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Do you think the devs are too secretive?
Do you feel the devs are needlessly secretive with a lot of things? Do you think this whole situation with the color blindness could have been avoided if they were more open about it with the community? (Genuine question)
Comments
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Yes
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Yup bet they're working on some of the problems we complain about but their secrecy like the CIA makes it seem like they don't.
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Yep like why it's a base game thing it's not some chapter or classified info that would change several countries
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I don't really think so.
They're trying to avoid annoucing unfinished features (what is good thinking on The Twins). And some things are better announced that way.
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Maybe for certain things sure, but Color-Blindness support has been asked for nearly 5 years now, and the fact they only reveal it when they get literal outside sources causing backlash for what a Dev said on a stream. This could all have been so easily avoided if they just announced they were finally adding support for it, but they didn't. They tried to hide it as if it was a new chapter.
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No, not too secretive, just too slow.
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Yes. Their go to response of "we're looking into it" or flat out ignoring makes players think they don't care. Instead of "we're looking into it" they should have said "we are working on colorblind options, we don't have any eta as it is taking time to make sure we get it right but it is an accessibility option we are currently working on." If they gave informative responses it is less likely angry people will spam devs streams and putting the dev in an awkward situations. Letting the players know what they are working on to improve the game would improve morale so much among players but instead they are left in the dark to assume the worst.
Their PR team should spend less time announcing cosmetics and instead focus on communicating with players about the actual game like what they're working on to improve game health, what bugs they're aware of, etc. Things that the players are consistently complaining about because no one at DBD will address the concerns until either the patch is released or they need to do damage control.
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I find it's half and half - Some of their communication (Like the recent colorblind changes) comes off as last second changes they're playing off as features that have been in the works for a while when it's hard to believe and more comes off as a quick adjustment based on UI feedback. Sometimes they're pretty open about things and everything is great and as expected. Other times they're silent for the only reason I'd assume is to not build expectations. It is true that BHVR communicates quite a bit but sometimes that communication comes off as disingenuous - A good example is their reason for adding overheat on The Hillbilly. Sometimes they just come off as contradicting their own statements many times whether it be through forum post, announcements or even streams whether personal or official. I do hate sounding jaded here but in reality I just take a lot of what they say with a grain of salt and I let the results speak for itself. When BHVR actually gets stuff done it usually turns out great but the thing is they take forever and I find that's the main issue here on why it's so hard to take that statement seriously. Players have been asking for colorblind support since launch and it's been over 4 years.
Regarding the actual addition of colorblindness what did they really change if you think about it? Just a single hue on scratchmarks and auras. Something that could be achieved in minutes that took 4 years in the making. Maybe they needed the previous groundwork for the aura system replacement for this but I want verification on that.
Anyways - It's great that they're finally adding support for colorblindness and other accessibility features. I look forward to seeing the finished product.
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They're not any more or less secretive than the majority of big game companies. They're definitely a lot slower than most though, and play it WAYYYY too safe with their updates, taking no risks because they know they don't have to try anything big or new.
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Yes.
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"We're looking into it."
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Rockstar is secretive, with BHVR it feels like ######### just happens without rhyme or reason. They need to make another more detailed roadmap not just so the community knows whats going on but so they do too. It really wouldn't surprise me if they didnt have a roadmap for themselves and just randomly decided to do ######### that day. I think Almo actually said as much to some degree
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yeah (made an entire thread bout it).
like, as others stated, there's stuff that can (and should) be kept secret, but basic mechanics and features, or even some skins etc should not be amongst that number.
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Yeah. Their secrecy makes them just look incompetent most of the time.
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From my experience many developers specifically choose not to share certain things in regards to changes to the game, mostly because many times those changes are in very early stages in the works.
Imagine if they had announced that color blind feature was coming soon, only to later find out they weren’t able to make it possible.
I’d rather find out when they are ready to announce.
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Imagine if they had announced that color blind feature was coming soon, only to later find out they weren’t able to make it possible.
I would be extremely surprised if they wouldn't be able to implement colorblind mode.
Also,it's much better to hear they are trying to work on it than getting absolutely 0 info.
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Its hard to say what they can/cannot work on considering we don’t have any idea of what goes on behind the scenes.
I would rather be surprised than let down because they “promised” something and didn’t deliver. Having played other games where developers also seemed secretive about what they worked on, I am just assuming that is the reason for not sharing what is deemed as not ready to be shared.
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Hmm,i guess that's just preference at this point.
But i think it would help the devs if they would be a bit more transparent about things like colorblind modes.
That way the community would feel acknowledged and be more understandable even if they fail to implement it as long as they explain why.
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I think the issue is more that they send mixed messages about how open they're going to be. A lot of game developers don't communicate with their players at all, except for pushing announcements. I think BHVR is unusually open to feedback and interaction, from that POV, and even unusually forthcoming about work that's still in progress.
However, because they're open about a lot of stuff, and they haven't established clear, consistent boundaries around what they're willing to share, it feels weird when they suddenly pull back and don't want to talk about something. Like, "Why are you being so cagey? What are you trying to hide???"
From a marketing/PR POV, I understand that developers want to have control over when and how they release certain kinds of info, and I don't think that's wrong -- I just think that, in this case, it's confusing because it's inconsistent.
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I feel like the devs are kind of damned if they do, damned if they don't.
If 6 months ago they were like "Yeah, we're working on Colorblind mode." Everyone would be screaming "What's taking so long?! How long can it take to make Colorblind mode?" (people are asking this now anyway)
If they don't announce it, people assume nothing is being done
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Funny how people actually believe it takes "months of hard work" to change the colour... Lmao
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I understand what you mean.
I am going off of things like when they said they were going to introduce a “trial warm up” about a year ago, and now people are getting bent up about that because they are either impatient or just flat out don’t understand how working on games works.
I don’t know why they don’t share everything but my personal feeling/opinion is that they don’t keep secrets because they don’t want to share. The fact that they showed a visual along with the colorblind feature announcement just shows that they wanted to share a visual... meaning they didn’t wanna just tell us about it. Which if you’ve noticed they often do that.
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For certain things, no. For most things, yes.
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They are and I get it with content like new killers, but when it comes to the colour blind mode, there was no need to keep the community guessing for as long as they have.
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I don’t think that’s very fair.
They, like any game studio, have no legal, no ethical, no moral obligation to be 100% transparent with its community of gamers.
We as gamers should stop expecting this from them. It’s very invasive and oppressive.
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On the case of colorblind mode they had been blowing it off over and over then almo just gets annoyed and makes things spiral and all of a sudden "hey we've been working on colorblind mode! See! SEE!" Lol something that shoulda been announced a bit ago with the backlash and the only reason they ever told us now is because ablegamers ceo challenged them.
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As a player, obviously I wish we knew more about what goes on behind the scenes.
But I've witnessed them do exactly that in the past, and I've seen the fallout. If they announce that they're working on something before they're ready to release it (even if they don't announce a release date and/or are very clear about the fact that it might not happen or might be delayed), one of two things happens: it turns out they can't do the thing, or the thing is going to take longer than expected, and they get accused of breaking promises and lying to their players.
Or, second possibility, they can do the thing, and they do, but it's not in the next patch because nothing is ever released six weeks after they start working on it (which, as I understand from close friends and family who are software engineers, is not that unreasonable, but simply how pipelines work in large companies). Players who don't understand that get upset and, at best, start heckling the devs for being too slow, and at worst, assume they're lying or breaking promises as above.
So do I wish they were less secretive? Sure, that would be nice for me. But when I think about past PR disasters that have come about as a result of them being more transparent, I don't feel like I can really blame them for choosing to just keep their heads down and communicate only when they're 100% sure about something. I would probably do the same in their position.
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They have no obligation to be a 100% transparent with us that's true. However they are quite secretive on things that don't make sense.
Why not let the community know if they're looking into DS? They don't need to say "we're changing it this way and this is when it's happening". I don't see why they can't just say something simple like "we are looking at the perk to see if it is being used in situations it's not meant to". Even if they say "we aren't looking at the perk" then at least we can move on or try and give good reasons why it should be looked at (OoO).
Why not let the community know if the information in the survey is actually doing anything? So far I don't think the surveys have made any difference to the game. I always mention the tome one in particular where it asked us what we'd like in the future tomes. We haven't seen them change at all. I'm certain the results weren't implying that we wanted 25+ charms per tome.
Again we don't need every detail from them. Stuff like we don't need to know when a chapter is licensed or not. I'd love to be wrong but they just are secretive sometimes for no good reason.
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Definitely yes.
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I would agree it's better to be a bit more hesitant when talking about certain things.
However,there are other topic that need more and clear communication.Topics like accessibility options and optimization comes to my mind.
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Obviously yes, something as simple as colorblind settings was going to be kept quite about until it was complained about by someone with influence over potential sales. that could have EASILY been prevented if they simply announced that they have started working on colorblind settings, seriously devs if you read this just announce stuff that you know will get finished as soon as you start working on it if it's just a QOL thing that doesn't affect gameplay balance.
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Like I said, as a player I totally agree. But the last time they were transparent about their intentions regarding optimisation, it caused one of the biggest "devs are liars" blowups in the game's history because they were unable to turn their hopes into reality within the projected timeframe - and, to my knowledge, still haven't succeeded in that particular instance.
So I guess what I'm saying is I can see both sides. Particularly when it comes to things like accessibility options, I totally agree it would have been nice to hear something about it sooner - if not an explicit "we're working on it", then at least some more concrete assurance that they were taking it seriously and doing everything they could to find ways to make it happen. If they had done that, perhaps this whole incident with Almo could have been avoided, who knows. I've never been a Community Manager, and I've heard it's a lot harder than it looks, so I personally feel it would be presumptuous for me to tell them how to do their job. But at the same time, I can understand how situations like the one I mentioned above would make them hesitant to be transparent in their communication on any changes, just to be really safe. Not saying I think that's the right decision, just that I have some sympathy for it because I can see what led them to that conclusion.
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They rarely spoil anything indeed, and in my knowledge haven't released any information on new chapters. But I don't really mind
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Most of the blowup, at first, wasn't because they weren't optimizing it fast enough but because they had patches that would state "Improved optimization for consoles" or something along those lines and one of two things actually happened: 1. No frame change was obvious or 2. FPS was actually worse. It eventually turned into a "they are taking too long" thing but console is now much better than before, especially next gen (obviously).
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Anyway, I do feel BHVR is secretive about things that don't really make sense and can easily let us know they are looking into things without giving an ETA. Most of the time they joke about how slow they are with changes, which is fine, but sometimes it kind of comes off as them not actually wanting to improve on how long things take. Many times during the Q&A they don't give much info at all for questions they answer.
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No. Players just expect a lot.
I've played in games where Devs were as transparent as this community wants them to be. Do you know what happens in those games?
"GG Orion promised us flying vehicles 6 months, ago. Nothing. Screw Orion Entertainment."
"Orion said we'd have holsterable weapons by Christmas. Now it's February, but they just keep saying SOON. These guys never get off their backsides."
"Orion devs said again and again and again they were going to fix movement speeds on Echo Island, but never did. Obviously, they lied to us."
"I only stayed subbed to this game because Orion said they were going to add LGBT options for romances. Well, it's been a whole expansion now, and nothing. This is hurtful and dishonest."
And so on, and so on, and so on.
If a dev even HINT something is coming, the deluge of harassment doesn't stop. I don't know where this myth started that transparency gets people off of Devs backs, because I can tell you from personal experience it absolutely does not. In fact, it often makes it worse.
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Regarding optimization:
They handled it the worst possible way.
They promised us 60 FPS towards the end of 2019.
And nothing improved since then.We still have to deal with unstable FPS and those horrible FPS drops (getting hit with noed/sloppy butcher/freddy,getting bloodlust etc.)That is an extremely important issue that heavily impacts gameplay experience for console/lower end pc players.
And we don't even get any kind of info from them.
The last thing we heard from optimization was when i was asking them in the last Q&A if they could ever fix the FPS drops.And their response was very lackluster (33:33)
(BTW the FPS drop when looting a chest wasn't fixed)
Dealing with this is not fun:
Like,it's been over a year since they promised us 60 and absolutely nothing got done.
They shouldn't have raised expectations so high and then just drop it.It's their fault and it's one of the reasons why i completely lost any respect for BHVR.
Post edited by OniWantsYourMacaroni on1 -
Very true.
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They they say hey we had to drop this bdue to lack of color blind staff or something
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But a lot of people also forget about it
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Exactly. I'm not saying it was the community's fault, I'm saying the devs slipped up bigtime there and that's exactly why they're so cautious about making any kind of promises, or anything that could be construed as a promise, now.
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They're not secretive enough or else these bits wouldn't have got out. https://youtu.be/mo2Xn9Xq_Ts
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Yes, I think the Devs are too secretive, and I'm starting to suspect it's because there isn't a lot going on behind the scenes besides half-hearted attempts at bug fixing and new chapter creation.
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Yes. They just suck at communication in general. Look at Almo as an example. They may haver good intentions, but actually laying that out for the player base, well, they are severely lacking. Why they couldn't just come out and say a color blind mode was in the works when they first started is beyond me. My guess? They haven't been working on it until recently. What other reason would there be to keep it in the dark?
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BHVR doesn't owe you anything. They can release info when they want or not.
A feel like some of you may be the type to give money to an onlyfans person and then get pissed because you don't understand that just because you give them money doesn't mean they owe you any type of relationship...
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