Should Designers Listen to Negative Feedback?

[@GMTK]

Hello! First things first: the GMTK Game Jam returns in July. Sign up here: itch.io/jam/gmtk-2020 Also, the huge number of links and sources for this video was waaaay too big for the description (there's a 5000 character limit) so I've put them all in this pinned comment. Enjoy! Doom Eternal is a masterful twitch shooter symphony with one sour note | Ars Technica arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/03/doom-eternal-review-a-welcome-return-to-hell-on-earth/ Why the 'Doom Eternal' Marauder Sucks So Bad | VICE www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgezzk/why-the-doom-eternal-marauder-sucks-so-bad Bring back minecraft's original combat system | Change.org www.change.org/p/microsoft-bring-back-minecraft-s-original-combat-system Final Fantasy 15’s worst chapter gets fixed next month | Polygon www.polygon.com/2017/2/2/14476278/final-fantasy-15-chapter-13-update-dlc-release-date Nintendo has FINALLY adjusted the Animal Crossing eggs drop rate | Nintendo Enthusiast www.nintendoenthusiast.com/nintendo-has-finally-adjusted-the-animal-crossing-eggs-drop-rate/ The Witcher 3 patch 1.07: Geralt's new movement mode analyzed | PC Gamer www.pcgamer.com/the-witcher-3-patch-107-geralts-new-movement-mode-analyzed/ Ubisoft to Change 'Assassin's Creed: Odyssey' DLC After Fan Outcry | VICE www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3bdp5/ubisoft-to-change-assassins-creed-odyssey-dlc-after-fan-outcry ‘Mass Effect 3’ ending will be changed after video-gamer backlash, Bioware announces | NY Daily News www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/mass-effect-3-ending-changed-video-gamer-backlash-bioware-announces-article-1.1048196 Deconstructeam Tweet | Twitter twitter.com/Deconstructeam/status/1253670726370037760 The Swords of Ditto has a massive free update that removes permadeath | PC Gamer www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-swords-of-ditto-has-a-massive-free-update-that-removes-permadeath/ Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair Update Will Make Game Easier | GameRant gamerant.com/yooka-laylee-and-the-impossible-lair-update-easier/ Ultra-tough dungeon-crawler Below adds easier “Explore” mode | Ars Technica arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/02/capy-adds-easier-explore-mode-for-freer-wandering-through-below/ A Russian Crucible: Pathologic 2 and the Problem of Video Game Difficulty | EGM Now egmnow.com/a-russian-crucible-pathologic-2-and-the-problem-of-video-game-difficulty/ A Thousand Voices: Open Game Development | GDC Vault (Free Access) www.gdcvault.com/play/1021755/A-Thousand-Voices-Open-Game Retrospective of Burnout Paradise | 4C Conference kzbin.info/www/bejne/oIrTk4ueoZJnnpI Why Insomniac blew up the moon | GamesIndustry.biz www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-01-08-why-insomniac-blew-up-the-moon Peter Vesti Frendrup: Level Design in Battlefield 1 | Digital Dragons kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKjNhmuloLaKrMU (Archived) Half-Life 2: Episode One Update Released | Steam News web.archive.org/web/20080306061112/steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=news&id=681 (Archived) Game Telemetry with Playtest DNA on Assassin’s Creed | Ubisoft Engine Room web.archive.org/web/20130310005326/engineroom.ubi.com/game-telemetry-with-playtest-dna-on-assassins-creed/ 'Slay the Spire': Metrics Driven Design and Balance | GDC Vault (Free Access) www.gdcvault.com/play/1025731/-Slay-the-Spire-Metrics Opinion: Indie Game Design Do-s and Don't-s: A Manifesto | Gamasutra www.gamasutra.com/view/news/117521/Opinion_Indie_Game_Design_Dos_and_Donts_A_Manifesto.php 'Nioh': Talking with Samurai | GDC Vault (Free Access) www.gdcvault.com/play/1024561/-Nioh-Talking-with Interview: Firaxis' Jake Solomon On What Went Right And Wrong With XCOM 2 | Rock Paper Shotgun www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/02/25/making-of-xcom-2/ How Rare keeps Sea of Thieves afloat in a sea of feedback | Microsoft Game Stack Blog developer.microsoft.com/en-us/games/blog/how-rare-keeps-sea-of-thieves-afloat-in-a-sea-of-feedback/ @Jollyrogers99 Thread | Twitter twitter.com/Jollyrogers99/status/1250296304690847745 This Resident Evil 2 Remake mod kills off Mr. X for good | PC Gamer www.pcgamer.com/this-resident-evil-2-remake-mod-kills-off-mr-x-for-good/ Id Software Talks Doom 3: BFG Edition on PS3 | PlayStation Blog blog.us.playstation.com/2012/06/22/id-software-talks-doom-3-bfg-edition-on-ps3/ @AmusedApricot Thread | Twitter twitter.com/AmusedApricot/status/1251283823762915331 Darkest Dungeon: A Design Postmortem | GDC Vault (Free Access) www.gdcvault.com/play/1023435/Darkest-Dungeon-A-Design Bioware writer laments "increasingly toxic" fan feedback | GamesIndustry.biz www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-01-10-bioware-writer-laments-increasingly-toxic-fan-feedback No Man’s Sky dev received death threats over lack of butterflies | Metro metro.co.uk/2018/07/23/no-mans-sky-dev-received-death-threats-lack-butterflies-7748931/ The hidden emotional toll that comes with a career in video games | Financial Post business.financialpost.com/technology/gaming/the-hidden-emotional-toll-that-comes-with-a-career-in-video-games Super Smash Bros. Fans Are Harassing Masahiro Sakurai Over Waluigi Snub | Nintendo Life www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/06/super_smash_bros_fans_are_harassing_masahiro_sakurai_over_waluigi_snub Kunai was review bombed by a single person in a 'state of anger,' claims developer | PC Gamer www.pcgamer.com/kunai-was-review-bombed-by-a-single-person-in-a-state-of-anger-claims-developer/ Circle in the Dark: The 'Darkest Dungeon' Community | GDC Vault (Free Access) www.gdcvault.com/play/1024247/Circle-in-the-Dark-The

[@dylanr3733]

Thanks for doing this topic about doom eternal marauder removal.

[@bkm8556]

I think one really important thing worth mentioning is the importance of communication from the developers that they are listening. Valve has shown that they are snooping around forums constantly, and taking into account large amounts of data, concerns, and criticisms, but they communicate very little of it. If a developer doesn't acknowledge that they're listening, or start any conversation around feedback players will begin to feel isolated regardless of any changes made towards complaints. The case of Valve is very unique to game companies, but it just shows how aimless player bases can become without acknowledgment that the devs are listening to them. A PR manager who has a solid idea in the goals of developers, or who can communicate with them effectively is essential for large companies. It's why CS:GO is Valves most profitable game, it's not the IP but that players feel heard and don't burn out easily.

[@alexgabriel5877]

you should check out GGG and their Path of Exile - superb communication to players and listening to feedback. but they have a few strong stances that even years of complaining by people did not make them change these pillars

[@robertmcdowell6084]

@@ihabnovalic9821 rain world is good because it's difficulty. I've never actually finished, but I appreciate it, because it's so dang hard.

[@littleman6950]

I want to point out something regarding the Marauder - unlike a lot of games where durability (which people hate with a passion, RIP MMO crafting and economies) time constraints or Mr. X is a core element of the game play experience, the Marauder is only *ever* a moment in time. And that's not a justification why he's okay, it's to point out it's a deliberate difficulty spike that jarringly requires the player to play Doom with a very different mindset for him and him alone. Doom Eternal isn't going to fundamentally change and get worse if they lengthen his vulnerability period, or let plasma weapons slowly burn through his shield, etc. Nor will it really get better, but at least players won't look back on Doom and go "it was great, except this ONE F***ING GUY!"

[@mossbag69]

Mark, this video is too easy to follow. Please patch this to up the difficulty.

[@ivanroman8914]

reproduce the video at x2 speed. Problem solved

[@traxor2135]

Is Mark made of void?

[@amoryacosta2915]

@@traxor2135 Yeah, just like Hornet

[@Auvisome]

Oh hahahahaha Ronaldinho soscer 💀👻

[@ShinoSarna]

@@ivanroman8914 Then the video is too short, 8 minutes isn't worth playing. Add at least 20 minutes of content you lazy creator.

[@teslobo]

Players are very good at knowing how they feel about things; they're very bad at knowing why they feel it.

[@sebastiansandoval4861]

Exactly

[@RogueCheepSheep]

People in general.

[@i_fish6657]

So true

[@markmayonnaise1163]

Extra Credits (before it became trendy to trash them) had a great line on this topic, that it is within human nature to come up with solutions without stating the problem; and that finding the real problem as the designer may allow you to make an informed decision as the dev. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZ-alqGahJmfhrs around 4 minutes in

[@Lilliathi]

@@markmayonnaise1163 "(before it became trendy to trash them)" Before they lost their way, you mean.

[@TwoMinutePapers]

Wholeheartedly agree with the "data informed, but not data driven" argument. Very well put. 👌

[@Ghost-gj1bx]

Didn't expect to see you here lol

[@sadstormtrooper]

Now, Only if Ubisoft took player feedbacks of not making their every game a 50 hour grindfest rpg more seriously, smh!

[@50Personas]

@@sadstormtrooper Considering how well many of their 50-hour RPG grindfests sell, I'd say you're pretty much entering the vocal minority territory the video warns against. Lots of people still do see that as more value, correctly or not. I get bored of the Ubisoft formula at times, but when it clicks, I'm so sucked in I myself don't believe it sometimes (Odyssey and The Division 2 were such cases recently). It's funny: almost all of my friends who play games regularly love to diss Ubi, but they end up buying and playing almost all those grindfests all the same. When they don't, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the grind, the length or the open world, but with something else. Even Breakpoint didn't seem to fall for those reasons (Wildlands was insanely successful after all), but because it strayed too far from Ghost Recon and went too hard into the microtransactions.

[@josephbrandenburg4373]

@@Ghost-gj1bx making a comment about data, of all things!

[@mrniceguy7168]

Unfortunately for Call of Duty players, developers are data driven, not data informed

[@houstonsharp6261]

While in college, i came across either a book or article from a writer discussing creative feedback when creating stories, and what he said always stuck with me: "When someone tells you something isn't working, they're probably right. When they tell you how to fix it, they're probably wrong." Great video as usual!

[@benl2140]

I heard something similar in a talk from a game dev. What he said was along the lines of "If your players tell you that there's a problem, you'd be a fool to ignore them. If they tell you what the problem is, they may be right and they may be wrong. If they tell you how to fix the problem, they will almost always be wrong."

[@benderb.r5041]

Neil Gaiman, I believe or Stephen King. I remember reading it somewhere.

[@houstonsharp6261]

@@benderb.r5041 I think you're right!

[@Benjieb15]

@@benl2140 I so strongly disagree with the last part of that quote. If someone proposes a solution, ignoring it entirely is just bad advice. I'm not saying it's wise to take a proposed solution at face value, slap it into the game and bam boom mission complete! A well-articulated player proposed solution can offer an amazing insight into the player thought process and can help understand the root of the problem as well.

[@Gadget-Walkmen]

well said.

[@louisng114]

I am pretty sure Sonic's face gave adults nightmare too.

[@martytu20]

louisng114 the memes were a gold mine.

[@9Godslayer]

I _still_ have trouble getting his face out of my head!

[@RageQuitVM]

if THAT gave you nightmares, you lead a pretty sheltered life

[@CompleteReview]

I love how the scream stays while the screen changes

[@nonsudunk]

Can confirm

[@CrimsonSlug]

As someone who is colour-blind, I just wish I could change the Marauder's eye flash colour so I can see it.

[@Furo6448]

I believe there's color options in the menus for colorblind people, not sure tho

[@CrimsonSlug]

@@Furo6448 they only change the ui elements, unfortunately.

[@ultragamer4465]

Its a flash tho. I thought colour blind people still see brightness..... Besides there are 3 options for color blind people

[@suplextrain]

@@ultragamer4465 The problem is that most color blind people have a hard time distinguishing between red and green, which are the two main colors of the Marauder (red and green flashes/energy). This means for most color blind players they won't contrast as much, making it much harder to spot.

[@tiggerbiggo]

How colour blind are you? Given that the flash is against the quite dark background of his face, and there's a quite loud unique sound I wouldn't have thought it was too much of an issue.

[@gabrielfreitas3033]

This reminds me of a certain person on twitter saying how most player critcism is genuine, but not always helpful

[@hamyncheese]

A Buddhist would say "Thank-You for helping me" to every experience regardless of its intent or outcome. I think the real question is: Can devs figure out how to productively utilize all the feedback that they get whether or not that feedback is desired.

[@mohammedsarker5756]

May I ask who?

[@NickRaven]

Speaking of genuine AND helpful criticism, this guy's great: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rHTNiJt_gruSaqM

[@alpha6549]

@@hamyncheese where did you get that from?

[@lonestarr1490]

@@NickRaven This guy too: kzbin.info/door/yhnYIvIKK_--PiJXCMKxQQ

[@Fleetw00d]

A while ago, in Killer Instinct (2013), people complained about the character Jago. Jago has this ability where if he hits you with a fireball, he heals himself. People in the community cried for nerfs on the healing to no end, almost like a rally cry. So Iron Galaxy (the devs) take a look at Jago. With months of testing, the answer they found was that Jago was effective at every single range - meaning there was no place on the screen that he was at a disadvantage. At long range he had good fireballs, and a short range he had strong tools. At a mid range, Jago should have been weak, but he had this move called Wind Kick. Wind Kick allowed Jago to close the distance from mid-range. And the devs didn’t like that, so they made it so he’d be weak there. Instead of nerfing the healing, they nerfed Wind Kick. Many in the community exploded because it wasn’t what they wanted. Jago fans were angry because they lost an amazing move that required little strategy. Jago haters were angry because they didn’t nerf the healing and felt ignored.They cursed the devs and called them unspeakable things. And yet, in a few months time, nobody was complaining about Jago anymore. Why? The problem wasn’t the healing. The devs needed to look at the problem intelligently and not react to outrage. And they did so very well, though it didn’t win them any popularity contests.

[@ShahabSheikhzadeh]

Are there sites for micro case studies like this? I know there are post mortems from GDC but the titles and the descriptions of the talks are pretty horrible and don't correlate with the talk itself at all. A lot of people seem okay with collecting ancedata via social media instead of static framework and feedback data similar to a Pulse Survey. It's so disappointing to see as someone who helps companies improve these types of issues.

[@Sleeepy.]

"I'd rather be 9 people's favorite thing, than 100 people's ninth favorite thing." - [Title of Show]

[@no_nameyouknow]

Ah, but from a financial standpoint you would rather be the latter. The former equals less sales than the latter. This is why we have so many homogenous games, also why you are more likely to find that game that speaks directly to you in an indie game than a mainstream one. Aside from certain games that challenge the status quo and succeed, mainstream games are going for mass appeal, safety. Dark Souls for example did not do this, and at first no one really paid it much attention, but now every game wants to be Dark Souls. Breaking away from the norm is a risk, but when it pays off it can change everything.

[@randomrandom450]

@@no_nameyouknow Exactly, AAA games cost a lot of money, that's why they are more "safe bets" and has mass appeal. Now that I'm old and grumpy (36) I tend to play more indie game, for the reason OP says, a smaller game is more likely something special, since it can appeal to a smaller audience, since they don't need to make the big bucks by selling million copies.

[@Manglet762]

Easy to say when the doors to the company you either own or are a part of aren't at risk of being shut for good.

[@piotrmbukowski]

...adn then you look at copies sold as a developer/indie developer and cry that you are struggling to make ends meet.

[@GamerSensato]

Speaking as a player, I liked the notion of being open and honest about the intent of the designer when talking to the players, since I believe that the excessive secrecy surrounding game development is part of the problem. Players begin to believe that they know more about development than the devs themselves, and I think that's a big part of what drives the online harassment. Now, speaking as someone who is a creative worker (sorry, I don't know the correct term in English), I understand the struggle of dealing with customers (or, in my case, clients) feedback, even when I'm being honest. Author Neil Gaiman said that "if a reader doesn't like or understand a part of your story, they are 100% right. But then they will offer a suggestion to fix it, and they'll be 100% wrong. The writer must find the right solution for themself" (I'm paraphrasing here).

[@BobbyOxygen]

There are certain genres where the top tier players will have a better insight into balance and mechanics than the developers, simply due to the developers not being able to play the game on that level. Fighting games and multiplayer shooters are the prime examples.

[@suplextrain]

That's frankly not often possible or even desirable. Game development involves the study of many different fields like cognitive science, architecture, (screen)writing, etc. which most players won't know anything about. Then if you want to 'trick' players for their own benefit telling them what you did can be counter-productive. Dynamic difficulty and pseudo-random distribution are just two examples of things you might not want to elaborate on, let alone mention.

[@Queso2469]

Being open can definitely help in addressing most of your core audience, but on the flip side it can also open up developers to even more targeted harassment from the worst of your player base. It's certainly not an easy balance, and I can't blame a dev for being unwilling to open themselves up to further harm.

[@longdo5910]

@@BobbyOxygen Top tier players are also susceptible to tunnel vision on certain aspect of a game like competitveness or end-game content that newbie couldn't comprehend yet or might not care about yet. Stuff like accessabilty (in term of both ease to play and disability support) require a dev to look at their less skilled players.

[@ghosface353]

@@BobbyOxygen Sometimes you have studio that has no idea about the game type they are making. Bioware had no idea what made a looter shooter good with Anthem, and because they didn't care about feedback or look to other games they failed. Maybe the new Anthem they will actually do some research and figure out why Destiny 2 and Warframe works.

[@adamharris306]

This seems to go hand-in-hand with not letting players "optimize the fun" out of a game, but on a more macro level.

[@steveejohnson7932]

If you can optimize the fun out of a game, you were never really having fun in the first place.

[@Tiparium_NMF]

@@steveejohnson7932 Nah this isn't true. There's a reason Minecraft stops being as fun once you've effectively got unlimited resources.

[@BlazeXth]

@@steveejohnson7932 most of the time, near nobody has fun playing a game until they learn how to, it's a whole process with many nuances overlooked due to being in a gamer's nature, making such a statement would be careless

[@steveejohnson7932]

@@Tiparium_NMF Currently in my 300 hour minecraft server with every farm imaginable, me and my friends are having a blast. Or prehaps you'd prefer all my modded worlds full of factories? You're seriously out of touch.

[@steveejohnson7932]

@@BlazeXth This channel has literally done episodes on games where the whole fun of the game is learning. Please go lower the effective IQ of a different comment section.

[@Omnicide101]

8:35 this is the biggest brained move I have heard in my life. In fucking awe of this dev team that just casually took a well-established staple mechanic and inverted it to get the same result. Legendary.

[@vulpinemachine]

"Reward the behavior you want instead of punishing the behavior you don't."

[@LucaxCorp]

Blizzard did the same thing with WoW. Used to be if you played the game too long you would get a penalty to EXP gains because of “exhaustion.” When people went nuts over that Blizzard made it so *not* playing the game for awhile gave you an EXP boost in the form of a “rested” buff that would gradually wear off. Inverted the mechanic and still encouraged the same behavior.

[@TheFinagle]

@@LucaxCorp My favorite example of how presentation affects reception. The maths are even identical, that bonus exp was the original intended amount and the lowered xp became the new normal amount. They changed only the name and description and the feature went from hated to loved.

[@thajocoth]

As a game developer, a common bit of wisdom in the industry is: "Players don't know what they want, but they know what they don't like." Basically, suggestions made by players are usually not the best solution, and will usually not even fix what it is they're having a problem with, but finding out what exactly players are having trouble with and WHY, can help the designers come up with good solutions to those problems.

[@Markie98]

That's not even just about videogames to be honest. That can be applied to many things around us everyday.

[@PunkFiddler]

This is true. It's easier to consolidate issues experienced by players since it's objective while consolidating their wants is very subjective.

[@juiuice]

I'm glad this is said

[@terceirojogador]

my point is; if a person cries over difficulty in a video game imagine what these people are gonna react at how injust life is, getting a good job, studying to get a degree, buying a car, paying rent, owning a house, doing your shores, living a normal human life but instead they cry out about a video game instead of jumping into another one

[@rustygaming7881]

The difference between developers and gamers are. Developers have access to the broad picture, most gamers only have access to what is present in the game. If if a mechanic breaks the game and the developer knows it will change so many things they don't tell you that they just say nope.

[@reptylus3129]

9:05 Yasuda said it perfectly. Player feedback should be used to inspire the game designer, but never to do his job.

[@gettingshotsomeonesgonnapa8635]

But, some companies NEVER listen to the feedbacks and keep doing the same game over and over just for money. For example ubisoft, see how much ac chanced, the new ones arent liked and loved by many people, but this season pass money is enough to keep doing the same over and over. They just put assasins creed title to get people hyped, when people play it, they get disappointed.

[@dearmas9068]

@@gettingshotsomeonesgonnapa8635 that's false. We do listen to it. It just doesnt mean the feedback is right. The overwhelming majority of the time players complain about a problem will point us in the right direction, but almost never will the player know the right way to fox or change things. Knowing what to ultimately do requires a mountain of data that player never have any access to.

[@AV-nn4qx]

In regards to Darkest Dungeon and the corpse feature: despite the initial outcry, the developers have later revealed that only about 1% of players actually turned off the corpses. Source: "Darkest Dungeon Documentary | Gameumentary" by The Escapist. Corpses at 42:37. 1% mention at 52:20.

[@delicious619]

Corpses aren't even that bad. Depending on the team composition, corpses are helpful for the position based attacks. As with many discussions about Darkest Dungeon, it boils down to 'Git gud'.

[@ratpunkgurl]

@@delicious619 Boils down to RNG more like

[@grassypond]

@@ratpunkgurl It boils down to risk management and knowing when a party is a loss cause. Characters die suddenly or the madness can spiral out of control. Those are features not flaws. It wouldn't fit with the theme, tone, or story of the game if it wasn't ruthless.

[@ratpunkgurl]

@@grassypond Missing 10 attacks in a row and having your characters die is pretty broken. It's grinding disguised as challenge.

[@austinbaker8042]

Damn that's the best "Told you so" feeling if I ever heard one

[@Maxx__________]

Speaking as a designer, it can be frustrating having "one way or the other" design compromises be hated by half the players and loved by the other half. Perhaps situations like this require more forethought to avoid or more afterthought to cleverly solve for, but on an emotional level it can certainly be very taxing to hear those echoes of your own choices and convictions day in and day out.

[@crankpatate3303]

Well, if it's possible, make these choices optional. If not, then you need to have a thick skin and balls of steel and you have to consciously decide to make a unique game that caters to a specific player type. It's better to make a unique game, that's going to make a smaller community very happy, than producing a "try to please everybody a little" game. Because in the end "a little" is most likely not enough for them to stick with the title.

[@AgentAsh]

I think in situations like this you should always strive to find a third option. Something that wouldn't change the way the whole thing works, perhaps, but would feel different and new to everyone.

[@joaopedroholanda4167]

StaySkeptic I’m not sure that’s always possible or good. Allowing a lot of customization can be overwhelming, and some things can’t be customized without spoiling the game. Also note that every such customization option adds another layer of complexity to both “not letting players cheat their own experience” and engineering costs, so that needs to be taken into account as well. You make a good point about accessibility though, that should be included whenever possible.

[@crankpatate3303]

@@AgentAsh So you say, one should develope the same.... but different? But still the same. But also different? I mean, if you can pull this off, do it. But chances are, that you may have to pick a design choice and stick with it. Art doesn't have to appeal to everybody. And bold art is what sticks to peoples minds, whether they liked it or not.

[@joaopedroholanda4167]

@@stayskeptic3923 Of those options you mentioned in the first paragraph, only the last two might work for non-pc games. Even so, things like difficulty sliders and controller input is pretty standard, but more advanced customization would still have an engineering cost to implement which often is not worth it. I'm specifically talking about things which are not-standard because the other ones are a given, and so most players would expect something like that anyway. But if we're focusing on pc games, then sure, modding is pretty good. Players who care enough about a game can adapt it to fit their wishes, with no backlash for the development team. Win-wn.

[@dwighthouse]

Yep, this is what they taught us at DigiPen: "Listen to your players, but don't do as they say."

[@warblenoise]

Was that quote used sarcastically

[@dwighthouse]

@@warblenoise No. It was a pragmatic statement, the simplification of "do lots of game testing to find the problem spots, but don't just simply implement the suggestions of players because they are usually falling into biases based on their understanding of other games."

[@warblenoise]

@@dwighthouse I watched the video too

[@EveryGamerLife]

Just like with women

[@joejjj4378]

@@EveryGamerLife women dont know what they want, but they know what they dont like...

[@Voltricity435]

"No Man's Sky dev received death threats over lack of butterflies"

[@Brunosky_Inc]

Death threats are shit, but I'm pretty sure that title was a cheeky oversimplification of the whole mess that was the launch of No Man's Sky and all the promised features not at all present.

[@hippityhoppity9563]

Lol, I laughed so loud when I read it

[@FraserSouris]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is true. I recall a while back, people made this excel spreadsheet of every feature that was missing in NMS and hounded the devs for every little thing that was missing

[@AquaticMammalOnBicycle]

Brunosky Inc. That specific death threat specifically about butterflies actually happened: www.theguardian.com/games/2018/jul/20/no-mans-sky-next-hello-games-sean-murray-harassment-interview

[@abdulmasaiev9024]

@Xylene Not defending them in any way because death threats should be considered serious business rather than just internet business as usual, but putting it like that is disingenous. The people in this case are mad about the feeling they got cheated/scammed on a thing they invested in, either in time, attention or literal money (in preorders and such), not about "a video game".

[@tylerpayne7467]

When it comes down to it, Devs talking about why they made a game this way makes me excited. I Love to hear why they do what they do and They inspire me to maybe try my hand at it someday. Darkest dungeon in particular because When there was the Corpse controversy I remember being really sad Red hook was getting so much Flak for what I still think is a cool Mechanic. How you use Player feedback and Data is Such an important part of a game's Support. Nice video as always GMT.

[@falconJB]

The corpse and heart attack patches made the game so much better, I'm glad they kept them.

[@tzeneth]

@@falconJB I disagree, I much prefer the simpler feel of the earlier versions of the game because I felt like I had more control of my characters than when they released those mechanics rather than depending on the whims of RNG. Having gone back later, they significantly improved that initial heart attack mechanic by making it more forgiving but I still feel it adds too much to the RNG nature of the game and leads to further increase the late game grind.

[@613aristocrat]

I've enjoyed game documentaries from the Noclip channel for that very reason.

[@falconJB]

The corpses don't change anything with RNG, they just make you vary your play style a little and the heart attacks just add an actual consequence for not managing your stress, and there are plenty of things to mitigate the RNG. But I'm glad they gave the option to for everyone to play how they wanted as without those mechanics I found the game boring and not worth playing, and with them many people found it too frustrating.

[@Tinyvalkyrie410]

I love the corpse and stress mechanics, but hated the unpredictable massive crits that could one shot tank characters. When I found out I could tone down crits without removing them completely, I began enjoying the game much more. Because of this, I think granular difficulty modes are brilliant and should be default game design, tweaked over time. I do think it’s interesting that their internal numbers show only 1 percent of players turned off corpses. I actually think the game would be harder for me without corpses, since the front lines are out of range for many ranged heroes.

[@amateraceon5202]

I love how you changed the egg article to say “fewer” from “less”

[@Evoleo]

phynaly, les eks Pepega

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

Stannis approves

[@FabriSlv]

Am I the only one who finds that overwhelmingly british? I love that

[@dominant2576]

King Stannis approves.

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

Yes, thank you! For people whose first language is English and are writers or creators of professional articles to have such basic mistakes... smh

[@indeboss]

One of my favorite examples of devs handling the feedback is Hades: back when the game was in early access they would check which enemies the players would complain about the most and buff those who hadn't received any complaints - since they didn't want them to feel easy.

[@DigiTism]

“Instead of making a game that you hope many people will like, it's better to make a game you know a few people will love.” - Mark Brown “The idea of a game designer doggedly sticking to their creative vision without caring what players think is a myth.” - Mark Brown I’d love a video going in depth about the sweet spot of these two ideas.

[@takatamiyagawa5688]

One of Subnautica's developers said something like "If you try to please everyone, you will end up pleasing no-one" at a GDC talk.

[@nin2494]

@@takatamiyagawa5688 So make a game that caters to the community you're aiming for and listen to what complaints they have to form an appropriate solution. You still listen to what players think but also make a game that a few people, those players, love.

[@myorigaccisbroken]

@@takatamiyagawa5688 that is what World of Warcraft is trying to do and see where it got them.

[@MrNone-d5s]

Devs at Activision/Blizzard Will disagree

[@thefebo8987]

the first statement is absolutly not his opinion anymore especially after the last videos. he sees games more as a service for the mass. but with this attitude we will get the same boring games over and over. there is no formula for a good game but Mark Brown don't want to understand this.

[@mariomguy]

The reason games used to be so difficult ("Nintendo Hard," according to Satoru Iwata) is developers would be working on their games for years, playtesting over and over. They would get very good and know all the tricks. So something really easy for them is actually really difficult for a player, who doesn't have that level of insight or sheer playtime. If a game had a serious flaw, it was out the door and nothing could change. It's only recently change is made possible. I made a simple 10-question quiz game for a marine museum that has a game-over. It was to be installed as a museum exhibit, people would play for a few minutes or so, then move on. I wanted the game to be motivating, exciting, and challenging, but fair. You have 3 lifelines, there are no trick questions or answers, and most of the answers can be narrowed down through process of elimination. During playtesting a lot of people lost early on. People hated that there was even a game over at all! Some told me to get rid of the game over and just let everyone win, or allow the user to skip a question, or earn another lifeline. I didn't do that because it would undermine the whole purpose of the game. Rather, I allowed 2 guesses for the 4-question answers. At first I thought this would make it too easy, but it struck the right balance for a lot of people. Even after this, I dug into the stats one day and found the game was played 150 times with only 2 complete victories. Rather than giving the option for an easy playthrough, games should strive for low floor-high ceiling whenever possible. This is something Nintendo perfected with Mario: poorer players can walk through segments at their own pace, experienced players can run through the whole thing. Similar with Fortnite, you can choose to battle as many people as possible (taking their weapons), or you can open chests and farm materials, or you can just play stealthy and hide as much as possible. I've gotten first place with all three methods (combat, survival, stealth). High-floor games will have a smaller audience, perhaps one of the reasons Unreal Tournament isn't doing so well.

[@Serlock4869]

It's also good to know what type of game it is and how you'd like that game viewed as. For majority of games, I must say that on average, 70-80% players should able to finish them under normal difficulty. The rest is optional, to give them easy option or not. Additional hard option can be used to introduce higher ceiling and it's expected only fewer players can finish the game. For skilled games, commonly platformers such as contra and metal slug, it's fine to only let 20-30% players able to finish the game. It's to be expected, you don't simply play those kind of games easily. OTOH, megaman X series is easier, and it's again expected. It's similar with God of War / DmC, against Monster Hunter / Dark Souls, that the latter cater for skilled players and the former is more casual.

[@Saztrah]

This video is very comprehensive, and every time I thought "Yeah, that's great and all, but I wish he would mention the other sides of the argument X...", he always did! Sometimes feedback is entitled and ridiculous, sometimes it's hinting at real problems, sometimes it's a vocal minority, sometimes it isn't. Tough questions.

[@glimmerratz3]

literally ALL disabled players are a minority, especially when it comes to specific accessibility needs. Saying that is entitled... yeah I guess it is entitled to expect to not be ostracised for asking for access.

[@WanderTheNomad]

@@glimmerratz3 except accessibility changes generally don't negatively affect the rest of the userbase. Which is why I'm pretty much 100% sure that no one is referring to disabled players when talking about vocal minorities.

[@daehkcid9996]

@@glimmerratz3 I REALLY doubt that the original commenter was considering accessibility features in their original comment, nor were they trying to imply asking for accessibility features was being entitled

[@DonYagamoth]

To me it's interesting, that: How you frame a mechanic towards the players makes a huge difference. Flipping a mechanic on it's head, where it was punishing before and now it's a reward for handling it well instead, as well as simply putting it in different terms for it to make more "logical" sense is nice

[@msdrakegx]

People hate being punished way more then they enjoy being rewarded. It's crazy but true. I just wish that the less games "rewarded" players with a better letter grade at the end of a level. It feels lazy.

[@afroarchitect2446]

I think feedback always needs to be considered but at the end of the day it's up to the creators if they want to do something about it. Not all feedback is good but if there is enough people mentioning the same thing it might be worth taking action.

[@kailastnam9793]

That’s an awesome username!

[@BlazeXth]

One of the difficult parts about that might be knowing what ammount of a certain type of people is "enough" though. As mentioned in the video, that's what properly acquired data is so useful for.

[@afroarchitect2446]

@@kailastnam9793 thanks

[@silverpatternofficial7427]

What I love most about these videos is how much everything applies to the design world across the board; not just game design. As someone who designs physical products, these principles apply equally as well to my practice. I feel like I've learned more about design methodology and research from this channel than from my Industrial Design education. It all begins and ends with users' emotional behavior and how to use the tools at our disposal to serve those emotions. I like to think that if someone can effectively master these methods, they can design anything.

[@antibot9804]

As a writer, this also works for beta readers. I always thought the hard part about criticism was gonna be to take it in and implement it, but it's actually much more difficult to filter and ignore the parts that aren't universal, or trusting yourself to find the better solution to perceived problems the readers have.

[@timofeybobakov3628]

I'm trying to patch some unpleasant policies in my university as a student, and I find these videos incredibly useful when it comes to giving constructive feedback and problem solving. I owe a huge thanks to the author for that. I never thought videogames could be such a great uniting medium, a source of easy-to-understand examples and guidelines for diverse range of situations.

[@Gogglehead-i7u]

When Overkill was constantly updating Payday 2, there was always a debate of Loud vs Stealth, and the devs would almost always cater towards the Loud group. It had gotten so bad that, they caved, and gave us Stealthers a stealth only heist, which caused the Loud group to whine and complain, claiming they don't get Loud only heists, and that the Devs are only catering towards the Stealth group. Well guess what happened? The Devs catered towards *that* vocal minority, duped the Stealth Only heist, and turned it into a Loud only heist. Just a fine example of what not to do with your updates.

[@FlakAttack0]

"Stealth is too easy to farm" was a common complaint from Loud-only players speaking about things like Framing Frames. You know how god damn hard it was to train a team to do Framing Frames stealthily with any consistency? It was fun but so god damn hard. Overkill's response to this: make new guards mysteriously spawn when you kill or capture old guards. Bam, just like that stealth is effectively worthless. With one decision one of my favourite games got binned and I never touched it again.

[@marianoclerici3986]

@@FlakAttack0 When did that happen?

[@DoktorJammified]

@@marianoclerici3986 I think that was in Death Wish update and left stealth in shambles for months. Not that it got any better when they started to make missions so long that stealthing them became such a bore and rngfest. Loud players who bitched about stealth always seemed to forget that getting caught was an instant reset since you had no way of salvaging it because you had to neuter your loadout to keep yourself concealed unlike loud you could just blast yourself to victory if one dude failed sneaking in heavy armor.

[@MrThecampinggod]

Another update that really nerfed stealth was the change to how pagers worked. When the game released, you were able to answer 4 pagers per person with a full stealth build. They eventually nerfed it to 4 in total which made framing frame an absolute headache.

[@McQueeb]

I'd like to give a special shout out to Nolla Games for their responsiveness regarding Noita. They are definitely aware of the opinions of the community and they take a lot of the criticism, comments and opinions on board when releasing patches and updates. They are active on Reddit, Discord and Twitter and they definitely watch Twitch streams and KZbin videos. They manage to pull all of this off while still maintaining their own vision. Super impressed. Excellent game, excellent Developers!

[@Manda_Kat]

What you've gotta remember is: a lot of people who PLAY games don't MAKE games and don't know why that feature they love or hate makes them feel that way.

[@joshmartin2744]

The tricky part is that the reverse is also true. People that MAKE games often don't have nearly as much time to PLAY games, including the one they're making. There's a huge difference between testing a game, and actually playing it.

[@gardian06_85]

if you think that the people making a game don't play it you are naive at best to delusional at worst: when a developer implements a feature they in 99% of cases test that feature, when a level designer changes the level geometry they will go into that level and try it out. when a new enemy is introduced they will put themselves in a room with that enemy to test its patterns, damage amounts, openings... the criticism is not that they "don't play their game" rather they are "playing their game too much" the developer can get an idea within them that even once it is in the game they can be iterating on it so much that they "learn to love it" chalking the "it isn't that good" by tacking a "YET" onto the end. this has been noted numerous times: Aliens Resurrection for the Play Station had dual Analog stick FPS controls on console before Halo Evolved Combat, the game was derided for the "crappy control scheme that made the game too difficult" where it was the testers that had so much experience playing with it they got "too good" and many of the reviewers had never used a style like it before. Many Players believe that "the devs must not play their own game" as a knee jerk for not agreeing with design choices, sometimes yes they are making not great decisions in the long run, but also that is being immersed in the creation. on the "they don't play games in general" most 'corporate developers' are only paid for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, so there are many more hours in the day, but when Games are your job you might not want to play games in your off hours. If you made bread for 8 hours a day 5 days a week after a while you wouldn't want to even look at a loaf of bread outside of work.

[@abbacadaver]

This is the ultimate artist’s dilemma. The more power you have, the less freedom you have. I know what it’s like to feel attached to an idea but, ultimately, if you have an audience you might have to let go of it to keep others interested.

[@PalaceDude]

Yup, but careful being a close-minded artist. The examples mentioned in the video work, but sometimes artists just have bad ideas that sound better in their heads. Things don't always look the same on the receiving end. Sometimes, you gotta take the L.

[@TransTrekTnerd]

I went to a developer conference held by a Georgia video game/movie/art school called SCAD, and one of the panels i went to was a PR team. The basic message they gave is that you can't just shrug off criticism, but sometimes what people are saying is the problem isn't actually the core issue, and you have to figure out what is actually the problem that is causing issues for players. I don't think I explained that correctly, but I think this is basically what you said in the second section

[@Jenohart]

I think the discussion of "difficulty" gets in the way of real feedback. I remember discussing Dark Souls 2 on a forum and arguing that I found several bosses disappointing because two human opponents with weapons is always dealt with in the same way and that was boring and uninteresting. I got people pushing back from people thinking I was asking to make the game harder, but that couldn't be further from the truth. It was too easy to deal with on top of being a boring design. I wanted something more varied and interesting, not easier or harder. The Marauder thing reminds me a lot of this. I don't hate the Marauder, but I find it weird that it's the only enemy in the game that forces you to fight it in one way only and punishes you for trying anything else. I wouldn't necessarily want the Marauder made easier, but I would like alternate ways to take it on. Like with the Doom Hunter, you can use the plasma gun to take down the shield or attack the hover legs directly to force it into phase 2. It gave the player options for dealing with it rather than limiting them. There probably are other ways of dealing with the Marauder like using indirect blast damage, but the game's over-reliance on tool tips gives players the wrong impression. Resident Evil 3 is a weird case: they already solved the problem by adding a dodge button. With a dodge button it becomes easier and more exciting to handle a chasing enemy, versus the awkward dance you have to do with Mr X to either walk around a punch or just take the hit and keep going. People were also most frustrated at having to push the bookshelf with Mr X around, and they already fixed that in RE3 when you need to open the grate: there are multiple environmental hazards that can down Nemesis for long enough to complete the task. It's incorrect to draw the conclusion that the nerfing of Nemesis lead to the worse critical reception. The game isn't worse because they made Nemesis too easy, it's because he's underutilized due to the game being too short and missing a lot of content from the original.

[@M3mphix]

I think the assertion that changes made from Mr X to Nemesis being the reason the game reviewed worse is false. Most of the criticisms I read from Resi 3 reviews aren't so much to do with Nemesis himself, bar some disappointment that he rarely shows up, but the length of the whole game and how some key set-pieces of the original are missing.

[@KnoxEmDown]

Sidegrading (making unique mechanics) is better than buffing (making mechanics more powerful), and buffing is better than nerfing (making mechanics less powerful). S>B>N That's my design philosophy.

[@Harrier42861]

My opinion on the Marauder is that it's a jarring change in... feel from the rest of Doom Eternal's enemy cast. It feels like an enemy from Dark Souls or Bloodborne with how you have to approach him, instead of a Doom enemy, where victory comes from range management and target prioritization. Mind, there's some range management, but the target range where you get openings is so narrow it's hard to hold onto with Eternal's fast movement and faster pacing. That's my feeling on the Marauder, anyhow. And yes, you can take him down with indirect damage... eventually. But it's so slow it's rarely a practical approach, and usually happens if it does because while you were clearing out the other enemies with explosive attacks, he happened to be close to the enemies you were blowing up.

[@paulblaquiere2275]

@@Harrier42861 I actually really like the Marauder's design, I liked how it was a different tempo. In many ways I would actually compare the Marauder to the Cacodemon (waiting for its mouth to open to bomb it), in that it leads to interestingly varied play as different enemies have different rhythms.

[@lordanonimmo7699]

There's nothing wrong with marauder ALONE,the problem cames when he is in group with other demons.

[@1996Pinocchio]

Since there are no timestamps, here you go: 00:00 Intro 01:50 Disclaimer 05:29 One: Don't listen to a vocal minority 07:51 Two: Identify problems, not solutions 10:03 Three: Don't let changes ruin your game 12:23 Four: Create a conversation with your players 15:22 Closing thoughts 16:16 Outro

[@thezipcreator]

They should add this to the description so that yt creates chapters

[@robocop5899]

thx

[@artjom5617]

timestep for informative videos. here we go... you also just read the cover and backside of a book?

[@eadbert1935]

this is a very similar issue to the "optimizing the fun out of games"

[@TheSirmousavi]

"Don't listen to a vocal minority" is generally a good advice, not just for game developers

[@Vvonter]

The pokemon way.

[@suplextrain]

No it's bad advice, especially for game dev. Just because a few people are saying it doesn't mean what they're saying isn't true. Just because they might word it poorly or lash out doesn't mean that there isn't truth to what they're saying. Sometimes even just their reaction (they don't fully understand themselves what annoys them about X) is worth considering. ALL feedback is valuable, even if it just boils down to someone saying "This looks like shit" or something. It's data. You look at it, try and understand it and then act (or not) on it. Even just a single person that behaves like an asshole can still be useful depending on how you look at it and use said feedback.

[@cooldudeachyut]

Yeah, no. That's not a good advice unless you're a politician. Besides, that wasn't even the point made in the video.

[@eleongo]

@@suplextrain Not really, listening to vocal minority or someone behaving like asshole is still not entirely bad advice but are their feedback constructive and make sense in the first place, or just straight up whining and trolling? In the end, it's up to developers to differentiate between constructive feedback and the opposite one.

[@gabrielandy9272]

@@cooldudeachyut even as a politician you should try to see the arguments, you don't just govern for the majority you govern for the better..... if majority wanted to slave black people in the past that is not good and is bad still.... theres country that the majority hates gay and want kill then (specially some religious country) don't mean they are right and u should listen to then..... minority or majority what matter is the argument and trying to see if the change is for the better or not.

[@MarkHogan994]

Yes, they should listen. Note that the word "listen" doesn't mean "agree with every single complaint, and then do exactly what the fans say they want". It just means listen to what they say, think about if it makes sense, and tweak some things. Basically be open to criticism and be self-reflective. I don't see how it could ever be good for a company to not listen to their customers. Again, this doesn't mean they have to then do exactly as players say. But at least take feedback into account.

[@flyforce16]

Sure, but he says this immediately in the video, and that most developers already do. The question is how to respond to it and what kind of changes to make, if any-that's what the video's really about.

[@TheBabaloga]

This feels like you're responding to the title before actually watching the video.

[@Eichro]

Trying to implement fanbase's widespread suggestions is one of the reasons Sonic is on a bad spot for decades

[@jowysw]

@@Eichro the reason probably has more to do with Sega not giving them a huge budget while the team not having an actual clear vision of what a Sonic gane should be. Meaning they are just reacting.

[@Eichro]

@@jowysw "They are just reacting" is basically what i meant! I don't think the size of the budget means much tbh.

[@dynamicsporadic]

As a game developer who has sat on weekly streams and explained our design decisions, these guidelines are succinct and accurate. Player feedback is always valid, and player feedback is always wrong. Like data, it will inform you where there are problems, but will not tell you how to fix it. There is also one more aspect to this though; sometimes there can be a change that will absolutely be positive for the game, and absolutely is not the priority. Time is finite, and the team supporting the game is trying to evaluate how best to spend it to improve the game. Sometimes the smallest changes can be worse for being small, because there are fixed time costs to going through QA and patch release cycles. However, having frank and open conversations about Production decisions is as valuable as ones about Design.

[@deathtoll2001]

I can only hope that this doesn't mean that player's giving actually thought-out solutions to a problem are not considered as part of the feedback ingestion process. As a developer on a website for a prominent company with many, many customers, we LOVE getting feedback that says "I hate x. I wish you would fix it by doing y." We won't always do y, for a massive variety of reasons, but we have also gotten solutions we may never have thought of and were definitely the best we could think of to fix the root issue.

[@dearmas9068]

@@deathtoll2001 in game development it just doesn't work that way. Without the data AND the feedback the solution cannot be found. So when players, no matter how informed they believe they are, make suggestions, it is extremely unlikely that they truly know the answer. It usually does help, but more so in that it points us to the important things we need to focus on, but not the answer itself. Every once and a while it's obvious to everyone. But that's super rare.

[@RobBCactive]

You know support of typical office type infrastructure isn't so different, the PC team would have trouble with "power users" who needed appeasing yet whilst useful when they helped others, could become topically resistant to change, especially OS UI (because they had time and reputation invested in the status quo). In the server space, at times over specification by managers was the issue. You have to earn trust and have a dialogue about what they are actually trying to do, rather than have them be IT leads making implementation demands rather than explain their requirements. In game forum, where I gave a lot of feedback during an open beta test, it was very clear how narrowly many players saw the game, simply ignoring other valid play styles, seeking to optimise things away, which in fact they could deal with in long term with a couple of clicks if they knew the game better. OTOH developers don't have the time to play test and find all the creative possibilities game mechanics provide, so the X.0.0 update was badly unbalanced, upsetting a large proportion of the user base and gaining bad reviews. Far beta to give wider early access and mitigate the most severe effects of introducing big changes without time for a rebalance.

[@justinford9933]

09:55 "...that can make encounters with him much, much easier." The "much, much" synching up with the punches was badass. Love this kind of attention to detail.

[@UltimateTobi]

He's not only talking in-depth about topics, his videos are in-depth themselves.

[@themadgamer319]

As an addendum everyone go watch Mark Rosewaters GDC talk "Magic: the Gathering: Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons Learned" where many ideas of this video are echoed

[@CrossfacePanda]

I second this. Probably my favourite game design talk I’ve ever watched.

[@omegamatsu]

Its funny to think of that because MtG is an absolute shitshow these days under his watch

[@josephreynolds2401]

@@omegamatsu I thought this video was made as one of the responses to MtG right now.

[@Summer_Snows]

@@omegamatsu MaRo gets a bad rap because he's so often the "face" of game design. He's one person, in one department, with bosses and people who take over projects after his involvement. I definitely wouldn't blame MtG's current problems on him, at least not entirely

[@user-et3xn2jm1u]

When I was a kid I took MaRo's weekly design columns on the MTG website for granted. Years later I see how valuable and bold those columns were, for the gaming community as a whole. I wish more developers would speak their mind on game design, but unfortunately with modern games, often the profit motive interferes with honesty. Especially in the f2p era, sometimes an element of a game will be the way it is BECAUSE players dislike it (and can pay to remove that element), not in spite of that.

[@mdstevens0612]

As I was releasing some of my first games, I got some good feedback with little changes I could make that did drastically improve my games. However, there's always at least one guy who thinks he can make your game better than you. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, it is never good enough

[@satibel]

@@wykeless If you want to dev, I suggest you setup a discord server, and have a channel for feedback, and a channel for your dev logs, and ask a few people to moderate/aggregate feedback.

[@KalenTomlinson]

You probably used Unity

[@michalpavlat3943]

That "at least one guy" may be right but you never know. It's almost sure there would be at least one person on Earth that could make your game better than you. But is this particular guy the right one really? :o)

[@Rumboats]

I think it's also interesting to note that sometimes the problem isn't the artistic vision at play, but whether or not it's accurately transmitted to the audience. So for example: You might be designing a character that's supposed to instill fear and horror, but if 90% of players look at it and laugh, that its not a good sign. But in this case the problem isn't the vision of creating something that's terrifying, it's that it wasn't perceived as such by the players.

[@Saykiata]

One of the best framings I've heard for point two was "When the player says that there is a problem, they are almost always right. When they propose a solution, they are almost always wrong."

[@scottsbarbarossalogic3665]

People are very good at what they like/dislike, but not great at knowing why

[@Benjieb15]

I'd argue it's one of the worst framings I've heard and an amazing amount of generalization of player feedback. If we're talking about the solutions Mark listed specifically "Nerf this", "buff this attack", "remove this character", yeah those aren't useful solutions. But when it comes to many other player proposed solutions I've seen, specifically some for games like the Pokemon franchise and Animal Crossing, potential solutions are well-articulated and you can tell that the players do, in fact, know what they want and what they are talking about. Saying that the player is almost always wrong when it comes to proposed solutions is just painting with such a broad brush it hurts me.

[@CiromBreeze]

@@Benjieb15 And yet, Pokémon and Animal Crossing also have a surprisingly high amount of players who propose really awful solutions to a problem too. *Especially* Animal Crossing, actually.

[@Benjieb15]

@@CiromBreeze Do you have any examples? Because most of the Animal Crossing suggestions I've seen some awesome proposed UI options to fix the awful UI flow/dialogue trees in that game.

[@FlackNCoke]

Benjieb15 You can actually see the results of bad player feedback in New Horizons. People used to complain that villagers talk too much or ask for too many things in previous games, now villagers seem to be limited to a handful of single sentences of dialogue per personality type and get annoyed if you talk to them more than five times in a row. This addresses the issue of them talking too much while also taking away their basic function of being fun to talk to and giving you things to do. It’s so bad that now the only reason I talk to my villagers is to check off the Nook Miles achievement related to it, whereas in previous games they were charming enough to talk to without prompting, and/or would often give you quick side quests to do, like deliveries. Without that they feel more superfluous than ever, and other than aesthetics there’s almost no reason for them to even be there.

[@giggityguy]

The idea of listening to feedback about what needs work but not specific suggestions for how to fix it is interesting to me, because it defies what I always was taught about constructive criticism. I was always taught that when giving feedback, it's helpful to be specific and give suggestions of alternatives, rather than just responding with vague negativity. Saying "I don't think this is the best way to do this, what if you try this instead?" seems way more helpful than "your work is bad and I hate you." So generally whenever I comment about something I don't like in a game, I'll try my best to suggest a potential solution rather than just complaining about the problem. But I can see how that can be less helpful, especially if there are hundreds of other people doing the same thing. Maybe making suggestions is more applicable for practical problems, not creative ones. I still think it's important to be specific with criticism though. "I don't like this mechanic because X" is still a lot more useful that "this game sucks."

[@danidm5820]

The Marauder case also highlights another problem with player feedback: time. The feedback about the Marauder being unfair and annoying was so quick to emerge and boil over that by the time people had made 2-pages long lists of simple techniques to win the fight (which took less than a week) people were already firmly on one camp or the other. Feedback is more common at the beginning of the game's life, but in this case a LOT of things that could mitigate that frustration were already there, people just missed them (partly because of a poor tutorial) and became convinced that the enemy was unfair. People today have ways to defeat this enemy without taking any risks and without needing to use the "green eyes flash" mechanic. And some of these tactics are so simple everyone can learn and use them. But someone who was frustrated at the beginning won't care, because the turf war about this enemy was so strong that anyone trying to express an opinion on one side or the other is immediately labeled as a "whiner" or an "elitist" depending on the side, meaning actual feedback gets lost and players find it harder to find and understand strategies or express legitimate complaints.

[@zachmileshydra]

in my case I couldn't buy Doom Eternal day one and had to wait several weeks to play it. I had a blast with the game all the way until the first marauder. thats when I loved the game. I killed him my first attempt but man did I get sweaty. personally i love the showdowns with them. i was mainly mad with how the bad press on em got to me before I even fought em to decide myself. --have they made fights with two of em at a time? that would be amazing!

[@Ayoul]

That happens with every new character in a competitive game as well which is even trickier because contrary to Doom Eternal, which is equally new for everyone, those competitive games have players with years of experience on the game. There's sometimes a bias where people have certain expectations and/or assumptions based on earlier reactions or key feedings by members of the community and label the character OP or trash before the majority even had time to properly try him out and learn to properly use them or counter them. It's important to note though, in response to your particular example, that having a solution to a problem within the game doesn't make the problem not exist. A workaround to a design flaw is not a proper fix.

[@danidm5820]

@@Ayoul while some solutions are "workarounds", other are actual solutions that were purposefully created by developers as intended tactics and work exactly as intended, but were not properly conveyed Example: the main issue with the fight is "having to wait and counter the attack, otherwise the enemy is invincible"; attacking him with grenades, sticky bombs or, even better, remote detonation rockets by blowing them up next to him is intended to avoid the shield and stagger the enemy, which it does. But the tutorial, which has up until now spoiled the one and only optimal strategy to deal with every other enemy, tells you the way to beat him is to "wait for the green flash". That's what gives the impression that this enemy is so broken and boring, and other strategies seem "cheap" because the game didn't tell us those, so it feels like you are ignoring the "intended path", even though those were fully expected and implemented as viable strategies.

[@FFKonoko]

@@danidm5820 "the game didn't tell me exactly how to win, the thing it told me kinda sucked, and while there are other ways to fight that are part of the game, they must be cheating because I wasn't told to do them"? I wonder if those same people complained about ff13 being mostly linear tutorial, or games having constant waypoints, or bring too easy and hand holding nowadays...

[@ChristopherCraven]

It wasn't a poor tutorial. You shouldn't need more details or a dedicated tutorial to every boss introduced!

[@gunswinger3110]

"The Culling" was one such game that fell victim to the trap of taking player feedback too seriously. They made their combat system easier but as a result it significantly decreased the game's skill ceiling and ended up making each encounter a shoving fight instead of an actual fight.

[@iansun42]

The culling was my favorite battle royal, I'm not sure if I played it before or after those changes but it was simply fun and action packed with a lot of great silly upgrades and the crafting system felt intuitive, easy, and fast

[@maebemaeday]

@@iansun42 obviously, it isn't doing too good now

[@gangstasteve5753]

@@maebemaeday still fun, but you are right.

[@jaygopinath1694]

JUST LIKE Hunt: Showdown when it first came out in early access wow one of the best online shoter type games ive ever played hands down the gunplay arrrr was next level it had a that real magic feeling of being in like a real life scenario, trying to avoid gunfights by carefully scouting an area for players/markers(cant remember what there called the things you need to find to find the monster) all while trying not to get your face riped off by the undead or yer balls chewed off, crawing into the under growth to hide from other players (its was instant death to fight in the open) but mainly HELLHOUNDS (hellhounds=cunts) waiting for them to kill the monster then seting up an ambush to MUGEM! or the intensity of trying to escape with the bounty , you had to have real skill to aim like in real life, the more you ran the harder it was to aim so you had to move slowly and quietly or risk getting ambushed at any moment struggling to aim trying to make as little noise as you possibly could was key to survival so easy to give away your position while fight the undead/cunts not getting abushed was a challenge, GRAPHICS SOME OF THE BEST IVE EVER SEEN IN A GAME BLOW ME AWAY CLOSE TO PHOTOREALISTIC it shocked me the apmasphere was one of the best i've ever experienced in a game hands down then the updates happend, look how they massacred my boy *_*, simps gave shity feedback they turned it into trash everything got nerfed ect.... i cant even stomach playing it knowing what it once was what it could should have been bigist let down ever RIP

[@piotrmbukowski]

That is the problem for those 15 ppl who play only this game. The rest of the audience - 985 players are more happy with this. Bro, not everyone wants a challenge.

[@cybertwilight]

Mark, I cannot stress how important and necessary this video is on today's obsessive hypercynical culture of either contempt or, arguably worse, hypercriticism without a single consideration as to WHY something would be added to a game. Analytical discourse and feedback discourse benefits greatly from this greatly written, easy-to-follow video, JAM PACKED with a lot more of depth than I usually see in your videos (Which, bear in mind, is not a bad thing - Your channel is by far one of the most importants for aspiring and up-and-coming game designers) and amazing, diverse and extremely relevant examples - to the point I could easily talk about several others that you haven't cited, but easily gave room for. I know it feels like I'm just sucking up to you or just exxagerating, and maybe it really is just the thrill of finally seeing someone speak up in a well-directed and well-writen way what I've been having trouble telling everyone around me for the past 5 years as a game designer, but I just wanted to say... Thank you. As a long-time fan and patreon supporter, thank you very very much. You continue to prove yourself as one of my favourite KZbinrs and a great educational resource for Game Design.

[@BologneyT]

I'm not Mark, but YOU are awesome

[@MadsterV]

I'd like to add that this has become the standard and not just for games, but for everything someone else has provided.

[@B_Skizzle]

A lot of the complaints about the Marauder seem to come from the less than stellar tutorial. The game tells you to stay at a medium distance, but the best way to deal with him is to get far away and make him rush you.

[@manspaghetti6351]

I like how people also complained about how there are too many pop up tutorials in Doom eternal.

[@andersonneil2293]

It doesn't say "stay at medium range" it says "when he is at medium range'

[@WilliamBrayton]

@@andersonneil2293 However, the fuck does 'medium' range mean?

[@BackwardsPancake]

Yeah, this basically. "Medium range" is a very ambiguous term to start with, and trying to stay there at all costs often makes the Marauder act in ways that seem completely random. The tutorial might have also used more emphasis on how staggering him is the only intended way to deal damage.

[@kingofgar101]

@@manspaghetti6351 not played doom eternal but i could see that happening to many pop up tutorials could break the flow of a game or throw off the paceing

[@ThrottleKitty]

As a writer, I often share story bits with my friends. Mostly, they just give me the typical response you'd expect from friends, general praise but that's it. One time, I shared one of the big twists with one of my friends who'd been taking a particular interest in the story. Until that twist. She clearly hated it, said it made her hate one of the characters, and she stopped asking me about the story after that. I have since completely gutted and rewritten that twist I was once so proud of.

[@ThrottleKitty]

@@HaveAWonderfulDayOfficial This a focused, shortened example of a single anecdote. I can assure you I do the most basic, given things a writer should do already, and nothing I've said implies I don't.

[@nin2494]

One question, do you regret it? Do you think the twist still served its purpose and that your friend hating one of those characters was the intent, but still evoked the wrong response i.e. dropping interest or do you prefer the rewritten version?

[@Duiker36]

Brandon Sanderson publishes his creative writing lectures on his KZbin channel and one thing I've heard him discuss is how to get feedback from others, including some examples that sound very close to what happened with you. He's not the best author, but he is an established bestseller and his lectures are probably worth more than anything a KZbin comment can say.

[@Czesnek]

Twists are good as long as it is not "This person was gay all along LOL". We all know which twist we are talking about.

[@vulpinemachine]

Are you part of a critique group? I highly highly recommend joining one if not. Critique groups basically don't do praise. They try to help you figure out what's wrong with your stories so you can make them better. Your writing, your stories, your vision and creativity will flourish with the right group. Good luck fellow writer.

[@ericm1839]

I think this video goes well with your "follow the fun" video. Devs really need to look at what makes their game unique and fun and focus on that. If youre getting feedback that says that the fun part of the game is being inhibited by a design choice, take it out

[@pointynoodle]

I knew the darkest dungeon corpse thing was coming. Just knew it.

[@Caidezes]

That was bullshit from some players. Folks were sending the developers death threats over it. Like they'd killed their dog or something. Talk about overdramatic.

[@Funkopedia]

Another thing about that one is whether it's worth disappointing the 1000 players you have now to provide a great experience for the 1,000,000 players you will get later.

[@koktszfung]

Funkopedia or you will lose all of your players, you never know

[@Levyathyn]

What was the problem with the corpse thing? The video doesn't explain it too well, so I don't see what about it would piss people off.

[@ThePortableTornado]

@@Levyathyn In Darkest Dungeon what abilities a character can use can only target specific spaces in the enemy lineup. So when an enemy died the enemies behind them would slide forward closer to the front line. So people would ignore attacks that focused backline enemies and just focus the front line and build their party entirely around bursting down enemies as fast as possible while their back liners healed and applied stuns. Now with corpses (which aren't a guaranteed spawn and can be destroyed) a lot of meta strategies didn't work anymore as you needed to be able to target all positions on an enemy line or deal with the corpse. It honestly added a whole new dimension to the combat and made a lot of other skills and classes much more useful. EDIT: Also what skills an enemy can use is also dictated by their position in the lineup. So forcing a backline enemy forward makes it so they cant use their strongest abilities. This applies to your party as well. So having a corpse stop them from shuffling forward means they can still use their stronger attacks.

[@macattack7949]

I actually had a different theory on Nemesis' criticisms that's kind of the opposite. I have no proof for this, but part of me wonders if one of the biggest issues with Nemesis is that they made him TOO strong... Like, he has all these amazing abilities, is super fast, and has access to all these weapons. Because of this, the devs had to program in a lot of unnatural pauses to make him escapable and I've noticed that one of the most common complaints about him has been "WHY WON'T YOU JUST KILL HER ALREADY?!?!" Mr X on the other hand was powerful and undefeatable, but also really slow, so you COULD outrun or outmaneuver him. I feel like this made him scarier because every time you escaped Mr X it felt like it was you pushing your skills to the limit to outwit him, while with Nemesis you feel like the Devs have just nerfed him so you can survive. Again, I'm not 100% certain on this theory, so I'd be interested in your take on it. I know in writing, one of the classic mistakes starting writers make is to focus too much on the character strengths and not enough on character weaknesses. It feels like a similar thing here. Great video as always!

[@mikel66661]

I think you are missing the point about the criticisms around Nemesis. The problem is that he is, except for the first two encunters, a convencional boss, with unskippable boss fights and scripted sequences, which make him less interesting and frightening. I haven't hear anyone criticize his "unnatural pauses" and to be honest I didn't even noticed that while playing (maybe because the little time he chase you in the game). But anyway he is clearly not too strong. In the few instances he chase you, you can knock him down rather easily and is not that hard to escape from him. Yes, the "WHY WON'T YOU JUST KILL HER ALREADY?!?!" is common complain also, but it has nothing to do with gamplay, it's something related to cinematics and therefore to the script.

[@seokkyunhong8812]

I think your theory falls apart when you consider Jill has a dodge. Yeah, Nemesis with a gun against Leon and Claire is unfair, but Jill can dodge anything.

[@lianmanuelalonsomendez]

Loved the phrase at the end of the video. Darkest dungeon made me suffer, but when me and my friend actually beat the game it felt like we had defeated a monster. It’s tough and unforgiving, but if it wasn’t like that, it wouldn’t be rewarding. I truly enjoy your videos, BTW; you are definitely one of the best channels out there.

[@randirafaeli]

If dev listen and tried to please every people with a different feedback then the game will likely to lose its identity. A very instructive video keep up with the good work.

[@shawnheatherly]

Player feedback has lead many games, particularly in the indie scene, to becoming greater. The issue is that sadly sometimes people go past feedback and enter harassment.

[@RicochetForce]

Yup, the indie scene has seen so many games drastically improve because they're so nimble in adjusting their game.

[@tempest_dawn]

@@KevinJDildonik I'll agree that there is a tendency to fixate on the worse of it, but let's be honest 600 death threats is still something I would not wish on anyone. It might be a few making us all look bad, but it's a problem with the community we should contribute to fixing if at all possible.

[@jessicalee333]

@@KevinJDildonik It sounds like you're not thinking at all about the impact on the human beings receiving 600 death threats, just your reputation as a gamer because you take it personally when someone says "gamers are toxic" (rather than simply acknowledging that many gamers ARE toxic) - so swanning in with #NotAllGamers is more important to you than the fact that designers are getting fucking DEATH THREATS - this argument is not the slam-dunk you think it is, it's actually a pretty dare-I-say-it... _toxic_ attitude. Nobody should receive ANY death threats over a game. "'sometimes people enter harassment' but do they?" YES. YES THEY DO. Ask the person receiving 600 death threats how they feel about it. If 99.94% of people are well-behaved (which is a bullshit assumption, especially with online behavior), and only .06% of people are murderers, then the murders still make the headlines. That's not "bad media". What do you expect the media to do? "A mass shooter has killed nine and injured seventeen, but let's talk about Ted the Plumber who hasn't done anything wrong today!" But whatever, blame the media if it makes you feel better about yourself I guess.

[@Nyx_2142]

@@jessicalee333 Didn't take much to hit your hair trigger and make you spaz out.

[@revimfadli4666]

Overwatch's infamously laggy balancing cycle is a great example of avoiding player suggestion too much The devs would change everything but what players suggest. And when these seemingly do nothing(since the root cause fits the player suggestion all along), they give up and fix the main cause, but forget to roll back those other "useless" changes, which now overcompensate the problem

[@Inari_the_Fox]

This topic reminds me of how focus testing can ruin a game too. Look at the trailer for Overstrike and compare it to Fuse, the game it was reworked into.

[@Adu767]

The Marauder is an amazing rival-type enemy that is very fun to play against, but I say this as someone who has beaten Doom Eternal several times. Fixing the initial tooltip tutorial about the enemy could help reduce frustration greatly. For instance, there isn't actually any benefit to being at "mid-range" nor is there any clear definition for what "mid-range" even is. Instead, the tool should tell you: 1: The Marauder is a defensive powerhouse that will block ALL direct attacks when he is not vulnerable. At close range, he will blast you with his shotgun, and from afar you will need to evade his energy projectiles. 2: The Marauder's shield cannot be overloaded or destroyed. 3: Shooting the Marauder's shield will cause him to spawn a spectral wolf to chase you down. Destroy the wolf quickly to avoid being overwhelmed. 4: Gain distance from the Marauder to bait him into a charging axe attack. When his eyes flash green, he is vulnerable to being attacked and staggered. Try different weapons to increase damage. 5: Explosions above or behind the Marauder won't be blocked. Try indirect attacks using different equipment or weapon mods to gain an advantage. Most people that claim this enemy is antithetical to Doom Eternal's gameplay design are the ones that haven't figured out how to efficiently deal with them. Once you realize that you need to understand spacing, evasion, timing and precision, you'll understand that he's actually an enemy designed to test your proficiency of the gameplay.

[@johndis808]

I agree with a lot of that, but I would limit it to tip #1 and tip #5. Otherwise the text tends to fill the screen and remove uneasiness and some tension from the initial encounter

[@piderman871]

"haven't figured out how to efficiently deal with them" But you're stuck in an arena with him and you have no other option than to start this figuring out right away. You can't go clear your head by doing a side quest or something like that. There's no other enemies that have 1 or 2 of the marauder's mechanics to help you learn those more gradually. It's *boom* roadblock! Figure it out or quit the game, sucka! I think the Marauder can have its place in the game, but he should be introduced a bit more gradually IMO. Also, the arena has pillars and I keep bumping into those when sidestepping his projectiles >

[@Adu767]

@@piderman871 Marauder only has 3 attacks, a dog and a shield, he's not that complicated. And of course he's a roadblock, he's meant to be a rival-type enemy. You can say the same thing about any boss. If you can't beat em, you don't progress. Lower the difficulty if it's so hard for you to think on your feet. Also turn your FOV up if you can, helps with knowing your environment.

[@littleman6950]

@@Adu767 It'd be one thing if he were JUST a boss, but I think the problem largely stems from the fact he turns into another Baron of Hell-tier demon. People go in expecting bosses to be a bit tougher than a hell knight or mancubus. When you drop bosses into the middle of a hall way treating them like another part of the angry mob, they can totally kill the pacing and enjoyment (not to mention the fantasy) of the game play.

[@ChristopherCraven]

No one would read a wall of text that fucking long in game after a boss is introduced.

[@Colbyte_]

Hey, I'm the guy whining about the marauders in doom eternal at the start of the video! Great video, thanks for using my tweet in it. It has inspired me to draft a video as well, because Doom Eternal is a game I feel so very mixed about and I think talking about it might be a good time. Hope you're staying safe in the world out there!

[@GMTK]

oh hey! Haha didn’t expect the tweet author to appear in the comments!

[@Colbyte_]

@@GMTK what can I say, I love a good video essay! ♡ take care, man!!

[@GARU7x]

I feel like the best solution is to always give the players options to customize parts of their own experience. It's understandable that developers might want you to experience their game in certain way, but every player is different and even the smallest option could turn a game from "ok" to "great" to some people. The biggest example of this are games with good difficulty settings. I've gone from thinking a game is alright to very good after trying a higher difficulty.

[@mrillis9259]

I used to think it was crazy that people said developers only wanted to make one game. Then it happened an every event is scripted in triple A games.

[@Duiker36]

The challenge with customization is test surface. In programming, there's something called "cyclomatic complexity": for every if statement you add, the complexity of your code doubles. That's why difficulty settings often end up doing really stupid things to a game, like letting the AI cheat or multiplying the hit points by some factor. Now, if you're willing to trade a more buggy game for more customization, then cool. Or the studio might spend an extra month on testing and fixes, eating the cost in payroll and infrastructure, only to get a small lift in sales. Nothing's free.

[@mvmlego1212]

I agree with Michael Chui. Another problem that arises in games with lots of optional settings (specifically, optional mechanics) is that it undermines the canonical vision for the game, leading to a weaker sense of community and, in some cases, less satisfaction. There's a certain kind of personality that, instead of feeling accomplished after finishing the game, will say to themselves, "I didn't have [x] setting enabled, so did I _really_ beat the game?". I think Hollow Knight takes the right approach. It allows for heavily varied experiences without the use of any optional settings. It uses narrative choices and an out-of-narrative achievement system to allow for a variety of play styles. Finishing the game is much easier than finishing the game with the best ending. Different optional paths and quests, each with different kinds of challenges, give different benefits. Different achievements encourage different play styles, which makes the game rewarding for story-lovers, completionists, speedrunners, and ironman players.

[@peterw1534]

Great, now even adding options is a bad thing.

[@mvmlego1212]

@@peterw1534 -- Sometimes, yes. Do you have any counterarguments to the reasons that Michael and I gave?

[@Rikuluva12]

As Thor from Pirate Software says: "all feedback is useful, not all feedback is correct"

[@LeeAndersonMusic]

And then there's the simplest solution of them all: Make your game accessible to the modding community, so for every "I wish the game had X, or didn't have Y", the answer is: "There's a mod for that"

[@liansmith4038]

IMO, one shouldn’t rely too much on the modding community, since it promotes laziness amongst developers; they’ll just think that it’s alright leaving in game-breaking bugs because “the modders will fix it”. Not saying modding should be banned, just that devs shouldn’t use it as an excuse to slack off.

[@leonardo9259]

Yeah, just look at Bethesda, and then look what quality of games they develop Not saying modding is bad tho, I love it

[@piemaniac9410]

Ryan Eichler they are great roleplay enabling worlds, but the game part is ok at beat

[@gangstasteve5753]

@@liansmith4038 he isnt talking about bugs is the thing. this is about features.

[@liansmith4038]

Gangsta Steve My point still stands though: developers could still purposely leave out important features because they believe that the modding community will add it in for them, confident in the power of their own brand.

[@BuzzaB77]

no more appropriate quote than "I've read all my 1 star reviews on amazon, and now I'm a better author - said no-one ever" - Seth Godin.

[@GraveUypo]

one and five star reviews are completely useless as feedback. i disregard them. generally 3 and 4 star reviews have the most pertinent information. they are generally from good-willed people that are having real issues with something and only want to see the product improved, rather than slam on it.

[@Nyx_2142]

@@GraveUypo Nothing is ever that black and white but whatever helps you sleep at night.

[@PatPatych]

@@GraveUypo Fragile, handle with care.

[@jean-johngonzalevitch1053]

I Don't give 1 star reviews on Amazon to help the author improve; I give them to warn readers that, in my opinion, they don't need to waste their time with this content, so they can give it to authors who actually deserve it. There are enough good authors out there so we don't need to help bad one improve.

[@jimtheburger393]

My least favorite thing about player feedback is when people take every opportunity to give feedback. It happens a lot with the Apex Community where people talk about gameplay changes when what is being discussed isn't gameplay. A bad example is when a developer is congratulating fan art, but then someone takes the opportunity to talk to the developer about gameplay. A lot of people go into making a game, but not everyone is involved in gameplay. In the last example, the developer was a narrative lead and had no expertise or context in gameplay.

[@gregjones4035]

Indeed but I've always thought of that as a problem in a way. Like your team is interconnected so it can it effortlessly work together VS. having it compartmentalized and no one knowing the problems of each department.

[@Duiker36]

@@gregjones4035 If you want the narrative lead to do the work of the engineering manager, then make sure you pay him both salaries.

[@nahometesfay1112]

@@gregjones4035 I agree that there should be communication and understanding between all departments of basically any company. That isn't the same as everyone knowing enough about everything to represent the company on all matters. Someone who is working on the art should know what the game play is like and what the goal was for the game play, but it's unreasonable to expect them to discuss the details of the game mechanics.

[@jimtheburger393]

@@gregjones4035 Yeah, the teams should communicate with each other. It's just that a narrative lead won't know how complex systems like SBMM or legend updates are. They don't develop those parts of the game so it wouldn't make sense for them to speak on their behalf. If you want a quick example, the gameplay team comes up with a legend kit and the narrative team comes up with how that kit can make a legend. Or vice versa where the narrative team makes a new legend and the gameplay team makes a kit around that baseline. The narrative team doesn't know exactly how the abilities work, nor does the gameplay team know every aspect of the story.

[@michalpavlat3943]

Most the players know very well all the suitable points of contact available for the feedback. Yet there will be always some number of dumb / ill people misusing the incorrect opportunity or incorrect person. The other side is that so many companies ignore these points of contact, make them extremely difficult to use or censor all the forums / groups / channels etc. heavilly whenever possible (and ignore 3rd party places where censorship isn't possible), send out people not involved in critical actions to the live chats or streams by purpose,.. Then they can't be surprised with players mistargeting their feedback.

[@Rexotec]

It's interesting, when I played through Doom Eternal the game itself was incredibly yet subtley different to Doom 2016. It was far more tactical, it promoted far more spatial awareness, for more planning on how you are going to tackle large hordes of enemies, multiple pieces of equipment to juggle all at once, and the learning curve from the 'smash 'em up' that was Doom was steep for me at least. I'd seen a lot of the fearmongering and discourse over the Marauder before playing the game and I think it primed me for a bad experience, but honestly the boss fight you encounter him in feels just as intense and rewarding as the rest of the game. The Marauder felt like the logical end point the game was trying to make. It wasn't blast the enemy how you please, it wanted you to think tactically and constantly re-evaluate and define your environment and the encounter priorities.

[@crimsondespair_9505]

And yet I don't think it fits with Doom. Doom 2016 returned the franchise to its roots with a few tweaks to the formula to make it more accessible and modern so it stands to reason that its seuqel would do something similar. What I think happened was people who bought Doom 2016 jumped into Doom Eternal, thinking it was the same thing, and then complained when it wasn't because they thought the game was porrly designed instead of the game heading in a different direction.

[@Rexotec]

@@crimsondespair_9505 I agree that there is an element of miscommunication on how different the experience and learning curve would be but I don't think that's a fault of the game as a whole. I think the designers wanted a sequel that wasn't just a straight carbon copy of 2016 because, you know, story isn't really the focus of Doom, it's the gameplay, and I can't fault them for wanting to create a different experience. Like Tom Scott says, though, can't have too much change, but you can't have not enough either. Doom Eternal maybe probably changed too much too quickly but I tend to forgive it bc I err on the side of change, but that's just my preference of course.

[@crimsondespair_9505]

@@Rexotec Of course. That's what I mean. Doom Eternal changed a lot and people weren't expecting it. The people that did loved it and probably didn't use social media to talk about it. The people that didn't made sure that their concerns were heard and vocalised to the developers, which is the topic of this video.

[@Ram-lr6ud]

"...and pretty much every Ubisoft game"

[@xchronox0]

One thing I'd like to chime in on is that sometimes the player just isn't the target audience. There are few out there that can admit "This is a good game but it's not my type of game". Instead, they will pose complaints about the type of game as if they were criticizing the game itself.

[@onekone_]

Eternal wasn't for me despite deeply enjoying Doom 1, 2, 2016 and at best okay with 3? Can a game itself miss its target audience?

[@RikuoTanaka]

@@onekone_ I think at that point you have to ask yourself whether you're in the minority or not, and why you don't enjoy the game as much. As far as I can tell, a lot of people are enjoying Doom Eternal, and they are also the target audience. Haven't played it myself though.

[@La0bouchere]

This, especially with sequels and remakes that do something different than other entries in the series.

[@msdrakegx]

This! You are so right, it's not even funny. I think the first thing Devs should ask someone who is complaining is what types of games they generally like and dislike. If the person doesn't even like the type of game you're making all of their advice will be detrimental.

[@jayem187]

In short: As a developer and game designer, stay away from Reddit and Steam forums.

[@gaminwithgc]

I find there's a fine line between listening to the user and making those changes, and determining the real problem and right solution. As a UI/UX designer of software, usability testing is huge part of creating software, and the feedback we receive sometimes means something more than what they are saying just like you mentioned half-way through your video. Taking the data you've received from usability testing is key to developing great software, and games for that matter, so I'm surprised that more companies don't release alphas, or early demos, to get that data earlier than later and make those corrections.

[@DragoonSlime]

It's interesting to hear a more "compatibilist" take on the issue. I've always given game makers a lot of credit for their own vision and figure that if they've put enough care and time into a game, then every aspect of a game has a justified reason for being there. Therefore, if I don't like something, I chalk it up to a difference in vision between designer and player, and since the designer's vision is the most all-encompassing one regarding a game's existence and reality, I figure that I'm just missing something from the bigger picture. On a larger scale, these differences between designer and player are what guide players to their preferred genres of games in the first place. For example, I remember disliking Halo 3 when I was younger, but I knew that a large part of what I wanted the game to be could be found in other types of games. I think many of these mechanic-driven issues come down to a player not quite grasping the ideal form of what the designer is looking to do. I've always considered this to be on the player, but clearly there is room for a conversation between the two sides. I've never really seen it that way before. Cool stuff.

[@BrainSlugs83]

I really appreciate that you actually put in the time to do the research and field interviews for this topic. (And that it was real and open minded research; and not just looking for data to backup a pre-existing opinion). Thank you for this and for being awesome. :)

[@sarap9431]

This is also why as players we need to be mindful of how we express what we want out of the game and HOW specific features interfer with that. There's a big difference between not liking one specific aspect and not liking a key basis for the game. I really respect developers who listen to suggestions for minor changes but stay firm on the aspects they consider mandatory to the game's main function.

[@ru895]

I love how much pokemon sword and shield gameplay there is without mention of it. We know , we know.

[@Funkopedia]

Yup, that's some great video scripting there.

[@deetsitmeisterjd]

I would have honestly thought Animal Crossing would have gotten some attention in this. It's such a terrible offender.

[@Shnarfbird]

Didn't like the part where he implied entitlement

[@Redxan600]

@@Shnarfbird Well, he isn't wrong, though.

[@motherlove8366]

What happened to sword and shield?

[@guybrush20X6]

One thing I noticed is that balance changes without explanation lead to a lot of turmoil, especially when they seem go against the grain of fan consensus (nerfing a weapon considered underpowered, buffing a character considered OP, removing a glitch that people had harmless fun with). There's a balance to be struck as if you go with the demands, you end up with a bland mess but if you stick too close to your guns, it can lead to the problem that George Lucas has, namely he has great ideas but other people need to add their input, or we get a different kind of mess. In fact each Trilogy of Star Wars shows the different levels of personal vision vs feedback when you think of it

[@MrSiloterio]

one of the best game design videos out there. I love how both sides of the argument are presented and how the issue is tackled with nuanced takes based on real sources.

[@nothing4mepls973]

Personally, I'm tired of the importance of feedback being downplayed. It's so refreshing to see it taken into consideration, even if it's not acted upon.

[@JonathanMandrake]

The feedback you should always show you listen to and either change or explain why you won't change it is bugs that hurt the game. For example, in The Binding of Isaac: Repentance, a bug was found where, if you play a certain character (Tainted Forgotten to be exact) and pick up an item that lets you respawn after dying, but as a different character (so not 1-Up, but things like Judas Shadow) and die (thus triggering the respawn) you will immediately die after respawning. If such a bug doesn't get fixed, it will hurt the experience your players will have, no matter how good the game is. And even if you don't patch it, players need to know why you decided that. No matter what game you make, the player deserves a game without bugs that make the experience worse

[@gumbarius]

Another consideration to player's feedback is allowing players to mod the game In this way they can add or remove things as they like and then the developers can see if said changes affect the game positively or not A great example of this idea is The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth, where quite a lot of modded content already got into the official game

[@motherlove8366]

Minecraft has made a lot of efforts in recent times to make the game easier to mod, even encouraging it.

[@satibel]

@@motherlove8366 to be fair, minecraft is where it is because of modding.

[@Nickulator]

Just like with Bethesda titles: "They may give their games life, but the mods keep the game alive". Mods is a great addition to almost any game, because the players themselves can tweak the stuff they don't like or add new stuff without hurting the core experience.

[@heathlouis4529]

Just to respond to what you said with an example: I personally already loved Darkest Dungeon, but I downloaded a few minor mods and even edited some stuff in the files myself and enjoy the game a lot more now :) to add to that - I liked the overall changes in some mods, but some of the other changes within them I didn't like, so I modded the mod to get even more enjoyment out of them

[@karoljabonski6772]

Toxic player feedback makes me extremely sad, like come on, Death Threats, really? Job of a video game developer seems hard enough

[@kindredspirit9544]

@@franziv4593 No one should ever receive death threats for what they do. Gaming is primarily a hobby, meant to be enjoyed by everyone, not everyone is or ever will be a "serious gamer".

[@kumatorahaltmanndreemurr]

@@franziv4593 people like you give gamers a bad reputation

[@abdullahahmad4239]

Death threats are indeed bad but they are almost always over blown.

[@russelljackson2818]

@@franziv4593 how many death threats do you get daily at your job?

[@Spartan-sz7km]

@@russelljackson2818 I'm going to play devils advocate In no way am I supporting death threats, they are the most immature and kneejerk reaction of cowards that only care about what they want. But death threats are a thing on the internet, and if you're a studio head/community manager or in charge of a certain aspect of a game or the face of a studio, inevitably a game developer might get a death threat due to the anonymity of the internet. So what I think Franz point is, albeit coming off as some what assholish, is that game developers have to be mentally prepared for death threats and not be fazed/affected by it too much.

[@lithiumwyvern_]

9:48 Exactly this is what's up with the Marauder. The game tells the player to look for a sweet spot, but also (rightfully) encourages constant motion throughout, and the result is that if a player tries to stay in mid-range, it's too easy to get into shotgun range and too hard to dodge an axe projectile. Nothing in Doom Eternal tells you that it's good to keep a distance - and you really should, because his axe beams can be dodged, and if the Slayer dodges them long enough, the Marauder ends up running towards the player and meleeing him.

[@manspaghetti6351]

I think the bad reputation that the marauder has could've been avoided if they had written a better tutorial. Once you figure how to fight him effectively, he becomes one of the best enemies in the game.

[@Coffee_paradox]

Game developers have to know what sort of experience they are aiming to create. Then ask themselves: is the part of the game that players are complaining essential/contribute to that experience. Finally, can the part be altered to create said experience without causing major frustration? And if theres nothing that you can do, maybe those players that complained are just not your target audience.

[@zeltzamer4010]

KJ L Hit the nail right on the head.

[@derrinerrow4369]

I remember a few years ago falling in love with a Game called Spacelords. It's a free to play co-op shooter/brawler hybrid where a team of 4 work together to complete various missions (with the possibility of a 5th player invading the game backing up the AI troops in an attempt to thwart the other players. The game had some very unusual mechanics, but somehow they work very well off of each other and provided a really unique experience. However, the community is really small (the game launched with very little fanfare, and there was little advertising. Maybe some of you got a youtube ad for it) which means that the vocal minority, who complained about mechanics that were perfectly fine by most people instead of learning them, had little opposition. Which has made MercurySteam (yes the guys who made the Castlevaia LoS games) make various changes to gameplay that seriously messed with the game's flow and even ruined the Antagonist mode (the 5th person invading) nowadays it feels like a very different game. I would like to go more in depth with the changes that made me quit playing the game, but I feel like no one would listen and I'll just be talking into the void. so if anyone is interested in me going into details about what changed, let me know.

[@sarpyagzsonsaat2293]

I am interested in what happened,could you tell me please?

[@danieldosso2455]

Most KZbin videos I watch I tend to view on 1.5x speed to simply consume the knowledge or entertainment they wish to share. Your channel for me is different. Your voice is calming and feels like you're genuinely knowledgeable about the topics you share. Your videos, to me, feel like you present deeper thought-pieces behind how a number of my favourite past-time entertainment is created, intended to be consumed and such. I tend to watch you videos on normal speed so I can have time to digest and ponder why a game mechanic is the way it is before you have fully addressed the topic. Thank you for your insight, and I hope your KZbin Channel continues to be successful, sharing news, revisiting old ideas and game mechanics and witty monologue.

[@GeorgeCowsert]

A lot of good examples of feedback done horribly can be found in shows as well. Take the currently popular "My Hero Academia" as an example. Bakugou Katsuki, the main rival to the main character, Midoriya Izuku, was intended to be hated by the creator. In prototyping he was meant to be the equivalent of that one asshole that's also your most reliable friend, but found that his lines tended to be more douchey than anything and made him into a side antagonist, even going as far as to tell Midoriya to jump off a building in episode 1 just because Midoriya didn't have a superpower. However, a little into the series a few popularity polls were made and Bakugou's popularity was way higher than expected, so the entire plotline revolving around his past treatment of Midoriya was dropped. In the manga, a good 60% of his lines towards Midoriya can be boiled down to "even though you have the most OP superpowers, you're still beneath me and I'll still be number 1!" He's never apologized, he's never been through a redemption arc, and if he does the fans will riot. I personally think that, artistically, it's a bad idea to conform to the fans like that. Everyone knew that Bakugou was a trainwreck waiting to happen, but all the teen girls that just saw "A hot bad boy" skewed the popularity polls enough to influence the show when the in-universe characters have said his personality is "the equivalent of flaming crap mixed with garbage"

[@SwitchbackCh]

A lot of us I think are invested in Bakugou because we want to see him change and respect Midoriya, slowly but surely. He represented a very personal but high obstacle for Deku to pass, and I personally like him not for his personality, but because he's quite a fresh take on the "asshole rival" common in shonen. It's quite a balancing act though, because he shouldn't stay an asshole forever, but can't be nice too quickly or else his redemption won't feel earned.

[@MarcelArtsCW]

"The idea of a game designer [...] not caring what players think is a myth" THANK you for that! I'm getting so tired of reading about evil corporations, that only want to steal money from us players. People are so quick to demonize sometimes. But game developers do that job, because they love games. Sure there are some black sheep, but I refuse to believe, they are in the majority or even as common as some might claim

[@jowysw]

Well... Unless they are GameFreak am I right? /s

[@807D14M0ND5]

I've come across people who seem to think that the main goal of the entire single player part of a huge game like Red Dead Redemption 2 is to hook players for the online part of the game. What about all the loving details they put into that world, I ask. "Well, they have to hook you somehow."

[@Serlock4869]

Devs: procees to develop escort npc that walk slower than you run, but faster than you walk

[@mrpedrobraga]

I come to this problem often when I'm playtesting my games. Especially because I tend to do this with friends or older people. It's important to see how other people experience and feel while feeling your game, but it's also important to remember that *you* are the game designer. The intricacies of game design aren't something the players will necessarily understand just because they are playing a game. Also also, "the player shouldn't feel like they're entitled to design your game." Nice :D

[@colehartel7206]

It is of course important to distinguish between those suggestions that would simply make the game better to play, and those that would make it another game altogether.

[@CFHM_HarrisonD]

I never thought I'd see myself in a GMTK video, but I found myself and my team in the PAX East shop around 2:15

[@deoxxys]

Hey Xcom fixed the timer based missions in Xcom2, its called stealth. The timer doesnt count down until you have a unit revealed, so you can take as many turns as you like to setup the most elaborate ambushes and its great fun.

[@mooerr]

Hey Mark Brown! Your videos are the highlight of KZbin for me. They are so well written with a great flow of information. The editing is on point and it is clear how much effort and dedication goes into these. It's inspiring. Thank you for being yourself and doing what you do!

[@GMTK]

thanks Kai, I put a lot of effort into getting the flow right :)

[@davidw2417]

The last part about gamer outrage is why I never label myself as a "gamer" - just someone who plays video games. The gamer subculture and community is shockingly toxic, filled with manbabies and whiners who will go to extreme lengths to express their displeasure - often harassing the developers themselves. It seems extremely petty and immature.

[@willbailey413]

This video has some good points about how to respond to criticism and feedback in any medium, not just video games.

[@Vvonter]

Like he said, is more about feelings than logical arguments in many cases.

[@crispyrice]

Every new GMTK video covers more complex, more fascinating, more intelligent discussions than the last. Thank you

[@GMTK]

cheers!

[@m.c.c8539]

Great video, it reminds me, this afternoon I saw an article about the upcoming A.C Valhalla and its map not being as big as let's say A.C Odyssey, people talked about it and there were people raging at the decision without even thinking for one second about all the advantages a smaller open world could bring in terms of narration. If developers are required to answer gamers with a structured and detailed response, the least we could do is doing the same by trying to understand and being open as to why they did it in the first place.

[@JeremyComans]

Someone on a Destructoid article said they had seen a rumour that the map was twice the size of Odyssey, and every reply was along the lines of, 'If it's bigger than Odyssey I'm not playing it'. Certainly no one in that community seemed to be part of the bigger is always better crowd.

[@petereng7497]

My main concern with Valhalla is the feature list reading more like Fallout 4 than Assassin's Creed.

[@randirafaeli]

As long as the feedback is reasonable and insightful even if it's positive or negative feedback is essential.

[@Redxan600]

Even if you critisize something, you should always be respectful. "I didn't like this, so I'm hoping if you can improve on it." That's a respectable criticism. "This game is garbage! Why hasn't the game developers get their head outta their @$$ and actually make a good game!" That's a disrespectful criticism. Heck, that's not even constructive criticism.

[@PyroMancer2k]

On some of the games mentioned: X-COM 2 is an example of sometimes it's not just the players but also the devs who don't understand what the change will due to their game. The reason people were so careful in X-COM remake was because of the other design choices made. Limited Squad size and RPG leveling mechanics made it so the loss of a squad member late game could make the game near unwinnable. Thus one bad move could cost you the entire campaign. So it's better not to risk your campaign in a single battle by charging in. The original X-COM had tons of disposable soldiers who's strength came from their gear, not a leveling system. Thus it was easy to play aggressively if you wanted. The Doom flash light was a STUPID mechanic because it breaks one of the most important things in gaming, suspension of disbelief. As so many memes pointed out it's easy to attach a flash light to a weapon or to simply hold them at the same time as is done in movies/tv shows all the time. If they wanted the break from genre horror theme instead of action then they should have figured out some other way raise tension. The not being able to see where you are shooting because you can't have light and gun at the same time is annoying. Instead most of the area should have been dark, they put lots of dark spots of enemies to hide it which kinda highlights where they will come from. Instead do a tight focused light with mostly dark rooms, light mostly be emergancy systems or ambient light from monitors and other displays. Play games with shadows like in one game there was a shadow casing object behind the player so at some times they would see the shadow of a monster on the wall but turn around to find nothing there because it was always behind them. I could go on with more ideas but they relied too heavily on the dumb mechanic to try and make horror feel.

[@meditalisoo7]

At first I hated the marauder, then I beat him for the first two times, found a great strategy and from then on out it became actually my favorite enemy. I played on PC on Ultra Violence difficulty. Doom Eternal has a bit of a learning curve but once you have your brain rewired to think like the game wamts you to it becomes a great experience.

[@skam365]

Redfield-9 I never hated the marauder, I just didn’t find him fun and find him annoying. I learned his pattern pretty quick and he becomes easy after that, but for some reason he never becomes less annoying. The very first fight was good, every appearance after that just makes me go “ugh” .

[@ge789]

skam 365 I’ve noticed a trend where some people I know don’t like it when the same characters/enemies appear multiple times throughout some games. Why do you think that is? I believe it’s due to the fact that you remember the strategy of that enemy from the last time you fought it, so it becomes easier if they aren’t scaled up to your level or throw in something new to throw that strategy almost out the door.

[@meditalisoo7]

@@skam365 I really liked the special challenge where you have to beat him in a certain time because it makes you improve your strategy but isn't necessary to beat the game.

[@restlessfrager]

You mean... Ultra Violence?

[@littleman6950]

@@ge789I find when people hate a particular enemy, it's because they feel pretty pidgeon-holed into one viable strategy that works when everywhere else in the game they're free to approach the problem however they want. With the Marauder, you're basically forced to wait for/goad out an opportunity to hurt him, so it feels less like the player is in control of the situation and more like the marauder is. Players don't seem to mind if they lose control of a situation because they made bad decisions, but they mind terribly when the developer wrests control away from them. If Doom was start to finish souls-like/marauder game play, people would probably appreciate him more. There's probably a market for an FPS with that kind of game play, if I'm being honest, but dropping the Marauder into Doom Eternal as it was presented just isn't a great fit for it's particular flavor of power fantasy. It worked as a boss, where difficulty spikes are more easily forgiven, not as an infrequent sub-boss super heavy demon like the Doom Hunter.

[@CorruptPianist]

Aight, I'm gonna make my case for the marauder. Every single enemy in this game plays a very specific role. These roles can be split up into categories. You've got your pawns, your soldiers, your brutes, and what I like to call commanders. These commanders are a constant presence in the battle. They are generally the last ones to go down, simply because they require so much focus that trying to prioritize them will only give the other demons an opening to kill you. They act as sort of modifier, forcing you to approach the arena in a different way. These are the Titan and the Marauder. The Titan is slow moving, but his attacks have a long range and can be devastating as long as you're in his line of sight. He forces you to stay on the move. He's also a MASSIVE target with no particular weaknesses, so you're encouraged to take pot shots at him with whatever you happen to have equipped whenever you see him. He doesn't complicate the battle by forcing you to learn a new tactic, but he provides constant pressure and can be a constant drain on your resources. The marauder plays a similar role. Think about how he reacts to the player, what kind of actions he punishes. If you take a distracted pot shot at him, you'll hit his shield and he'll spawn a dog that will chase you down as you try to run around the arena. If you give him the focus he requires before the battle is over, the other demons will have an opening to ravage you. But if you run away and ignore him entirely, his attacks are pretty easy to dodge. He provides pressure, but as long as you accept his presence, that pressure can be managed. The marauder's design is basically telling you, "For this arena, you're gonna run like hell the whole time. If you try to make it easier for yourself, you will die. Then at the end, you'll have a miniboss." People who complain about him usually keep making the same mistakes without learning from them. A lot of people who complain about the spectral dog don't even realize what's triggering it.

[@englandderogatory9224]

Still a shitty fight in a disappointing game.

[@Trombi01]

@@englandderogatory9224 Would you like expand on that statement?

[@muqali4203]

Being a game dev and a doctor have a similarity. Trust people when they say something is wrong, don't trust what they say the solution is.

[@goawaygosh]

“And worst of all, it might come as an entitled, angry volley of destructive vitriol” *shows Pokemon Sword and Shield footage* Oh that’s bound to ruffle some feathers.

[@pash_4904]

I initially bought into the hype that the Nat Dex was important, then I decided to play every Pokémon game to see if it truly impacted the experience. Long story short, It didn’t.

[@goawaygosh]

UncleSam _ Honestly, I don’t even remember what the Nat dex issue is or what everyone was complaining about. I did play Pokemon sword and ended up quitting before the dragon gym because I was getting really bored. It ended up being more fun to fantasise about what a Pokemon game could be than to actually play the most recent game, for me anyway.

[@jowysw]

Because, as we all know GameFreak is great at communication. Seriously, the PR of that game was horrible.

[@jowysw]

@@goawaygosh the game is just a meh rushed Pokemon game. Not much more. Don't say it outloud tho. You might be accuse of being a hater.