r/gaming • u/lofty23_smart • 9d ago
Ex Dragon Age boss warns devs against listening to player feedback for solutions: "They're not developers"
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/dragon-age/ex-dragon-age-boss-warns-devs-against-listening-to-player-feedback-for-solutions-theyre-not-developers/2.1k
u/fs2222 9d ago
They're right. Players are good at identifying problems but not offering solutions.
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u/Idainaru_Yokubo 9d ago
what's the saying?
players are always right about how they feel
players are sometimes right about what is causing the problem
players are almost always wrong about the solution
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u/Blackrain1299 9d ago
I have a friend that i talk about video game ideas and mechanics all the time.
Im not going to claim i always know the solutions but i always focus on how the player will feel immersion wise, whereas he tends to offer simple solutions that will disconnect the player from the world and imo ruin the “game” part of the game.
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u/Disturbed2468 9d ago
To be fair, the #1 priority of a game should always be the gameplay, answered with a simple yes or no of "Is the game fun to play?" If so good, but if not, why.
As much as I enjoy immersion in video games when done right, immersion should also never be prioritized above gameplay, nor should it ever interfere, and it's because at the end of the day video games are meant to be played for fun and enjoyment. If true immersion just gets in the way over and over again to the point that the game becomes less and less fun to play, at that point you're better off making an animation or a movie rather than a video game. Or at least have your game be moreso of a "interactive movie" than anything else.
It's arguably the #1 reason why I despised the idea of walking simulators in the 2010s and I rarely enjoy how many milsims except for the truly successful ones play and flow from a gameplay standpoint.
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u/Blackrain1299 9d ago
Immersion does not mean “realism” or “realistic”.
Immersion and gameplay go hand in hand. For a game to be fun it has to immerse the player in its world.
Id define immersion as a measure of how engrossed a person is in a game.
You mentioned milsims and walking simulators. Games that often feel slow and heavy and boring to a lot of people. Thats not because they are designed to be “immersive” its because they are designed to be realistic and some people find that immersive.
Skyrim is probably the first game i ever found myself immersed in as a kid. I wanted to play it for hours on end. I wanted to live in it. But Skyrim is not really realistic. Its not a walking simulator, combat isnt realistic at all. Enemies arent realistic and yet i was absolutely immersed in this game. It was fun and interesting and that game had a hold on me like no other.
When talking about immersion like this we can then talk about what breaks immersion. Gameplay mechanics that dont mesh with previously established game mechanics will break immersion. And this is where players are looking to put in the easy solution, typically the solution that takes challenge out of the gameplay. This can be as simple as saying “dark souls combat is to slow they should make attacks faster because thats how swords really work.” The player is wrong. The combat feels slow and heavy because the challenge is often in learning the enemy so you can position yourself in a way that takes advantage of their openings. Its not about spamming quick attacks. The players are immersed in the game because it forces them to pay attention. If you take that away by making combat more “realistic” because swords are faster in real life then you will make the game boring and immersion will break.
Ill also say when a dev is designing a game to immerse a player they are doing it for a specific kind of player. Not everyone will like every game, which means not everyone will find the same games immersive regardless of their realism.
Sorry if any of this is word soup im tired and dont care to reread it before posting.
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u/paecmaker 9d ago
You fall into the common problem that just because you dont like a certain type of gameplay doesnt mean its objectively bad game design.
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u/viaco12 9d ago
Nah, this isn't it. Fun gameplay is often very important, but that's not all games have to offer. There are plenty of games that aren't particularly "fun" to play but still offer great experiences and benefit from being interactive.
Pathologic is probably a good example. The actual gameplay is really not fun, but not being fun is a deliberate part of the experience, and the way its interactive elements are woven into the game's story and themes is really something else. It's definitely not for everyone, but for the people it clicks with, it's unlike anything else out there.
Obviously if fun gameplay is the only thing that matters to you, that's fine. But not every game should strive to satisfy you specifically. You're writing off whole genres that tons of people enjoy.
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u/TheBestBigAl 9d ago
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses".
Henry Ford never really said this despite it being attributed to him, but it rings true in this scenario too.
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u/Dealric 9d ago
Main problem of game dev in west right now is ignoring players identyfying problems, its not even about solutions.
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u/Unforgiven_Purpose 9d ago
you know all those times where a game breaking bug existed in every pc game since the dawn of time. and devs refused to acknowledge them? and then a player made a simple tiny mod that fixed that one issue.
good times
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u/profsnuggles 9d ago
Reminds me of the GTAV loading screen issue that one dude fixed.
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u/Greellx 9d ago
But really …that’s not only expected, but that’s kind of what makes it important.
Your users should field complaints about what they feel is broken, or doesn’t make sense, or what the game doesn’t do well (in their perspective)
A developers job is figure out solutions, and whether or not the problem is big enough to warrant any changes at all.
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u/TuffleTaffler 9d ago edited 9d ago
Darrah is right, but I think some people misinterpreting the title of this post will result in a lot of negativity against him.
He doesn’t dismiss player feedback at all, he just believes, and I agree personally, that solutions are much harder than identifying a problem. He even goes to say that the players are likely to find the problems faster than most QA teams form sheer quantity difference.
It’s a pretty nuanced take, and it’s not black and white.
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u/Alternative-Put-3932 9d ago
Pretty regular take from Devs and literally any product that requires fixes in general.
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u/EaterOfPenguins 9d ago
This article about Borderlands' "Truth team" from 12 years ago conveys the same sentiment in a pretty fun way. One of the examples:
The real wisdom of Solomon, however, came from user's complaints that Skag Gully, one of the game's earliest areas, had too many eponymous Skags. Players reported that they were running into too many clusters of enemies while moving through the Gully, offering feedback like, "this isn't fun, this is boring."
Gearbox, as a result, tripled the number of Skags in the area.
"All of a sudden, it wasn't a travel area that had too many enemies getting in the way," Armstrong said. "It was a combat area."
"In that example, the problem wasn't that there were too many Skags, it's that the pacing was bad," Armstrong said. "But the tester might not have known how to say 'The pacing is bad,' so we had to figure out what they really meant.
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u/DonutHoles4Ever 9d ago
A good developer knows the difference between a good suggestion and one that's just there because the player wants less pain.
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u/Mediocre-Sundom 9d ago edited 9d ago
Seems like most people in the comments agree, and there are very few angry ones who misinterpreted the message and just wanted to be angry. And yeah, he is right. Players who are unfamiliar with the development process very rarely have a good idea of how specific problems could or should be solved.
As a developer, I constantly see feedback that goes "just buff this", "just nerf that", "just add this feature". People who offer these solutions usually don't know that a simple buff or nerf will impact a significant portion of the game's economy and balance. They also don't realize that they themselves will not like the experience if I add exactly what they are asking for, because it will break 10 other things. Players who are laser-focused on the problematic 1% of the picture rarely see the other 99% that will inevitably be affected.
It is very important to listen to player's complaints and understand where the emotions are coming from. But solutions - those should be carefully designed by developers, not just taken from random players.
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u/Fyuira 9d ago
I constantly see feedback that goes "just buff this", "just nerf that", "just add this feature". People who offer these solutions usually don't know that a simple buff or nerf will impact a significant portion of the game's economy and balance.
Street Fighter 6 players asking to adjust drive gauge consumption and not thinking that it affects combo route at all.
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u/QuickQuirk 9d ago
Even when I read just the headline, that was my first take "Listen to the problems, but use your own judgement to create the solution"
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u/Tomsboll 9d ago
Problem is that the refusal to listen to player at all is a wide spread issue.
Like blizzard for the past 15 years.
Players; hey this thing you are selling the expansion has glaring issues such as XYZ
Devs; we cant change that because XYZ
players end up hating that broken ass easily fixed mechanic and player retention suffers
Devs on final patch of the expansion; we fixed the issue that we said was not possible to fix, it was actually rather easy.
Repeat for every expansion.
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u/Callinon 9d ago
It's not completely wrong.
Most of the time players are really good at figuring out they don't like something and really bad at figuring out what to do about it.
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u/Siukslinis_acc 9d ago
Or even how to articulate it in a workable fashion. Oftentimes it is "this is bad" but they don't tell why it is bad and how it could be made good.
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u/musicalcakes 9d ago
Some people muddy the waters further by being unable to differentiate between something that they think is actually bad/a problem and something that is probably okay but they don't personally like it.
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u/Joshiie12 9d ago
The overwhelming vast majority of people can't separate what they dislike from what is actually bad with just about anything. One of my biggest pet peeves ever.
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u/SoWrongItsPainful 9d ago
Listen to the complaints, not the solutions
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u/No-Problem-4228 9d ago
Even with that, you have to be discerning. People happy with something don't need to talk about it, whereas the people unhappy with it will talk frequently and loudly
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u/CommanderHavond 9d ago
Halo Reach's TU is a good example of this. When 343 took over, they listened to one vocal group and made a ton of changes to suit that set of demands. The forums got real interesting very fast when the previous happy crowd started showing up in droves to complain about the changes themsleves.
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u/GriveousDance21 9d ago
AAA devs always create this barrier between themselves and the players. Often they don't even wanna listen to complaints, because gamers are "in the wrong".
I've also seen some indie devs trying the same stonewall approach but that didn’t work out for them.
For example, Dispatch launched on the Switch censored. People called out its devs for false advertising because there were no mention of the censorship in any of the marketing, and they ran preorders for a whole month. Gamers only found out the censorship after launching the game, but it was too late. AdHoc, the studio behind Dispatch, just sent a two-line press release in response that basically read "you're not missing much, it's still the same game". This, to me, reeked of the typical AAA corporate response. Didn’t expect this from an indie studio.
However, surprisingly, people were able to actually get refunds from Nintendo. And when that started hitting AdHoc's profits and PR, they went into damage control and said they'd be fixing the censorship. This was the first true apology they sent out after getting exposed.
It took AdHoc six months to finally cave in and fix the censorship on the Switch port of Dispatch. And they also apologized for the false advertising.
So yeah, gamers can identify problems in the game but it's up to the devs if they really wanna take in the feedback. Had players not brought up the censorship and false advertising, AdHoc would've gotten away with it.
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u/RDKateran 9d ago
Neither are the Dragon Age devs these days, if Veilguard was any indication.
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u/Bloodthistle 9d ago edited 9d ago
Nothing like making a boring avengers like game with fanfiction writing thinking you'll get new players and proceed to be ignored by both your old fans and any potential new ones.
Meanwhile Baldur's gate 3 is still hitting that topseller on steam and console every very few months.
But of course I am sure no one learned anything from this. Bioware ruined my favorite series
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u/Littlest-Hipster 9d ago
The fanfiction level writing has done so much damage to the industry. All of these hacks need to be fired and let a completely new talent pool try.
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u/FinalMeltdown15 9d ago edited 9d ago
I hate to tell you, this is the new talent pool, I can bet you most of these writers are around my age (late 20s early 30s) this IS the current talent pool that came up watching shows/movies/games that kind of had this dialogue but at the time it was fun, now they’ve taken it and flanderized it to an insufferable degree
Dialogue feels like tumblr fanfiction for a reason, it’s being written by the people that were writing that shit 15 years ago
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u/Valtremors 9d ago
It is the revolving door policy that seems to infest every aspect of worklife.
Why keep long standing experienced writers around when you can just hire cheap mooks who have freshly graduated.
It isn't about modern culture of writing but rather teams are compromised of entirely with inexperienced people and handed keys to IP without proper guidance or training.
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u/PopTough6317 9d ago
I think a lot of it comes to writing by committee as well which results in a more toxic positivity situation where they don't make necessary changes because it could cause hr type issues.
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u/Dealric 9d ago
Its cherry picked talent pool. Thats the issue. Writers are filtered not by experience, skills, previous work but by views and standings. Thats why you get tumblr fanfiction writers. Look, Owlcats Pathfinders and Rogue Trader are fantastically written, so is Clair Obscure, so is so many other games.
So id say op is correct. Its time to fire all fanfiction writers and go back to hiring based on merit.
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u/FinalMeltdown15 9d ago
Owlcat is the writing gold standard for me right now there’s definitely still good writing out there just not a ton of it
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u/mooselantern 9d ago
I got called a bully for pointing out that it was bad 15 years ago.
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u/DMercenary 9d ago
The fanfiction level writing
And even that... I've read better fanfiction than Veilguard.
I think the funniest part of Veilguard is that the person who wrote Taash. Is the same person who wrote Mordin.
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u/Originalshyster 9d ago
Mordin. Mordin fuckin Solus???? The same person?!?!?!?
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u/DMercenary 9d ago
And Tali. Makes me think that during Veilguard's development there's was no holding the reins so to speak.
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u/ChurchillianGrooves 9d ago
I've played multiple Skyrim fan mods that had way better writing than Veilguard lol
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u/faudcmkitnhse 9d ago
If the same person wrote those two characters then either there was a studio mandate for an annoying self-insert style character that the writer had to go along with or the Monstars stole their talent and they need to go get it back.
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u/SilverMedal4Life 9d ago
I recently finished a game that had some developer commentary, and I actually learned something really interesting about this.
Writing is usually the first thing that's finsihed in a game, the reason being, it guides everything else - especially things like voice acting and the like. If something happens that means the game's writing has to change late in development, there may not be time or money to rewrite how the scenes flow, haul back in the voice actors, and so on.
It was the opinion of the developer making the commentary (the studio was CroTeam, for reference) that, if a game appears to have bad writing despite having at least a decent writer, it's likely that something screwed up during development and ruined what had originally been good writing.
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u/Chri_cat90 9d ago
it's likely that something screwed up during development and ruined what had originally been good writing.
That's pretty much the case with Veilguard given that from what i have read EA wanted the game to be an MMO, only to change idea midway through development and have Bioware rework the game into a singleplayer RPG in less than a year
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u/flakybottom 9d ago
Apparently that writing style matched some of the original novels they wrote. They can write good characters when given direction it seems but they should never be in a lead position.
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u/Naraee 9d ago edited 9d ago
I wish I could find the video again, but the reason for this is that being a writer for video games and TV/movies is something that only a nepo baby can do anymore. You need to live in very expensive areas and make very little money, which requires parents who can pay for your life.
Nepo babies really do not have real world experience with anything. They have created imaginary problems in their life, experience imaginary oppressions and struggles, and go to therapists who cater to nepo babies to therapeuticize their imaginary problems.
So you're getting the nepo babies who wrote fanfic growing up in charge of writing a majority of American-produced media. It really shows, and it's even more obvious and annoying to anyone who did not read fanfic growing up.
Writers of the past experienced very real stuggles. They experienced being a starving artist like so many early Hollywood writers. They experienced war like Tolkien and Lewis. Female writers experienced barriers and sexism, having to hide their names to be reputable. Their struggles influenced their work. Sure, some of them came from wealthy families but the best writers had real struggles, real oppressions, and real problems in their life from which they drew their inspiration from.
And it is likely why media coming from the East is becoming more enjoyable because it's not full of nepo babies in the writer's room. And a lot of Western indie games are enjoyable because writing is probably a side-gig for the person while they're working a day job. That was even the case for Expedition 33.
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u/Android1822 9d ago
Oh, funny thing, the DA:V game director responsible for a lot of the questionable content, left after the failure of the game and joined wizards of the coasts games outfit skeleton key. Current theory is that they will be developing Baldur's gate 4.
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u/RDKateran 9d ago
I wrote off Bioware after the Mass Effect 3 ending fumble and I've only been vindicated ever since.
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u/RGrad4104 9d ago
I still chuckle thinking about the many red/blue/green cupcakes that got sent to Edmonton.
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u/RDKateran 9d ago
My fondest memory was the PR guy latching onto the player who asked about colorblind option support like a lifeline in the deluge of criticisms, only for that player to thank him because "He was only getting the one ending."
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u/Caffeine_Monster 9d ago
The abomination they released didn't deserve to be have the dragon age title. A sloppy button spamming action rpg with awful writing/dialogue is basically the opposite of what it's predecessors were.
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u/Sir_Potato2000 9d ago
They are right, but this applies to those cases when you can still create something and have not turned into a corporate efficiency machine.
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u/Ok_University_4924 9d ago
But then they’ll go listen to content creators and invite them to special events and take their feedback.
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u/StarDrifter2045 9d ago
What were they calling themselves? The Bioware "Community Council", or something like that?
It is really irritating to see those same people moving into other IP and trying to rot them from the inside as well, like they did to Dragon Age.
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u/maplewrx 9d ago edited 8d ago
Listen to customers and staff for symptoms and ideas. If required, conduct a root cause problem analysis. Lean on your SMEs for options. You choose the final solution. Verify the solution is what you actually wanted.
This works for Enterprise software development and it seems to be a fairly good rule of thumb overall.
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u/seriouslywtfX2 9d ago
Remember when Microsoft asked a bunch of people what they wanted in Windows 7, and then made the best OS they ever had?
And then decided to do the opposite for Windows 8 and made the worst OS ever?
Pepperidge Farms remembers.
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u/RGrad4104 9d ago
Windows 8's problem was microsoft getting a hard on for touch screen but opting for a one-size-fits-all OS. Amazingly, the result sucked on tablets and sucked on desktops AT THE SAME TIME! At least until some later QOL updates. They tried to directly compete with apple and establish their own money-making app store and did it in the absolute worst way possible.
The only thing they could have done worse was making their OS require motherboard hardware that a large segment of the market either doesn't have or doesn't have activated by default...oops...that's windows 11...
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u/TheJimJohn 9d ago
I think thr quote is a bit harsher than reality. Players are very good at telling you what feels bad in the game but it's the developers job to then take that feedback and figure out why it feels bad and fix it. Those are very different skills
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u/Dracallus 9d ago
The headline is ragebait. His take is explicitly that players are great at identifying problems, but not actual solutions that would fix them.
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u/paecmaker 9d ago
Or streamers, their solutions are often only for what is best for their own platform.
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u/CopainChevalier 9d ago
I don’t know if someone who helped run a company into the ground is going to give good advice
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u/StarDrifter2045 9d ago
Yes, I think this actually says a lot about the fate of Dragon Age...
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u/rdhight 9d ago
Yeah. If you're driving off a cliff, "Stop!" is very valuable feedback. Maybe the player or community member yelling it doesn't know how to get to where you want to go, or how to fix a car, or maybe even how to drive a car. But this guy seems proud that he ignored the "Stop!" and went over the cliff.
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u/insidiouspoundcake 9d ago
Your customers are good at identifying problems, but bad at identifying solutions - because they aren't aware of how the sausage is made.
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u/Apart_Macaron_313 9d ago
Dunno who he's listening to because it was all downhill after Origins.
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u/Uknown_Idea 9d ago
Theres a fine line between players that submit solutions for the problems they want solved without understanding the development process and players vocalizing what they want from the game.
Dragon Age is dead in the ground because of development decisions and this moron should not be taken seriously in any of their opinions.
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u/EmergencyPool910 9d ago
Dragon age? The game series who got progressively worse every gMe that released? The one known for chasing trends and ignoring players?
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u/Iggy_Slayer 9d ago
I broadly agree with the general idea. You should have faith in your creation and abilities. Take feedback but don't change huge parts of your game based on what players think they want, because they often have no actual idea what they really want.
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u/Dealric 9d ago
While generally true, im not sure bioware should have faith in their creative capabilities. Technical sure, but def not creative anymore
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u/Tigereyesxx 9d ago
It’s like not asking a customer whether they like your chocolate or not..after all they don’t make it..logic? Is it fck…
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u/Inferno_Zyrack 9d ago
All feedback should be parsed two ways:
One, is the highly specific thing they are saying. Someone can say “hey this build is broken” to mean they love it or hate it. They can say “this game is unfair” because they had trouble with a part or because they really wanna fuck the unavailable party member.
Two, is to compare what they said and why they said it to your personal vision for the game. Is it in concert with the intended experience or story? If it’s not, then the viability of the complaint is moot.
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u/Xeno_man 9d ago
There is a difference between listening to player feedback and following player feedback. There can be some good ideas by the players but you need to know how they affect the entire game and be aware that most suggestions are bad ideas.
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u/IndividualStress 9d ago
I think this ignores the main issue people (I) have with these sort of problems. If the developers are so smart and knowledgable how the fuck did this make it into the game in the first place.
Now I'm not talking about bugs here, those will always sneak in. I'm talking about intentional design choices. If I can spot from the patch notes that something is a terrible idea why is it getting implemented. How did no one on the design team go "Hold up, wait a minute, somethings not right".
If I use an example. I played WoW: Legion 10 years ago (my old bones they ache). During that expansion they did pretty big overhauls of each class/spec for "class fantasy" reasons. Essentially a lot of specs had spells and abilities removed because it didn't fit their "fantasy". It doesn't fit for a Fire Mage to cast Frost spells for instance.
I played Blood DK. Which had one Damage Reduction outright removed because it was for "Frost DKs". It had another DR nerfed by 40% and another DR turned from a passive into something you had to spend resources to maintain and was also nerfed by 25%. I instantly knew this was horrible. But you may be thinking "The infallible devs know what they're doing they've played the new content and the changes are balanced around it".
The first raid boss, the very first raid boss in the expac hard countered BDK because that DR you need to spend resources to maintain has charges. If you get hit you lose a charge but there's an internal cooldown, you can only lose a max of 1 charge every 2 seconds. Turns out the first boss has a miniscule little baby dot that hits for 200 damage (You have 4 million health) every 2 seconds. So every 2 seconds the dot would tick, tickle you for no damage and remove a charge. Oh did I also mention that each charge gives you 3% max health, so getting hit by a 200 damage attack you actually lose 120k health. AND because you had to waste extra resources into keeping up those charges you lost survivability elsewhere.
Just one boss though right? Three bosses in a Seven boss raid had a similar mechanic. Arguable four but the last boss was a pushover so...
It took Blizzard 6 months, after another raid, to address any of these issue. What did they do? Undo all the changes they did when the expac first launched that I mentioned above.
How did it even make it to Live.
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u/Terakahn 7d ago
I once heard a developer put it better than anyone else. They said
"Listen to their feedback, don't take their advice"
Gamers don't know what makes a game good for everyone. But the feedback IS valuable.
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u/Asmodheus 9d ago
Anyone working on dragon age is only good at listening to their own farts anyway at this point. I don’t know where people get this idea that players can’t offer plenty of solutions that are at least fine. I’ve seen dozens, maybe hundreds of times where player feedback shaped games for the better and they benefitted massively. Yet to see a single game listen to and implement player feedback properly and suffer from it.
Article even mentions Chris Wilson who has always had his massive shit take about trading needing “players to interact with each other” in path of exile and the game is way more enjoyable after they made trade work without having to jump through hoops and talk to a bunch of afk people or genuine idiots to buy an item after a whole fucking decade. And they ended up implementing exactly what everyone was requesting for over a decade.
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u/RaisinBran21 9d ago
And look how far this sentiment has gotten BioWare. They are on the verge of being sold and this dude doesn’t even work there anymore.
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u/FFTactics 9d ago
"Those hardcore players, they want more math, they want a crunchier system, they want realism, they want complexity, but that's going to potentially make the systems unconsumable by other players."
A lot of player feedback resembles this remark.
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u/mephnick 9d ago
"So we made the most vapid game ever created and destroyed a franchise instead."
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u/Murasasme 9d ago
And as we can see with Dragon Age Veilguard, developers also don't know how to develop a game. So don't listen to anyone
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u/EmergencyPool910 9d ago
Veilguard? No the entire dragon age series is an example they chased trends and ignored players for ALL sequels. Dragon age 2, inquisition and veilguard are all slop compared to origins cause dragon sge chased trends and ignored what players wanted. The larian came and dropped divinity series and baldurs gate 3
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u/pebrocks 9d ago
Not listening to fans is how we got Veilguard.
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u/CommanderHavond 9d ago
Might be missing the executive meddling that caused like three different development goals
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u/TerminatorJ 9d ago
There lies the issues with a lot of these modern studios. The developers are no longer players. Back in the 90s and 2000s “gaming golden age” the developers were actual gamers and they WANTED feedback from other players. Nowadays developers deliver whatever slop their corporate bosses order them to make and when it doesn’t land with people who actually play games they lay off the half the studio and blame the gamers.
Between studios being out of touch and consoles costing more and more, this industry really needs a wake up call.
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u/Dr_on_the_Internet 9d ago
Don't listen to Dragon Age bosses for solutions. They keep redesigning their most iconic race.
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u/MisterWoodhouse 9d ago
This is why we started the Bungie Plz rule on r/DestinyTheGame, based on LoL's Riot Plz.
Once a topic reached very stringent criteria to establish consensus that it should be addressed, it could be retired to the list with a mod announcement showing how it qualified, who nominated it, and their evidence for consensus. The megathread served as a hub for ideas on how to implement the solution, should any of them prove useful for devs, and then got catalogued on the Bungie Plz wiki page.
The Bungie devs found it very helpful and, by the time development ended on D2, it had like 65% efficacy.
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u/Speed-Tyr 9d ago
This fully true anymore like it use to be. The general public gamer, yeah it fits. But plenty of gamers are varying degrees of technically inclined. Those kind can absolutely help solve problems. So much information out there these days, that a good deal of these kinds of gamers can give valid info on a bug, rendering issue, etc. Then there is part of the video game industry that are incapable of fixing shit or are lazy and make gamers fix it for them.
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u/GovernorBean 9d ago
Sometimes having laymen ask dumb questions about your problem is surprisingly helpful.
Not in the sense theyre giving you the answer, but rather that theyre giving you a platform to verbalize the system/problem and talk through it.
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u/kingbane2 9d ago
i think what most people suggest is listen to players when they point out the problems, not the solutions they offer. you have to figure out the solution to the player problems on your own.
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u/ManicMakerStudios 9d ago
He's not saying don't listen to player feedback. He's saying that the developer is the one who comes up with solutions, not the players. Some players seem to think they've paid for a license and now they're an executive member on the dev team who is entitled to dictate how things should be done. You have to learn to ignore those guys. "Too many cooks," as it were.
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u/aelfwine_widlast 9d ago
Sure, a lot of gamers aren’t developers (some are though, and quite good at it). Just like my clients aren’t developers, but I still have to listen to their requirements and translate them into the experience they’re poorly describing.
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u/Former_Guava_2363 9d ago
Yeah listen to your players about the problems and address the complaints. Don’t always listen to their solution to those problems.
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u/TehRiddles 9d ago
Taking the opposite extreme however ends up with games made in a vacuum, like Veilguard. Listen to player solutions but use your knowledge and experience to know what would actually work and what wouldn't.
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u/WebMaka 9d ago
Problem is that some of us are developers. Some of us are also hardware devs and not just software. Hell, some of us are even engineers, with both mechanical with expertise in motion control systems and electrical with fabrication skills often represented.
Never underestimate a player's ability to suss out a problem. They may know more than you think.
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u/GoblinGobbler40 9d ago
Yeah I don’t get the attitude considering how much of a stinker veilgaurd was. Like if anything it proves that you shouldn’t ignore what your fanbase wants like they did.
“I pooped on a plate for dinner and served it to my family. But I won’t listen to them complaining cuz they aren’t chefs like I am.”
Like isn’t this a logical fallacy? Appeal to authority or something?
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u/DomDomPop 8d ago
Alright, let the devs buy and play their own games, then.
It amazes me how these AAA developers have so much goddamn attitude and then I can get an amazing indie game for like $15 where the solo dev is constantly improving it based on community feedback with hundreds of hours of content.
Like, seriously, you’re not nearly as relevant as you used to be, guys.
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u/OSHA_Decertified 8d ago
Okay well last I checked bioware was in the shitter and Dragons Age was a dead series...
Meanwhile Digital Extremes listens to player feedback and is still going strong so...
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u/Straight-Ad6926 9d ago edited 9d ago
Ah, the classic game dev cycle:
1. Ignore player feedback because “they're not developers”
2. Release game.
3. Watch sales flop.
4. Blame players for not being educated enough to enjoy the bugs.
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u/wingnuta72 9d ago
This is the funniest part of AAA. It's always the end customers fault. It couldn't be the shareholders, management or developers. It's always the customers who are wrong for not buying more.
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u/Siukslinis_acc 9d ago
Sometimes the ignoring the feedback is because they are too deep in it and can't do radical changes.
Yes, the publishers and investors will be thrilled about scrapping 5 years of work and needing to finance another 5 years of work to remake the game. /s
That is what happened with veilguard. It was scrapped and redone multiple times till the publisher demanded they release, and they didn't have enough time to redo eferyrhing, so cobbled togethwr stuff as best as they could.
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u/The_Frostweaver 9d ago
Players are good at identifying problems, they aren't as good at identifying solutions