Complaining vs Praising

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These days, I tend to see quite a number of people saying that they don’t like the forums because there’s too many people complaining.
I’m not sure if that’s ironic or not, but it’s weird to see people complaining about seeing too many complaints.
Complaints
Anyway, I feel like I should feel concerned, since I do complain quite often, but I also tend to think that when I do, it’s for a good reason, that it comes from a good place, and that it’s structured enough to offer solutions.

I think it’s nice when people write posts to say that the devs do great work and all, but I’m not sure if that’s what really helps the game move forward.
As an artist, it’s something I’ve struggled with : If I do something and all the feedback I get is “yeah, I love it”, it definitely won’t give me any direction to move forward to (although it makes me quote TFS’ Alucard out-loud, something about the word ‘shaft’… soooo… yeah… not gonna write it down here, though… go put the key-words on Youtube yourself! ^^').
Anyway, sure, if people repeat that what I do sucks, I might prefer to abandon altogether.
So there needs to be a balance.
It just bothers me that some people tend to guilt-trip those who “complain”. Yeah, I think “complain” is a bit of an exageration, too.

I mean, sure, when the Farming update got out and the lights were broken for a LOT of people (except for those who prefer the dark), there undeniably were complaints, and honestly, I still think they were perfectly valid. But, when we’re having a debate over goo seeds and how it’s disappointing that you can’t have above 95% seed return with a good optimised setup, is this really a complaint? I find “feedback” to be a better word.

So the point of this thread, if there’s any, is to say this :
Stop trying to say that there’s too much complaining. There’s light and there’s dark.
Balance in all things.
Complaints, suggestions and fiery debates are here to make the game move forward.
If you’re on the forums to chat, make friends and pat the devs on the back, go right ahead. Just know that those will hardly make the game change and move in any direction.
Just don’t go guilt-tripping those who want the game to change.

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Are you complaining about the people making a complainent against others who complain?

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Yeah, I know, right?
Although, alternatively, you could also say that I’m making a stance on the matter of Complaints vs Praises.

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Well, I applaud your effort to try to persuade some peeps to be more empathetic to other peeps who have worries or concerns regarding aspects of this game.
Even if you only change one mind, you have done a good thing.

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Nothing wrong with either, but we need a balance of the two :slightly_smiling_face:

Especially after seeing so many new players joining… Wouldn’t want them to come to a sea of negativity, even if it is all constructive and helpful to the devs!

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I absolutely love the game and try to show my gratitude and give praise, but I also will give feedback on things I think might need changing and fixing, throw in my suggestions and $.02 wherever I think it is worth that - the devs clearly want to hear what we have to say, want to know what we might not like, what can be improved. Giving constructive criticism is very important when you do love something as you want it to be the best it can be. And even for those who don’t love the game, they still have made it clear they want to hear what the issues are.

I think the big issue and what bugs me sometimes is in the delivery - the devs have thick skins as they said, but the wording of complaints, the flat-out maliciousness at times, is downright painful for me to read sometimes. Giving a specific critique along with the reasons and as much detail as to why you think something is off or could be done better, great! But when it is delivered as insults, sometimes personal ones, vague ranting, threats, that is a problem IMO, that spinning out of control can turn a community toxic.

Edit: Just as an example, I’m going to take an issue and give an example of a constructive complaint vs a toxic one-

Good:

I understand the devs have issues with bomb mining, that this wasn’t an intended feature, but sometimes the unintended can become a major thing in a game. If you look at the breakdown (insert statistics charts) it really isn’t OP’ed - what is going on here is that it simply provides a more psychologically rewarding mechanism for the obtainment of the resources. If it were brought back, many including myself would stick to AOE but some players clearly do not enjoy that and could be better incentivized to return from reimplementation, even if it needed some tweaks.

Bad:

The devs just want to swing the nerf hammer all around and kill fun, they just want grind, grind, grind! Do they even think about this stuff before they do it? This is nothing but a bunch of ■■■■. I’m leaving and never coming back!

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Petition to start having devs do weekly updates, kinda like OldSchool RuneScape does weekly streams and updates :+1:

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I mean, sure, but weekly seems too much.
Monthly would be far better to ask, I’d say.

But I do think that the biggest failling of Wonderstruck is that they don’t keep the playerbase enough in the know of how projects are progressing.
The way things are currently done makes the playerbase go restless.
We know things like Titans, clothing, ladders, furniture, etc, have all been on the works for years. All they can say is “we’re working on it” :

But I mean, in my own line of work, I need to keep the client updated regularly on how things progresses. “I’m working on it” doesn’t cut it.
The Boundless roadmap - #2 by anon42939288 needs to happen!
We need more stages between “here’s a concept art to show you what will be released, one day, maybe” and “yay, new feature on the testing branch!”.

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I dunno. One of the things that makes Factorio so great is that they have the weekly Factorio Fun Friday dev blog entry, and make it a priority. It’s only a few paragraphs and maybe some preview images (or embedded videos), and sometimes it’s even tangential to what’s in the game, but as a PR exercise it’s priceless. The lead dev has also pointed out (in a FFF entry) that it affects the scheduling of work so that he can have something to blog about – there’s always at least some small enhancement or bugfix being worked on by someone for delivery in time to be spotlighted on Friday.

The overt message is what’s in the post. The real message is that the devs have the game fans at the top of their mind at all times. It’s part of the sizzle, not the sausage, but it’s the sizzle that sells.

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Sure, but that also has to be adapted for the size of the team.
What I mean is that asking to go from “no update” on how projects are progressing (aside from when something is on testing or the very rare post that tells us something interesting) to “weekly update” seems like a biiiiiiig step.
Baby steps first, y’know?

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The Wube team (Factorio) and the Wonderstruck team (Boundless) are about the same size. It’s a cultural difference: Wube are self-published indies that set out to make the game they wanted and have the philosophy that it will never go on sale because that’s just cynically manipulating the target market designed to milk profit. Many of the Wonderstruck folks are from big gamedev houses, they’ve contracted with bigger publishers (Square Enix Collective, Sony), and they regularly sell their product for less than what their current base paid for it.

I see weekly updates as the goal. But, yeah, I’d accept less frequent updates as they ramp up to the goal. It’s a marathon, not a Sunday-in-the-park egg-and-spoon race.

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If the issues raised are valid and addressed by the developers then I do not have a problem with it. What is better to have all positive things and a game that cannot keep or attract players or a game where the players actively point out what may or may not be issues and have developers that are listening? (Boundless seems to have the second option) As long as the comments are constructive and offer suggestions, why is it bad? Now I would agree just statements like “the game is stupid” are not constructive and not helpful to the developers or players looking to purchase the game.

If a potential player can learn more about the game from players discussing the games mechanics versus “everything is lovely” statements then are they more likely to not be disappointed if they do buy the game? Should they not know now that certain items like titans are not available and are not (to the best of my recollection) even on the roadmap for the next few months? At least their expectations are set.

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That’s a big concern too, because the trailers for the game that are on Steam advertize for a very different game. You see old character models playing animations that aren’t available, doing activities that aren’t available yet (like Titans), fighting creatures that are far from ready (like the Ground Basher), and exploring places like a city with a very unified artstyle which has been wiped maybe years ago (and do NOT reflect the style of builds we tend to see today, which was the biggest let down for me when I joined, because current cities tend to be a patchwork of various styles, which makes them all look messy, but that’s a different subject).
All of that led to the players wanting to make a fan-made trailer for the game to replace the old one. I found that to be quite distressing.

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I would have to agree that the current trailer probably does create issues with new players when they find a very different game/world than what they saw. I would think that the game in its current state would give the developers enough visuals to redo the video to better reflect how it currently looks.

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Personally, i think the frequency some times gets a bit draining. Some people tend to spam every thread with the same things, which does seem like its just a lot of complaining.

I spose if they dont get a response or someone has a different opinion they might feel like they havent been heard. But there’s a lot of threads that i read like 3 posts and close cause its the same people arguing the same things over and over again.

Agreed… balance is awesome.

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Neither of these to the extreme is good, that’s why I said a balance of the two :slight_smile:

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Although almost all penguin species are native to the Southern Hemisphere, they are not found only in cold climates, such as Antarctica. In fact, only a few species of penguin live so far south. Several species are found in the zone, and one lives near the equator
:sunglasses:

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I think this happens both ways. Player A may think the Cuttles do not attack fast enough and say so every time there is a mob discussion thread. But on the other side there is Player B that every thread replies to Player A saying that everything is fine and the Cuttles attack exactly as they should. And this leads to repeated discussions.

So is Player A wrong and Player B right?

edit: I do think one thing to remember is that we do have a game that is not finished. Does that not mean we are going to have more issues with things not working as intended or having unintended consequences as they are released? Would it be different for a completed game where they are not introducing completely new mechanics like Boundless did with farming?

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No one’s right or wrong, all opinions help… that was just mine.

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