Guild Wars 2

…On the forums.

Particularly in this section, Suggestions and the Professions sections.

There is a wealth of solid player ideas and suggestions for fixes/improvements (e.g. the neglected “Profession” that is the Ranger and Warriors who are useless in PvP) but only a small handful seem to be acknowledged.

Of course the Devs are busy, but surely there is time in the day to at least acknowledge the more important issues raised here? Even a simple ‘Noted, we’ll bear it in mind’ would be appreciated!

The best way in which ArenaNet can improve its game is by listening to and communicating more with its players.

*Edit: alright, the replies are going how I thought they would ("pfft nub, da devz hav real lifez too and aint paid fo’ this forumz shiz we are lucky they even notice us, i luv yu anet <3 ). So why do we even have a suggestions forum if the devs shouldn’t feel obliged to even give it the time of day?

You people seem to imply that they spend the entire working day doing non-stop work and couldn’t possibly even spare 10 minutes to acknowledge the posts on the forums that have several hundred replies and universal agreement of the proposed change(s). I’m not suggesting that EVERY suggestion or idea post be acknowledged; just the ones gathering the most player attention or a dev would feel worthy of exploring.*

Why developers make few posts on official forums:

• Firestorms disagreeing with what the dev typed.
• Misinterpretations of what the dev typed.
• People getting into arguments with the dev because they disagree.
• Dev communications raise expectations which are then ruined when the reality hits – nothing inflames people more than disappointment.
• Developers are not professional communicators.
• Companies might discourage developers from posting due to all of the above.
• Posting a response to some topics might require getting concurrence from management on what to say. Typing a short response might take little time, but getting consensus on what to say might take a lot more time than a dev can afford to take. This last is probably why more of the posts that we do see on these forums are; “Ill look into this.” or “I know of no changes in the last patch that would cause this issue.” and not discussions of issues related to game direction, balance, or changes to features.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Why developers make few posts on official forums:

• Firestorms disagreeing with what the dev typed.
• Misinterpretations of what the dev typed.
• People getting into arguments with the dev because they disagree.
• Dev communications raise expectations which are then ruined when the reality hits – nothing inflames people more than disappointment.
• Developers are not professional communicators.
• Companies might discourage developers from posting due to all of the above.
• Posting a response to some topics might require getting concurrence from management on what to say. Typing a short response might take little time, but getting consensus on what to say might take a lot more time than a dev can afford to take. This last is probably why more of the posts that we do see on these forums are; “Ill look into this.” or “I know of no changes in the last patch that would cause this issue.” and not discussions of issues related to game direction, balance, or changes to features.

That’d be a real pathetic reason – not posting because they’re afraid of how it may be accepted or interpreted. Most likely that’s not why.

The devs don’t have to get into an argument. A statement is made because it’s a fact or their opinion.

Raising expectation and letting people down is already something they’re used to through both the manifesto. Didn’t have problems with them in the past, why now?

Not everyone has to be professional communicators to make posts on the forum. Refer to Riot (devs of League of Legends) employees. Everyone – from engineers to CEO – joke around and throw a few hints here and there. No one gives a kitty about how much of a ‘professional communicators’ they are.

Jae.5138:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Why developers make few posts on official forums:

• Firestorms disagreeing with what the dev typed.
• Misinterpretations of what the dev typed.
• People getting into arguments with the dev because they disagree.
• Dev communications raise expectations which are then ruined when the reality hits – nothing inflames people more than disappointment.
• Developers are not professional communicators.
• Companies might discourage developers from posting due to all of the above.
• Posting a response to some topics might require getting concurrence from management on what to say. Typing a short response might take little time, but getting consensus on what to say might take a lot more time than a dev can afford to take. This last is probably why more of the posts that we do see on these forums are; “Ill look into this.” or “I know of no changes in the last patch that would cause this issue.” and not discussions of issues related to game direction, balance, or changes to features.

That’d be a real pathetic reason – not posting because they’re afraid of how it may be accepted or interpreted. Most likely that’s not why.

The devs don’t have to get into an argument. A statement is made because it’s a fact or their opinion.

Raising expectation and letting people down is already something they’re used to through both the manifesto. Didn’t have problems with them in the past, why now?

Not everyone has to be professional communicators to make posts on the forum. Refer to Riot (devs of League of Legends) employees. Everyone – from engineers to CEO – joke around and throw a few hints here and there. No one gives a kitty about how much of a ‘professional communicators’ they are.

Riot’s forums are also a cestpool of trolls and idiots. The General Discussion section of their forums is where everyone goes for a serious (or non-serious) discussion, which ruins the whole point of a forum.

As a serious company, Arenanet is taking the right approach. Unless each dev is to take a course in HR, their’s no real point in having dev’s reply on the forums.

Bryzy.2719:

There is a wealth of solid player ideas and suggestions for fixes/improvements (e.g. the neglected “Profession” that is the Ranger and Warriors who are useless in PvP) but only a small handful seem to be acknowledged.

The great majority of which is very, very bad.

More often than not, gamers are not game designers, and there are very good reasons for that. Players are usually unable to understand how what they think would be “cool” for them would not be good for the game as a whole.

Developers are important, and their time is valuable. I would rather have developers working to improve the game than wasting their time reading bad suggestions in the forum.

The entire Suggestions forum was meant to be temporary, when this forum opened soon after release. If you consider how the search feature is broken in this forum, that means almost all suggestions are gone once they leave the first page (as there’s no way to search for suggestions about a given topic), so the entire section is pretty much useless. I wouldn’t be surprised if no one at ArenaNet even bothers to read it.

I would last about 10 seconds as a dev posting on these forums …. roflmao

Let’s see, right after the dev post comes the following:

The basement dweller that believes that the recent patch nerf to his class is a conspiracy aimed directly at him by Anet. The screaming teenager from World of Warcraft that plays 24-7 and may commit suicide if they don’t add a 10 man raid with better stat gear rewards. The WvW noob that just got ganked while picking daisies in the Eternal Battlegrounds and now demands a total rework of WvW. And last, but not least, the boot-lick fanboy that speaks with the voice of authority as if he had “inside information” as to what the devs intended or think, while also constantly spamming the report option on others since he’s a self-appointed forum moderator.

Heck, no …. in fact, to be honest, I’m stunned they bother to post as much as they currently do!

Just because they don’t post doesn’t mean they don’t read the forum and consider our feedback.

Best example of this IMO is a few months ago when we had a topic with almost 200 responses, almost all agreeing that no one bothers to do the dailies because they were boring, repetitive and you didn’t get anything worth having from them. Not long after that the system was changed to the one we have now. The topic wasn’t in the suggestions section and the nearest it came to suggesting the current system was saying it should change like the monthly and as far as I remember none of the devs replied, certainly not to say they agree or any word on what they might do. But they still changed it based on that feedback.

I have seen one forum where the devs regularly posting worked, but that was a completely different situation. It was a sandbox artificial life sim and also actively encouraged 3rd party mods. Between those two characteristics most serious or long-term players literally knew the game inside out and had the opportunity to try out a lot of their brilliant suggestions themselves so they had a much better understanding of what worked (or didn’t) and why.

It was also a much smaller community which meant it was easier to keep up with. You could read everything posted on the forum that day in a couple of hours, and the relevant stuff in about 30 minutes.

Personally I suspect the main reason Anet doesn’t post much is it would just raise expectations for them to post even more. We get the odd “Thanks for answering my question completely and backing it up with sources but I really want a dev to confirm it” or “If anyone from Anet is reading this please tell me what you think” now. If they actually responded to those demands every other post would include a request that they comment and/or confirm, followed up by demands for an explanation and a long drawn out argument of why the OPs suggestion would totally work even if it’s impossible and absurd.

And if they happened to miss a post you could add cries of favouritism and profession/game mode/player bias to that.

They already post too much as it is…

….Without actually saying anything at all

Talking is easy. It’s Listening to other people first that’s the hard part.

ilr.9675:

They already post too much as it is…

….Without actually saying anything at all

Talking is easy. It’s Listening to other people first that’s the hard part.

But listening to WHO. In case you haven’t noticed, there are several opinions in every topic. Maybe they are listening and they’re just not listening to a specific percentage of the player base.

In fact, if they were listening to a specific percentage it would be guaranteed that a different percentage would feel like they didn’t listen.

Vayne.8563:

But listening to WHO.

Why, they should be listening to me, of course. Because no one else is worth listening to

BTW it’s “whom” – compliments of the grammar police…

And in case you actually decide to take this post seriously… rutabaga!

Devs implementing player ideas can lead to bad things… for example: ascended gear.

grumbles.5412:

Devs implementing player ideas can lead to bad things… for example: ascended gear.

Great post – bravo !

Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You may have seen me in such other informational posts such as “Monsters, are they real?” or “If I kill a character in-game, am I a murderer?”. I’m here to give you a little insight into your question little Billy.

You might be surprised to know that the dev’s days only have 24 hours as well. Yep! Every single ANet employee lives life according to the same 24 hour day cycles you do! They find it easier to relate to normal people like you and me that way.

You might also be amused to know that Arena Net employs real people, and not trained code monkeys! They tried the code monkeys before, but all they got was a big mess… And the complete works of Shakespeare somewhere… At any rate, these “real people”, as it turns out, also require time off work. You know, doing things normal people enjoy. Such as watching TV, being with their loved ones, or killing their liver with alcohol wishing they had loved ones to be with!

Surprisingly, most of the employees do not enjoy coming home from an 8 hour shift to read mostly uneducated and opinionated posts, usually complaining on the forums from the game they just spent their working day working on! Well, I think they’re crazy, but they do good work and are expendabl-I mean affordable. They’re efficient and affordable! Yes!

And I know, you’re probably wondering “Why can’t they do it while they’re at work for so many hours?” or “Mommy how did this strange man get in my room?”.

Well the second one is unimportant, you’re losing focus Billy, which is why you get bad grades and your parents are splitting up. So let’s focus on the real problems. Anyways, one of the best kept industry secrets is that while at work, these “real people” tend to be… at work! In the game. They aren’t paid to read forums. In fact, John here, sayhiJohn, is getting fired at the end of the month for spending most of his work day watching pornography at work!

What is pornography you ask Billy? Well, that is a whole different informational post for another time and place! But meanwhile you can ask your parents!

So that is, much to ArenaNet’s sadness, why developers seem to not be able to personally reply to the millions of threads and posts posted on the forums every day as you would realistically expect from any good developer! And now you know!

Goodbye folks!

Bryzy.2719:

…On the forums.

Particularly in this section, Suggestions and the Professions sections.

There is a wealth of solid player ideas and suggestions for fixes/improvements (e.g. the neglected “Profession” that is the Ranger and Warriors who are useless in PvP) but only a small handful seem to be acknowledged.

Of course the Devs are busy, but surely there is time in the day to at least acknowledge the more important issues raised here? Even a simple ‘Noted, we’ll bear it in mind’ would be appreciated!

The best way in which ArenaNet can improve its game is by listening to and communicating more with its players.

I agree but about the entire game. PVE is at it’s worst actually than anything else. There’s rampant imbalance even with the most recent changes, there’s a serious lack of focus on improving combat all around or fixing CC/support/condition damage builds, and the problems of a #1 focused combat system.

To those who keep arguing against it, there are plenty of other games who’s devs have actually had a very strong connection with their players who answer posts all the time, who take the time out to take the ideas of the players and make them very much real updates in the game title they are working on. I’m playing one right now while watching what’s happening with GW2 and their success is completely due to the fact that they were there for the players of all of the gameplay styles since day 1 and communicated constantly even today.

Danikat.8537:

Best example of this IMO is a few months ago when we had a topic with almost 200 responses, almost all agreeing that no one bothers to do the dailies because they were boring, repetitive and you didn’t get anything worth having from them. Not long after that the system was changed to the one we have now. The topic wasn’t in the suggestions section and the nearest it came to suggesting the current system was saying it should change like the monthly and as far as I remember none of the devs replied, certainly not to say they agree or any word on what they might do. But they still changed it based on that feedback.

Weird, because i definitely remember dev posts (more than one) both about input, and spoiling future changes to the daily system. It was one of the better-covered changes in the game.

Vayne.8563:

ilr.9675:

They already post too much as it is…

….Without actually saying anything at all

Talking is easy. It’s Listening to other people first that’s the hard part.

But listening to WHO. In case you haven’t noticed, there are several opinions in every topic. Maybe they are listening and they’re just not listening to a specific percentage of the player base.

In fact, if they were listening to a specific percentage it would be guaranteed that a different percentage would feel like they didn’t listen.

This is in fact true. And, it’s why I would prefer that they listened and responded less to player demand. The alternative, of course, would be to evolve the game according to its DNA; in other words, from a compelling vision and game design philosophy, similar to how a manifesto would ordinarily function in guiding the evolution of an organization and its products. If it’s an idea whose time has come, the players will come. Player feedback is helpful, of course, in evolving a game. I’d just prefer to know that the game developer was in the driver seat.