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HistoricalScore1

First Lieutenant
May 5, 2021
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Funnily enough, it was someone who "respectfully disagreed" with my post in the Feedback section's whose Latest Activity drew my attention to this particularly enlightening thread and the responses from @konbendith when I've been wondering if there's a lack of participation/response from developers/Paradox staff (not Community Members).

I want to preface this with a great quote.

I think overall, we all want the same thing: forums with more active (and happy) developers, and great and constructive conversations between them and you, our most dedicated players.

My goals:
  • Users will learn the difference between publisher and developer, for most AAA companies
  • Constructive discourse/feedback/disagreements encouraged and supported.
  • Identification/opinions on potential causes for tension in forums/feedback delivery
  • Utilized tools (Suggestions/Bug Reports/etc.) so that I and others can help developers make Stellaris better.
  • Some sort of indication (a like, dislike, comment) from Paradox on high activity conversations that they at least read it. For instance, with Bug Reports the title can be updated with Confirmed or Need More Information, etc.
Perception isn't always reality. I realize this. My perception could be off. But perception is still important. This is mine. Could be others.

I believe I read somewhere that while Paradox is now big, each studio is kinda independent in a way? My request is what is the Stellaris team's view on the above thread and response? I do notice @MrFreake_PDX including "be civil" with nearly most of the recent threads/updates, but I don't want to assume.

Questions:
Are developers here less active because they don't like how the 'debate culture'--still cannot believe that is a term--is?
Or was there a decision that developers aren't to participate/respond? I know some companies have such a policy.

I did a search of Suggestions by developer response only, and unless I'm missing something, aside from @Alfray Stryke, there hasn't been a post in there by another staff member since 2019, which is why I have my current perception.

Truth moment: It is your (specific players here's) fault that we're here at this point now. Your choice to be toxic versus constructive has not helped, but hurt a game, you consider yourself dedicated, a fan of. Did you really need to call someone stupid or lazy to get your point across? No. The answer is no. Do you think it's going to help make the game better? No. The answer again is no. Learn from this and be less of the problem.

AAA Company: For most AAA companies, there is a publisher (usually the one who finances the product). They own the Intellectual Property (IP). The developers design and develop content based around the publisher's specifications, i.e. if features are DLC or free, what to focus on, what to ignore. Often the developers want to do far more, but they don't have the final say. The publishers do.

My fears:
  • Suggestions are just going to be a place for players to vent as the information won't actually be viewed, passed on to decision makers.
  • Certain Bug Reports/Suggestions that have a lot of activity and Stellaris has even acknowledged in the past but haven't implemented to this day with no response/here's why/etc. will cause frustration, i.e. name_lists and Checksum, AI, Economy, Balance, etc.
  • We're going to get more rollbacks, because instead of collaborating with the community beforehand, we'll get surprise changes like the economy buildings.
  • Certain things won't be prioritized because they aren't going to make money. See quote below. As I have said, visions/goals can change from what they were three years ago when people show me quoted logs/posts from 3+ years ago.
The standards have changed. Our company is not the same as it was 15, or even 5 years ago. We're bigger, more profitable, publicly-traded, etc.

For instance, Amazon made it crystal clear when I worked with them that while they owned the company, they were not the manager and let the companies operate on their own, and they did. While a different company that bought a previous place I worked at changed the infrastructure in under a year. I do not know how being publicly traded may or may not change things for game prioritization. Certain features being only DLC accessible versus free, for instance.

My hopes:
  • Players will focus on more constructive criticism (look at my history, I'm not jolly nice-guy), but I am always aiming at being useful.
  • Stellaris will have an official stance so we can have clear expectations going forward on the relationship this forum is to have between staff and player. Ideally, far more participation from Stellaris staff.
  • A better game, patch by patch.
Cheers

EDIT: Added AAA company definition and paragraph. Added goal for understanding/identifying potential causes of toxicity or tension.
 
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I often critized the way the developers of Stellaris are engaging with their community. Of course there needs to be the regular corporate speech, in the end they need to sell copies of their stuff to maintain profits. Which is fine, we all work somewhere for a profit i guess.

I am around here since 1.6, i really love to read the dev communications with the diaries. I also liked the idea of constant development for a small DLC every few months. But this all broke away after the 2.2 Megacorp-Release. That was an extremely disastrous release, in an idiotic schedule, and a total failure on how to care about your customers. The forums were very toxic at these days, there was no communication (holidays), threads got deleted hourly, frustrated players got banned. Even weeks later every comment of a dev or representative of PDX got downvoted and badly discussed or even insulted. Of course it is much easier to just disappear then and let the fire burn...

I work in retail, such a backslash will never ever happen in a non-digital-product enviroment. You are simply not able to release products in such a bad state, and i hate to say it, over and over again. For me open commuciations from devs is a core element for the playerbase to know whats happening with their product. What happened after the 3.0 release gave hope that they learned their lesson, but at what cost? And if i look around on the forums now: There are many constructive discussions going on, even the 40 pages thread to pop growth was civil and had many good ideas how to solve it and what players expect, some suggestions are in the game now (sliders to adjust the curve and penalties, warnings for bad performance impacts). What a feeling right?

And if you really want to know how to do it look at a project of similar scale: Factorio. From what i can see both teams have a similar size, they both sold 2-3 million copies of their product. Stellaris is hardly able to surpass a "mixed" rating on Steam for nearly three years now with new products, while Factorio is (one of) the best rated games ever on Steam. How? Their forum and other social media channels are always open, if you post a validatedable bug a member of their Q&A will answer, ALWAYS. If they take a misstep and there is backslash, they rolled back the changes and just said: We messed up, let us try again later. What a mentality... In bigger discussions devs will step in and just ask questions about it, explain why some things arent possible and post memes.
But the main point is: The development of the game was ALWAYS transparent. They acknowledged big problems (performance was one of these), communicated them openly, showed their approaches on how to solve them. Some things took them ages to finish, but the players knew they have an eye on it, it isnt dropped or ignored. Feedback from diaries was heavily lifted, the players were always a part of the team not just the customers. And they are fast, very fast in solving problems. While Stellaris needs a week or two to fix things, the Factorio team needs hours to do so. Many players havent even notice how often they accidently broke the game, because the patchcycle is so fast. This is the way for "smaller" companies to stand their ground against the big companies like Activision Blizzard/EA and Ubisoft for example. I would even say some of these values made Paradox the bigger player they are now.
 
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I very much agree with all @konbendith and you guys said.

The devs (and a few special community members) are the main reason i visit this forum.
That's why i constantly try to de-escalate discussion about dev decisions - whether i agree with the criticism or not. But hurling thinly veiled (if veiled at all) insults at the devs will certainly not improve communication.
Did they mess up with how they implemented their performance improvements through pop limitation? Maybe. Large parts of the community are unhappy with it.
But just consider two scenarios:
  1. You messed up. People around you constantly tell you what a dumb idiot you were when messing up the thing in question. Not just a single person, but more people than you can (or want to) count.
  2. You messed up. Lots of people are voicing they are displeased and make calm, collected suggestions about how you could have been going about it or how to salvage the mess now and encourage you to change the thing you made that didn't meet their expectations.
In which scenario are you more likely to be willing to listen to the people criticising your work, because you messed up and have more drive both engaging with your critics as well as implementing their suggestions?
I doubt any significant fraction of the population would choose the first if they were given the choice. (probably only humiliation-fetishists - not kink shaming, just referencing)

All it takes is a little empathy by the general community.
This doesn't mean you just forgive and forget, but you criticise the work without criticising (or worse, insulting) the people that did it.

PS: I would not call the mere act of stating that you're displeased as criticism. Criticism requires you state why you feel like that - and potentially even include on what you think would have been better.
 
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I am quite convinced that the devs were anticipating some backlash with this massive rework of pop growth 3.0.
There is always some level of backlash when you significantly alter the status quo for a lot of people that don't feel like they had a say in it. Even if your alterations are objectively improvements. That's just human nature.

They took a leap of faith hoping that what they perceived as improvements would at least be seen as a step in the right direction that needs some changes to actually hit the mark.
But I think the community has thoroughly let them down on this one. Wild accusations everywhere, insults, people just making threads upon threads about how much everything sucks now. Sure, almost all threads have a not insignificant portion of constructive, healthy communication, but pretty much all of them contain noticable toxicity.
I imagine it to be a very unpleasant experience reading posts upon posts insulting your work (or you) - even if there a some nice, constructive posts in between.

It bothers me tremendously that there is so little empathy. Even if you're displeased, you're not going to help anyone - not even yourself - by voicing destructive criticism or insulting the devs. There is just no scenario where this is going to help. Not you, not the devs, not the community and most certainly not the game. So why do that?
 
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They took a leap of faith hoping that what they perceived as improvements would at least be seen as a step in the right direction that needs some changes to actually hit the mark.
But I think the community has thoroughly let them down on this one. Wild accusations everywhere, insults, people just making threads upon threads about how much everything sucks now. Sure, almost all threads have a not insignificant portion of constructive, healthy communication, but pretty much all of them contain noticable toxicity.
Could you link a few examples?

I've been here the entire time, and I don't think I've seen a single post that I would describe as containing "wild accusations everywhere". On the Steam forums... yeah, that sort of stuff is everywhere. But here? The discussion I've read were largely focused on the new pop growth system, and why it doesn't work for people, not on accusations and hatred towards the designers behind the system.
 
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This thread seems to be based on misconceptions.

The article about toxicity on certain Paradox forums was NOT about the Stellaris forums. The Stellaris devs enjoy this forum, which is why they're posting here quite a lot.

One of them, community ambassador MrFreake, in fact clarified this in a Reddit thread about the same article:

"I just want to weigh in here, I know there's still some toxicity on the Stellaris forums, however my experience on the Stellaris forums is not represented here.

I think if you go through things we've done in the past, the AI Feedback thread from 2.8, the Pop Growth feedback thread that's currently running and [redacted] starting soon, there are very few toxic replies on those threads. There's a lot of useful feedback, and a lot of people passionate about the future of Stellaris. ❤

I feel like the Stellaris forums have drastically improved since Federations. The devs are starting to come back, there's Eladrin and grekulf regularly engaging with comments on the DDs, Enfield and Alfray Strike going into threads, leaving comments and interacting with the community.

So while these issues are present everywhere, I find they're a lot less prevalent on the Stellaris forums (currently ) compared to other places.

Keep being awesome community!"
 
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Stellaris is hardly able to surpass a "mixed" rating on Steam for nearly three years now with new products,
This is flat out wrong. Stellaris has a very positive rating at 86% out of an overall 100k ratings.
Also Steam ratings are a joke. If I sort after most helpful there are multiple people with easily over 1000 hours in the game, giving out negative ratings because they didnt like the growth changes. This is especially useless towards potential buyers because they wont even know the difference between old and new growth and a buying recommendation is only relevant to people who dont own the game. So how can you even take those serious at all?
 
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While I'm 100% in favor of less toxicity, I think it's also important to have reasonable expectations. After all, that toxicity does come from somewhere, and putting a friendly veneer over it doesn't change the unrealistic expectations that often lead to said toxicity.

I have never in all my years of gaming encountered a community that treats a video game so much like a sandwich at a restaurant. At a restaurant you can naturally send back your food and ask for it to be made correctly, especially if a special request you made was ignored. But video games aren't a sandwich. The same game is consumed my millions, not a single person. Making modifications is an order of magnitude or two more expensive. And finally, video games are never done; there can always be more, yet developers eventually do have to pull the trigger and release.

Because of this, no amount of kindness is going to ensure your individual feedback is going to be directly reflected in the game. Even things that seem widely agreed upon in the forums can't be expected to just be done, since that doesn't represent the whole player base. Sure, many people are upset about the new growth mechanics, but many others love them. It took me a week or two to adjust, but I now think it's one of the cleverest and healthiest changes they've made in some time. I've shared my thoughts along with some excruciatingly detailed math, but there's pretty much crickets in those and other threads seeking to understand the rather counter-intuitive effects of the new system. People would rather rather just complain about how high the "months until a new pop grows" gets and toss out ideas to change a system they don't fully understand in the first place. Suggestions aren't any better. It's very rare to see a post suggesting a change in the game without at least one person responding "No, that would be a terrible idea."

I've been playing since a bit before Synthetic Dawn. There have been times when I disagreed with their balancing between quality and speed/features. There have also been one or two times where they made major changes that I didn't like, though those have always been direct responses to player feedback that ultimately made the game worse (looking at you, bureaucrats). Other than that, I feel like they've consistently improved the game, often in ways that I never would have asked for, but which I loved. As many people as there are who feel like they're constantly screwing up, there are also people who love the direction they're taking the game. Depending on the change, many players will fall into different categories there.

Like I said, I'd love to see things be nicer, but as has been pointed out, the Stellaris forums aren't actually too bad in that regard. However, there's still a ton of the same unrealistic expectations, and while they're more palatable when offered nicely, it still reduces the quality of the feedback.
 
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I work in retail, such a backslash will never ever happen in a non-digital-product enviroment. You are simply not able to release products in such a bad state, and i hate to say it, over and over again. For me open commuciations from devs is a core element for the playerbase to know whats happening with their product. What happened after the 3.0 release gave hope that they learned their lesson, but at what cost? And if i look around on the forums now: There are many constructive discussions going on, even the 40 pages thread to pop growth was civil and had many good ideas how to solve it and what players expect, some suggestions are in the game now (sliders to adjust the curve and penalties, warnings for bad performance impacts). What a feeling right?
I also briefly worked in retail twice. Fairly recentlyish as a part of a start-up. Products can be recalled for various reasons. Unfinished/polished products are not limited to this space. Restaurants have done it, movies, etc. Have you never had to return someone's money because the pants had holes in them, or that electrical equipment was defective? Or upset because you didn't have enough supply for the demand? I agree open communication is very very important. And while I have seen constructive posts/threads, I've also seen many pointless and unconstructive, "this sucks" posts. I do wish people in general were not so sensitive so that they can actually receive the reward that good criticism truly is. I also wish people provided more criticism and not just insults.

And if you really want to know how to do it look at a project of similar scale: Factorio. From what i can see both teams have a similar size, they both sold 2-3 million copies of their product. Stellaris is hardly able to surpass a "mixed" rating on Steam for nearly three years now with new products, while Factorio is (one of) the best rated games ever on Steam. How? Their forum and other social media channels are always open, if you post a validatedable bug a member of their Q&A will answer, ALWAYS. If they take a misstep and there is backslash, they rolled back the changes and just said: We messed up, let us try again later. What a mentality... In bigger discussions devs will step in and just ask questions about it, explain why some things arent possible and post memes.
But the main point is: The development of the game was ALWAYS transparent. They acknowledged big problems (performance was one of these), communicated them openly, showed their approaches on how to solve them. Some things took them ages to finish, but the players knew they have an eye on it, it isnt dropped or ignored. Feedback from diaries was heavily lifted, the players were always a part of the team not just the customers. And they are fast, very fast in solving problems. While Stellaris needs a week or two to fix things, the Factorio team needs hours to do so. Many players havent even notice how often they accidently broke the game, because the patchcycle is so fast. This is the way for "smaller" companies to stand their ground against the big companies like Activision Blizzard/EA and Ubisoft for example. I would even say some of these values made Paradox the bigger player they are now.

Very great example! I would argue that in scope Factorio and Stellaris are quite different (timeframe for fixes), their approach on forums, etc. are indeed emulatable.

But just consider two scenarios:
  1. You messed up. People around you constantly tell you what a dumb idiot you were when messing up the thing in question. Not just a single person, but more people than you can (or want to) count.
  2. You messed up. Lots of people are voicing they are displeased and make calm, collected suggestions about how you could have been going about it or how to salvage the mess now and encourage you to change the thing you made that didn't meet their expectations.
PS: I would not call the mere act of stating that you're displeased as criticism. Criticism requires you state why you feel like that - and potentially even include on what you think would have been better.

I'm sure most know that number 2 will result in more receptive people. Unfortunately, some of those people just don't care. Personally, I wouldn't care about being on the receiving end of either 1 or 2 so long as they have tangible reasons they can state.

Could you link a few examples?

I've been here the entire time, and I don't think I've seen a single post that I would describe as containing "wild accusations everywhere". On the Steam forums... yeah, that sort of stuff is everywhere. But here? The discussion I've read were largely focused on the new pop growth system, and why it doesn't work for people, not on accusations and hatred towards the designers behind the system.

It's pretty easy to find them. Look for words like "stupid" "fail" "incompetent" or other buzzwords. They're there. I am not going to quote or provide specific examples because those pathetic individuals don't deserve the attention/spotlight. I'll message you one such thread/post privately.

EDIT: I can't private message you because you have a limitation on who can PM you.

This thread seems to be based on misconceptions.

As I said, this is my current perception. My perception could be wrong, but it's still a valid perception others may have.

The article about toxicity on certain Paradox forums was NOT about the Stellaris forums. The Stellaris devs enjoy this forum, which is why they're posting here quite a lot.

I missed the memo from @konbendith that this was about most of Paradox's studios and not Stellaris.

One of them, community ambassador MrFreake, in fact clarified this in a Reddit thread about the same article:

"I just want to weigh in here, I know there's still some toxicity on the Stellaris forums, however my experience on the Stellaris forums is not represented here.

So while these issues are present everywhere, I find they're a lot less prevalent on the Stellaris forums (currently ) compared to other places.
These are words. Nice words. @MrFreake_PDX says it himself. There's still some toxicity and the issues are present everywhere. While improved, do you think he thinks it's enough? Or the developers?

I'll tell you something else. Actions speak far louder than words. And I'd go further to say there's very minimal/negligible participation from staff on matters that are controversial and ZERO, that's right ZERO participation from staff outside of @Alfray Stryke since 2019 in the Suggestions section.

Let's look at recent. Like Stellaris 3.0.3 Open Beta AI Feedback Discussion and Replies Thread

When someone said, "They probably purposefully did it to make sure their feedback was vanilla only." a member did respond.

Hah, Genius, but no we're not that evil.

But that earlier post I cannot quote because that post was removed. I don't know what else it included, but did it warrant removal? Did anyone engage in the topic about pop growth, buildings, synths, AI? Prove me wrong with examples of meaningful discussions. Not just announcements, updates, or memes.
 
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This is flat out wrong. Stellaris has a very positive rating at 86% out of an overall 100k ratings.
Also Steam ratings are a joke. If I sort after most helpful there are multiple people with easily over 1000 hours in the game, giving out negative ratings because they didnt like the growth changes. This is especially useless towards potential buyers because they wont even know the difference between old and new growth and a buying recommendation is only relevant to people who dont own the game. So how can you even take those serious at all?

For the base game, yes. But look at the DLCs. Opinions can change. I once loved a game, then I gave it up and disliked it because of changes made. Same with some anime, like The Promised Neverland. Or what about fans and Game of Thrones? I think that negative review, if that's that person's viewpoint based off the changes/update choices is their decision. What IS relevant to buyers is, is this game fun now? Not was it, could it be. And if there's currently/now a mechanic that makes the game unenjoyable, I'd appreciate a useful review of it. Some helpful reviews are part of why I have only 3-4 DLC.

basegame.steam.pngmegacorp.steam.pngnecroids.steam.pngnemesis.steam.png
 
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if you post a validatedable bug a member of their Q&A will answer, ALWAYS.
This is something Paradox really should emulate. I've repoted reproducable bugs, with save games (sometimes modded, but usually not, going as far as to specifically start unmodded games to display the bug in its pure state), with no reaction. Some of them eventually got fixed months after.
 
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The article about toxicity on certain Paradox forums was NOT about the Stellaris forums.
Came here to say this.

The Stellaris section has its moments, but it’s pretty well behaved.

That article definitely wasn’t made with the Stellaris section in mind.
 
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In my experience devs active on the forums goes over about as well as talking to the police. Everything they say can and will be used against them.

Pay someone well trained and limit it as much as possible.
 
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In my experience devs active on the forums goes over about as well as talking to the police. Everything they say can and will be used against them.

Pay someone well trained and limit it as much as possible.
Honestly I'd rather keep the devs here and ban the people trying to act like police interrogators.
 
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This is flat out wrong. Stellaris has a very positive rating at 86% out of an overall 100k ratings.
Also Steam ratings are a joke. If I sort after most helpful there are multiple people with easily over 1000 hours in the game, giving out negative ratings because they didnt like the growth changes. This is especially useless towards potential buyers because they wont even know the difference between old and new growth and a buying recommendation is only relevant to people who dont own the game. So how can you even take those serious at all?

It isnt. Read what i wrote. In the last three years. The core game itself has a good rating.

- Nemesis: Mixed
- Necroids: Mixed
- Federations: Mixed
- Lithoids: Mixed
- Ancient Relics: mostly positive
- Megacorp: Mixed
- Apocalypse: Mixed

Ancient Relics is the best rated DLC in these 3 years, the rest is just a meh. Do not tell me this is a sign of satisfied customers, its a sign of bad releases, and i am sure not every rating is about the content, many of them are tied to the patch they released with it. Good content and patches receive good ratings.

I take these ratings very serious. Every new customer will become a more experienced player over time. If i want to buy into a game like Stellaris, i want to ensure that my investment brings fun for many many hours and when no content of the last years is well accepted by the community, it is at least a good warning for me that there are problems with it.
 
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Truth moment: It is your (specific players here's) fault that we're here at this point now.
Your "true" point is to exclude Paradox entirely from anything that could be related to blame in order to point fingers to this illusive, let me guess, "vocal minority", right ?

Your choice to be toxic versus constructive has not helped, but hurt a game, you consider yourself dedicated, a fan of.

Did you really need to call someone stupid or lazy to get your point across?
Note how I can deliver actual quotations, but did you really need to call someone "toxic", "not helpful" and "hurtful" to get your "point" across ?

Do you think it's going to help make the game better?
Do you think it's going to help make the game better if its flaws get apologized ?

Learn from this and be less of the problem.
I've the feeling that you want that someones have to feel addressed by this somehow.
 
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Yeah... that's so much better. Devs can do no wrong and those who proclaim otherwise shall not be tolerated.
That's an example of a false binary (the "excluded middle" fallacy).

Is it honestly difficult to believe that you can criticize the game without acting like a police interrogator?
 
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Aw hell ya more drama! time to get the popcorn.
I thought it would take longer for someone who has to say something though they say nothing to speak. Thank you for proving my point.

While I'm 100% in favor of less toxicity, I think it's also important to have reasonable expectations. After all, that toxicity does come from somewhere, and putting a friendly veneer over it doesn't change the unrealistic expectations that often lead to said toxicity.

Agreed. Reasonable and realistic expectations are important. Sometimes companies can help set those expectations, like how some companies don't promise a release date, or certain content reveals, or, say on KickStarter, how some companies have a fairly detailed and publicly viewable set of goals and timeline for those goals.

I have never in all my years of gaming encountered a community that treats a video game so much like a sandwich at a restaurant.

Great analogy, though I certainly have. It's a shame many don't understand what the process is like to make a change in a game and how much time it takes. There's a difference between a hotfix and a patch/newer version.

At a restaurant you can naturally send back your food and ask for it to be made correctly, especially if a special request you made was ignored. But video games aren't a sandwich. The same game is consumed my millions, not a single person. Making modifications is an order of magnitude or two more expensive. And finally, video games are never done; there can always be more, yet developers eventually do have to pull the trigger and release.

Astute and I agree with most of this. Do you think the game should have been released as a release or it should have or should still be Early Access? Did the AI's performance, economy, missing event_flags, etc. have the quality of a fully releasable title then? How about today, right now?

Because of this, no amount of kindness is going to ensure your individual feedback is going to be directly reflected in the game. Even things that seem widely agreed upon in the forums can't be expected to just be done
Agreed. That's why it's feedback and suggestion. I think we can agree that dedicated players on here realize that and impatient, entitled children don't. Still, it is reasonable for someone to be upset if there feedback/suggestion is never even addressed. It's a natural reaction.

, since that doesn't represent the whole player base. Sure, many people are upset about the new growth mechanics, but many others love them.

How do you or do you think Stellaris knows what players think of these changes? There's no polling system, there isn't exactly a review spot for the updates on Steam/Reddit. Part of my argument is that Stellaris doesn't know what their players want/like because of some of their decisions. Even looking at the forums, this doesn't represent the playerbase on Steam. Most people don't bother taking the time to be here. If they don't like something they drop it and find something else, period.

In my experience devs active on the forums goes over about as well as talking to the police. Everything they say can and will be used against them.

Pay someone well trained and limit it as much as possible.

Just because that's been your experience and is common, doesn't mean it has to be that way. Look at the example of Factorio team. I used to interview some developers. Yes, there was hate, but there was also appreciation that they were willing to have a dialogue, especially with me. As I don't pull punches, though I'm civil. :) My worst experience was actually interviewing or talking with some publishers off the record. Some knew the game would fail and get bad reviews, but "it would sell, first." I'm not saying that's Paradox or Stellaris, at all.

Honestly I'd rather keep the devs here and ban the people trying to act like police interrogators.

I wouldn't. I think it should be a symbiotic relationship, mostly. Sure you'll have those that don't provide anything, and know it. But even harsh questions/probing questions can be important/useful. The mass downvoting a dev when they just say anything, regardless of what they say, yeah that's douchey (they know it). For instance, I would ask (not expecting a full answer or one at all, depends on publishers policy/enforcement--possibly stock holders) tough questions. Like, why haven't they implemented custom name_lists that don't mess with checksums in the 3+ years it's been asked for? Is it time constraints? Are not enough people asking? Are you worried about exploits being hidden in the file? What about flags? They pass just fine. I wouldn't take all their time, I know they're busy.


Your "true" point is to exclude Paradox entirely from anything that could be related to blame in order to point fingers to this illusive, let me guess, "vocal minority", right ?

Nope. Not at all. As I said, in many, many other threads, and I had hoped it was clear enough, the consequences are also from choices Paradox has made.

Note how I can deliver actual quotations, but did you really need to call someone "toxic", "not helpful" and "hurtful" to get your "point" across ?

I wasn't targeting a single person...I would hope that was quite obvious, for anyone to realize that...


Do you think it's going to help make the game better if its flaws get apologized (missing more context) ?

I genuinely don't know what you're asking.

EDIT: Spelling


I've the feeling that you want that someones have to feel addressed by this somehow.

See my response above.
 
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