, about what's new in ViL (there's already a button for that in-game, one you can *choose* to click). Or hearing what's in the Vanguard Pack. Besides, as I have cogently argued before, the things on the new Landing Page, that's what the launcher is for. But they broke the launcher a long time ago, and keep it populated with stale news. So, the logical solution should have been to FIX the launcher, keep it properly updated, and then this whole console-type ad-screen could have been gone with.
See? That's a reasoned argument. Your objections in this thread, however, basically just amount to "I don't like it that ppl don't like it." Well, tough luck.
^^ Zactly! Your UI example was a good one. And when it comes to things like this, the customer really *is* always right. Which is to say, when someone tells you they don't like something, it's not something you can really argue with. It's like writing an instruction manual, and then being defensive about it, saying it really *was* clearly written, when proof readers tell you it isn't. That UI was close to an 'unclearly written manual,' in that it confused ppl, and thus began to annoy them. In those cases, you can't really say that you, the Dev, *think* the players should like it, and/or that it's perfectly clear to yourself. It just doesn't work that way.
At the very least, make an option then, to 'Show Landing Page' on login.' Now, before ppl retort "But then no one will enable it!", I say... bingo! There's your answer!
They build the damn thing into the ESC menu making in an actual feature that not even cryptic can claim was a bug even with their track record of fudging the lines between one and the other.
The queue system revamp on the other hand actually had serious and well-documented functional deficiencies compared to the old system, some of which are still in there despite many incremental improvements. Most notably the cancel spam caused by the "queue group" mechanism. Not that it matters much at this point, only the most popular queues ever pop at all.
And the whole "driving players away" argument similarly pops up every single time something changes. Everything always drives masses of players away, supposedly. But nothing ever comes out of it. It's like, surprise surprise, the general playerbase doesn't share the priorities of the loudest forum posters after all. It doesn't seem to even drive the complainers away, the same names pop up again as soon as the next controversy. It's especially rich now that they did that thread asking about retention and the vast majority of replies stated they're just here for the name Star Trek.
You can't declare something as "bad for long term player retention" based on nothing but your own feelings. Some people like the landing page, others don't. Personally, I think one has been sorely needed and all it needs now is more/better info on it. And in the end, for better or worse, it's not even remotely as big a deal as it was made into in this thread. The average player isn't going to see an info screen at login as a crime against humanity.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
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The player population has dropped so low that in my main playtime, battlezones are near empty with 1 zone and barely 4 active players and even the most popular queues like ISA and CE I have to wait up to 5 minutes to get in although after the ViL CE is down to 2 minutes. So it’s not just my feelings, retention has got so bad that’s its had a negative impact on my ability to play the game. A game that I want to see have continued major success.
Plus if you look at the mobile forum feedback thread you will see its suffering the same problem as here. It feels like all negative feedback is being written off in the same way as here even though the new mobile forum is 100% unusable for me and just about everyone else is saying its a step backwards.
It's always good to see you on the side of reason.
I don't think we're going agree on this. We seem have a fundamental, meta-level disagreement on the purpose of feedback. To me, the purpose of a feedback thread is to post our individual opinions, plain and simple. We can debate, discuss, agree, disagree — but there's no need to come to a common understanding. This isn't a collaboration, and we're not on a committee.
I'm not so petty as to report you for something that doesn't merit reporting. I don't have a problem with you personally. I do disagree with what you're trying to do, and this goes back to our fundamental disagreement above. I'll try to explain as politely as possible why your behavior bothers me. Since this is a digression from the discussion about the landing page, it's the last thing I'll say about the topic.
Maybe, you didn't intend it that way, but this is how what you wrote above reads to me: "Why are you talking about this again? I thought we already settled this. We (the consensus) decided it's not a big deal. By talking about it again, you're undoing the progress that we've made. Please stop talking about it."
Yes, people posting their individual opinions may distract from the synthesis-building discussion you're trying to have. But this thread isn't for your discussion only, and the rest of us never agreed to be a part of it. If we bring up topics that you think you've already settled, that's because we don't consider it settled. You are free to continue constructing this synthesis if you so choose, but everyone else is also free to continue posting their individual opinions.
I don't think you'll be able to reproduce the issue. I'm no longer seeing the "Welcome Back" window on multiple characters per game session. As I said before, I suspect it's controlled by a server-side switch that they have to toggle manually after every maintenance. We'll see if it comes back after the next maintenance. Or maybe, there will be a patch note saying they've fixed it permanently.
There's also the additional issue that the landing page doesn't work as described on characters below level 10.
I've been talking to some people who play both Neverwinter and STO or both Champions and STO. They said their landing page appears only once upon first login. It doesn't pop up multiple times per game session, and it doesn't appear on the main menu. In Neverwinter, it's a separate window that you can bring up again if you so choose (I'm not sure if this part is the same in Champions). It seems that STO got the worst of the three implementations.
Why is a simple "I like it" or "I don't like it" not valid feedback? If you ask someone what they think of a certain color and they say they don't like it, do you really expect them to give a reason? Sometimes, people have reasons for their opinions, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes, people even have reasons for their reasons, but it doesn't go on ad infinitum. All feedback is fundamentally based on internal, subjective preferences.
For example, I've already explained why I don't like the landing page on the main menu: I find it distracting when I'm trying to do something completely unrelated.
Why do I find it distracting when other people don't? Well, I can't really explain that. I can't give you a reason other than "People are different." And sometimes these differences don't go beyond a simple "I like it" vs. "I don't like it".
The landing page has to be available somewhere (because it has functions people will want to refer to beyond the initial popup) and the ESC menu had plenty of unused screen space. It's convenient to open, doesn't require rearranging the main UI or adding inconvenient text menus. The extra panels in the menu don't affect it's function in the slightest. There is absolutely no negative effect whatsoever to using that previously empty space for something and it doesn't become "not clean design work" just because some people are acting as if they're violently allergic to pictures of lockboxes.
The other negative effect is the impression of a cheap mobile game popup advert which leaves a negative impression on some people. Yet another negative one is its mess’s around with 8+ years’ worth of muscle memory. Which some people adapt to much slower than others. That is partly what causes so much frustration as some players are having to fight years worth of muscle memory. It would have been so simple to design a splash screen that didn't mess this up and that would have avoid most of the negative feedback.
Like I said before I agree with the idea just not how it’s been implanted. The splash screen breaks a number of rules which make good designs.
I never said, "I like it" or "I don't like it" is not valid feedback. I said it's not particularly useful feedback. There's nothing really actionable there. You "like" it, great! What do you like about it? Maybe more of that can be done. Oh, you "hate" it. What do you hate about it? Maybe that's something that can be improved or changed.
"I like it" and "I hate it" do ok to give a general idea about how the populace feels about it, but it doesn't point to anything in particular that can be acted on, changed, or improved upon. There have been a number of great NEGATIVE feedback comments in this thread, that have pointed out failings in the Landing Page, some even with great suggestions for improvement. More of THAT is what's needed here.
And I just want to say thanks to all of you who have cared enough to give that feedback. Keep up the good work, guys!
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Also binding it to ESC menu is poor design. I don't need to see this page whenever I want to change settings or more importantly exit the game.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
I understand that, but isn't getting a rough idea of the sentiment of the populace also a function feedback? Maybe, some people don't have more to say other than "I like it" or "I don't like it". In any feedback thread, you get a mixture of comments from long exegeses to one-liners. Should we automatically disregard the latter? Is feedback for the articulate and the introspective only?
The next time you see a feedback thread full of positive comments that amount to nothing more than "I love it!", will you rebuke them for their unhelpful and unconstructive comments?
I know it's a bug. The problem is that we were still seeing that bug last Thursday after the patch. The weird part is that the bug stopped happening in the middle of the week without a patch. We'll see if it comes back after today's maintenance. I didn't know Neverwinter and Champions also had the same bug. How long did it take them to fix it?
Good to know. I've taken to hitting Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+C right before posting, just in case the edit monster gets hungry.
If so and the lander bug has appeared in all three it kind of hints that they need to learn to talk to each other more often to share info on possible hiccups when adding stuff to the game like the lander.
Still doesn't give them an excuse for nailing it onto the esc menu though.