[Suggestion] SV & Community - Encourage forum activity & usage

[Handsome Young Man]

Despite I'd like to have a forum full of life, a better Public Relationship and punctual Marketing plan ( No offense/criticism to anyone ), honestly i think that giving to community the kind of influence power you are talking about will only lead to stuck game developing processes in various loop holes.

I always considered the forum like a RL sport-pub, you go there, listen others opinions and share yours, eventually get drunk, start complaining team strategies, etc.
Never expected having Henrik, Sebastian or any other Developer/Team member to actively frequenting forum to read all our s**t.
Obviously if a forum moderator finds that 90% of community complains about something, I expect they/them bringing it to Team's attention.

If I were a game Developer, after 10+ hours of work, coming here on forum only to read tons of suggestions about to make the game become what it was never intended to be, that would really piss me off every day.

In my opinion no-one of us (almost the majority at least) is entitled in Video-game Engineering.
We are here or in alpha/beta to try things out and give feedbacks as users and customers, not to tell them how to build their own game.
Elaborate feedbacks it's their job, not ours.

Very Stupid Story following:
I bought MO1 on the day that preorders started, tried it out for a while, then decided that I didn't like the combat system at all (a core feature of a full pvp game).
I left MO1 and never played it again, if i had voted in polls (which i never did) and if SV applied your poll philosophy at that time, my vote could had mislead the polls result.
Like me many others left MO1 for many different reasons.

tl;dr version:
I'm not complaining anyone, I just think that giving too much liberty to the wandering horse will lead us to the desert once again.

I'm sorry but I'm going to interject on this point and be quite harsh, not towards you - but to SV.

Star Vault did this quite a lot with MO1. They did it with Mortal Royale as well.

In MO1, they would add new content upon new content upon new content that was half baked, unfinished, buggy, and a complete mess which jarred the previous patch and multiplied the already messy state of the game further.

What did people do of course? They complained, they bitched, they moaned. After all, MO1 was a game where to be even remotely sufficient you had to run 2 accounts with full slots (Pretty much at the minimum if you wanted to PvP and Craft comfortably.)

That's pushing out double the sub fee of most games every month + 54$ for character slots (Basically a triple A game cost, one time fee).

For some reason die hard fans would of course take your stance and say we have no right to judge, no right to complain, no right to criticize.. We should just shut up and pay & play or find a different game.

What does that leave us to do?

In this kind of thinking, you can't justify bad, buggy content that people pay for with "well he worked long hours and it doesnt work very well, but thats okay."

Jobs don't work like that. I could only imagine someone having a well-paying job, going in and trying but the outcome is bad; and the company looks at them and says "Why are we paying this person to do a bad job." when the die hard fans of the product they make just buy it anyway even though the packaging was crushed, the product half way works, and breaks in two months.

Star Vault benefits from not having a big eye on them in the gaming industry, if they had I don't think they would able to even do what they do right now with the amount of mess ups they have had. That's just straight facts.

Point being, if we're not allowed to give feedback or to critique; how do we get anything out? Because you put out the line "Suggestions to make the game what it wasn't intended to be." But a lot of the times the 'suggestions' here on how to fix things, because many of us experienced a lot of these issues on MO1 for years on end and know what would work and what wouldn't work - regardless of game dev. experience. Want to know why? Because a lot of vet players have played multiple different titles of the same niche genre, or have played comparatively similar games with distinct elements shared between the two.

We can compare and contrast between the titles and others and see what elements of gameplay work and succeeded, and what doesn't work and fails.

 

[Ministro]

SV would just get mobbed, and leave anyway. Ideas would be come arguments and pissing contests.

Perhaps a very limited form of this could work, eg. SV tosses in occassional polls, but an SV employee in here all the time would just lead to a vocal minority getting their way by being most aggressive and toxic, aka forum-pvp, and as an ex-MO1 player, that sounds dangerously familiar.

I would agree though, that forums are a better way than discord. These things get complex and need details, and discord discourse is often like trying to have a conversation with a sugar hopped-up 6 year old.

 

[Solairerection]

I'm not saying the community takes a poll and what ever comes out on top, should be added; but sometimes game devs. need direction from their community and let me tell you what.. I don't think SV should listen to it's community a lot of the time, but a fair amount of times listening to the players and abiding by their feedback would of saved them so many headaches.

There is also things you could consider with this method that are healthy and or beneficial no matter what. What if SV wanted to ask the community if they wished for more polish / bug fixing in a massive effort rather than pushing out more content and keeping it as a more low profile, yet somewhat consistent thing? We could of USED that in MO1 a lot.

Don't take what I say literally in the idea that SV should poll the community then the outcome is what happens, or the players poll and that is what will happen; this better informs SV with data and clear discussion about certain things all in ONE place. Instead of thrown about in threads, discords, and in-game.

I get where you are coming from. I agree it is better for the developers to consider feedback than outright ignore it. Just because you aren't a game-designer doesn't mean you can't have good ideas, so to speak. We are the ones who sit and actually play games, after all.

Just to counter the point about development, the community has already played a pivotal role in some things changing without SV doing any kind of 'polling' what so ever but from excessive outcry.

I'm proposing this 'outcry' is worked down into something more finite and constructive, and we allow numbers to display (More accurately represent the community as whole) on how they feel about things.

I agree and disagree on certain things about this. I agree that players should voice their concerns if they feel something is wrong (or good) how else will the developers know? Sure, you could always unsub and stop playing, but stopping computer games could be from private issues aswell, not only being unhappy with the game.

At the same time I want Starvault's core vision to be strong enough that it shouldn't be swayed by players' opinion. It doesn't seem to be the case at the moment, which is a great shame, because I'm really not looking forward to the same back-and-fourth in balancing we had in MO1.

 

[Grisù]

@Handsome Young Man ( for others: do not bother to read my post, nothing interesting here).

I'm sorry but I'm going to interject on this point and be quite harsh, not towards you - but to SV.

Don't worry I'm not going to cry , I like persons who goes straight to the point without caring of please others with low tones; so will do I.

Just to clarify I'm not a "MO Die Hard Fan" (I don't think you indicate me as one btw), quite the opposite.
For truth sake I've never said that community should not be allowed to provide feedback or critique, instead I did the very opposite and I'm not going to quote myself, maybe my English is worse than i expected.

I just think for a project like MO2 (one game already out, and clear vision on the actual one) at the current stage (-3 ~months to release), is not healthy to have a Developing Team who is going to ask permission to community by polling it for each feature they already developed or are going to.

If MO2 were started as a Crowdfund project, with the clause "Shape the game by providing your opinions" then polling community for each feature would have been a big deal.
SV started MO2 project with a clear vision on the final product.

If you find a feature not working good, or you think it can be improved, you can just report a full detailed feedback with suggestion.
Than you can go to forum and discuss it with all other testers, and if you prefer, make a poll to evaluate the whole community thought about it. (like now).

Said so, I'm according you to bring important discussion on forum instead of using discord, i do not even use it.
I said i think of MO forum as a sport-pub; you know what i think of discord? a kindergarten where most of children just yells their questions and ideas to educators, without even listening to others.
Maybe I'm just too old or stupid for that kind of social technology.

If you still believe in your idea ( which is good ), and you really care about of MO2 developing process, i suggest you to do not only ask for SV to put someone in charge for that purpose (if they didn't already, means they don't think to need it). Instead start it by yourself, get good meaningful results and bring SV attention to it, show them they are wrong.

If you are going to complain about you already tried and the community didn't followed up, you already got response.
If community needs Daddy Henrik to be present to make polls be populated, is just because many of them just care about please Daddy or be exposed to him. So you already know what will be the quality level of responses.

I know, I'm too cynical.
I'm not against your idea by principle, I just do not see how it can work with the whole actual situation (Company philosophy, Game Vision, Community).
In fact I will be more pleasured to finding myself wrong on this, good luck!

 

[Handsome Young Man]

@Handsome Young Man ( for others: do not bother to read my post, nothing interesting here).



Don't worry I'm not going to cry , I like persons who goes straight to the point without caring of please others with low tones; so will do I.

Just to clarify I'm not a "MO Die Hard Fan" (I don't think you indicate me as one btw), quite the opposite.
For truth sake I've never said that community should not be allowed to provide feedback or critique, instead I did the very opposite and I'm not going to quote myself, maybe my English is worse than i expected.

I just think for a project like MO2 (one game already out, and clear vision on the actual one) at the current stage (-3 ~months to release), is not healthy to have a Developing Team who is going to ask permission to community by polling it for each feature they already developed or are going to.

If MO2 were started as a Crowdfund project, with the clause "Shape the game by providing your opinions" then polling community for each feature would have been a big deal.
SV started MO2 project with a clear vision on the final product.

If you find a feature not working good, or you think it can be improved, you can just report a full detailed feedback with suggestion.
Than you can go to forum and discuss it with all other testers, and if you prefer, make a poll to evaluate the whole community thought about it. (like now).

Said so, I'm according you to bring important discussion on forum instead of using discord, i do not even use it.
I said i think of MO forum as a sport-pub; you know what i think of discord? a kindergarten where most of children just yells their questions and ideas to educators, without even listening to others.
Maybe I'm just too old or stupid for that kind of social technology.

If you still believe in your idea ( which is good ), and you really care about of MO2 developing process, i suggest you to do not only ask for SV to put someone in charge for that purpose (if they didn't already, means they don't think to need it). Instead start it by yourself, get good meaningful results and bring SV attention to it, show them they are wrong.

If you are going to complain about you already tried and the community didn't followed up, you already got response.
If community needs Daddy Henrik to be present to make polls be populated, is just because many of them just care about please Daddy or be exposed to him. So you already know what will be the quality level of responses.

I know, I'm too cynical.
I'm not against your idea by principle, I just do not see how it can work with the whole actual situation (Company philosophy, Game Vision, Community).
In fact I will be more pleasured to finding myself wrong on this, good luck!

Even without proper English, I still understood a majority of it and I appreciate the actual response given here that wasn't underlaid with sarcasm or some kind of guised insult. You make really good points, and I appreciate the feedback.

 

[ThaBadMan]

For sure, the more discussion and activity the better.

As for SV the more they interact the better it is.

 

[Svaar]

Star Vault should begin utilizing the forums more effectively and filling in the role of polling the community for introductions and or balance changes to the game.

I also believe Star Vault should begin heavily encouraging feedback be re-directed through the forums where conversations are more easily followed rather than bullheaded back and fourth bickering in the Discord.

Players should begin advertising usage of the forums in-game, in Discord, and in their own Discords. Guild leaders / officers, I'm looking at you as well. It's in my opinion an obligation to have you and your groups voice heard.

The most we usually push on player polls is about 120+. That's pretty sad in the grand scheme of things, and I know this isn't a huge turnout and I dislike seeing people consistently use the argument of "well ackshually the poll shows people like X more so ur wrong!!" when the fact is only a tenth or maybe even less of people actually participate in them.

1. Star Vault needs to make dev-posted polls on major changes that might have controversy. 70% or more in an option in my eyes is a good number to go by. Anything less it's too low to have full support IMO.

2. Star Vault needs to push the usage of the forums with members of Star Vault actively guiding, conducting, and conveying information from players to SV - from SV to players. We need a community manager, with some people under him. Feels like we're talking in empty halls sometimes.

3. Players need to get others, guild members, friends with the game, etc. to begin using the forums actively.

If you want a better game than MO1, both to the players and SV, you need to create constructive environments.

All opinions on additions or changes need to be based on facts, statistical information, or reasoning which can be followed coherently.

Anecdotal information can be important from the perspective of a well-seasoned MO1 player as much as people want to, for some reason, shit on us as a collective because "the game didn't initially appeal to them". Well, maybe listen to us and give our experience a chance because some of us played way longer and through way more shit then you ever did and understand SV and MO way better than you ever will.

We don't have random reasonings unlike some. Our opinions can be sometimes based off of YEARS of gameplay.

Point being, we need more forum activity. SV needs to step up to the plate and get us a community manager, and the members of MO need to heavily encourage discussion here.

Why invent a bicycle? Now there are online services that allow you to track the activity of developers and conduct a dialogue with them within the framework of this service. Forums in this regard are outdated and lose. For example, I created a topic with suggestions, in the status of the topic I see that the developers have taken it to work, at the end of the work I see the status DONE. The same is true if I post an error message in the game, the developers set the status RUNNING, after the completion and correction, the developers set the status FIXED. This is what I consider to be feedback, when both the player and the developer see progress and tracking. The forum does not provide such opportunities. At the forum, we cannot understand whether the developers have looked at our suggestions, comments, and so on. There is no such mark on the forum.

This makes it possible for us as players to track our comments, suggestions, and so on. and such a scheme allows developers to structure errors, suggestions and identify priorities for themselves and carry out them.

 

[Darthus]

Thanks for this topic HYM (I've dubbed you with that acronym, sort of a rapper name). I will note that asking people who frequent the forums if the forums should be encouraged biases things a little. =)

I think more important than us saying where the devs should get feedback, I agree with others that the main need here is more formal and active participation from the devs (ie a Community Manager role). The purpose of that role is to gather feedback from the playerbase, consolidate it, and feed back what's pertinent to the devs, and vice versa.

Right now I think Henrik and Seb are doing that organically in Discord, but that can't be the plan moving forward, including in Early Access.

In general I like the idea of polls and consolidation via forum posts ,but I think the devs should be dictating what structure works best for them to gather/consolidate feedback.

Agree the current "comb through the Discord" doesn't work super well (For me at least).

 

[Handsome Young Man]

Thanks for this topic HYM (I've dubbed you with that acronym, sort of a rapper name). I will note that asking people who frequent the forums if the forums should be encouraged biases things a little. =)

I think more important than us saying where the devs should get feedback, I agree with others that the main need here is more formal and active participation from the devs (ie a Community Manager role). The purpose of that role is to gather feedback from the playerbase, consolidate it, and feed back what's pertinent to the devs, and vice versa.

Right now I think Henrik and Seb are doing that organically in Discord, but that can't be the plan moving forward, including in Early Access.

In general I like the idea of polls and consolidation via forum posts ,but I think the devs should be dictating what structure works best for them to gather/consolidate feedback.

Agree the current "comb through the Discord" doesn't work super well (For me at least).

I like it.

 

[Kaemik]

" polling the community for introductions and or balance changes "

Only got that far, just lol no.

Yeah, I still remember a ton of people talking about how Thursar-Khurite wasn't OP back pre-racial adjustments when it was clearly OP as hell. But that's what happens when 90% of the game is already playing Thursar-Khurite. So of course not fixing it had majority support.

Art and democracy don't mix. Especially when there are people with a vested interest in seeing certain things break or remain broken.

 

[Handsome Young Man]

lol

I swear liberals populate these forums.

Actual constructive feedback? Nah, you just want the game to break.

Actual constructive feedback? Nah, you're just bad try getting better.

Actual constructive feedback? Nah, look at this poll of 130 people and notice how 50% voted 'yes and i love it!!' Games fine.

Actual constructive feedback? Nah, you just want it to be MO1.

Actual constructive feedback? Nah, SV knows what they're doing. (Looks at MO1 of the past 10 years)

This is why we need a community manager, and people to help said community manager. Almost any kind of opinion that is put out that I typically see has no backing other than something purely anecdotal or just pulled out of thin air and people just bandwagon on it with the few people that participate on the forums.

Am I saying all ideas should be listened to, debated, and perhaps sway the development? Of course not, but you guys are literally some of the same people who used threads and polling as justification for your opinions now here you are speaking against it.

You can't have it both ways. It's just hilariously hypocritical.

 

[you]

i think SV should be making the game from their vision and data they've collected from their last game, not what people who has never made a game before think and post through feedback.
Don't care what their primary outlet is for community engagement, it's just for announcements and discussions anyways.

 

[Darthus]

I swear liberals populate these forums.

Hey I resemble that remark! And I'm one of your biggest supporters my big burly HYM. =)

We get enough political division in the real world without having to bring that to our lovely peaceful idyllic MO2 community.

 

[bubbles]

forums are a loud vocal minority

 

[Handsome Young Man]

forums are a loud vocal minority

Out of everything I've ever seen you say, this has been by far the truest and most accurate thing.

The forums are a vocal minority, and what's worse is when topics of debate come up it's the same people showing up in the same amounts because the forums are under utilized and people just rant in Discord where it gets washed away in a matter of minutes.

It's why I wish SV would take steps to make it more normal for players to sign up and use the forums.

Fact of the matter is, people just don't care. That's kind of the problem. Even my own guild, even with me making it apparent that using the forums would be beneficial do any of them come and sign up? Not really. It's not that they don't care about the game, or want their opinion to be heard; but they know the forums are a joke like they were on MO1. The term forum warrior comes to mind more often then not.

As stupid as it might sound the only reason I put anything on the forums to begin with is because I know it wont be washed away like it will in Discord, and that people can revisit threads and topics of discussion to later reflect on. It's basically me giving myself the chance to express my views as well as views shared by my friends and guild members and if the game still ends up being unfun or bad I can at least say I tried to say something, rather than feeling like a by stander.

 

[Handsome Young Man]

Hey I resemble that remark! And I'm one of your biggest supporters my big burly HYM. =)

We get enough political division in the real world without having to bring that to our lovely peaceful idyllic MO2 community.

Apologies, it's honestly eerily similar to what I oft hear in the real world. A lot of preaching and raving with no actual facts to back it, or information which is entirely subjective.

Combat is an example where people argue for realism, ease of use / learning, slow to target older audience, etc. when I've seen higher skill capped games slow their combat down and watch the game gradually worsen because of it. Don't care if people pull that retarded argument of "well this is an mmo its different."

It's not different, because MO1 combat at the core was fine. It was balance that was an issue (among other attributing factors), not the combat itself.

Whereas MO2, people step in and play for a few hours and they are immediately on par with everyone with very MINIMAL jumps in skill as time investment / mechanical skill is sharpened.



Shitty graph for visual.

 

[bubbles]

Apologies, it's honestly eerily similar to what I oft hear in the real world. A lot of preaching and raving with no actual facts to back it, or information which is entirely subjective.

Combat is an example where people argue for realism, ease of use / learning, slow to target older audience, etc. when I've seen higher skill capped games slow their combat down and watch the game gradually worsen because of it. Don't care if people pull that retarded argument of "well this is an mmo its different."

It's not different, because MO1 combat at the core was fine. It was balance that was an issue (among other attributing factors), not the combat itself.

Whereas MO2, people step in and play for a few hours and they are immediately on par with everyone with very MINIMAL jumps in skill as time investment / mechanical skill is sharpened.

View attachment 554

Shitty graph for visual.

The issue with combat is increasing the skill ceiling without breaking the prediction system and adding more latency dependent advantages, that's the dillema SV is dealing with. Also there's lots of people saying mo1 was more skill-based, but skill in mo1 was breaking prediction and I don't think that's the direction SV wants the game to go

 

[Handsome Young Man]

The issue with combat is increasing the skill ceiling without breaking the prediction system and adding more latency dependent advantages, that's the dillema SV is dealing with. Also there's lots of people saying mo1 was more skill-based, but skill in mo1 was breaking prediction and I don't think that's the direction SV wants the game to go

Fair, but I will counter that and say I've fought people of similar pings and there was a clear difference in ability still. With MO2 there can be 'methods' of reaching some sort of balance in ping normalization, but I don't think that's even happened as a friend over in Israel is getting below 100 ping.

 

[Kaemik]

Am I saying all ideas should be listened to, debated, and perhaps sway the development? Of course not, but you guys are literally some of the same people who used threads and polling as justification for your opinions now here you are speaking against it.

There was a poll that the current combat system feels good that was referenced as support that the entire system doesn't need an overhaul. You're proposing that we have polls about "balance changes". There is a HUGE difference there, I've watched played out in multiple games including the old Thursar-Khurite issue in MO1.

People advocating for nerfs of anything that isn't their chosen playstyle and while advocating for buffs or against nerfs to their chosen playstyle. Taken to an extreme you can get it to the point that people who play other roles start leaving the game or switching to that role creating a self-feeding loop. Player feedback might yield a particularly good suggestion on how to address a balance issue in some cases but the decisions on WHAT needs to be balanced should generally have the developers darn near completely ignoring what the forums have to say and instead looking at data on what builds are played most frequently and their K/D in certain matchups.

Going with what the majority says needs to happen balance-wise when the majority may all playing the same OP build is worse than useless feedback. It's counterproductive.

 

[Ministro]

forums are a loud vocal minority

And devs listening to a loud vocal majority didn't work out so well last time...

The issue with combat is increasing the skill ceiling without breaking the prediction system and adding more latency dependent advantages, that's the dillema SV is dealing with. Also there's lots of people saying mo1 was more skill-based, but skill in mo1 was breaking prediction and I don't think that's the direction SV wants the game to go

I would argue not "lots" of people saying MO1 was more skill-based; a vocal minority saying that; a vocal minority that was out-voted once already on these forums. The "higher skill ceiling" in MO1 was simply the ability/knowledge how to exploit, plain and simple. Exploiting isn't skill, it's history, and gratefully so.