Example of how another company treats suggestions from players

[British Honeybadger]

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.).

Its not just the whole "treating the fanbase poorly thing" - all though that's reflective of the problem.

The bigger problem is that their only truly fresh IP in 20 years is Overwatch.

There's also the split fanbase. Pretty much everyone who plays Paradox games wants varying levels of depth...Stellaris is the simplist Paradox game and its absolutely mind-bogglingly complex compared to most games. Half of Blizzard's fanbase wants games that are as deep and complex as EU4 while the other half seems to want World of Warcraft: Candy Crush Edition.

 

[British Honeybadger]

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.

Well EU has roughly the same lifespan as WoW, a little longer really, depending on how you want to look at it.

EU4 gets better every patch, every expansion. I thought it rivaled XCom for GOAT strategy game before Rule Britania, which offered improvements I really enjoyed. At this stage, its basically the Tom Brady of strategy games....no real argument for any other game compared to it.

WoW...and basically all of Actision Blizzard at this stage...is in complete disarray. They have art teams, and the rest is RNG slot machine...and the underlying game mechanics are not well designed or fun. I get that you have a creative lapse here or there, but when its just everywhere...you gotta start asking questions.

Offer Johan a tip about how to improve EU4, and pretty good odds he'll personally respond. Offer a tip about how to improve WoW and the white knight green mods will remove your stuff or ban you.

I sometimes wonder how much of this is cultural. Paradox is a very Swedish company, whereas Acti-Blizzard is run by certain people centered in New York.

 

[Zukhani]

Fake and you don't even play EU4.

 

[Johan]

Offer Johan a tip about how to improve EU4, and pretty good odds he'll personally respond.

Well.. There are so many posts that the chance of me responding is rather low. The chance of me reading them is very very high though.

 

[Canute VII]

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 $$$

That makes me remember DDRJake saying that Golden Century sold exceptionally well and therefore bad reviews didn't matter. Well, you can only draw down trust ever so often, can you? Especially if you send conflicting messages like "we will look into fan feedback" while wearing an iconic T-shirt "ignore the peasant rubble". Anyway, we' ll never be able to look behind the scenes...

 

[Major Malfunction]

That makes me remember DDRJake saying that Golden Century sold exceptionally well and therefore bad reviews didn't matter. Well, you can only draw down trust ever so often, can you? Especially if you send conflicting messages like "we will look into fan feedback" while wearing an iconic T-shirt "ignore the peasant rubble". Anyway, we' ll never be able to look behind the scenes...

I am sure he can exercise his attitude with Imperator now.

 

[fr-rein]

The problem is usually about things that were already added and changing them. Thus, it is more about feedback and suggestions on existing content rather than new one.

Examples - Reformation working on Orthodoxy casually, Minority Expulsion (with Muslim America, Spaniard Italy and Holland, etc), convertion balance, bugs bugs bugs, most non-critical mistakes, etc. They get resolved later, pushed in long box and forgotten for a while in most cases while jumping on next thing.

One thing in particular is Cossack government, Sich Rada, which has no estates because:

Nah sorry we changed our mind. They already get the full bonus from the Cossack estate in their government. They are supposed to represent a group of freedom loving people on the Steppe who accept serfs fleeing from oppression. It would be weird for them to have a merchant or nobility class within their society. Clergy I can see the argument but for now they won't have any estates.

Not answering why no factions, but whatever.
A few months later after the comment and relatively overpowered meme-pirates arrive and receive far more playable, powerful and fun government which is better than even regular merchant republic and aren't usually located between few scary blobs.

This is not even about Sich Rada alone - it is how the general issues people had with republics were left unaddressed while new feature is prioritized and made more OP than regular one.

 

[Jarvin]

Well.. There are so many posts that the chance of me responding is rather low. The chance of me reading them is very very high though.

So if I spam suggestions forum with.. suggestions you will actually read them?
wowies

All Hail Johan, the true MVP of Modern EU4!

 

[StefanFan]

I am not saying PDX does a terrible job, I rate them highly, I say that there are things that can be improved in terms of communication and centralization of information. For example, if the bugs section would have a thread centralizing all reports that were deemed worthy of review, even if they are dismissed, people would do a search before posting something new, and see that.

My point is that good communication and an open heart to what the community had to say had a massive impact on sales and reviews. FM still has its problems, each release will always have bugs, will lack some requested features, will implement some of them in a way not everybody will like that, but the bottom line is that they try and people see that.

I see on this forum many people disgruntled by the perceived lack of interest from developers towards old supposedly or real bugs, features, lack of action towards some mechanics, etc. I believe many of those issues arise from a lack of communication.

But, who am I to argue

Happy Easter!

PS: I'd see this communication side as an appanage of a communication manager, not a game developer. It would be a big problem for a developer to have to constantly answer to some little prick's questions instead of doing what they know best. With a weekly resume for the developers, classified after their importance. Deadly/Important/WTF/Somebody forgot to take his pills, and type of request, Mechanics/New Provinces/New Countries/Religion/Easter Bunny, etc.

 

[StefanFan]

Most players aren't qualified to even make suggestions that should be taken seriously.

On the technical side, I agree with you, I play the game for years and I still totally suck, but this is an entitled attitude that would damage the game, because this is not a game for the few, but for the many, at least that's what PDX wants, I doubt they'd want me and a hundred more people grinding for achievements and no more other clients.

 

[lolada]

@StefanFan You got good points here - its about trying to do the best thing. Honestly people felt some devs recently did not care and now we have hostile forums.

I think DDRJake outright was dishonest (read: lied) in that last years big december DD, when he practically apologized, and where he said team will change its way and be transparent la la la... Lots of people saw though that.. or in any case lost all trust in game's lead that apology and promise just wasn't enough anymore. Doesn't matter now.. we hope for good fresh lead to regain trust.

People are happy with Johan returning back because they expect he genuinely care about the game. Thats telling.

So please do features that are good for the game and people will buy DLC. Community is active on the forums - there's no way devs don't know what players want in and out of the game. There's no need to create obscure DLCs features to nudge players to buy DLC..

 

[StefanFan]

Spot on mate, spot on.

 

[BurnC]

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

I think is not fair compare a company like SI to Paradox, mostly cause the manpower they have available for the FM games is not comparable to what Paradox has available for Eu4.
I used to have that game, did research for them and even did some custom work for the game so i know the amount of people and organization they have. I don't think it's possible for a game like EU4 to generate enough money to have even half of the people they have to work on the game/forums. (Probably not even 1/4)
In my experience i find that, in terms of listening feedback and implement it, Paradox is actually quite good, most of the games i've been playing devs just ignore the feedback from players and just worry on how to increase revenues.
Obviously there's always room for improvement, having someone from the game giving some feedback to the suggestions would be nice, but i do understand that the manpower they have might not be enough for that. (I would prefer them fixing and implementing new stuff instead of doing the feedback)

 

[mechanical_Critter]

In my experience i find that, in terms of listening feedback and implement it, Paradox is actually quite good, most of the games i've been playing devs just ignore the feedback from players and just worry on how to increase revenues.

I think you're missing the point. It's not about the "how much", it's about the "how". No one precisely knows what issues are being tracked down. Not even the devs apparently given that @StarNaN put up a recent thread for that reason. Trying to give an example (you might disagree with it, if you do please find for yourself a better one instead of arguing on it), we have some random things that, to me, constitute buzzing noise ("oh we have too much money" - btw never played outside of europe) becoming disastrous features (money on missionaries), while other issues are reported over and over without ever being fixed (lying UI).

Again. It's not about the "how much". As people made painfully clear, we are aware that Clausewitz has limitations, we're alright with that. Just, some consideration towards bug reports & suggestions to simply *let us know* what is being tracked and what isn't would go a long way, as @lolada and @StefanFan said.

 

[Jarvin]

constitute buzzing noise ("oh we have too much money" - btw never played outside of europe) becoming disastrous features (money on missionaries), while other issues are reported over and over without ever being fixed (lying UI).

I mean let's be honest
the case of increased cost of missionaries and many others including end game tags, corruption from territories etc. isn't just Paradox trying to tackle something which isn't an issue, but rather finding a horrendous fix for them.
It's undeniably true that in some cases money is worthless in this game, or that in some cases its too easy to abuse some random tag switches, but the way PDS tried to fix these issues was counterproductive and only made things worse, hence it's not a problem with how they listen, but rather what they do with what they gather from people

 

[szmik]

My problem with Pdx "fixes" for the game is, they are made against minority of players abusing mechanics. Why do they even care for such extreme cases? Surely, they are most discussed on forums by very vocal min-max players, but why waste resources and eventually annoy other players too? Maybe because DDRjake was/is one of them, extreme min-maxers, who need more challenge, but then those changes affect all other players. And all the changes didn't even make it a challenge, more of an annoyance (I'm looking at you corruption).

Btw EU4 has the best AI of all Pdx games so far. Whether this shows good work on EU4 or terrible on other titles, I'm not to say.

PS. I might be totally wrong here.

 

[British Honeybadger]

That makes me remember DDRJake saying that Golden Century sold exceptionally well and therefore bad reviews didn't matter. Well, you can only draw down trust ever so often, can you? Especially if you send conflicting messages like "we will look into fan feedback" while wearing an iconic T-shirt "ignore the peasant rubble". Anyway, we' ll never be able to look behind the scenes...

Community management for high time-investment games like EU4 or WoW is not an easy job. A lot of the people who you are dealing with are people who spend 40+ hours per week on games, who are NEET, who rely on government or family members for support, and/or who have unmanaged psychiatric problems.

Jake's not perfect, but compare him to Lore or the various cringe moments from Blizzcon last year.

 

[DerGrößteRitter]

Community management for high time-investment games like EU4 or WoW is not an easy job. A lot of the people who you are dealing with are people who spend 40+ hours per week on games, who are NEET, who rely on government or family members for support, and/or who have unmanaged psychiatric problems.

Jake's not perfect, but compare him to Lore or the various cringe moments from Blizzcon last year.

Um, where do you get this idea from?

 

[British Honeybadger]

Um, where do you get this idea from?

That Jake compares very favorably to Lore? I think its obvious...he does...in every respect. He likes the games he represents better, his social skills are better, his aesthetic isn't immediately off-putting.

That most of the current WoW social interaction is toxic? When the game was actually fun to play, it attracted a fairly typical group of nerds, most social interaction was pretty good, administration wasn't bad. Now that gameplay is awful and there are mainly addicts and people on disability left, social interaction is commonly toxic.

Have you jumped into an HOI4 MP discord? More erudite and civil than the wow community, but its basically 4chan.

Managing this type of stuff on a full time basis like a community manager has to is...unpleasant. That Jake - who has a vibrant Youtube chanel and probably some other sources of income - moved on to other things is not surprising.

 

[lolada]

My problem with Pdx "fixes" for the game is, they are made against minority of players abusing mechanics. Why do they even care for such extreme cases? Surely, they are most discussed on forums by very vocal min-max players, but why waste resources and eventually annoy other players too? Maybe because DDRjake was/is one of them, extreme min-maxers, who need more challenge, but then those changes affect all other players. And all the changes didn't even make it a challenge, more of an annoyance (I'm looking at you corruption).

Btw EU4 has the best AI of all Pdx games so far. Whether this shows good work on EU4 or terrible on other titles, I'm not to say.

PS. I might be totally wrong here.

*Had best AI. If it still has best AI then darn its low standards.... Basically some players know that AI can be much better so they are quite unhappy team let AI erode.
Team kept spamming new DLCs and mechanics and didnt update AI and we came to this situation (this started before DDRJake so its not just on him).

- In one of last dev diaries devs explained that they improved economy AI and budgeting. Thats great - step 1 to good AI back. So kudos to that.

Now we need step 2.. War AI has gone terribly bad recently.. whoever implemented this siege race AI ruined it.. and run to siberia - to engage in carpet siege behavior. Its awful.

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