Forum communications

[admin]

Hello captains

In terms of this post by @EliteDelta
 

Quote

Are you currently taking a online Public Relations course? That might help stop the negativity. 

Btw, my review is still positive, and always has been. I just know the way people are treated on forums has heavily contributed to the negative reviews. 

Here is the thing. 
I think public relations is not the source of problems, as there is too many definitions and goals of this term.

The problem is in the conversation itself - on this forum. (Community management)

• Compare this forum with Steam forums. At steam forums you are talking with PR people (who are cold and neutral + trained steam mods who help with reports). Perfect for venting, perfect for PR. 
• On this forum you are talking to a designer and project creator. This is not rare, but not common as well. Japanese creators for example do not talk to users openly at all (only through interviews and patch notes) due to cultural differences. Venting is detrimental to finding solutions, to development. 

We always talked to users openly on the daily bases since 2015 and it has been working well since 2013, as the development relied on active feedback and support, built on mutual respect; on constant experimentation and wide swings in changes to find the nuclear reaction and perfect features. We were right here with you all the time. 

Many did not like the experimentation and wide swings causing misunderstanding with the goals (to test everything for this game and future games). That's how yards appeared in game, or historical leeway that we declined to add for at least 1 year, but then added due to community requests. But when community was small everyone was happy about yards, leeway faced a lot of backlash as many wanted us to do something else. 

Every one knows his own reason for communication failures; for one it is the lack of acknowledgment due to lack of time or forum moderation, different views on the priorities and of course bans for posts that incite flame or rage or derail conversations.

There are multiple reasons for this communication style not working, but there is probably only one solution. Creators  seem to be unable to remove cultural differences and communication style; readers do not want to understand those cultural differences and goals of the early access development. Removing the open communication will remove the sources for frustration. 

[Mr. Doran]

9 minutes ago, admin said:

Removing the open communication will remove the sources for frustration. 

 

(((Shut it down))) 

[Miaowi]

Slow clap forum

You finally did it. The (be respectful - the moderation team ) that weedle out of the woodwork to criticize every minutae of every admin announcement have finally scuppered the enthusiasm for discourse.

It's always the same folks too ... you know who you are

[Donjuan Dimarco]

And I want here to emphasize that I only criticize things when I really, really like them 😉

 

[jodgi]

2 minutes ago, Donjuan Dimarco said:

And I want here to emphasize that I only criticize things when I really, really like them 😉

 

That's fine and not the reason behind this topic.

[z4ys]

thx to all the people that go boom everytime theres a dev post. by now we all know the game will never be good enough for those people. i just wish they would finally go away. they are a source of frustration and spoil the gaming fun here in the forum and in global chat/ingame.

i am glad that finally a stricter moderation is a thing. but why stop with the forum? ingame moderation needs to change as well.

 

[Meraun]

maybe am i bit Slow today..

Does this mean we wont get any reaction from Admin besides Patch Notes from now on?

[Abram Svensson]

The problem in my opinion is that mad players are louder than happy ones. With a bigger community you of course get more mad players who get loud when the way of the game isnt in the direction they want. When that gets out of hand and offensive they should get warnings and at last a forum ban.

I always like the direct communication but topics need to get argued in a polite way with respect and reasoning.

A yeah and players should just calm down and chill out. Only time proves if something was wrong or not in the end. Leeway is a good example. After proper tuning no ones complains about it anymore.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Abram Svensson

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

41 minutes ago, admin said:

Removing the open communication will remove the sources for frustration. 

No open communication will result in another source of frustration: experience of not getting heard, getting ignored. Imagine people saying "devs don't care what we want/say/feel/eat as breakfast..."

I think open communication is an asset. It needs to be defended.

Meanwhile, we see here negativity has its destructive effect on everyone.

- On players who ventilate their demands opposite devs and expect always to get what they want, and with becoming familiar with devs over time increase their disrespectful tone as they feel entitled as "recognized member of the community" or even "celebrity" within the NA scene. When overstepping red lines and getting rebuked by ban, they turn to other media, youtube, and do revenge campaigns against devs and the game in hope to "punish" them by another heap of negativity which is believed to cut down sales. In my opinion that only confirms admin's handling of their toxic character, by banning them for bad behavior. More toxicity isn't the way to prove you are not toxic. Obviously.

- On developers because they are artists with sensitive characters. All creative persons, artists, need appreciation for their work and can suffer from constant nagging on it. For example take the composer Rachmaninov. He was heavily criticized for his first compositions and in response to that, stopped to write music for years and focused on a career as concert pianist instead. He was shocked by criticism and discouraged. Much later he overcame his frustration with critics and returned to composing, with very impressive pieces of music we know today. Game developers are taking to heart what you tell them here on the forum in a familiar, hurting, aggressive style. They are not made of wood. That is being forgotten too often. This game, like all war-themed games which involve fighting and shooting, attract partly a clientele which isn't the nicest on the planet. You see them become ganking heroes and seal clubbers, they enjoy defeating others and 'killing' them in game. You can even see them sport a gif as avatar on this forum with a real seal clubber doing his disgusting work. Empathic level is low among them. They boast about their victories and salt is their nourishment. You cannot avoid them, they  are part of the gamer community. Unfortunately, they are the ones with bad manners and abuse.They enjoy their ego by being salty and toxic. So they populate your forums and do behave not much different than they do in game, regulating their testosterone level thereby. You can't ban all of them. You got to live with them in a game like this. Asking them to honor devs more as the artist personalities they are will not work, bullies will just laugh at that and continue. No, you need to control them by a social behavior rule set.

--

So, the solution could be to introduce a public warning system which isn't hidden to users but visible to everyone. Else it won't work. For bad behavior give warnings, first - second - third warning in increasing orange - reddish color. And the warning level will be visible under the avatar. After third warning, if another aggression/lie/flaming is done by this person, he gets banned. Second and third warnings can be accompanied already by short term bans, like one week and one month respectively. By being public, you deny them their revenge campaigns outside the forum while they spread their different version of what happened and why. You counter lies by transparency. Anyone reading their rants can receive a link to forum where it is written how and why the toxic person got banned. The End.

Open communication with all others will continue to work fine, bring the valuable ideas and hints, ease the feedback and testing results. Don't close that source down by reducing the communication exchange. At the end, it will not be good for the game or any other projects coming.

[z4ys]

Just now, Borch said:

Yeah, a**holes. People should never criticize, even the wrong decisions and let the ship sink so nobody at all can sail it. Shoo, go away boom posters!

you can criticize. but there is a difference in the way people do it. you are right some act like smartasses or assholes and that really shouldn't be tolerated. 

[Ligatorswe]

I have been thinking quite a lot about the atmosphere on the forum and in  the game. I remember that I made a forum post once upon the time, december 2014 or january 2015 and wrote that the atmosphere here was the perhaps most friendly I had experienced so far in games and in EA or alpha/beta testing. And it really was so. The forum was superfriendly, the ingame chat was cordial and players acted like gentlemen.

That has changed. But it is nothing unique. I participated a while in Star Citizen, and believe me, the climate here is heaven compared to that game. I gave away my ships and shut down that account. Disgusting.  At the moment i only participate actively in the development of another game, Dual Universe. (There are some interesting similarities between Dual universe and this game, for example the unforgiving environment. That is beginning to change in both games. The discussions about PVE and PVP and protection zones, and trade and everything is the same here and there. )

Let me quote the top post at the moment on the Dual Universe forum. It is a clan that is ragequitting:

"Since we lost all interest in it, FrogSwarm is leaving Dual Universe. From our point of view, the direction of the game design is unfortunately going the wrong way. Ships that you have made for days will not re-spawn after a being destroyed and you'll loose everything. PvP in the game is unfair, we were looking for a 100% safe universe to be able to peacefully mine ORE or explore, but not to be griefed in a non consensual PvP turn. Griefing should never be allowed in a game like this, this is harassment to players and these people should never have the right to annoy anyone, because players behind the screen are real people and they are suffering actions like destroying their ships.... Enough is enough, we are going back on our old roots : Eve Online and World of Tank Classic."

Well. That post and many similar could have been taken from the NA forum and NA debate, right?! 🙂 

The only alpha or beta or EA I have participated in without a hostile atmosphere was a game called Spirit Animal Survival. Last time i checked it had about 5-8 players a day in alpha, hardly a success yet. 🙂 All became a loving family. I already have a family so i do not need another one, and lost interest in it. 

Lets say that I am used to a harsh forum atmosphere. I have been tester in so many games the last 12 years or so, I am getting used to it.

I think the main problem we have has to do with time.

Highly anticipated games, with new content, often run into that problem. 2014 to 2019 is 4 and a half years. That is not a long time for a game in development but a long time if you have many testers. It was released sometime 2016, if i remember correctly. 3 years. 3 years is not a long time for an EA game either, but it is a LONG time for a game that looks so polished as this one, that is so highly anticipated, that has been released on EA and is still being subject to wipes.

Games where you are expected to loose a lot of stuff, or to die a lot, can be wiped quite frequently and the playerbase wont care. games where servers has to be reset every 1,2,3 months - the same! A wipe in a game where you would have to start from scratch and develop your character like NA, affects players more and creates bad feelings and rage and hostility.

Elite dangerous is a game similar to this one. I own it but have hardly played it. But I have followed it,a nd know players in the game that has been around since early Alpha. In december 2013 ED was basicly where NA was  in december 2013. It was released a year after. And there has not been any wipes since the release. The atmosphere on forums are still a sometimes hostile, of course, but different than in NA, I would say. The atmosphere in NA is affected by the long time we have tested it. The threat of wipes affect the game, whether we like it or not. Especially in games where you build up your character like here.

With frequent wipes and a long period of testing the ED would be were we are today.

I dont know if the Devs could have acted differently. This is a new kind of game and it takes time to develop it and make experiments.  That time has been necessary and I can see the result. We are awarded with a game that in many aspects are unique. I still believe in the game and the developers. It will show its worth when it is released. The release will change everything.


***



What can be done until the release and afterwards? I dont have a clear answer. Here are some ideas and reflections.

* PR. Sometimes small things means a lot. How do you look like? Photos? How does your office look like? yes it is public relation stuff, but sometimes it helps a lot. 

* Participate ingame. Yes it takes time but is often awarding. Speak in the chat while participating playing or while administrating special events. (Of a kind that still does not exist here, but could be someting for the future.)

* I would be very sad if the communication is shut down. Some developers of some games are less active on their forums. But even they have a group of players around them that they are in touch with daily and ask for advice and have a dialogue with. I hope the devs dont choose that model, and continues with the current model.

* Community members that become some kind of "advisors" and "helpers". Some games have tested this with good result. Not only are they moderators, but they also act as in betweens between devs/the company and the playerbase. They could help new players in game and on the forum and on steam. And they could act as inbetweens and could help creating a better atmosphere here. Such a solution is much needed if the devs are less active, but could be good even when Devs are active more.

* IF you plan to be less active on the forum I would STRONGLY advise you to recruit a handful of "in betweens", and to make sure that you have a group of players, including the in betweens,  on another forum that you are in touch with daily. TIME is in my opinion the reason why the environment has become hostile and without your particiopation it would have been much worse.

* It is about time to release the game. That will have consequences, because that limits the possibility to change the game and gameplay in the future. Things can be adjusted, but not totally changed. It is however important to release it. With promises of future development and changes, I would consider giving some more rewards to old players at release, to make them  happy (and make them return).

* Continue to be transparent and open, you will gain much in the long run.

* And unpolite people that act like assholes need to be politely advised to calm down. In betweens can help you much. But we, forum members and players, can make a difference too.

My 5 cents.



/Torbjörn (Ligatorswe)



 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Ligatorswe

[Vernon Merrill]

It’s just a shame some people never learned the difference between:

“Hey Admin, I don’t like “X” mechanic. Here’s why.....”

and:

”This game is trash. I can code better than these clowns.  They don’t listen to me because of typical Russian bias!”

Kinda like when everyone thought it was funny to switch their names to “Trash....”

Agreed.  Shut it down and continue to take out the trash.  

[StuntPotato]

Well, moderators contribute to it. I spent a lot of time on post where I tried to use EvE onlines economic model to highlight what I feel can easily be implemented and would improve the game. A post like that obviously (I hope) come from a place of wellmeaning and is intended to help. But when it is treated by moderators with snark and attitude, maybe because the examples I've listed has been posted ten times before and discussed, or the forum moderator is having a bad day or something else.

So I try to contribute and are met with scorn by the people I try to help. I excect stuff like that from the community, but not from any official from the Company. I've seen a lot of it and I think that something that very much drives the negativity often displayed. I think @Cetric de Cornusiac's post above highlights another driver of that negativity. Devs can't really change the userbase, but they can change how they approach that userbase.

[King of Crowns]

@admin BUILD THAT WALL. SHUT DOWN ALL FORUM COMMUNICATION AND make YOUR GAME. 

[Meraun]

@admin Finish the Liste you made and release the Game. The Fear of wipes woud be gone and we reeeallly need that fresh Blood. 🙂

[Ligatorswe]

9 minutes ago, Louis Garneray said:

When SNAFU happens such as how it was announced that the XP/Ranks would not remain after the wipe some of us (me included) were unhappy with the situation. Not because we are losing our XP/ranks but because we were wondering what other promise would not be kept. tested this game for the last 3 years. I have done my part I think And like I said in another topic (here) I think that if you need a better feedback from your players (all of them) you should do a survey ingame from time to time.

 

Once again TIME, like i wrote above. In a game like this, after almost  4,5 years , total wipes do affect the playerbase. It easily becomes toxic. i have seen it before...

The dilemma is that I fully understand the developers. There is a need for a reset after release. I have kind of expected this since day one. That is what all games do. They reset the xp and such at release.

This is a real dilemma. How to balance the need to reset with the amount of TIME the game has been under development and has created exhaution, expectations and other things in its playerbase?


 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Ligatorswe

[Ligatorswe]

Surveys are a good thing. The Devs used to do surveys, like "pick a ship we will develop". Time to do that again perhaps?

[Angus MacDuff]

When I joined this forum I thought it was great that you were soliciting players to give you input.  I hope you continue.  If a contributor gets rude, give him a warning then ban him.  There is a level of entitlement on here from some long-time players that is poisoning the process.  There are only a few, but you don't need them.  Flog one "pour encourager les autres".

[StuntPotato]

53 minutes ago, Koveras said:

Actually.. this may be my recollection of the "good old days", but I seem to recall that we had less "angry" players back when we had a significantly larger playerbase... But I'm not brave enough to read through the old forum posts to validate/falsify my hypothesis....

Well, the hardcore players stay and they tend to be the most vocal. Add in the hopes you had for what the game would look like, and seeing them in a (for you) wrong direction. I think easily can brew toxicity.

[shunt]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Hello captains

In terms of this post by @EliteDelta
 

Here is the thing. 
I think public relations is not the source of problems, as there is too many definitions and goals of this term.
 

Public relations is all your problems

as is said many times the game is in early access  and we are testers ... if you dont want feedback either positive and especially negative  you shouldnt have testers and therefore shouldnt have had early access

The forum has a system for warning people where they are repeating a point over and over again ... if they go off topic or are toxic ..

however recently you have started banning people without a warning ... it isnt good PR .. as much as you want to be respected and valued .. so do your customers

there is nothing worse than a customer who feels they are been ignored or not wanted ...

the most valuable customer you have is those that have a complaint ... because someone who takes takes the time to complain will also take the time to leave positive feedback if they feel valued

there are many people on this forum who seem to be serial complainers .. start trying to resolve their complaints ( and that doesnt mean implement what they want )  but acknowledge their complaint, make them feel them feel they have been heard , either explain why an action is been taken so they understand that you understand theirr complaint ... if they continue warn and if the persist then feel free to ban

someone who complains about something they have bought ...will get over it pretty quick once they feel they have been listened to and acknowledged even if you dont do anything about it

banning someone for complaining .. makes them think , you dont care ( do you???)  you dont understand what they are complaining about ,  or you are trying to hide their complaint

i run a very successful business and we spend a lot of time looking after those that complain ,, its funny that our biggest complainers become our biggest customers and biggest  referers of our company

game labs i presume wil continue to make more games in the future ... why piss off the future buyers of those games because you cant deal with the negative comments they make about naval action

Quote

There are multiple reasons for this communication style not working, but there is probably only one solution. Creators  seem to be unable to remove cultural differences and communication style; readers do not want to understand those cultural differences and goals of the early access development. Removing the open communication will remove the sources for frustration. 

cultral differences work both ways  but its the seller not the buyer who has to overcome these problems .. unless you only want to sell your product to people with the same cultral ideal

look at any major international company you cam see how they bend to their customer not how the customer has to bend to  the supplier 

best example from pulp fiction .mc donalds   . quarter pounder with cheese ... in france a royale with cheese   perfect example of a supplier bending to accomadate their customer they  havent changed their product just changed the cultral identity

removal of all communications wrong move .. see above customer feels you dont care

 

Edited April 2, 2019 by shunt

[Angus MacDuff]

3 minutes ago, Koveras said:

IF devs wanted to discuss communications, could we all @admin included, atleast accept that promising that books, crafting xp and xp was safe - as late as November 2018 - were poor communication?

This is exactly the problem.  People insisting on clinging to a particular complaint and not letting go.  The issue happened.. there was an answer from Devs… let it go. The point of the forum is for development of the game, not whining about a broken promise.  This is a tool for the developers where we can contribute ideas.  Devs, may consider these ideas and implement them or not.  If we make it so poisonous that they don't want to look at it, we will lose it.  Posting consistently negative complaints instead of reasonable feedback does nothing for the game and annoys the hell out of everyone who has to skim through the drivel.

[Ligatorswe]

14 minutes ago, Koveras said:

IF devs wanted to discuss communications, could we all @admin included, atleast accept that promising that books, crafting xp and xp was safe - as late as November 2018 - were poor communication?

I agree on that. Admins should have avoided direct promises and only promised compansations in some kind, and used the word "perhaps" when talkning about XP.

But there is no way to change that now. At least not totally. But i still believe that more compensation than books and the pandora should be given to oldtimers. To make them more happy. The gunboat is not used in game at the moment, for example, give it to all that played before wipe. Give all old members some special flags and perhaps sails of a special kind. And pls DO the total wipe. The wipe is needed.
 

2 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

This is exactly the problem.  People insisting on clinging to a particular complaint and not letting go.  The issue happened.. there was an answer from Devs… let it go. The point of the forum is for development of the game, not whining about a broken promise.  This is a tool for the developers where we can contribute ideas.  Devs, may consider these ideas and implement them or not.  If we make it so poisonous that they don't want to look at it, we will lose it.  Posting consistently negative complaints instead of reasonable feedback does nothing for the game and annoys the hell out of everyone who has to skim through the drivel.

There is no need to wine about this, whether we get more compensation or not, and create a toxic enviroinment. I agree Angus!

Edited April 2, 2019 by Ligatorswe

[Socialism]

If you want to shut down communications and just listen to an echo chamber, by all means, go right ahead.  These forums are rather mild as far as online development ones go.  Rather than address the issues, some valid.. some not, your solution is to just shut things down.  Which in essence is the exact wrong reaction and why you have these issues in the first place.  None of this is new and you have had negative review bombs and forum angst before.  Remember the wipe and kicking of US players off PVP 1?  What is new now is players are reporting you to stream and you have some heat from youtubers.

Why not address the elephant in the room? Why are people angry?

- Going back on guarantees and promises. XP and no lineships DLC drama. 

- Radical design changes that seemingly no one asked for while not addressing real game components that have been broken for years.  Permit wall.  No RVR changes etc 

- Recent forum user bans, some deserved...some not.  Inconsistent moderation.  Some players can insult who they like on these forums.  Others can’t even post in the meme thread.  

- DLC crazy.  Soon there will be 8 or 9 DLCs out or planned for a game that has yet to be released and that was not F2P.  People are tired of them and view dev focus is just pumping us for cash rather than release.

- Release angst.  I think the base is tired of waiting overall.

So this will prolly get deleted, but I think there are some valid issues here.  Address some of these and acknowledge that maybe... just maybe some folks might have a legit bone to pick and work on correcting it.  Or just shut it down...

[shunt]

2 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

This is exactly the problem.  People insisting on clinging to a particular complaint and not letting go.  The issue happened.. there was an answer from Devs… let it go. The point of the forum is for development of the game, not whining about a broken promise.  This is a tool for the developers where we can contribute ideas.  Devs, may consider these ideas and implement them or not.  If we make it so poisonous that they don't want to look at it, we will lose it.  Posting consistently negative complaints instead of reasonable feedback does nothing for the game and annoys the hell out of everyone who has to skim through the drivel.

again it was poor PR ... rather than opening a new topic .. and re directing all complaints to that topic ... explaining why they had chose to remove all xp on wipe ... they  left it in tha patch notes topic and then banned anyone who brought the subject up ... many didnt read the whole topic and many didnt realise they were going to be banned for bringing it up

again see my post above ... if someone feels they have been heard and understood they wont repeat the same complaint and the way it works the more times you feel you have been unheard the more toxic the next complaint as the customer wants to grab somes attention

[Zlatkowar]

@admin I may be slow on understanding as well but your post seems to have no conclusion. Is it a warning? A question? A decision? I don't get it.

Anyway. I have read a post from you on a suggestion earlier this morning and you stated that with a team of 2 and current deadlines, you will not be able to implement any new feature and that you will stick to current roadmap, which is fine. Sad for the game development, but fine as a statement.

But then I wonder, is there still a need for a "suggestions" thread, and in the same logic is there still a need at that time period, so close to release for all the "feedback" sections? It is obvious that if you're planning on sticking to your schedule and ignoring all requests, it can only generate more frustration and worthless debates on things that will not change.

On the other hand, I also agree that communication is an invaluable asset as long as you use it right... It's up to your choice whether you want to use it right (it will require time) or if you want to skip it altogether and stick to posting patch notes and such. Last thing I may add is that there's still some info that can only be found on the forum. If you plan to shut down the whole thing, those vital IG infos should be available IG before forum is closed.