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This is an atrocious response to legitimate constructive feedback and it is very disheartening. You can ignore it, but actively trying to shut it down is such a game developer foul that I’m kind of at a loss of words. Maybe I’m too used to massive games with dedicated marketing/PR teams, but anything less than an apology is completely out of place here for a professional game.
Wording matters, as should be evident to creators of a social deduction game. Saying “Mind warp’s alterations are part of a larger amount of balance changes that simultaneously simplify the game for everyone. We are very excited to deliver a more streamlined experience for veterans and new players alike. We ask players to be patient and see how the new changes work out in the game and want to ensure you that we’ll stay vigilant in maintaining the unique aspects that make Throne of Lies what it is.” as opposed to “The change is going through, stop crying in the specially made feedback thread, I hate this community.” makes all the difference.
If you think I’m being harsh then this is just the message I’m getting from this.
On the upside at least you do read our feedback and care about it. The response just leaves something to be desired.
11 Likes
This is the first time you guys have made a thread that has legimately pissed ME off personally.
The devs clearly know about Illu/s problems and have for a while. If Mindwarp is being simplified the classes who have it are going to get buffed or MindWarp is going to be rebuffed!
3 Likes
You fucking forced one of the best developers I’ve seen to stop doing one of the things he did best with how much you nitpick a single fucking change!
For goodness sake, ToL’s meta is so unpredictable that attempting to predict what everything does based on your own personal predictions is utterly ludicrous.
If Armae makes a change that you don’t personally like, just say you don’t. Don’t blow a gigantic snowstorm of whining up about how “gamebreaking” it is.
2 Likes
Think about it. You don’t need to suggest to not change Mindwarp before you even know the full extent of the changes five times with absoloutely no difference in argument between them.
And now, because Ellie was trying to stop a thread that was legitimately giving absolutely no feedback that’s helpful, you go and make another thread complaining about that essentially to circlejerk about how you’re right!
Yes, I know that I’m pretty much no better when it comes to FM feedback, but at least then theoretical feedback actually has a basis.
sigh
This will probably be shot down, so I’ll just mute this thread and leave this trite sentiment here.
Still love you guys by the way.
2 Likes
Your response is honestly ignorant. Absolutely no one is in the wrong here besides Boslof . Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the change, people shouldn’t be yelled at for voicing their opinions on balance.
It’s the entire purpose of that subcategory of the forum.
This is also a heavy over exaggeration. The thread was fine. People were explaining their thoughts on the change and why they thought that way. It was by no means a ‘gigantic snowstorm of whining.’
5 Likes
Alright, so here’s how I see it:
• The community as a whole tends to be extremely vocal about what they don’t want. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can easily be overwhelming.
• Ellie, having been on the defensive against a torrent of “do it my way” against them every time they make a change (no matter how small, no less) decided to pass the torch on to someone who can hopefully handle it better.
• Despite this, they still find themselves in the line of fire on a change they didn’t even make, while the community goes out of control over a change that is beneficial in multiple ways (less bugs, simpler for newer players).
• While Armae’s introduction thread goes heavily off topic, a new thread that essentially repeats the same thing having been already said sprouts up. Nothing new is seemingly added to the conversation, and it’s just a continuation of getting mad over nothing. Thus, Ellie locks the thread. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing either. It’s just moderation, if heavy handed.
• This thread sprouts up, and while the discussion started as “don’t lock threads for no reason”, which is of course fine, it quickly devolved into yelling at Ellie, causing them to lash out. This was definitely bad, unlike the other situations, but everything so far that has been laid out should really show where it came from (not to mention the amount of smug sarcasm I keep seeing, not sure if it’s the same for Ellie but it really annoys me).
So what does it mean?
It means everyone here should stop getting so mad! Obviously, everyone here has the same goal of keeping the game fun to play, even if we all have our different ideas on how to go about it. I’m sure if everyone presented their arguments in a way that wasn’t “THIS CHANGE WILL LITERALLY RUIN EVERYTHING”, these threads won’t be so emotionally charged in the future.
What needs to be understood though is that it’s not as if any changes, if they turn out to be bad, can’t just be reverted. Nothing has to necessarily be final, and I’m sure if this one remains an issue Armae will revert it or find a compromise. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.
Obviously, it’s okay for everyone to be upset because they feel that their voices aren’t being heard (or are being heard but deliberately ignored), but fighting fire with fire is only going to make a bigger fire.
If we can just all cool off and settle stuff like this peacefully, I think that would be massive step forward and a benefit to everyone.
11 Likes
That might be valid if this was the first time I’ve seen this happen, or if I, the literal OP of this thread, weren’t perfectly okay with simplifing Mind Warp.
Neither is the case.
So sure, get pissed off at me over the actions of others. But if you ask me, that makes you part of the problem, as that is the exact behavior I have a problem with.
1 Like
I heavily disagree.
Moderation in this case is shutting down people who are off-topic on Armae’s intro thread.
Lock that one, maybe clean it up and tell people to stop, maybe tell people they’ll be punished if they go off-topic.
You know, the thing Ellie did when NuclearBurrito and Firekitten were going off-topic, but this time directed at everybody. Even if we assume that that first side conversation was so wide-reaching that this counts as a second strike for everybody, literally just say “go off-topic and get suspended” or whatever. You have many enforcement tools you can use to moderate.
You know what isn’t moderation? Simply locking a thread because you don’t agree with it. If it breaks a rule, sure, but then why aren’t you deleting said post for breaking the guidelines? If anything, acting out of a duty of moderation would lead you to support this new thread, because it gives people a place where the thing they’re discussing in a dev’s intro thread isn’t off-topic.
I’ve had this unprovoked thread-locking happen to me personally before, and it probably made me more mad then I’ve been at anybody online who hasn’t cheated at something. This is not a one-time incident. I was willing to let that slide. This is a pattern of behavior that I think needs to be addressed.
Feedback is given, by all of us, because we like the game and want it to succeed. As a moderator, and especially as a representative of your company, you cannot go around just locking things you don’t like - especially when their end purpose is to help you. If you think we’re all making rash judgements about one part of a much larger change, maybe it’s because that’s the only part you’ve given us. You’re going to need to accept that, as we can only work with the parts we know.
Now Ashe, while I agree that getting excessively heated over changes to a game is definitely unwarranted, that definitely applies to the other side. I can with certainty say that nothing that I did or said in my Scorned thread was in any way inflammatory. Yet that was locked out of Ellie’s misplaced anger, and petitioning them, Xblade, and the mods for it to be unlocked lead nowhere.
You want proof that there was no good reason for the lock? I got fed up and re-posted the exact same thread with no repercussions. Why? Because nothing wrong had happened in the first place to warrant the lock.
All in all I am heavily concerned that we now have a dev with a history of, well, shutting down feedback. Even if it’s entirely polite, and even if the end goal is to improve the game. I’ve tried to settle this peacefully in the past when it was my own thread, and got literally nothing from anybody in power here. Trust me when I say the lack of getting heated with your suggestion won’t make everything work out. We’ve been there before too.
The worst part of this entire situation that I need to spend essentially a half hour criticizing a dev that, ultimately, I still really like and definitely want to see succeed. It legitimately feels bad to be essentially taking shots at somebody I know puts an inhuman amount of effort into developing this game. But there’s just no reason to lash out as those trying to help your game by giving their feedback through the appropriate channels. Period.
9 Likes
Enough.
This is the definition of moderation
The avoidance of excess or extremes, especially in one’s behaviour or political opinions.
We are only two actual programmers. We have limited resources – and while we’ve demonstrated we mold the game via the community a great deal, it would be unwise to 100% hand over the game to the community. We’ve seen those games try it and fail hard. Also, to keep this game our passion (read: We update the game), we may veto certain elements of the game.
If a feedback thread is locked, then that is that. If you want to voice your opinion, you’re more than welcome to do it on a 3rd-party forum. However, every now and then, we may veto ideas. Generally these ideas veto’d are brought up multiple times and are either very actively aggressive or passive-aggressive, thinking that subtly bringing up the same topic multiple times pretending a separate point is being proved is seen as provocation.
While the average person may say “you locked my feedback thread”, the truth is that these forms of feedback have already been vetoed by a dev repeatedly and further posts then seem like ranting/bandwagoning. We have so many forms of feedback that we want to keep it clean and bumping already-declined feedback disrupts our flow of finding feedback we’re yet-to-see.
#feedback is for the devs – if you want feedback place for players, there’s a section in our Discord for that.
This is not the place to argue with devs because a feedback piece was declined.
This is a clear-cut sign that continuation of such a thread only seems provoking or to prove a point - and is being posted for the wrong reason. This, in any forum (not just ours), is a sign to let it go. This is a private community and not every feedback will be taken. It’s nothing personal - it’s just the flow of feedback with limited resources and the ability to veto. After all, this is our game, too. We want some say in it.
This could also mean that there are 100’s of posts per day and we didn’t notice it. Or that Discord is our official hub - that’s where we look more than here.
I observe a great deal here. I can, in all honesty, say that “feedback” isn’t being down. [Passive] Aggressive/persistent feedback that has already been turned down is being shut down - and generally from the same people that hold a mentality that refuses to accept vetoed feedback. There is no shame, here – feedback is great. However, if it’s already hard-declined, it turns into spam and feels like OP of these posts are baiting for a reaction.
While you’re probably correct, the devils advocate is … does someone have to physically say to please stop giving the same, repeated feedback when it was already declined?
TL;DR: Feedback we don’t plan to use may be locked for many reasons - if your purpose is outside of this scope, you’re posting in the wrong place (and for the wrong reasons).