Sweeping "Bad publicity" threads under the rug unfairly?

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  • kyo28
    kyo28 Posts: 161 Tile Toppler

    Brigby, just curious, if I were to write a post in "General Discussion" titled "How Awesome this game is" and I express in it all the things I find awesome about this game, would that also be moved to "suggestions and feedback"? I seriously doubt it.

    It sounds to me that "suggestions and feedback" seem to reflect more on a technical nature of feedback and less on our 'feelings' as customers. In that regard I think Johnny's post wasn't all that misplaced in this forum.

    This is a commercial company and needs to make money. I understand and even encourage that. Turning a good profit also benefits continued game development. In that regard, I also understand that negative publicity is something you can miss like a sore throat. But sweeping it under the rug is never the answer ... quite the contrary, it fuels the fires of hate of the consumers.

    The only way to deal with this is to:

    1. At the very least acknowledge the feelings of the customer(s)
    2. When there really is a problem, acknowledge there is one
    3. State that you are working on a fix for said problem and actually do so with your customer(s) wellbeing in mind
    4. implement the fix and compensate the affected customers where necessary

    If you do that, then you will turn a negative feeling in your customer base 180° around into a positive vibe: "look how they listen to our concerns and care about us!" will be the general response, urging more customers to join and giving great feedback.

    I work in a commercial organisation and deal with customers on a daily basis. This is how I treat them and their complaints and I get overwhelmingly positive feedback.

  • WalrusGooner
    WalrusGooner Posts: 62 Match Maker
    fight4thedream said:

    I have debated at great length with the other mods about ... the lack of clarity of the purpose of the GD with its sub-heading "Come here to talk about any game-related topics." It's too open-ended and I feel the primary cause of confusion when people decide to post things here that might be better-suited for other forums.
    This exactly. A revision to the forum description would go a long way toward topics being posted in other, appropriate subforums. I had a post a while back that I nearly put in the Roster Advice subforum, but the "any game-related topics" phrase made me think I could put it here. It ultimately got moved to the Roster Advice subforum... where it got no further traffic. Anyway, not quite two birds with one stone if you change the description, but maybe it leads to that?
  • Magic
    Magic Posts: 1,199 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited April 2017
    My issue with the Suggestion and Feedback is that... I never go there (and I am a daily user of the forum). I just expect too many suggested characters, suggested skills, suggested new tokens, suggested image changes, suggested UI changes, suggested...

    All respect where it's due but I find it as a waste of time when the suggestion/feedback communication is one sided. If that section would be lively with comments from the development team - sure. I would love it. Otherwise it seem like a wall that people come over and whisper their wishes. To quote the forum description: Let us know what you think will make our game better.

    So I prefer to stay in the GD part and talk to other forum members while I don't expect development team to lurk there or ever comment (you can see how any comment from the community managers is raved about - think how it would be if the developers would step in to talk to the players). 

    So this is how I see it. Suggestion-Feedback section is for the attempted discussion with the people behind the game. General discussion is for a conversation between the players. The OP post was clearly directed at other players so it's place is GD.  
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    Alsmir said:
    Standard procedure, before real censorship kicks in. Move important threads into sub-forum that nobody reads.
    Right now I'm expecting a bunch of new accounts, that start posting about "how the game is great and vaultink rocks".
    I've already seen one or two.
  • OneLastGambit
    OneLastGambit Posts: 1,963 Chairperson of the Boards

    I think that rather than informing us what shouldn't be in general discussion perhaps it might be better for mods/devs/brigby to let us know what is appropriate for discussion in GD?

    Johnnys thoughts on the game is a general overview of his experience regarding a recent change. It is appropriate for both General Discussion and Feedback. I think if traffic needs to be directed to other sub-forums we need clearer guidelines as to what constitutes "General Discussion" as far as I can tell any non specified comments regarding the game fits into General Discussion so Johnnys post was in one of only 2 places which it belonged (GD and Feedback) no real need to move it.

    I've had my posts moved in the past and mods have always informed me that it was moved and why and I've never had an issue as I can usually see their reasoning and/or objective. This time doesn't seem like it was necessary.

  • mohio
    mohio Posts: 1,690 Chairperson of the Boards
    I thought of a quick example to illustrate this issue, they all revolve around the same idea, but presented differently. Where do they belong?

    "Hey, I encountered this bug. All my CD tiles are dealing damage when they go to 0" - This belongs in the technical issues/bugs sub-forum right?

    "Hey, I encountered this bug. All my CD tiles are dealing damage when they go to 0. I love it, can we have this be the new normal please?" - I suppose this is a suggestion? Is that where it belongs?

    "Hey, I encountered this bug. All my CD tiles are dealing damage when they go to 0. I love it, can we have this be the new normal please? It really adds more strategy to forming teams and gives much needed added value to CD-based characters. What do you all think, do you like it or not?" - Adding that little bit at the end opens it up for discussion, but in the end is it really just a suggestion? 

    Frankly, we've all seen posts like these last ones. Some of them stay in GD, some of them get banished to suggestions and feedback. There doesn't seem any rhyme or reason to which get to stay and which must go. It's a frustrating way to run the forums for us users, especially when we have limited time to spend here and want to see all the quick hits in one spot. 
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited April 2017
    OneLastGambit said:

    I think that rather than informing us what shouldn't be in general discussion perhaps it might be better for mods/devs/brigby to let us know what is appropriate for discussion in GD?

    Exactly!  If there is a generally a good discussion going on in a thread isn't that what the title says should be there?  I always took suggestions as more of a drop your idea in the box to never know if they read it or not, not a place to have serious discussions with the community at large and the devs about major issues with the state of the game...
  • TxMoose
    TxMoose Posts: 4,319 Chairperson of the Boards
    Brigby said:
    ...I do agree that any sort of feedback should live in the Suggestions & Feedback section of the forum. General Discussion was never meant to be a section for any and all topics to reside, therefore the moderators and I are trying to bring traffic to other areas by re-organizing posts to their appropriate locations.
    this seems to be very nebulous and loose policy that seems to be selectively applied.  if strictly adhered to, most GD threads should go to other subforums - character, roster, or feedback/suggestions.  this is another reason my activity here will be very infrequent.  this along with the horribly inefficient formatting.
  • JamieMadrox
    JamieMadrox Posts: 1,798 Chairperson of the Boards
    General Discussion is appropriate for any topics that are game related and would not fall in to one of the other defined forums.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    Hypothetically: If you're running your own restaurant and people come by everyday to protest, then wouldn't you want to silence those people?  I don't blame them for moving toxic threads to less seen locations.
  • Beer40
    Beer40 Posts: 826 Critical Contributor
    bbigler said:
    Hypothetically: If you're running your own restaurant and people come by everyday to protest, then wouldn't you want to silence those people?  I don't blame them for moving toxic threads to less seen locations.
    Or, you know, try to make your customers happy so they don't have reason to complain...
  • JamieMadrox
    JamieMadrox Posts: 1,798 Chairperson of the Boards
    Beer40 said:
    bbigler said:
    Hypothetically: If you're running your own restaurant and people come by everyday to protest, then wouldn't you want to silence those people?  I don't blame them for moving toxic threads to less seen locations.
    Or, you know, try to make your customers happy so they don't have reason to complain...
    Problem with that is you can't please everybody all of the time. Also, unhappy people are often more vocal than indifferent/happy people so they can make it SEEM like there is an outraged majority when in reality there isn't.
  • Beer40
    Beer40 Posts: 826 Critical Contributor
    Jamie Madrox said:
    Beer40 said:
    bbigler said:
    Hypothetically: If you're running your own restaurant and people come by everyday to protest, then wouldn't you want to silence those people?  I don't blame them for moving toxic threads to less seen locations.
    Or, you know, try to make your customers happy so they don't have reason to complain...
    Problem with that is you can't please everybody all of the time. Also, unhappy people are often more vocal than indifferent/happy people so they can make it SEEM like there is an outraged majority when in reality there isn't.
    Fair enough, but I don't think "hiding them", like the post I quoted suggested, is an appropriate answer either.
  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,495 Chairperson of the Boards
    Honestly,  you have bad moderators who are as equally inept at communications as demi.  I see no subtlety or tact in how they deal with and interact with forum users.

    Have you ever considered having a poll where we may offer 360 degree feedback on their performance?  This is pretty commonly done in most corporations and serves as a feedback loop as to how well they serve the ultimate customer, "the users"
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    Beer40 said:
    bbigler said:
    Hypothetically: If you're running your own restaurant and people come by everyday to protest, then wouldn't you want to silence those people?  I don't blame them for moving toxic threads to less seen locations.
    Or, you know, try to make your customers happy so they don't have reason to complain...
    Perhaps the problem lies in the people that complain and not the product.  I don't have a problem with the recent changes.  I understand why they did them and see the reasoning behind it. 
  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,495 Chairperson of the Boards
    My suggestion is that you should term limit the mods to 4 maybe 5 seasons.  Thats supposed to be a volunteer role to help aid and shape discussion.  But they've been in that role for so long that they no longer help shape or spark discussion.  In fact most users would say that they really stifle the conversation.

    Plus give the compensation to the users who actually need it.  I'm more than fine with giving the covers, iso and hp to newer 3*/4* players who have the energy and desire to explore the contours of the game.

    I'm less excited about giving high level users more ammunition for them to enforce their personal beliefs via sniping in the actual game.  Let them spend their own cash to pursue their vision of how the game should operate.

    Even if they are bad moderators, term limits ensure that the long time users only have to deal with them for 4 or 5 seasons.
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