33 replies to this topic

[Tsig]

Jun Watarase, on 15 June 2014 - 01:23 AM, said:

PGI really hates to talk to their playerbase.

Especially the forum users.

I think at some point they got sick and tired of reading all the negative feedback on the forums they just stopped reading it altogether and told niko to just post the occasional announcement.

Even the ask me anything reddit thing was held on reddit instead of the official forums. Most of the answers were politically correct and carefully dodged all the important issues....when people asked about poptarting, we got a generic "we examine balance constantly blah blah blah" answer. When you know, the meta has remained unfixed for like a year. It really does not inspire confidence.

Imagine someone showing up late for work everyday for a year then telling you that he will work hard at arriving on time. Who believes something like that, without proof?

They used to have players submit questions for devs to be answered then stopped doing that after they realised that avoiding hundreds of questions to answer politically correct ones like "what is your favourite mech" instead of "why is there no community warfare after 1 year" was pointless. Then they gave NGNG exclusive rights to ask the devs questions, cutting everyone else off.

Lets not forget what happened when stuff like 3rd person view was announced as well.

The other day i saw a screenshot someone had posted of one of the Warhammer 40k : Black Crusade MMO devs. The dev was saying on their forums that they were letting players decide everything that was going into the game, that they would be doing polls and stuff to find out what players wanted exactly so they could do what the players wanted, and devs were free to post on the forums at their own time to answer questions, etc.

Meanwhile PGI is desperately doing their best to build a wall between their playerbase and themselves. I can't imagine that it would take Niko more than a few minutes to make a forum poll to see what we want in the next patch, letting it run for a week or two and then breaking it down into the top requested changes to present to the dev team. But i suspect hes under strict orders to not do anything like that.

IIRC PGI has also gone on record to say stuff like "we did X because this is our vision of the game", when really, they should be saying "we did X because we did polls on the forums and the overwhelming response from the players was that they wanted X, so we gave them exactly what they wanted". Which do you think gets people to spend more money on the game, the former or the latter?

I'm studying commerce now, and the professors keep emphasizing about customer relationships, social media, generating positive word of mouth, etc and PGI is doing exactly the opposite of everything that is being taught. Im really tempted to email one of them and ask why a company would deliberately avoid doing all that...

You still seem a bit salty, Jun. Have you been eating your LRMs every morning like a good troll?

[AlexEss]

@Ursh

I agree, as i said communication is and have been PGI´s weakest point.

But you also know why, seeing as you are in the biz so to speak. The kind of service they need is expensive and hard to justify in a small studio.. I guess it was even harder back when they started this venture and by now i would guess most feel like it is to late.

@Negative event: Yes information is key, but at the same time you have to have someone who can actually put the right spin on it. Lacking such a person and trying to do so will cause more harm then keeping silent. Especially in the sort of environment that this forum is.

@Requested featurs: I agree here up to a certain point. (and i know a lot of people who would not at all) Trying to explain why a feature is not being put in to the game is good. But the question is how many times should you explain it before the only logical solution is to ignore the sender. Also there is the fact that often it does not matter how well you explain a issue, the people who make the noise will not take said explanation of the issue. They will keep on trying to find the "true" reason. So in the end everyone spend a lot of time (and time is money) doing a lot of work for no gain.

@Smartest guy: Well while this is a truth if we look at the devs and the community as one grey blob... It falls apart pretty quickly if we start to key in on things such as applicable skills and such. For an example you, I and Jun are by virtue of education and experience most likley better at the whole communications bit then PGI, but i am at least a lot worse at programming. So while a condensing tone is never a good idea, it is very easy to produce text that has that effect. At the same time any progress report tend to get treated as a absolute, set in stone guarantee of this or that issue or feature being fixed/solved/implemented. So shying away from giving progress reports to people not really in a position of "need to know" can relive the development team of a lot of reassure.

@official forum: Now here is where we get in to what prompted my first comment. You see the professor that taught my class social media strategies was very careful in pointing out that forums are becoming a dying phenomena. That communication is becoming decentralized and that we (as in media producers and project developers) should put more focus on keeping up with the shafting landscape of social media. It is ok to have a foundation in a forum but a very small % of the customer base actually visit it and as he put it the harsh reality is that those % are more likley to follow you any way as their dedication and investment in your product is generally above average. They are also generally more adapt at tracking down information about your product, Thus they need less hand holding. So i agree with the fact that info shoulc be on a primary informations platform. I just disagree that the forums are that primary platform.

@3:rd party info source: Producing media takes time, and as we have established that PGI dies not exactly have a marketing dept on their own. They simply lack the tools to do so. Yes they could hire someone like you or me to do that but again such services cost money that can be spent elsewhere. So if a 3:rd party takes upon them self to do said work more or less for free. Why should they not take them up on said offer.

@Owning up: Agree, but they are getting better at this. And they are way way waaaaaaaaaaay better then most big companies when it comes to admitting wrong. Still as we have established, communications it not their strong suite.

@NGNG: I am not sure what you are getting at, is it wrong to only premier one PODCast pver all the other... I guessit could be seen as a bit unfair but that is life. Beyond that NGNG falls in to the same category as Facebook, REDDIT, Twitter, TWITCH and what ever the next social media craze is, a channel of information and one with a lot more experience in producing media then PGI. So if they do not talk to 3rd party sources my guess is that less then 10% of the customer base would ever get news and updates... And that sounds pretty backwards.

So putting bruised egos aside, it is simply time to realize the the time of official forums are over and that the new media dictates where the flow of information is heading.

[Shredhead]

RAM, on 15 June 2014 - 12:42 AM, said:

RAM
ELH

Wow, that's low. You Sir, are a disgusting person!

Edited by Marvyn Dodgers, 15 June 2014 - 05:33 AM.
Removing quote

[Dago Red]

Shredhead, on 15 June 2014 - 04:45 AM, said:

Wow, that's low. You Sir, are a disgusting person!

While I agree that just popping that off in this context is all kinds of out of line in my heart I have a hard time disagreeing with his sentiment.

Edited by Dago Red, 15 June 2014 - 05:57 AM.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Noth, on 14 June 2014 - 08:35 PM, said:

This as sad as it is, is part of it. More people that play the game go to reddit and twitter than here.

Because they chose to alienate their forumbase and look elsewhere for praise... then started freaking out when "Elsewhere" ended up kicking their butts about stupid decisions too.

See, back in closed beta, they were really good about communication here on the forums.

Then, they made stupid mistake after stupid mistake, and we called them on it, we were trying to force them to fix things.

Then they ran... they ran and abandonded the people who cared the most in search of greener pastures.

Which they found... what they forgot is eventually even those pastures go brown and dead too, if not properly cared for.

Edited by Flash Frame, 15 June 2014 - 06:27 AM.

[Bagheera]

Darian DelFord, on 14 June 2014 - 08:28 PM, said:

Please anyone know the answer to this, Niko, Why?

Because Hipsters love Twitter. And Paul/Russ are hipsters. You can tell by the sarcasm with which they communicate to (and subsequent lack of respect for) their customers. The way they just throw jokes and trolling into what should otherwise be actual information about the game being released to the public.

Frankly, if I spoke to my clients the way Paul/Russ speak to the player base, I'd have been out of a job long, long ago.

Corwin Vickers, on 14 June 2014 - 10:23 PM, said:

There was a point where PGI banned anyone who disagreed with on these forums which is why people went to other outlets to criticize.

Bullshit. (I emphasized the part that is bullshit) They banned a handful of folks for being WAY too screechy-virgin-neckbeard over a stupid video game. You know, like the guy who threatened to blow up their offices. But to say they banned "anyone" who disagreed with them at ANY point in time is disingenuous.

I've disagreed with PGI on these forums since closed beta and not once have I been banned.

Edited by Bagheera, 15 June 2014 - 06:33 AM.

[R Razor]

Darian DelFord, on 14 June 2014 - 08:28 PM, said:

http://www.reddit.co..._on_pts_sunday/

I do not understand it. Between there Twitter and whatever else is out there, why do they not post that stuff on THEIR OWN Forums?

Please anyone know the answer to this, Niko, Why?

While I tend to believe that PGI is not capable of taking this game to the level the IP deserves, I can easily see why they wouldn't want to come on here and communicate with this group. Look at 90% of the posts on these forums, they are nothing but criticism. Deserved or not, no rational person is going to want to subject themselves to a constant barrage of criticism.

[Koniving]

Abisha, on 15 June 2014 - 12:28 AM, said:

now it's clear why knockback have been removed

It needed a serious overhaul, which they were talking in a command chair post (or whatever they called it at the time) about doing shortly after that experience. That forced PGI to address it. Then suddenly it got removed (the reasoning was a little different; it was the 'teleporting' that became a problem. Knock a guy down, and he teleports behind you to get up).

[Koniving]

Bagheera, on 15 June 2014 - 06:26 AM, said:

Bullshit. (I emphasized the part that is bullshit) They banned a handful of folks for being WAY too screechy-virgin-neckbeard over a stupid video game. You know, like the guy who threatened to blow up their offices. But to say they banned "anyone" who disagreed with them at ANY point in time is disingenuous.

I've disagreed with PGI on these forums since closed beta and not once have I been banned.

Same. I disagree on a daily basis. I'm a free-willed thinker and there are things I agree with and things I don't. The ones I don't are always enumerating and I bide my time by listing every mistake in design that makes people angry, and resulting follow-up mistakes. This way when I finish my courses in game design and get started I'll be able to say "This worked" and "that didn't, lets not try that." It's the people that produce threats or constantly attack and harass the developers directly that get banned.

Example: This one focuses on the heat system and its de-evolution through time.

Spoiler

Heat threshold too high leads to abuse of 9 ML when in TT with advanced rules and heatsink overtaxing, just firing 5 is unsafe for 10 SHS mechs, but with more heatsinks you can get closer to 30 threshold. Battletech is a system where alpha striking isn't possible (turns are taken with mechs chain firing; it's not just random damage placement it's trying to simulate firing each weapon one at a time in sequence against moving targets while moving).

Mistake number 2 was raising medium laser heat to 4 points instead of 3 in reaction instead of realizing the original blunder. This made it so that mechs could only alpha strike once instead of twice in a row. Something that still should NEVER be possible. And that was with SHS. With DHS however they were able to do it twice anyway so they fixed nothing.

But this is brings us to mistake number 3, MWO's original heat penalties were damage in small increments to ammo, heatsinks and supposedly weapons [the only part I can't prove is weapons] at 80%+, which eventually leads to heatsinks being destroyed and ammo exploding. At 90%+ there was a shutdown chance that pressing O would override but nothing telling you about it, and at 100% it was a mandatory shutdown that "o" could only start you up faster from. 103(?)%+ heat would result in instantly detonating ammunition. That in itself isn't a mistake. It's what they did with it.

In chain reaction to mistake 2, however, that penalty system began punishing people. Most didn't notice heatsinks blowing up because nothing actually happened other than cooling slowed down. People only noticed when they had an AMS, this resulted in an instant BOOM! Doesn't matter where it was, the explosion was so severe that body parts would detonate and blow off systematically resulting in death. Thus, mistake 3 was removing that penalty system because people cried.

Around this time, another mistake (removal of repair and rearm) came about. But since this is loosely related we won't number it.

In doing so, they introduced a new overheat system that damaged body parts in a more obvious way, but only when past 100% heat. By this time though people have converted to xl engines, DHS, endo steel, all without any real risk. No (real) risk, all reward. Which led to insane heat capacities, which then led to 6 PPC Stalkers. Reducing the heat on powerful weapons didn't help either. So mistake number 4 is here. (Total mistakes is 5 though).

Then, instead of fixing mistake 1, Paul says he looked at it as a global nerf. IT IS! And that's what it is supposed to be. It'd remove alpha striking entirely. Instead, Paul introduces mistake number 5 (total 6 btw). He calls it Heat Scale, we call it ghost heat. Know what it actually does? It simulates the results of firing x number of that weapon by themselves with a 30 threshold. That's it. Nothing else. But it only punishes those specific weapons.

So instead of making 30 threshold: They spent what was once claimed by someone to be a sum of 50,000-ish dollars (I don't hold much stock in the source but PGI is known for spending ridiculous amounts of money on nothing) on developing ghost heat, which in turn for the energy weapons affected will simulate 30 threshold for specific weapons so that you don't alpha strike them.

Instead of fixing the problem with an obvious solution, they spent large sums of money to simulate the exact same fix on specific weapons, but only when you fire them at the same time.
It boggles the goddamn mind!

At the same time, PPC splash (it's actually transference not splash), charge up (not how it was done but the thing itself. I'd prefer a 'tap to charge and it fires' which is actually just a firing delay and wanted it for PPCs more than Gauss), and burst fire autocannons are not just things I agreed with but have been pushing to get for one to two years.

So there are things I agree with and things I don't.

Edited by Koniving, 16 June 2014 - 07:41 AM.

[Ursh]

AlexEss, the thing is that you don't have to have the PR person in the Vancouver office. They've got lots of open positions, according to their website, which means they have money to hire someone. Right now, they've got some serious PR problems, and it would behoove them to address that issue since they don't seem to be luring any hotshot coders to Vancouver.

I'm 36, so I can't speak for everyone, but I literally don't know anyone who pays any attention to twitter. It's one of the least engaging platforms most companies can use. I monitor my company's feed in HootSuite so I can respond to people who mention us, but twitter feeds for most users are full of chaos and noise. Facebook, meanwhile, only shows your posts to about 2% of your fans if you don't pay them to show it to all of them. Meanwhile, they're already paying for the forums, and it's free to broadcast information that all of their userbase can reach. If they don't know how to SEO optimize their official posts, then they're not a very competent business organization.

People get mad, and they make rage posts. This is normal. If PGI has set up their filters correctly, they know how much that person has spent on the game. If they're a f2p whiner, then they can rightfully be ignored. If you start having a bunch of heavy-spenders complaining about something though....it's a signal to take action to address their concerns, provided the solution doesn't break game balance. If PGI can't tell if a poster is some f2p whiner or valued customer, well then they've got issues way beyond any advice I could give that would help make this a better game.

There are tools that allow you to blast out messages on multiple platforms at once.

My company specifically has the demographic of males between the ages of 35-54 with disposable income, so I know a bit about the market PGI is targeting. PGI doesn't do a very good job of communicating to them.

[Lindonius]

Some good, well thought out criticisms of PGI's community management on this thread.




Which is why it's in Jettisoned Communication.

Edited by Lindonius, 15 June 2014 - 11:32 PM.

[Rebas Kradd]

It's not PGI's job to read forums, it's their job to code busily.

It is, however, Niko's job to read forums and pass on what he can to PGI. He's doing a much better job of it than Garth, given that PGI is now actually bouncing feature request polls and Reddit AMAs back at the community like they were doing during Closed Beta.

But there's a LOT of stuff to pass back.

[Kaijin]

Rebas Kradd, on 21 June 2014 - 12:59 PM, said:

It's not PGI's job to read forums, it's their job to code busily.

It's IGP's job. These arguments that the developers can't be expected to be accomplished at community management are silly. Certainly, programmers should stick to programming, but IGP's got community managers. I'm not talking about the volunteers, but supposedly trained professionals in the field. One such character who was the community management lead during closed beta days had a novel method for dealing with critical feedback on forum management that was sent to support@mwomercs.com. Accusing the critic of trolling his forum staff and threatening a ban from the forum forever. It was no simple rant that was sent to him, but a reasoned, polite, and well-documented critique from a former MPBT community manager of many years experience. This hire has since been fired, I was informed many moons ago, by someone attempting to mend bridges, but that this character was hired in the first place, and allowed to remain as long as he did points to incompetence at the highest level.

[990Dreams]

Because most people on the forums are like you.

Edited by DavidHurricane, 02 August 2014 - 06:27 AM.