How much weight should forums carry with devs.

mgilbrtsn

I'm sure we've all seen the threads in various forums on how the devs need to do this or that.  That if they don't listen to their community (forum wise), they are gonna fail.  The list goes on with the many things people suggest/demand/comment on forums.  Some of these are good, some bad, some bizarre.

How much weight should/do forums carry.  IMO forums should be taken 'tentatively.'  They are a relatively small sampling of the overall population which means that they don't necessarily reflect the whole.  It also seems that forums create a kind of hive mind where people enjoy piling on to topics.  People also enjoy making grandiose statements as if they are speaking MMO Gospel.  I don't say to discount the forums because there are a lot of intelligent people who provide good feedback.  I just think that it isn't the be all/end all of community sentiment.

A follow up question would be:  Where method should the devs give the most weight to, when it comes to feedback.  The proper answer IMO is several sources.  Given that, which single method should be given the greatest weight amongst those several sources?

CalmOceans

I think developers should always listen, be accepting to input. SWG NGE is an example where they ignored the community completely, did their own thing, and we know what happened.

But there are times when some people might be better ignored I think. Especially when the issue concerns underrepresented forum groups, like more casual players who rarely frequent forums. Almost every suggestion to do partial gear resets to get casual players enjoying the latest expansion or content, is met with resistance from more dedicated players. Even though most people know that partial gear resets are often needed to keep the population healthy. People don't like the idea that part of their effort might be partially reset, that older gear might become easier to acquire, they tend to be extremely vocal about this, resisting any change, but it is often essential to keep casuals interested in the game, and to prevent them from falling hopelessly behind.

Alders

When it comes to class forums and specific users that do a ridiculous amount of testing and theory crafting - i'd say a lot. I only say this because i've lost count of how many times certain aspects remain broken or abilities not used because balancing is off. Numbers are providing by actual players with experience and usually better options are recommended.

When it comes to complaining for the sake of complaining - then i say not a lot.

cerulean2012

At one point in time, maybe 5 years ago or so, I would say they should play a significant role, but now days I say very little at best. 

Forums, Reddit, etc tend to be filled mainly with 1. haters, 2. fanbois and with both paying attention and changing things based on those groups causes more trouble then good. 

If I was working for a game, I would look over forums, etc but wouldn't take to much offered on them into account.  Sure if you have released a major patch, watch them to see if possibly any potential bugs appeared, but just because someone doesn't like the skill change made or changes in drops done doesn't mean it is bugged.

So yes they should watch these places but not rely on them.

Scorchien

none , they should ignore it entirley , Most games are ruined by forum whiners ... and Devs caving to them ...  They have systems in place to gather data , test and determine the best fixes/tweaks .. It is always an endless cycle with MMOs ..But listening to forum cry-babbies never brought anything good to games , on the contrary , usually damaging the experience

waynejr2

mgilbrtsn said:

I'm sure we've all seen the threads in various forums on how the devs need to do this or that.  That if they don't listen to their community (forum wise), they are gonna fail.  The list goes on with the many things people suggest/demand/comment on forums.  Some of these are good, some bad, some bizarre.

How much weight should/do forums carry.  IMO forums should be taken 'tentatively.'  They are a relatively small sampling of the overall population which means that they don't necessarily reflect the whole.  It also seems that forums create a kind of hive mind where people enjoy piling on to topics.  People also enjoy making grandiose statements as if they are speaking MMO Gospel.  I don't say to discount the forums because there are a lot of intelligent people who provide good feedback.  I just think that it isn't the be all/end all of community sentiment.

A follow up question would be:  Where method should the devs give the most weight to, when it comes to feedback.  The proper answer IMO is several sources.  Given that, which single method should be given the greatest weight amongst those several sources?

Forums should give the punks on forums zero.

LackingMMO

I honestly think the forums should be taken with a grain of salt. A lot of times people complain about things by what they heard about something, not what they themselves experienced. An in game survey should do better but could be iffy also. Its hard to give devs a solid feedback because people just don't care. The ones that do usually give a high score even if undeserving and the haters will bash even if its the best thing ever.

Maybe if they used a couple different sources then took an average of what they got between 2-3 different methods and went from there. I remember back in when EQ2 first launched, I knew a lot of people liked the progression toward your class and group content, people on the forums like no progression to your main class and solo content. People on the forums won, still didn't play the game, people in game lost got irritated and stopped. Forums cant be trusted, not saying every poster/thread is bad but its just hard to trust what is said on the forums these days.. or well ever really.

Pala

They shouldn't at all unless something is majorly wrong which devs metrics shuold show anyway. Devs should ignore the forums other than for maybe future ideas. 

Cleffy

Devs should pay attention to the forums. They are usually host to the most loyal players and typically represent a sampling of the player base as a whole. Unlike protests that are typically a vocal minority, forum posting doesn't come with the same inconveniences as protesting.
I have played many mmos and either lurked or participated on many of their forums. When the devs go against the majority forum opinions, it has ALWAYS had a sharp decline in the player base. There are many successful and unsuccessful MMOs that come from a variety of reasons. Ignoring a sampling of your player base is just a bad idea.
When it comes to getting future content ideas from the forums, take it with a grain of salt. If you look at the modding, there are a lot of cheat mods. There is a desire from the player base to acquire things easily and in general cheat. For an MMORPG cheating or accelerating the growth rate of players in the game can have an adverse affect on the population soon after. There are good mods that contribute to their game, so the dev should still look. Just pick and choose what works and what doesn't.

Myria

Ignore them entirely, I think.

By and large they're about as far from a representative sample as it's possible to get. I've seen far too many games ruined, even to the point of going out of business, by devs listening to that tiny, but extremely vocal, minority that spends more time on forum PvP than they do actually playing the game.

Octagon7711

That's your customer base.  You don't get very successful by ignoring your customers.  I agree you don't want to listen to the loud minority and the truth is a lot of the player-base never go to the forums unless there's a problem going on with the game.

Slapshot1188

Devs should not DO everything suggested on a forum but they SHOULD listen with an open mind.

Those who think they know everything always fail...

Quizzical

Go get the server(s) that the forum is hosted on and put them on a scale.  That's how much weight the forums should carry with developers.  You may have to pro-rate it if it shares a server with other things, however.

More seriously, developers of already released games who have no clue what their players want are totally incompetent.  But forums aren't the only type of feedback available.  You don't want to just listen to the loudest voices clamoring for something that 95% of the playerbase would hate.  I've sometimes wondered why more game developers don't implement in-game polls like A Tale in the Desert does.

LazyDazed

No weight, the forums are filled unintelligible and remarkably ignorant people. 

rodarin

zero

Quazal.A

To be honest in most cases the people will only goto forums to complain or whine,  so your already starting from a negative point

However, that is not to say notice shouldn't be taken from forums, in the case of my beloved eve, on there we have a 'suggestion' section that can be anything you think will make the game better, and it is then discussed in Nth degree, at which point it will be either considered for putting forward as a suggestion to the devs or just ditched, and in my experience only maybe 1-100/200 get that far, most get ditched straight away by the other players

But then once htey get to the devs then its down to the techinical can it be done, and how will it impact the game, so then maybe 1 in 100 or so get through if that, so your taking about 0.05% - 0.1% of any ideas get accepted and maybe into game.

But the ones that do end up shaping the game for the better good (in most cases)

scorpex-x

Have you read them? 
a) "Make the game harder!"
b) "make the game easier!"
For added hilarity (a) very often become (b) if you actually give them what they ask for and they end up wiping over and over, also a minority very often loudly demand things that drives the majority away from the game.

Solar_Prophet

A developer should browse through, but take any suggestions with a grain of salt, and stick to their own vision of what they want their game to be. Most people on official forums make suggestions based on their own best interests, not those of the game overall. Furthermore a good deal of a game's players don't even bother with them. 

WoW's entire existence has been plagued by knee-jerk reactions to a whiny minority on the forums, and its always caused much more harm than good. CCP's reaction to forum whiners over the initial, optional implementation of walking in stations has caused EVE to stagnate big time, instead of evolving into something greater over time as CCP wanted. Bioware's overreaction to forum whiners almost ruined much needed buffs to companions. 

Of course, if Carbine had listened more to their forum posters during Wildstar's development, they might not be up shit creek right now. However that was during the alpha and beta stages of development, which is an entirely different situation than post-release. 

kjempff

What was that movie with the discussion about listen to Hendrix vs hear Hendrix ? Anyways, Developers should not listen (as in the specific complaints and demands) to the players, they should hear the players (what is the meaning behind)... uhm or something like that.
Stay true to the vision and communicate that vision faithfully and continuously, don't let players opinions guide specific decisions - Then players know what they get, and that makes it much harder to be disappointed.

mgilbrtsn

One of the problems with forums, is that one thread will say do X and the other will say the exact opposite.  Both of these sides will have supporters and detractors.  If the devs listen to one side and not the other and things don't work out, 'gotcha' and the reverse.  Either way, there are gonna people who say 'told ya so'  

How do the devs filter through the muck?

loghorizon01

IMO, these days forums are full of fanbois and trolls. Only the bugs feedback should be taken seriously. I think it would be better for devs to use in-game stats forums can be heard.

What I mean by in game stats is stuff like, how many players completed the newest dungeon (to see if their update is popular and not too hard), the percentage of players who have lower tier equips compared to their level (to see if drops need to be fixed), which class is has the best kill ratio in PvP (for class balancing), and so forth.

Quizzical

loghorizon01 said:

IMO, these days forums are full of fanbois and trolls. Only the bugs feedback should be taken seriously. I think it would be better for devs to use in-game stats forums can be heard.

What I mean by in game stats is stuff like, how many players completed the newest dungeon (to see if their update is popular and not too hard), the percentage of players who have lower tier equips compared to their level (to see if drops need to be fixed), which class is has the best kill ratio in PvP (for class balancing), and so forth.

How many players do content has more to do with how good players think the loot is than how fun the content is.  It's important feedback, yes, but it should never be used to say, "this dungeon is good because lots of people play it".

cameltosis

Developers should take feedback from as many sources as possible, including:

• Forums
• Developers themselves
• Friends and Family
• In game metrics
• Customer emails
• Exit surveys
• Professional Reviews

All of these sources of feedback should be used to highlight issues - and thats it. 

As always, data should be the final word, combined with the lead designer / creative directors vision for the game. So, if the forum community are complaining about an OP class, for example, then it is up to the developers to take those complaints, investigate it objectively and find the data. If the class is OP, then it is up to the lead designer to decide whether that is intentional and he wants to keep it, or unintentional and he wants to balance. 

Forum users are, in general, at the hardcore end of the player spectrum, so forum feedback needs to be weighted accordingly. For example, when I played SW:TOR I thought the combat was very shallow and ridiculously easy. If they balanced according to forum feedback, the game would have been made harder so I'd have been happy, but the average player wouldn't have enjoyed the change so it would have had a negative effect overall. 


But yeh, data is the key. If forum dwellers provide data (combat logs, algorithms, example rotations etc) then that is much better than just providing opinions. 

Rusque

Well, they should never listen to their fanboys. The moment, you, as a business begin to listen to your cheerleaders is the moment you start sucking. Part of your job is to listen to all criticism and negative feedback and assess its validity and what is / isn't in line with what you're trying to accomplish.


George Lucas is a prime example of someone who completely shut out any and all negativity. It's an extreme example, but because he surrounded himself with yes-men, it enabled him to make pure garbage.


This isn't to say all negative feedback is valuable, much of it will be useless, but that's for you to determine. If you can't tell what's valuable or not, then you likely don't understand your own product. You build towards your vision and use criticism to strengthen your vision in building said product.

Pemmin

the problem with data via forums is that 

A) players can and will have agendas of their own

B)developers are constrained by deadlines, money, and development time. making knee jerk changes based solely on forum opinions while ignoring critical parts to the development process..... sets a bad precedence.


for the most part i think developers should stick to their own devices using  in house data as much as possible. but they should also take into consideration forum information when the users of said forums provide  hard data to back up any claims they are making. 

general opinions  on forums should really only be used to try and make SMALL quality of life changes. things like making certain items stackable in inventories, lower and raising cast times/cds/price of fast travel, prioritizing fixing of especially annoying bugs,  etc.

Amathe

Listen - yes
Discuss - yes
Consider - yes
Do what all the posters say - no