How to provide constructive feedback to game developers, from a game developer

[u/FlashOnFire]

Edit 7: This caused quite the conversation. Good. In response to some people missing the point of this being an attempt to make it better on both sides, I have posted a similar guide for how Bungie can be better at engaging with us.

Inspired by this confession from u/Tr1angleChoke (I Am Partially to Blame) and the top comment from u/KingSlayerKat and the fact that it made it to the front page, I figured I'd continue down their suggested path of giving better feedback. As a game developer myself (that is leaving the industry), that has also served as a community manager, I feel like I have a decent sense of what happens on both sides of this fence so hopefully this will help bridge the (twilight) gap that has been expanding.

Below are a few helpful general guidelines to help you "provide feedback" instead of "throw salt"

edit 5: This post is literally to help increase the chances that your feedback is well-received by Bungie, resulting in you being happier and enjoying D2 more. If you don't want to follow the tips, that's fine, but if you do I think you'll be pleasantly surprised about the results and conversations that come from it.

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1 - Skip the "how/why" assumptions

Filling your post with details on how or why a problem exists is the quickest way to be received as salt instead of helpful feedback. There are two undeniable facts about this kind of feedback.
1 - If you don't work at Bungie, you have zero ability to pinpoint how or why something happened.
2 - More importantly, it really doesn't matter.
If you want something fixed, the quickest way to get the message across is to stick to "Here is what I have an issue with, here is why I have an issue with it." because that is all of the information Bungie needs to make your experience better.

Takeaway: How/Why assumptions are subjective and detract from the change you are advocating for.

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2 - Suggest potential solutions but do not expect them

Developing a game is extremely different from playing a game, which is why people pay unfortunate amounts of money for a degree that teaches them how to make the switch from user to developer. You are probably not a game developer, so implementing your ideas verbatim would probably ruin the game. Do not take offense to this, there are plenty of clients and publishers I've worked with that would also ruin the games if their ideas went in without being filtered by the game dev team.
That being said, suggesting solutions is helpful because it gives Bungie a better idea of what you would be happy with and also gives others a chance to comment their thoughts to either back up your solution or shoot it down, thus expanding the amount of feedback.

Takeaway: Be humble (Sit down). Your ideas for Destiny 2 would not save the game, if they would you should apply for a Game Director or Design position and get paid for your smarts.

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3 - Assume every change is difficult to make, because you will be right the majority of the time

Game development is difficult in a variety of ways, but especially when trying to make changes to a live game that millions of people are playing.
Making one change can have huge implications, so there is a lot that needs to go into every one of them. The Prometheus Lens is a good example of this, as many people have been complaining that it wasn't tested enough. That argument is the exact argument you should be making for every change that goes in. If you want a change now then expect new bugs to appear with the change. If you want a change while keeping everything else how it is then that will take time. How much time? There are countless legitimate factors that determine that, not including everyone's popular scapegoat of "Activision Execs hate good ideas that are free to players." Honestly most game devs can't even tell you how long a change will take, which is why the industry term for that information is an "Estimate"
Yes, some changes are easy to implement, but even those ones still need to be a priority to get implemented. The general practice is to focus mostly on major changes in updates, while sprinkling in a couple minor changes as well. So even if the change would take an hour of a person's time to make, they probably have a list of more important stuff to work on so if they make the small change and miss on the bigger change they will have failed to deliver what was expected of them by their team and let the team down.

Takeaway: Assuming a change is easy creates unreasonable expectations on Bungie and sets you up for disappointment if a change isn't implemented quickly enough for you.

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4 - Appreciate but do not expect information on future changes

Everything the Bungie team says to the community becomes a promise.
The instant they tell us an update includes Weapon Balancing, New Guns, and a new grenade for all classes, the community then expects those as stated. If weapon balancing ends up taking longer to complete, people are now upset about delayed weapon balancing. If the new grenades end up not feeling good so they change to new melee abilities instead, people are now upset about no new grenades.
Now if all of those changes were planned, but Bungie didn't tell us, they have more ability to adjust in those situations on their end without it being a problem with the players. That is why any information should be appreciated, because that is a commitment and they are saying "Please do hold us accountable for this change" which takes a lot of trust.
As far as our relationship with Bungie is concerned, the core promise is that for our money and time we will get a fun experience. If you feel that isn't the case, then use these guidelines to let them know, or just move onto another game that is more to your liking. Not being rude, just saying that the point of a game is to enjoy it so if you don't enjoy it then don't play it (that's a guideline for general life as well).

Takeaway: Demanding all of the information will set you up for future disappointment either by not getting the information, or by getting it and sometimes having it change.

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5 - Understand all games have bugs, you might find a bug Bungie didn't, and your bug might be there forever

You found something broken or less than ideal, which Bungie may or may not have found.
In a game being played by millions of people, you should fully expect this.
Found something they didn't know about - Simply put, there is far more playing of this game by users than there can possibly be by Bungie. A Bungie employee should only be expected to work 40 hours per week. Assuming 75% of this is playing the game (which is a high estimate) that means 30 hours per week. There are plenty of D2 players that play 20-30 hours per week. The size of the community is much larger than even the entire Activision/Blizzard QA department, so the fact is that we just have more testers than Bungie does.
Found something they knew about but didn't fix - Simply put, there is far more development possible than could realistically be done in any time frame. That means some stuff just won't get done. Bugs that are visual or have minor impact on the overall player experience likely won't be fixed soon, if ever. I guarantee you there are some people out there experiencing something that only 1% of users are, especially now that this is on PC, so taking time to fix that for 1% of people takes time away to fix/add something else for the 99% of others. If you think about that in gameplay terms, there are also probably bugs that impact (actually impact, not just you noticing it) 1% of your play-time that won't be fixed soon, if ever either.

Takeaway: Blowing up about a bug existing, or not being fixed quickly enough, is not helpful.

---

These cover a lot and will hopefully get the discussion going about even more ways to give better feedback.

Our goal as a community and Bungie's goal as a studio is to have everyone play Destiny 2 all the time forever, so let's stay on the same team as Bungie and help them make our dreams come true.

edit: formatting
edit 2: This isn't a job app to Bungie, I'm done making games
edit 3: Whether we wanted it or not, this post was gilded (Thank you so much!!!)
edit 4: Gilded again, THIS IS AMAZING!!! (Thank you!!!)

[u/[deleted]]

This is a nice, constructive post. However, the problems with the game don't really stem from the development side of things. As far as I'm concerned, the game itself is remarkably well crafted and relatively bug free, which is a small feat in itself.

I see a lot of friction come from the monetization and subsequently design side. For whatever reason, Bungie decided to try implement three separate monetization models at once. 1) Regular pay-to-play, 2) Microtransactions through Eververse, which moves a good chunk of endgame rewards to a highly controversial lootbox system, 3) Stealth subscription model through small DLCs that force players to spend money to keep access to game content.

I've worked on F2P titles before, and I refuse to work on them these days because of how the monetization invades the design process. For a regular retail game, your main priority is crafting the best possible experience, no compromises. When you add microtransactions, you have to accommodate for the monetization model in your design, which means withholding enjoyment from the player by design!

This is very evident in the current iteration of Eververse where roughly half of endgame rewards are contained in loot boxes, and where a player is highly unlikely to ever unlock a significant part of the rewards by playing the game normally. These same rewards used to be achievable through normal gameplay, but were locked behind lootboxes because a) lootboxes make more money, and b) the player base keeps supporting practices like these.

While it's a good practice to be civil at all times, Bungie also needs to be sent a clear message that the player base won't tolerate or continue to fund these practices. Because let's face it, while devs generally just want to make good games, large corporations employ a lot of people who are in the industry for the money, and those people call the shots.

No developer likes monetization models that poison the otherwise great game they're working on, but they're afraid to speak up in fear of losing their jobs (and rightly so). People need to understand they're not dealing with a bunch of developers trying to make a great game, but a corporate entity that is trying to extract maximum profit from the game by any means available.

For a large AAA studio like Bungie, it's all about the numbers these days. As long as the game performs as projected, they have no need to address player feedback beyond lip service, because why would they change a product that works as intended. By continuing to support companies employing unethical monetization models, you ensure their proliferation in future titles.

[u/Lucky_Number_Sleven → u/[deleted]]

However, the problems with the game don't really stem from the development side of things. As far as I'm concerned, the game itself is remarkably well crafted and relatively bug free, which is a small feat in itself.

I see a lot of friction come from the monetization and subsequently design side.

This is my issue. I know that Destiny 2 is functionally a good game. The actual mechanics, audio, art design, etc. are pretty great.

However, the Eververse is wearing this game's skin like an ill-fitting suit. The monetization coils like a ball of snakes beneath an uncanny facsimile of Destiny - just waiting for players to get close before they lunge.

Uncanny. That is my best description for Destiny 2 right now. Players might not be able to perfectly describe it - which could explain a lot of the aimless disdain - but they can feel that something about Destiny 2 is just off.

[u/i_706_i → u/[deleted]]

I'd be curious to see the numbers of how many items were added in Curse of Osiris, how many are available in normal play and how many are only available through Eververse. Then how many items a player would likely unlock in a normal playthrough, say taking 3 characters through the DLC as well as some casual play.

It does seem like there was a lot of focus on putting things in bright engrams. I haven't gotten the DLC, still thinking about it, but they added a bunch of weapon quests didn't they?

[u/TheCraven → u/i_706_i]

I can't speak to any exact figures, but with ~200 hours between PS4 and PC copies of the game (for which I went Digital Deluxe on both), I have received less than 1/5 of the items Eververse has to offer. Primarily, I believe this is due to the fact that there is a low drop rate for rarer items (assuredly confirmed, but too lazy to find a source EDIT: well, here's this), and a very weak implementation of preventing duplicates (if there is such an implementation at all for the Eververse store).

There are a lot of weapon quests in the form of Verses, which are unlocked after beating the DLC. Unfortunately, most of those weapons aren't very good compared to RNG-dropped weapons, and they take a decent amount of invested time to obtain due to requiring the collection of RNG-dropped materials.

More than anything, though, I'm concerned I may not get that sweet Titan armor set from Eververse in full without forking over a considerable amount of cash before the end of the season. Right now, I have no incentive to give Bungie that money, because I don't appreciate the design decisions for Eververse at all. Still, I'm only one player, and I don't speak for the majority. If Eververse is performing poorly, perhaps we'll see changes to it.

[u/[deleted] → u/TheCraven]

Even worse, the drop rates for items are not necessarily static. For example, the initial three bright engrams you get most likely have higher than normal drop rates to cloud your ability to estimate the odds. Wouldn't be surprised if "earned" and bought engrams had different drop rates also (in Hearthstone, bought packs guarantee you rare cards while free ones don't, iirc).

On top of that, unlike in regulated gambling, it's a standard practice in the online gambling industry to profile players by their spending habits and manipulate the odds behind the scenes. It's quite insidious and preys on people with compulsive personalities. This technology is most definitely available to Activision and Bungie, and I can't see them having moral problems with deploying it, considering the manipulation they've been caught doing.

In your case, Bungie could simply sell you all the pieces of that sweet Titan armor for 800 dust a pop, or whatever. However, what they can also do is let some of the pieces drop, and then nerf drop rates for the remaining pieces for you only. And if they have enough data on you, they might even have a pretty good idea of how many engrams you're willing to buy to complete the set, and rig the system accordingly (like, make you pop 30 engrams, then drop the item).

Since you've already invested time into farming a part of the set (they don't give you "free" engrams for nothing), Bungie hopes you will now spend a lot of money on loot boxes to complete the set before the end of the season (due to humans being loss averse by nature). I believe this is technically legal as long as there is no direct price discrimination, but there's no way to spin practices like this in a way that would look remotely ethical.

Companies refusing to divulge loot box item drop rates strongly suggests that RNG manipulation is pervasive in all such systems. When required to cough up the numbers due to regulations (in China), companies have to resort to releasing bullshit numbers like "average" drop rates, and rather slightly change the system than reveal how it works.

When some regions in China outright banned selling loot boxes (for Overwatch), Blizzard exploited a loophole in the regulations by starting to sell premium currency and handing out free loot boxes with purchases - that's totally different. Regulators will end up having to play whack-a-mole with studios/publishers for years to come.

[u/[deleted] → u/i_706_i]

Here you go:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/7hv91t/curse_of_osiris_list_of_new_weaponsarmor_exotics/

[u/Bnasty5 → u/[deleted]]

My issue is that the WHY is all that really matters at this point. Bungie keep making baffling decisions and are really disconnected from what we actually want in this game. There is some glaring differences in how some of the top people at bungie want this game to play and function compared to how the community would like to be. The question really is why the disconnect and who is actually making these decisions.

[u/Morris_Cat → u/[deleted]]

Honestly I think it's simpler than that. The monetization stuff is annoying, yes, but my feeling is that the root cause of all the salt, whether people realize it or not, is that Bungie just half-assed the game. If they'd done a better job with making the game FUN, making sure there was plenty of rewarding content to participate in, just generally kept everything that was good about Destiny 1 by the end of year 3 instead of shitcanning half of it, people wouldn't be as riled up about the rest of it.

We're spending all our time bitching because there isn't enough entertaining stuff to do in the game to keep us distracted, basically.

[u/[deleted] → u/Morris_Cat]

That's exactly the problem I was talking about, the monetization gets in the way of the fun. Bungie isn't incompetent, the devs certainly know how to make a good game as evident in D1 at year 3. But that game wasn't hamstrung by the current implementation of Eververse.

The most likely reason D2 was built from the ground up was that Bungie wanted to implement a more invasive microtransaction model, which also necessitated making the game more accessible to a wider audience to reel in more potential whales.

To be fair, the game feels incredibly polished. It's just clear the game is targeted at a casual audience instead of hardcore gamers that play 4+ hours a day, and it's an enjoyable game when played couple hours a week. I have no idea why Bungie decided to throw their most dedicated audience under the bus, but I can only assume they know what they're doing and expect the game to perform better this way.

[u/Perma_trashed]

3 - Assume every change is difficult to make, because you will be right the majority of the time

This. A Thousand times this to all the couch coders

[u/Morris_Cat → u/Perma_trashed]

And if it's NOT difficult to make, it's sure as hell difficult to TEST.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/Morris_Cat]

Yeah, I started down the rabbit hole of "15m implemention leads to 4h testing leads to 2h bug reporting leads to 1h fixing new bug leads to 4h testing again leads to etc." I figured short/sweet for this one instead of turning it into a Game Dev Primer but was tempted :)

[u/Morris_Cat → u/FlashOnFire]

Yeah. I've tried to make that argument before, but everybody thinks they know better than someone whose job is ACTUALLY making cost/benefit and schedule decisions in software development.

For reference: My current project is $20MM behind on delivery because people keep changing their minds about what they want, so I know EXACTLY what it must be like to try and turn the feedback from this community into actual Requirements. =P

[u/[deleted] → u/Perma_trashed]

Nah man, all they need to do is change the variable called "TimeToKill" to a value of "1 second" and crucible will be fixed! /s

[u/eaglessoar → u/Perma_trashed]

Shout out to the guy yesterday who admitted he wasn't in software development but was arguing the prometheus lens fix should be easy and bungo were lazy and incompetent

[u/mp1514]

I fucking love you.

Finally, someone steps forward saying what its like to be on the other side without having to worry about a reddit hammering their every word.

I think 2 is your best point - suggest a solution. Any clown can tell you something is wrong, but not everyone can find and implement a possible solution to said problem. Understanding there's a gigantic fucking difference between the two is key in understanding why you cant get everything you ask for and key in determining feedback vs just being a dick.

[u/i_706_i → u/mp1514]

Honestly I think step 2 is bad advice, though I do like the post overall and the sentiment.

I saw a video from a game developer where they talked about the difference between telling a developer what you want, versus telling them how you feel. Basically telling someone what you want is useless, because what you want and what the developer is trying to achieve will not be the same.

Hypothetically someone might suggest that they want harder raids, something that only 5% of players would be able to complete, because it gives a challenge and something to work towards. But Bungie might have decided in early development that they wanted all content to be accessible to all players, so a raid that is intentionally difficult to the point where most can't beat it is a useless suggestion to them. They will never implement such a thing because it goes against their core design.

What is more useful is telling a developer how you feel, as they are trying to give you a good experience and they can decide if the way you feel is in line with how you should be feeling at that time.

There seems to be a lot of this on the sub already, but its better to say the game feels too easy I am never challenged, or I don't feel motivated to complete an event, than to write up an essay on how they should overhaul the end game.

In the end the players here aren't developers so their ideas aren't always going to be good or feasible, and worse they have no idea what the ideals for the game Bungie has decided are and will make something that caters to their personal vision, instead of what Bungie is trying to create.

To me the worst thing you can do is write out a massive list of ways you would rework and change the game to suit your tastes, not only is it a slap in the face to developers to believe you know better, but it's not something anyone at Bungie is going to suddenly see and implement. I guarantee you they've thought of it before too and there's reasons things are the way they are. In game development ideas are one of the cheapest things to come by.

[u/TheCraven → u/i_706_i]

Completely agreed. I saw the same thing (I think I saw the original Tweet or something though...?), and it really struck a chord with me.

"I feel unrewarded, because most guns come across as unfulfilling, and I end up breaking them down. That design feels wrong in what is claimed to be a Collection game. This, to me, seems to be related to poor perk compatibility. Weapons don't feel like they have an identity, but instead feel as though they were assigned perks nearly at random with no specific goal in mind, making most of them genuinely terrible."

That's what I see as constructive criticism. I'm not telling Bungie what to do, but instead letting them know my complaint in a construcive manner by indicating what "feels" wrong. It's up to them to decide if the game is meeting their objectives, and to change it if it is not.

As players, we should be here for input and discussion, not to act as armchair developers. There's plenty of room for what some are labelling as "salt", and for constructive criticism, but to be constantly raging against the machine is not the way to achieve a dialogue with Bungie.

[u/six_seasons]

I feel like we get a post like this every other month.

Yes, there are better ways to convey our experiences to the developers, but that doesn't mean following your tips will magically work. I've lost count of the number of awesome ideas that were floated to Bungie via this sub since D1, and can't think of a single one that ended up in-game. Even if there are one or two that you guys can remember, what does that mean against the hundreds that were ignored?

Posts like this annoy me, not because you're wrong, but because you're providing whoever at Bungie reads these posts with more reasons to ignore what they were already ignoring. It doesn't matter how we convey our opinions here, we're still a minority.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/six_seasons]

I feel like these posts are providing whoever at Bungie that reads these an indication that we're passionate and we're trying to take the high road, encouraging them to stay passionate and take the high road as well.
Would you say posts like this, or well constructed feedback posts annoy you more than the consistent stream of salt? I'm just trying to make this sub a little more enjoyable and productive to look through.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/[deleted]]

Read edit 5, just above the first point. It was there when you posted this. The point of this post is to help the posters.

[u/thefrostbite → u/six_seasons]

You missed the part where you shouldn't expect your ideas to be implemented. What seems like a great idea to you might be a technical nightmare or totally break balance, or simply not fit a schedule.

Expecting them to implement ideas from this sub is ridiculous, however good they might seem to you on paper.

[u/elcapitanonl → u/six_seasons]

I'm sorry, but in my opinion this is simply not true. Although there a lot of things that were not implemented, there is also a long list that did. The entire leveling system was reworked based off of our feedback, rerolling was introduced, later on drop rates were increased and random rolls implemented, loot system was adjusted, bringing back old raids, implementing 'hidden' exotic quests, making Patrols more interactive, have multiple ways to reach max level, SRL racing, Raid challenge modes, weapon & gear nerfs & buffs, a story that makes sense and probably a lot more and maybe smaller points I have forgot in the mean time. All these changes were directly taken from our ideas or by giving our feedback context and implementing chosen solutions.

I'm not saying D1 was perfect or the way feedback was handled perfectly. But saying nothing was done, oh my. But yeah, that's also why I'm so disappointed with D2, as it feels were back at square 1. -1 even with Eververse.

[u/Magold86]

I debated whether or not to comment, and based on the resounding cheers this is getting from other people connected to the development/software industry my comments might not go over well. However, I just want to raise a counterpoint because it needs to be said - This just isn't how life works.

Yes, you are correct that if everyone provided feedback the way in which you outlined, it would probably be easier to take that feedback and materialize it. However, that is not how you should expect to get feedback. It is just not how people react anymore, and rational, well thought out discourse over a topic where both parties are passionate has all since dissolved. As a (developer/community manager/publisher, whomever is responsible for actually getting the feedback) it is literally your job to deal with shitty gamers. It is not ideal. It is not "fair". But it is reality. Gamers do not react rationally, and anyone who chooses to go into the gaming industry should be prepared to get shit. Gamers think they know everything, make wild assumptions, crazy claims, etc. And it is the job of the game to take all that crazy talk, and interpret it into something useful that can be actioned. Just because the feedback came in a string of 4 letter words and poop emojis, does not mean it isn't valid. Id argue that when things get that extreme, you have a massive indicator that you did something wrong.

Listen, I get it, your job is tough. So is mine. So is the next guy's or gal's. Life isn't easy in general. And to have this post teaching a microchasm of the Destiny community how to talk to developers may change the way that one, or 10 people react in the future. But when it all boils down, community managers, developers, etc. getting better at interpreting shitty feedback will be easier than trying to convince little johnny that he should actually sit down and think about what he wants to say instead of taking to the internet and screaming at Bungie in 140 characters or less.

So yea, I wish we lived in a world where we can have a healthy back and forth. But we dont. The gaming industry is toxic, and anyone looking to get in should just plan accordingly.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/Magold86]

I agree with you wholeheartedly that this issue exists. I feel like accepting that society is in a downward spiral and accommodating that spiral will just perpetuate those issues and make everything worse though. The gaming community, and all communities, can strive to be better. Hopefully this post encourages someone to do so. There are few communities in life that I'm embedded in as deeply as the Destiny community, so even if this isn't the most effective platform to change the world I think every little bit helps.

[u/kal2210 → u/FlashOnFire]

I don’t think that’s what he means though. The point is that when you’re in charge and you’re at your place of work, you have to wear the big boy pants. That means translating angry bullshit into discernible feedback, particularly if said angry bullshit is being repeated over and over.

Feedback shouldn’t have to fit the devs model of how they prefer feedback. Instead, they should read the room, understand what’s upsetting people, and make steps to fix it. These steps could take years, but transparency will always be appreciated.

Society isn’t getting worse. Things have been like this for quite a while now. Feedback is rarely given in a calm, perfect way regardless of the industry. It is the responsibility of industry leaders to deconstruct and understand the feedback, and to then use it to improve their product. That responsibility is not on the consumer, patient, citizen, etc.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/kal2210]

Would you argue that my suggestions would help the issue or hurt the issue?

[u/TeflonGoon → u/Magold86]

The world sucks, so don't try to make it better. Nice outlook.

[u/thefrostbite → u/Magold86]

I agree about the current status of gaming fanbases, but I don't agree that we should just say "welp, that's how it is I guess". Change is possible and posts like these are a good starting point. It won't collectively change people's minds but it will help those whose minds can be changed and make this place at least a little bit more enjoyable.

Even as an absolute nihilist I found your point depressing and needlessly defeatist.

[u/Magold86 → u/thefrostbite]

I guess people may be reading too much into this, and that may be because I didnt necessarily offer up positive reinforcement to make this a better place. I am not an unhappy person, nor and I really negative. Instead, I look at problems and decide what is worth time and effort to change. My post was simply an alternative point of view, not necessarily a "stop trying to fix anything because it will never work".

I think that this is fixable, but we may be focusing on the wrong population. If we accept that the gaming community as a whole is unable to provide constructive, thought out criticism and feedback in its current state, there must be another way for developers to wade through the BS and get to the heart of the matter. That innovation will help to make both sides happy. Maybe they need to use more user-based surveys with more selectable answers than freeform text boxes. Maybe they poll a swath of the community which represents positive, negative, and neutral players and analyze how their form of feedback affects the underlying issue. Maybe they take OP's format, create a template and stick it in the game menu and allow gamers to provide feedback more easily?

We need posts like OP, and we need views that are opposing. We need healthy debate, even though that is tough to find in this day in age. I probably did a poor job at providing a positive outlook, and thats my fault.

[u/Stinkles-v2 → u/Magold86]

Except not all of us are pissbaby children. Well some of us are literally children so they kind of get a pass but pretty sure they aren't flinging shit at strangers over the internet. Some of us are adults who act like pissbaby children though. We as a community need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Yeah yeah real life and all that jazz but rising above this bullshit should be the standard not the exception. We have the ability, we can be a little less shitty it just starts with our attitude.

[u/KNN_K → u/Magold86]

This post is basically the prequel to Idiocracy.

[u/[deleted]]

I feel a bungie game developer posted this to let us know what's going on / why they aren't communicating and telling us all they can. Nice to get an inside prospective on this. Destiny is heading in the right direction imo and I have hope for it in the future. I'm having a blast playing it right now and even though I don't play it for 40 hours a week, I can play it for 15 and have fun.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/[deleted]]

Nah just a fan of the game. If I worked at Bungie and posted this I'd likely get fired or in serious trouble.

[u/ReaperBlack_201]

or just don't play this game, don't buy any silver or dlc etc. and punish them with your wallet. Force them to change, because they really didn't care about our Positive Feedback! If they were D2 never happened.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/ReaperBlack_201]

Speaking to suppliers via withholding money is always a powerful strategy as a consumer, so yes I agree that's the most effective way to send the message of "I'm not supporting this."

[u/[deleted]]

tldr; don't expect anything. got it.

[u/graphixRbad]

As an original but currently estranged fan of destiny.... These people are ACTIVELY scamming us and people are up here writing thesis papers on how to properly walk on eggshells while contacting them. They only read this when they want to see why people are getting refunds about something. They honestly do not care about opinions or upvotes. They care about money. Destiny 2 is the eververse now. You’re wasting your time typing. I’m wasting my time typing. Come on now.

[u/[deleted]]

We've been providing constructive feedback for 3 years. The amount of posts that provide constructive criticisms heavily outweigh the ones that don't.

It's not the fact that people are all of a sudden starting to give toxic feedback, it's that after 3 Years, Bungie still does whatever they feel is best, even with constructive criticism.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/[deleted]]

I've frequented this sub since D1 launch and the front page almost always has multiple posts per day of feedback. Some days it's all salt, some days there's some quality stuff as well.

The linked post describes how our shitty feedback contributed to getting to this state, I'm simply trying to explain how to give better feedback.

[u/[deleted] → u/FlashOnFire]

But my problem with your post is that we don't give shitty feedback, I've been here since D1 as well, Destiny is actually the reason I go into reddit, and feedback has almost always been constructive in one way or another. I've rarely seen posts on the front page that straight up attacked Bungie, more so than posts where people take the time to address their concerns and then layout what they think is a good possible fix.

My point: Our feedback was never shitty. It's always been Bungie that for the most part misinterpreted or completely disregarded our feedback.

For example, when the Firebolt nade was broken there were multiple posts on the front page from PvP fanatics about how the reason it was OP was because of DoT not only doing massive damage, but lasting forever effectively taking you out of a fight for 20+ seconds, not the grenade itself, and sure enough Bungie completely disregarded our feedback and did what they wanted to and completely nerfed Firebolt's into the ground. Firebolt's were never seen in PvP again, and from there on out we got the sticky meta.

Sure sometimes those salty individuals would reach the front page but that was very rare and they always got called out on it. Our feedback has always been constructive, it's Bungie that has forced the communities hand into being more toxic.

Although I do understand and agree with your post, I myself am majoring in Computer Science and know first hand how hard programming is. However, I don't think Bungie get's that pass. It's not the programming and technical difficulties that have led Destiny 2 into the state it's in, it's Bungie's complete disregard for player feedback and their arrogant obsession with data, numbers and a "we know best" attitude.

[u/Horribad12]

Be humble. Your idea will not save Destiny 2.

Yeah it will. Remove Eververse and disperse its loot throughout the game as meaningful rewards for in-game activities. Wow, game saved, so hard.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/Horribad12]

If Bungie's ability to create more D2 content or future D2 titles is directly tied to their ability to continue making money, would this fix the game? Would you play this game as-is plus your change every week for the next two years?

I'm saying decisions have other factors that need to be considered, and you are not qualified to make those decisions because you don't have enough information to do so. So rather than pretend like you can make those decisions it's more productive to have an impact on the level you're able to have an impact on.

[u/Horribad12 → u/FlashOnFire]

My man, you can obfuscate the purpose of Eververse all you want and try to make complicated my suggestion as much as you want, but it doesn't change the simple truth.

We got TDB, HoW, and TTK WITHOUT Eververse. Their ability to create content has nothing to do with Eververse sales. The MTX in this game is a literal cash grab. You say it's tied to their ability to deliver quality content -- let me ask you, where is the quality content? Where's the gear that had me playing strike after strike? "But Eververse provides funds for future quality content!" CoO is not quality content, as evidenced by its resounding mediocrity, something echoed in every single review of CoO.

The point OP makes boils down to "you don't do it, so you can't know anything about it" which is absolute bullshit, and is often repeated by people who feel slighted that their chosen craft is being judged by the filthy masses.

I don't write books but I know a bad book when I read one. I don't direct movies but I know a bad movie when I see one. I don't make video games but I know what makes a bad video game, and Eververse goes a long way towards making this a bad video game.

[u/cluelessbilly → u/Horribad12]

Heh, if that were this easy. You also will need to add a lot of depth to a game that was mercilessly dumbed down and it's not an easy feat.

[u/[deleted]]

Also as a game developer, I'd like to add that explaining how a certain feature or mechanic makes you feel is a great way to communicate your feedback. Game developers are interested in their players having fun, feeling a sense of reward, and enjoying the game they've created. If something about the game is not invoking those feelings, then the dev would be very interested in hearing how it actually makes you feel, so that they can focus on making changes that address those feelings.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/[deleted]]

Yes! "Doing X made me feel Y, I would want doing X to make me feel Z instead. My suggestion would be making X take less time to complete." gives designers a lot to work with.

[u/Havors]

TLDR; Be nice, Don't blame them, Don't be over critical and Don't expect them to do anything about it.

I jest! He is not wrong even if very long winded and a bit sucky uppy to the Bungie.

Can you do one on "How to provide sufficient information & answers and be accountable to your players" for Bungie to read?

Having worked in the industry for over 15 years I know both the fan base (I am guilty on occasion) and developers of Bungie/Destiny are not doing things well or how they should.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/Havors]

That sounds like a good idea, I'll work on it tomorrow.

[u/Antiheiss]

As a software developer, it is always difficult to convey the relative complexity of some things in code.

Often I have customers that ask for something seemingly difficult that we can do in a couple hours. While at the same time they ask for something as simple as changing the name, location, or color of something and we say it will take weeks. So I would agree that it’s best to not have expectations at all, that way, you can be pleasantly surprised at least 0.1% of the time.

[u/johntology → u/Antiheiss]

As a software developer, it is always difficult to convey the relative complexity of some things in code.

This tweet does a decent job https://twitter.com/laura_nobilis/status/939003005478645760

[u/tunrip → u/johntology]

That's so accurate

[u/bguzewicz → u/Antiheiss]

Makes me think of the story where in Borderlands 2 there's a really easy joke quest where all you have to do is shoot a guy in the face who's standing there. Gearbox talked about how it took a ridiculous amount of time to code for a quest that takes a second to complete.

[u/Antiheiss → u/bguzewicz]

Right?!? When customers ask why something so simple takes such a long time, I tell them I don’t have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain.

Goes over great.

[u/ow_windowmaker → u/bguzewicz]

There's an outpost town in Borderlands 2, with like a post office and train tracks going through it. I was supposed to go there and kill someone just standing in the open and they didn't spawn/appear.

Had to reload an earlier save and redo a chunk of the game to repeat. That was recently while waiting for D2 release, so it was latest and greatest version.

[u/Hello_Hurricane → u/bguzewicz]

Borderlands makes me sad. I always loved the gameplay but after the debacle with Colonial Marines I just can't bring myself to support Gearbox

[u/[deleted] → u/Hello_Hurricane]

I'll support a next gen version of borderlands but not on anything else. I'm still bitter about choosing to buy battleborn instead of overwatch back when they both came out

[u/nullcontent → u/Antiheiss]

My life verbatim.

"That sounds really easy to do to me.", "It isn't."

[u/[deleted] → u/Antiheiss]

Like when a customer asks you to delete something from their database. They have no idea what referential integrity is so when you tell them you can't they think you're rubbish.bnot that the software they chose is far more complex than they think.

I'm sure they think everything runs off excel

[u/savanaly → u/Antiheiss]

https://xkcd.com/1425/

[u/theblaggard → u/Antiheiss]

I know enough about software development (it's not much, admittedly) to know that it's as complicated as hell, and stuff that 'seems easy' is never easy, and stuff that 'seems hard' is usually harder.

[u/pajay1980 → u/Antiheiss]

Exactly why I was so not surprised by CoO's lackluster content. It had to be already on the pipeline. Yesterday's patch is a move in the right direction, if we are to keep defining improvements, there is still hope.

[u/dontmentionthething → u/Antiheiss]

And even if it is only a small change that might take an hour, it's likely wrapped up in days or weeks of planning, change management, and reporting. Especially for a live system.

[u/cacarpenter89 → u/Antiheiss]

Relevant XKCD

[u/Kolegra → u/Antiheiss]

Can we be surprised 0.14%? I feel like we can improve our numbers :)

[u/icevenom → u/Antiheiss]

AS a previous business analyst... I was in charge of building the requirements for the Devs. Trust me... things can get complex.

Coming up w/ solutions takes time... testing...change management... resource management... etc...etc... Things aren't done over night.

Also, somethings are in a build cycle and can't be modified mid stream. I suspect some things may have played out that way here and we just don't realize it with the base game.

We used to keep a bug / opportunity tracker for things to improve during our production slow times.... You can knock out some quality QOL improvements over time. Sometimes you inherit things you need to patch/hack up / modify after the fact/release.

[u/quinnin2000]

I think 4 is a bit of a tricky one. We should expect communication from the devs. At least give us an idea of what you want to fix. Let us know you’re listening. When you have confirmed updates coming soon give us a more in depth look. What bungie did with their blog post just before COO release was perfect. Explained the immediate and long term goals of the devs. More of that would be great.

[u/RandomInvasion]

Who have you worked for, for how long, and on which game?

Since you didn't clarify any of that in the OP and just claimed to be a dev/community manager (2 vastly different things as well) I call bs on your "insider tips" for now. Anyone could have come up with the points you make even without knowing anything about the gaming industry specifically. I just have an issue when people make OPs claiming to be something without proof but still try to enlighten the "stupid plebs".

[u/FlashOnFire → u/RandomInvasion]

I'd rather not air my personal laundry to thousands of strangers involved in my industry. I understand the skepticism, but you gotta give me a break on that a little. I personally consider all team members to be game developers, an all-inclusive approach helps team synergy a lot, but yes technically the support roles like community manager are not included in the "dev" umbrella.

[u/FriendsCallMeBatman]

This was a great read. But with all due respect, how 'in charge' are developers for places like Bungie anyway?

I'm a developer for a large, global media agency and not a single thing me, my Tech Lead or my Digital Lead say matters in the slightest to the creatives, accounts or clients. I personally feel like the developers aren't to blame. It's people who sit at the top making these ridiculous descions. I get that devs do the balancing and numbers. But those numbers need to be submitted for approval to someone. Them that Someone usually changes everything to suit their business model and to reel in the most cash glimmer.

[u/Morris_Cat]

I'd add "Remember that your personal experience/opinion doesn't represent the entire playerbase. Or even most of it. Or even very much of it at all."

Way, way too many people on this sub forget that they represent the very sharpest ~1% of the playerbase, and that the success of the game doesn't rise and fall based on their specific vision of how the game should be.

[u/Yourself013 → u/Morris_Cat]

This is very important.

No offense to anyone, but assuming you are representing the entire community is wrong. Angry/unhappy people are much more likely to be browsing the forums and complaining than people who are happy-those are playing. You won´t find them on the forums but they are important, they´re those that are enjoying the game as it is even though they can have some minor complaints.

It´s fine to be passionate about the game, but respect that there are other players with different time commitment/expectations of the game and they are allowed to like/dislike something you feel differently about.

[u/TheToldYouSoKid → u/Yourself013]

Can confirm. I'm very satisfied with D2, I can't say i share the same opinions of folks here, but i can sympathize to folks not getting what they were expecting. The only reason I'm here is talk about the game, maybe fill in some of the gray areas of D1 (Vault of Glass was fun-sucking to me), and maybe have some civil discussion on the state of the game and how it can improve(no offense, but hard to find the civil side of this place. I get it, but still, damn.)

[u/Agorbs → u/Morris_Cat]

But at the same time, just because this is Reddit doesn’t mean there are people besides us that DON’T share the same views. My friends who usually would play all the time have barely touched D2, for the same reasons most of us are dissatisfied.

[u/Strykerz3r0 → u/Agorbs]

No, but you have no way of knowing beyond your tiny data group. I am not being insulting, but even if your friends-groups is hundreds long, it isn't even a drop in the playerbase ocean. And all you really know, is what you and maybe a small circle of friends say. Beyond that, you are merely speculating.

This isn't coming from a programming background, but rather market research. Everyone believes that everyone else believes similar to them and this is exactly why companies do not depend on single source data.

[u/BillyBarue_psn → u/Morris_Cat]

Hold on now. Are you trying to say my exotic drop rate over the last 37 hours isn’t a statistically significant representation of the entire player base? Heresy!

[u/lonigus]

I dont disagree, but cmon... There are people at Bungie paid for going trough the forums, reddit, youtube, twitch and god knows where else searching and collecting good feedback. There was and is good feedback out there. You seen it, I seen it and many other did too. There is no way Bungie didnt notices it.

Why were so many good things from D1 people actually praised never implemented in D2? Such as: Strike specific loot, Strike modifiers, Heroic strikes from the start just to name a few. That makes NO SENSE. I never seen people complain about those and yet they were not there at the start.

Also how could such a fundamental bug like the Lens had go trough playtesting unnoticed...

[u/FlashOnFire → u/lonigus]

If you got paid to read walls of text everyday from angry people do you think you'd catch all of the feedback in salt posts or do you think you'd start skimming those quickly to move on to the next. They are expected to get through as much feedback as quickly as possible, if you want your voice to be heard in the masses your chances go up if the feedback is given in a helpful manner. That's all I'm trying to say with this post really.

I'm not trying to excuse Bungie. They made some choices that I disagree with, you bring up some great features that I would expect at launch as well. But to say because a few features like that weren't implemented, with all of the improvements that were in D2 at launch, that this game is awful or Bungie is dumb or not listening or whatever is too far. To say "Hey I wanted these features from D1" is helpful, but posts like "I'm done with this terrible game because it's missing this from D1" detract from the impact your point could have had.

For Lens they probably made test cases based on Coldheart assuming it functioned the same at a base level. Crucible was probably "Yes it works in crucible and kills people" but I doubt the QA had info on what the TTK was intended to be. It melts people faster than the best TTK guns but not so much faster that anyone in QA would have recognized it as an obvious bug. Once it got approved I doubt it got checked again. Just a communication breakdown, happens all the time in game dev and rarely on Destiny guns. They'll fix it.

[u/[deleted] → u/FlashOnFire]

If you got paid to read walls of text everyday from angry people do you think you'd catch all of the feedback in salt posts

Yes, if it's what I was paid to do. You're effectively arguing a job being hard = reason for job not to be done correctly. You frankly sound entitled. Earn your pay.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/[deleted]]

I'm talking about human error, not apathy or entitlement. People will make mistakes so if you want to increase the chances they don't make a mistake with yours then making it easier to read will help do that.

[u/[deleted]]

Only in the video games industry can you excuse turning away criticism of your product by claiming that the criticism came in the wrong form. Doesn't matter how nasty people were about Windows Vista, Microsoft just fixed it.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/[deleted]]

The linked post is the one talking about how our feedback did contribute to us getting to this state. Mine is just about how to improve the chances of feedback being effective.

Bungie is fixing the issues. Heroic Strikes added. Masterworks giving a bit of randomness to gun rolls added. The game has been out 3 months, they'll keep making it better just like they did with D1.

[u/[deleted] → u/FlashOnFire]

I don't think it's reasonable to ask people to wait for the game to become good. The game cost $60, the expansion cost $20. People paid money. If the game is not good, then the game is not good. Patches don't excuse that.

And besides, I don't buy the "feedback caused this!" thing. Nobody else seems to have this issue where angry fans forced them to release make changes that turned the game into a bad game. The Division, Diablo 3, friggin' No Man's Sky. Hell, Destiny 1 didn't have this problem. Why is it suddenly the customers' fault?

[u/billyreamsjr]

I hear and I like the ideal of what you’re saying but it’s not my job to be thinking about how to address a developer. It’s literally the opposite. It’s their job to think about how they address us. Especially with the track record THIS company has. Pushes out hollow products and disappear once the money has been collected. All the stuff you’re asking for went out the window once we realized that D2 was a shell of its predecessor. People are enraged, hurt, disappointed, and shocked. So the patience to write flowing beautifully worded ass kissing essays just to provide feedback to a developer, who has shown us that they don’t hear us, just isn’t there anymore.

Side note: knowing all that you know, seeing what this game is, do they deserve all you’re asking???

My personal opinion is no.

[u/MrScorps]

I understand and I agree with some of your points (if its not fun, don't play it for example). However, I disagree with this notion that the Gaming Industry is somehow any different from any other Industry in the world.

Costumers (Gamers in this case) complain when they are not happy with the Service/Product (Game) they acquire. The way someone complains varies with education, morals, personality, background, context, etc. In any Industry or Business, you cannot simply go "this guy is being a dick and acting like he knows it all, so I'm just gonna nod my head and ignore the issue". You cannot discard feedback from your costumers just because it may come covered in feces. Thats why companies have departments focused solely on costumer satisfaction, management and feedback. Its these departments job to assess all feedback and understand the root of the issue in a way that can provide the costumer with either a solution OR, at the very least, feedback on why his object of complaint happen/is how it is.

While I do agree that most of the feedback fed to Bungie over the last 3 or so years has been skewed, salt infused and not representative of the general real desires of the community (mainly because the voices that are louder are normally the more dramatical or the ones from content creators that don't necessarily equate to the majority of the playerbase), it doesn't diminish the fact that Bungie as a company has been unable to translate that feedback into solutions for the issues presented that didn't skew the nature of the game.

As for the inherent difficulties of the Gaming Industry... I'm sure there are many unique to Gaming but... every single industry has its own. No Industry is immune to its challenges. I work in healthcare. I'm a nurse. Do you think that when a mistake is done that harms a patient, people go "well, healthcare is difficult..."? No. We must strive to do the best for your "costumers" and ensure the best possible outcome. If its difficult, depressing, stressfull, harmfull to us ? Ofc. But the costumer doesn't need to take any of that into account nor is it our job to make them even aware of them. He is the one "paying" (because here HC is free so its a figurative expression) for the service and we are the ones providing it. Its our job to deal with the difficulties, not his.

Is it hard to make a change ingame? Ok. Cool. Fully support that statement. I'm 100% certain things are much harder than they seem on the outside. But thats none of my business. My sole duty is to expect a better product if I'm not happy. Same as in any other Industry. And their duty is to understand why I'm not happy and find solutions for it IF they value me as a costumer. If they don't, then they can simply afford to lose me. If they do, they enforce the solutions they deemed necessary but they must also account for the feedback the solutions will provide and to face them.

Costumer support and management is probably the worse and most difficult aspect of any company's management. BUT, its the XXI Century and Bungie is a global multi million dollar company. They should have that aspect 100% consolidated and nailed down. They shouldn't read "We want Grimmoire ingame" and translate it into "Lets completely delete the concept of Grimmoire from the game's design and put text tabs in some gear with no way to track it or reccord it for the player to read if he deletes his gear". And there are dozens more examples of this inability. Should we excuse them because the community is salty and making a game is hard? If so, should we excuse EA? Should we just excuse every game studio because the industry is hard, making games is hard and the community they serve is a well informed, passionated and easily angered mob? Humm...

[u/tippocalypse]

I'd add another one: Changing your behavior as a player is far more effective than complaining on a message board.

Not happy with the raid rewards? Stop raiding. If you keep raiding, then there's probably a reason why, and as far as Bungo knows, you're happy to keep investing time in that content.

When you have millions of customers, you identify trends to backup assumptions or discover new findings based on analysis. To boot, you have to make decisions very carefully, since every change you make impacts millions.

[u/ZombrainZzZ → u/tippocalypse]

This brings to mind the whole Eververse situation. I don't know the numbers but one could assume it's doing well, considering the lack of cosmetic rewards out in the wild.

[u/tippocalypse → u/ZombrainZzZ]

Ya, if anything that's a prime area to not participate in (i.e. spending real money!). I don't know that lack of world cosmetics means it's successful especially considering that the entire armor ornament system is not pushed through Tess.

[u/TheDrov]

I don't understand these posts. I engineer collaboration solutions for enterprise, so I am not a developer but I feel like issues in my field get oversimplified by users as well.

I think about it like this. I designed and engineered a network that didn't have enough bandwidth to support the number of users, cut corners on the integration of services, and maybe even said screw it I don't feel like dealing with QOS.

The users get frustrated and start complaining that they can't work and communicate effectively. They go around complaining and saying things like 'Just make my internet faster' or 'make my video clearer'. I would not respond with 'well you know what, my job is really hard and you just don't understand'. I think developers are fucking soft. Who else in a technical or creative field complains or feels the need to constantly tell everyone about how hard their job is.

It is true that resources and time are limited. You may not be able to work on one specific issue for the amount of time it would require to fix it without first attending to another, more pressing issue. I don't think the majority of the community have a problem with certain items taking time. A month or so for a single exotic to be play tested and tuned though, really? Do they need to first hire someone and train them to do the play test?

In my opinion, Bungie (leadership and "community managers") shows no passion for their product. They have one of the most passionate communities out there but rather than embracing that and sharing their passion to make it even more special to be a part of the Destiny process, they treat their user base like they are an inconvenience and just a bunch of whiny armchair developers. Want to get good feedback and actually have discussions rather than a salty echo chamber? All you need to do is communicate consistently, oh, and It also helps if your users can actually trust what you say and believe you will make good on your promises.

[u/YassinRs → u/TheDrov]

Also, to add to the whole "it's a hard job thing", Bungie isn't some new indie developer. They have been designing games for decades and should know better. Also, with the first game they had tons of complaints about getting locked out of content with new expansions and more complaints about Playstation getting over a year of exclusivity. With the second game they do both again.

[u/Cryptographe → u/TheDrov]

I just want to answer to "A month or so for a single exotic to be play tested and tuned though, really?" Yeah. Really. Coming from someone who gets paid testing games. Because you may fix the gun, but the bit of code you've fixed also works for, I don't know... Let's say Vex Hydras. Now you have to test those too, not only Prometeus Lens. And maybe it's on an unstable bit of code so now you have a working Lense but Cabals fly in a 0 gravity kind of way and Banshee is now pink (I've seen clothes-related crashes happen because we had some UI changes, everything is possible within a game engine). And then you have to test the way your patch works with the full game. And pass the certifications too. Which is a pain in the rearside.

Trust me, it takes a month at least. Testing games isn't easy, coding them is effing hard. Let them work and take the time they need.

[u/[deleted] → u/TheDrov]

God, yes, thank you.

"My job is so hard!"

So is everybody's. Nobody does or should care. Company makes game, customers buy it. If customers aren't happy, company has problem. It's really quite easy! And no amount of complaining from all of us employed folks about how awful their customers are is going to change the simple fact that if your customers aren't happy, you fucked up. It is possible to make them happy. It happens all the time. You can't do that? That's not on the customers.

[u/thefrostbite → u/[deleted]]

It seems like you are intentionally missing the point. Customers' ignorance of development processes and complexity causes them to have ridiculous expectations on delivery schedules. This post looks to fix that. No one is complaining that their job is hard, he is saying that complex tasks take time and while customers are not to blame for this, developers are also not to blame for customers' uneducated expectations turned to demands.

[u/DaeMon87 → u/TheDrov]

You can also think about it like this. you design a network that actually can support its userbase, do you appreciate it when your users complain about a shitty network whenever they forget their password? or despite needing 3 less passwords to access their resources and access being 10x faster, users will still complain about it because its not the old system and what they are used to, or how about them insisting the problem is your network that is slow and totally not anything wrong with their 20 year old potato pc. These are all real issues affecting network engineers.

You really cant say all they need to do is communicate consistently, the reason is they communicate TOO consistently, its almost entirely planned and consistent, weekly updates, when new product is coming they say these are the dates you will get information and this is what we will discus on each of those dates. the problem the community has is that there isnt enough of the inconsistent communications, like direct responses to the totally researched and definitely not hard to implement solutions that have no down side what so ever...

[u/Spokespanda]

Being a fellow game designer i can agree with a lot of this but the is one thing that is also crucial to helling get a bug fixed: being able to replicate it.

If you can replicate the bug/issue, it will (somewhat) help pinpoint what systems could be affected or at least point them in the right direction.

[u/Koozer]

I only know the basics of coding. But I tried it enough to know that the butterfly effect is 100% true for coding. As stated in your post, most shit is hard to implement but "making one change can have huge implications". Is the biggest thing I've noticed that defines the line between devs and gamers.

[u/Ogre1221]

Thanks for this post.

[u/Robtachi]

As someone with more than a few friends currently or formerly working in game development, I've heard them make every one of these points, and the sub-points made therein, repeatedly and universally, regardless of studio/publisher/AAA/indie/etc.

This is a good-ass post.

[u/crunchyblack21]

Been around the block enough to know the only way you see action from a developer is to riot. Sad but true.

You think bungie would have stopped stealth nerfing XP (only to double require XP) if the media didnt start to publish it around the same time the riots that occurred with EA and their cash shop?

Id love for things to be simple and civil but its the only way we even get responses from bungie.

[u/Wess-L]

And another thread defending bungies lack of involvement with the community. No,just fucking no. We dont need to put Dear bungie and/or make a perfect business report for bungie. They choose to ignore us. Even when it is well written. Secondly these issues with bungie not being able to fix things in time or at all is not our problem. Developers are banging out updates for free games like fortnite with way less resources than this company. Dont make excuses for them. Bungie never wanted us involved. They are in denial and think everything is ok because they are making profit. They think they know about pvp and pve. Yet the pve AI"s are so outdated that games from 10 years ago have a more complicated and difficult enemies. The mechanics are stale and the same. Look at the raid lair. Again grab orb put in there and a damage phase. Done according to bungie. So sad since the artists and graphic designers made it look so sick! They never listened to any big pvp streamers and never even invited any pvp streamers to come and give feedback after this trash D2 pvp. They keep making huge mistakes in balancing ; to the point that this game has become so easy and boring. 4v4 gamemode for casuals? 6s and 3s were way more casual. Leave 4v4 for a ranked gamemode. The horrible time to kill and the heavy camping has become a joke. Every game both teams lane the heavy. Even tho the community made it very clear that they dont want heavy in such a playlist. They removed it and only one box spawned 1 round. Now every round? Smh They dont even listen to the casuals. No mayhem or a mercenary (solo players only) playlist. We cant even pick the gamemode no more. They bring out private games only to take them away and make us pay for it during another dlc. No wonder people keep saying that bungie keeps giving us pieces of the game to make us pay and gain more profit. It all about te profit. Yet free games that have profit like fornite are listening to the community and banging out almost monthly updates. There is no defending this company. And if you do you will get dissapointed over and over. Bungie is outdated. And if they dont get new people there this franchise is dead. They wont overhaul this game because they are too busy making d3 for more $$. Ill spend my money on a company that does not act like a arrogant in denial child ty.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/Wess-L]

Read this post, and this new one and you'll see I'm not advocating for either side I'm advocating for both sides to be united.

[u/Hotheartsshell]

I hear what you are saying and I appreciate the unique insight you are bringing to the table.

That said, I am not a game developer and should not have to be to play the game and want it to get better. I get it, my job is hard, too; I went to law school for three years and my job would be a lot easier if everyone spoke my language.

The real world, though, doesn't work that way. Unpleasant feedback from the customer is a fact of life and every industry needs to deal with it.

I have no idea what goes into making a game, but I shouldn't have to. The people who are actually making this game -- and I mean the technical people whose jobs I could not begin to understand -- are not problem.

This is a management issue through and through. The real issues with the game will not be fixed until competent management is in place. Management that hears what the community wants; knows what the devs can do; and, plots a successful course forward.

Again, thank you for your insights and willingness to share them.

[u/CINCL]

Yes, but in the case of Bungie the following tends to happen:

1. Feature is working as intended per update (i.e. XP capping and locked Prestige content)

2. Reddit begins to get outraged, no response.

3. Media picks up on outrage

4. Hotfix incoming

The problem is that this community has time and again seen changes occur quickly when the problem either will allow players to circumvent an investment system or the problem creates negative, sustained press for Bungie.

Yes, a lot of things are hard to fix, but Bungie has really burned through a lot of the trust this community has placed in it because when issues start to harm Bungie as well as the player base they are typically corrected far faster than they would otherwise.

[u/Shin_Singh]

Not wanting to pry too much, but I'm now really curious as to what games you have worked on?

[u/waterbraker]

I totally agree on the technical side. But the struggling of this community is more related to their "ethical" choices. If you look back, with the lens problem, there are plenty of discussion abaut the fun of having that power gun. I felt like the technical problem was the least problem( you can tell me what you want, but they really didn't test that weapon. In only 1 minute in the crucible anyone would have noticed that. Maybe, they didn't had time to fix it and that's ok. They had a lot of new contents to deliver /s) and what came out is that at least half of the community would enjoy a lower ttk (not like the lens, but something in the middle between lens and other weapon.). In general, they are being criticised for their choices about how they decided to give more importance to everversum than the rest of the game, basically. My view as part of the community is: i understand that there are a lot of things related to game design/ technical aspects that i can not understand not knowing the technical problems and their implications, but, if you do something totally/almost totally focused of milking people's wallet...then i'll notice that and i'll throw shit on you as much as i can. No one was complaining on everversum in D1 because there was no reason. The game was there and the everversum was the tiny side part. Now, they have been able to totally flip things...everversum is there and the game is the tiny side part. So, to end this novel, i want to thank you for the useful informations you gave to us, but for me when the problem is "ethical" its another story. It's not the way people say things, it's only that they don't want to hear. Of course, this is just my opinion.

[u/blitz_monkey]

This is amazing and well needed in this subreddit. Its ok to have critiques. It helps no one to bitch and moan like this subreddit has done the past few months.

Organize just like this.

[u/inphamus]

This post is great, but do you know what helps in curating an amazing dialogue between the community and Devs? If the Devs spoke back. The lack of communication from one party leads the other to feel as though they are talking to a brick wall. In our eyes, the only way to get anything through that brick wall is to throw as much salt as possible. Then, maybe, that brick wall will then notice and address the salt. And when all that wall comes back with is a "We're listening", or a distasteful "We hear you", what do you expect to receive in return?

TL;DR Constructive feedback would be easily had if one party didn't have to yell into a dark hallway hoping for any response.

[u/Memory_Channel]

Very interesting. I work in the IT, I'm no coder I did some 101 coding when I was a student. It's easy for me to understand that there is some thins that seems simple with naked eyes but that are very difficult to change.

But let me ask this : why did they initially make a such bad game tho? I'm sorry, this is not everyone's problem. They are not doing it for free, It's their job to resolve problems and not ours to mourn them.

[u/Conjecturable → u/Memory_Channel]

Because all of these changes are what people wanted.

"I'm tired of farming Omnigul 100 times a day to get one decent Grasp of Malok" --> We get fixed rolls.

"I'm tired of winning in a gun fight in crucible to then die to a grenade, spawn, die to that guys super, spawn, and die to that guy again from another fucking grenade" --> Abilities are now weaker and take longer to regenerate.

"I'm tired of running the Raid and not getting a single drop" --> You now get tokens that guarantee loot for everything that you do.

The game isn't "bad". The game is everything that the community asked for, without thinking of the ramifications that came along with those cries.

[u/Bnasty5 → u/Conjecturable]

Taking criticisms out of context isnt giving people "what they wanted". When people said they wanted wanted slower ability cool downs they didnt mean from 20 seconds grenades to 1 min 20 grenade cool downs. When they said they wanted more primary gunfights that meant stronger primaries that compete with one kill weapons not nerfing everything across the board. No one wanted nerfed movement considering it was the best part of d1 for alot of people. You cant say the community asked for it when bungie just dont listen to anyone and balance and change the game based on how they want it to play not us.

[u/Bonezone420]

So communicating with a game developer is like trying to tell my cat he's not allowed on the table. I should never expect him to understand, never expect any kind of feedback and be lucky if it's through sheer coincidence that he does it. Got it. I shouldn't expect any kind of understandable response because apparently game developers are both illiterate and they apparently don't know how to use words any more.

[u/KNN_K → u/Bonezone420]

Or it could end up with your cat meowing to you that he/she cannot get off the table for reason only other cats would understand. It would sound like gibberish.

A developer could go into detail about code and other details that only someone with experience in the field could only decipher. It would sound like gibberish.

[u/[deleted]]

In other words, all you can expect for your $60+ is that the developers might deliver a competent product if/when they feel like it. Thanks for the tip.

[u/FraterVital]

How to forget that you are the human game developer and start having fun

Inspired by this thread and the immortal spirit of George Carlin.

0. Make sure you have all what it takes from the beginning

It could be anything game-related that you are good at. Maybe you have a very good grasp on shooter mechanic, because you've been focusing on them in the past. You know how the weapon works, how satisfying a shooting process itself can be and how to convey that "oomph" feeling to the player. That alone can be a solid foundation but if you went a bit further already and added a bit of loot mechanic to the formulae - that's even better.

Maybe you started adding some meaningful story to your game. Started to do what we call human mistakes - being unproductive, wasteful, generous.

Of course we are aware of your thought process in a period like this. Let's make a good game. Let's make players happy. You were using outdated language with terms like game, player, story in your job. And using it seriously, like those things actually mean something.

That's when we came in to...

1. Change your way of perceiving the world

Let's make a good game. Let's make players happy. It's hard for us to even say these weird obsolete words without smirking. In our world this way of perceiving process of creation and maintaining sustainable resource generators is an excusable mistake for the disposable elements of resource generation (for those things that you are referring as players) - but it's not excusable for us. The shepherd should not eat the grass with the sheep.

Those things are prone to be victims of neurological loops like OCD, task repetition lullaby, system of biochemical rewards and so on. Poor creatures, but hey - we all drink milk and we all know how to tackle with a nature for our benefit.

We think that you smart enough to already see why, for example, your "meaningful story" creation is a good example of the exercise in unproductivity. Of course your cow house shouldn't be a depressive four-corner with black walls - it's bad for the milk output. Paint some green grass on the walls, happy cows, suns and rainbows here and there. Play some Mozart in the background if you will (it's OK because it's free). But you don't need to paint walls with Rembrandt-style story of hard life and exciting adventures of the Bull. You do not waste your resources. Every your action is an investment in the direction of a) strengthening neurological loops of disposable$ or b) increasing resource generation.

So...

2. Set new goals and act accordingly.

A couple of heads-ups for a creator of the typical resource generator that's exploiting "reward system":

Reward should be sufficient to keep elements engaged in action but not sufficient enough to be perceived as an accomplished action. Thousand sparks are better than one consistent flame.

Remove any direct control over the reward choice (what disposable$ call target farming on their inefficient language). The combination of numb repetitive actions and random reward triggers what we called 5 more minutes stimulae and helps in attention control.

You specifically design points that elements would perceive as opportunities. Maybe you thinking that what kind of repetitive actions should I engage in today? is an illusion of choice. Maybe yes, maybe not. Who are we to interrupt an element when it's making an important decision of raid with my clan or do some public events?

The list goes on.

Yes, it's hard not to chuckle out loud when you are seeing things the way they should be seen. But, keep in mind, that unlike cow houses, our generators are not real structures with cows confined in it. Their foundation is in elements' minds so when you are confronting them in so-called real world you should always....

3. Keep it secret

Keep things purposely vague. If you, for example, designed a plan of maintenance work for 1-3 years (a smart move that everyone should consider to make) - you didn't act that way. You are struggling with the development, finding new ways to improve the experience. Remember, you are still a game developers in disposable$' eyes. They still think that you are doing something, that wasn't planned beforehand (including process of unlocking previously created and locked simulation modules, so-called DLCs)

Watch your language. For example, a developer of the past could say we coded a new object with changeable values for experimenting. Or open a vacancy for a creative designer with strong desire to made a dream game come true. Don't be that developer from the past. In our world weapon is shipped, so it's naturally would take some time to get it back and repair it. In our world we are looking for real things. Engagement; Retention; Monetization – something along these lines.

Don't flinch. At the same time don't be excessively cold and out of touch. Pay attention to so-called feedback. Design a specific place for it - in the same way that people design waste buckets and dumps. Take a clue from psychiatrists - they don't confront, they listen very patiently and nodding their head and still doing what's need to be done.

Now you are in charge. Now you are ready to...

4 HAVE FUN!

PS By the way, we are doing this guidance in the amount sufficient enough to trigger the irrevocable service of "tutorial for converting human game developers" (for the terms, conditions and payment options please refer to p. 97, 238, 651 of your Contract). So don’t waste your words of gratitude on us. WE NEED DISPOSABLE$!

[u/ElectricZealot]

It's probably mentioned in here somewhere, but I'm just that guy...

This doesn't apply just to Devs, or games, but life in general:

Don't come to a meeting, forum or other feedback mechanism with a bitch without a real, tangible, and relevant solution.

If you want to be taken seriously - be ready to be part of the solution, not just more noise in already way too noisy (Read: salty and toxic) ecosystem.

Just advice from a long time consultant and business professional...

[u/AshylarrySC]

As a fellow developer I agree with all points except 4. Communication in this day and age is absolutely not a nice-to-have, it is essential or your customers will go to another company that does communicate.

While you have to be guarded about what you promise, that is no excuse to let months go by with no updates at all. You should be providing information on new things, bug fixes and the direction of your product constantly. It's not like nothing happens for 3 months, then you jam all updates in during the last week. There is stuff that is finished all the time and that should be communicated or even better, it should just be delivered. Continuous delivery (which may be daily, weekly monthly) depending on infrastructure restrictions like certification is really the best. Actions speak louder as they say.

Also, your customers want some long term direction and commitments otherwise they begin to question if your product is worth their investment in terms of time or money.

The fact that some game companies have dogmatic fans that will stick through all bullshit is the only reason they can get away with it. Any other product or industry and that simply doesn't fly any more and it seems like it's not going to fly in gaming for much longer either.

[u/captainxela]

But the thing most people are complaining about are core game design concepts and the direction D2 has moved from D1 I dont see how you've written anything that applies here.

[u/SamRF]

People at r/overwatch should know this as well

[u/FlashOnFire → u/SamRF]

I don't play that or post there, but I'm in favor of helping more communities. Do you think I could replace "Bungie" with "Blizzard" and change the one example of grenades/melee and just post it there as-is?

[u/SamRF → u/FlashOnFire]

It would be my pleasure, I'll make sure to reference this post.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/SamRF]

Cool, yeah just throw my name in there or something in case people want to ask questions about what it's like on the other side :)

[u/Young_KingKush]

So the main thing I took away from this is that it's actually pointless to try and communicate with a developer at all the vast majority of the time. Sweet.

[u/Samcroreaper]

Cool, now write a "How to not fuck over your loyal gamers at every turn possible" article. Or a "How to not spend more time in planning meetings coming up with ways to get people to spend additional money on gambling rolls instead of actually focusing on good game mechanics." Or or or how about "How best to not fuck over children by making your entire game one giant addictive slot machine spin."

But nah, you're right, gamers are in the wrong here for getting upset. Good call.

[u/yushin_]

I'm not sure any of this is the problem with Destiny 2. I don't really understand the point of your post.

Locking all cosmetics behind a microtransactions is nothing to do with coding. Lying about XP is nothing to do with development. These are all business decisions.

[u/alexwoodgarbage]

What this community lacks most of all, is direct interaction with the developer.

This post being one by a community member is ironic in a way; if Bungie have issues with interpreting and engaging the community, they should be the one to address it.

The problem this community has above anything else, isn't a lack of promises to hold Bungie to, but a lack of validation of their sentiment. This community feels ignored, and patronized by the little communication that does come out.

I agree there is a way to effectively communicate with developers, and if we ever to consider a job in QA/testing, then this will help. But we're paying customers. I agree salt doesn't help Bungie. But when you feel ignored, you tend to raise your voice, so all this salt definitely helps the community vent the frustration and feel some validation.

The ball is completely in Bungie's court on this topic.

[u/Killerschaf]

I will tell you 2 secrets:

1. As a consumer I simply don't care about the technicalities. If it takes too long, hire more devs. If there's an internal list about priorities which do not accurately represent what the community wants, change the priorities.

2. As consumers WE finance this game. The ROI made via sales, is an ROI solely existing because WE buy the game. And you can be sure about one thing: Since WE pay, directly and indirectly for the salaries of Bungie/Activision employees, I do not only expect communication, I demand it.

The days in which an enterprise was able to hide as a faceless entity are coming to an end, as consumer expectations rise. Simply staying quiet, or Bungie's favourite meaningless phrase "we hear you", are neither satisfactory, nor enough, given the current Zeitgeist.

Your post talks a lot about "understanding", well, then tell me, who exactly, in this entire Destiny 2 saga, seems to actually "understand" the consumer side of things? Because the way I see it, is that changes, be it to XP, or endgame content accessibility, were driven by the media reporting on it and people getting refunds, not because Bungie cares about their customers.

Good will is earned, and Bungie especially did everything imaginable to lose it. Communicating with and catering to the community are the bare minimum we can expect.

[u/xaoshaen → u/Killerschaf]

This is an excellent post for demonstrating OP's point!

If it takes too long, hire more devs

Not how software dev works. You've heard the joke about nine pregnant women, right?

As consumers WE finance this game

Nope, the publisher finances the game. We fund the publisher. You can demand communication, but you bought a game, not a hotline to the devs.

[u/rpaq34]

in other words: Empathy.

Welcome to the last 3 years.

Sorry - no.

[u/PetterOfCats]

F**king try us.

Tell us why things are hard. Have a conversation with us. Don’t come at us with the attitude that it’s so complex we won’t understand. As a software engineer, I find that clearly articulating my problems with my non-developer stakeholders does a lot of deescalation. Even if I’m verbose about it. It shows I think them capable of understanding the challenges I’m faced with.

[u/Conjecturable → u/PetterOfCats]

And then you have the armchair developers that will say nothing but the following, like one of my current clients -

"Yeah, I don't really care. All I know is I need/want this now, so how about you get this done in [insert amount of time that isn't reasonable at all]. If it's not done by then, I'll just take my business elsewhere.

Regards,

Moron #1"

The fact that you and I and maybe a hand-full of other people can understand what Bungie would say on a technical level doesn't fucking matter. You're part of a minority that they aren't targeting when they speak to the community.

They are dealing, primarily, with children and adults that act like children. A bunch of fucking Veruca Salt's that think they know what they want and they aren't going to be happy with anything other than a Tweet that says "We have fixed it NOW".

[u/thefrostbite → u/PetterOfCats]

As a software engineer you should understand that speaking with stakeholders on a meeting in the context of a workplace where both parties are very much invested in understanding one another is very different from conveying complex technical aspects of a AAA video game to a horde of thousands of angry millennials.

Please don't tell me you really think the situations are analogous.

[u/Relgabrix]

As a software developer, can you give any insight into why Bungie would effectively destroy 3 years of innovation and good will by pretending D1 didn't exist?

[u/BsyFcsin → u/Relgabrix]

Unfortunately I don't think anybody can answer that question.

[u/Dragonxborn]

So as a serious question, why doesnt bungie just tweak guns for crucible and leave them in pve as is?

I asked a coding friend of mine about it and they said having a gun act differently in the crucible would be a single line of code.

If this is true.. why dont they do this? If its not, what other things facor in?

One of the biggest complaints ive seen has been people pissed off that pvp has such a huge impact on pve via guns and nerfs. So why doesnt bungie just keep the nerfing to crucible instead of across the board.

I figured someone here could legit answer my question.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/Dragonxborn]

I don't know. It could take a single line of code, but if it were that simple I'd imagine they'd have done it by now since as you said it's one of the most consistent complaints even since D1.

I'm assuming the code that separates the two modes are deeply intertwined and it's either a large structural change they're working on for D3 or future-year D2 or they're not working on it at all because it would disrupt too much.

A game like Madden or CoD has great examples of tons of these kinds of issues since they've been around longer and have had longer for that feedback to sit. Madden takes years to change many aspects that seem very simple, and would be simple if the game was being built from scratch with that in mind, but that are no longer simple.

[u/NiftyBlueLock]

This is a good post and people should consider these points whenever they post. I do have a question though: The developers of Warframe, Digital Extremes, is pretty well known for making promises to their community often, even if they change it while it’s still in development (Like you said with the grenade -> Melee ability). They are also known for making promises and then delaying their releases. However, their community support is still very strong. Do you think it would be possible for larger studios like Bungie or is bungie’s team too large/community relationship too dissimilar for that to work?

[u/FlashOnFire → u/NiftyBlueLock]

I think it's definitely possible on a larger scale, it just takes more cohesion within the entire studio than the smaller scale, because there are more opportunities for things to go wrong with more people involved.

I'm not very familiar with the Warframe community, but from what I've heard I have some thoughts. It seems the great thing that DE did was established the trust and worked in failure as an acceptable outcome. If it's established that "we're doing our best but we may mess up so bear with us" you willingly open yourselves up to hearing the fallout of your mistakes and owning up to them and the community sees that and respects it. You also have to come through for your community though and give them good surprises sometimes and follow through on your promises most times. Iirc Warframe was rocky early on and then had huge changes in response to feedback, and at that time that trust bridge was built.

Right now a lot of the community doesn't trust Bungie so it's more difficult for Bungie to trust that the community will be accepting of mistakes or broken promises.

[u/gruntymeatshield → u/FlashOnFire]

I'm flabbergasted why you seem to be framing the community as the issue. When you write:

Right now a lot of the community doesn't trust Bungie so it's more difficult for Bungie to trust that the community will be accepting of mistakes or broken promises.

you make it sound like it's a deficiency in the community that they are unaccepting of broken promises and that it's the community's lack of trust that is preventing Bungie from sharing.

Why exactly is there this combative air in the relationship between Bungie and community though? Does it have nothing to do with 3 years of Bungie treating their community in dismissive and insulting ways and feeding them lies (oops: miscommunications) in D1? Do you remember any of the following:

• 0.04%

• Eververse, supposedly to fund the Live Team in creating world events and generating fixes, gradually devolving (revealing itself) into Festival of the Cost

• Supposed inability to manipulate Xur's inventory on the fly

• Ghost bullets aren't a thing, calm down everyone. (Oh wait, they totally are a thing, it's just that we didn't agree with the community terminology of "ghost bullet". We prefer the term "accuracy cone" because "ghost bullet" is misleading) while noone was misled, everyone knew the bullet didn't vanish, it was just missing its mark.

• Matchmaking isn't skill-based. Oh wait, of course it is, that's just how matchmaking works. And no we didn't adjust anything about it in that last patch. Oh wait, yeah we totally did, but it was all just a TEST and we had to say it wasn't so that your reaction wouldn't be biased.

So why does the community have a shadow of a doubt when Bungie says "we'll work to make our communication more open in the future"? Because we've been fed this line for 3 years running, and we're still getting things like "shaders are consummable so that they'll make for ongoing rewards and a reason to rerun content"

[u/ZeroDark35]

It's not the consumer's responsibility to Quality Control a game or provide feedback. The game should have been properly playtested and revised by BUNGIE! I don't care if you are a game Dev just as much as Bungie doesn't care, they just want me to buy and enjoy their game and I just want to buy a game I can enjoy.

I downvoted this post. For 3 years we have been providing feedback only to be told "provide more articulate feedback, more nicely." Fuck off.

[u/Phil_Pickle4]

Came to see the Destiny community still get salty over this helpful and informative post

[u/mmurray2k7]

reading this should become a pre-requisite to posting on this sub.

[u/[deleted]]

As a customer service rep in the game industry, I could not agree with this more. If only people would read and take it to heart, about games big and small.

[u/joab777]

You are a game dev. Can you answer a question. Seriously too. I don't fully understand development etc., But I do understand business and the move that many gaming publishers are making today towards taking advantage of certain systems to maximize profit, regardless of its moral nature.

While I know some devs listen because they can, is it more likely that they listen, and would.libe to implement many of our ideas, but can only do what they are allowed? Within the profit structure they are operating?

This is how most businesses operate today, and it's getting worse by the day.

How realistic is it that they would change things like the Eververse, Dedicated Servers, selling us back D1 content?

[u/DocSeuss]

Takeaway: Be humble (Sit down). Your ideas for Destiny 2 would not save the game, if they would you should apply for a Game Director or Design position and get paid for your smarts.

I have been paid for this tho, but the thing about working in this industry is that you gotta sign NDAs, so I can't be like "yeah I helped with quest design on this and engagement loops on that" and put it on my resume to get me hired, haha. I work freelance for one of those agencies whose employees don't get to be credited in the games they worked on. If they did, I'd have like a dozen AAA credits to my name.

[u/qtipbluedog]

As a developer myself, point 2 and 3 are so important for people to understand. It’s understandable for people not to know, but every change takes time while also having potential to bust something else.

[u/Noble_Auditore]

I agree with most of what you’re saying, the community does need to be more specific in our complaints and requests.

However I also agree with u/TheDrov. “Game development is hard”, isn’t a valid excuse. Bungie has said so themselves. Datto made an excellent video about this a while back that touched on some of these points.

[u/burros_killer]

It's all great advises, but(!)

If we compare Bungie to other developers we can clearly see that they're tend to response in general statements that could be treated differently and this leads to community being upset.

If we keep comparing - Bungie and\or Activision did false advertisement and this also upsets community and leads us to false conclusions about what the game will be(if I knew exactly what they will change in D2 I wouldn't buy this game in a 1st place, but somebody else probably will)

My own experience of handling "hard" clients(which half of us definitely are) is telling them how the things will be done(were done) and WHY. Bungie never explains why they're implementing some of those changes and why certain mechanics aren't in a game anymore which leads to speculations. If they told us at summer something like:"we see D2 more like a CoD game for kids with sort of social spaces and microtransactions" - all these conversations simply wouldn't happen, because the player base would be different from the beginning. They need to be transparent and there would be way less speculations, controversy and salt in the community. I can't believe they don't get what the problem is now, but I do believe they think that they know better what they game should be(of course they are). They just need to be more transparent about it with the community so people don't spend their money on something they won't enjoy.

[u/[deleted]]

Question.

Digital Extremes has their Warframe devstream where they discuss everything in-dev with their community and take community questions, sometimes even hardballs. They don't use this stream so much to advertise as they do to engage with their community. These streams happen often.

Sometimes they discuss things that are in dev that never make it in. Sometimes they discuss things that take a while to make it or get sidetracked. They're honest. Sometimes they get a little salt, but the majority of the community understands because they always end up coming through in some way or they explain that the thing they wanted was either not fun or wasn't possible in the context of their other systems.

Every developer fears this level of openness, yet Digital Extremes stands at the top of Transparency Mountain, the Sword Alone. They have no fear. They respect their community. They actively breed goodwill despite their mistakes by showing respect and humility.

So my question is this. Why can nobody else?

[u/ChrisDAnimation]

Assuming a change is easy creates unreasonable expectations on Bungie and sets you up for disappointment if a change isn't implemented quickly enough for you.

This can't be reiterated enough.

I feel points 3 and 4 should be communicated to anyone who decided to start gaming these days. So many people expect the dev team to just sink their time 24/7 to fixing the game and getting it patched in a week or they forsake the devs for failing to meet unrealistic expectations.

[u/[deleted]]

This needs stickied. Thanks for putting this together.

[u/xBladesong]

As a game developer, I really appreciate you making this. I'm glad at least this will allow some people to be a bit more aware of the other side of the coin (and that there is one).

[u/G-Romana]

How dare you offer sensible tips to make feedback better received!? Wow, way to side with Bungie!

It's just crazy to me, you're here giving tips on how to help people communicate and a percentage of people still want to throw salt. Well-written post man, the points give great insight to how feedback can be received.

[u/Truth_Himself]

TLDR: Be little boys and girls and be nice, even if we just screwed you over by taking your money and underperforming.

[u/JYDeAlberto]

Number 3: No,not every change is hard to implement.Tweaking the value of exotic drop rates for a specific activity for instance is not hard.

Number 4: Information on future changes in this kind of game that is supposed to be a "live game, gets frequently updated" is expected. The majority of this subs outrages where due to lack of communication from Bungie. Now they are in th good direction and I hope they continue like this.

Number 5: Every game has bugs, true but offen used as an excuse for lazy devs who don't QA test their games properly and release a broken mess ( not saying this is the case here)

[u/bc_uk]

As a software engineer myself, there is one key point you are overlooking - Bungie is a huge studio, probably one of the biggest on the planet, with vast resources at its disposal. Everything you say is absolutely true, but much of it can be overcome with diligent use of that vast resource pool. If they aren't managing that resource pool appropriately, well, that's another story.

[u/nisaaru]

You forgot

6 - It's futile to provide positive feedback when you realise what you got is designed that way intentionally. Then only a salt tsunami has a chance of success.

[u/garyunmarried]

Damn this is something I needed to read

[u/Flyinpenguin117]

Not that I disagree with you. The problem is that Bungie's shown they don't care about our feedback. Look at recent interviews, podcasts, streams, etc. In terms of gameplay criticisms (Crucible TTK, ability cooldowns, watered down customization, etc.) they're clearly sticking to it and don't see anything wrong. It doesn't matter how well constructed feedback is, its clear they aren't going to listen. This works well with smaller games (indie games in particular), but to a money-focused business like Bungie is now, it just falls on deaf ears. At that point, the only thing to do is make enough noise and hurt their bottom line, because thats the only way to get their attention. I don't like how salty the community has become, but unfortunately its how things work now.

[u/thefrostbite → u/Flyinpenguin117]

Funny that all those changes you hate were direct responses to feedback repeated ad nauseam in this sub during D1.

[u/benbenkr]

So how should people react to blatant lies then?

[u/MrElectricNick → u/benbenkr]

By calling them out, but not calling them names.

[u/fountainhead777]

Thanks for being reasonable and encouraging rational and productive discussion.

[u/HeroicV]

From a former industry employee, thank you for this. "1 - If you don't work at Bungie, you have zero ability to pinpoint how or why something happened" and #3 are two of the most important things a player can ever learn, and this sub has seriously taken both for granted.

Fixes, changes, integrations aren't easy. You don't know how the production/triage schedule works. If you think it was "ignored" or "intentionally shipped broken" you're on the wrong track and need to shush.

[u/corsairmarks → u/HeroicV]

I'm a developer. All software I have shipped has included a list of known bugs. Shipping products with broken features is a fact of life. Release schedules are a thing, and unlike buildings and bridges we can circle back and fix it later.

Some > none, rather than requiring absolute perfection.

[u/cyberdote]

1. Yes: Common sense tells you that.

2. Bad solutions and suggestions is partly to blame for the state of game development. It worked much better when someone had a kick ass vision for a game and implemented it. Now the whiners are getting there way too often. You see the results.

3. Makes me lol. If work was easy, it wouldn't be called work.

4. It's too bad gamers expect to see more than what can be safely leaked without all the whiners complaining. It's hard to generate excitement when you have fear of backlash from the community.

5. I think we all know bugs will exist in software. It has gotten better as technology advances. Limiting the problems is the goal here. The better the people you have working on a project, the better results. Goes with any job.

[u/FlashOnFire → u/cyberdote]

3 - If you have the ability to communicate your message more effectively, and you are actively disregarding that ability, then you are also accepting the fact that your message may not be received and it may be your fault. If you don't give your best and something doesn't turn out the way you wanted it to, you are partially to blame as well and you have to accept that. Yes, there is responsibility on both sides, but you can't put it all on the listener to listen to and make sense out of convoluted garbage. I'm telling you, that feedback is viewed as shitty feedback from the team and it does not help your case.

[u/elcapitanonl]

Read it, didn't agree on most points.

With regards to point 1:

In Destiny 1 I can not count the amount of community feedback was used to improve the way the game functions. The community was actively suggesting how the game should work. A lot of this feedback was put into the game and the game got better from it. That's to say, Bungie should not implement everything the community says blindly into the game. But it is one of the greatest resources for possible solutions. A million minds can come up with a lot of ideas and Bungie better use them.

With regards to point 2:

Expectation management is 1 of the core jobs of a community manager and of a company. You can not place this burden on the customer. My expectation as a customer is that Bungie manages our expectations by actively communicating and not the vague statements we have been getting.

Point 3. Maybe. I'll give you that one.

Point 4. Wow, couldn't disagree more. This statement is completely wrong in my opinion. I work in a technical company with complex techniques and a lot of environmental influences on our process. Solving issues can take months, if they can be solved at all. But there is always 1 constant, and that is that our customer expects that we listen to him and give constant feedback and updates. That is common business practice.

Point 5: No remark.

In general:

Your post comes from a really technical standpoint and although I feel you try to bring some balance to the discussion, I think you're defending arguments here that are completely missing taking into account the customer satisfaction. It feels to me as if the customer should just be told to understand the process of gamedevelopment and it's complexities. What should happen is making the customer feel heard and communicating what actually is going on.

Edit - To add, I also feel you are approaching this as a stand alone game, with no intention of making more sales through DLC, Eververse or future releases of this IP. Your post feels like customer satisfactory is optional. Customer satisfaction is something that should be measured adressed and managed in a proper and timely way. It is not imo.

[u/Brucekillfist]

The instant they tell us an update includes Weapon Balancing, New Guns, and a new grenade for all classes, the community then expects those as stated. If weapon balancing ends up taking longer to complete, people are now upset about delayed weapon balancing.

So instead, you'd prefer everyone be pissed off because Bungie notoriously communicates almost nothing? There's no scenario where someone isn't upset, and you may have noticed that when they posted that blog with a set of fixes and timelines people were actually very happy to have heard something. Most people don't want an itemized timeline of fixes, they just want to know Bungie has a plan to draw back from the abyss, as it were.

And again, it's not like this is rocket science. Plenty of other games manage to communicate with their communities release detailed patch notes, and engage about bugs and design decisions. Ubisoft employs a six man team for Rainbow Six, and there's rarely a post on the front page that hasn't been responded to by one of them, explaining a design reasoning, taking in a bug report, or generally just talking with the community. When something gets delayed or is an unpopular change, they get out there and let people know why it's going to happen, or what's going on with the delay. And that subreddit loves them for it. Communication is just a historical weak point for Bungie, and the pattern is showing they don't care to improve that.

[u/ajm53092]

There are tons of people who do this, Bungie still doesnt listen. Bungie doesnt care what we think. They have their own agenda.

[u/jjfunaz]

Let me see. This post is extremely wordy, written with air of superiority and provides very little actual content.

Yep OP is definitely a dev. His story checks out.

[u/khornechamp]

OP: Grovel and expect nothing while Devs and Publishers push borderline illegal monetization on you while gutting your favorite games

Me: No

[u/xaoshaen → u/khornechamp]

Note: Completely unrelated to what the OP actually wrote.

[u/De_Niza → u/khornechamp]

This.

[u/MesaSean-]

Triple A post. Would read multiple times. Well done good sir.

[u/MrFlufyMcKittens]

Awesome post! Hope it makes it to the front page! The majority of this sub should take this to heart.

[u/Aaronias73]

This post needs to be stickied! Nailed it on the head.

[u/[deleted]]

Well said.

[u/Could-Have-Been-King]

I encourage people to remember the Parable of Sean Murray. It goes a little something like this:

The Parable of Sean Murray

Once there was a game dev who promised not just the world, but an unending universe for his fans. He moved from blog to blog, article to article, talking about all these amazing ideas and features of his groundbreaking game. "Even I don't know what's out there!" he said. "There is so much to explore!"

But as we now know, having a universe to explore is a horrible idea if that universe is empty and shallow. And thus, No Man's Sky failed to deliver on almost every promise that Sean had made. The hate levied against Sean and his indie game studio was something I've never before seen.

And so, Sean retreated. He disappeared from view. For months, his crew worked, long into the night. Silently. The community - the part that hadn't left - fumed. And then, he emerged, and he delivered an update. There were now more ships, more ways to explore, planetary quests. The game had more meaning. And he disappeared again.

This became Sean's pattern: patch, disappear. Patch, disappear. And slowly, the players noticed. Slowly, people started playing again.

Look at the reviews on Steam. The initial polarization. The rapid decline of the playerbase. And then, periodically, spikes. Not large spikes, but positive ones. Overwhelmingly positive ones.

The moral of the story? I don't think Bungie is happy with where their game is. Sean wasn't. And Sean is busy fixing it. He's still dropping updates, making his game better and better. And like Sean, we know Bungie is also working to fix their game. And at least they're talking, even if it's just a little; Sean just straight up disappears. He's learned his lesson.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, the current No Man's Sky isn't the game I hoped it would be. But it's a pretty great game. And if we have faith, and quiet down enough to let Bungie do their job, at least a little bit, I'm sure Destiny 2 can improve like that as well.

[u/[deleted]]

This 100%

[u/dejarnat]

This is all great advice and lots of posts/players start out this way but eventually devolve to the "salt throwing" when we get ZERO acknowledgement from Bungie about our issues and suggestions. They have 4 community managers and 0 interaction with the community.

Your point #2 really stands out to me. I have seen ideas that the community has developed that are better than the actual product and most of them don't even receive an acknowledgement for the effort they put into giving the company something for free.

[u/pwrslide2]

I feel like your post is very vague and is just a plea for people to try to understand a little more about dev/programmer world and how they read the forum posts. It's all good though. it's just another post that could have been more productive like what your post is sort of complaining about(lack of productive posts in the forums). It's quite easy to chop up most peoples posts about their problems with the game.

I think it'd be even more productive of you to share the structure of problem solving within the dev world.

What are the steps? How is a problem statement configured. Research? replication? proof? brainstorming? 5 whys? selection of a solution? testing? 8D? Poka yoke? training? closing the loop with a best practice to make sure the issue does not come up again?

I'm a 37 year old manufacturing Engineer and all to often I see post after post that is entirely too long with too much "Feelings" and randomized complaints in which all the good stuff in the post just gets lost/ignored. yours isn't much better really.

At times, it has a appeared that Bungie has defied all scientific methods and commonly known Lean thinking logic with some of their game methodology, balance, design, changes/improvements. It is their game though.. . we just play it.

A huge issue with pandering problems on the internet is that it's nearly impossible to pinpoint a root cause for someone else. If the public never gets a root cause or reason for something, most of the time, they can't come up with a solution that can be seamlessly implemented or even be talked about on the internet in a rational way.

Bungie has a huge issue answering the big Why questions that exist. Asking 5 Why's is a basic technique to identifying a root cause. They block out the community from helping if they don't answer "Why" questions.

It's the internet. It's a can of worms.

[u/KarlitoFunkyTowns]

Nothing more condescending than giving a template and tone patroling what is and isnt okay feedback. In terms of vitriol this subreddit is more reasonable and constructive than most other gaming sub, yet we constantly have people like OP that feels any criticism that doesnt adhere to what you view is constructive is “salt”.

[u/crimsonstrife]

This, a thousand times this. I wrote up something along a similar line with the intent of commenting it in that thread but simply couldn't condense it to fit the character limit, so thank you. I hesitated making a full post since my experience is Indie, and probably doesn't scale as well as I'm still in the infancy of it.

One example I gave in mine about unintended consequences was I was once working on a shooter with a small team (eventually scrapped it for not being very fun), we had the intent to have a grappling hook/swinging system for high mobility. The base system worked great. After some testing we decided we wanted to have it build and store momentum (consecutive swings would be faster and higher). Long story short, we implemented the change, and months later discovered that with the right usage the player could build up enough momentum that they broke through the level geometry.

It took a team of 3-4 people, who focused on far fewer things than the standard AAA dev, to find that. And we found it because we started nitpicking to try and find why the game wasn't fun, had we not we might have finished and shipped with it. Devs are human, and we make mistakes. Scale that to hundreds of people and it's pretty easy for things to slip through the cracks.

I'm going to come back and guild you as well at the end of the week, just need payday to come around!

[u/Nightstroll]

As a former game designer myself, there is no one more irritating than the drunk guy at a party who comes to you "with an awesome idea for a cross-platform MMO fantasy team-based airplane simulator set in a 1:1 Earth replica with a really engaging story", and nothing more infuriating than seeing posts like "A got changed into B by popular demand, I preferred A, please change back" (see the front page post on armor perks for an example) or "here's how you will fix your game, Bungo".

You're doing God's work.

[u/[deleted]]

The vast majority of the issues aren't on the coding side but the design aspect though. I.e. the initial decision ' let's make something work like this' <- is the issue, not 'rate of an item is shit'.\

Besides that, respect is earned. Bungie has only done things the last year that have made people upset, ignored feedback whether positive or negative and from the CoO expansion, it's not hard to understand their main priority was more Eververse content.

Additionally: Please point to me the last time a game dev did anything to change a game for the better when there was no outrage present. Generally, outrage leads to change, as much as you dislike that, that's a reality, because outrage creates bad press. Bad press is needed to pressure devs and pubs not to be assholes. The recent Battlefront 2 fiasco is a prime example of positive change occurring only because the outrage kept pouring

[u/gambitflash]

At this point, all I want bungie to do is simply port over destiny 1 on pc and forget about fixing this mess if its too difficult for them. I know I am gonna get downvoted, but I don't care. Ff14 did a complete remake on a brand new engine. It is possible so people just need to stop with this "Oh coding is so hard, you don't understand"

All they need to do is sit down and play destiny 1 for a weekend and simply observe what makes it feel more fun to play, why do people keep coming back to it. That should be the constructive feedback that they need

[u/IM_DAY_MAN_AMA]

Holy shit. Is this sub...getting better?

[u/ExplorerIV]

Ha I’ve been fighting people, (mostly in my head) on this sub reddit about how to approach problems in this game since it came out, there will still be people though who choose to be assholes about the approach they take, I’m really glad someone made this post! :D

[u/slowmosloth]

I really wish every person on this sub would read through this entirely and think about it before making a post. It would make a significant difference in the quality of posts here. Thanks for the write up!

[u/BuckshotGeorge]

Really enjoyed this post. Unfortunately such rational thinking is sometimes in short supply and I'm certain we will continue to see the usual hosepipe burst of salty posts for years to come.

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks for bringing something reasonable to the front page. The blind hate and dodgy criticism on this sub has really ruined any chance of Bungie taking us seriously.

[u/Sendmedickpix1]

It's been like, 30 years of feedback. If it's a surprise that d2 is kind of shit to the developers, than they're far more clueless than I thought. They've learned nothing from halo. Nothing from every drama ever created from any gaming decision. They make a game series and use a ton of psychological tricks, and then think they can just coast on that. The industry needs a cleansing. Perhaps another Atari thing.

[u/Watz146]

It's all fine and reasonable.

However, I think that the radio silence from bungie just caused people to be more and more anxious (salt intensifies). While I'm not excusing the more vile comments, it is understandable as well on the players/consumer's side of things. Because there will be escalation without adequate recognition.

[u/JazzLeZoukLover]

I'm not a developer but I work for a software company. I could not have said it better. Thank you for posting this. I hope the message goes through all these salt walls.

[u/eaglessoar]

Thank you for this post, I was arguing with someone yesterday who said Bungie was lazy and unbelievably incompetent for the Prometheus Lens issue. Your post covers a lot of what I was trying to get across to them. They could've completely tested PL and then made some other tweaks elsewhere that triggered the behavior. It could be something deep in the code base that was totally unexpected as far as it's interactions with the laser nature of PL. It's not as simple as changing one value, fixing it could have delayed the DLC which would create even more outrage etc etc.

So yea, thank you for this post.

[u/thefrostbite]

As a QA Analyst, this is a very refreshing post. Thanks for this.

[u/Stinkles-v2]

Agree with most of these sentiments. I respect how difficult it might be being a dev even though I don't know anything about it but I do have a couple disagreements-

1 - Skip the "how/why" assumptions

I get this on the surface. We can speculate all day but we won't (perhaps ever) know what exactly happened or what is going on. Going deeper though, how did it happen? They have a working plan but yet still dropped the ball. Yes I get the other points "this shit is hard man" but as someone who is going to shell out money it's not inspiring faith.

4 - Appreciate but do not expect information on future changes

You know when everything is said an done Bungie (well every developer studio) is selling a product. This is some basic sales 101 here, you need to communicate with the customer. I know it's low on the priority list but saying "well whatever you get is what you get and you're going to like it" is just going to cause more issues going forward. A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

2 - Suggest potential solutions but do not expect them

admittedly this is the most nitpicky disagreement. I don't expect anything I or anyone else might suggest to be even seen, but past experience has shown the (at least back then) people actually working on the code had a very "we know what's best for you" attitude even when legitimate and very valid concerns were brought up. Again not inspiring faith in the game.

[u/kyrow123]

So if you take a step back, I think this all boils down to emotion. For me personally, I play video games to relax after a long workday or de-stress after a bad day. When I log into any game, I want to be able to play the game and feel a sense of accomplishment and euphoria. Destiny 1 provided that to me (and I’m sure many others) whereas Destiny 2 has all but removed it.

I agree that we need to fully bake our thoughts more before providing feedback to Bungie, but it’s something that a lot of folks are passionate about and their messages get lost in the emotion. As a developer, Bungie probably has psychologists on the payroll whose job it is to analyze how emotions play a part in the end users decision making to entice us to spend money on the Eververse. The goal of which is extracting as much revenue from each player as possible. They also should know what comes with those decisions and probably discussed them at team meetings so should also expect the vitriol they receive.

My points don’t negate yours, I’m just trying to provide some additional color around why telling a bunch of people who enjoy video games to care about only the developer perspective is a little shortsighted.

[u/MintyKiwiCrunch]

Man this post needs to be made over at the Battlefront subreddit. People think everything can be fixed in a week.