Guild Wars 2

lLobo.7960:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, we have stated that we are unable to provide a reply to all suggestions posted in the suggestion subforum.

We do, however, regularly read the suggestions forum and deliver feedback to the design team on a daily basis. Just because you haven’t seen a reply does not mean it’s not being read.

Could we get a “dev +1” so we know a dev has checked the topic and we can feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

This is exactly what I’ve always wanted! (TL;DR below.)

If I suggest something, that means I feel as though I have something to contribute. In fact, it means I was so moved by its necessity that I chose to spend several minutes searching for existing threads, articulating and revising my words, and then trying to come up with other ways to improve my suggestion before finally hitting “Create Topic.” I know others may not give it that much thought, but if I’m putting something on the Internet, I usually try to think it over a bit. Usually.

All I really want is to know that my suggestion has been seen by someone who might consider doing something about it. I don’t need a detailed response, and I’m not even asking for an opinion on whether or not they like my idea. They’re busy people, and if they spend as much time on their posts as I do (I’ve been on this one for nearly 10 minutes already and revised it several times), I’d rather they spend that time doing something more productive than talking to me.

I want to know I’ve been heard, even if they don’t agree with it. I want to know that in some meeting later on, when someone in some meeting mentions right-clicking vs. left-clicking, it might bring to mind that post about the abhorrently broken targeting system that galls me so. Or maybe when they’re playing the game, they’ll see a really interesting trinket at a karma merchant and think, “Too bad I can’t have that on a level-80 trinket— oh, hey! I read a suggestion about that once. I see what that guy was talking about!”

Even if they never act on my suggestion, I would love to somehow know that they had glimpsed it, if only for a minute. Otherwise, I have no reason to believe it hasn’t slipped through the cracks. (I’ve seen responses to fresh posts about old issues in which it was obvious the developer had been completely unaware of it previously.)
That makes me suspect that I just wasted 15 minutes that I could have spent doing something fun, and that maybe if I had spent less time on spelling, grammar, hyperlinks, or facts, I wouldn’t be so annoyed that they instead chose to respond to someone with a full mailbox complaining about not getting their gem store items. (But honestly, why is that still an issue? Either fix the counter, make that “Temple of the Silent Storm week” message stop counting against the queue, or— and here’s the good part— make the Black Lion deliveries exempt from the mail queue! What harm would it cause if people waited a while to pull their Black Lion Keys out of the mail? Do you think they would buy so many items with gems that it would overload the mail system? Are you really afraid of that? But I digress…)

And now, because I know that was a lot to read, I’ll even throw in a…

TL;DR: It would be incredibly mollifying to have a way of knowing that a developer had actually read my suggestion. Since it’s claimed that they’re reading these things anyway, why not just have a little check mark that they can click to let me know I’ve been heard? That wouldn’t take more than two seconds out of their busy developer days, and it would make me rant far less. Everyone wins!

RoyHarmon.5398:

lLobo.7960:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, we have stated that we are unable to provide a reply to all suggestions posted in the suggestion subforum.

We do, however, regularly read the suggestions forum and deliver feedback to the design team on a daily basis. Just because you haven’t seen a reply does not mean it’s not being read.

Could we get a “dev +1” so we know a dev has checked the topic and we can feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

TL;DR: It would be incredibly mollifying to have a way of knowing that a developer had actually read my suggestion. Since it’s claimed that they’re reading these things anyway, why not just have a little check mark that they can click to let me know I’ve been heard? That wouldn’t take more than two seconds out of their busy developer days, and it would make me rant far less. Everyone wins!

Exactly what I was thinking. That would be awesome to see if they had actually not replied to but read the thread and which section of it they read.. Can’t be too difficult to code.

This is an interesting discussion, and I’d like to add another dimension to it: Many of the thousands of suggestions made in the forums are duplicates or variations of existing suggestions. It seems reasonable to presume that if a developer responded to a particular suggestion, each subsequent time a duplicate was posted, the community of players would step in and make the new poster aware of the prior developer acknowledgement. If, in addition to this, only realistic high quality posts receive the royal treatment, then you’re nowhere near an expectation of thousands of responses.

It doesn’t seem unrealistic that the top 100 suggestions in a 6 month period would receive at least a few lines about feasibility, potential development, or even be shot down (which the community of players could also perpetuate to future forum goers who make the same suggestion). Some of the suggestions that can be read on these forums are really good, well thought out, worthy of serious consideration. If the forum staff is already funneling some stuff to the developers, there doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable distance to get responses to some suggestions regularly. It’s not a matter of entitlement; it’d just be nice.

In the end, I really do think it would make it indirectly easier to read the forum, as it would cut down a little on duplicates and some variations, or at least put some players minds to rest on certain matters.

Another thread that would be fun is one that documents player suggestions that were directly implemented in the game.

I thought we established months ago that ArenaNet doesn’t communicate if they don’t have to, appear to have their own agenda about what everyone should think is fun, and consistently produce sloppy programming.

Sorry if that sounds bitter, but I’ve gone from being a many-year huge fan of ArenaNet and Guild Wars to crushing disappointment over the direction the company has taken with Guild Wars 2. It’s like those awful sequels to great movies that were clearly just put there to take advantage of a great name. This project has been horribly managed and implemented.

They’re not the company that they used to be.

It’s a good thread, OP, and you’ve done some great research and brought to further light some things that people have been saying for months now, but as Mark’s response indicates – they’ve read it, and they could take it or leave it. You’re going to get nothing meaningful from them, because they know better than you what you want in a game. So you get this kind of a non-answer, or, as you’ve pointed out, no answer at all. Or some random announcement on some random social media site.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, we have stated that we are unable to provide a reply to all suggestions posted in the suggestion subforum.

We do, however, regularly read the suggestions forum and deliver feedback to the design team on a daily basis. Just because you haven’t seen a reply does not mean it’s not being read.

Whatever. I don’t really get a sense of that really happening. The OP has provided very strong evidence that it’s not really happening.

I really hate this CAMERA. Why devs do not tell anything about it? Why they made it like that, why it’s bad placed, why it’s impossible to look around in closed buildings :P ???
I think there are too many UNanswered questions, and a pair of new skins each month won’t keep this game alive…

Halandir.3609:

tolunart.2095:

…
Feel free to make any suggestions you want, but don’t expect an answer.

You are obviously right and based on personal experience from my place of work, I find that absolutely appalling.

Our company recieves 4-5 suggestions from clients every day and the company policy is that all employees must act on any suggestion they recieve. We are required to rate and/or forward any suggestions to relevant persons/dept.
At the most basic level all client suggestions will be acknowledged and the client is thanked for showing interest.
We have several product improvements and services that can be directly linked to suggestions from our customers and their involvement is considered a valuable asset to the company.

I guess the computer gaming industry is still very young as client suggestions defaults to being considered a liability.

Does your company potentially have 3 million unique clients that need to be taken care of by a company with ~150 employees, of which a lot of them have nothing to do with development?

My brother’s company is the same as your, however, he (himself) only has to take care of very few clients at a time, most of the time he is just dealing with 1 client at a time. So it is easy to give feedback to clients about their suggestions. But with potentially 3 million unique clients, and all the suggestions they give, the amount of time to analyze their suggestions, talk about them, and the time just to eventually get to dealing with their suggestion in the first place, it becomes extremely daunting. More then likely the development team is backlogged full of suggestions. It is daunting, and expecting a reply is not reasonable at all. Just be glad they compile the feedback everyday to give to the development, so they can look over it.

Chuo.4238:

Whatever. I don’t really get a sense of that really happening. The OP has provided very strong evidence that it’s not really happening.

And what evidence has the OP shown that Arenanet is NOT reading the suggestions, and is NOT delivering that feedback to the development team? And before you say it, having no reply is not proof of that at all. So what strong evidence has the OP shown, cause I do not see any at all?

Frenk the Vile.2596:

I really hate this CAMERA. Why devs do not tell anything about it? Why they made it like that, why it’s bad placed, why it’s impossible to look around in closed buildings :P ???
I think there are too many UNanswered questions, and a pair of new skins each month won’t keep this game alive…

Because camera behavior is a tricky thing to change.

At least some of the devs also want to change it.

Chuo.4238:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, we have stated that we are unable to provide a reply to all suggestions posted in the suggestion subforum.

We do, however, regularly read the suggestions forum and deliver feedback to the design team on a daily basis. Just because you haven’t seen a reply does not mean it’s not being read.

Whatever. I don’t really get a sense of that really happening. The OP has provided very strong evidence that it’s not really happening.

Listening/Reading /= Doing what was heard/read.

randomfightfan.4091:

Rajani Isa.6294:

lLobo.7960:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, we have stated that we are unable to provide a reply to all suggestions posted in the suggestion subforum.

We do, however, regularly read the suggestions forum and deliver feedback to the design team on a daily basis. Just because you haven’t seen a reply does not mean it’s not being read.

Could we get a “dev +1” so we know a dev has checked the topic and we can feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

And then there is a kittenstorm when the suggestion “players rezzed by max number of rezzers explode into a pile of kittens then reform” gets a dev+1 and isn’t promptly made into (in-game) reality.

could also have a dev -1

A Dev-1 would be just as bad, if not worse.

Notice the forums have a minimum post rule (think it’s 7 word?). They don’t want simple "No"s. Notice that even though we have a +1 we have no -1 as it is.

When it comes to suggestions, it’s best to explain why it’s a no, such as when someone was making a comment about the camera (in the SAB?) and it was explained why the suggestion wouldn’t work. (The suggestion had to do with locking where the camera was in relation to the player, the reason why it couldn’t work is how they have the camera and clipping interact).

just a small contribution, 0 responses

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/collectible-gonna-get-them-all-effect/first#post1955655

I’m not talking about dev-responses, but responses from people in the forums in general. Seems most people aren’t interested in this sub-forum

Frenk the Vile.2596:

I really hate this CAMERA. Why devs do not tell anything about it? Why they made it like that, why it’s bad placed, why it’s impossible to look around in closed buildings :P ???
I think there are too many UNanswered questions, and a pair of new skins each month won’t keep this game alive…

Exactly, and in the store no less. Could we have a little more attention on the game please?

What happened to the minigames in towns with pets and cosmetic items for prizes?

but I’ve said it a thousand times and no one seems to see the posts.

The suggestion forum is horrible because of the format. A forum is simply not the way suggestions should be handled.

Create a link to a lifetime view of a subreddit specifically made for suggestions. Then the best suggestions will rise to the top and the useless poorly thought out whining will be buried where it belongs.

As it is what could be good suggestions are ‘rated’ the same as idiots talking about removing the thief altogether.

Good suggestions shouldn’t require an endless stream of “I agree, 15 characters.” every 12 hours in order to remain relevant.

I click on a thread to read it and when I go back to the main section, that particular thread title is greyed out. I post a reply and I get an indicator for that. When a staff member is involved in a threat, it gets a special icon. Take that icon and change the color to grey. The grey version would indicate that a staff member visited the thread and it would give the community a bit more peace of mind.

My friend created one topic with suggestion: Create the ARMOR type in Action house, like Heavy, Light, Leather, Medium……
5 min after, the topic was deleted and my friend got banned from forum.

so i never will post one suggestion anymore.

Working for a large world wide company, I have 1 hours every week set to reply to our internal forums. We have some 15000 employees spread out, at least 10 000 more working externaly with our services such as manufactering and delivery.

We get anywhere from 50 – 200 threads a week with suggestions, question as to “why did you change X” etc

Replys such as:
- “We are aware of this, seems something wen’t wrong with system X in integration with Y”
- “This isn’t possible to solve on this system as it would demand a complete rebuild of the structure”
- “Thanks for the suggestion, many people have asked for this and we are looking into implementing it”

Most people (with jobs / obligations) understand that just because some people want something implemented, changed or removed it doesn’t mean that the group responsible will drop everything and fix it.

Still, I think just showing that you have read and took a part of the information is a good thing. The WoW forums (and several others, im sure) suffer from the same thing. “We read most, but won’t leave a comment on most things” You can tell that to people over and over again, many will still not get it.

I’m fairly sure you can put a big pop-up screen that says “WE MONITOR ALL THREADS, GOOD / POSSIBLE SUGGESTIONS WILL BE FORWARDED TO THE PROPER TECH-GROUP” people will still be “omg read my thread already, it’s the best idea ever!!”

Tankzilla.7052:

Most people (with jobs / obligations) understand that just because some people want something implemented, changed or removed it doesn’t mean that the group responsible will drop everything and fix it.

Still, I think just showing that you have read and took a part of the information is a good thing. The WoW forums (and several others, im sure) suffer from the same thing. “We read most, but won’t leave a comment on most things” You can tell that to people over and over again, many will still not get it.

Aside from not responding for legal reasons – which is more a precautionary measure than an anticipated problem – the main problem with forums like these is probably the fact that many posters DO NOT REALIZE that their pet peeves are not major issues that will be taken care of immediately. Responses from the devs are likely to be taken as promises, or at least clear statements of intention, causing both complaints by those who dislike the idea and complaints from those who like the idea when it doesn’t show up in the next patch.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

tolunart.2095:

Number of views =/= importance. You’re using the wrong measurement.

Not strictly, obviously. What is a better measurement to which we have access?

But many views may be by people who disagree with the suggestion. Dont assume, number of views = popularity,