How often do you visit the suggestion forum?

wirius

Suggestion forum is here if people didn't know:
viewforum.php?f=8

TxMoose

after general dusgustion, tips, and events, i'll catch up on characters/suggestions/bugs.

Punisher5784

OMG there is a section for Suggestions?! I had no idea this existed! I always went to General discussion. Very interesting

Redrobot30

What's that?

wirius

TxMoose wrote:

after general dusgustion,

Made me smile more than that should have.

beyonderbub

Never. Because this game is perfect as is.

JamieMadrox

I'm mentioning this now because I know someone is going to use the results of this poll as an argument against mods doing their job in the future.

It doesn't matter how much YOU read the suggestions and/or bugs forums. What does matter is how much the dev team does. From what I understand the answer to that question is "every day".

simonsez

Jamie Madrox wrote:

It doesn't matter how much YOU read the suggestions and/or bugs forums. What does matter is how much the dev team does. From what I understand the answer to that question is "every day".

It's great that that's what your understanding is, but it'd be even greater if there was some actual evidence of this, like maybe a community manager who would respond to suggestions and bug reports more often than once in a blue moon. For instance, after every bugfix update turul reminds everyone about other bugs that have been around for months without being addressed or even acknowledged. Is it any wonder that people feel like posting in the suggestions and bugs forums is like a tree falling in an empty forest?

Tenaciousdecaf

I used to read the suggestions forum regularly. Once I realized that a very small percentage of suggestions are ever responded to by a red-name, and even fewer are actually implemented in the game, I stopped reading them. MFF recently had a splash screen for Spider-verse characters with the headline "Because you asked for it!" and even though I couldn't care less about those character, I greatly appreciated the fact that they were implementing feedback from their fain base. Like many other users on this forum, I wish there was more communications between the design team, the publishers and the users.

JamieMadrox

simonsez wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

It doesn't matter how much YOU read the suggestions and/or bugs forums. What does matter is how much the dev team does. From what I understand the answer to that question is "every day".

It's great that that's what your understanding is, but it'd be even greater if there was some actual evidence of this, like maybe a community manager who would respond to suggestions and bug reports more often than once in a blue moon. For instance, after every bugfix update turul reminds everyone about other bugs that have been around for months without being addressed or even acknowledged. Is it any wonder that people feel like posting in the suggestions and bugs forums is like a tree falling in an empty forest?

I agree that communication is lacking. There was a point in time where i actually felt like engagement was going to increase, but that quickly passed. I think that they really need more staff. At least one or two more community people and at least 50% more devs. Will should be splitting his time between managing the dev team and interfacing with the community either directly or through David (plus whomever else would be hired).

Moon Roach

I used to go there all the time, with lots of really good ideas on how to improve the game. Ok, some were good, most were meh. But the unanswered echoes of "Bueller? Bueller?" caused me to lose interest.

The main problems with that forum are the duplication of suggestions (landscape mode for tablet springs to mind), closely followed by a search that doesn't always find what you're looking for, trailing in third is unhelpful thread names.

The last thing I ever posted there was a suggestion for a mod to update the Hot Topics thread and keep it updated, with categorisation of topics. If I'd ever gone back I'd have seen a response from a mod suggesting I put something together.

OneLastGambit

I go in there pretty much everytime I log in and most of the time either have a suggestion or comments on someone elses while I'm there. Do I think they are read? Maybe. Do I think they should be responded to? No. The devs don't have time to get into flame wars - which is exactly what happens when they do comment on stuff - when they have to get things ready for the game and monitor...you know, do their jobs.

Engagement would be nice, but I wouldn't care so much about responses if some of the ideas were put into action instead. Now this has been a tad different recently, we asked for :

New events - Venom Bomb, Cho event, GR event
New Stories - See above
A character - people have been asking for ghost rider for a long time
New mechanics (whether its good or not is to be seen)
New prizing structure for placements

Now we got all those things, are they exactly as we want? Nope. They aren't. Could they be better? Yes they definitely could. Consider this though - isn't t better to make changes in baby steps and test the water? yes. Better to get some small victories and keep them than get a huge victory and have it snatched away (we all know how the community feels about nerfs).

In short...err yes I read suggestions

TLCstormz

OneLastGambit wrote:

Better to get some small victories

I call NONE of those things victories.

I call them either pitiful attempts from a company who is completely detached from their consumers or straight up money grubbing and slum lording, while doing the minimal amount of work, most of which you ALREADY KNOW the people who keep your lights turned will not be joyful about. Or both. lol

Pylgrim

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I'm mentioning this now because I know someone is going to use the results of this poll as an argument against mods doing their job in the future.

It doesn't matter how much YOU read the suggestions and/or bugs forums. What does matter is how much the dev team does. From what I understand the answer to that question is "every day".

I understand this. My problem is that the community doesn't support that forum. Meaning that if you go and post a really good suggestion and no one reads it, backs it or comments on it, the devs will quickly skim through, think to themselves "well that seems ok, but it'd be a lot of work to make this one random person who posted it happy", and move quickly to the next without knowing how much the whole community cares about it.

That's why I always have and always will post suggestions in general discussion. The discussion and possible upvotes that they will gather in the few minutes or hours they remain around before the cleaning crew shelves them into the the tidy cupboard on the back may give the devs a better idea of how much the community cares about a certain issue when they get around to read them.

DaveR4470

I check in to the suggestions forum pretty much daily. There's a lot of repetition, though.... Yes, we all hate 20 ISO. I think they're aware of that....

DaveR4470

/rant on

Also, and I already see this happening in this thread.... what frustrates me is a complete lack of understanding of, or even willingness to understand, the potential complexity of making changes in computer software. The 20 ISO thing, for example. Maybe it's a case of just changing one variable in one line of code. Or maybe the 20 ISO is part of a hard-coded subroutine that's called, and is an element of, every ISO-related thing in the game, such that changing it and vetting that none of those calls in other subroutines winds up being game-breaking as a result of the change is hundreds of man-hours of work. WE JUST DON'T KNOW.

To me, almost every suggestion seems to fall into this pattern:

(1) "Hey, you should totally dig out your entire basement and make a swimming pool out of it, and we could have parties there!"
(2) /waits one day
(3) "DUDE THERE'S NO SWIMMING POOL IN THE BASEMENT YOU DON'T LISTEN TO ME YOU ONLY LISTEN TO THE WHALES I'M RAGEQUITTING YOUR HOUSE"

With no in-between.

Chill. This is a mature, feature-complete product that does not have a development-phase staff of 68 coders working double shifts to flesh out new features in a week-level timescale. Be realistic in your expectations.

/rant off

Raffoon

DaveR4470 wrote:

/rant on

Also, and I already see this happening in this thread.... what frustrates me is a complete lack of understanding of, or even willingness to understand, the potential complexity of making changes in computer software. The 20 ISO thing, for example. Maybe it's a case of just changing one variable in one line of code. Or maybe the 20 ISO is part of a hard-coded subroutine that's called, and is an element of, every ISO-related thing in the game, such that changing it and vetting that none of those calls in other subroutines winds up being game-breaking as a result of the change is hundreds of man-hours of work. WE JUST DON'T KNOW.

To me, almost every suggestion seems to fall into this pattern:

(1) "Hey, you should totally dig out your entire basement and make a swimming pool out of it, and we could have parties there!"
(2) /waits one day
(3) "DUDE THERE'S NO SWIMMING POOL IN THE BASEMENT YOU DON'T LISTEN TO ME YOU ONLY LISTEN TO THE WHALES I'M RAGEQUITTING YOUR HOUSE"

With no in-between.

Chill. This is a mature, feature-complete product that does not have a development-phase staff of 68 coders working double shifts to flesh out new features in a week-level timescale. Be realistic in your expectations.

/rant off

I think a more appropriate analogy would be:

Dude, could I get a cup of water?

Months later.... Dude?

$$ Do not worry! We listen to your feedback! All of it! $$

So.... can I have that cup of water?

Months later....

Umm cup of water? Please?

$$We read all your feedback!$$

Then why don't you acknowledge it or act on it?

Dayv

Raffoon wrote:

$$We read all your feedback!$$

Then why don't you acknowledge it or act on it?

I am not speaking for D3 or Demiurge.

They have a policy of not replying to things in Suggestions, but they definitely read them.

I can't tell you why this policy was chosen. I could venture a guess, but it would be reasoned conjecture at best.

One obvious aspect is that if they promise they are working on something, they will be inundated with threads asking why it isn't here yet.

I think the policy could be more nuanced, with some things warranting reply, but perhaps they're concerned that if they reply to some threads, those without replies will stick out like a sore thumb.

It's a sticky issue.

But here's the thing:

Whining about the forum organization isn't going to change it. There's been ample discussion of the Suggestions and Feedback forum, and moderators have discussed the concerns with D3 staff directly. The decision was made to keep the Suggestions and Feedback forum separate from General Discussion.

Yes, this upsets a very vocal minority. But you know what? That group knows where to finds the subforum. If they don't participate there, they only have themselves to blame.

Sure you don't get as many upvotes, pats on the back, and electronic high fives over there, but that really doesn't matter that much. Community support for an idea doesn't matter nearly as much as whether it is feasible, whether the devs think it fits the direction they want the game to go, whether it will earn money (or at least not decrease revenue), and the answer to the most important question of all: is this change important enough to stop work on something else?

With the level of control that some players wish to exert over the development of this game, I think they might be better off working in the open source gaming community. I know I'd love to see some development progress on Nethack again.

(Holy **** I just found out there's an updated Nethack release!)

Chrono_Tata

DaveR4470 wrote:

Also, and I already see this happening in this thread.... what frustrates me is a complete lack of understanding of, or even willingness to understand, the potential complexity of making changes in computer software. The 20 ISO thing, for example. Maybe it's a case of just changing one variable in one line of code. Or maybe the 20 ISO is part of a hard-coded subroutine that's called, and is an element of, every ISO-related thing in the game, such that changing it and vetting that none of those calls in other subroutines winds up being game-breaking as a result of the change is hundreds of man-hours of work. WE JUST DON'T KNOW.

Given that they can easily increase all ISO gains for Anniversary events, it's probably not that hard. And even if it were, they could just simply tell us that it's a complicated problem and would take longer than we would expect. I'm sure most of us would be understanding if they were more open about the process. All they have done so far is acknowledge that it's a problem and yet fails to do anything about it.

Pylgrim

DayvBang wrote:

Whining about the forum organization isn't going to change it. There's been ample discussion of the Suggestions and Feedback forum, and moderators have discussed the concerns with D3 staff directly. The decision was made to keep the Suggestions and Feedback forum separate from General Discussion.

Yes, this upsets a very vocal minority. But you know what? That group knows where to finds the subforum. If they don't participate there, they only have themselves to blame.

Sure you don't get as many upvotes, pats on the back, and electronic high fives over there, but that really doesn't matter that much. Community support for an idea doesn't matter nearly as much as whether it is feasible, whether the devs think it fits the direction they want the game to go, whether it will earn money (or at least not decrease revenue), and the answer to the most important question of all: is this change important enough to stop work on something else?

Nice snide jab at my post instead of an actual reply. I don't want hi-fives or pats on the back; I want discussion and community participation regardless of who made the original post on a suggestion. Nevertheless, the very line that you bolded for emphasis is what I'm arguing for: How would devs know that a change is of vital importance if it doesn't seem as though the community cares for it? That's what upvotes and comments do; they are not reddit karma or whatever you think is the motivation for posters to contribute.

lukewin

I read the forums by "View unread posts". This way, I can see threads that have been updated since I last visited and decide to read them or skip them again. Sucks that I now have to filter thru MtGPQ threads now as well.