Guild Wars 2

Is making suggestions on the forums a wasted effort? I’ve seen other people make suggestions and I’ve made a few but I rarely if ever see any response from someone at ANet to them.

Given that this is the official GW2 forum I’m surprised ANet folks don’t post here more. Oh wait, I forgot… they are posting on Reddit instead. Does that make Reddit the true GW2 forum?

They may not comment often (sometimes, they do), but some suggestions do make it into the game.

Considering the same suggestions can often be found on the forums (and elsewhere) even when the suggestion has been commented on, it would probably be counter-productive for the Devs to comment on each post/thread.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Is making suggestions on the forums a wasted effort? I’ve seen other people make suggestions and I’ve made a few but I rarely if ever see any response from someone at ANet to them.

Given that this is the official GW2 forum I’m surprised ANet folks don’t post here more. Oh wait, I forgot… they are posting on Reddit instead. Does that make Reddit the true GW2 forum?

“Official” forums Dev Tracker

Reddit Dev Tracker

Quite the difference in activity. However, this is the “stance” on this being the official forums:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I think I’ve already addressed this, but to repeat: This is the official Guild Wars 2 Forum, and we communicate often and with the highest priority here.

Looking at a personal history of 9,000+ posts and 3,200+ PMs, it seems clear we don’t engage that heavily elsewhere.

And now, we return you to your regularly scheduled forum by closing this thread as the subject has been fully addressed.

It’s also been asked why they don’t link to Reddit like they do Facebook and Twitter, and this is what the answer was:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Please keep in mind: reddit is a third-party platform. We do not own the channel, nor do we moderate the conversations. Any employee who posts there is doing so using time that they choose to use on that site, for their own reasons. We’re not going to link off the official forums to an UNofficial forums, just as we don’t link to the dozens of fine fansite forums that also are offered to players.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

They may not comment often (sometimes, they do), but some suggestions do make it into the game.

Considering the same suggestions can often be found on the forums (and elsewhere) even when the suggestion has been commented on, it would probably be counter-productive for the Devs to comment on each post/thread.

It would be nice if they (ANet) made some bit of effort to acknowledge players post occasionally.

“Hey that’s a good idea.” “It’s a good idea but has been suggested before.” “Interesting but I don’t think it’s possible to implement that because …”

There is an old phrase “silence breeds contempt”. Most companies these days have people who interface with the public beyond official announcements because people see companies that don’t as being detached from their customer base . The forum is the best way for them to engage the customer base.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Is making suggestions on the forums a wasted effort? I’ve seen other people make suggestions and I’ve made a few but I rarely if ever see any response from someone at ANet to them.

Given that this is the official GW2 forum I’m surprised ANet folks don’t post here more. Oh wait, I forgot… they are posting on Reddit instead. Does that make Reddit the true GW2 forum?

Generally speaking, you wont get a reply from anet. There are exceptions, such as Lawton if you have questions or suggestions for the API system, or John Smith (or is it Jon? Havent seen him post in a while) if you happen to post a thread that’s incredibly economically…. dumb. Lookin’ at you tinfoil-wrapped ecto threads.

Frankly, that’s a god kitten smart idea on their end. You have any idea how often them posting “we’ll look into it” has players turning it into “we’ll have it by the next update”? That being said, however, the devs DO read the forums, and the great ideas will be noted and discussed internally. Any action they take on it we’ll be clueless about until it comes to fruition, or fails so completely they feel it’s worth mentioning that right now it’s something that’s not possible.

So… I had more to this post, but that was about 3 hours ago when I started typing it, then got distracted by something until now…. oh well…

Tekoneiric.6817:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

They may not comment often (sometimes, they do), but some suggestions do make it into the game.

Considering the same suggestions can often be found on the forums (and elsewhere) even when the suggestion has been commented on, it would probably be counter-productive for the Devs to comment on each post/thread.

It would be nice if they (ANet) made some bit of effort to acknowledge players post occasionally.

“Hey that’s a good idea.” “It’s a good idea but has been suggested before.” “Interesting but I don’t think it’s possible to implement that because …”

There is an old phrase “silence breeds contempt”. Most companies these days have people who interface with the public beyond official announcements because people see companies that don’t as being detached from their customer base . The forum is the best way for them to engage the customer base.

Read the response from Gaile again. ANet folks respond all the time. There simply is not time in the day to get stuff done (that we can play) and to respond to every good idea (let alone every idea that isn’t feasible for whatever reason).

There are dozens of ideas I’ve seen proposed in the forums that end up in the game, in some way, shape, or form. (The current implementation of recovering the hammer in Cliffside looks very much like what I’ve seen here.)

The fact is that no matter how often ANet responds or in what depth, we are going to want to hear more. Given the choice between hearing from them more often and them delivering more stuff (bug fixes, QoL improvements, content, whatever), I’d far prefer to see more stuff.

To be quite frank I’ve made multiple suggestions which have been implemented in some variety later. I’d be very surprised if suggestions were truly pointless with that in mind.

The warrior forum is a very good example of how suggestions are not a wasted effort. For almost a year warriors became so distraught with the state of the warrior that players—Incluging myself— started creating entire threads based on the concept of rebalanced suggestions and while the devs to my knowledge never once comented on them, they did in fact hear the cries from the warrior community and made a much needed change to the warrior. it was a small change, and it may have been overboard as many players will say AH is overpowered, but it was an elegant solution to a problem that can be easily balanced (and i suspect it will be eventually) at a later date. It may take months for the devs to actually get around to fixing an aspect of the game, but they do in fact take into account suggestions. they may not run with the exact suggestion, but they will attempt to make changes in the spirit of what those suggestions involve.

Another example is the Ancient Seeds bug. players made suggestions on how to nerf the trait which prompted Anet to really look att he trait. what they discovered is that the trait was working incorrectly and they changed it to proc one time per player.

I think every single change to the daily achievements has been preceded by discussions on the forum. Most recently there were lots of topics from people asking for a cap on the total number of points and how many achievements you have to do per day – which lead to the current system of doing 3 achievements for 10 points (instead of up to 10 per day for 1 point each as it was before) – and then people said doing dailies after you reach the cap feels pointless and some people miss it, so they added 2g to the rewards.

There are numerous other examples too.

I suspect the main reason they don’t reply to say that they like an idea is they don’t want to set up unrealistic expectations.

Firstly because making anything for a game takes longer than many people realise. If they say they like an idea and will use it some people will be expecting it by next Tuesday, or the next big update at the absolute latest and in the majority of cases that’s just not realistic. But when it doesn’t happen it becomes another case of Anet “lying” and deliberately breaking their promises to disappoint players.

But it’s also highly unlikely that anyone at Anet has the authority to say that on their own. If they like an idea they’ll need to pitch it to the relevant people, who will discuss it and work out how to implement it. And even if it does happen it may be changed in some key ways from the original version, which might then disappoint people who saw the thread.

Personally, I totally believe it’s wasted effort. The selective communications cannot be defended. Posts in the “so called” official forum can reach thousands of views and many hundreds of responses and most don’t get a single response. That’s not just poor communication it’s insulting.

This drives players away from posting good possible changes and I’m convinced the game could be more fun for everyone if they simply set a limit on the number of posts or views and when the limit was reached, they respond to the issue.
The way threads are merged also does the game a disservice by burying valid issues in big threads in wrong areas.

When so many players have limited time to play, how can there be an “expectation” of having to check the forums for threads, patch notes, survey results, Reddit, Sub reddit, Wiki, and other good intentioned personal websites for what seems to many players to be basic information? This tells me that the effort to hide and surprize outweighs the effort to communicate and what kind of business model is that?

Tumult.2578:

Personally, I totally believe it’s wasted effort. The selective communications cannot be defended. Posts in the “so called” official forum can reach thousands of views and many hundreds of responses and most don’t get a single response. That’s not just poor communication it’s insulting.

You don’t have to post a suggestion. No one is forcing you to do so. It has been explained ad nauseam why a response from Anet is unlikely, but you don’t have to believe their answers.

Tumult.2578:

This drives players away from posting good possible changes and I’m convinced the game could be more fun for everyone if they simply set a limit on the number of posts or views and when the limit was reached, they respond to the issue.

Do you think people post because they want to see the game improved? Or do you think they post because they want a pat on the back with a “Good job!” or a thumbs up? Granted, those aren’t exclusive from each other, but attention seeking isn’t the best motivator for a forum where the devs have said they won’t be responding a lot (see above section). Edit: I do agree that tacit acknowledgement isn’t the best type for many people, but it’s what the devs have time for.

Tumult.2578:

When so many players have limited time to play, how can there be an “expectation” of having to check the forums for threads, patch notes, survey results, Reddit, Sub reddit, Wiki, and other good intentioned personal websites for what seems to many players to be basic information? This tells me that the effort to hide and surprize outweighs the effort to communicate and what kind of business model is that?

This portion is so out of left field, I’m going to need you to clarify what you mean. Does this relate at all to Anet responding to suggestions? If you want Anet to give players information about updates, how would you prefer they do so? In game? Anet prefers to use the forums, but you seem to be looking for another manner.

Let’s simply say that after posting numerous times over a wide variety of issues and reading the same type of posts from many players, offering suggestions or simply offering idea’s for discussion to see if they should be suggested, because we really want the game to succeed, I find the obvious lack of response on Anet’s part very discouraging.

If you question the “lack of response” I believe comparing a few of the Very Large threads with the Dev Tracker posts in them, or lack there of, should clarify it..

It just seems to me to have reached a point where the game looses because posters trying to make it better are discouraged. Yes, much is simple whining and begging but alot is solid discussion on valid topics that may make the game better but they both get the same response.

If your already sorting through all those game communication methods and see how little actual response there is in the “official forums” where is the continuing motivation to try and suggest things? Isn’t this what the OP is asking?

Some players might not need validation to continue to suggest features or improvement.

It may be enough to see suggested features/improvements appear in the game.

As a sample:
Last 7 days: Official Forums, 21 posts. Reddit, 91 posts.

They (development) can say whatever they want about the Official Forums being the ‘highest priority’, but the numbers speak for themselves.

Tumult.2578:

Let’s simply say that after posting numerous times over a wide variety of issues and reading the same type of posts from many players, offering suggestions or simply offering idea’s for discussion to see if they should be suggested, because we really want the game to succeed, I find the obvious lack of response on Anet’s part very discouraging.

If you question the “lack of response” I believe comparing a few of the Very Large threads with the Dev Tracker posts in them, or lack there of, should clarify it..

It just seems to me to have reached a point where the game looses because posters trying to make it better are discouraged. Yes, much is simple whining and begging but alot is solid discussion on valid topics that may make the game better but they both get the same response.

If your already sorting through all those game communication methods and see how little actual response there is in the “official forums” where is the continuing motivation to try and suggest things? Isn’t this what the OP is asking?

I review the /devtracker religiously and I think they respond plenty. You’re unsatisfied (and I’m sure you’re not alone), but that’s not a good enough reason for ANet to reconfigure their allocation of time and spend more of it responding to more posts. As many have said, I’d rather see ANet spend that time on the game rather than pacifying the portion of the forum community that expects a response to every good idea.

Same goes for another game dev tbh, dota2 for example. they pretty rarely hear and respond to their own forum and instead implement suggestion from reddit that barely a day old suggestion. but at least anet do respond to their own forum regularly.

Yes, the devtracker has the most to offer on the forums but again we only see what they choose to respond to there. I’m also reluctant to have them take time from game development but (in my opinion) too much goes ignored.
Nobody said anything about expecting a response to every good idea. When threads get huge though, there should be some response, even if it’s to simply say “We cant do this”, “We are looking at this”, “this is on our long term list”, or whatever is appropriate.
I don’t see this as a big time sink. I see it as a good chance at getting positive feedback and I think that is important.

It’s a sad day when people assume that because nothing is said, it’s being “ignored.” Gotta be kittening kidding me with that amount of cranial density. I’d love to go link Gaile’s post about this sort of thing, yet highly….. ignorant (really no other word describes it tbh) threads such as this one appear with some frequency.

Aidan Savage.2078:

It’s a sad day when people assume that because nothing is said, it’s being “ignored.”

Remarks of cranial density and ignorance aside…

Allow me to point this out as an example then.

The original comment was made by Colin on Feb. 22, 2016.

Someone was kind enough to bring that info over here to the Visual Nerfs Merged thread that day. Just a flesh wound posted about it in his Dev quotes from Reddit thread.It was posted here. It was posted here. It was posted here, and those few are just from me. I can’t tell you how many times other people asked. We even asked during the 2nd AMA and got ignored in the squall that was Colin dank meme and of course, those burning questions people had about the care of sponges were addressed. Phew.

I’ve commented on this issue many times, in too many threads to count. Lots of people have. That visual thread was there almost 6 months and was at almost 1k posts before it got a nod, and I think that was only because some of us really started questioning the lack of communication on important issues, yet staves vs staffs sees interaction? I posted asking about that, too. Some people get responded to on a regular basis and I’m sure that’s awesome, but some don’t, no matter how we try to approach the issue at hand. I won’t apologize for not smiling and nodding, but I do try to at least outline my concerns reasonably.

Further allow me to point you to my sig. That kind of thing is another reason people get upset. Both of the links. Please keep in mind that as much as they’d appreciate patience and respect from their customers, at the end of the day, so long as we’re being reasonable (and I feel for the most part, people are) in our requests for information, it can at least be acknowledged that we’re being heard in a timely manner, because no matter what you think people assumed, it’s a fact things have been missed, no matter how much, or how many people posted about it.

Tumult.2578:

Yes, the devtracker has the most to offer on the forums but again we only see what they choose to respond to there. I’m also reluctant to have them take time from game development but (in my opinion) too much goes ignored.
Nobody said anything about expecting a response to every good idea. When threads get huge though, there should be some response, even if it’s to simply say “We cant do this”, “We are looking at this”, “this is on our long term list”, or whatever is appropriate.
I don’t see this as a big time sink. I see it as a good chance at getting positive feedback and I think that is important.

I agree with you: it’s a good opportunity for feedback. And you’re right: it’s not a big time sink. But, if you’ve worked on any dev teams (games or otherwise) or in business generally, you’ll find that your day can be filled with 1000s of “not a big time sink” things that could be important.

So who’s to say what the right amount of developer responses would be? You say it’s not enough; others say it’s fine.

The title of this thread, however, suggests more than it’s simply too little. It could have read, “should ANet respond to long threads?” Instead, it asks if it’s a waste to even offer a suggestion. That doesn’t leave much room for anyone to work with.

edit: grammar

Companies pay people to think of ideas yet many of us give them freely on here. That in itself should be worth ANet’s time to acknowledge.

As a very creative person who thinks outside the box (unless it’s the Tardis I like to think I’ve posted some other good ideas. Of all the suggestions I posted I think the Pact Airship memorial in LA to act as a sink for airship oil is probably one the best. I haven’t gotten a peep on any of my suggestions. I see little if any response to those of others either.

About all I do see is someone from ANet sending contentious threads off to a sub forum to bury them and/or locking them down. I’ve often times wondered if some people get ignored on purpose.

Companies don’t just pay people to think of ideas. They pay them to have the training and experience to think about it in the wider sense of what’s good for the game and the majority of players rather than what they personally would like, to know which suggestions are possible and worthwhile following up and to know how to do that.

It’s the same in any field. I’ve never worked as a games designer but I do work in conservation and people with good ideas are very easy to find. People with good ideas which are practical, cost-effective and worked out in detail are very rare.

Which isn’t to say it’s not worth posting your suggestions. Just that it’s not at all comparable to what Anet staff do on a daily basis. And that just because you think an idea is good doesn’t mean it should happen as there are likely to be considerations you haven’t thought of.

And the exact same is true of my ideas, and anyone elses. I’ve had ideas I think are great which never even got as far as the forum because I told my guild and got shouted down. Some of them I still think are great but I have to accept that other people disagree and they play this game too.

Danikat.8537:

Companies don’t just pay people to think of ideas. They pay them to have the training and experience to think about it in the wider sense of what’s good for the game and the majority of players rather than what they personally would like, to know which suggestions are possible and worthwhile following up and to know how to do that.

It’s the same in any field. I’ve never worked as a games designer but I do work in conservation and people with good ideas are very easy to find. People with good ideas which are practical, cost-effective and worked out in detail are very rare.

Which isn’t to say it’s not worth posting your suggestions. Just that it’s not at all comparable to what Anet staff do on a daily basis. And that just because you think an idea is good doesn’t mean it should happen as there are likely to be considerations you haven’t thought of.

And the exact same is true of my ideas, and anyone elses. I’ve had ideas I think are great which never even got as far as the forum because I told my guild and got shouted down. Some of them I still think are great but I have to accept that other people disagree and they play this game too.

As someone who has a very good working knowledge of computers, their capabilities, games, having done some programming and even work on game maps for FPSs in my spare time; my suggestions don’t come without forethought.

Tekoneiric.6817:

As someone who has a very good working knowledge of computers, their capabilities, games, having done some programming and even work on game maps for FPSs in my spare time; my suggestions don’t come without a lack of forethought.

…Perhaps proofread that again.

More seriously without going into quite what suggestions you’re speaking about it’s difficult to really make any kind of analysis of the merits of your suggestion and you seem to be laboring under the assumption that simply because ANet doesn’t respond to your suggestions that they aren’t reading the forums and taking notes.

We know they read the forums, they have a community management team and Gaile is actually a very frequent poster compared to competing MMO community managers. The last three WvW design polls were pulled very specifically from what people were calling for in the WvW forums. Simply with that in mind- that they’d even entertain the idea of permanently pulling DBL out of rotation- I find it extremely difficult to connect the idea of them not listening to the forums with their actions.

Just because they are not actively participating in every single suggestion thread doesn’t mean that they’re not paying attention to suggestions. It’s simply a matter of manpower and effective application of their time.

Sarrs.4831:

Tekoneiric.6817:

As someone who has a very good working knowledge of computers, their capabilities, games, having done some programming and even work on game maps for FPSs in my spare time; my suggestions don’t come without a lack of forethought.

…Perhaps proofread that again.

More seriously without going into quite what suggestions you’re speaking about it’s difficult to really make any kind of analysis of the merits of your suggestion and you seem to be laboring under the assumption that simply because ANet doesn’t respond to your suggestions that they aren’t reading the forums and taking notes.

We know they read the forums, they have a community management team and Gaile is actually a very frequent poster compared to competing MMO community managers. The last three WvW design polls were pulled very specifically from what people were calling for in the WvW forums. Simply with that in mind- that they’d even entertain the idea of permanently pulling DBL out of rotation- I find it extremely difficult to connect the idea of them not listening to the forums with their actions.

Just because they are not actively participating in every single suggestion thread doesn’t mean that they’re not paying attention to suggestions. It’s simply a matter of manpower and effective application of their time.

Corrected… Thanks for picking at nits.

It hardly takes any more time to acknowledge suggestions than it does to make a note of them somewhere. Silence on their part tells most people it’s not worth the effort and they probably aren’t listening or even are actively ignoring. Even using canned responses is at least a token acknowledgement that it was worth the effort to post.

They could even add it as achievements in the game as they flag them to encourage forum participation; Bug hunter, Master of Ideas, etc. I personally would like to see a greater web integration rather than relying on sites like GW2 Efficiency. Oops there I go making suggestions again.

Acknowledgement might be seen as tacit agreement. I don’t actually believe Anet does anything in a vacuum. I think they have meetings and get teams together and discuss things. So a forum post goes up, who should respond? Which team member? When? After they bring it up at a meeting they schedule?

One would think meetings would already have an agenda.

How many ideas should be parsed at these meetings. 2? 3? 50? Which 50? How long will it take?

Who then gets the job of going back to the forums and responding to each of those threads.

I used to work as the acquisition’s editor for a publishing company. We had a bunch of authors we dealt with regularly and received another thousand or more submissions every month from authors who’s work we didn’t know. Those manuscripts went on a slush pile.

We didn’t, I promise you, read every one of those manuscripts in detail. We skimmed. Many of those manuscripts were rejected halfway through the first page. We didn’t need to read the whole thing. We wouldn’t have had TIME to read the whole thing.

This whole we need to be acknowledged stuff feels a bit ego-centric to me. You put ideas out there, and someone should respond, but they can’t because no one person is in charge of responses or what can and can’t be said. No reason to acknowledge an idea they’re not going to use. It’ll end up being seen as some sort of promise by a community that jumps on every phrase.

And after the next meeting when these ideas would ideally be brought up…most of the people who work on games like this, or in publishing for that matter, are flat chat all the time.

I didn’t have time to personally response to authors who spent months working on manuscripts. Almost all the work submitted received form letter rejections, not because I don’t care about writers. Not because I wasn’t interested in getting manuscripts.

They were given form letters because I physically wouldn’t have had time to read a thousand manuscripts a month and respond personally to all of them. It’s ludicrous.

So I did what I had to do to get the job done.

Game developers work hard at trying to get coding done and they work hard at finding bugs in codes. They don’t have the job description of reading the forums, nor should they.

Bigger publishing companies have first readers who read the manuscripts that come in and only the best get to the editor’s desk. I didn’t have that luxury.

The best, the very best Anet could possibly do is have an intern go through ideas and list them out, however, by the time they met and discussed it and came up with some kind of plan/answer, those threads would be weeks old already.

I think there are a whole lot of people who have never been in the business posting in these threads who have no idea of what it is to work on deadlines and try to get stuff out in a timely manner.

Many people are telling us we’re in the middle of a content drought. Hey, I have a great idea. Let’s let the devs sit and read all the forums too.

It’s a full time job, and it’s not in their contract.

Vayne.8563:

Acknowledgement might be seen as tacit agreement. I don’t actually believe Anet does anything in a vacuum. I think they have meetings and get teams together and discuss things. So a forum post goes up, who should respond? Which team member? When? After they bring it up at a meeting they schedule?

That’s for them to hash out, not us., though they have “communication” people. This is a business after all. Customers should be able to rely on communication.

Vayne.8563:

Many people are telling us we’re in the middle of a content drought. Hey, I have a great idea. Let’s let the devs sit and read all the forums too.

It’s a full time job, and it’s not in their contract.

Yes, we are in the middle of a content drought, so if they can’t be bothered to post here, why is Reddit all aflutter with activity?

We get merged threads on hot topic issues once staff sees enough posts they think the topic merits it. A few pages ( 5, 6, whatever) isn’t too crazy to hope for someone to poke their head in and wave.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’ve merged the threads into the original post on this subject. We ask all forum members to please take a moment to see if there’s an existing thread on a specific subject, rather than creating a new one. (At least glance through the first couple of pages.) Having a merged or cumulative thread helps the devs, in that they can read your accumulated feedback in one thread, and not scattered in a half-dozen over multiple pages.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

We’ve been told there are weekly reports to the devs and that merges actually help devs hear our concerns. I’m sure no one expects someone to run back and forth on every issue individually posted in scattered threads, but when stuff gets up to say 460, or 1k posts in these huge merged threads with nothing, then yeah. It’s probably past that whole “timely” timeline in most people’s minds.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Tumult.2578:

Yes, the devtracker has the most to offer on the forums but again we only see what they choose to respond to there. I’m also reluctant to have them take time from game development but (in my opinion) too much goes ignored.
Nobody said anything about expecting a response to every good idea. When threads get huge though, there should be some response, even if it’s to simply say “We cant do this”, “We are looking at this”, “this is on our long term list”, or whatever is appropriate.
I don’t see this as a big time sink. I see it as a good chance at getting positive feedback and I think that is important.

I agree with you: it’s a good opportunity for feedback. And you’re right: it’s not a big time sink. But, if you’ve worked on any dev teams (games or otherwise) or in business generally, you’ll find that your day can be filled with 1000s of “not a big time sink” things that could be important.

So whose to say what the right amount of developer responses would be? You say it’s not enough; others say it’s fine.

The title of this thread, however, suggests more than it’s simply too little. It could have read, “should ANet respond to long threads?” Instead, it asks if it’s a waste to even offer a suggestion. That doesn’t leave much room for anyone to work with.

Thanks for getting me to go back and re-read the OP’s title. There is more implied there than I saw at first and it looks like it may be more of an attempt to call attention to collective communication by asking the “waste of time” question. This does make it hard to respond to, but by being more encompassing, It did allowed me to present my concern over unanswered massive threads and some of the thread merging.
The position I retired from gave me a full understanding of how time comes at a premium, and even though the meaning of time has changed a lot since then for me, I agree that too often the choice is do this OR that, not do this AND that.

Frankly, I’d consider posting a more specific thread addressing just those two issues, but aside from maybe offering an answer to a specific question here or there, I’m really not feeling very motivated to provide constructive feedback when so many posters don’t even bother to read a thread before flinging insults, that make them look childish, and threatening to add things to the thread that are already there.

Maybe it’s burnout and time to step back for awhile. Thank you for an intelligent discussion.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Even using canned responses is at least a token acknowledgement that it was worth the effort to post.

Specific problem here is that you’re creating a slippery slope.

Today, silence isn’t enough. You want canned responses tomorrow.
Tomorrow, canned responses isn’t enough. You want proper community management team responses.
Then community manager responses aren’t enough. You want direct developer responses.

Honestly, they don’t need to acknowledge that they’ve seen a suggestion. They don’t need to say that it’s a good idea or that it’s laughable. Or why it may be a good idea but there isn’t time in the schedule to do it justice.

Sarrs.4831:

Tekoneiric.6817:

Even using canned responses is at least a token acknowledgement that it was worth the effort to post.

Specific problem here is that you’re creating a slippery slope.

Today, silence isn’t enough. You want canned responses tomorrow.
Tomorrow, canned responses isn’t enough. You want proper community management team responses.
Then community manager responses aren’t enough. You want direct developer responses.

This. So much this. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. It’s human nature for a lot of people. You might not be someone who keeps asking for more. But for you there are a hundred who will start clamouring for that mile. They will want, no, demand more, no matter how much they are given. Some people are just chronically dissatisfied. Besides, in the end people will judge^ ANet on the content they put in the game and the enjoyment they gave the people playing their game, not their communication skills.

^ whether the term, or the principle for that matter, is appropriate is another discussion altogether, but this is usually the form it takes

For me it’s good enough to know that suggestions and concerns are being read. The only way the poster can know this is if they respond or tag them in a way that becomes apparent to the poster. As someone that does computer support for a living I know fully well that canned responses are needed as a time saver and understand if they had to use them. I have had to use them in a number of jobs. They are much better than silence.

It was just short of 4 years before I noticed any meaningful player-suggested changes being done (Last April’s bug-megastomp patch). The famous CDI feedback fishing initiative resulted in thousands of good ideas – and approximately 0 of them being done. It felt like nothing but a distraction to keep us busy while they went and did what they were always going to do anyway.

April’s patch on the other hand fixed multiple problems that have existed, and been complained about, since beta. It was as if they suddenly said “Hey, here’s everything you asked for that we could finish in 3 months. More coming later!” It’s almost like a different company. We’ll see if they keep it up.

Tekoneiric.6817:

For me it’s good enough to know that suggestions and concerns are being read. The only way the poster can know this is if they respond or tag them in a way that becomes apparent to the poster. As someone that does computer support for a living I know fully well that canned responses are needed as a time saver and understand if they had to use them. I have had to use them in a number of jobs. They are much better than silence.

You may understand that. But there are good number that do not understand that that would say that canned responses aren’t good enough and would demand that they post non-canned responses.

There will also be players that take the response as it’s going to happen and happen soon and then yell at ANet a few patches later when the idea doesn’t come into fruition.

Tekoneiric.6817:

For me it’s good enough to know that suggestions and concerns are being read. The only way the poster can know this is if they respond or tag them in a way that becomes apparent to the poster. As someone that does computer support for a living I know fully well that canned responses are needed as a time saver and understand if they had to use them. I have had to use them in a number of jobs. They are much better than silence.

We’ve been assured by Gaile that they DO get read. On the other side of the coin, Gaile’s said, that outside of extreme cases, we (players) hear nothing until it’s either about to come out in a patch or is going to be such a difficult thing to do that they need to wait until other system implementations occur. I believe she also said that a lot of the… “unconfirmed” suggestions do in fact get tested, but really dont work out, so nothing’s said in whatever thread(s) mentioning it.

emkelly.2371:

The warrior forum is a very good example of how suggestions are not a wasted effort. For almost a year warriors became so distraught with the state of the warrior that players—Incluging myself— started creating entire threads based on the concept of rebalanced suggestions and while the devs to my knowledge never once comented on them, they did in fact hear the cries from the warrior community and made a much needed change to the warrior. it was a small change, and it may have been overboard as many players will say AH is overpowered, but it was an elegant solution to a problem that can be easily balanced (and i suspect it will be eventually) at a later date. It may take months for the devs to actually get around to fixing an aspect of the game, but they do in fact take into account suggestions. they may not run with the exact suggestion, but they will attempt to make changes in the spirit of what those suggestions involve.

I remember being very engaged during that set of discussions. I didn’t see most of my desired changes, but I consider the anti-nerf of warhorn (from convert 1 boon to cleanse 2) to be a glittery star sticker to put on my Howler.

I know of some changes that were discussed on the forums but there never was a post by a dev at the times of the discussion. Some examples that I can think of offhand are:

Wardrobes were added (for free).
Account wide inventory slots were added to the gem store.
The ranger warhorn used to agro enemies on skill 5, a speed boost that would immediately put you into combat and slow you down if you used it near a mob. And your pet would attack it also.
LFG was added to the game.
Megaservers were added to PvE after a number of forum threads by people from full servers complaining about people bandwagoning on their server through guesting and taking up their slots on their maps during meta boss events and sending them undeservedly to overflow maps.
A cap was added to daily AP gain, both the AP that could be gained each day and the total daily AP.
The temporary Living World was removed and made permanent after numerous complaints about missing temporary content after it was over. This was a big change and a complete redesign to their dream of having a true living world where events happened and then disappeared, just like real life.

Now I’m not saying that forum posts and complaints were the sole reason for these changes, however they were discussed on the forums and were never acknowledged on the forum at the time of the discussion. Changes were made to the game that removed the problem or added the feature.

Depends. I clearly remember the thread that suggested mail carriers and we got them. Bunny ears and other items came back. BUT there are many suggestions that get ignored. I guess you just have to get lucky. I think bug reports are worse. I have sent 786482 reports about clipping issues on my characters, they are still not fixed… XD

Tekoneiric.6817:

Is making suggestions on the forums a wasted effort? I’ve seen other people make suggestions and I’ve made a few but I rarely if ever see any response from someone at ANet to them.

Given that this is the official GW2 forum I’m surprised ANet folks don’t post here more. Oh wait, I forgot… they are posting on Reddit instead. Does that make Reddit the true GW2 forum?

These forums are more about the community bickering conversing amongst itself with occasional interjections and announcements from ANet. It’s the playground where the teachers keep an eye on the kids who’re playing together, and then step in when appropriate/prudent… not a playground where the teachers play with the kids.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t watching what’s going on, and considering what they see. These forums are a wealth of information about their player base zeitgeist. But, they are under no obligation to reply to suggestion threads… nor do I think they should be… it’s a waste of resources paying for that labor that can better be directed to improving the game by paying for dev labor.

~EW

I’ve seen a lot of suggestions/concerns get addressed in-game, such as the recently-added options for shared inventory slots.

I can understand if devs would rather read the suggestions and see what they can do about them, rather than get drawn into a lengthy conversation about why a suggestion is impractical, or how they’d like to do it but it’s a low priority, etc. I know we like that as players, but as a person trying to get stuff done, that can eat up a surprisingly large amount of your time.

As far as Reddit vs these forums go, I can’t say I mind. I feel like they post the really important stuff here (legendary weapon hiatus, change to female precursor armor, game updates,) and a lot of other stuff is just what developers post on their own time. If they, personally, like the Reddit format better, and prefer to spend their personal time on there instead, they should do that. A lot of forum fans take it personally, and there’s really no resent to be resentful or indignant about it.