"Cynically negative" community cause of communication breakdown

[Vynny]

The community is a bunch of immature, vitriolic idiots. They have nothing constructive to say. If they want communication they should get themselves civilised. As it stands they don’t deserve anything at all, except maybe the back of hand.

Go read the first page of threads in general wow forums and tell me that any self respecting adult would engage with that load of drivel.

You've obviously never worked in customer service. I mean, you do realize that it's literally his job to engage with that load of drivel. You have no idea what sort of assholes that service reps have to deal with, but that's the job. If dealing with customers was all kittens and rainbows then they wouldn't pay anyone for it. If customers are "cynically negative" then it's his job to engage with them, find out why they've lost faith in the game, filter out the bullshit, and then summarize the major and consistent complaints for the devs. If he's publicly stating that he doesn't see any reason to engage with a group of customers then he should be warned and if that continues be fired or forced to resign since he is choosing not do his job.

And spare one moment of thought for why people would be "cynically negative". It's not because they just want to rain on everyone else's parade, but because something in the game is ticking them off and they are getting no response of recognition of their problems from blizzard staff. If he wanted to get rid of that cynically negative portion of customers then he would actually seek out engagement with them and allay their concerns, not close threads because people are too vitriolic for his liking. The last thing a customer service representative should do is make it seem like they don't care about a customers concerns, because that only pisses them off and escalates things.

[Zyky]

Guess what. When there is a list of things, something is always going to be at the bottom. hurr derp.

being bottom is fine, being unplayable is not, which is where outlaw is right now. They are not a viable dps.

[Super Kami Dende]

And what about when they understand, disagree, and lay out the reasons why in a calm and intelligent manner with data and other evidence to back up their point of view? But then get brushed off as a "vocal minority" or outright ignored while being told by Blizzard that "We're happy with the state of things" when it's clearly broken or out of balance?


That's the community that BLIZZARD created. It's no wonder so many are cynical.

Let me know when that actually happens in any serious amount and I'll care ok.

[Pull My Finger]

Hilarious OP, very ironic. First off, this whole shithole thread is taken out of context and disingenuous. It makes it look as if Ornyx was talking about the community at large, whereas in reality, he/she was talking to one very specific person. Amusingly, this person is the same type as the OP here is, and it's great that even in big ass corporations like Blizzard, there are actual human individuals who are not afraid to show jerks and arsonists the door.

Continue on, sheeple!

[Super Kami Dende]

being bottom is fine, being unplayable is not, which is where outlaw is right now. They are not a viable dps.

Sounds like you need to get better at playing outlaw if that is what you think.

[Socialhealer]

How can you be sure that you have a better understanding of the community then they do? How you can claim that certain aspects have little to no complaints? I'm just genuinely curious where this notion comes from. Especially when it's entirely possible that you can find at least one person in the community that doesn't like any given aspect of the game.

i just play elemental shaman and listening to the community lets me know they understand how the class should be.

then i watch blizzard make ridiculous retarded changes bury the spec for entire tiers at a time and boom that's it really.

but don't worry celestalon will come along and tell us the spec is overpowered, nerf it then buff it 5 times in 1 expansion and still people take 5 mages and 5 hunters instead of 1 elemental shaman.

the community is smarter than blizzard and see's this coming because they're not morons.

remember the diablo 3 team? we made inferno mode super difficult so hard we couldn't complete it, when we doubled the difficulty! and low and behold the playerbase steams through it and harder and harder modes need to be made, just face it the game is designed by bads.

ion himself said shamans have good defensive's because they have ankh, how the fuck is a 30 minute self ress a good cooldown/survival? it's not it's fucking awful and thats why in tomb of soakgeras it was a dead spec again.

in before someone tells me oh lul you're not going for world first so it's fine, right being unable to nuke prio targets for a year is fine, being unable to soak deadly mechanics is fine, because you know not every class needs to do that! but when you're only party trick is being able to AoE and you're not even the best AoE in the fucking game it really does matter because even if you do clear a mythic raid you know you're replaceable you didn't matter but the fucking classes with the tools and utility do matter.

this is why in BfA they are bring back utility to classes, making them more unique, each class brings certain raid buffs no other does, because you should be there because you bring something, not because the first 15 super important roles are covered now bring 5 randoms if we can't just stack other classes that allow you to cheese mechanics even harder.

but the annoyance is why did this take 2 expansions to realise class utility and unique strengths were so important? it's ridiculous, the game needs to get back to MoP levels of design and without pathetic losers going OMG PANDAS I QUIT WTFFFF it'll be back to the best again.

[SirCowdog]

Let me know when that actually happens in any serious amount and I'll care ok.

Thank you for perfectly illustrating my point.

[Vynny]

No, the community should stop being shit.

His job is to make the community not be shit. If he's not going to or is incapable of managing the community then they have to find someone who can. Seriously, why would community managers be necessary if the community could self manage and get to the root of the issue without engagement to distill something constructive from the deluge of complaints on the forums?

[Jastall]

I mean, it's a little of column A, a little of column B. On one hand, the developers do have a bad habit of trying to cultivate rockstar personas that leave them with difficulties taking criticism well, to the point they holed up in their ivory towers all throughout WoD and put out some of the most tone-deaf interviews I've seen out of a development team outside Steam shovelware. On the other hand, the forum communities are full of shrieking, self-important, overly-indulged manchildren who have a coronary any time something changes, have a coronary any time things aren't changed, and just like the worst horror stories of retail customer service, go absolutely thermonuclear when anyone suggests they might in fact be emotionally-crippled, empathically-retarded shitlords.

Oh yeah, Blizzard are definitely to blame in part with their attitude. But even so, parts of the playerbase are such a bunch of total jerkwads that Ion could design the game 100% for them only and they'd still bitch about the height of the grass or something.

To me the most peculiar aspect of WoW's community is how so many people seem to take design decisions so personally. Like, it's not just something they dislike or a dumb change. It's the literal proof that Blizzard hates them, hates fun, and wants to kill the game for them, exclusively. I've never seen any other gaming community react so defensively to the developer's actions, complete with plenty of insults.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Pruning is a good thing?

Gutting baseline abilities and gifting them back through grinds is good?

RNG Legendaries were great?

Pruning is a myth and something that happened 2 years ago. If you are still discussing this now you don't play the game. It should have been overcame within the first tier of the expansion.
Its not a good thing outright, but the changes that came to the classes have led to the best balance the game has ever seen. Not an opinion.
It may have been doable with how classes were in WoD, but realistically for every one thing that was removed, another was gained. For example, Dark sim and Army of the Dead were removed for Blood DK but they gained Umbilicus and an artifact trait that heals you to full every 45 seconds if you attack 4+ mobs and gives your whole group leech cap.
Classes were redesigned as well, but that happens all the time and does not constitute a "prune."

I am unaware of "baseline abilities" that were part of any grind, but again if you think any of the systems that grant player power is a "grind" then you don't enjoy the game. Probably time to stop playing. What "grind" would they be a part of? You mean to say they were added to the artifact tree or something? So, something that took less than a month to complete even at the very beginning of the expansion?

How you received Legendaries was handled poorly, but the system it self is miles better than anything ever in the game. No other system has ever offered this much customization and gear choice in the face of so many different types of challenges. Again, not an opinion.
Factually more substantial than a single legendary that every person had equipped for months on end with no choice or chance to improve with.

The fact that you and so many others continue to bring up the "pruning" of abilities just willingly admits you don't play the game.
I can barely remember what Blood DK was like in WoD CMs. How can this possibly be a problem for you at this point? It's something that I stopped thinking about within the first few weeks of 110.

[Klingers]

The official forums have always been like this. It's been a vat of cancer ever since its inception. Sounds like Ornyx is just tired of it.

The official forums are more cancerous than a Quickplay Hanzo/Widowmaker double-stack, but that's what Ornyx signed up for. Agreed, if it's too much for him he should clock out and let some new blood wade into the muck.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

They don't though. Because all feedback is ignored. Warcraftlogs is ignored. It's all ignored.

Idk - how would we know?
"Part of our jobs here is to collect feedback to take to the development team..." ~ Ornyx
I don't think Ornyx is empowered to make changes, or even to tell us whether he agrees with our concerns. His (her?) job is to monitor the forums, moderate the trolls, inform the development team of what he's seeing, and bring replies if and when he's authorized to go on record.

As for Blizz's overall response to forum feedback... There have been times when they made changes that seemed to reflect feedback I had given, but certainly not always and there's no way to know if my comments specifically were ever what prompted change. There were certainly many changes during Legion that reflected community feedback:

• Bad luck protection
• Buffing non-throughput legendaries, e.g., the higher stat budget on Prydaz
• Loaded Dice for Outlaw (in response to complaints about fishing for buffs)
• Ongoing tweaks to class balance - could this ever be finished?
• Steady release of content (goes to WoD feedback)
• More lore/story in Argus (after feedback on Broken Shore)
• Better tank balance in Antorus than ToS

Just a few examples that come to mind. Not saying we wouldn't have liked to have some of those faster, or that they fixed everything or that there weren't other concerns that went unanswered. But you can't say they never make changes in response to feedback.

- - - Updated - - -

The official forums are more cancerous than a Quickplay Hanzo/Widowmaker double-stack, but that's what Ornyx signed up for. Agreed, if it's too much for him he should clock out and let some new blood wade into the muck.

To be fair, he never said it was too much. He replied (to Gigabear, who does tend to rant a lot in forums)...

"We'd love to talk to you if only you didn't constantly bring negativity with every thread, tweet, etc - why do you think we would want to engage with that?

Part of our jobs here is to collect feedback to take to the development team, sure, but another part is fostering and supporting the parts of our community that will continue to help the community grow and become a more constructive place. I don't see any reason why it would be in our best interest to actively engage with a part of the community that is cynically negative."

[Louz]

So a guy who starts topics such as https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...0817497?page=1 complains that Blizz doesn't care about your opinion unless it's green texted (MVP).

Is this just another case of "wow community being wow community" and blowing shit out of proportions?

[SirCowdog]

This.

Some of the Class Design forum posts truly make me sad because you just know its all being ignored.

They post LIVE data. Reasons things are broken etc.

All backed up completely.


The egotistical maniacs at Blizzard just can't comprehend they could have got it wrong.

- - - Updated - - -



Honestly how fucking hard would it be to post in constructive threads in the Class Design forums and say:

"I am going to pass this feedback on to the developers."

"I will hopefully have something to report in 7 days."


^I mean - isn't that his fucking job?

I know it's going to sound like a broken record coming from me, but the exact same thing happened with the flight issue. Literally half the player base told Blizz they didn't want a no flying world. They did it anywhere. And when it exploded in their faces they just refined and regurgitated it. They didn't use, or even acknowledge, the literal thousands of better solutions, compromises, or improvements the community submitted.

If Blizzard really wants a better community, then they need to start actually working on creating it instead of nuking, editing, banning, and closing threads that don't agree with them. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Oh look its the guy shooting down any feedback on the official Alpha forums.

Here's a snippet for anyone else at home.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20762016917

Apparently Alpha testers shouldn't be providing critical feedback but rather should be praising Blizzard.

Here's another one:

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20762038014

Apparently Alpha access is a gift from god(Blizzard) and he is insulted that his friends are waiting in line for Alpha access while these people who are already in insult Blizzards good work with critical feedback. Oh the horror!


Another one:

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20762037848


Here he tells an Alpha tester that his feedback is useless and is better left in the General forums.




HAHAHAHA. I'm actually at a loss for words.

You are EXACTLY the type of person they should NEVER give Alpha access to.




In regards to the stupidity in your post above - You play a DK correct? Could you realistically call Frost a Death Knight anymore? I mean to me a Frost DK currently is just a plate wearing Frost mage with 2 swords. Nothing about them thematically screams Death Knight. Nor does what's left of their abilities.

Pruning has happened twice. This is the 3rd round in BfA. There is absolutely no reason to remove spells like Shadow Word: Death and turn them into talents. That ability has been baseline for 10+ years.

Warlords of Draenor: "Ability Bloat"
Legion: "Class Fantasy"

Those are the shiny names they gave the prunes.

You talk about Legendaries. It almost seems like... We had a system like that before..... Hmmmm. What was it?

Oh glyphs? Remember glyphs? Yeah sure you do champ. They were removed though... What reason was given again? Oh that's right - they offered no customization and everyone just picked the mandatory ones..... Wait that sounds familiar, it almost sounds like Legendaries... Except you couldn't just buy them off the AH could you? You had to grind until your eyes bled for a CHANCE at one of the 12+ for your class.

Worst system ever implemented. Your defense of it further proves what type of person you are.




Apparently pruning is a myth guys! The fact that you barely have enough abilities to fill out 1 bar is totally a myth! 3 buttons rotations are awesome!

Can you do me a favor and link me your character please?

[Alkizon]

A lot of stuff is still "the thing"... including pruning, but it's not just spells also mechanics, secondary characteristics and a lot other.

So maybe Blizzard exactly is the main reason why community is toxic (didn't say that it isn't)? Toxic with company, toxic to each other.

Can you do me a favor and link me your character please?

Don't forget that game has rules and if company begins to violate them itself... Frankly, without embarrassment and without even making any reasonable attempts to justify their actions, it doesn't matter whether you play or don't - decision is taken against rules and therefore it's mistaken.

In addition: problem of modern WoW is that it's too transparent and has no depth (all material is obvious). All information can be obtained by reading a few guides and looking at a couple of streams. Lore, game play and everything else. Naturally with a share of healthy criticism to what is happening, but it's not difficult.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I know it's going to sound like a broken record coming from me, but the exact same thing happened with the flight issue. Literally half the player base told Blizz they didn't want a no flying world. They did it anywhere. And when it exploded in their faces they just refined and regurgitated it. They didn't use, or even acknowledge, the literal thousands of better solutions, compromises, or improvements the community submitted.

If Blizzard really wants a better community, then they need to start actually working on creating it instead of nuking, editing, banning, and closing threads that don't agree with them. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away.

Nothing will make it go away because people complain just to do so. The people who don't want a "no flying world" don't want to play the game the way Blizzard wants to make it.
What's the purpose in listening to people who disagree with your design philosophy?
What type of discussion would come from that?

Hey guys, we have spent the last 3 months designing the hunter class as it is. Its not perfect, but we like the way we designed it and are going to keep it that way!
Hey guys, our artists spent the last 3 months designing landscapes and architecture and we feel it is better if you don't just fly over them and never pay attention to them because you'd rather everything take as little time and effort as it can. You eventually will be able to do this, but not right away!

Is there a point to saying these things? The community isn't going to get better because the people who talk about these things don't actually want to enjoy the game. If they did, they would be playing it instead of discussing it.

The best thing they COULD do is ignore it, because its not going to get anyone anywhere listening to every individual who thinks they can design the hunter class better than the people being paid to do so.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for posting dude.

You've lost any kind of credibility. Bye.

That's fine. I'll take that link all the same?

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

An example of moderator announcement on Blizz response to feedback:

Posted by Ythisens
"Hey guys! Just wanted to follow up with this since there was quite a bit of discussion and some really good feedback on how the Epic Pantheon Trinkets are awarded. Recently we've pushed forward a change before this current reset.

The Pantheon trinkets for drops after the first now obey your loot specializations. Previously it only followed your loot specialization for the first one and the second was random for your other specs.

Appreciate all of the feedback you guys have been giving us about this!"

There was other feedback in the thread that this did not address, but this is apparently what Ythisens was authorized to announce. I feel sure that the other feedback was also presented to the development team, but for whatever reason they haven't decided on a response to the rest. Maybe they decided it's fine, or maybe they're still thinking about it.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I know it's going to sound like a broken record coming from me, but the exact same thing happened with the flight issue. Literally half the player base told Blizz they didn't want a no flying world. They did it anywhere. And when it exploded in their faces they just refined and regurgitated it. They didn't use, or even acknowledge, the literal thousands of better solutions, compromises, or improvements the community submitted.

If Blizzard really wants a better community, then they need to start actually working on creating it instead of nuking, editing, banning, and closing threads that don't agree with them. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away.

Just because you listen to feedback does not mean you are obligated to follow every suggestion. Blizz is a private company that does what they believe is best for the game (even if many disagree sometimes). They decided that Pathfinder is the best way to go forward, so that's what they are doing.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Have you ever thought that maybe..... Just maybe.... People provide feedback on the way their class plays because it.... ISN'T FUN?

I know! It must be shocking for you to be able to think outside your Blizzard shaped box.

You're a grown man with a brain aren't you(debatable looking at your Alpha posts)?

Do you think its possible that Blizzard may have failed with their design if thousands of people.... Don't enjoy it? SHOCKING I KNOW.



Also - stop posting. You're an embarrassment. You've been destroyed.

I worry about a comment like "you've been destroyed." Wasn't the point of this thread to show reasons that Orynx was wrong to quickly judge this community as the OP claims he did?
Not sure that is helping the matter.

Let's discuss this privately. I'd love to hear your thoughts in detail instead of crowded behind these strange insults and misdirections.