Why are Fdev so bad at community management?

[Shinji Ikari]

What? Who are you? Cathy Newman?

I said Warframe is player centric; whereas Frontier games are (were) not.
Player centric is when the player is treated as a key gameplay ingredient in defining the rule-sets that then drive the design of the AI and world. Frontier have, in the past, added features to ED that brought about the impression of "Does nobody at Frontier play their game?" (I've heard this a lot on the forums). This implies a less than player centric design philosophy and more of a "we'll do this, and players will do it." Hell, that "if you don't use it, we won't bother to improve it" comment from a year or so ago spoke volumes.
The recent changes and additions point to a shift in design.

Note: This an impression I'm getting. It should be taken as fact.

Warframe is completely player centric; in fact, the whole company exudes player centricity. This is how they have such a huge following; and are doing phenomenally well.

"Does nobody at Frontier play their game?" is a phrase that I relate to the bugs and balacing issues that often come up after an update, for example, the FSD booster was bugged on release as it's relation with the FSD wasn't well coded, the issue here is that such bug became apparent when you tried to use it, it wasn't obscure or hard to trigger at all, the best part is that the next update (big (medium?) update) it was still bugged when using it with neutron stars, once more, a bug that could be easily spotted and that affected anybody who used it. In terms of balance, watch these videos which exposed the unbalance of healing lasers:

In short, those are cases of issues which an active player would have probably spotted which strongly suggests FD staff don't play their game.

 

[raucameron1981]

Are there any Apex Legends players? I'm really want to be on the top of this list https://apexstat.net/leaderboards in a few months

 

[Rubbernuke]

If we look at something similar here (CQC and powerplay) Fdev talk about it

When the hell was this? You have to literally force FD to mention the P word voluntarily.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

TL;DR - Why do all other games (including Fdev's other games) get more community engagement than Elite?

"Why is (company X) so bad at community engagement? Other companies are so much better!" - a majority of forums.

It goes right along side the other typical comments like this:

"Why is (company X) so slow at development? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) care about this game? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) fix the bugs? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) stop cheaters? Other companies are so much better!"

Its probably called something like "the grass is always greener on the other side effect" or something.

FD could possibly up their game in terms of community engagement, but its not like they are so bad, not by a long way.

 

[metatheurgist]

Usually boils down to "My issue didn't personalised attention and fixed immediately, support/devs/community suck".

 

[amigacooke]

Usually boils down to "My issue didn't personalised attention and fixed immediately, support/devs/community suck".

I’d suggest that most complaints come not because an issue hasn’t been addressed immediately, but because they are not addressed over a period of time.

 

[Schmack]

"Why is (company X) so bad at community engagement? Other companies are so much better!" - a majority of forums.

It goes right along side the other typical comments like this:

"Why is (company X) so slow at development? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) care about this game? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) fix the bugs? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) stop cheaters? Other companies are so much better!"

Its probably called something like "the grass is always greener on the other side effect" or something.

FD could possibly up their game in terms of community engagement, but its not like they are so bad, not by a long way.

Not "majority of forums". Some posters on a majority of forums. The forum mean isn't that at all, as best I can tell.

 

[RamirezKurita]

"Why is (company X) so bad at community engagement? Other companies are so much better!" - a majority of forums.

It goes right along side the other typical comments like this:

"Why is (company X) so slow at development? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) care about this game? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) fix the bugs? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) stop cheaters? Other companies are so much better!"

Its probably called something like "the grass is always greener on the other side effect" or something.

FD could possibly up their game in terms of community engagement, but its not like they are so bad, not by a long way.

While there is an element of truth to that, you just have to look at how some developers work with their communities to improve both the game as well as keep users interested.

For example, look at Wube (Factorio developers) for general level of care and high standards with regards to bugs. They make a development post every Friday, covering a wide variety of topics ranging from graphical enhancements, general plans forward and even performance optimisations and the development stories thereof. In addition, they have a company policy to never release something beyond testing branches if they are aware of even a single bug in it, while major bugs in testing branches typically get quashed within 24 hours (there was an incident that meant the team worked until about 10 PM on a Friday night because of a major bug introduced into a test release that morning and they knew players would want to be playing testing through the weekend).

On the other end of things, just look at Dwarf Fortress for one hell of a development story, both in terms of how much has been developed and how much documentation there is regarding what Bay12 is both currently developing as well as future plans. Seriously, this two-man development studio communicates more with their community than the entirety of the ED team on top of a blisteringly fast (considering only a single programmer/designer) development schedule. There's a good reason why I consider the Toady One, praise be upon him, to be the ideal that game developers should aim for.

While there are definitely worse development studios out there, much of the criticism of ED's community management is still valid. Just because there are some developers out there that are utterly atrocious, that doesn't mean that it is okay to be pretty bad.

 

[Factabulous]

FD could possibly up their game in terms of community engagement, but its not like they are so bad, not by a long way.

All very true - like when people were claiming 'other MMOs name & shame cheaters and ban the immediately', and I went to another MMOs forum where the policy on cheaters was much the same

While there is an element of truth to that, you just have to look at how some developers work with their communities to improve both the game as well as keep users interested.

For example, look at Wube (Factorio developers) for general level of care and high standards with regards to bugs. They make a development post every Friday, covering a wide variety of topics ranging from graphical enhancements, general plans forward and even performance optimisations and the development stories thereof. In addition, they have a company policy to never release something beyond testing branches if they are aware of even a single bug in it, while major bugs in testing branches typically get quashed within 24 hours (there was an incident that meant the team worked until about 10 PM on a Friday night because of a major bug introduced into a test release that morning and they knew players would want to be playing testing through the weekend).

On the other end of things, just look at Dwarf Fortress for one hell of a development story, both in terms of how much has been developed and how much documentation there is regarding what Bay12 is both currently developing as well as future plans. Seriously, this two-man development studio communicates more with their community than the entirety of the ED team on top of a blisteringly fast (considering only a single programmer/designer) development schedule. There's a good reason why I consider the Toady One, praise be upon him, to be the ideal that game developers should aim for.

While there are definitely worse development studios out there, much of the criticism of ED's community management is still valid. Just because there are some developers out there that are utterly atrocious, that doesn't mean that it is okay to be pretty bad.

Yup - your examples are very very small dev teams - they live or die based on that one product, so they have to be good communicators. Fdev was more like that at the start of ED, but now .... not so much. Larger companies can do more but that adds extra friction. That is what happens as companies grow

 

[hems303]

I couldn't agree more and I have always wondered why FDev were managing communication this way (I know they had their share of salt but unfortunately every game does). When you look at other companies (Digital Extremes is a perfect example) it's so frustrating to see how we get nothing here for an evolving game that deliver contents each years...

IMHO by doing this they are only losing their playerbase fidelity and interest in the game future. The livestreams only looks more and more artificlal like if they are trying to fill the total lack of communication with us...

Agree 100%....

o7

 

[Ralph Vargr]

"Does nobody at Frontier play their game?" is a phrase that I relate to the bugs and balacing issues that often come up after an update, for example, the FSD booster was bugged on release as it's relation with the FSD wasn't well coded, the issue here is that such bug became apparent when you tried to use it, it wasn't obscure or hard to trigger at all, the best part is that the next update (big (medium?) update) it was still bugged when using it with neutron stars, once more, a bug that could be easily spotted and that affected anybody who used it. In terms of balance, watch these videos which exposed the unbalance of healing lasers:

In short, those are cases of issues which an active player would have probably spotted which strongly suggests FD staff don't play their game.

From personal experience in the pen and paper world, the game they make is on worktime.

When they go home, they want to do something else- that is fun for them.

 

[iFred]

From personal experience in the pen and paper world, the game they make is on worktime.

When they go home, they want to do something else- that is fun for them.

And when the community has the feeling that the enthusiasm they have shown during the kickstarter/release phase of Elite has turned into "it´s just work"-mood something has just gone wrong. And that´s what happened here. A half hearted FX 2017, buggy Releases and stupid comments on the Forums.

I expect Planet Zoo being the same - bombastic animations, great sound - and 1 Inch deep.

And when that is enough to be successful on the market - hey, that´s ok. Just without my money.

 

[RamirezKurita]

Yup - your examples are very very small dev teams - they live or die based on that one product, so they have to be good communicators. Fdev was more like that at the start of ED, but now .... not so much. Larger companies can do more but that adds extra friction. That is what happens as companies grow

While it's true the differences in developer size matters quite a bit (although there are still some larger developers out there that still engage with their player base, such as Digital Extremes as well as Riot games used to be fairly responsive to the community even at the height of their game), so it can explain why they don't prioritise community management much.

However, it doesn't explain what the alleged community team are actually doing. They aren't moderating the forums, they use a team of volunteer moderators. They barely have a presence on both official and unofficial communication channels. Support is its own team, so dealing with endless support tickets from a growing player base isn't a thing for them. Lavecon is fan created without any official input ; Frontier Expo hasn't run for a couple of years. This isn't an issue of a larger playerbase drowning out the official communications, this is about an entire team of full time community managers seems to be achieving less community management than what a coder can achieve in their Friday tea breaks.

Which then begs the question, what does Elite's team of specialist community managers actually do? Maybe there is some mystical time sink behind the scenes that needs 70+ hours a week of attention that we aren't aware of but from what we, the end recipient of their management, can see, they are basically sitting in an ivory tower and leaving us to manage ourselves.

 

[Kubicide]

What community management? Seriously, there really is none today and never really was any. We had MB participate in the forums a lot around the initial release but even then in many cases it was to explain away issues such as the missing content and features.

There's no excuse for poor customer service and communication. A company chooses to either do it well or not.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

"Why is (company X) so bad at community engagement? Other companies are so much better!" - a majority of forums.

It goes right along side the other typical comments like this:

"Why is (company X) so slow at development? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) care about this game? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) fix the bugs? Other companies are so much better!"

"Why doesn't (company X) stop cheaters? Other companies are so much better!"

Its probably called something like "the grass is always greener on the other side effect" or something.

FD could possibly up their game in terms of community engagement, but its not like they are so bad, not by a long way.

Community engagement is nothing short of disastrous.

I mean, all their comms suggested at that after Beyond, which was labelled as a 'housekeeping, gameplay revisit' season, we can expect something.
Then, after months of nothing all they managed to do is a lousy forum post that it is basically nothing till late 2020. That day was the last when I logged in to Elite, after playing for 3.5 years, almost on a daily basis.
Look at all their empty streams, and remember when they invited Dav Scott and we said we want more of it?

It can be me though, I never understood the Ed Lewis fandom either - that guy had no idea about the game, was really bad at playing it and he proved total disconnect with Beyond planetary rework. Most of us were eager to see the new planets, instead he chose to show off the ships only...
Sure, he is talented in empty chit-chat, but I'm sorry, for that is not enough.

 

[Riverside]

Community engagement is nothing short of disastrous.

I mean, all their comms suggested at that after Beyond, which was labelled as a 'housekeeping, gameplay revisit' season, we can expect something.
Then, after months of nothing all they managed to do is a lousy forum post that it is basically nothing till late 2020. That day was the last when I logged in to Elite, after playing for 3.5 years, almost on a daily basis.
Look at all their empty streams, and remember when they invited Dav Scott and we said we want more of it?

It can be me though, I never understood the Ed Lewis fandom either - that guy had no idea about the game, was really bad at playing it and he proved total disconnect with Beyond planetary rework. Most of us were eager to see the new planets, instead he chose to show off the ships only...
Sure, he is talented in empty chit-chat, but I'm sorry, for that is not enough.

I think you make some very good points, particularly about the announced delay at a time when the expectation was that after the year of consolidation, updates (premium or otherwise) would quickly ramp up.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Have you spent much time in this community? Trying to manage it is like trying to put panty hose on an octopus.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Community engagement is nothing short of disastrous.

I mean, all their comms suggested at that after Beyond, which was labelled as a 'housekeeping, gameplay revisit' season, we can expect something.
Then, after months of nothing all they managed to do is a lousy forum post that it is basically nothing till late 2020. That day was the last when I logged in to Elite, after playing for 3.5 years, almost on a daily basis.
Look at all their empty streams, and remember when they invited Dav Scott and we said we want more of it?

It can be me though, I never understood the Ed Lewis fandom either - that guy had no idea about the game, was really bad at playing it and he proved total disconnect with Beyond planetary rework. Most of us were eager to see the new planets, instead he chose to show off the ships only...
Sure, he is talented in empty chit-chat, but I'm sorry, for that is not enough.

Well, for someone so bad at ED, he did ok going to Beagle Point and back during his lunch break on his daily biscuit review stream for months.

I enjoyed it.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Well, for someone so bad at ED, he did ok going to Beagle Point and back during his lunch break on his daily biscuit review stream for months.

I enjoyed it.

Fair enough, but for me it does not address the fundamental flaws - that are obviously not only Ed's fault.

Had this 'late 2020' announcement come out in an orderly fashion, perhaps through a video interview with man himself (DB) and with an upbeat tone, it would have made a huge difference (to me at least). The way it was done is akin of proposing a girl via an SMS, whatever positive it said made fully negative by the sheer negligent way of sending it through.