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Proposal: New Content Hiatus + Infrastructure Reinvestment
gulberat
Member Posts: 5,505 Arc User
I am not entirely sure whether we are facing a lack of willpower to fix the game due to pressure from upper management, or a severe case of groupthink (again probably at its most serious with upper management), or a lack of sufficient investment from the parent company...or if instead the problem is due to an aging and likely poorly documented game engine that has traded hands multiple times and is now near-fatally compromised every time it is changed. I am suspecting it is a combination of both. But whatever the cause, I am now at the point where I would like to see how much interest there is in a seemingly drastic proposal.
The idea is this: a six month to one-year halt on all new content development contingent upon reinvestment of all funds that would have been intended for new content onto quality control, bug fixing, server upgrading, and customer service improvement. At this point, this is what quality of life means in the game.
Unfortunately I realize this proposal would hit the devs hardest that we like the most...our art team. And that is a shame because they do outstanding work. The trouble is in what happens after their work moves on to the next part of the assembly line, which is systems and communications. My hope is that they could continue to work on art and concepts for release after the hiatus, and if it is possible to fix the game by six months, maybe that is possible. But I do have that depressing feeling on occasion that expectations must be set low and if a one-year period is required, we can only look at how to set this game up for a successful maintenance mode.
The thing is, if this is to have any chance of working, it means that communications with the players regarding what is going on must be excellent, results must be clearly apparent and fairly consistent, and this must NOT be used as an excuse to nerf and monetize. The operating words should be buff and incentivize, and by incentivize I mean give players a reason to feel like their efforts are being adequately rewarded and that they are not being taken advantage of.
Now, IF there is a way to accomplish results that are a benefit to the player (AND would be less dangerous to the art team's prospects as they are the LAST people I want to see put into a bad position), I would be glad to see it, whether that means a drastic change in management practices and rotation or replacement of personnel in that area, or a less drastic budget reallocation that will allow for an expansion of the QA team and a culture change to allow for a more collaborative atmosphere both with the players and for those among the dev team who may wish to get this game going in the right direction again.
Wait...did I just say expansion?
Hey, I do branding too!
Let's call this Expansion Three: Six Sigma Rising.
That said, I am going to recommend something more expansive than just Six Sigma. Here is an example of a more holistic quality culture, and this one at FedEx. The video is only a few minutes and well worth it for all employees to watch.
http://youtu.be/H9h3KE81WxA
Now, FedEx has it a bit easier in that quality is a little more easily defined. You ship something and probably Thing #2, just below "don't lose my stuff" and "don't get my stuff there late" is "don't break my stuff." So I must underscore the point that it is incredibly important that you must connect with your customer base and understand what they want because a product that does not meet expectations is a low-quality product even if it is full of shinies that appear very attractive from the outside.
But there are some key points in this video, some more and some less obvious than others.
1) Did you notice the 1 x 10 x 100 Rule? 1 dollar to do it right the first time, 10 to fix it but still get the product out to the customer right, and 100 to deal with the consequences of it getting into customers' hands wrong. Whether or not you have people being paid hourly, and even whether or not a lot of overtime money is spent at your offices, your time does have a cost associated with it both in waste and your sanity. Think how much time you spend running around putting out fire, dealing with customer vitriol, and God knows what else that goes on behind closed doors (and I don't say this as an insult or to call out any specific employees--only to make a point about what happens inevitably when people get stressed out and upset with themselves, the situation, and each other).
And that doesn't even touch on the financial losses...and while you may not be losing money, I can pretty much guarantee you there is a significant opportunity cost to your current practices--money you are foregoing every time one of these catastrophic rollouts or PR disasters occurs.
2) Blink and you'll miss it--did you notice that one of the root causes the group identified for damage to packages was EMPLOYEE FRUSTRATION? That they identified a need to treat each other equally and look at cultural factors within? Heck, the people in that office even outright called out "laziness" as one of their factors...quite the blunt honesty there, and whatever's ailing Cryptic, whatever is behind the scenes we don't know about, mincing words won't help. I hope your office isn't so frustrating that you hate going to work every day, and your people may put in the hours, but what this points out is that culture has to be addressed. Whatever is holding you back, whatever the pain points are that frustrate you, whatever makes your employees feel their contributions are undervalued or that they are restrained from doing what they know in their heart of hearts is their best work and the customers really WILL love the most, you have got to address it.
Systems solutions won't cut it and may even make it worse if there is no culture change to mend things from the inside out. I don't know exactly what is broken in the Land of Cryptica, but it has to be confronted head-on and changed.
3) Listen to your line employees. Don't just dictate top-down. There are certain devs here, especially those who interact with the customers a lot, that I suspect have some of the answers you need but that are not taken seriously. Remember also the opportunity cost if you do not listen to them could be incredibly devastating too because the most talented are likely to walk first when their high internal standards are violated too many times and if they feel undervalued or dismissed when they contribute.
Losing one customer might be "easy" to blow off. Losing a few key devs who do great work and are loved by the customer base...it could even be an unrecoverable death blow at worst...and depending on who it is, you don't want to ignore the possibility of a very real grieving process in the customer base which could well lead to anger and upset enough to drive people away even before the quality decline becomes worse as a result of their leaving.
4) Don't overcomplicate it! You may be seeing all these analytical tools and processes and metrics...but don't get so enamored with tools or processes that you forget about simple things or let it become another reason to distract you from a proper customer focus. Similarly, do not be so enamored over internal metrics that the customer experience aspect is disregarded and unfortunately I strongly suspect the latter IS a major issue. And remember that when this guy talks about "assess on the spot," he's in an industry with a tangible deliverable. For you, that has to mean getting out there in the game and interacting with customers in a meaningful manner and without dev magic. I know a few of you say you do, but at the very least playing anonymously and in a non-dev Silver account needs to be a job requirement--not an optional. A failoptional.
Oh...and before I close out, a video popped up in my recommended list after my initial search for "quality management," and this is another one from that same FedEx series called "View Failures as Opportunities."
You guys have had some high-profile failures right in a row--first Delta Rising, and now the Five-Year Mission Star Wreck. But you need to be thinking about how to learn from your mistakes and turn it around. *This* video shows people in damage claims: the people who are the first line in cleaning up the mess once the you-know-what has *already* hit the fan. See what you can glean from here...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xYcKtHj8_K8
Do notice two key words in there: "take ownership." That doesn't mean we expect a self-flagellating pity party, but it means owning the mistakes AND everything it takes to move forward from them. (And as you start to succeed, have pride enough to enjoy a celebration *truly* worth having! And then keep it up because situations always evolve.)
Maybe IF wholeheartedly implemented, this sort of quality management could avoid the toughest choice I outlined up top--a hiatus so long that it risks forcing the game into maintenance mode and management into making the unrecoverable, permanent kind of staff cuts.
I would like to hope so because no one benefits if the failures aren't successfully turned around.
The idea is this: a six month to one-year halt on all new content development contingent upon reinvestment of all funds that would have been intended for new content onto quality control, bug fixing, server upgrading, and customer service improvement. At this point, this is what quality of life means in the game.
Unfortunately I realize this proposal would hit the devs hardest that we like the most...our art team. And that is a shame because they do outstanding work. The trouble is in what happens after their work moves on to the next part of the assembly line, which is systems and communications. My hope is that they could continue to work on art and concepts for release after the hiatus, and if it is possible to fix the game by six months, maybe that is possible. But I do have that depressing feeling on occasion that expectations must be set low and if a one-year period is required, we can only look at how to set this game up for a successful maintenance mode.
The thing is, if this is to have any chance of working, it means that communications with the players regarding what is going on must be excellent, results must be clearly apparent and fairly consistent, and this must NOT be used as an excuse to nerf and monetize. The operating words should be buff and incentivize, and by incentivize I mean give players a reason to feel like their efforts are being adequately rewarded and that they are not being taken advantage of.
Now, IF there is a way to accomplish results that are a benefit to the player (AND would be less dangerous to the art team's prospects as they are the LAST people I want to see put into a bad position), I would be glad to see it, whether that means a drastic change in management practices and rotation or replacement of personnel in that area, or a less drastic budget reallocation that will allow for an expansion of the QA team and a culture change to allow for a more collaborative atmosphere both with the players and for those among the dev team who may wish to get this game going in the right direction again.
Wait...did I just say expansion?
Hey, I do branding too!
Let's call this Expansion Three: Six Sigma Rising.
That said, I am going to recommend something more expansive than just Six Sigma. Here is an example of a more holistic quality culture, and this one at FedEx. The video is only a few minutes and well worth it for all employees to watch.
http://youtu.be/H9h3KE81WxA
Now, FedEx has it a bit easier in that quality is a little more easily defined. You ship something and probably Thing #2, just below "don't lose my stuff" and "don't get my stuff there late" is "don't break my stuff." So I must underscore the point that it is incredibly important that you must connect with your customer base and understand what they want because a product that does not meet expectations is a low-quality product even if it is full of shinies that appear very attractive from the outside.
But there are some key points in this video, some more and some less obvious than others.
1) Did you notice the 1 x 10 x 100 Rule? 1 dollar to do it right the first time, 10 to fix it but still get the product out to the customer right, and 100 to deal with the consequences of it getting into customers' hands wrong. Whether or not you have people being paid hourly, and even whether or not a lot of overtime money is spent at your offices, your time does have a cost associated with it both in waste and your sanity. Think how much time you spend running around putting out fire, dealing with customer vitriol, and God knows what else that goes on behind closed doors (and I don't say this as an insult or to call out any specific employees--only to make a point about what happens inevitably when people get stressed out and upset with themselves, the situation, and each other).
And that doesn't even touch on the financial losses...and while you may not be losing money, I can pretty much guarantee you there is a significant opportunity cost to your current practices--money you are foregoing every time one of these catastrophic rollouts or PR disasters occurs.
2) Blink and you'll miss it--did you notice that one of the root causes the group identified for damage to packages was EMPLOYEE FRUSTRATION? That they identified a need to treat each other equally and look at cultural factors within? Heck, the people in that office even outright called out "laziness" as one of their factors...quite the blunt honesty there, and whatever's ailing Cryptic, whatever is behind the scenes we don't know about, mincing words won't help. I hope your office isn't so frustrating that you hate going to work every day, and your people may put in the hours, but what this points out is that culture has to be addressed. Whatever is holding you back, whatever the pain points are that frustrate you, whatever makes your employees feel their contributions are undervalued or that they are restrained from doing what they know in their heart of hearts is their best work and the customers really WILL love the most, you have got to address it.
Systems solutions won't cut it and may even make it worse if there is no culture change to mend things from the inside out. I don't know exactly what is broken in the Land of Cryptica, but it has to be confronted head-on and changed.
3) Listen to your line employees. Don't just dictate top-down. There are certain devs here, especially those who interact with the customers a lot, that I suspect have some of the answers you need but that are not taken seriously. Remember also the opportunity cost if you do not listen to them could be incredibly devastating too because the most talented are likely to walk first when their high internal standards are violated too many times and if they feel undervalued or dismissed when they contribute.
Losing one customer might be "easy" to blow off. Losing a few key devs who do great work and are loved by the customer base...it could even be an unrecoverable death blow at worst...and depending on who it is, you don't want to ignore the possibility of a very real grieving process in the customer base which could well lead to anger and upset enough to drive people away even before the quality decline becomes worse as a result of their leaving.
4) Don't overcomplicate it! You may be seeing all these analytical tools and processes and metrics...but don't get so enamored with tools or processes that you forget about simple things or let it become another reason to distract you from a proper customer focus. Similarly, do not be so enamored over internal metrics that the customer experience aspect is disregarded and unfortunately I strongly suspect the latter IS a major issue. And remember that when this guy talks about "assess on the spot," he's in an industry with a tangible deliverable. For you, that has to mean getting out there in the game and interacting with customers in a meaningful manner and without dev magic. I know a few of you say you do, but at the very least playing anonymously and in a non-dev Silver account needs to be a job requirement--not an optional. A failoptional.
Oh...and before I close out, a video popped up in my recommended list after my initial search for "quality management," and this is another one from that same FedEx series called "View Failures as Opportunities."
You guys have had some high-profile failures right in a row--first Delta Rising, and now the Five-Year Mission Star Wreck. But you need to be thinking about how to learn from your mistakes and turn it around. *This* video shows people in damage claims: the people who are the first line in cleaning up the mess once the you-know-what has *already* hit the fan. See what you can glean from here...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xYcKtHj8_K8
Do notice two key words in there: "take ownership." That doesn't mean we expect a self-flagellating pity party, but it means owning the mistakes AND everything it takes to move forward from them. (And as you start to succeed, have pride enough to enjoy a celebration *truly* worth having! And then keep it up because situations always evolve.)
Maybe IF wholeheartedly implemented, this sort of quality management could avoid the toughest choice I outlined up top--a hiatus so long that it risks forcing the game into maintenance mode and management into making the unrecoverable, permanent kind of staff cuts.
I would like to hope so because no one benefits if the failures aren't successfully turned around.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
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I log on to try to have fun with the new command specialisation and Kobali ship, and... there's nothing to do. Queues are empty. Plenty of people are logged on and playing something. They're certainly not playing in groups.
The bugs while frustrating, don't really break the game. The game needs a total revamp of existing endgame content and a big pile of brand new endgame content.
-Rule of Acquisition #113: Always have sex with the boss.
-I am one of the many victims from the hijacked Caspian Division.
I will not let the childish acts of a criminal ruin this game for me.
-The actions of Cryptic, on the other hand......
Halt all new game content in favor of fixing the game's severe problems.
I'm not going to list what these are as most of us are all-too familiar with them and this topic isn't about that.
It is alarming to see how any changes to the game result in so many more problems creeping up over and over, how attempts to fix problems fail, and long-standing issues that were never addressed.
No doubt it is very complicated to run the show, which is why it would make sense to allocate the needed resources to get a handle on it. Yes, that would mean losing some players, likely more so those who aren't here for the IP, in exchange for a vastly improved gaming experience of the sort where you can tell all your friends to join in and have fun instead of issuing warnings that include game-breaking bugs.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I believe there is a very famous line of philosophy you might be familiar with: "The needs of the Many outweigh the needs of the One."
I'd rather not lose out on awesome content just because you found one bug that really itches your back.
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
As it stands the pace of content development is far slower then the pace of content completion. We get enough new content in a year to fill a week of play at most then spend the 51.17 weeks of the year replaying that and past content.
As long as we are spending so much time playing the same stuff any way it might be nice if that stuff worked.
I am not convinced that there isn't plenty of work for the design team to be doing during a year of polish balance and bug fixing either. If you look for it there are a grate deal of things they could be working on: misaligned textures, misplaced meshes, poorly scaled or oriented geometry, clipping uniform components, 2d and 3d assets that could use individualization....
Honestly I don't think there is a single aspect of STO that couldn't use a bit of spit and polish, far from loosing any jobs Cryptic would probably need to assign a few currently unoccupied ones, by which I mean we need some dedicated game engine guys back on the team.
You say that, but frankly I don't see any bugs that prevent me from enjoying 99.9% of the game... so faulty proposition is faulty.
I can't seriously believe anyone would trade new missions like Dust to Dust for what, a fix to a seam on a handful of uniforms?
I find your example an even more faulty proposition. Everything is fine for me so I don't care about fixing the problems of others.
I believe fixes for crashing while using DX11, for the broken pixel shader when using DX9 and other issues like that aren't a seam on a uniform.
Fixing the BoFF loadout missing issue is a major problem. Great fun jumping into an STF then being unable to do anything useful for 30s to a minute of it because you have no abilities slotted. That's even exacerbated at the moment when the slotted abilities aren't the abilities you have set already, they are the defaults giving things like CSV when you are running beams...
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Overall I do like the idea but I think at this point it would be easier and more cost effective for the guys over at the Cryptic engine department to revamp the engine and for a team to clone the current STO content on that engine with proper documentation and when it's done hand it over to the current STO team to continue development, I should imagine that would fix a lot of the bugs that come with the interaction between various bits of code. Such a remake could also be used to introduce functionality with concepts like Crossfire that weren't widely used when STO was first made.
The other advantage of fixing this as a remake is that new content can be developed while we wait and I honestly can't imagine it taking too long to clone a game. All the long processes (making of the original content) is done for you.
Yea I had that the other day when playing Dust to Dust, I noticed my Boff powers had reset on some of my Boffs so I had to change them to the ones I wanted, I then did the ground part of the mission and upon returning to the space all my Boffs had been unseated......... it instantly reminded me of the main reason I stopped playing. Some people might not mind having to re-seat Boffs all the time but I do........... I finished the mission which I enjoyed and logged out to wait for the next one.
A few bugs? What game are you playing? You can't touch a single thing in this game that isn't bugged to hell. Maybe you are used to the bugs, found ways to work around them, but they are bugs, and they drive off new players like crazy.
The game does need a rework from top to bottom, not new half brained content. Take the content we have and make it fun, quality over quantity.
They can stll continue to make new ships, have the art team fix clearly broken areas like Andoria or update DS9.
The systems in place now like crafting or rep are terrible, they don't make the game fun, they don't make you want to keep playing, from a design point of view they need to be reworked. A bunch of older systems like the starbases need some rethinking too, the original was so bad, and its been TRIBBLE/fixed so many times it doesn't make much sense. Combat is another system that is so broken it might not be fixable at all from this point on.
Content is a mess, from broken or bugged missions, missions designed so trolls can thrive, lack of reward for skill and time, and no challenge at all in elite other than shooting HP sponges. Each one needs threads of whats wrong, what needs to be done to fix it, and how do we make it fun. Level progression from 1-60 needs major help as well.
Of course, it won't happen. There is no money in it (except a healthy game people want to play) and it most certainly won't meet the corporate end's ever increasing demand for sales growth won't allow it, its created this mess of over monetization in the first place.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
http://dtfleet.com/
Visit our Youtube channel
As an aside, I found the post very interesting. I'm actually studying management in uni right now as part of my logistics & supply chain management degree.
This ^
/10 char
New players have an easier time adjusting because they don't have to relearn things when the Devs change somethins like the ability icons or add a new R&D system.
Veteran players who have completed everything are more likely to come to the forums to complain as they have "Nothing to do anymore"
The game has always been about making money, its not some super rich guys hobby that he released to everyone else for free.
Game code documentation has been noted by Devs before as a reason some of the bugs occur, not much we can do about it though I think they need a team to go through all the code and document what everything is actually supposed to do and what it prodoces in game as a way to prevent future bugs. A system wide check of the server login/account/patch architecture would also be helpful.
But if you truly, have "Nothing to do anymore" maybe its time to take a break. Its only a game not a critical personal life support system.
As I said, I think a shorter period focused on QoL and outstanding issues would be better, even if it means we need more than one period. Alternate between new content and fixes, with 3/4 of the year focused on content and the other 1/4 for fixes.
Joined January 2009
Please bear in mind that content is planned months or even a year in advance.
Thus meaning they have most likely planned all the way up to the winter event this year.
So if you want this you will not only be waiting until this time next year but maybe longer.
Perhaps you have not seen the new bugs personally? There are several places in the new content where I experience a crash. If it was just once or twice I could write it off as coincidence. Since I can repeatedly say that it will happen three to five times, and tell you where it is going to happen... it's a problem.
Perhaps you are not one of the folks that repeatedly have to fix toolbars after moving to a new map...
Perhaps your UI interface has not repeatedly started blacking out toolbars everytime a enemy ship bites it.
Perhaps your icons have stayed consistent and you don't have any blank yellow squares replacing your icons in the tool bar.
But for those of us who HAVE had this happen, it is a noticible impediment to enjoying the content of the game. 100% of the time that these things happen, it ruins my game immersion experience.
There was a time when business would have in their corporate charters to serve a public good and make money. This required a balance between producing a good product, building a life long company/product, and maintaining a profit with no greater priority between them. While it is not this way now, its was once and could be again. This shift has played out many times in history so one should not be so certain of how things have to work.
You can't see bugs? lucky you.
Sou you don't encounter BOFF slots disappearing, trays clearing out, enormous latency on skill activation, loadouts not working?
-Daily disconnects
-omega game stopping in middle
-enormous UI resource hogging
-PvP scoreboard missing KDF players
-Viscous Cycle unresolvable Unstable Anomaly bug
- Korfez unresolvable Defend Benthans bug
-Overwhelming lag that pushes players into 500 minimum ping and upwards into thousands ms
That's just tip of the iceberg
You don't see any of that?
Or all of that doesn't stop you from enjoyment?
Let's be clear, I LIKE new missions since Season 8 and Season 9. Their quality has gone up tenfold compared to what was before, BUT game systems are crumbling and need to be fixed.
Super SpecialStar Trek Online Review
SpecialTemporal PUG 100K DPS Build
We are Travelers
plus, old users will find their data intact after the transition.
Those that think we need a more "balanced approach" or "just a few people are inconvenienced by the bugs" are seriously out of touch. Very VERY out of touch.
I've played games in BETA that are more stable and have a better clue than STO has right now.
I'm sure there are a lot of intelligent, hard-working, devoted people at Cryptic and PWE, but they are totally off the rails right now.