Are we not vocal enough?
It’s hard to say without knowing how they prioritize development effort. I have a sneaking suspicion that forum posts/complaints are pretty down the list as far as things that elevate priority since they are highly subjective.
If I were them I might look at X number of people that play a class, and X number of people using a trait (compared with the whole) to see what is terribly unpopular and what is not .. assuming they have that capability.
Of course they may do everything subjectively and just have people trolling forums and the bug forum and then having an analyst of some sort apply a ranking so that it is prioritized in the development backlog.
I was very interested in thieves at around the time the Dec. 10 patch came out and spent a lot of time on that forum. They were vocal, and almost completely ignored.
While Arenanet does a basically overall good job with this game, they, like other developers, are mostly going to just do what they want to do. Our choices are to roll with the punches or leave, pretty much.
I think part of the problem is the forum is the only place really for feedback, and while they have created stickies that explain “good feedback” and what it is structured like, and that they are constantly monitoring .. it is largely a mystery whether your feedback is heard or not unless 1) a developer comments (personally I would rather developers develop than monitor forums, I am sure any development manager agrees) or 2) you see it in the patch notes when it is finally addressed/affected.
I realize we have a bug forum, but perhaps something a bit more obvious would help. For example, my company lists official bugs publicly for customers, and then they “add” themselves to watch the bug. This, combined with the development teams ratings on severity and impact of the bug, contribute to an overall “weight” score that is used to prioritize issues.
This allows issues that more people care about to bubble (allowing for the development team to always prioritize other things of course) .. and gives a concrete and easily understood way to affect the prioritization of issues and suggestions.
I applaud the community based development efforts to get feedback as well, but it might be valuable to know in a more democratic and non-subjective way what is actually valued by the customer base.
Note that this is not perfect for this situation because X people play mesmers and Y people play warrior (for example). X is likely < Y, so you would have to weight things appropriately within their respective classes (when you talk about class based issues). No system is perfect .. but the forums are a huge mess of opinions and I have a hard time believing that the development team is able to sort it out efficiently.