Spider-Ham, oh where art thou....

Kojubat

HoundofShadow said:

I don't see the point of forcing an answer out of the devs if they can't or aren't ready to reveal what's going to happen in the future or what they plan to do.

If the players are happy with seeing replies like these to their questions:

1) "we are looking into this..."
2) "this is something in our to-do list but..."
3) "we can't reveal anything yet due to contractual reason(s)."
4) "X will be delayed due to..."
5) "X will be delayed again due to..."

Then, personally, I think the responses are quite meaningless.

You are entitled to your opinion, but my opinion is that you don't understand what the people who disagree with you are saying.

Are you in a friendly relationship of any kind with another sentient being? If they ask you a question, are they satisfied that if you ignore that a question was even asked, there is an implied polite answer that you are not ready to answer the question and they should stop asking?

Or is it more likely that they will think you are being rude and possibly start rethinking the relationship?

HoundofShadow

IMO, the devs has made their stance pretty clear as far as "future" questions is concerned. 

Back in 2014, this is their reply to "future" questions:

A: “When” questions are super tough question to answer because they’re often out of our hands. We have first parties that need to approve our game, we have external events that pop up, and many other things that will constantly force us to shift priorities around. We love being able to directly answer questions, but “When” is a hard thing to stick a pin on, and we hate to disappoint.

In 2018, this is their response to similar "when" questions:

While we usually say little about future plans*:

<Snipped off unrelated parts>

*: Reasons for this: software development, creative work, and entertaining people are all messy and unpredictable, and when you cross the three together in a live game, making very many promises can lock you into disaster. And we know most of you are happiest with more detail and dislike when something you're expecting changes, so we typically talk about new things when we're certain of the details. Because of the nature of game development, that's usually when the feature's about to come out.

Let's be honest, many of you are not interested in the devs' replies if they aren't replies that you want to hear. You want to hear only things you want to hear. 

During last year FAQs, the devs have answered many of the important or common questions that the players have asked. Yet, similar questions are still being asked today because the devs didn't give answers that you want to hear.

Deep down inside, you only want to know when they are going to implement what you think is the best solution(s) to the game. If they don't implement it, they don't care about players' feedbacks.

bluewolf

An online FTP game is by definition a moving target.  New characters and features (Supports) arrive and it seems like it might be worth revisiting questions a year after they were answered.  Or even months later.

6 months ago they decided, apparently, to change up the PVE rewards to push out the Latest 3 people.  That was not communicated to the players, just observed.

Costumes happened.  Non-costume bundles are much less prevalent that last year.  We still don't know if costumes will become something you can gain through play or if that was a bit of PR speak.  Nor if prior costumes will become available again.  

To be honest, if all answers are the same, it says to me that the game is not going to evolve much further or address the questions in a significant fashion, as many issues are the same one year later.

While every answer will draw negative responses from some of the thousands of people reading it, that does not negate the benefit of communication in some fashion.  Look at the number of comments on a typical thread - even if it's 100 comments (often being multiple comments from each user) there are 1000's that probably read the information and processed it or otherwise accepted it, maybe even approved of it.

The playerbase is losing morale quickly.  Maybe there's nothing to be done about that based on the limitations of the business model and game's base 5 year old structure.

jredd

@HoundofShadow

i don't think we are so much asking when or future questions. more so, rather questions of, 'do you hear what we're saying' and is it on your radar? or are we just being ignored.  

Spudgutter

Friendly reminder to everyone, there is the option to "ignore" people.  Just click on a name, and off to the right is a little button fora drop down menu, with the only option being to "ignore."  you still see that they posted, but it leaves it closed so that you don't get sucked into feeding the trolls.

ZootSax

HoundofShadow said:
During last year FAQs...

This right here is the crux of my issue with developer communication.  When you’re citing "recent" communication in very late March of 2019, you have to go back to a 2018 post (by an admittedly long-standing, respected member of the forum) which was not expected to turn into a developer Q&A session--merely a thread to air common criticisms and questions.  Beyond that, current information seems to come from the Puzzle Warrior's discord (again, a privately created entity, rather than an official one with no guarantee of regular developer insight) or the rare guest appearances on that same podcast.  

Contrast this to when I started (shortly before the first anniversary) when there were monthly videos of the developers relaying information on new releases, events and other relevant game information (search "community video" on the "News and Announcement" section of the forum, if you never saw these).   Was all the information well received and did it address all of the players' concerns?  Absolutely not, but even in a few minutes, the videos could give a bit more insight into the intent and purpose of various changes or releases than simple bullet points in a release note list or the forum announcement posts.  Also the talk of the game shutting down are WAY more common now in this era of relative-"radio silence" than they were when communication was regular and more predictable.  

I'm by no means saying there isn't every reason for the development team to withhold quite a bit from the player base for any number of reasons ranging from game balance to profit margins, but based on past communication trends, they've shown there's a much happier medium between full disclosure and what we have today.  That's all I (and presumably many of us) are asking for.

(hopefully this goes without saying, but I obviously don't mean to undermine the good work @Brigby already does here; there's just always room for improvement )