Developer communication is key
Notice the difference between these two?
I’m going to also link the two dev posts regarding the issues currently facing the FFXIV servers and how they are handling it and communicating it to the players.
https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/8f55217e86331b83783b89dc0d0e9fa8af5e7bb1
Follow up - https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/b8998277cf6cda292bddaeeb6f136ad0505700e6
Imagine if the developers had barely communicated with the player base, I guarantee you people would be up in arms about it. I know that me and my friends would be as well. Server issues like this deeply effect the players ability to even play the game, and to that end, the developers are doing everything they can to solve the issue ASAP and keep people up to date as much as they can.
People see this, they notice it and they appreciate it.
Why can’t BHVR do the same?
Comments
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You did an excellent job at blanking the names out lol
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"Why can't BHVR do the same?"
No one's sure. But one thing that I am certain of is that BHVR needs a clear direction first and foremost. Though that kind of retrospection can't happen if they plug their ears and just continue working on more and more content every 3 months without wondering if what they already has works or not.
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I want to do that survey do, they might listen a little. Link please!
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Yeah it looked different on the screen I was doing it on. It's a public comment section regardless and there's no real reason for targeting here.
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here
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Notice the difference between these two?
Why yes, I do!
One is a competitive PvP game run by an independent developer and the other is one of the highest grossing PvE games run by a massive triple A studio with over a decade under their belt.
Or was that not the point you were trying to make?
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To be perfectly honest.
I'd avoid the forums like The Plague if I worked at BHVR.
Last thing I need on my mental state are the people playing the game I am working on constantly shitting on it and giving me constant Impostor Syndrome.
So I understand why they don't do it.
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One is a mostly pve mmo and the other is a asymetrical pvp. It's easy to communicate if the ones you are communicating with are relativally all on the same line. It's impossible to have meaningfull communication with a community as devided as ours
Also the community of ff14 is actually positive. You won't find examples of people reviewbombing a dlc cause they didn't want to spend time to learn how to play against it.
That the devs don't communicate with us is because we mostly consist of immature crybabies.
It is as much of the communities fault as the devs. Arguably even more. I don't blame them.
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THey used to be more open with their communication, but that time is long gone.
I don't expect anything anymore from this dev team. Not that I hate them personally or something, I think they on their own are good people. But the decisions, the lack of communication, the lack of vision in the game, the band aid fixes and not adressing the core problems (or ONLY when the backlash they get, is getting undeniable like the release of this last chapter).
The fact we have "Community Managers", yet they are nowhere to be seen (or once in a blue moon in a topic that doesn't even adress anything), speaks for itself. They used to be way more active on the forum, now they leave it to the mods, whose hands are tied really bad (again, nothing personal against any of the mods).
I can understand it gets you tired as a dev team when you read some trash on the forum, but mostly they did it themselves in the first place.
They promise stuff but almost don't ever deliver:
- We were supposed to get a "husk" if a survivor disconnected, so the killer could get points for the hook and sacrifce the survivor that way... Never delivered on that plan.
- They announced an auto-ban feature. They remain so much vague (is this how you spell it?), that the forum just explodes with concerns from players (and rightfully so, since we only hear there is an auto-ban feature coming, but nothing else and how it works). Just announce it when it's done and you can give more information...
- Early game collapse... It was mentioned, but never seen and never heard of again.
- And I can make this list way longer but I don't want to.
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I can understand that myself. But to be honest, like I described in the post earlier in this thread, they have a share in that themselves.
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I have been playing this game for years and there has never been a point of everything functioning properly in game.
Every patch new issues come up whether they are, UI, player, perks, programming, or literally anything you can think of: their is always something wrong with the game.
By this point I honestly believe BHVR doesn't know to properly make anything up to standards as far as a game goes. You see that they will release new skins and cosmetics like crazy. But anything important to fix... well doesn't matter how minor it seems they say ok we'll fix it. They say nothing about it and just slap it into the next patch which takes months.... and then even more things break or malfunction.
BHVR is by far one of the worst dev teams I have ever seen! I regularly play other games, like smite and warframe, both of which require a similar amount of consistent upkeep and maintenance to function. Their dev teams, as soon as they hear or notice any game breaking problems, unlike BHVR who just ignores them until next patch, they will have a solution within a day or two. When a major problem has occurred they waste no time working on fixing it, and have had disabled maps, characters, even certain game modes.
But my point is that most of the other games I play don't released half-baked projects and will fix any issues fast. BHVR on the other hand just does what it feels like at this point. If they don't start becoming more interactive and overall better, their game will die.
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No, it wasn't. Of course, the games being VERY different is a factor in communication, but hardly big enough to justify the communication methods. The nature of DbD means that people are likely to be more negative towards the game and the developers, but I genuinely believe that most people are not like that. Yes, the developers will get ######### on for saying literally anything, but being more open with the community will only be beneficial for actually keeping people invested in the game.
It would just be really damn nice if it felt like the developers actually care about us in the same way the other developers like SE are able to. Is it really that difficult? Apparently so. Coming from the FFXIV community to here is like stepping between that house that's surrounded by the sun and clear skies filled with rainbows, flowers blooming and unicorns trotting around...to a dank, dark rotting house with dark clouds, rain and rotting corpses lining the garden.
Again, I'm well aware that the communities are different, but the communication is one of many factors that gets people riled up and feeling like they aren't valued.
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Thanks! Let them know I still like DBD a lot but current state of console is not good enough.
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BHVR has an absolute monopoly on the genre. In fact, what they are doing right now is exactly why corporate monopolies are broken up. Because it goes from healthy competition forcing to companies to act better and be better in order to remain profitable, to just milking your customers because they really just have no other choice.
It's on a much smaller scale here, but it's the same principle: BHVR has a secure position and just needs to make sure the game retains a paying playerbase of some kind.
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The problem is that they have perfectly good community managers that could and should interact with the forums even if it's just to put out fires. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that they are allowed to.
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Oh definitely, I don't disagree with that.
Management at BHVR just seems like they suck a lot. They really don't feel like they know what they are doing.
Reminds me a lot of Bo Anderson from Overkill Studios.
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Yep.
Apart from other factors,FF14 has to compete with other games in its genre.
DbD doesn't,so BHVR will just do the bare minimum
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If you go looking for complaints you will find complaints.
I went on their twitter and found this.
Instead of talking in vague terms, You really ought to state, what you think BHVR should communicate to you.
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Not once did I say FFXIV and SE we're perfect and didn't have valid complaints or people complaining in general. If my post made it somehow seem like that, then that wasn't the intention. You seem to be missing the point of my post entirely.
What do I want them to communicate? Damn, literally anything that's actually beneficial towards community + developer relations.
- Keep us regularly updated on the state of balancing/bug fixing/estimated completion times/letting us know when promises they made can't be met
- Go in to more detail about changes they make to the game. Justify why they think making certain changes are for the best despite the majority of the community telling them over and over again that it isn't what they want (Hillbilly changes, UI changes, recent Trickster buff)
- Offer faster solutions to game breaking issues with the game instead of throwing out shards and BP and calling it a day and expecting it to tide us over until the changes eventually come through.
- Actually listen to community feedback and implement impactful changes sooner rather than waiting for several months before actually doing anything about the issue.
- Prioritise bugs in the game that legitimately affect gameplay over fixing minor issues that nobody is even raising a fuss about (cosmetic glitching). Just because it's a smaller easier fix doesn't mean you should prioritise it over other, more serious issues.
- Be more active on the forums. Despite the forums being a cesspool of hate and the Us vs Them mentality, that shouldn't be an excuse for them to withdraw and remain near enough silent. They have so much power, but are afraid to actually wield it and use it well. They'd rather us just squabble amongst ourselves.
I don't think these are unreasonable things to ask for when other developers do these things, if not more. If we want to make a better comparison, there is a reason so many people are leaving WoW for FFXIV, It's because the devs don't listen and they do things the players actively do not want. If BHVR keeps following this pattern, it will not end well.
(Also, Bard is a perfectly fine Job. It might not be as potent as some of the other ranged physical Jobs, but it's perfectly viable in any content. Anybody complaining about it are likely raiders, as it doesn't really affect casual players at all. The Job balance in FFXIV is in a very good state.)
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This is what used to happen.
The devs used to have a weekly stream detailing what they were doing and working on.
The issues that arised from this were the community itself. No matter what they talked about the community would jump on them for changes they did not like, changes they beleived should be made and if the date of anything coming was announced and changed the forums were a mass of complaints calling them incompetent.
Slowly these disappeared and today we have a scenario where they try not to discuss upcoming changes or dates too much until the are 100% confirmed.
Most bugs and issues are answered with a we know and are looking into it statement.
Could they be better? Of course and I think they should be in some aspects but at the same time knowing what happened in the past I can understand why they use the words tentatively, proposed, not final, we are looking into it etc.
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Your post speaks volumes about how little you know about game design and development.
I would not expect to get an update of most of the things you suggest while they would be nice.
However most of your complaints is something you need way more time and evidence to demonstrate is a problem.
Honestly you should have suggested these things without the baggage. Like seriously.
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Kind of surprised this topic didn't get moved/whitewashed by the mods yet.
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"milking your customers", "no other choice"?
Dude, after purchasing it, you do not have to pay ANYTHING to play the game! All the original characters can be unlocked with playtime alone (shards), only licensed ones have to be purchased (and thats solely because the license holders want their share of the cake). You can get any perk without paying, you just have to be lucky (shrine). If you are willing to spent 10€ once, you can use it repeatedly to buy the "battle passes", since you get totally refunded when you max it out.
The only things that are really expensive are cosmetics, don't buy them and you don't get "milked".
So, pls explain me, where is this "milking" you are complaining about, that apparently no one can avoid, since we have "no other choice"?
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Yep, I agree and it will get moved quickly to the "Feedback" section where no one will see or read it much less the devs.
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No, I don’t know about game development and I’m not going to pretend I do. If what I’m asking for is unreasonable, that’s fair, but I’m speaking from experience when I say I’ve been apart of and am currently a part of communities where the developers deliver some or all of the things I’ve stated.
judging by the tone of your comments, I can assume that you favour the style of communication BHVR have chosen, and that’s fair, but you don’t have to tear someone else down because they don’t agree with the way BHVR handle their community. Its that simple.
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It’s very easy to say that you can just earn every single OG character with shards, wait for the shrine to give you every licensed perk for free (which you would be waiting a VERY long time for), don’t buy any cosmetics etc.
Many people simply don’t have the time to grind for characters, they see a cosmetic they really like but don’t have the time to grind for it or don’t want to grind, people with expendable incomes, people who want to own every licensed chapter or really want a specific Killer but HAVE to spend real money on it.
Its easy to say “just don’t buy it”, but if it were that easy, BHVR wouldn’t be making the sheer amount of money they’re probably making. The issue isn’t a single person choosing not to buy anything, it’s the general player base being collectively milked by purchasing DLC’s and cosmetics/rifts.
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There is no other live assymetrical survival game. Ever. That means all the Devs have to do is keep the game functional and the ones with money will throw it at them for cosmetics because they have no other game they want to throw it at. And the ones without time will pay for chapters. And the ones that want lisenced character have to pay for chapters.
Meanwhile, unlike nearly every other live-service game, they do the absolute bare minimum because they don't have any risk of players leaving for the next biggest title. Because there are no titles.
Just because you, personally, don't pay for anything doesn't mean this game isn't a golden goose of microtransactions.
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lol what? I literally said some of your suggestions would be nice.
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The key is keeping people playing and spending money.
BHVR won't care unless there's really something that compromises the game image. That's why probable the whole team worked on the colour blindness changes with a blink of an eye and now they are working on the console "fixes". After that, they will come back to the outfits and the new dlcs, theses are the things that give money and keep people playing.
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What is wrong with earning money with OPTIONAL game content? WIthout it the game would be dead, the servers and employees wouldn't get paid. Or are devs not allowed to earn anything if the only "do the absolute bare minimum"? How much do you have to "care" to be allowed to earn something from it, then?
Personally I find the constant cries about the "greedy devs" not only insulting, but on the edge of defamation, esp. when this game gives you so much options to unlock game related stuff without having to pay a single cent.
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Just because they don’t respond or directly implement any feedback or suggestion doesn’t mean they don’t read it. Feedback belongs to the feedback section because that’s what the section is for and that’s where the devs look or the mods collect the it to forward it to the dev team.
everyone has the ability to look into the section and participate in the discussions there, it’s not being hidden at all.
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Because they're human. Sometimes humans don't take lessons to heart and they do not learn. Sometimes humans need a little trial and error in order to understand the repeated mistakes that cause the errors before the issues can be rectified.
There's a big difference in the kind of clout one developer may have over another, and in the case of BHVR, the fact they have any community relations is a positive and affirming direction, even if community members find that team disagreeable.
It takes time to get a point across, so maybe there's another channel or avenue to have the discussion, in terms that are clear. Ultimately, if the message is clear and the community does not receive it's collective bargain, sales in upcoming DLCs will assuredly suffer.
If sales are successful, then that bottom line dollar means that the community is in fact receiving what it's paying for, and with DBD at its highest concurrent player base ever, it is likely enjoying very high revenue.
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