Guild Wars 2

I was going to write a long detailed post about the difference between forum feedback and metrics, but then I realised, even if I had articulated it well, It’d be closed in half a day.

So here’s a simpler thread.

Does anyone else think that feedback is heavily weighed on metrics first, and vocal player feedback as a “last-on-the-list” thing?

Forum feedback would show:
- The lack of class balance (even though all class threads besides Guardian and Warrior are filled with bugs, incorrect stats for traits, incorrect buff percentages etc – Remember the patch that made ranger pets 30% faster with agility training?, and the video that proved it was not true?)

- The endless discussion from devs about making PvP worth the effort, but PvP’ers have been stating that it’s not anywhere near esport material for months and months because of core features. Bearing in mind they’re going to put this in place soon, but this could be in a month or two. For a game claiming to be serious about esport, they seem to have kept this stuff on the back-burner.

Metrics would show:
- Speedrunning on dungeons. People got through a lot too fast. Metrics would show this a lot sooner than people posting it on forums. The result was that mobs Health pools were increased, more mobs thrown in and DR switched on.

- Karma nerfing. Metrics would show that specific events were being cycled over and over to farm karma. Resulting in a nerf.

Taking to account that Metrics based changes were done within the first 3-4 months of the game’s release, and the former are still yet to be implemented it just feels like, they’re taking all the feedback from here, and just sitting on it until the very last moment.

Metric based balancing is important to game balance.

Addressing balance from player feedback is important to player retention and satisfaction.

It seems that they are focusing on metric based, which is needed, but also needs to be grouped with player concerns.

nethykins.7986:

Forum feedback would show:

Nothing.

The forum community is only a very small part of the total players. To make things worse, it’s not a general sample – it’s a specific subgroup of players. And to make things even worse, it’s a specific subgroup including many of the worst kinds of players in the game.

I’m not happy with the idea of the AoE nerf. But to say “no one in the forum complained about it so it’s not an issue” is ridiculous – the forum does not represent what players think, much less what is or isn’t an issue in the game.

Players are not game designers. More often than not, players are not capable of doing good game design. Developers should not ask players to tell them how to design a game, since this will more often than not lead to failure after failure due to lack of long term planning, lack of care about the impact changes have in the game as a whole, and the self-centered nature of most suggestions.

Erasculio.2914:

Players are not game designers. More often than not, players are not capable of doing good game design.

You’d be surprised. Especially at the 1st statement.

Player feedback on the forums are just as valid as some matrices.

Falcon Night.4653:

Erasculio.2914:

Players are not game designers. More often than not, players are not capable of doing good game design.

You’d be surprised. Especially at the 1st statement.

Player feedback on the forums are just as valid as some matrices.

Not matrices sir, metrics.

Forum feedback is a guy going “this dungeon is too hard! This is why.”

Metrics would be a dev going “According to the data we gather, only 15% of teams who attempt this dungeon finish it.”

Both are invaluable feedback. However, you have to admit it’s a lot harder to find quality feedback in the forum.

You are absolutely certain that absolutely nobody had issues with AOE? I take it that you’ve spoken to every single player out there.

There’s a well-known quote from Valve I’m going to butcher here to help describe my views on this issue.

Ahem: “Players are great at finding problems. If your players are telling you that there’s a problem, you want to look into it. Players are terrible at coming up with solutions for the problems they find, and most anything they propose should generally be ignored.”

On top of that…let’s face it. This forum is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. The players here are not precisely interested in giving constructive criticism and feedback as objective and unbiased as they can reasonably manage. They are, instead, generally interested in being as cruel, spiteful, petty, petulant and destructive as they possibly can, seeking to make both other players and any dev or CC brave or foolish enough to set foot in here miserable to the point of quitting their jobs and going to live in a Malaysian commune to try and regain their inner peace and composure. Players will deliberately go out of their way to attack not only devs and CCs, but any player who expresses a moderate opinion of the game, any support for ArenaNet, or any confidence in the developers’ decisions, condemning anyone who does not share their professed virulent hatred of this game as “fanboys”, “carebears”, or any number of other derogatory terms.

Given a choice between clean, impersonal game metrics and all of that, I’d want ArenaNet to focus on metrics, too.

Given a choice between clean, impersonal game metrics and all of that, I’d want ArenaNet to focus on metrics, too.

This isn’t a question of metrics, this is ANet making “value judgments” on our individual playstyles.

they’re not pointing to metrics showing that the fact that they used an AOE here instead of a single target affected the outcome of this match, or that AOE trivializes encounters, they just came forward and said “we think people are using too many aoe abilities”, and that’s just not good enough to justify robbing people of the way they want to play.

Good reasons include:
- this is breaking the game by making things too easy, and we can’t balance it any other way besides nerfing the damage (protip, you CAN, by making the packs use more CC, and making their AI more intelligent about interrupts)

-this is breaking the game by ruining the day of a significant and unintended portion of the playerbase (if this were the case, the forum posts wouldn’t be about thief backstab or perma-stealth all the time)

Does anyone else remember a balance change from waaaaaaay back in Guild Wars 1’s history, in the early days of Prophecies, where they changed the monster A.I. to be more intelligent about getting out of pulsing AoE effects because people were trivializing group encounters with them?

Yeah…I gotta admit, it’s fun to see people having the exact same reactions this time through, failing whatsoever to remember that we got over it and things were just fine the last time ArenaNet made changes to AoE skills.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that people are posting on forums talking about how bad forum posters are? In fact they go into great detail how horrible they are and poorly articulated and should never be listened to…while doing it themselves…

kanikani.2430:

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that people are posting on forums talking about how bad forum posters are? In fact they go into great detail how horrible they are and poorly articulated and should never be listened to…while doing it themselves…

Plus 10 internets to you!!! Give that person a prize!! I lol’d

DevilLordLaser.8619:

There’s a well-known quote from Valve I’m going to butcher here to help describe my views on this issue.

Ahem: “Players are great at finding problems. If your players are telling you that there’s a problem, you want to look into it. Players are terrible at coming up with solutions for the problems they find, and most anything they propose should generally be ignored.”

^This

Only thing I would add is that while players in general are great at finding relevant problems that exist the majority of players are also absolutely terrible at fully understanding and describing those problems.

Thief, Warrior, and DD Ele are OP.
Portal is broken.
Zerging is too good.

If 99% of forum posters actually bothered to spend 5 minutes to research and think about the subject instead of ‘Oh hey, I didn’t bother to read the thread but this is what I think’ that completely flood out the 1% of forum posters that actually post intelligently the game would probably be in a lot better state then it currently is.

Erasculio.2914:

nethykins.7986:

Forum feedback would show:

Nothing.

The forum community is only a very small part of the total players. To make things worse, it’s not a general sample – it’s a specific subgroup of players. And to make things even worse, it’s a specific subgroup including many of the worst kinds of players in the game.

I’m not happy with the idea of the AoE nerf. But to say “no one in the forum complained about it so it’s not an issue” is ridiculous – the forum does not represent what players think, much less what is or isn’t an issue in the game.

Players are not game designers. More often than not, players are not capable of doing good game design. Developers should not ask players to tell them how to design a game, since this will more often than not lead to failure after failure due to lack of long term planning, lack of care about the impact changes have in the game as a whole, and the self-centered nature of most suggestions.

It is massive you are wrong. One word Ascend. That was a direct response from Anet to the troglodytes about no vertical progression. It shows Anet is easily manipulated by the forums and will not hesitate to throw away any design philosophy or vision to appease.

At this point I think the players could do a better job actually and think that NCSOFT should send someone over who knows what they are doing to set the ship straight cause I heard the rats are seeing the water pouring in.

When you continually and forcefully make players play the way you want them to and not how they want you end up with what we have now. A dead world and a lacking game. You either buy gems →gold or grind endless hours for nothing. That is why this game has only 1/8th players left.
If you ignore your core demographic you die, if you communicate properly you have gold and a successful run.

Narkosys.5173:

Erasculio.2914:

nethykins.7986:

Forum feedback would show:

Nothing.

The forum community is only a very small part of the total players. To make things worse, it’s not a general sample – it’s a specific subgroup of players. And to make things even worse, it’s a specific subgroup including many of the worst kinds of players in the game.

I’m not happy with the idea of the AoE nerf. But to say “no one in the forum complained about it so it’s not an issue” is ridiculous – the forum does not represent what players think, much less what is or isn’t an issue in the game.

Players are not game designers. More often than not, players are not capable of doing good game design. Developers should not ask players to tell them how to design a game, since this will more often than not lead to failure after failure due to lack of long term planning, lack of care about the impact changes have in the game as a whole, and the self-centered nature of most suggestions.

It is massive you are wrong. One word Ascend. That was a direct response from Anet to the troglodytes about no vertical progression. It shows Anet is easily manipulated by the forums and will not hesitate to throw away any design philosophy or vision to appease.

I’ve wondered about that. Did Anet make that decision based on the forum, where sure, there were a lot of topics about it, but the replies on those topics were about 50/50 pro/con. Or did they base that decision on the metrics? Did they see people stop playing after getting their exotics and figured this was why?

Not saying I agree with ascended, but I doubt it was a decision based on forums alone.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

There’s a well-known quote from Valve I’m going to butcher here to help describe my views on this issue.

Ahem: “Players are great at finding problems. If your players are telling you that there’s a problem, you want to look into it. Players are terrible at coming up with solutions for the problems they find, and most anything they propose should generally be ignored.”

This is a pretty good adage. Clients are the best at finding problems because they use the service the most. Clients are not good at providing the solution because they know nothing about building the service.

Narkosys.5173:

It is massive you are wrong. One word Ascend. That was a direct response from Anet to the troglodytes about no vertical progression. It shows Anet is easily manipulated by the forums and will not hesitate to throw away any design philosophy or vision to appease.

Wouldn’t metrics show them more data on
- How many people crafted legendaries.

Then break that up into subsections?
– How often they logged in
– Did dynamic events
– Played in wvw
– Remained AFK in Lions Arch

I know a blog post mentioned hitting the “legendary wall” but iirc, nothing was stated on whether it was forum influenced or metrics. Not sure how many people really asked for vertical progression. It’d be nice to know.

Things measured by metrics are also the things that most directly translate to generating wealth within the game. By nerfing those things, the only way to get nice stuff is Gems (purchased with cash) to Gold.

Not that devs in all games don’t eventually seem to suffer from the issue of, “You’re not having fun the way you’re supposed to.” At some point they seem to forget that the important part is players having fun, not doing what they’re supposed to.

Ursan.7846:

Forum feedback is a guy going “this dungeon is too hard! This is why.”

The complaints I’ve seen about dungeons have mostly been about them being broken, buggy, unfun, unchallenging, drawn out, boring. Seriously man, “too hard” seems to be at the bottom of the complaint list and I don’t know who you think you’re fooling.

Vlaxitov.5693:

Ursan.7846:

Forum feedback is a guy going “this dungeon is too hard! This is why.”

The complaints I’ve seen about dungeons have mostly been about them being broken, buggy, unfun, unchallenging, drawn out, boring. Seriously man, “too hard” seems to be at the bottom of the complaint list and I don’t know who you think you’re fooling.

You’re completely right. Sorry if you misunderstood me, but I’m not saying “This is too hard” is the only complaint. I was just giving my post as an example of what a forum feedback is, and how it differs from metrics devs get.

Devs will see groups 15% of groups fail because of dungeons due to metrics. But they (maybe) don’t know why they fail, and feedback will help direct them toward what the problem is

But both are important.

kanikani.2430:

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that people are posting on forums talking about how bad forum posters are? In fact they go into great detail how horrible they are and poorly articulated and should never be listened to…while doing it themselves…

Well put. Nobody could accuse you of not clearly articulating your point.

DancingPenguins.9875:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

There’s a well-known quote from Valve I’m going to butcher here to help describe my views on this issue.

Ahem: “Players are great at finding problems. If your players are telling you that there’s a problem, you want to look into it. Players are terrible at coming up with solutions for the problems they find, and most anything they propose should generally be ignored.”

This is a pretty good adage. Clients are the best at finding problems because they use the service the most. Clients are not good at providing the solution because they know nothing about building the service.

I have to say that is very true. We are not good at providing suggestions to fix things because we don’t see the metrics, but when we say things like, “conditions are too easily removed,” “thieves kill too fast too easily” or “engineers are a mess” and ANet perpetually ignores us, it is to everybody’s detriment.

Ursan.7846:

But both are important.

I think the OP is saying the same thing. Right now forum feedback has primarily been ignored by ANet. (Even though they keep saying otherwise.) The only people they really pay any heed to are the “e-sport” PvP people. And even then, it’s not much.

Supersun.4603:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

There’s a well-known quote from Valve I’m going to butcher here to help describe my views on this issue.

Ahem: “Players are great at finding problems. If your players are telling you that there’s a problem, you want to look into it. Players are terrible at coming up with solutions for the problems they find, and most anything they propose should generally be ignored.”

^This

Only thing I would add is that while players in general are great at finding relevant problems that exist the majority of players are also absolutely terrible at fully understanding and describing those problems.

Thief, Warrior, and DD Ele are OP.
Portal is broken.
Zerging is too good.

If 99% of forum posters actually bothered to spend 5 minutes to research and think about the subject instead of ‘Oh hey, I didn’t bother to read the thread but this is what I think’ that completely flood out the 1% of forum posters that actually post intelligently the game would probably be in a lot better state then it currently is.

We, the other 99%, are to assume you are the 1 % then?

Zonzai.2341:

Right now forum feedback has primarily been ignored by ANet. (Even though they keep saying otherwise.) The only people they really pay any heed to are the “e-sport” PvP people. And even then, it’s not much.

^
This.

Case in point: drop rate/DR issue thread(s). Players make a thread, thread gets 1200 responses, thread gets locked. “Official” thread gets started, and it takes nearly 2 months to get a Dev reply, which basically said, “we’re still looking into it, it takes time”.

I could list other examples, but this one is fairly prominent.

As for paying attention to the PvP’ers… this is clearly not the case, either, as is evident by the decline of sPvP and the clear intent to ignore requests for different game modes besides something conquest-based that relies so heavily on bunker builds.

Erasculio.2914:

nethykins.7986:

Forum feedback would show:

Nothing.

The forum community is only a very small part of the total players. To make things worse, it’s not a general sample – it’s a specific subgroup of players. And to make things even worse, it’s a specific subgroup including many of the worst kinds of players in the game.

I’m not happy with the idea of the AoE nerf. But to say “no one in the forum complained about it so it’s not an issue” is ridiculous – the forum does not represent what players think, much less what is or isn’t an issue in the game.

Players are not game designers. More often than not, players are not capable of doing good game design. Developers should not ask players to tell them how to design a game, since this will more often than not lead to failure after failure due to lack of long term planning, lack of care about the impact changes have in the game as a whole, and the self-centered nature of most suggestions.

I think this is spot on. In Statistics you learn you have to use random sampling to get accurate data (random posts from forums doesn’t count since its still not random enough, they would have to include everyone who plays to get legit information), using solely information from one source is inaccurate as we may (and do) have certain bias that people not posting on forums do not have (sorry this was strangely phrased). They should work on problems as they see fit, since they are the ones who know more than we do (since they created the cooldowns, cast times, etc.)

It doesn’t matter if the forums are a minority or not. The posters here are some of the only people giving public feedback. The forums are a tool the same as any other, if the community wants to give feedback, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. People in the community are aware of the forums, Reddit, other forums, et al. The forum posters are a valid tool for feedback for any issue and if the rest of the community does not wish to give feedback to devs or community at large then it is more their fault than anyone else’s. It’s the game you play, if you want to see change, take action. If you don’t take any action, then who is at fault?

killcannon.2576:

It doesn’t matter if the forums are a minority or not. The posters here are some of the only people giving public feedback. The forums are a tool the same as any other, if the community wants to give feedback, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. People in the community are aware of the forums, Reddit, other forums, et al. The forum posters are a valid tool for feedback for any issue and if the rest of the community does not wish to give feedback to devs or community at large then it is more their fault than anyone else’s. It’s the game you play, if you want to see change, take action. If you don’t take any action, then who is at fault?

Minority or not is irrelevant, the information haven gotten is inaccurate basing it on one source alone, since its skrewed to one bias or another (be it WvW for people who play WvW or Pve for people who play Pve more often). Just because the rest of the community does not wish to give feedback does not mean your feedback is the only to consider(which is why they would rather figure out the pros and cons to things on their own so they can take the non-posters into account).

killcannon.2576:

The posters here are some of the only people giving public feedback.

Even ignoring all the other sources of feedback ArenaNet has (fansite forums, forums in big MMO sites, Facebook, twitter, e-mail, in-game interaction with players): the community in this forum is not a good sample of the community in-game. The opinion of a vocal minoroty is far from being the opinion of most players in the game, and as such it should not always be listened to. In fact, I’m not sure it should ever be listened to.

I would be incredibly happy if ArenaNet closed this forum. I used to think I could simply play the game and ignore the kind of people who like to post here, until BAM – ArenaNet listened to whiners from this place and decided to implement Ascended gear through the Fractals. Now I post trying to point to ArenaNet how forum feedback is bad, which is likely a waste of my time, but it’s the best I can do.

Erasculio.2914:

killcannon.2576:

The posters here are some of the only people giving public feedback.

Even ignoring all the other sources of feedback ArenaNet has (fansite forums, forums in big MMO sites, Facebook, twitter, e-mail, in-game interaction with players): the community in this forum is not a good sample of the community in-game. The opinion of a vocal minoroty is far from being the opinion of most players in the game, and as such it should not always be listened to. In fact, I’m not sure it should ever be listened to.

I would be incredibly happy if ArenaNet closed this forum. I used to think I could simply play the game and ignore the kind of people who like to post here, until BAM – ArenaNet listened to whiners from this place and decided to implement Ascended gear through the Fractals. Now I post trying to point to ArenaNet how forum feedback is bad, which is likely a waste of my time, but it’s the best I can do.

I mentioned in post about the other areas players could go beside the official forums.

Causic.3798:

I think this is spot on. In Statistics you learn you have to use random sampling to get accurate data (random posts from forums doesn’t count since its still not random enough, they would have to include everyone who plays to get legit information), using solely information from one source is inaccurate as we may (and do) have certain bias that people not posting on forums do not have (sorry this was strangely phrased). They should work on problems as they see fit, since they are the ones who know more than we do (since they created the cooldowns, cast times, etc.)

And what about the massive threads asking for changes to be made that get ignored? You’re suggesting that because you took a statistics class, this form of feedback is not part of the consumer feedback equation? Analysis shows very clearly that when voluntary customer feedback is ignored it is detrimental to the product.

Here’s What Happens When You Don’t Listen To Your Customers’ Complaints
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-19/strategy/30641945_1_customer-service-negatives-complaints

The complaint is a signal that should not be ignored. When customers complain, they are giving your company an opportunity to fix what is wrong and improve your business. Why? Customers act in their own self-interest, and they are in a unique position to tell your company the unvarnished truth…

Online: The danger of ignoring customer complaints
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/edde4a1c-264b-11e1-9ed3-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2IT5BQUb9

“The message to companies from their customers is clear: if you want us to use social media to talk to you, you had better be ready to talk back,” says Josh March, chief executive of Conversocial.

He warns that retailers who do not treat social media complaints seriously “risk losing not just their current customers, but vast numbers of potential customers, who now have a window to see how you respond to – or ignore – your customers in full public view.”

Why Ignoring Social Media Complaints Is a Huge Mistake
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2012/09/18/complaints/

In his book, The End of Business as Usual, social media thought leader Brian Solis displays a social media word cloud for a major (but unnamed) airline. The dominant references (fail, worst, sucks, hate, wtf, etc.) are emblematic of what happens when unhappy customers dominate a one-sided conversation.

Hawkmoon.5849:

Zonzai.2341:

Right now forum feedback has primarily been ignored by ANet. (Even though they keep saying otherwise.) The only people they really pay any heed to are the “e-sport” PvP people. And even then, it’s not much.

^
This.

Case in point: drop rate/DR issue thread(s). Players make a thread, thread gets 1200 responses, thread gets locked. “Official” thread gets started, and it takes nearly 2 months to get a Dev reply, which basically said, “we’re still looking into it, it takes time”.

I could list other examples, but this one is fairly prominent.

As for paying attention to the PvP’ers… this is clearly not the case, either, as is evident by the decline of sPvP and the clear intent to ignore requests for different game modes besides something conquest-based that relies so heavily on bunker builds.

Agreed. They are adding new game modes, though I think that has nothing to do with the feedback. Like I said, they give very little heed to sPvP players. They know how to ruin their game best, that’s for sure.

Causic.3798:

killcannon.2576:

It doesn’t matter if the forums are a minority or not. The posters here are some of the only people giving public feedback. The forums are a tool the same as any other, if the community wants to give feedback, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. People in the community are aware of the forums, Reddit, other forums, et al. The forum posters are a valid tool for feedback for any issue and if the rest of the community does not wish to give feedback to devs or community at large then it is more their fault than anyone else’s. It’s the game you play, if you want to see change, take action. If you don’t take any action, then who is at fault?

Minority or not is irrelevant, the information haven gotten is inaccurate basing it on one source alone, since its skrewed to one bias or another (be it WvW for people who play WvW or Pve for people who play Pve more often). Just because the rest of the community does not wish to give feedback does not mean your feedback is the only to consider(which is why they would rather figure out the pros and cons to things on their own so they can take the non-posters into account).

If the community does not wish to give feedback, they are irrelevant. How do you listen to feedback you don’t have? It’s their opportunity they are missing out on. It’s their fault. If even larger amounts of people would have stepped up and posted during the ascended fiasco, perhaps there would have been a different outcome. I only started posting here on the forums because of the Ascended gear debate.

Erasculio.2914:

nethykins.7986:

Forum feedback would show:

Nothing.

The forum community is only a very small part of the total players. To make things worse, it’s not a general sample – it’s a specific subgroup of players. And to make things even worse, it’s a specific subgroup including many of the worst kinds of players in the game.

I’m not happy with the idea of the AoE nerf. But to say “no one in the forum complained about it so it’s not an issue” is ridiculous – the forum does not represent what players think, much less what is or isn’t an issue in the game.

Players are not game designers. More often than not, players are not capable of doing good game design. Developers should not ask players to tell them how to design a game, since this will more often than not lead to failure after failure due to lack of long term planning, lack of care about the impact changes have in the game as a whole, and the self-centered nature of most suggestions.

Funny think is Anet statet in their making off book, the community is part of the game. Without us they could not make the game how it is (their words not mine). So basically they should listen more to us they do now.

killcannon.2576:

The forums are a tool the same as any other, if the community wants to give feedback, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. People in the community are aware of the forums, Reddit, other forums, et al. The forum posters are a valid tool for feedback for any issue and if the rest of the community does not wish to give feedback to devs or community at large then it is more their fault than anyone else’s. It’s the game you play, if you want to see change, take action. If you don’t take any action, then who is at fault?

I’ve played with many different people on many different MMOs (RPG or otherwise) and I am the only one who I ever know that visits and participates on the forums of said games. I do not blame them because I feel the few topics that are relevant to the game becoming better are few and far between. Areas like General Diss, and PvP are overflowing with rude, unsupported, and troll topics on all forums no matter the game. “Suggestion” and “Lore/story” areas always feel like they are put there more for the fans than for developers to actually look at or visit.

During beta when i finished an event in game a blue box would appear asking me to rate my experience on things like how much fun I had and difficulty. It also included a box to leave a comment. I’ve never experienced anything like that and i thought it was brilliant because now you could get the opinion of everyone who plays the game, not just the veterans who know how to work the forums.

There needs to be a better way to reach out to the player base INSIDE the game where they are. Make giving feedback a part of the game. Take a survey in the game for a chance to win a chest filled with boosters, or take a 100 surveys and get cosmetic town clothes, if everyone in your guild participates in a survey your guild gets rep, etc etc.

Zonzai.2341:

Causic.3798:

I think this is spot on. In Statistics you learn you have to use random sampling to get accurate data (random posts from forums doesn’t count since its still not random enough, they would have to include everyone who plays to get legit information), using solely information from one source is inaccurate as we may (and do) have certain bias that people not posting on forums do not have (sorry this was strangely phrased). They should work on problems as they see fit, since they are the ones who know more than we do (since they created the cooldowns, cast times, etc.)

And what about the massive threads asking for changes to be made that get ignored? You’re suggesting that because you took a statistics class, this form of feedback is not part of the consumer feedback equation? Analysis shows very clearly that when voluntary customer feedback is ignored it is detrimental to the product.

Here’s What Happens When You Don’t Listen To Your Customers’ Complaints
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-19/strategy/30641945_1_customer-service-negatives-complaints

The complaint is a signal that should not be ignored. When customers complain, they are giving your company an opportunity to fix what is wrong and improve your business. Why? Customers act in their own self-interest, and they are in a unique position to tell your company the unvarnished truth…

Online: The danger of ignoring customer complaints
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/edde4a1c-264b-11e1-9ed3-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2IT5BQUb9

“The message to companies from their customers is clear: if you want us to use social media to talk to you, you had better be ready to talk back,” says Josh March, chief executive of Conversocial.

He warns that retailers who do not treat social media complaints seriously “risk losing not just their current customers, but vast numbers of potential customers, who now have a window to see how you respond to – or ignore – your customers in full public view.”

Why Ignoring Social Media Complaints Is a Huge Mistake
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2012/09/18/complaints/

In his book, The End of Business as Usual, social media thought leader Brian Solis displays a social media word cloud for a major (but unnamed) airline. The dominant references (fail, worst, sucks, hate, wtf, etc.) are emblematic of what happens when unhappy customers dominate a one-sided conversation.

Hawkmoon.5849:

Zonzai.2341:

Right now forum feedback has primarily been ignored by ANet. (Even though they keep saying otherwise.) The only people they really pay any heed to are the “e-sport” PvP people. And even then, it’s not much.

^
This.

Case in point: drop rate/DR issue thread(s). Players make a thread, thread gets 1200 responses, thread gets locked. “Official” thread gets started, and it takes nearly 2 months to get a Dev reply, which basically said, “we’re still looking into it, it takes time”.

I could list other examples, but this one is fairly prominent.

As for paying attention to the PvP’ers… this is clearly not the case, either, as is evident by the decline of sPvP and the clear intent to ignore requests for different game modes besides something conquest-based that relies so heavily on bunker builds.

Agreed. They are adding new game modes, though I think that has nothing to do with the feedback. Like I said, they give very little heed to sPvP players. They know how to ruin their game best, that’s for sure.

That is not what I am saying at all. Of course it is to be considered. It should be looked in to. What I am saying is that forum poster’s opinions are biased. ANet should make judgements based on other sources, their own. People on forums are never happy and such should not be trusted. People complained about not having anything to work towards and they added Ascension gear. After they added the gear people complained that they shouldn’t have added it. People will always complain for something they want (or think they want).
Complaints should be made after something is done when all the details of it are known, not before made up solely on assumptions.
@ killcannon : “If the community does not wish to give feedback, they are irrelevant.”
Your opinions are no more important than anyone else’s. (The nicest way I can say this)

I’m not sure what your point is then. ANet knows it’s biased. As do all of the other people who ignore complaints. It’s still bad for their company. People complain when they are unhappy with something. This is exactly the same thing that happens with every other MMO. Which one is still the biggest kid on the block today? The one that listened to their customer’s complaints.

In reply to your edit, agreed. Complaints over the AoE nerf are out of hand. Complaints over the lack of condition influence in the meta, complaints over the necessity of bunker builds, complaints over the disparity between profession balance (engineer vs. guardian for example) and many other complaints are being ignored. I don’t give a kitten about the AoE nerf. These other things, which have been brought up time and time again by thousands of different posters are all being ignored in favor of nerfs to things that (almost) nobody but ArenaNet sees as a problem. That is bad for them and bad for the game because it means less happy customers.

Fairymore.8609:

killcannon.2576:

The forums are a tool the same as any other, if the community wants to give feedback, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. People in the community are aware of the forums, Reddit, other forums, et al. The forum posters are a valid tool for feedback for any issue and if the rest of the community does not wish to give feedback to devs or community at large then it is more their fault than anyone else’s. It’s the game you play, if you want to see change, take action. If you don’t take any action, then who is at fault?

I’ve played with many different people on many different MMOs (RPG or otherwise) and I am the only one who I ever know that visits and participates on the forums of said games. I do not blame them because I feel the few topics that are relevant to the game becoming better are few and far between. Areas like General Diss, and PvP are overflowing with rude, unsupported, and troll topics on all forums no matter the game. “Suggestion” and “Lore/story” areas always feel like they are put there more for the fans than for developers to actually look at or visit.

During beta when i finished an event in game a blue box would appear asking me to rate my experience on things like how much fun I had and difficulty. It also included a box to leave a comment. I’ve never experienced anything like that and i thought it was brilliant because now you could get the opinion of everyone who plays the game, not just the veterans who know how to work the forums.

There needs to be a better way to reach out to the player base INSIDE the game where they are. Make giving feedback a part of the game. Take a survey in the game for a chance to win a chest filled with boosters, or take a 100 surveys and get cosmetic town clothes, if everyone in your guild participates in a survey your guild gets rep, etc etc.

I agree, there should be a better way, and the forums are generally a hotbed of dissension. But until we have that better way, this is what we have.

Causic.3798:

Zonzai.2341:

Causic.3798:

I think this is spot on. In Statistics you learn you have to use random sampling to get accurate data (random posts from forums doesn’t count since its still not random enough, they would have to include everyone who plays to get legit information), using solely information from one source is inaccurate as we may (and do) have certain bias that people not posting on forums do not have (sorry this was strangely phrased). They should work on problems as they see fit, since they are the ones who know more than we do (since they created the cooldowns, cast times, etc.)

And what about the massive threads asking for changes to be made that get ignored? You’re suggesting that because you took a statistics class, this form of feedback is not part of the consumer feedback equation? Analysis shows very clearly that when voluntary customer feedback is ignored it is detrimental to the product.

Here’s What Happens When You Don’t Listen To Your Customers’ Complaints
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-19/strategy/30641945_1_customer-service-negatives-complaints

The complaint is a signal that should not be ignored. When customers complain, they are giving your company an opportunity to fix what is wrong and improve your business. Why? Customers act in their own self-interest, and they are in a unique position to tell your company the unvarnished truth…

Online: The danger of ignoring customer complaints
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/edde4a1c-264b-11e1-9ed3-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2IT5BQUb9

“The message to companies from their customers is clear: if you want us to use social media to talk to you, you had better be ready to talk back,” says Josh March, chief executive of Conversocial.

He warns that retailers who do not treat social media complaints seriously “risk losing not just their current customers, but vast numbers of potential customers, who now have a window to see how you respond to – or ignore – your customers in full public view.”

Why Ignoring Social Media Complaints Is a Huge Mistake
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2012/09/18/complaints/

In his book, The End of Business as Usual, social media thought leader Brian Solis displays a social media word cloud for a major (but unnamed) airline. The dominant references (fail, worst, sucks, hate, wtf, etc.) are emblematic of what happens when unhappy customers dominate a one-sided conversation.

Hawkmoon.5849:

Zonzai.2341:

Right now forum feedback has primarily been ignored by ANet. (Even though they keep saying otherwise.) The only people they really pay any heed to are the “e-sport” PvP people. And even then, it’s not much.

^
This.

Case in point: drop rate/DR issue thread(s). Players make a thread, thread gets 1200 responses, thread gets locked. “Official” thread gets started, and it takes nearly 2 months to get a Dev reply, which basically said, “we’re still looking into it, it takes time”.

I could list other examples, but this one is fairly prominent.

As for paying attention to the PvP’ers… this is clearly not the case, either, as is evident by the decline of sPvP and the clear intent to ignore requests for different game modes besides something conquest-based that relies so heavily on bunker builds.

Agreed. They are adding new game modes, though I think that has nothing to do with the feedback. Like I said, they give very little heed to sPvP players. They know how to ruin their game best, that’s for sure.

That is not what I am saying at all. Of course it is to be considered. It should be looked in to. What I am saying is that forum poster’s opinions are biased. ANet should make judgements based on other sources, their own. People on forums are never happy and such should not be trusted. People complained about not having anything to work towards and they added Ascension gear. After they added the gear people complained that they shouldn’t have added it. People will always complain for something they want (or think they want).
Complaints should be made after something is done when all the details of it are known, not before made up solely on assumptions.
@ killcannon : “If the community does not wish to give feedback, they are irrelevant.”
Your opinions are no more important than anyone else’s. (The nicest way I can say this)

My opinions are more valuable than ones that are silent. If a view is not expressed or iterated in some form, it is not a view or opinion. If you want to be heard you need to speak.

You guys win the last discussion. And I do agree that ANet should prioritize on what they are fixing better!

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Erasculio.2914:

nethykins.7986:

Forum feedback would show:

Nothing.

The forum community is only a very small part of the total players. To make things worse, it’s not a general sample – it’s a specific subgroup of players. And to make things even worse, it’s a specific subgroup including many of the worst kinds of players in the game.

I’m not happy with the idea of the AoE nerf. But to say “no one in the forum complained about it so it’s not an issue” is ridiculous – the forum does not represent what players think, much less what is or isn’t an issue in the game.

Players are not game designers. More often than not, players are not capable of doing good game design. Developers should not ask players to tell them how to design a game, since this will more often than not lead to failure after failure due to lack of long term planning, lack of care about the impact changes have in the game as a whole, and the self-centered nature of most suggestions.

Funny think is Anet statet in their making off book, the community is part of the game. Without us they could not make the game how it is (their words not mine). So basically they should listen more to us they do now.

Yes, the community of players is part of the game.

The forum community is not representative of the community of players. It’s only a small group, biased in a very high number of subjects, so it doesn’t work even as a sample.

To think that the complaints of forumers is the complaint of all GW2 players is a joke. If anything, ArenaNet should listen to everywhere but the forums.

Sometimes, you can smell a $#!@ sandwich being made a mile away, and it really isn’t necessary to take a bite out of it in order to find out what’s inside.

I think the reason the devs shared the information they did in the livestream was specifically for the purposes of gathering feedback, so it’s a bit odd to me to see players telling other players that giving feedback is not appropriate because the changes haven’t yet come to pass.

This is generally what test environments are for, but without a proper test environment, the entire population of end users becomes the testers, so it shouldn’t be surprising when some of them start to give feedback on things that are in the pipe, because that is after all what testers do.

Nobody really wants a cesspool of hastily-written, poorly thought out, fragmentary stream-of-consciousness type rants, but that is what forums are, and it’s something that we all have to deal with until somebody figures out a way to just magically separate the good from the bad.

If I think a change will be detrimental to a game overall, I’d rather see it dumped in the trash bin than pushed live, only to possibly be rolled back or fixed 6-12 months down the road, and I will not hesitate to make this known.

The fact is that rolling back changes is something that mmos generally really don’t want to do, so once a change goes live it’s likely to stay there unless it’s absolutely gamebreaking. So it’s better to stop that before it happens, which means some way of community input into the pre-release process is pretty critical.

This whole ‘forums aren’t everyone so ignore forums’ is completely wrong. People in the official forums are the people who are most invested. They’re the front-line for spotting problems that don’t obviously appear in metrics.

I’ve never seen anyone say only pay attention to the forums, just the wacky ‘ignore the forums!’ posters. Forums are one part of a balanced feedback system. If a company doesn’t manage customer relations and ignores the system they set up for customer feedback, customers are going to be upset. That’s natural and logical.

Let’s take the ‘ignore the forums, they aren’t everyone’ logic to it’s logical conclusion – the people saying that aren’t everyone, so by their logic we should feel free to ignore and dismiss their arguments. Somehow, I think their logic is a bit biased.

TLDR: Forums are one important piece of feedback. No one has ever said it should be the only way to talk with ANet, only that they felt like ANet was ignoring some serious concerns.

Gilosean.3805:

This whole ‘forums aren’t everyone so ignore forums’ is completely wrong. People in the official forums are the people who are most invested. They’re the front-line for spotting problems that don’t obviously appear in metrics.

And one of the best reasons to ignore forum players is due to how they think they are better (or “more invested” or “front-line”) than everyone else.

More often than not, the forum posters are more forum players than game players. It’s not an issue that forumers aren’t everyone – rather, that forumers are the worst part of the entire community.

Gilosean.3805:

TLDR: Forums are one important piece of feedback. No one has ever said it should be the only way to talk with ANet, only that they felt like ANet was ignoring some serious concerns.

I think most of the people that come here, come because they either need information or they have a complaint. Those who need information generally don’t post as much as those who have a complaint. As you say, it’s absolutely true that there is a bias in the forum community. I don’t know why anybody thinks this is news to ANet or anybody else. It’s not even a question of if this true – it is true.

That said, customer complaints are an excellent way to find the biggest problems with any product. And ignoring them is never beneficial to your company. Especially when a similar complaint keeps being repeated. Complaints are a valuable part of feedback even if the do not represent all players.

killcannon.2576:

Supersun.4603:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

There’s a well-known quote from Valve I’m going to butcher here to help describe my views on this issue.

Ahem: “Players are great at finding problems. If your players are telling you that there’s a problem, you want to look into it. Players are terrible at coming up with solutions for the problems they find, and most anything they propose should generally be ignored.”

^This

Only thing I would add is that while players in general are great at finding relevant problems that exist the majority of players are also absolutely terrible at fully understanding and describing those problems.

Thief, Warrior, and DD Ele are OP.
Portal is broken.
Zerging is too good.

If 99% of forum posters actually bothered to spend 5 minutes to research and think about the subject instead of ‘Oh hey, I didn’t bother to read the thread but this is what I think’ that completely flood out the 1% of forum posters that actually post intelligently the game would probably be in a lot better state then it currently is.

We, the other 99%, are to assume you are the 1 % then?

Yes, because I obviously pulled those statistics right out of a scientific journal about the statistical breakdown of forum goers that say stupid kitten, and given that you quoted my post and responded to it in a manor that was on-topic, by definition, that includes you in the “1%” mentioned above.

It’s not condescending. It’s just Sturgeon’s Law.

90% of everything is crap, and just like everything else 90% at minimum of the posts on these forums don’t really add that much to the discussion because of the lack of though put into people’s position.

killcannon.2576:

My opinions are more valuable than ones that are silent. If a view is not expressed or iterated in some form, it is not a view or opinion. If you want to be heard you need to speak.

Not necessarily. Someone only tends to voice their opinion when there is something “wrong.” Someone who is perfectly fine with the way things are, or at least in regard to a specific topic, tend to stay quiet.

For example I think it would be safe to say that the majority of players prefer the BLTC compared to a more primitive form of trading between players such as shouting offers over chat and having to trade items manually.

The majority of players aren’t going to be making posts saying how awful having to spam chat to make trades is and that the auction house system they are using is so much better. One person for whatever reason might like the more primitive system better and make a post on the forums about how the current system sucks compared to shout trades. Is that person’s post and opinion really more important then the “silent majorities?”

That said, there certainly are issues on the forums that while not vocalized by the entire population probably represent the views of the majority.

The biggest issue in a sense is the difficulty of knowing how much the actual player base cares about a particular forum complaint.

Well if metrics give them such detailed and accurate results, why is the game losing populations like an open artery, not much fun to play anymore and sorely lacking in rewards?

Looks to me like Metrics are failing badly..

Dante.1508:

Well if metrics give them such detailed and accurate results, why is the game losing populations like an open artery, not much fun to play anymore and sorely lacking in rewards?

Looks to me like Metrics are failing badly..

You think that, because…

A. All MMOs lose population after launch.
B. You make a huge assumption that they’re “losing population like an open artery” which you don’t know if they are doing that.

I mean if you make an assumption like B, yea sure it does seem like they’re failing.

Supersun.4603:

killcannon.2576:

Supersun.4603:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

There’s a well-known quote from Valve I’m going to butcher here to help describe my views on this issue.

Ahem: “Players are great at finding problems. If your players are telling you that there’s a problem, you want to look into it. Players are terrible at coming up with solutions for the problems they find, and most anything they propose should generally be ignored.”

^This

Only thing I would add is that while players in general are great at finding relevant problems that exist the majority of players are also absolutely terrible at fully understanding and describing those problems.

Thief, Warrior, and DD Ele are OP.
Portal is broken.
Zerging is too good.

If 99% of forum posters actually bothered to spend 5 minutes to research and think about the subject instead of ‘Oh hey, I didn’t bother to read the thread but this is what I think’ that completely flood out the 1% of forum posters that actually post intelligently the game would probably be in a lot better state then it currently is.

We, the other 99%, are to assume you are the 1 % then?

Yes, because I obviously pulled those statistics right out of a scientific journal about the statistical breakdown of forum goers that say stupid kitten, and given that you quoted my post and responded to it in a manor that was on-topic, by definition, that includes you in the “1%” mentioned above.

It’s not condescending. It’s just Sturgeon’s Law.

90% of everything is crap, and just like everything else 90% at minimum of the posts on these forums don’t really add that much to the discussion because of the lack of though put into people’s position.

killcannon.2576:

My opinions are more valuable than ones that are silent. If a view is not expressed or iterated in some form, it is not a view or opinion. If you want to be heard you need to speak.

Not necessarily. Someone only tends to voice their opinion when there is something “wrong.” Someone who is perfectly fine with the way things are, or at least in regard to a specific topic, tend to stay quiet.

For example I think it would be safe to say that the majority of players prefer the BLTC compared to a more primitive form of trading between players such as shouting offers over chat and having to trade items manually.

The majority of players aren’t going to be making posts saying how awful having to spam chat to make trades is and that the auction house system they are using is so much better. One person for whatever reason might like the more primitive system better and make a post on the forums about how the current system sucks compared to shout trades. Is that person’s post and opinion really more important then the “silent majorities?”

That said, there certainly are issues on the forums that while not vocalized by the entire population probably represent the views of the majority.

The biggest issue in a sense is the difficulty of knowing how much the actual player base cares about a particular forum complaint.

And if there were a thousand posts from different individuals who posted about wanting shout trades (the reason being to undercut people who control trades in the BLTC, who will buy up anything that is listed lower than their price, then relist at a higher price) and that was then adopted by the devs, would it be the devs fault or the individuals who do not check forums for what is being said there or on other media.

My only point being that people who play the game, who enjoy it, who like it, should indeed visit the forums and see what is being written and by whom it is written. It is the players responsibility to stay informed and to voice opinions. One of the easiest, proactive ways to do this is to visit the forums for about five minutes everyday, give voice to their opinions on current topics, and stay informed about some of the crazy that gets suggested here. The player base needs to be more engaged with the forums or other media.

Metrics, no doubt, provide some great statistics, but that’s about it. Statistic models can show different things depending on the outlook of the reader. Forum posts, and other media, along with metrics can give a much clearer picture of where a player base stands on most issues. There just needs to be more people who use the forums and other media to give a broader range of perspective, instead of just “Dur Hur…I want to raid and have mounts and my legendary grind is too hard and Orr is poopy”

killcannon.2576:

My only point being that people who play the game, who enjoy it, who like it, should indeed visit the forums and see what is being written and by whom it is written. It is the players responsibility to stay informed and to voice opinions. One of the easiest, proactive ways to do this is to visit the forums for about five minutes everyday, give voice to their opinions on current topics, and stay informed about some of the crazy that gets suggested here. The player base needs to be more engaged with the forums or other media.

LOOOL! You want people to GRIND the forum now, too?

Players should never “have” to do something they don’t enjoy about a game. The forum isn’t a place with a nice community in which to talk with other players about different aspects of the game – it’s closer to a cesspool with fanboys and whiners fighting against each other. Wasting five minutes per day here is way more than this place even deserves.

ArenaNet already listen to the forum more than they should. I wish they would listen less, or ideally that they would actually close this mess and go back to a fansite forum policy, like they had in GW1. Making an official forum just because other MMOs have one has been just a massive waste of resources.

Hmmm… This seems like Occam’s Razor.

The Forum’s I think should be used in conjunction withheld available data they have.
Many expressed their issues about culling now it’s being fixed.

Forum’s can be used to highlight specific areas of interest that I dev can choose to improve or leave as in their eyes it is reasonable. I think there’d be less raging about X not being fixed if they provided statistical evidence and a statement to why a particular choice has been made. I would be more than happy and would adapt to what I perceived was problem X.

I think it’s when it is left unresolved and people think it’s the Dev’s ignoring them then it’s major QQ time.

Give me some numbers and thought out statement then I’m happy.
They should use all the tools at hand, I think they most likely are. The official responses can be helpful but more often than not they cannot give a full reason or simply do not know about that area which is fine. The ones that know about it are trying to fix it, it’d just be nice to have someone in that area that can dish out some details.

Robert is doing a fantastic job! Been talking about dungeons and the reasons why XYZ. I hope more follow his example. Colin’s getting around to it which is awesome.

I do commend the community staff but they normally don’t have the knowledge about the things I want to know about. Sorry, I know you do the best you can!

More responses would be ideal but if they know the problems maybe a little update on the news thread would be good to quell fears and to let the players they are working on it. Please not the vague ones or the things you hope to accomplish. What you actually are doing please!

Metrics are fine, but they can only answer a specific type of question. (like progression difficulty, farming behavior etc.)

Forum feedback does something that is equally important because it expresses how people FEEL while playing the game. And that is every bit as important as any metric or stat.

Feelings are hugely important and simply cannot be measured my metrics or statistics.

Dee Jay.2460:

Forum feedback does something that is equally important because it expresses how people FEEL while playing the game. And that is every bit as important as any metric or stat.

How a small and biased minority feels. Not how most players feel.