This discussion was created from comments split from: New Feature: Costumes! *Updated (11/26/18).
The issue is that they still already have bad pr regarding any announcement though
4.7/5 on the App Store (14.3k reviews). Seems pretty good to me. You have to understand that this forum does not represent the player base as a whole. We are a very small yet very vocal minority. I’m shocked that they are encouraging players to come here with in-game banners given how overly negative this place has become.
I think there are two types of pr though. One from the customers towards the game and one towards the company. To the game we all love the game and strive to make it better. Towards the company we just want them to talk to us beyond dropping the usual messages and the usual times. So the pr I was talking about is their public communication to us about what happens and why doesnt exist. Just here is what happened and then into the shadows they go.
Edit: also the fact that most of the communication occurs on discord and not here
From what i seen on discord is they only there to have their behinds kissed, acting like they rockstars… i know forum is little toxic, but you cant improve with only praises and saying how great everything is…
Discord is not in any way run by the developers. It is a chat server established for the fan podcast. So the developers that interact there are coming as guests, not running it and allowing the players to comment (as is the case here). Also, the rules of engagement are such that people treat EVERYONE - other players and developers - well and with respect. People who get insulting are warned and generally back off. It is the goal of the chat there to be a friendly discussion area.
There ARE complaints towards the developers at times, and they don’t just be told all day how wonderful they are, but asking people things nicely is usually the best way to get an answer. (They also rarely engage at all beyond times around announcements and bug reporting.)
Discord is not the preferred method of communication with players as much as a quick one that allows immediate back and forth/reactions around new characters/features.
I don’t think this forum is overly negative. I think people are just speaking their minds while being shielded by anonymity. Plus, people tend to remember negative things more than positive ones.
I agree with this. Think back to the saved covers feature, that thread was bursting with praise for the devs. If you make good decisions, you’ll always get praised just as when you make bad decisions, you get stick.
Of course, you’ll always get people who moan no matter what but I think this place is relatively fair.
That explains a lot.
There’s always a sense of “Drop the bomb and run” when they have to give news that’s not great. Or when they do a feature that’s not recieved well and the forum explodes.
We end up with sometimes weeks of radio silence as they go to ground and wait things out until it all blows over. And it’s such a terrible way to foster a community, I’ve been saying it for years. Communication is key. We may not like what happened, but if the dialogue is open we can all work to be constructive. If we feel abaondoned then inevitably emotions get more raw.
I don’t think either statement is true here. Discord is not the always positive fantasy land people like to claim and the forums aren’t this awful dystopia that people should avoid like the plague either. Discord does tend to be slightly more positive and the forums slightly more negative. The reason for that is simple. The devs actually have a visible and active presence on Discord and almost none on the forums. Most people tend to be more positive than negative with criticism to someone’s face vs behind their back. It’s also possible that the conversational nature of Discord also lends it more to feeling like a face to face conversation and less like hiding behind the invisibility shield of an internet comment.
Here is what is the problem with Demiurge on Discord. They spend multiple days chatting there for at least 15-30 min. Imagine if just one of them picked up a question and took that 15-30min, to answer just one question on the forum?
Discord is the Demiurge safe space it has always been so because no actual discord is allowed.
I actually agree with Daredevil217. I appreciate this forum for the news and upcoming info, and some people around here are super helpful, but on the whole? This is one of the more toxic and negative web forums I have ever frequented, unfortunately.
This forum appears to be full of people who’ve been playing this game for a very long time, or since the very beginning, who have a ton of time and money invested in this game, who want to see some change. Not saying there is any issue with that at all. But as said above, this forums doesn’t represent the true base of players.
Without some major overhauling, not sure how much is going to change. The saved feature was a huge change, and it helped me 100000000000x fold. But i’m a year into the game. If I was on day 1000+, i’d be like… what’s coming for us? What are you going to do for the veteran base of players who built this game up? Sadly, in my experience, it’s rare to see MAJOR changes.
Just “walked away” from PUBG after playing it daily for roughly a year. The game became stale, the core performance issues ruined some of the great gunplay, and when you see skins/crates getting released before major performance issues are fixed…well…it’s easy to get toxic. Especially when the devs celebrate the release of graphics content like it’s some major victory, while the base of players shrugs and goes… you want me to pay HOW much for a skin??? It’s becoming an odd trend in gaming. Graphics content over gameplay.
One game that comes to mind that is TRYING to break that mold is Fortnite. Content plus the rotation of new weapons, game actions/interactions, game modes, etc etc. Some stuff works, some doesn’t, but they seem to listen to their community and try to keep it fresh. Guess that’s why a free game has made billions. There might be some other games I am not familiar with doing good things too, i’m just going with a popular one that i’ve played that my kids still play and I see all the changes.
Anyway, my 2 cents.
Only ever used Discord for Pokemon Go raids, it is seriously not a good platform.. just my 2c
Discord not a good platform? I guess it depends on how you use it.
I use it for in-game comms when playing all sorts of games. There are Discord overlays for many popular games. It works like a charm and it’s FREE.
You have not been part of enough forums in that case. It could be much much worse.
This forum is fine, not too negative or positive. I’ll agree there’s a certain overall discontent among the forum users and that’s due to:
- the devs never coming here anymore
- the gameplay is becoming staler and staler and we’re being introduced stuff like Supports and Costumes…
So are you saying the rules of engagement on the forums are different from that? Last I checked we are to treat everyone with respect here as well.
What you said. All I tried to convey earlier. Adding things that don’t change the overall gameplay or improve gameplay are usually received with toxic replies.
Saved feature and even supports help players progress faster. Helps get people in 3* world unstuck. But those people are casual players and/or new. The “vocal veterans” don’t really gain much from those additions.
(Disclaimer: This is just my personal opinion, and this perspective is not representative of D3 Go! nor any of the partners we work with)
I think both Discord and a traditional forum have their pros and cons.
Discord
One of the benefits of Discord is its instant-message, conversational aspect. I imagine it’s easier for both players and developers to share their thoughts off-the-cuff, instead of having to sit down and construct practically an entire thesis statement, supporting paragraph, and conclusion. It’s a much more casual atmosphere.
One of the challenges though is being able to concisely and efficiently convey context and meaning through just an ad-lib sentence here and there, while trying to stay with the pace of the conversation. Deviating off-topic is also likely to occur much quicker, simply due to the fast paced nature of a live discussion.
Forum
A benefit of a forum is using it essentially as a catalog or database of information. Not only are there current topics being discussed, but also official announcements and player guides that reside there for future reference. It lets you hone in on specific topics and lets you ignore any topics you’re not interested in.
Due to the high life-span of posts though, that also means any and all content is closely scrutinized. This inherently causes posters to take a significantly longer time to formulate as close to a perfect post as they can, in order to make sure they message is as coherently as possible. It’s harder to have immediate correction / clarification after a post is made, especially if one has additional or more primary responsibilities.
What does everyone else think? What do you perceive as the pros and cons of either platform?
I wouldn’t go so far as to say toxic, but definitely negative. I mean the team gets praised when they put out a feature we universally enjoy like saved covers, hybrid PVP, 5* feeders, increased rewards of any kind (red iso being the most recent), etc. But if they put out anything that’s even neutral (like costumes, which I plan to ignore) we get “you spent your development time on THIS!?” I do often wonder why some people continue to play if they are that unhappy.
The best way to describe it is a very “what have you done for me lately” attitude. We get a feeder, half complain about who it is, the other half praises, and then after a week it’s back to “when are getting another feeder??”. The developers come on and answer questions talking about how they have expert players on staff- we have a bunch of people clowning them, and other threads popping up wanting screen names and the whole thing devolves. There is a ton of good on this forum. I respect many posters’ opinions whether I agree or not (even the ones who clown me about softcapping my fives). If it were toxic I’d stop posting (for those who want me gone, please don’t take this as a challenge lol). But it is absolutely negative. I could name a ton of reasons why I think that is, some on the developers, many of it on the players themselves, but one big reality we need to acknowledge is at the end of the day it is a match 3 game. It has become more complex in terms of powers and abilities to help keep gameplay fresh, but there’s still a very rigid box they need to operate within. So, after 5 years of matching gems I imagine it may get stale regardless of what they do.