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Prefontaine
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1 hour ago, Prefontaine said:

I'm not sure how many people here work a job that requires you to be on-call, but sometimes when you get that 2AM call, you can't get back to sleep. Oddly, I find I do some of my best thinking after that happens. 

First, I want to start with saying, this is my fault. I've not policed this section of the forum very strictly. I don't like moderation of speech. We, however, have reached a tipping point. For most content changes/update discussions I receive some number of private messages on the matter, some in favor, some not. What's been happening more frequently is that people are doing so to avoid reprisal, or going against the mob, so to speak. Hearing people telling me that they want to express their opinion but are afraid to do so because they were directed to support an opposite opinion in the thread, and don't want to be yelled at by their alliance for not sharing that opinion is unacceptable. That they're afraid of being retaliated against in game for supporting a change their political rival is against. Before you ask, no, I'm not giving you their names or copies of their messages. When people come to me in confidence, I keep it that way even if outing it would benefit me. For those who remember me as a player, that was one of my core principals.

Second, this toxicity has stifled proactive discussion. People don't want to come in to the conversation when it's name calling and insults. There have been multiple times where we've had to ask for feedback because the post was simply "this is garbage, you're all idiots". The point of these threads is to provide feedback, come up with new ideas. If all you're going to add is name calling and a tantrum, you're no longer going to be welcome at the table. I don't want people afraid to speak up because of the bullying, political or in-game retaliation. I've been attacked and mass denounced in game for posting discussion threads, which is fine for me, but other players care about their nation and still play the game. It's the reason other members of the team largely don't want to post threads because of the toxic responses given. 

Third, something to remember, the point of this section of the forum is to make the game better. We all have different ideas on what that means, but we're all working towards the same goal. Remember that when making a post. 

I'll be starting this process with the most recent thread and hiding the toxic un-productive posts. Going forward I'll simply be hiding similar posts and begin issuing warns for those who habitually fail to play nice. You may see some edits in other players thread with my name on it. That's me removing quotes from those hidden posts.


tl;dr If you want to participate in the discussion forum, take the insults out of your post. Otherwise your posts will be removed. 

I suggested in RON for the design/dev team to be more open. I threw a bunch of suggestions out about it but I believe that discussions should be open or at least get more prominent people on the team. 

Another Idea that we were talking about is before you guys start the discussion about changes/updates, Let the public know before hand so we can provide criticism or some knowledge about the subject. 

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2 hours ago, Prefontaine said:

Hearing people telling me that they want to express their opinion but are afraid to do so because they were directed to support an opposite opinion in the thread, and don't want to be yelled at by their alliance for not sharing that opinion is unacceptable

 This is true. While I completely understand how people dislike some new updates, and I would have to agree with some of them, if people who do not support the same idea as the crowd are not able to share their thoughts, that isn't okay and that needs to be fixed. This has gotten to the point that I'm not even replying at all on some posts unless I absolutely have to because I'm just done with the flaming, spam and generally unkind responses. I haven't even been replying to messages that are actually serious replies because every time I say a single thing on those posts, I get spammed and people just aren't particularly nice about it (I'm talking about a recent post that got pretty popular. It was a DoE for an alliance that I ended up disbanding in less than a day, partially due to good advice from stronger nations here on the forums (some nations were giving sincere advice, and I appreciate that) and partially due to the fact that I really couldn't lead an alliance at that point due to a lot going on IRL).

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1 hour ago, Exalts said:

1- Lack of transparency in decision-making

2- The dev team feels out of touch

3- Targetted stubborness (Aren't I eloquent...)

The discussion threads are the transparency. Polls and the general topic threads are where the community becomes involved with the process. All content that comes through the design team goes through this process to include the community. Actual feedback is listened to. Not all is agreed with, though. It's how the process works.

I would argue this statement is bias. We've had and have various leadership of alliances through the history of the team. I/We know how the game is played. What goes into planning and fighting wars. Where there are issues in the system. 

For your example, spy changes have just been on the back burner for a long time. Simple as that. Nothing's being snuck through. If it was trying to be, there wouldn't be so many threads about it.

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13 minutes ago, Pascal said:

We shall remember this day as the day free speech died. 

This isn't limiting free speech. @Prefontaine is just saying that the suggestions forum is for a specific reason, and posts that are just insults are not allowing people who actually have something meaningful to add to the discussion to speak. If people are afraid to say what they truly believe about something, we're never going to get the updates players want. And yes, I am a pretty new player. I wasn't playing this game before the city score changes or anything like that, but I've been here long enough to know that there are changes that need to be made. And replying just to insult others and stifle certain opinions is NOT going to help bring about the changes we need.

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I hope you're having a lovely day : )

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The move to have more posts along the process has been good. People in the game like giving their suggestions. My feedback would be to embrace that more and continue including the community. 

So use the community to help prioritize what game issues are most pertinent. Have the dev team continue to brainstorm and workshop ideas. Update the community about what goals you want to address. And when you present options to the community, more info is better imo; notes from the dev team about things you've considered, any calculations you've done, the benefits of an idea, potential drawbacks etc. 

Here in the stands, the feeling is that often times we have polls which get ignored or "discussions" when a single solution has already been discussed and ingrained itself within the dev team. 

And sure, it's great to have a discussion about an idea, but realistically once you've picked a solution, the most common community feedback you'll get is either approval or disapproval. Maybe that's all you want, but if you want more constructive discussions, then getting feedback before a chosen solution would be better. 

 

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Yeah, have to back up the general theme.  There's no excuse to be a jerk about these proposed change threads, but oh boy does it not feel like we're being listened to as a playerbase.

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2 hours ago, Alcyr said:

Okay, but it would help if you actually acknowledged concerns about the change. As it is, it kind of feels like you're simply informing us of the change and then defend the idea. Posts criticizing the idea only ever get a defensive response, or no response at all. Do these discussions actually change your mind? If not, why bother making them? If so, make it clearer when an idea is being scrapped so we can see that talking about it actually works. If all we get is defensiveness and silence when we have a problem, of course that's going to cause more anger than constructive discussion.

The feedback gets discussed by the team, changes typically get made in the threads OP or in the next version of the thread depending on the level of changes. Final draft change threads typically look like these:
 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Prefontaine said:

The feedback gets discussed by the team, changes typically get made in the threads OP or in the next version of the thread depending on the level of changes. Final draft change threads typically look like these:
 

 

 

So very delayed and not necessarily clear to people whether they in particular were heard. Look, here's something that would go a long way to helping people at least feel heard: when you see something that causes you to reconsider an idea or approach it from a different angle, say so. Immediately. As in, respond to them in the discussion thread, and say something like "That's a good point, I'll discuss this with the rest of the team".  If the only thing we see you do is defend yourself without acknowledging any issues, it comes across that you don't actually care or you're really set in your own opinions (whether that's actually the case or not).

That doesn't mean you should never explain why you want to make a particular change - we need to know your point of view in order to better form our own opinions and arguments about the change - but visibly acknowledging when there's a drawback, and saying when someone's argument is making you think about things deeper would go a long way to help with trust.

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2 minutes ago, Alcyr said:

So very delayed and not necessarily clear to people whether they in particular were heard. Look, here's something that would go a long way to helping people at least feel heard: when you see something that causes you to reconsider an idea or approach it from a different angle, say so. Immediately. As in, respond to them in the discussion thread, and say something like "That's a good point, I'll discuss this with the rest of the team".  If the only thing we see you do is defend yourself without acknowledging any issues, it comes across that you don't actually care or you're really set in your own opinions (whether that's actually the case or not).

That doesn't mean you should never explain why you want to make a particular change - we need to know your point of view in order to better form our own opinions and arguments about the change - but visibly acknowledging when there's a drawback, and saying when someone's argument is making you think about things deeper would go a long way to help with trust.

And what would go a long way towards that sort of feedback is what I described in the OP. Much of the feedback given when someone is against something to the effect of "This sucks, you're dumb". I wouldn't make these threads if I didn't want to have other points of view involved. 

Here's the thing with this current thread, it's one of two options we're looking at for the change the modifier and score adjustments. Once both are out there and we look at things that's when the review process really starts. For threads that have updated OP changes, what you're asking for does  happen.
 

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11 minutes ago, Alcyr said:

Moderate the actually rude comments if necessary, but don't try to shift the blame for lack of responsiveness onto those individuals - because you will get people who are willing to explain, too. Do pay attention if you get more of those "this is terrible" comments than usual, then look at the people actually willing to make an argument for reasons why that might be.

I somewhat agree with this — if there are a lot of "this is terrible" comments, there will definitely be someone who has that opinion but is willing to justify it — but I also agree with Prefontaine's original post. If it's getting to the point where people are not sharing their opinion publicly because they're afraid of backlash from the majority opinion, then it's going to be hard to get the information needed to fix the issues that are present in this game, and that's not good for what the players need. Again, this is coming from someone who hasn't been part of this community for very long, but I can see that there are issues that need to be addressed, and simply saying that "this is terrible" isn't going to help. Neither are insults and flaming.

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8 minutes ago, Nyx said:

I somewhat agree with this — if there are a lot of "this is terrible" comments, there will definitely be someone who has that opinion but is willing to justify it — but I also agree with Prefontaine's original post. If it's getting to the point where people are not sharing their opinion publicly because they're afraid of backlash from the majority opinion, then it's going to be hard to get the information needed to fix the issues that are present in this game, and that's not good for what the players need. Again, this is coming from someone who hasn't been part of this community for very long, but I can see that there are issues that need to be addressed, and simply saying that "this is terrible" isn't going to help. Neither are insults and flaming.

I get that - I'm fine with moderating the comments and expecting people not to resort to insults. I was more saying, still remove them, but if you are getting an unusual amount of them it may be an indication that you're suggesting something unpopular. It may also be something where each discussion thread should have an agree/needs work/disagree poll so that people can give a high-level opinion without having to make a comment, and a bit more formal than up/down votes (plus having the additional option that allows for "I could get behind this, but it needs some changes"). So people who don't have the willingness to elaborate can still give their overall opinion without disrupting the thread. Preferably anonymous if polls can be made anonymous.

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43 minutes ago, Alcyr said:

Now this is getting really frustrating, and is really an example of what I'm talking about. Your response to some criticism was basically just "no, you guys need to do better, I'm doing perfectly fine!"

Those examples are suggestions around specific details that you were already amenable to changing and thus were willing to change fairly immediately. Great. Now what about when there's an argument that requires a bit more thought to determine whether and how to address, or is a concern with the fundamental change and not a detail of the change? For example, with the current discussion, several people have outlined cases against your changes. The only thing we've seen is defensive responses to a subset of those, while others get ignored even if they elaborate on the point. Have any of those resulted in you reconsidering the approach? Did anyone make a point that you'll be bringing up with the dev team? We have no idea, and posting a comment or new thread weeks or months later doesn't help with the feeling of not being heard. You don't need to have a fully formed change in order to respond to criticism, you can say "good point, we'll take another look at the idea with this in mind". And if you don't do that, we have no idea if you're ignoring our comments because you've dismissed them or if you're actually thinking about it.

And you can't seriously expect the burden to be on players to be better about communication. There's always going to be those individuals who just say "terrible idea" without any elaboration, you will never get rid of that. Players aren't representing a dev team that holds the decision making power, they don't need to be concerned with whether other people trust them to be listening to other people's ideas. And not everyone wants to type up an essay explaining why they think it is a bad idea. Moderate the actually rude comments if necessary, but don't try to shift the blame for lack of responsiveness onto those individuals - because you will get people who are willing to explain, too. Do pay attention if you get more of those "this is terrible" comments than usual, then look at the people actually willing to make an argument for reasons why that might be.

I am looking at things from your point of view. I'm also asking you to try to look at things from mine. 

I explained the current thread, we're not looking to make changes to it as there is an alternative waiting in the wings. Once both threads are out we'll review further there. We've talked a little bit about the thread, removing the upswing buff and how an alternative are hard caps. If you'd like some examples of me going against what I think should be done, I'll snag some of those for you.
 

I don't think people in beige should be spied at all. That didn't happen.
 

I think there should be a hard bottom declare cap, we don't have it. 
 

I think land should be destroyable. It isn't.

You're asking me to show times where my mind was changed, all you need is look at all the times changes don't happen. 

What I'm getting at is I don't overtly interact with the feedback in the manner you're looking for, but what I'm saying is I am doing what the core of what you're looking for is. I understand wanting the vocalization, I get what you're asking for, but I'm sorry, that's not me. All I'd do is feel fake, and like I'm giving everyone a cookie. Sometimes what I'll do is reach out to people on discord for a back and forth to hammer out their changes in more detail. This is more how I operate. This is why I say you need to meet somewhere in the middle

I can tell you what currently happens, typically a member of a the dev team links a post and says "what about this?" and then it gets discussed. I also do things like have credits rewarded to nations for quality feedback from time to time, especially when they're someone who doesn't contribute too often to help encourage them. Telling someone that "good point, we'll review it" sets up an expectation. If we change it, great, if we don't "they didn't listen to me" still exists because we reviewed it and didn't agree. 

Are we understanding one another a little better now? 

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2 minutes ago, Prefontaine said:

What I'm getting at is I don't overtly interact with the feedback in the manner you're looking for, but what I'm saying is I am doing what the core of what you're looking for is. I understand wanting the vocalization, I get what you're asking for, but I'm sorry, that's not me. All I'd do is feel fake, and like I'm giving everyone a cookie. Sometimes what I'll reach out to people on discord for a back and forth to hammer out their changes in more detail. This is more how I operate. This is why I say you need to meet somewhere in the middle

Yes, that is what I'm expecting, because that's what a community is going to want out of the person who's the face of the dev team - especially in a thread that's explicitly about discussion. I can't meet you in the middle because you're not just interacting with me. You may be having this discussion with me, but you're interacting with a community, not an individual. And we're interacting with you as a representative of the dev team, not as an individual, even if we're having the discussion with you. If you come across as defensive and distant in these threads, then the dev team comes across as defensive and distant. That's not something I or the community can change - it is the nature of your role.

2 minutes ago, Prefontaine said:

I can tell you what currently happens, typically a member of a the dev team links a post and says "what about this?" and then it gets discussed. I also do things like have credits rewarded to nations for quality feedback from time to time, especially when they're someone who doesn't contribute too often to help encourage them. Telling someone that "good point, we'll review it" sets up an expectation. If we change it, great, if we don't "they didn't listen to me" still exists because we reviewed it and didn't agree. 

Heck, if afterwards you can come back and say "this was a common complaint, but we talked about it and decided that it was worth it because of xyz" that's still better than nothing. And I'm not saying every single post needs this kind of response, but if someone makes a particularly good point or there's a point that is repeated a lot, it needs to be addressed one way or another. And a response weeks later in the form of modifications to the idea doesn't really work for people, on a psychological level. It's too disconnected from the original discussion thread.

Sure, you'll never satisfy everyone, there's always going to be people who don't like that you didn't do exactly what they wanted. But the goal isn't to satisfy every individual, it's to make the wider community fell heard.

14 minutes ago, Prefontaine said:

Are we understanding one another a little better now? 

understand better now, though I still think you're wrong. The problem being that I see your point from the perspective of you as an individual, but it just isn't really compatible with the role you've ended up taking here.

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11 hours ago, Nyx said:

This isn't limiting free speech. @Prefontaine is just saying that the suggestions forum is for a specific reason, and posts that are just insults are not allowing people who actually have something meaningful to add to the discussion to speak. If people are afraid to say what they truly believe about something, we're never going to get the updates players want. And yes, I am a pretty new player. I wasn't playing this game before the city score changes or anything like that, but I've been here long enough to know that there are changes that need to be made. And replying just to insult others and stifle certain opinions is NOT going to help bring about the changes we need.

how is Elysium doing for ya?

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10 minutes ago, Monti said:

how is Elysium doing for ya?

We're doing pretty well, and I'm helping to lead an alliance in the main server again (not the only member this time though, thankfully). Why do you ask?

 

Also this is really irrelevant, maybe we shouldn't be discussing on a completely unrelated post

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I hope you're having a lovely day : )

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Borg we've upvoted the same posts at the same time twice now 

Uh, Alycr's comments are very helpful in getting me to understand how alot of people feel about the dev team, this makes this comment relevant to the conversation. 

Edit: Help I can't delete this :kek:

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1 hour ago, Nyx said:

We're doing pretty well, and I'm helping to lead an alliance in the main server again (not the only member this time though, thankfully). Why do you ask?

 

Also this is really irrelevant, maybe we shouldn't be discussing on a completely unrelated post

dnn

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Yes, people definitely need to be nicer here; no argument there; but only few people, not many.

And, two suggestions:

1) Be clear whether you are “informing” the community or truly “asking” for inputs. Sometimes, if the dev team has agreed on something, inform us and just do it - it is OK! If you are “asking for feedback”, please listen.

2) Consider having a bit of a template on these posts. For example, “Situation”, “complication”, “resolutions considered”, “proposed change”. The most recent “declaring range” post had a bit of this, but some changes don’t clearly outline whether we are solving a problem or just randomly changing things - like why did we even change the ships’ consumption of resources? No idea…

Thanks for all the work you guys do at the development team. 

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