How Well Does the STT Forums Community Do When Criticizing DB?
Irial
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The starting point for this posting is an acknowledgment that DB is not perfect, and therefore being critical of them is reasonable. But let’s turn the mirror on ourselves for a moment, and evaluate how good of a job we do overall when being critical. When responding to this Poll, please do not think solely of yourself and how you see your own conduct, but instead answer with your perception of the broader community, based on all of the comments you see/read.
Thank you for your honest participation.
[Note: I have made the Poll anonymous, in case anyone would feel uncomfortable with others seeing how they voted, but if you would like to reveal your own vote in a Comment, please simply refer to the response you chose by its Number (i.e., 1 through 5).]
Thank you for your honest participation.
[Note: I have made the Poll anonymous, in case anyone would feel uncomfortable with others seeing how they voted, but if you would like to reveal your own vote in a Comment, please simply refer to the response you chose by its Number (i.e., 1 through 5).]
How Well Does the STT Forums Community Do When Criticizing DB? 108 votes
1 – The community does an awesome job with its criticism of DB! All, or almost all, critical comments are well thought out, based on facts, worded respectfully, enlightening to other players, and/or good sources of constructive feedback to DB.
0%
0 votes
2 – The vast majority of critical comments I read are really good, but I do now and then see some that I question.
25%
27 votes
3 – There is roughly an even split between what I would consider to be good comments, and those that I think fail to meet the standard I would like to see.
40%
44 votes
4 – Substantially more than half of the comments I read contain exaggerations, are destructive instead of constructive, and/or are simply immature. We should DO so much BETTER than what is currently the case.
34%
37 votes
5 – Other (please specify in a Comment, if none of the above reasonably describe your perception)
0%
0 votes
3
Comments
Sometimes, I agree with the concern being raised by the player, but not necessarily their argument or solution. I'm sure the same could be said of my criticism as well. But, for the most part, I can understand where player criticism is coming from.
There are certainly times when a player comes to the forum to vent about a frustration they just experienced. They could probably make a better argument if they sat on it for a bit, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate their concern.
Also, players give DB money. Some players have given DB a lot of money. I think that grants them some affordances when voicing a concern - particularly when they feel like it has gone unaddressed or addressed poorly.
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Someone who invests in expanding their crew is going to be hit harder by a lack of chronotons and the crew cap.
Someone who puts their DIL into crew slots is going to suffer from a lot more partial fusions that they didn't finish up.
A new player isn't going to care about the stats on the sweet new Gauntlet 5*.
An established player (generally) doesn't care about new 2*s aside from having another crew to immortalize and freeze quickly.
I think there's a general lack of empathy for these situations. You can frequently see people saying "DB is bad because they did XYZ when I would have much preferred ABC" while ignoring the fact that XYZ might have helped a different segment of players. People seem to expect each change to benefit them and when it doesn't, they whine in the forums.
The case that I have the least empathy for are people who complain about "RNG" issues without actually presenting data. If you are going to make such a bold statement as, "XYZ is rigged", have at least a modicum of data to back up your statement. The existence of rare occurrences isn't proof of a rigged system.
I give @eXo | Silver Rose a lot of credit for her work spearheading the original DB: Do Better campaign, which was prompted not by any selfish demands of her own, but to streamline the frustrations with the state of communications from DB at the time. Sadly, it didn't take long before other players took "Do Better" to mean "Do what I want!", which was never the objective.
Thankfully, Silver's leadership kept those instances from taking over the protest movement. She kept it rooted in the original fair and reasonable request--communicate clearly and consistently--and did not allow it to devolve into "Change these mechanics!" "Put in this character!" "Stop scheduling these events!" and similar demands, often presented as ultimatums threatening to boycott (yawn) or quit (see ya).
If we took out those threads and the ones denouncing anything and everything to do with Disco, there'd be almost nothing left on this forum anymore. There are still some who try, and I greatly appreciate their contributions, because without them, I'd swing by long enough to read event and server change announcements and skip the player content entirely these days. And that, to my mind, is pretty sad.
Everything I've read in this thread so far, I absolutely agree with.
People are very passionate about Trek, for a multitude of reasons. This game is the best example of Trek on a mobile platform that exists, so it has many eyeballs that come to it. As Peachtree eloquently laid out, you have 50,000 people all playing the same game, but they are playing it 49,999 different ways and with different goals. You cannot reasonably expect to please 40 of them, let alone 40,000 of them.
Go read the Facebook comments. Go read the subreddit comments. Go read twitter replies. You'll find a host of people that have no clue these forums exist, or other chat platforms like Discord. They use in the in-game chat and take whatever hearsay that EvilMyDog is spewing forth as gospel. They write to DB that their lack of crew slots that aren't behind a paywall is evil and this game will fail if they don't change their mechanics. They get the torches out and attempt to burn the top 4 places on the leaderboard 7 minutes into an event because the point totals are staggeringly high and there is no way someone could do that.
This isn't a linear game like Grand Theft Auto where, despite the illusion of free choice or sandbox, the ultimate outcome is predetermined and set where you can not delineate or alter. No, this game is truly open and sandbox - it can be absolutely anything you want it to be, with any goal. The 'end game' goal is not to collect all 500 crew, because even if some poor soul had done that this week, well, SPOILER ALERT, more is coming tomorrow. It's absolutely anything up to your imagination and interpretation.
The problem is, you tend to complain about something that doesn't live up to your expectations.
I absolutely feel that regardless of a player spending $1 or $10,000, they should have an equal voice and be heard - but they should also be logical and respectful about their approach. I also feel DB should be held accountable for its shortcomings and strive to do better both as a company and as an entertainment and value provider. I don't think 46 threads on the forums with some phrasing of "DB fail" are going to net you anything.
Spot-on, Travis. Tinfoil sales at their local supermarket have no doubt spiked since those people started playing.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
They really, really need to get the marketing team to work with players directly so they can understand the true value of this product and what their customers really want. They are constantly creating bad will and killing off potential purchases left and right for reasons that have no explanation other than somebody, somewhere decided that was how it was going to be.
Or, alternatively, players can make peace with the fact that they're the players and DB is the content creator, and this is not a collaborative project. I don't know where this idea originated that players should be consulted and show creators what to do and how to do it, but a great deal of the noxious content on this forum could be alleviated if this ridiculous notion was outgrown.
I think this is a perfect example of community hyperbole. We are hundreds, if not thousands of people plunking away at keyboards with their own "great" ideas. They are dozens (if that) of developers who have pressures of appeasing tens of thousands of uses across a huge spectrum of player profiles as well as monetizing it sufficiently.
There is no way DB will ever be able to keep up with all of the forum recommendations while still keeping financially solvent.
Like all of us, they have finite resources. If they don't develop your pet idea, it isn't because you were ignored or they are incompotent. It is because it isn't a high enough priority for them to spend their limited resources implementing.
The idea that we can vote without wallets, and that it’s in DB’s financial best interest to make a product we want to buy, is not ridiculous at all.
I rarely put forth ideas and I'm not expecting them to put their resources into developing my own.
However, there are some extremely obvious suggestions that all players agree on like bug fixes, sortable cryostasis vault, misleading event titles, egregious crew selection, etc.
Those kinds of suggestions/changes are still ignored over and over again and it's bad for both DB and the players. Their complete disregard for the intellect of their players is disturbing.
Here here!
Voted #3
There are some disgruntled and demanding folks as there are in any forum but there are also some genuine suggestions and good ideas that the majority of players rally around but that are ignored in favor of promoting Discovery (eg the 500th crew choice, the addition of minor, one-episode characters instead of some that have been requested from the beginning, etc). Nearly all the problems I’ve had with DB’s choices - like the constant stream of new disco characters in events - have come about since Discovery; it seems the pressure to advertise it has taken precedent.
It’s frustrating but before disco the other trek iterations had been finished for years; now in addition to pleasing players and maintaining a profitable game they have to promote an entirely new show and make it appealing to very loyal fans of long-dead shows. I can’t imagine that’s an easy thing to pull off.
Tl;dr - I think once the Disco PR push dies down everyone will be happier.
The idea that players are the tail wagging the dog is the ridiculous idea, and your "it's in DB's financial interest" to do what you want threat is exactly that.
I think we're all about a bit over Disco, we like so many characters in Star Trek that we feel it's all been Disco Heaven for a while. This was unsurprising really, the first new show in how long? And licensing. Well keep getting them at a steady drip of that I'm sure. The Mirror Event was cool, a total surprise and with some great characters. But, I would say there have been too many mega events for my personal tastes. Saying that, I do tend to do much better in them than many single events because I don't have the crew.
Back on track, we have seen a lot of changes in the game recently that players aren't giving DB credit for. Voyages, for one. A changeover of crew in the Gauntlet, and maybe soon in the Honor Hall, the fix that meant the game loads really fast and doesn't hang on startup, and ongoing tweaks that have made the game much better.
I think we focus on the bad while not being grateful for the good. Lots of new cards! Yes I said it. Lots of new cards. Sure, we can't get them all, but we can all get some and that's great! It really keeps the game fresh.
We all know DB are in it to make money, but that's the nature of our society. The amount of money other games make is astronomical, and yet do people complain? I'm not sure why it's such a big deal. If you have the cash and are willing to spend, go for it. If you don't, you can still have lots of fun. It can't all be about 'winning' events - there are 143,000 people playing the arena and only one person can win an event. Let's face it, it's not going to be very many of us. So let's chill and just have fun with what we can do, and if that's threshold and out, so be it. At least you're getting something for your efforts.
I have heard many players remark they won't go near the forums because if the toxic nature of it. Perhaps we need a different approach. Instead of bitching about Burnham, we get excited about Shras. When we get a cool pull, we celebrate instead of expecting more. When we get freebies, we enjoy them instead of complaining about how we expected something more 'unique' or 'appropriate'.
Keep it constructive, and keep it fun.
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I think most are good at being critical, but there are a sizeable portion I would question as well.
But quite often it's not necessarily the critical point being raised that is questionable, rather how it is conveyed...
That's the things, it's not consistent. There are a number of things, such as requested characters, that have come to fruition. They do listen, and SOMETIMES they act in a way according to said request.
I also think Travis' is taking the baby and the bathwater the complete other direction. The threat of non-payment by one individual, yeah it's laughable. However, things like the initial Do Better action had at least a temporary effect of greater communication from DB about what was going on and in listening to at least some of the userbase concerns. It's like the 'love it or leave it' folks during certain political encounters. DB needs players, and players want the product from DB. It's symbiotic. It does not mean we get to drive the bus, but if the bus is broken (issues like Packs missing characters), or things like the Cryo-vault sorting, then noise or non-payment may be the only ways of expressing issues that need to be addressed with the product. Personally I think this is appropriate on functional items, not content.
Now on the content/character side, I think, Travis, you're coming from the whole character/Disco place, and I get that. You want to see more of the current product 'cause you dig it and think the noise against it is futile and annoying. You're probably right there. However, it does behoove DB to understand that there are members of the user base who want to see continued content from other shows as well. This can be expressed a whole lot better than it has been, but it can also be reacted to a whole lot better than it has been. There' s a difference between, "You **tsk tsk** DB cause you have Disco here", and "I'd like to see a little more of folks from other shows as well." or "I hope we do not have just Discovery characters going forward." Both of these have been met with the whole 'gatekeeper' label, which lumping them together is just as unhelpful and rabid as the detractors.
On the content side, I'd like to say, also, that user concerns have been met many times. And Travis was the start of some of it. His "Main Cast" thread kept things in focus and in folks face to the point where we had Sato and Scotty as event characters for the first time. I have no doubt in my mind that this would have never happened if Travis had not started the thread and if folks had not kept it alive expressing issues with those characters not having been represented in an event. I also firmly believe that if this is maintained we will see Archer and Kes in an event this year. If they keep the current pattern, one in each of the next megas.
The Mirror Event, though met with some folks negatively due to it being from the comics, had come up several times on both forums with folks requesting in particular Mirror "Guns" Picard. How many of the 'vote' threads in the old forums had their winners or runners up show up in the weeks or months following them? Many. Vic Fontaine was one I never thought they'd do, even with the votes he got in the earlier poll -- or the requests in the various threads for the Mirror one. There are others.
Discovery, love it or hate it, is enjoyed by some of the userbase, and it makes sense for it to be represented. I don't like the show, but I'm not going to "Gatekeep" it from being here. But I'm going to be more happy with the fact that I ALSO see a new Scotty, or Shran or others ALONGSIDE THEM.
On the communications side, especially in response to when things go bad is where I feel DB has fallen down the most, especially in events. I think in some respects their response or lack of sometimes leads to some of the escalation we have seen here. It is a shared responsibility between both provider and consumer, but in this case, there may be room for improvement on both sides. I think if we simply de-escalate, there may be a perception that all is well and they do not need to work on some things.
A lot to unpack here and I'm kinda dazed at the moment, so I'mma be brief.
My argument has nothing to do with players making requests of what they'd like to see added. To hopefully clarify the distinction I'm trying to emphasize, here's an anecdote from my own experiences as a player with his own wish list.
I've been in the small, outspoken minority going back to the old forum championing the inclusion of TAS crew. In fact, the only actual feud I've ever had over Timelines was about them and the Niners personae. The other party with whom I feuded, however, constantly threatened that if DB did make those crew members, he would punish them by stopping his spending and if they knew what was good for them, they wouldn't make those things that he didn't want to get made.
Asking for things a player wants is one thing. That's perfectly fair and reasonable. Trying to form a posse to threaten DB out of business because something exists that you don't like is something else.
P.S. Whenever I scroll through my crew and see any of the TAS or Niners I have, I enjoy an entirely petty moment of satisfaction knowing that my enthusiastic requests were indulged while somewhere out there, a guy who believed his huffing and puffing entitled him to be the arbiter of what did and did not get made was left being defied by a company that did not, in fact, answer to him.
I'll take this to PM as it's a tangential off topic, but, Travis, that's not what's been always been expressed. Those wanting some form of parity or balance have been lumped in with those wanting the posse on several occasions.
And that's honestly, I feel, one of the problems that we face here.
Some folks taking it to an extreme, does take away from those who have legitimate concerns. And I think that want the point of this thread, being a call to us the users to "Be Better" at expressing what we do or do not like, and sometimes accepting things. (Like the ever shrinking artwork, which for folks on phones is actually a bigger deal than those on Facebook or Steam). Yet sometimes persistence is key like in the case of the now hopefully better Cryostasis Vault.
And then there are folks who will see the one and think the others are the same.
However, I also think we also may need to be better in how we as users receive those who do have legitimate issues. Pro-DB change folks who mock or negatively respond to those having issues using the game are equally unhelpful and actually escalate things further. I can put myself in both of these camps with a little introspection.