General / Off-Topic One CMDR's perspective on the current state of the ED forums

I spend time on the forums for a few reasons:
* It is the place where I can communicate feedback to Frontier
* Frontier communicates with us here
* I love talking about ship outfitting for different roles with excellent and experienced CMDR's
* There is a ton of information on here that helps me play the game
* It can be a really interesting/fun/amusing place to be at times
* I dislike foul language so I feel more comfortable on here than the mindless cursing that happens a lot on reddit.

However, I find that especially recently the forums are being dominated by an endless stream of Frontier bashing. It is getting to the point where it is almost demotivating being here. It certainly reduces the signal to noise ratio of these forums considerably!

Instead of being a resource to help CMDR's enjoy the game more, or provide constructive feedback, it is devolving into a place to complain about Frontier endlessly. If I read these threads it just makes me feel angry and sad for no good reason. I also feel sorry for the Frontier employees who read these posts because they do work hard on the game. People are so quick to assign bad motives just because Frontier doesn't always get it right.

I wish that the moderators could be empowered to create a complaints sub-forum and all the threads that are dominated by Frontier bashing or angst or salt could just be moved there. I get it that silencing these threads comes at a cost, but it puzzles me that discussions about different ships gets shuttled away in buried sub-forums like Ships of Elite whereas threads like Frontier don't play their own game and don't care about ED anymore threads stay in the main forum and proliferate. We get it, some of you are really unhappy, but we don't have to let this place burn because some people feel that the game doesn't meet their expectations.

It sure would be nice if Dangerous Discussion could be more focused on either constructive feedback or discussions about interesting aspects of the game. I think those who manage the forums could do more to promote a healthier atmosphere and I hope that does happen.
 
I spend time on the forums for a few reasons:
* It is the place where I can communicate feedback to Frontier
* Frontier communicates with us here
* I love talking about ship outfitting for different roles with excellent and experienced CMDR's
* There is a ton of information on here that helps me play the game
* It can be a really interesting/fun/amusing place to be at times
* I dislike foul language so I feel more comfortable on here than the mindless cursing that happens a lot on reddit.

However, I find that especially recently the forums are being dominated by an endless stream of Frontier bashing. It is getting to the point where it is almost demotivating being here. It certainly reduces the signal to noise ratio of these forums considerably!

Instead of being a resource to help CMDR's enjoy the game more, or provide constructive feedback, it is devolving into a place to complain about Frontier endlessly. If I read these threads it just makes me feel angry and sad for no good reason. I also feel sorry for the Frontier employees who read these posts because they do work hard on the game. People are so quick to assign bad motives just because Frontier doesn't always get it right.

I wish that the moderators could be empowered to create a complaints sub-forum and all the threads that are dominated by Frontier bashing or angst or salt could just be moved there. I get it that silencing these threads comes at a cost, but it puzzles me that discussions about different ships gets shuttled away in buried sub-forums like Ships of Elite whereas threads like Frontier don't play their own game and don't care about ED anymore threads stay in the main forum and proliferate. We get it, some of you are really unhappy, but we don't have to let this place burn because some people feel that the game doesn't meet their expectations.

It sure would be nice if Dangerous Discussion could be more focused on either constructive feedback or discussions about interesting aspects of the game. I think those who manage the forums could do more to promote a healthier atmosphere and I hope that does happen.

We already have complaints sub forum. It's called Dangerous Discussion. And the rest of the topics have their own respective sections.:D
 
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Jenner

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
I don't think that creating a salt sub-forum would improve matters much. Quite the contrary, really. It's obvious now when a thread should be moved to a more appropriate sub-forum since we do so based on the subject matter. Imagine if the mods had to do so based on our interpretation of the overall quality or tone of the thread? That would be unfair to everyone - posters and mods alike.

We already have complaints sub forum. It's called Dangerous Discussion.

Ba-dun-tish!
 
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Not a bad idea OP. If the new subforum could be constructed thoughtfully it may funnel those threads into something beneficial for all.

Whatever the outcome though you’re right - DD signal to noise is atrocious.
 
I agree. Unfortunately I am also part of the “problem”, as I’m a dissatisfied Elite player who posts here with the hope of some kind of dialogue with Frontier. I want the game to be better than it is, and I would very much like to help in any way I can to make it so. That may sound silly and unrealistic, but it’s part of why I post a lot of complaints about the game.

I feel like Frontier has the capability to do better, I just can’t fathom why they don’t. Cue negativity.

Frontier’s relentless silence doesn’t help any though. They should communicate more with the players than they do, I think it would help alleviate the negativity a great deal.

The end result of all this toxicity and silence is player frustration, which leads to people leaving the game. And none of us Elite fans want that to happen.
 
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I don't think that creating a salt sub-forum would improve matters much. Quite the contrary, really. It's obvious now when a thread should be moved to a more appropriate sub-forum since we do so based on the subject matter. Imagine if the mods had to do so based on our interpretation of the overall quality or tone of the thread? That would be unfair to everyone - posters and mods alike.

After the second page or so most posts would end up there...
 
I agree. Unfortunately I am also part of the “problem”, as I’m a dissatisfied Elite player who posts here with the hope of some kind of dialogue with Frontier. I want the game to be better than it is, and I would very much like to help in any way I can to make it so. That may sound silly and unrealistic, but it’s part of why I post a lot of complaints about the game.

I feel like Frontier has the capability to do better, I just can’t fathom why they don’t. Cue negativity.

Frontier’s relentless silence doesn’t help any though. They should communicate more with the players than they do, I think it would help alleviate the negativity a great deal.

The end result of all this toxicity and silence is player frustration, which leads to people leaving the game. And none of us Elite fans wants that to happen.

Did you see the recent Vindicator Jones video on the Guardian ruins? He wasn't happy with the new content but did you notice his tone? He got it just right in my opinion.

I think we all have a wish list and aspects of the game we want to see improved, but a stream of salt and negativity is not going to improve matters much. Indeed it probably just needlessly creates a rift between Frontier and the players. I think we can all do better to keep the conversation positive even when we call out Frontier when they do get it wrong.

It's easy to forget the impact our words can have when sitting in front of a keyboard.
 
I just suggested a disgruntled old-timer sub forum earlier today, although I suppose that's not in the spirit of your lovely post.

I'm a mechanic. I fix farm machinery and generators. I was driving back to work from lunch just 30 minutes ago and wondering to myself what it would be like if my boss had a forum for all of our customers and it resembled this. There wouldn't be the normal online disconnect of course, as I deal with them all face to face, but if it could somehow be a relatively anonymous relationship only manifested through forums, I don't think it'd take long at all to become completely jaded with the customer base and conclude dealing with them through such a medium isn't worth the trouble.

I don't want a single complaining voice on these forums silenced though, nor do I want to lump legitimate feedback in with the downright toxic and perpetually negative voices who seem only to exist to urinate in others breakfast cereals. I do think it would be great if a lot of the threads were moved to suggestion forum or just locked once the pitchforks block any view of productive conversation.
 
Agreed 100%. I visit game forums primarily for advice and then when I think I know what I'm doing, to contribute and help other players. I'm not averse to commenting on aspects of ED that I think could be improved, but endlessly banging on about it very quickly gets very tiresome. This applies to both sides - those defending the status quo are at least as irritating as those advocating a change. I would LOVE it if there was a Complaints forum, sorry, perhaps a 'Feedback' forum where these threads could thrive and multiply away from here...
 
OP's not wrong. This forum is full of petulant children nitpicking everything apart with penny-ante complaints or demanding that their whims be catered to as if they're owed something. There are so many "ED is doomed" and "FDev couldn't program their way out of a wet paper bag" threads it's discouraging.
 
Quite many posts can be summarized or responded to with this little video:
[video=youtube;rajXrf_Dzfw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rajXrf_Dzfw[/video]
 
Serious reply, I don't think the volume of salt towards Frontier has increased more exponentially than the population of the forums. It seems since day one there have been these types of complaints. In any online game you will see vast deltas between the developers vision and budgetary/timetable constraints versus the individual wants and desires of an ever increasing base.

Less serious, A complaining gamer is a happy gamer.

Goofy, I wonder if DaVinci got crap for the shade of color blue he used in his paintings from art fans who would have done it differently, but still bought his art. :cool:
 
It's easy to forget the impact our words can have when sitting in front of a keyboard.

I feel like that is a very large part of the problem though:

People don’t feel like their words have any impact with Frontier.

People have been wanting better gameplay since 1.0 and yet features are still being developed as grind fests. People post thousands of suggestions for improvements and new features yet they largely go unnoticed and unimplemented, even the very popular ones like colored bookmarks and surface waypoints. People post tons of bug reports during betas yet the bugs go live anyway, and Frontier acts surprised when they get reported again afterwards. People post feedback in the specialized forums just for feedback but very little of it gets addressed or even responded too.

Talking to Frontier often feels like talking to a brick wall, no matter how hard you try it’s just never going to be a conversation. And when they do respond it’s often vague and uninformative.

If the players words had a bit more impact then they might not feel so frustrated or pessimistic? That’s my opinion at least, because dev studios with great player communication practically never ever experience the toxicity which is present today on these forums. People get involved in the games they love, they become invested, but it’s hard to keep doing that when you aren’t acknowledged or even included in the loop in any way whatsoever.
 
I agree. Unfortunately I am also part of the “problem”, as I’m a dissatisfied Elite player who posts here with the hope of some kind of dialogue with Frontier. I want the game to be better than it is, and I would very much like to help in any way I can to make it so. That may sound silly and unrealistic, but it’s part of why I post a lot of complaints about the game.

I feel like Frontier has the capability to do better, I just can’t fathom why they don’t. Cue negativity.

Frontier’s relentless silence doesn’t help any though. They should communicate more with the players than they do, I think it would help alleviate the negativity a great deal.

The end result of all this toxicity and silence is player frustration, which leads to people leaving the game. And none of us Elite fans want that to happen.

Trouble is we don't all want the same things - I'm fairly happy with the game as is - there a few rough edges and clunky things, but overall the game suits me as it stands right now. I tend to find myself posting in reply as many of the proposed "improvements" are stuff that would make the game "worse" from my point of view.
No one is actually "right" or "wrong" here, it's just that we have no real competition in the genre - if Star Citizen had actually got of the ground a year or so back then it would probably have taken a huge number of the disatisfied players from here - as it's "style" would, I believe have suited many better.
That would have been to the benefit of all - we are all crammed in here together and you can't please all the folk all the time.
 
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