Approaches to Requested Beta Testing

[Lockely]

1 hour ago, ShinMagmus said:

If the jack of all trades box of powers had a stronger debuff in each one or more total debuffs in each power, then the combined sum of all the debuffs would be good enough to have an impact even when the controls fail.  Doing this really would just be simple numbers tweaks for the devs. 

 

That alone would improve the pairing with any other debuffing set like Traps or Poison, as well as giving it some kind of identity.  The movement slows need to go way up as of right now though: especially if the weird conditional Immob they added remains impossible to proc for most builds.

 

I wonder if it would help everyone testing these (and future) new sets if the devs behind them put their intentions for the set into the testing prompts at the top post. 

I know that's significantly helped with FFXIV's balance patches, as they explain in a few short sentences the reasoning behind specific buffs, debuffs, and reworks so the players can better view it through the lens they're intending us to view it through. 

[Booper]

2 minutes ago, Lockely said:

 

I wonder if it would help everyone testing these (and future) new sets if the devs behind them put their intentions for the set into the testing prompts at the top post. 

I know that's significantly helped with FFXIV's balance patches, as they explain in a few short sentences the reasoning behind specific buffs, debuffs, and reworks so the players can better view it through the lens they're intending us to view it through. 

Not a bad suggestion, and we may consider that in the future. However, we do prefer keeping it a blank canvas so that we don't bias the feedback reporting. It helps us find concerns we may have overlooked, and allows us to consider alternatives or solutions to those concerns. In the mean time, please keep testing the latest build and report any bugs you find/suspect in the Beta Bug Reporting Forums, and keep reporting any test results/findings in this Focused Feedback channel.

[Parabola]

8 hours ago, Lockely said:

 

I wonder if it would help everyone testing these (and future) new sets if the devs behind them put their intentions for the set into the testing prompts at the top post. 

I know that's significantly helped with FFXIV's balance patches, as they explain in a few short sentences the reasoning behind specific buffs, debuffs, and reworks so the players can better view it through the lens they're intending us to view it through. 

I've raised this a few times over the years.

 

8 hours ago, Booper said:

Not a bad suggestion, and we may consider that in the future. However, we do prefer keeping it a blank canvas so that we don't bias the feedback reporting. It helps us find concerns we may have overlooked, and allows us to consider alternatives or solutions to those concerns. In the mean time, please keep testing the latest build and report any bugs you find/suspect in the Beta Bug Reporting Forums, and keep reporting any test results/findings in this Focused Feedback channel.

I understand the blank canvas argument but I don't think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Open beta testing is quite limited in terms of really getting to grips with how to use a new set. Without a bit of forum wisdom about how a set works and being able to play with it in mids I'm frankly lost. All I could do would be to build and play it like another set it most resembled and make comparisons which if you're trying something new isn't the most helpful thing.

 

In building the set the devs clearly have a vision for how it's supposed to play, what it's supposed to be good or weak at, what synergies it may have with other sets. Tell us. Endless feedback of 'it doesn't work like other sets' is pointless if you've specifically designed the set to work differently. It also makes it hard to distinguish 'it doesn't work on it's own terms' from this background noise.

 

Yes, there will be arguments about the design vision. But we get those anyway and they might be currently amplified by the irritation of having to figure out that design vision rather than being told it. Trust your players with more information.

 

I'm a developer myself and whenever I hand over a new piece of software to QA I always take them through how it works and why the design is as it is. It allows me the opportunity to explain technical limitations that shaped the design and also to point out any areas that need particular attention in the testing. My testers are still going to try every random thing they can think of but expectations are shaped and time and effort are saved.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Having worked in academia for a couple of decades it would have been difficult to not notice that one of the worst things that could happen to a team of people working together would be to be asked to evaluate a program of some kind without having a good understanding of its objectives. Inefficient, ineffective, prone to getting sidetracked, prone to internal conflict, and prone to failure would be words / terms that commonly apply to such situations. 

On the other side, sometimes a team was not only given clarity about program objectives, but those objectives were well thought through and well written. Even better, sometimes a good set of measures for program success was put together, which was quite helpful for minimizing the scope for organizational politics or internal confusion to derail a program. 

FWIW, and hopefully these thoughts help. Totally get the appeal of the "blank canvas" approach for fostering creativity and for getting unbiased feedback. Just haven't seen that work well in my pre-retirement line of work. 

Edited February 5 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Booper]

All great feedback. Moving this out of the focused feedback, as it is more of a global testing discussion. Feel free to continue here with the suggestions and ideas you have on ways to improve the testing feedback methodology.

[Lockely]

I feel like, without knowing exactly *what* the goal of the specific tests are, the nomenclature of "Focused Feedback" isn't really helpful. I know it's more for you folks to read, but maybe open a General Beta Feedback forum alongside Focused Feedback so we have a place to 1) discuss specific sets outside of the focus of specific tests and 2) have a place for testing under a specific direction.

 

General is "Mix/Match this with everything and tell us how it *feels* while trying to break it in ways we couldn't have possibly foreseen."

Focused is "This is our intention for the set/change/update. How well does it work under that specific criteria."

This way it eliminates the back and forth chatter of both groups and eliminates the animosity between both the devs and the testers. On top of that, it offers us clarity so we don't have to play a guessing game where something is supposed to fit in to the overall mold of the game, and aren't trying to shove a square peg in a round hole. A direct clarification that you are not accepting suggestions for major changes within the Focused Feedback threads would also be useful, as it sets an expectation on what the testing is meant to accomplish.

 

As said before, this is the first time testing for a lot of us since the NCSoft announcement a month ago, and I, along with others, was under the impression things were more malleable than they apparently are. That should be made clear at the start so people understand the scope of our mission here. Blank Slate testing just seems to generate aggro between all parties.

[PeregrineFalcon]

22 hours ago, Lockely said:

I wonder if it would help everyone testing these (and future) new sets if the devs behind them put their intentions for the set into the testing prompts at the top post.

I find this very interesting because, in open beta for the last page, a developer said that one of the reasons that feedback gets ignored is because it "doesn't address the reason behind the change." Many of us responded with "how are we supposed to address the reason behind the changes when you never tell us what they are?" And a developer responded that in the future they'd try to let us know what the reason behind the changes are.

 

And they did that with some of the things, like the Ancillary Pools changes, but not so much with others. Like the new gun control powerset. At the start there's no explanation about the theme or goals of the powerset and what they'd like us to test. So the thread devolved into bickering back and forth about "the set can't do this" and/or "the set does this but doesn't do that." A lot of those arguments would never have started if a statement right at the beginning said "this powerset is intended to do X without having an AoE immobilize."

 

But hey, at least people aren't getting banned for disagreeing with changes in the game anymore! So that's an improvement that also makes people more willing to test and provide feedback.

[Doc_Scorpion]

18 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I find this very interesting because, in open beta for the last page, a developer said that one of the reasons that feedback gets ignored is because it "doesn't address the reason behind the change." Many of us responded with "how are we supposed to address the reason behind the changes when you never tell us what they are?" And a developer responded that in the future they'd try to let us know what the reason behind the changes are.

Yeah, this is very much a "lather, rinse, repeat" situation.

I mean, I get what the devs are saying in some sense - they want to see what we come up with.  (And frankly it would help if the players in general were a bit more discerning and imaginative... but we can't really change the players)  But it would definitely help if the devs were a bit more open, because there's not enough of us and not enough time in Beta for us to grok some changes and determine if the devs vision was really being met.

[kenlon]

On 2/4/2024 at 5:03 PM, Booper said:

However, we do prefer keeping it a blank canvas so that we don't bias the feedback reporting.

For things that are simply tweaks to existing things in game, this may make some sense. However, it very often verges on being capital C Clever. "Here's this thing, can you understand why we did things this way without hints?"

 

When dealing with something new - like a new powerset that doesn't do things quite the same as the existing powersets for an AT - then some design notes would make feedback more useful, and make players less likely to feel they're being ignored. For example, if Arsenal Control had been explicitly described as intentionally seeking to use sleep powers instead of aoe immobilize, then there wouldn't be several pages of posts saying "just add an AOE immob already, why are you ignoring feedback?"

[Parabola]

On the subject of better communication around beta testing I think we could also do a bit better at dev feedback to player testing. There is a level of antagonism in some of the feedback threads that I believe comes from people feeling they are being ignored or that other players opinions are being favoured over their own.

 

Take the latest update that has changed the team composition bonus from a prismatic aether to a badge as an example. The patch notes simply state the new system without explanation. The old feedback thread was closed with a 'thanks for the feedback' which is a good start but could have gone much further. As it stands the new feedback thread has seen a few 'well the whiners won' type comments which I believe could have been avoided. Imagine if this change had been accompanied by the following message:

 

'Thank you for the feedback and lively debate over version 1 of the team composition reward mechanism. We acknowledge good points on all sides. We believe that the core idea of encouraging diversity in team composition is a worthwhile one, while acknowledging that the way archetypes work in this game is complicated. We also consider it important to avoid any possibility of incentivising antagonism in game.

 

Therefore we have decided to try a new version of this mechanism with a lower key reward that will encourage both diverse team building and the long tradition of single archetype teams. Please let us know your thoughts.

 

We are also aware that having extra rewards for completing task forces and getting more aether into the economy were popular ideas, just that there were drawbacks to adding them in the way version 1 did. We will look into alternative ways of doing this in the future. Thank you all again for your feedback on this.'

 

Or something like that. Acknowledge people's feedback and try to make them feel listened to. At the moment there is a lack of feedback on the feedback which leads to frustration.

 

I would also like to see more of this kind of communication in the feedback threads as they go on. Currently various feedback threads are awash with players repeating the same things over and over again because that feedback isn't being acknowledged. It becomes even more frustrating when a dev does drop in but only to answer an isolated technical question. To get more of the type of feedback you want you have to acknowledge the feedback you get.

 

Perhaps you could try reserving the second post in each feedback thread for feedback acknowledgement and commentary and then sticky it. Then use it to echo the feedback you are receiving with any relevant commentary from your side. 'We acknowledge that some epic pool powers now have significant recharge times and are considering it internally'. 'We understand that the lack of immobilize in arsenal control is a sticking point for many people, our intention was to design a control set that will work without an immobilize and we will adjust other powers until this works'.

 

I can sense the frustration with the beta feedback process on the devs side and I sympathise. The endless spinning off into arguments is exhausting to read through even when I don't have to try to comb it for useful information. If you put better communication into the process however, you will hopefully get better communication out. You might benefit from some sort of 'game development community representative' who can act as a bridge between the devs and the players when it comes to this kind of communication.

Edited February 8 by Parabola

[Tigraine]

3 hours ago, Parabola said:

I would also like to see more of this kind of communication in the feedback threads as they go on. Currently various feedback threads are awash with players repeating the same things over and over again because that feedback isn't being acknowledged. It becomes even more frustrating when a dev does drop in but only to answer an isolated technical question. To get more of the type of feedback you want you have to acknowledge the feedback you get.

 

 

It also does not help when they drop in to effectively say, "We don't like the feedback you're giving; tell us what we want to hear or we won't ask for feedback anymore."  At that point, is there really any purpose in offering feedback?

[Jimmy]

1 hour ago, Tigraine said:

It also does not help when they drop in to effectively say, "We don't like the feedback you're giving; tell us what we want to hear or we won't ask for feedback anymore."  At that point, is there really any purpose in offering feedback?

 

It does not help to mischaracterize what developers and moderators say. You'll just discourage future communication.

 

Asking for feedback to remain focused on the topic at hand (in a focused feedback thread) is not the same as saying we don't like your feedback.

[Psi-bolt]

4 hours ago, Parabola said:

On the subject of better communication around beta testing I think we could also do a bit better at dev feedback to player testing. There is a level of antagonism in some of the feedback threads that I believe comes from people feeling they are being ignored or that other players opinions are being favoured over their own.

 

Take the latest update that has changed the team composition bonus from a prismatic aether to a badge as an example. The patch notes simply state the new system without explanation. The old feedback thread was closed with a 'thanks for the feedback' which is a good start but could have gone much further. As it stands the new feedback thread has seen a few 'well the whiners won' type comments which I believe could have been avoided. Imagine if this change had been accompanied by the following message:

 

I don't disagree that more communication is worthwhile.  That said, if someone expresses the sentiment you have in the underlined text, then honestly they are a pretty crappy tester.  There are always going to be things about updates that we like or dislike.  Sometimes those things won't make it live.  That's OK.  We're no worse off, it never made it live.  

 

[Reiska]

1 hour ago, Tigraine said:

 

It also does not help when they drop in to effectively say, "We don't like the feedback you're giving; tell us what we want to hear or we won't ask for feedback anymore."  At that point, is there really any purpose in offering feedback?

 

Interpreting what Jimmy said in this way is taking his words in bad faith IMO.

 

What they're actually saying is that feedback on features which are no longer part of the build is noise.

 

I do agree that they could do a better job of formally stating, for example, why they decided on particular changes between builds or why certain things are off the table (like, for instance, the AoE immobilize arguments in the Assault Control thread). 

 

Just now, Psi-bolt said:

 

I don't disagree that more communication is worthwhile.  That said, if someone expresses the sentiment you have in the underlined text, then honestly they are a pretty crappy tester.  There are always going to be things about updates that we like or dislike.  Sometimes those things won't make it live.  That's OK.  We're no worse off, it never made it live.  

 

 

In this case the people making those comments are upset that the original bonus with the aether *isn't* making it live, so from their point of view they *are* worse off.

 

But yes.  In 20 years of playing MMORPGs I have yet to see a single game update in any MMO that I have been 100% pleased with.  Every single change will have both fans and detractors.

Edited February 8 by Reiska

[Lockely]

16 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

 

It does not help to mischaracterize what developers and moderators say. You'll just discourage future communication.

 

Asking for feedback to remain focused on the topic at hand (in a focused feedback thread) is not the same as saying we don't like your feedback.

 

Back to my initial point however, the Focused threads are anything but Focused because we're not being told the intentions of what you actually want tested. It's just "Go. Play with this." and then nebulous build changes without any explanation that spin off into arguments with borderline antagonistic dev responses to valid feedback (*waves hands both vaguely and furiously at the Arsenal Control thread that both THIS thread spawned from, AND the "What I wish Arsenal Control Looked Like" thread spawned from*). Like, the entire ten pages of "Wet" arguing should never have happened. Just tell us what you want us to test and what your intentions are.

Jimmy, you're good at this. Your NPE thread is great. We've gotten a lot of actual good testing and revision from it. The powers threads need to match or exceed that level of communication, especially for something as in-your-face as a powerset. We interact with our powers more than anything else- more than contacts, more than missions, more than character creation, more than literally any other thing. The core gameplay loop doesn't have a loop without our powersets, so they're the single most important piece of new content being added, and they need the love and care you're giving to other additions. 

Edited February 8 by Lockely

[Doc_Scorpion]

5 hours ago, Parabola said:

I would also like to see more of this kind of communication in the feedback threads as they go on. Currently various feedback threads are awash with players repeating the same things over and over again because that feedback isn't being acknowledged. It becomes even more frustrating when a dev does drop in but only to answer an isolated technical question. To get more of the type of feedback you want you have to acknowledge the feedback you get.

Not disagreeing with the general sense that the Dev's can do better...   But after some of what's been said here, there's something else that's not gonna be popular but needs to be said:  there's a lot of players that need to do better as well.  (I do try, but I'm not excluding myself from that group.)

It's beyond ridiculous to expect the Dev team to acknowledge every single point of feedback made.

And when what you encounter in the process is different than what you expected from the process, it's equally ridiculous to pronounce the process broken without considering whether it's your expectations that are off base.

[Arcanum]

Hey guys! 😄

For those of you don't know me, I'm Arcanum, I've been with the project since October 2019 - I tend to wear a lot of hats, which include a lot of the administrative stuff for the team, including trainings for the GMs and the Developers. So I wanted to chime in real quick with some comments.

First is, I think there's a lot of valuable feedback in here - and (just like with the Focused Feedback threads 😉) the team is already reading and internally reviewing what's being discussed here! I'm chiming in because I want to make sure that everyone knows that these feedback threads ARE being read and discussed - almost every comment and opinion 😄. 

Having said that, I don't want to deceive you with false expectations. There are times where the feedback is reviewed by the team and ultimately deemed invalid or not currently possible. As much as we'd like to reply to everyone's feedback, we are (at the end of the day) just a bunch of volunteers hoping to make a fun game for everyone - which means time is limited and it just isn't feasible.

As always though, we appreciate the feedback - we're taking it, reviewing it, and hoping to learn & improve! As I think that's all any of us can do!

[Bionic_Flea]

I can understand players' desire to have the Devs state their design goals with the playerbase at the outset.  I have certainly asked for that on prior occasions. 

 

But I can also understand the Devs' desire not to reveal their thoughts prior to testing, as many players (yes, sometimes even me), begin debating whether their design goals are worthy, rational, or superior to what the players have come up with.  And they do this without ever even logging in to the test server and trying the new thing out.

 

So how can we accomplish both goals?  Give players some idea of what the devs are trying to do and at the same time have players actually test before arguing the merits of a thing they have not tried.

[Lockely]

7 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

So how can we accomplish both goals?  Give players some idea of what the devs are trying to do and at the same time have players actually test before arguing the merits of a thing they have not tried.

 

That's kinda what I was getting at above with my General Feedback and Focused Feedback split threads suggestion.

 

Focused is *functional* testing. Does X work the way Y intends and what things are we missing to ensure it does? What barriers are we hitting when trying to reach that goal?

 

General is *emotional* testing. How does this feel to play? Is the design intention viable within the gameplay loops when combined with other ATs in group content? In a perfect world, how would you redesign it?

As someone who came up in my industry from front-line staff to now management, I have found the most valuable tool in my toolkit on both sides of the coin is explaining the "Why?" behind the "What." The "What" is good. It's important. You need to know the meat and potatoes of it. But the "Why" is just as important as it can get people to see your perspective and the importance of it. People are free to disagree with the "Why" and those perspectives are valid too, as long as they're presented in a civil manner, and sometimes they might even change your mind. But the "Why" goes a long way towards setting reasonable expectations. 

 

At the end of the day, we're all volunteers here. Volunteer devs with volunteer testers. We're all focused on making the game the best it can be as a group. The devs clearly have a vision for things, so please let us know what that vision is, even if its just in general terms.

[Dev Unitas]

Soooo this is going to be long, because like all things game dev, of course it can't be simple.

 

 

Sometimes, for us, there is value to be had in testers being left in the dark, whether entirely or partially. Oftentimes an overlooked part of what design entails from a player perspective is, well, the player perspective itself. A new player to a feature isn't going to encounter a piece of content with a small blurb about our design philosophy and mantra on how we want players to engage with it.

 

In my previous line of solo dev Stuff, there's a very commonly used term called 'creator bias' - a dev's perspective on content is often radically different from that of an average player, and that bias can be powerful and impossible to dispel without great effort (or a lack - a common strategy for those without good playtesters was simply to walk away for months after completing the draft of something before they came back to look it over). A good designer is aware of this bias and knows how to combat it, and often combating it involves not giving playtesters a lot of information, so that we can gather information ourselves on how players process our changes and content.

 

While I'm not a powers dev, and I don't want to speak for them, from my perspective I can point to the whole recent 'Wet' discussion in the Arsenal Control as a perfect example of this. A dev often wants to see how players engage with a system or feature, on a philosophical or meta-defining level, not just whether they like it or not, or if they can find any bugs with it. Sometimes, watching people fumble about in the dark is actually the best data we can possibly obtain.

 

 

From another perspective, sometimes we simply don't want to talk about something because it'd require talking about factors that are too early in development, or won't make it into the current patch cycle. In a volunteer dev space, the release date of things can be incredibly malleable - and not necessarily by choice. Last year we had an incredibly long gap between Page 6 and any word of Page 7 hitting Open Beta, and that's not because we were sitting on our laurels (as you can probably tell from the extremely long patch notes). Life is ultimately going to life, and that's going to set people's projects back regardless of their best intentions.

 

 

From another another perspective, sometimes we don't talk about something because we're busy trying to fix the thing. Keeping up on the forums is hard, sometimes, especially on threads that are particularly active. We do our best to read everything, but there are only so many hours in the day, and when something critical needs addressing and we know it, usually those hours are better spent on the project than on forum communications.

 

 

From another another another perspective (hoo boy), sometimes it's simple fact that if we explain ourselves, people won't like what we have to say. Not necessarily everyone - but it only takes a few people to take a controversial design philosophy or explanation and derail a feature's feedback thread into 30 pages of ranting. It's happened before and it will absolutely happen again. Those sorts of situations are helpful to nobody- changes of design philosophy are rarely influenced through the forums, or a discord channel, and certainly not overnight after a barrage of complaints. Design philosophy is something that usually changes and shifts gradually, and is more likely to happen via conversation with others with development experience sharing there wisdom in casual conversation (as opposed to writing out a screed of why they dislike a dev's attitude towards players). Meanwhile, those threads are often our most valuable point of feedback when used correctly, at least during the Open Beta part of the patch cycle.

 

 

Aaaaaaanyways, that doesn't cover everything but I think it covers a fair few reasons why communication may be dodgy on one thing or another. All of that being said, I've been on the other end of limited communication and I understand how frustrating it is. Sometimes we can and should be doing better, and I won't deny that. But, most of the time, if we're not talking or not explaining things I can assure you there's a reason for it. You may not think it's a good reason, but there's usually a reason. We value the forums a lot, and we read them a lot (I open 'em first thing I do when I turn on my PC and immediately navigate to the Open Beta focused feedback threads to catch up). People are not being ignored unless they're actively disruptive, and feedback is almost always taken into some form of consideration.

 

It's very late here, so apologies if any of that comes off as confusing, or doesn't convey the tone I'd like it to. Turned kinda rambly in the end, but oh well. Hopefully at least a little enlightening to someone.

[lemming]

As someone with a QA background, there really needs to be both.  There's the blank canvas adhoc testing and then actual goal based QA plan that would include regression testing.

 

Focused feedback can come from both.

[Glacier Peak]

This is a cool thread, thanks for the team explaining their processes. Keep up the great communication!

[Dev Unitas]

7 hours ago, lemming said:

As someone with a QA background, there really needs to be both.  There's the blank canvas adhoc testing and then actual goal based QA plan that would include regression testing.

 

Focused feedback can come from both.

This is absolutely true, but most of the goal-based testing we do tends to be during the Closed Beta phase - not to say exclusively, but it's definitely something that you'll see more of during that time than during the Open Beta phase, I think.

[Blackbird71]

9 hours ago, Dev Unitas said:

This is absolutely true, but most of the goal-based testing we do tends to be during the Closed Beta phase - not to say exclusively, but it's definitely something that you'll see more of during that time than during the Open Beta phase, I think.

 

Which frankly probably contributes to a lot of the frustration and arguments that go around during open beta, and the general feeling that staff doesn't communicate well.  Open beta is seen by a larger portion of the player base, and so giving this negative impression of a lack of communication (and the resulting miscommunication) at that time has a broader negative impact.  

[Dev Unitas]

3 hours ago, Blackbird71 said:

Which frankly probably contributes to a lot of the frustration and arguments that go around during open beta, and the general feeling that staff doesn't communicate well.  Open beta is seen by a larger portion of the player base, and so giving this negative impression of a lack of communication (and the resulting miscommunication) at that time has a broader negative impact.  

(Excuse me for using your post as a bit of a springboard, I kinda go off on a ramble here because feedback and developer communication is an interesting topic to me and it's always late when I start typing these up so I'm at least a tad delirious)

 

It's an unfortunate case that often (but not always) the circumstances that lead to players demanding answers the most are the ones it would be most beneficial to not respond to, from our perspective - because of at least one if not more of the various reasons I mentioned above in the (last) forum essay I dropped. It can legitimately be a combination of a whole array of reasons why we can't really dig into the meat of a change immediately, and to even just explain that in itself would be difficult sometimes. None of that is to say we can't do better, but such a thing is not straightforward and will never lead to perfect transparency. The same old issues will always spring up and people will always wonder why devs aren't giving us answers, and assuming that the devs don't read or take on feedback, regardless of how much better we do at the times we can.

 

I will say, as well, let me assure people that nothing we do lacks significant deliberation, discussion and a healthy mix of forward and present thinking. Sometimes a change that might be bumpy now might be necessary for the future, but that doesn't mean we won't do our best to mitigate that - however, it's rare that we'll decide to give a temporary consolation in the interim, because those set false expectations. Sometimes, something just kinda has to suck for a little bit if we want something really cool later on. 'Just delay it and release it all at once' is an often-used answer to that, and it's great in theory but in terms of a development pipeline simply doesn't always work. Sometimes we'll decide that's the solution, it's actually more common than it appears to people who exclusively participate in Open Beta (and even Closed Beta) but it's not as simple a solution as it sounds every single time.

 

 

All of this said, can we do better with communication? I won't beat around the bush. Yes, we can, sometimes. Is there anything players can do to help us with that, though? Yes, there actually is!

So if people will allow grant me a moment to give some feedback of my own in the other direction, here's some tips from me for handling (and helping improve) dev/player communication from the player end:

• Try to approach us in good faith. Seriously. It's always easier to talk with people who aren't assuming the worst, or most cynical takes of us. I understand why that may not always be easy, or natural, especially when a change or feature may be upsetting, and you may see a pattern of those, but it is helpful. Bluntly, the more we can stomach reading your comments, the more we'll actually want to read them. You don't have to sugarcoat your opinions, I'm certainly not asking you to do that - we don't want Yes Men. If you hate something, we do want to know, and we want to know how much, and especially we want to know why. Just don't jump to conspiracy theories, please, and don't keep going on and on once you've made your point because you think we're ignoring you and you really really want us to notice. Typically we saw it the first time, we've taken note, we are already thinking about what to do about it and if we consider it a significant issue based on the data and feedback we've been provided.
• Opinion is good! Opinions + detailed and thorough testing results are amazing! Historically (not exclusively or even necessarily talking specifically about Homecoming) it's common for players to provide opinions and feedback on a situation or feature, failing to grasp the actual core of the issue. Where someone may talk about their hatred of a system, it may not actually be the system at fault but rather how it interacts with the things around it. Alternately, it might be a tiny micro-element of the system that is making the whole thing feel lousy, and that's being misattributed to the greater whole. Part of good game design is how you filter feedback and sort past the innate player bias (as opposed to the creator bias I mentioned in my last multi-paragraph forum essay) to find the details. If you want to help us do that, it's always more helpful to us if you provide the testing results you had alongside your opinions and feedback, so that we can look at the two side-by-side and compare them with our internal understanding of how a system or feature should be working. It also gives us a snapshot of you as a player, when it's compared to other data, and often becomes incredibly informative when viewed through that particular lens.
• Try to do your best to understand something's place in the larger picture when providing feedback. Thoughts on a feature/system in a bubble are well and good, but the best feedback takes into consideration the larger structure of the game, of the meta, of what issues the game currently faces, of its strengths, etc. Sounds easy right? A good example: Maybe a powerset drops and it's underpowered - but is it underpowered by your standards, or is it underpowered by the standards of the game? What do those two questions even mean to you specifically, and how do you define them? How would someone else define them? Thinking about how a variety of players of a variety of playstyles would engage with something and how it would feel for them specifically is quite tough, but is a powerful tool in providing feedback.

These three 'little' things are just a few elements of what can help us parse information. They take some pretty hefty work, no denying that, but when they are put into play, you'll get way more mileage out of your feedback, and we will as well. As a result, it'll easier facilitate a two-way line of communication. We definitely take notice of people who give feedback like this, and the more effectively you do, the more likely we are to be able to engage with you and give you good answers of our own. Not to say all of the onus is on you as testers- part of our gig is to be able to interpret more casual feedback and run it through our understanding of the situation to find the problem at the heart of it, if there is one. Still, if people want to know how to get the most (ahem) Feedbang for their Feedbuck, I'd personally point to those three tips as a great starting point.

 

Alright, time for me to go pass out now.