The moment you stop communicating, you failed as a gaming company

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nibas wrote:

GGG's management decision to stop communication via reddit and manifesto, instead of improving themselves to minimize misunderstandings, stems from a critical lack of trust in their community. It's their right to do so of course, but imo this will only lead to further gaps between the players and the company. Please, treat your community with trust and respect, most of us are not idiots; you are already doing a good job of presenting the short term/league goals for each major patch, please apply this to longer term goals: what is your vision going further, what is your "product goal" with PoE? Be more transparent and your design decisions will be accepted more easily.

They HAD been communicating consistently for damn near 10 years, it's only really recently when the some players got trumped up and shouty that it's started taking a downwards turn, maybe dial back the REEEEE and the death threats that have been aimed at the devs, then you might get more communication, but as it has been i would be outright ignoring the forums, the reddit and twitter since SOME people can't behave themselves.

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lagwin1980 wrote:

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nibas wrote:

GGG's management decision to stop communication via reddit and manifesto, instead of improving themselves to minimize misunderstandings, stems from a critical lack of trust in their community. It's their right to do so of course, but imo this will only lead to further gaps between the players and the company. Please, treat your community with trust and respect, most of us are not idiots; you are already doing a good job of presenting the short term/league goals for each major patch, please apply this to longer term goals: what is your vision going further, what is your "product goal" with PoE? Be more transparent and your design decisions will be accepted more easily.

They HAD been communicating consistently for damn near 10 years, it's only really recently when the some players got trumped up and shouty that it's started taking a downwards turn, maybe dial back the REEEEE and the death threats that have been aimed at the devs, then you might get more communication, but as it has been i would be outright ignoring the forums, the reddit and twitter since SOME people can't behave themselves.

Smart ppl ignore forums/reddit/and shitter.

Its amazing how long and how well GGG communicated in last 10 years. but in recent years world dawn shitter with all reees in media.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

Not like i think it's the right thing to just go silent, but i also don't think communicating would do them any good at this point. They have resolved themselves to push the game in a direction most of their playerbase hate resulting in them constantly making decisions that are bound to result in backlash. If they tell the truth they will get scorned, if they tell half the truth they will get scorned and if they just say nothing they will get scorned as well, it really doesn't matter at this point. It's their actions they'd have to change but they refuse to do so that's that.

As I said in my OP, the backlash from community can be mitigated with transparency and honesty. I think closing communication channels with the player base not only betrays a lack of trust in the community, but also in their product because it shows they do not trust themselves to deliver something that will be redeemable in of itself (something that is so good it doesn't need further explanation). In a nutshell, I think they're scared.

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nibas wrote:

As I said in my OP, the backlash from community can be mitigated with transparency and honesty. I think closing communication channels with the player base not only betrays a lack of trust in the community, but also in their product because it shows they do not trust themselves to deliver something that will be redeemable in of itself (something that is so good it doesn't need further explanation). In a nutshell, I think they're scared.

I mean, if we take the part about "10% people are playing melee", it could be fairly honest. We could take it as simply, "Ok, they're aware of the problem", instead of, "Are you taking a piss? Are you saying it's your little pet trap and we're idiots if we play melee?"

Of course, I'd like it much better if he added that they're actually planning to do something about it soon, but if they're planning a full melee overhaul that will likely wait for PoE2 and they might be thinking that the playerbase wouldn't be happy with that. The last fix took too much jonathan time and did barely anything.

There are already plenty of examples to proof that this isn't the case though. Trade manifesto is probably the best one. They clearly stated their perspective on the topic and yet there is constant complaints about it because it's a stupid system. Same with harvest, they made a clear and open manifesto about it, the backlash was huge anyway. If you try to forcefully feed someone dog poo he won't like you for it, doesn't matter how you go about it.

Also as i said, it's not like can't deliver something that people will like, they know how to do that, it's really easy and they've done it for years. They just don't want to do it anymore cuz of "The Vision".

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Baharoth15 wrote:

There are already plenty of examples to proof that this isn't the case though. Trade manifesto is probably the best one. They clearly stated their perspective on the topic and yet there is constant complaints about it because it's a stupid system. Same with harvest, they made a clear and open manifesto about it, the backlash was huge anyway. If you try to forcefully feed someone dog poo he won't like you for it, doesn't matter how you go about it.

Also as i said, it's not like can't deliver something that people will like, they know how to do that, it's really easy and they've done it for years. They just don't want to do it anymore cuz of "The Vision".

So what is the solution? Get rid of the forums altogether?

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Thesuffering wrote:

So what is the solution? Get rid of the forums altogether?

Do you view every branch of the forums as a feedback section? A game developing section?

I actually think GGG reads the feedback section pretty often. Answering or participating isn't very productive, as it creates expectation or hope. They read it, but that doesn't mean they should obey it. I'm sure a lot of their ideas throughout the years have sprung from some forum ideas.

Now, the rest of the forums is more or less here for people to interact with each other. Debate. Discuss.

I don't want to use the E-word here, but a part of this conversation comes from a place of entitlement. "I should be heard". There are TONS of games out there, I would say most, that is being made without much community communication. Developers making THEIR game based on THEIR ideas, providing the experience THEY want the players to have.

We should ALWAYS give feedback as customers, but should we expect or demand to be obeyed on our subjective views?

It is a genuinely modern misapprehension that "communication" is the first problem with anything. Any issues the game has have nothing to do with PR or how they are spun to us or what we are told about them, and everything to do with the actual decisions being made.

If GGG were making all the right decisions, no-one would care what they are saying about those decisions. I don't really have a dog in this fight (I think the game continues to be the best ARPG by a fair margin), but all this petulant, entitled whining from the community about "communication" is absurdly misdirected.

Maybe if you were all less entitled and outraged at not getting the attention you so obviously crave, GGG wouldn't have all but abandoned meaningful interaction with the community. And who can blame them, really.

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t0lkien wrote:

If GGG were making all the right decisions, no-one would care what they are saying about those decisions.

And a part of the problem, is that people are unable to phantom that even though they subjectively view a decision as "wrong", it may very well be the "right" decision for a game as a whole, all things, players and the future in mind, something we as players don't really have to relate to.

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Thesuffering wrote:

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Baharoth15 wrote:

There are already plenty of examples to proof that this isn't the case though. Trade manifesto is probably the best one. They clearly stated their perspective on the topic and yet there is constant complaints about it because it's a stupid system. Same with harvest, they made a clear and open manifesto about it, the backlash was huge anyway. If you try to forcefully feed someone dog poo he won't like you for it, doesn't matter how you go about it.

Also as i said, it's not like can't deliver something that people will like, they know how to do that, it's really easy and they've done it for years. They just don't want to do it anymore cuz of "The Vision".

So what is the solution? Get rid of the forums altogether?

From their perspective i don't think there is a real solution.

If they continue with their present direction they will have to deal with the backlash every time until all the people who don't like the new direction have quit playing and only the ruthless enjoyers are left. Given that many of them have been around for a long time and are quite invested in the game and therefore unwilling to just accept this direction change and also considering the lack of alternatives in the ARPG genre this might take a while.

Alternatively abandoning their vision and do what the majority wants would certainly be a solution for me/us but it's obviously not a solution for them.

Ignoring the forum/reddit is not a solution either, the problem remains, they just choose to ignore it. But i guess from their perspective it's the closest thing to a solution.

It's a simple matter of conflicting interests. Happens everywhere all the time in society and sparks are always flying around in these situations. Nothing to freak out about.