Idea of a way for devs to get in game feedback.

[Sansnom]

What do you think? Anything you'd change or add?

The problem is not gathering data. The problem is filtering out the response and actually getting something useful out of it. Looking at the post from some posters, I would imagine getting anything useful from it would be a challenge.

It is okay to give an opinion on why I like something. It is another to say why that something is good for the game overall and not just for me. That is something a some of the players does not see.

[Deleted]

i use the ingame suggestion box and flood it with how stupid a 10minute res sickness is. cant get back to your corpse? guess i should logout for 10minutes

[Farrarie]

this will give problems wow is a big game with tone of players with different taste all around the world.
Not all the players know how or will give feedback.
If the game change every now and then from some not game educated people out of blizzard company believe me wow will lose sub more and more because you cant
make everyone happy so let company do it thing
yess I agree on giving feedback about not giving content in time but other than that no

[Brewhan]

I think having a feedback or option checkbox would be good. Similar to how it was sometimes on the wow betas to give feedback . Problem is you're not sure if your feedback is even acknowledged or lost in the void. In legion beta I was doing a quest in azuna to get 50 felhunter teldrils but it was taking forever the spawn rate was really low took me like 30mins so afterwards I submitted suggestion about that quest to improve respawn rate. Well on live what do you know that same quest also became a world quest and the spawn rate of those felhunters now is always constant some are up. So was my feedback read? Who knows...

[Cuppy]

Good idea but there's one thing you're missing:
They don't really care about feedback. If you can come up with a plan that gets them more money, that would propably be noted.

[darkfire979]

Any feedback system they implement will probably be run by the same people that manage the forums so all feedback will be gathered by CMs and compile and re-organized together with the feedback from the forums. That's what the CM's job, to act as the interface between the players and the devs.

[Kushana]

My concern with such a feedback mechanism is two-fold:

• In phrasing feedback as a Y/N question like this (or any option choice), you constrain the range of feedback. For example, this DK death grip might be bad because the new animation is too laggy, or it might be upvoted because an inadvertent bug allows them to grip mounted players off their mount. Such subtlety gets lost in polls.
• In posing this question, the devs communicate two undesirable things to respondents:
  
  • This is what we want your feedback on (and not other things); and
  • We will make decisions based on your input.

As a software architect, I can tell you that both those messages are bad. We do want input about all aspects of our software, but we reserve the right to make decisions based on factors other than user input.

Having said that, I laud the OP for making a positive suggestion and taking the time to illustrate it, even if I don't agree with it.

[GaryWinthorpe]

But then the devs will have actual work to do going through all the feedback, and we know they hate doing that.

[Deleted]

What do you think? Anything you'd change or add?

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that the devs want feedback. They don't. Feedback is just getting in the way of them doing stuff the right way because they know best.

[SlyPenguin0]

Based on what you can claim that they aren't doing it? I agree that there is difference in those two things but consider the following.

If they were getting feedback and I bet they do in so many ways, it would be rather idiotic if they are/were getting feedback only via panel that I linked already. If you are unable to open tool that exists already, which gives you freedom (and by freedom I mean "anything you want to tell us?") how you provide that feedback, do you even care about feedback in first place?

Let's say they ask "specific questions". If they are specific enough, you would answer it rather with "Like/Dislike" but I don't think that is how feedback works. If questions are specific enough, there would have to be sub specific questions to make you elaborate why you think that way. So in the end, you would have to write again 250-500 characters. Also, it can easily lead to popup questions all the time and I don't think that's what anyone wants.

Yeah I see where you're coming from. I just to start a conversation on a tool that could be used for more direct or simple questions. Giving people more characters for feedback isn't always a good thing. Not everyone can speak their mind as clearly as you do lol. Like Ghostcrawler said, most of the time players giving feedback say too much. They go off on tangents and such. If you have questions that can be answered with specific types of responses it might help... as long as they aren't worded in a way to force you to pick an answer lol.

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Good idea but there's one thing you're missing:
They don't really care about feedback. If you can come up with a plan that gets them more money, that would propably be noted.

You gotta be careful with that line of thinking. We've seen instances of them listening to feedback and times where it seems they haven't.

- - - Updated - - -

My concern with such a feedback mechanism is two-fold:

• In phrasing feedback as a Y/N question like this (or any option choice), you constrain the range of feedback. For example, this DK death grip might be bad because the new animation is too laggy, or it might be upvoted because an inadvertent bug allows them to grip mounted players off their mount. Such subtlety gets lost in polls.
• In posing this question, the devs communicate two undesirable things to respondents:
  
  • This is what we want you feedback on (and not other things); and
  • We will make decisions based on your input.

As a software architect, I can tell you that both those things are bad. We do want input about all aspects of our software, but we reserve the right to make decisions based on factors other than user input.

Having said that, I laud the OP for making a positive suggestion and taking the time to illustrate it, even if I don't agree with it.

Yeah I agree. Phrasing can be difficult, but that's why the example was just something to start the conversation. That's not the end all be all type of question. You are right though. I didn't think about the communication of "we only want feedback on this and not other things". I can see how that might happen but I don't think it will happen to everyone.

The part of making decisions on input is super important though. You bring up something that I feel like most players don't understand. The company and devs of a game (or product in general) have a vision for their game. I mean obviously, right? It's their game and their vision. It seems like there are players that assume they get to design the game, and the developers are just paid to make it happen. That's so silly. People need to understand that the process should be

Devs have an idea > implement idea > players like and dislike things > devs refine idea based on feedback > some people are still unhappy

Too often I see players shooting down ideas before even trying them, or refusing to try them and give *quality* feedback. I'm glad you brought that point up.

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But then the devs will have actual work to do going through all the feedback, and we know they hate doing that.

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that the devs want feedback. They don't. Feedback is just getting in the way of them doing stuff the right way because they know best.

If you want to criticize something, this isn't the productive way of doing it. =/

[Super Kami Dende]

It's unneeded really. Since 95% of Player Feedback/Ideas are horrible (as indicated by basically every post I've ever seen on MMO-C and WoW Forums.

[SlyPenguin0]

Your member icon... you animal!

[Kushana]

It's unneeded really. Since 95% of Player Feedback/Ideas are horrible (as indicated by basically every post I've ever seen on MMO-C and WoW Forums.

It depends. The best feedback explains what they don't like and why they don't like it. The mid-grade stuff says what they don't like, and leaves it to the devs to interpret the why. The low-grade feedback gives proposed solutions e.g. "change x to y", leaving it to the devs to interpret both the what and the why. And the dregs just insult the devs or anyone else.

[dextersmith]

There are many platforms for them to get feedback, WoW forums, twitter, youtube....... but they don't really want feedback, they want an echo chamber of how good they think they are.

[ComputerNerd]

Because the majority of players won't do that. Nor do they now. The current thing says "hey is there anything you want to tell us?" and what I'm proposing is "Hey we actually have a quick specific question for you". There is a difference.

There is no difference.
The battle.net launcher used to shove the patch notes front and center right in your face while patching.
Players still ignored it,, because they couldn't be bothered.
But would still pester trade chat for hours.
That won't change the willingness for people to actually take the time to do something.
Even when their approach is harder.

[iNUKE]

This would never be accurate.
People get used to do something in a certain way, and when it changes they always prefer the old one.

Most people can't judge a change neutrally, even though change is good regardless if actually better cause change creates evolution and movement, including in video games.

[Super Kami Dende]

It depends. The best feedback explains what they don't like and why they don't like it. The mid-grade stuff says what they don't like, and leaves it to the devs to interpret the why. The low-grade feedback gives proposed solutions e.g. "change x to y", leaving it to the devs to interpret both the what and the why. And the dregs just insult the devs or anyone else.

That is what falls in the 5%. Yet usually gets flooded out of sight by the 95% previously mentioned.

[SlyPenguin0]

There are many platforms for them to get feedback, WoW forums, twitter, youtube....... but they don't really want feedback, they want an echo chamber of how good they think they are.

I hear an echo lol

There is no difference.
The battle.net launcher used to shove the patch notes front and center right in your face while patching.
Players still ignored it,, because they couldn't be bothered.
But would still pester trade chat for hours.
That won't change the willingness for people to actually take the time to do something.
Even when their approach is harder.

Yeah I wish there weren't so many players like that. That's part of the cost of being one of the most popular games. You get a lot of every type of player lol