Why I think BHVR get so much flack for PTB changes (and how to address it)

Hi BHVR,

I've noticed there is this general tone lately of "calm down, don't get mad" in your communication with the community. Now there have been some pretty sizable disasters that have led to backlash, but there is one consistent problem you've always had, even in regards to your more recent renaissance of making big changes and having a much more open door for the community... This will hopefully be constructive criticism to help address the barrage of anger and push back regarding announcements you tend to get both for changes in the PTB and for live releases.

I've listened to numerous content creators, had discussions with many players of lots of different skill levels and experience over the 2 and half years I've played this game, and listening to and gone over the posts and streams many times with keen interest. One thing repeatedly sticks out in occasions where patch notes have gone well, and when patch notes have gone bad... It is simply a case of does the community feel heard and their opinion respected?

As 2 polar examples:

• Hillbilly in 4.1.0 getting his overheat mechanic for example is a case where the community doesn't feel heard... the issues there were his instasaw add-ons, but instead of addressing that, he got a new mechanic that didn't address the problem, and brought a load of new ones. This made no sense and the community didn't feel heard or respected at all...
• Hillbilly in 7.5.0 getting his overdrive mechanic, undid this and with his instasaw add-ons already changed, these changes went very well, as they addressed the very talking points the community had about Billy... in fact I don't think I remember a more glowing period of where the community felt more heard than this PTB.

Now the important distinction here is, just giving the community what they ask for is not the point... the point is, even if you don't give the community what they are asking for, they still need to feel heard...

I've heard I few times in streams the phrase "we hear you" or "its on our radar", but the problem is a lot of the time, we get a very high level, vague description of your thought process... and that thought process often is riddled with logical holes, and missing huge amounts of talking points with big repercussions elsewhere in the game.... More often than not, the devil in the details, and we as a community need to know that you've considered them...

Now I am known for being verbose on these forums... I'm sure there are several people who think "oh God here's UndeddJester with another reader's digest post", and I wouldn't blame them tbh, but... I have always held the belief that you need to take as much time as needed to say what you need to say, even if you have to be a bit pedantic and boring sometimes... However in a lot of your updates and discussions... explanations of your thought process rarely have more than a single sentence or a short paragraph.

What am I referring to? Well for example, in this PTB going by, we have a lot of talk about tunneling and slugging and camping and how they're not fun, and survivors are quitting in droves... However these things are complex, there are so many layers to these things that have effects through the entire game... this is why the "evil killer" thing didn't go down well... it's fine point the griefers out, but you need to acknowledge the mid ground, where even reasonable killers sometimes do these things... it is actually mahority of the time not a result of innocent Survivor persecuted by mean Killer, but often hand forced by going down under pallets, and other such aspects. The Game and everyone screaming "pallets" for example, kinda showed your hand you hadn't considered this...

And thisnis the issue... the biggest problem is when we have concerns and issues with things, we never hear the talking points we would raise and expect come back at us. Now no one expects you to reply to every possible talking point and every person... but we never get an idea of the big picture, what factors you've considered, and where your overall conclusion came from... and when you miss something like that, we never get a follow up to that effect…

I have no idea how you go realistically about gathering your feedback, but however you do it, when we don't hear the talking points we expect to hear, it makes us question if you've listened to us at all.

As some examples:

• The slugging changes: anyone with any experience will look at the slug changes and immediately an alarm goes off in your brain to say "what about Oni and Twins?". We hear nothing of these killers at any point. What about sabo squads, or teams repeatedly going down under pallets? These things are big enough to factor into your decisions, and yet we hear none of it... we don't know if you thought about it at all, and often the concluding changes seem to suggest no...
• The tunneling changes: you talk about not weaponising the anti tunnel changes, so you add no clip, but then have to revert cause survivors can clip in the killer and force hits, so remove it... but we never talk about this talking point again? Are you looking for another solution? Are you gonna compensate somehow?
• Skull Merchant or any rework on any killer: we get asked for feedback on their changes, but we never get any idea what your objective is, we never know what points you've considered in your rework. We get given a preview, we react to it, and then either none of what we said is mentioned or seems to feature into the rework whatsoever… a breakdown of the parts you want to retain of the killer and their identity, and the reasons changes don't fit into this idea would be great to hear... if we raise issues with something and things change, hearing that reasoning come back and what youre trying to achieve, or at teh very least a "it wpuld be nice, but we have this problem" response would go a lot way to making people feel heard and respected... heck we may even come up with a solution for you!
• Last minute changes on the PTB or rapid changes before anything settles: far too many times we give feedback on the PTB or issues in the game, and everyone thinks we've put in meaningful feedback... only for a whole heap of big sweeping changes that are completely untested get thrown in last second/suddenly to live. Some examples include Sadako, Krasue, the Fog Vials back to back double nerf, Dracula and Chucky constantly flip flopping buffs and nerfs. These things don't make sense, with many things feeling like they come way out of left field.
• No explanation why things aren't done: Even if you have to give the answer "we can't think of a good solution", that is a fine response, but you have to explain it… such as the Self Unhook to die issue, that was a hard issue to solve, and understandable why it took a long time to come up with the solution...However you never gave us the talking points we expected to hear, such as "we want self unhooks to be in the game, but we can't keep allowing people to continue subvering the DC penalty", "the DC penalty is necessary because the game doesnt function without 5 players, if you agree to play, you should honour that agreement", "we're reluctant to remove self unhooks, because it removes player agency", etc.

The overall point is, we as a community don't really know where a lot of your decisions come from, and what factors you've considered in making them. This allows people to form their own conclusions, that usually results in saying you don't know what you are talking about, or are "whatever" sided, or don't care about the community and just do whatever you want, etc.

While you don't owe us an explanation for every little detail, if we could understand/see the factors that went into your decisions, got mentions regarding our concerns (maybe even state you know something is an issue for <splot> killer or perk or survivor gripe, and ask for suggestions about that very issue), it'd make us feel much more heard...

Even if the changes don't go our way, it's a much easier pill to swallow, if we at least get to plead our case and feel it will actually be taken in.

Unfortunately opinions are like buttholes, everyone has got one, and some people are biased and only oit for themselves... so I dont know how you achieve that with the mountains of feedback you receive, but if you can manage this, help us understand the factors you're considering, I do believe believe on the whole tempers would not flair anywhere near as often or intensely.

We aren't your enemies, on the whole all of us here want to help, even if we do end up bickering like children sometimes.... but it's because we care, and want the game to do well.

Saying "we hear you" is not enough, we need to actually see it.

P.S. the Legion 2v8 situation is a great example of understanding your thought process would be appreciated... do you ever intend to bring them back? Are you looking for suggestions? Are they gone for good?

Cheers, and best regards

UndeddJester