Listen to Feedback: Sonic Melee Not Ready

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

7 minutes ago, Snarky said:

they did not listen on the rewrite of Black Hole...

 

I think I may have a different definition of "listen" than some of you.  I consider listening is hearing and paying attention to what is being said.  I submit that HC does indeed hear the complaints and critiques just as well as we hear the kudos and congrats.

 

Some may be thinking of "listen" like when a parent tells a child, "you better listen to what I am telling you!"  Or something similar outside of a parent-child relationship.  In my mind that goes beyond listening; that is "hear me and obey."

 

I admit that we aren't as good at the obey part.

[Championess]

19 minutes ago, Snarky said:

they did not listen on the rewrite of Black Hole...

 

look, the CoH Homecoming team is great.  to a point.  (in my opinion) when they decide to do something they really only listen for echo chamber sentiments.  anything contrary to the pre made decisions is noted, filed, and forgotten.

 

 

 

Well that can come down to the user giving specifics on what they would like to see the power do within a framework of what the devs are aiming for.

 

To give an example, on my alt moniker I had an extra suggestion to build on their TK revamp that seemed applicable since Levitate was already interacting with it.  The original alteration to TK felt like the cake was baked but it needed just a bit of extra frosting for the right amount of oomph to make it an attractive power within MC.  They felt it was good enough and shipped it to open beta where I gave my cut and dry take how it plays with melee style control players and it got the extra frosting.

 

I gave solutions to build on it a bit more.  What I didn't do is flame to try to get my way, I offered to give it a proper critique within the playstyle of the powerset and let the chips fall how they decide.

 

 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

 

I think I may have a different definition of "listen" than some of you.  I consider listening is hearing and paying attention to what is being said.  I submit that HC does indeed hear the complaints and critiques just as well as we hear the kudos and congrats.

 

Some may be thinking of "listen" like when a parent tells a child, "you better listen to what I am telling you!"  Or something similar outside of a parent-child relationship.  In my mind that goes beyond listening; that is "hear me and obey."

 

I admit that we aren't as good at the obey part.

you subtly reframed the conversation. 

 

i did not say the Devs do not obey the players.  i did say the Devs tend to ignore the players who do not agree with the Devs ideas and direction.  i even hinted that i understood.  it is the Devs project, they do it unpaid, and they do not have endless time and energy.  ignoring feedback they do not find as useful is their option.  

 

however, turning the completely awful old Black Hole into something ( and this is remarkable ) worse then ignoring the feedback?

 

and i still give an A for effort.  but, it has to hurt...

 

[Wravis]

1 hour ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

 

I think I may have a different definition of "listen" than some of you.  I consider listening is hearing and paying attention to what is being said.  I submit that HC does indeed hear the complaints and critiques just as well as we hear the kudos and congrats.

 

Some may be thinking of "listen" like when a parent tells a child, "you better listen to what I am telling you!"  Or something similar outside of a parent-child relationship.  In my mind that goes beyond listening; that is "hear me and obey."

 

I admit that we aren't as good at the obey part.

I can see why you would see it that way. It's annoying and frustrating and disheartening to be told people don't like the things you're working on. It's always easy to see yourself positively and others negatively, when there are disagreements. Especially when you're the one in the position of power.

To me this situation is more like when someone is on the phone going "Uh huh. Uh huh. Mhm..." trying to make the conversation end so they can hang up and then immediately purge the interaction from their memory. You are technically listening. You hear the sounds. But you're not actually considering anything being said by the person on the phone. You're just letting them speak so it gets over with sooner. (Not you, specifically. The generic "you".)

Trying to choose my words carefully instead of speaking in broad strokes, because it is true that feedback has been listened to in the past. Even with Sonic Melee, things were adjusted to make the set more powerful, and there was an attempt to change Attune slightly. But it was always just number tweaks and small adjustments. There didn't seem to ever be an actual willingness to consider that the feature wasn't working on a conceptual level and might need to be changed to something else.

The speed that this set was put through both phases of testing makes it very hard to believe that there was a willingness to consider feedback that wasn't just bug reports and number tweaking. If the deadline was November, the set should have started testing much earlier in advance.

Saying "it's feature locked now, but still give feedback" doesn't mean much. Feedback is always accepted. There's a whole section of the forum for it. The issue is whether or not they actually consider it. To me that reads like "we know you don't like it, and you're free to keep complaining".

  

23 minutes ago, Championess said:

Well that can come down to the user giving specifics on what they would like to see the power do within a framework of what the devs are aiming for.

 

To give an example, on my alt moniker I had an extra suggestion to build on their TK revamp that seemed applicable since Levitate was already interacting with it.  The original alteration to TK felt like the cake was baked but it needed just a bit of extra frosting for the right amount of oomph to make it an attractive power within MC.  They felt it was good enough and shipped it to open beta where I gave my cut and dry take how it plays with melee style control players and it got the extra frosting.

 

I gave solutions to build on it a bit more.  What I didn't do is flame to try to get my way, I offered to give it a proper critique within the playstyle of the powerset and let the chips fall how they decide.

  
This works if the what the devs are aiming for is always correct. But it's not. They should be willing to accept and admit that their ideas don't always work. The flaming started when it was made clear there was no plan to actually consider opinions on the set, other than tweaking numbers and minor fixes.

I'm not sure your example is equivalent to this situation. They spent a long time testing those changes. If my math and memory is correct, the changes were first brought up in October 2023. The patch with that revamp didn't come until February of 2024. That's months of testing. Even looking at a testing period for a brand new powerset for a more equivalent example. Pyrotechnic Control first started testing in February 2025. It was tested until June 2025. Four months. 

They only spent two weeks on testing Sonic Melee before announcing it was feature locked (and will maybe get another look after it's released). That's what's frustrating about this.
 

[Glacier Peak]

The premise of this thread is baffling to me. The original poster has been responded to directly and publicly by more members of the Homecoming Team than any other poster on these forums during this Page 3 open beta. They've been directly quoted and received explicit confirmation that their feedback was read by members of the Homecoming Team. The actual lead powers developer responded directly, multiple times, in this very thread. And yet they still continue to say they aren't being listened to? 

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

32 minutes ago, Wravis said:

They should be willing to accept and admit that their ideas don't always work.

 

Our ideas don't always work.  When we find that they don't work, we scrap them or change them.  Sometimes, that may take a long time. 

 

I have no doubt that there are things that we think work fine that a group of players disagree.  Sometimes the Devs disagree among themselves or the GMs disagree with the way things work.  We try to iron it out, but there is a structure and a hierarchy and the person higher up the food chain makes the final decision.  C'est la vie.