Guild Wars 2

Ten98 on Reddit suggested a really interesting idea that I think has merit.

We all know about the “vocal minority”. If a player is enjoying the game, they are far more likely to keep playing and stay off the forums. They’re probably not going to take the time to leave detailed positive feed back. I’m part of this group; I only get on the forums when I’m not allowed to get on GW2 (at work :P). However, if a player is unhappy with something, they’re far more likely to leave the game, get on the forums, and complain about the issue. This leads to very skewed results in the feedback on the forums. If only 5% of the players are unhappy about something, they might still make up 50% of the forum population on that issue.

Developers know this, and they keep that in mind while looking at player feedback. However, if the overwhelming majority of player feedback on a subject is negative, they might succumb and change it. We all know that listening to the vocal minority will ruin a game, because what they’ll never be happy.

So, here’s the idea to combat that:

In-game surveys.

I’m not talking about long, painful surveys. I’m talking about something like we got in the BWE events. Maybe once a week/month, we’d get a short (less than ten questions) survey in game. Answers would be a simple 1-5. They could even add a reward for completing it in stead of clicking “ignore”. Some people would brush it off or hit 1 for everything, but I think that almost all people would be happy to spend sixty seconds to make the game better (and get xp/gold!).

This would give Arena Net much better feedback. They could get tons of posts whining about the lack of gear progression in this game, only to run the survey and find out that 92% of players are happy with the amount of gear progression we have. That would keep them from putting in a change due to skewed feedback.

support this completely

‘Searching’ or how not to create a new thread for a topic that already exists…

Often the “vocal minority” thing is used to shoot down constructive feedback that is perceived as harshly critical of a fan favorite developer. /r/GuildWars2 is especially notable for this sort of fanboyism.

gold by doing a survey? don’t you think that’s a little to much. maybe 10 silver each day by doing the survey, but i like this idea

I’m certain “gold” was a generic term for “cash”. Focusing a bit too much on the specifics there…

I do like this idea. People who enjoy things rarely complain nor take the time to voice their opinion on what works/is effective. Hence why these forums are always filled with negative chatter.

It’s a reason I like coming on here, to battle the crybabies where appropriate

I have to agree that I’d like to see the ingame BWE-style event and story surveys return. Maybe you could even put in a checkbox option to “Participate in surveys.”

We didn’t have access to much of the content now available, and I’ve found myself wishing I could’ve left feedback on certain events ingame in the manner I did during the beta events.

TheUnknown.5204:

gold by doing a survey? don’t you think that’s a little to much. maybe 10 silver each day by doing the survey, but i like this idea

As Alviss guessed, “gold” was generic for “in-game cash”. I was personally thinking 1s/level if they did monthly surveys, or 50s per level if they did weekly surveys. The survey can only be completed once per account, so I guess it would use your highest-level character as a guide for how much money.

Also, the more I think about it the better I like this idea. Not only does it give them accurate feedback, it gives them extremely detailed feedback too. They could analyze the data by class, level, time played, etc. This would let them know exactly who thinks an idea is good and who thinks it’s bad. They could also weigh votes differently.

For instance, if there is a question about WvW, they could only count votes from people who have 10+ hours in WvW, and maybe give extra weight to people with 50+ hours or people with 10+ as a commander. After all, feedback about WvW for people who have only spent half an hour on it is not worthwhile feedback (unless the question is why they don’t play).

Surveys need to come back. I don’t even care if anyone actually reads them, I just like surveys. It could be advertised as a feature. “Guild Wars 2: now with more surveys!”

I think this is a wonderful idea. They’d have to have it as a toggle in settings though to keep from pissing off people that don’t want it.

50 silver per level? Srsly? That’s 40 gold for doing the weekly survey.

Unless this took 8 hours to fill, way too much.

On a side note, surveys would be nice to leave.

A perfect idea.

I support this (being part of the quiet ones)

Dacromir.6207:

If only 5% of the players are unhappy about something, they might still make up 50% of the forum population on that issue.
We all know that listening to the vocal minority will ruin a game, because what they’ll never be happy.

So, this means that the 95% of non-complainers are surely fully enjoying the game?
Its like you are saying that those who don’t go to vote on political elections are totally satisfied with the system. You guys are totally wrong.
Most people are not used to post on forums, others don’t even know that forums exist, and others are just getting used to what the game offers.
If only 5% of people are posting on forums, the same possibility is that 20% more are reading the forums but don’t post anything on it.
Why don’t you consider the people posting on forum, people who actually see what is bad and what is not in the game. Why those not complaining are just better? They are just educated to follow the rules and eat whatever they are offered.
“Those who don’t like the game have quit” so are they better compared to those who are taking up some of their time to post suggestions on forums?
No matter how good or crappy the suggestions are, A-net IS GETTING IDEAS for FREE.
Instead of hiring 500 more employes to give them ideas, they GET THEM FREE.
Do you think these employees, if hired, will only give very good ideas? i think not.
So, don’t treat the forum posters as complainers, because even some of them are just “chatting” others are offering opinions that A-Net would have to PAY for.
If 500 people want Mounts in the game and the other 2 million are just indifferent, why not make those 500 players happy. Why would it matter for the 2 million as long as they don’t express any opinion about it? This was just an example

Ronah.2869:

Dacromir.6207:

If only 5% of the players are unhappy about something, they might still make up 50% of the forum population on that issue.
We all know that listening to the vocal minority will ruin a game, because what they’ll never be happy.

So, this means that the 95% of non-complainers are surely fully enjoying the game?
Its like you are saying that those who don’t go to vote on political elections are totally satisfied with the system. You guys are totally wrong.
Most people are not used to post on forums, others don’t even know that forums exist, and others are just getting used to what the game offers.
If only 5% of people are posting on forums, the same possibility is that 20% more are reading the forums but don’t post anything on it.
Why don’t you consider the people posting on forum, people who actually see what is bad and what is not in the game. Why those not complaining are just better? They are just educated to follow the rules and eat whatever they are offered.
“Those who don’t like the game have quit” so are they better compared to those who are taking up some of their time to post suggestions on forums?
No matter how good or crappy the suggestions are, A-net IS GETTING IDEAS for FREE.
Instead of hiring 500 more employes to give them ideas, they GET THEM FREE.
Do you think these employees, if hired, will only give very good ideas? i think not.
So, don’t treat the forum posters as complainers, because even some of them are just “chatting” others are offering opinions that A-Net would have to PAY for.
If 500 people want Mounts in the game and the other 2 million are just indifferent, why not make those 500 players happy. Why would it matter for the 2 million as long as they don’t express any opinion about it? This was just an example

I like teh idea of having surveys, and awhile back, my guildies and I discussed this sort of possibility. It would be a great way for people to not have to go outside the game, and still give their feedback as to how they feel about the game. A simple way this can be handled is:

This weeks survey is on Ascalonian Catacombs.

Story mode:

On a scale of 1 – 5, 5 being excellent, and 1 being ‘I hated it’ rate your overall experience.
Briefly explain

Did you find the content challenging? 1-5 1 being easy and 5 being too hard.
Briefly explain

Exploration Mode:

On a scale of 1 -5, 5 being excellent and 1 being ‘I hated it’, PLease rate your experience.
Briefly explain.

On a scale of 1-5, 1 being too easy and 5 being too hard, please rate the difficulty of the content.
Briefly explain.

Please give any feedback or suggestions on how you would improve this content to make it fun for all players.

Something basic along those guidelines to allow people to give constructive feedback (those that particpate) and specifically target a certain area of the game. Like Ascalonian Catacombs, you can determine how challenging it is, how fun it is, how long it is, so on and so forth and drive a particular patch around fixing these issues.

I think it would be a great idea, and can involve WvW/sPvP/tPvP/explorations/dungeons/crafting…anything!

A very good idea. Just don’t make the same survey pop 15 times to same person. In the beta I had to answer the survey every time i finished an spvp match

@teviko: I actually don’t think a suggestions box, etc. should be made. That’s basically just like what we’re doing here. I think that a simple 1-5 rating would suffice. If something seems to be getting low ratings, it’d be really easy for the team to check the Suggestions board and there is pretty much definitely going to be something there for it.

10 silver reward is too high. But some money as a reward would be nice! I would certainly not be opposed to this type of survey.

The rewards should be in karma, the right currency to award good behavior.