Example of how another company treats suggestions from players

[StefanFan]

Let me give you a very very good example on how a game developer treats their suggestions. It's true, it hasn't always been like this, things changed only in the last 3 years, and I play Football Manager since CM, thats' about 20 years or so, who knows.

A couple of hours ago I posted a suggestion. In 2 hours, an administrator reviewed the suggestion, locked the thread, and from my previous suggestions in the last years, which all got at least partially into the game, if something gets locked it will be added for the next version development or it was already on their radar, in a form or another. Not patch, but next version.

If the suggestions are debatable and it's more to talk about, the conversation is not locked, but things are discussed. And don't get me wrong, I am nobody on that forum as I am here, I am not an influencer, a game guru or anything else, I am treated as the others are too.

The results? From 52% Mixed reviews in 2017, the last year when they ignored their fan base, to a Very Positive trend for all last 3 versions, including one sales record breaking version last year. This year they just launched.

Here, beside the last time a mod asked for players input regarding bugs, the suggestion forum seems to be more like a chance to shoot in the dark and see if you get something.

Cheer cheers

 

[AndrewPiano]

Wow! Does that company have games similar to EU4?

 

[Ruian]

EU4 is a big and complex game. Most players aren't qualified to even make suggestions that should be taken seriously. How do you weed out who to listen to and who to ignore (as a developer)? Most suggestions are either something that will have zero effect on the game, making it virtually meaningless to potential buyers (like a province border), or have massive unintended consequences.

 

[Grim Deadman]

EU4 is a big and complex game. Most players aren't qualified to even make suggestions that should be taken seriously. How do you weed out who to listen to and who to ignore (as a developer)? Most suggestions are either something that will have zero effect on the game, making it virtually meaningless to potential buyers (like a province border), or have massive unintended consequences.

Not to mention that often the suggestions involve feature creep on scales that dwarf anything since Rule Brittania. One can argue that perhaps the devs should have paid more attention to that Minority expulsion mech (Spain, really?), but on the whole player suggestions are best taken with a grain of salt. You know, more like guidelines rather than rules.

 

[LWE]

Treating bug reports like this, however, would be justified.

 

[Runite Drill]

but on the whole player suggestions are best taken with a grain of salt. You know, more like guidelines rather than rules.

From time-to-time there are some incredibly well thought and researched suggestions and they typically get a dev response. Also, remember the start of the year when they put out a call-to-arms for suggestions on certain things and were quite active in the suggestions sub-forum for a bit. It probably also depends on the stage of development as well. Personally, I don't expect the devs to respond to every suggestion.
With that in mind, they still haven't come looking for my super-secret one-line solution to multi-directional trade in EU4(5) - hopefully that means they've already figured it out themselves

I remember back in the Wiz days of 2015/16 they used to run a system where they would hit "helpful" if they had read your suggestion. Perhaps it could be brought back as a starting point if that's what concerns people.

As per the new handling of suggestions threads outlined here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...know-if-your-suggestion-has-been-read.864192/

As such, if your suggestion thread appears to have vanished, check the suggestions forum. I'm only going to move threads that are very clearly direct suggestions, threads like 'I think perhaps we should change something about X' or 'Let's discuss my ideas about Y' will not be moved. Please do not try to backseat moderate the threads of other users by calling for them to be moved.

Wiz's link:

Since people still seem to think we don't read this forum, I am going to make the following changes in how I, personally, handle the suggestions forum.

1) I will mark any thread I've read, starting today, as 'Helpful'. I will not go back and mark older posts 'Helpful'. You can assume any thread posted before today, June 18th, has been read by someone.

2) If a post is marked 'Helpful' it does not mean I agree with it, or that it will be implemented. It just means I read it.

3) If a post is NOT marked 'Helpful', it does not mean it wasn't read. Other devs also read this forum (I will encourage but not force them to also make use of the 'Helpful' button).

4) Any thread that is bumped by the OP with 'Why hasn't my post been read??' will be locked and/or deleted. Anyone else doing this gets infracted.

5) Any threads in the main EU4 forum that actually belong here will be moved here.

 

[PhoenixG]

They just can look how Triumph does. It's even on this site how they do. There is always someone from QA that gives comment on it. Even on bug reports, you'll just get a reply that it's a confirmed bug or it's WAD. Here it's just post a bug and pray they looked at it.

 

[lolada]

Its kind of enough to have devs active a bit in discussion forums - its really nice to see likes of Groogy and Johan engage in discussion sometimes here. Its way better than to have some administrator collect ideas and present it for them (they already do this for suggestions i think). Their understanding of issues is likely much different than that of some admin that do this just because he has to to get paid. And i don't trust these admin to convey issues to devs without screwing the meaning up, unintentionally or not.

Their direct involvement in forum discussions matter much more so i'd rather have rare post from them than obligatory admin confirmation that thread is read.

 

[Nuklearius]

#

 

[holyvigil]

How you treat your dedicated fans is important.

I'm not disappointed with eu4 personally though. They answer better than others I've had experience with.

 

[Giob]

I don't think Devs are in touch with their community very much.

I see some absolutely perfect suggestions on this forum frequently, where my reaction is "this is interesting, this sounds fun, it is easy to implement into the game, I want it" or "this is so much simpler yet more intuitive than Paradox system, why don't we have it?".
Instead what we get is corruption, territorial limits, trade company nonsense, broken forts, useless DLCs and so on. Instead of working on some extremely obvious issues like lack of protectorates, global institution progression, mana based development system, expel minority genocide we get coastal forts and Marines.

Fixing ever-low manpower and Mercspam is nice, but this issue was around for so long, I don't understand how you could neglect it for years as it totally broke the balance and the fun of the game. And they still haven't fixed Global Military Access, extremely poor hordes and laughable tariffs. I could continue the list for forever because there is so much small, yet obviously broken stuff in EU4... and it keeps on piling on ever since Common Sense, though that DLC itself was by far the worst thing that happened to EU4. I'm still amazed by how broken the game was when introduced forts and development, and I don't think it ever quite recovered from that. 1000s of sensible suggestions were made on these forums and the Devs ignored them all. I don't think they are doing most of their mistakes on purpose, but they have terrible judgement on what the game needs for sure.

It's not even a matter of acquiescing to peoples' "demands". Whenever there is a problem the entire PDX staff simply doesn't bother to address it, either closing down the thread or simply ignoring any messages "criticizing" them or belittling/dismissing the posters with jokes. Bothering to actually having conversations with users would go a long way towards restoring their faith in the games.

 

[bly08]

There are many obstacles on the devs' side with clausewitz, old scripts/code, and limited resources. Bugs or suggestions that may seem easy to fix/implement may actually be impossible. So I definitely do not appreciate how little feedback there is on what can and cannot be fixed/implemented and instead just letting these bug reports and suggestion threads rot.

I have wasted so much time on trying to identify weird issues in my runs instead of playing the game. It would be nice to get feedback even along the lines of "this won't be looked at for a while" so that I at least know not to bother with making the threads again. I feel like an apology is the least they can do but my sense is Jake actually thought he was doing a good job? I've never seen any dev show a hint of remorse or say "we'll try to do better" even for PR.

I'm now a fairly old school gamer that started with BW and have played LoL, Civ, and also CM/FM for many years. I've been involved with many different communities and have always resisted mob mentality. EU4 management has made me more angry than any other game, and playing SP EU4 has been more frustrating than ranked LoL ever was even before chat restriction and the report system.

Despite all the complaining I obviously do have positive suggestions for the game from experience. But I can't post anything if the devs are still making random nerfs from dev clashes and comfortable with being out of touch.

A lot of the misunderstanding I see are philosophical and hard to talk about with no feedback. For example, what are the incentives of conquering land? Why do players do it? Why are some idea group favored over others? The answers are simple but long. But if devs have no clue at this level then the complicated stuff isn't worth discussing.

 

[Meglok]

Every suggestion and bug report is looked at by staff. They do not have time to comment or discuss every post with the poster. If they have a question on the submission they will contact the OP. Valid bugs are queued for fixing depending upon the severity and what the upcoming patch plans are. Suggestions that look feasible from a time and game integration standpoint will be discussed in house and possibly incorporated.

Suggestions for a game in the late stages of development like EU4 that look good might be moved to EU5 rather than trying to integrate them into EU4. The problem with suggestions is they have to fit into the game with causing major disruption in other sections of the code, as well as adding something valuable to the overall game play in the eyes of the game director.

 

[drpolgi]

I've been playing CM-FM since 1999 but I wouldn't say Sports Interactive's way is better than Paradox's.

Every time when a new patch is coming for FM it's just there and it is what it is because they think it is OK. No preview streams or discussion what is coming not even proper patch notes but something like this: "We have adjusted the match engine."

They change very extrem things sometimes like very OP turns into trash. If you built your squad for wing play and they nerf wingers your season will be a pain. One season can be 10-20 hours dependening on your play style.

The way Paradox shows dev diary streams is much better I think.

 

[Etrutian]

I believe the forum has a section for just suggestions and a section for debate. Or, I've never bothered going to the suggestion specific part of the forum, so I assume they are not often debated.

 

[MinhowMinhow]

Not whiteknighting, but Paradox still treats the community well. Instead, just compare them with Blizzard.
I played Starcraft 2 non stop from 2010 to 2017, but they way that they handle the community, the patches that broke that game and lack of communication made me quit.
After they removed the ladders from older expansions (WoL and HotS) and made LotV the only playable content, I just played EU4 more. When I went into these forums I could see the difference: Dev diaries, devs answering common posts, you can upvote/downvote moderators and devs. The difference with Blizzard is huge.
There are no dev diaries, just rarely they show some reasons to patches, but nothing constant. You cannot rate a dev post, they can make absurd changes and you cannot rate them and they dont answer any questions. They removed the support from old ladders, the community made lots of topics about that, people quit the game ( old ladders had 10-20% of games played) and after 2 years they didn't said anything.
Paradox is the opposite, comparing that with the Corruption from territories that was an unpopular change that they will revert and they gave lots of information because of this change. Golden Century dev diaries had a lot of downvotes and caused a developer to answer the community and the DLC be patched.
So yeah, Paradox isn't that bad, there are worse companies over there.

 

[EarlKonrad]

Not whiteknighting, but Paradox still treats the community well. Instead, just compare them with Blizzard.
I played Starcraft 2 non stop from 2010 to 2017, but they way that they handle the community, the patches that broke that game and lack of communication made me quit.
After they removed the ladders from older expansions (WoL and HotS) and made LotV the only playable content, I just played EU4 more. When I went into these forums I could see the difference: Dev diaries, devs answering common posts, you can upvote/downvote moderators and devs. The difference with Blizzard is huge.
There are no dev diaries, just rarely they show some reasons to patches, but nothing constant. You cannot rate a dev post, they can make absurd changes and you cannot rate them and they dont answer any questions. They removed the support from old ladders, the community made lots of topics about that, people quit the game ( old ladders had 10-20% of games played) and after 2 years they didn't said anything.
Paradox is the opposite, comparing that with the Corruption from territories that was an unpopular change that they will revert and they gave lots of information because of this change. Golden Century dev diaries had a lot of downvotes and caused a developer to answer the community and the DLC be patched.
So yeah, Paradox isn't that bad, there are worse companies over there.

I wholeheartedly agree that Paradox, when compared to many other studios of their size, and even some smaller ones, is much more transparent and communicative. That is worth of praise. However, in 2018 and 2019 they did almost the opposite and even when saying that they acknowledge the community and would again listen to feedback they failed to deliver on their promises. But now, now with Johan at the helm the future looks bright. He can usually be found interacting with the community and is interested in getting feedback from the players.

P.S: Oh man, don't even get me started on Blizzard patch history. I'm most experienced with WC3 and, while they lately made some good adjustments to the game, some of the changes were quite baffling.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

Not whiteknighting, but Paradox still treats the community well. Instead, just compare them with Blizzard.

Blizzard definitely don't show a good example.

 

[gasior]

Not whiteknighting, but Paradox still treats the community well. Instead, just compare them with Blizzard.

Comparing blizzard to paradox is kind of pointless.. But yes, blizzard treated their playerbase very badly. Not only Sc2 but also Diablo3(that entire development was surrounding with devs stating 'we know better'), WoW and probably other game playerbases got treated badly... And they are paying for it... From being beloved company by entire generation they became a laughing joke put on par with companies like EA. And loosing player base trust might result in huge repercussions(if not now then in the future.).

 

[British Honeybadger]

In my wildest dreams, I imagine Paradox buying the World of Warcraft franchise, because Paradox actually cares about making games. I love the IP, and the core game has such a massive fanbase, but Acti-Blizzy does not handle criticism well.

Johan talked about retiring recently because Rome wasn't received well...read like he was a little depressed about making a game that on launch was kinda "meh"...lol...most other developers only are after $$$