Reading forum you can pick out main things here and there. Wish FatShark would just collect together main points and communicate on them. There should be system in place for that.
I mean here is a nice example from another PvE Coop game. It would cut down forum noise and repetition. They just need someone to filter it and set priorities.
Below I wrote will probably be in vain and not noticed. But one could only hope.
Show visibility of acknowledgement, progress to live, communication
Progress board to capture main points in terms of QOL/Requests and bugs from start to live patch implementation. Visibility of progress, acknowledgement and it communicates at same time, so forum is not repetitive.
Someone to collect main points on forum and prioritise in terms of QOL/Requests should come first. Bug fixes should be a parallel task of priority, not sequential. Filter through the forum noise so to speak.
Content Creators
Work with content creators to find out what can be done for them to produce more regular content to promote. They praise for the effort alone.
Content.
Can only re-use graphical assets, but budget wise can we produce more unique missions, more unique graphical assets per quarter.
What parts of mission mechanics do people love, i.e. alarm gauntlet, ammo extracting, assasination, any ideas we can take from other games and innovate with our own. Look at other PvE games.
Cosmetics.
People have to love the game first before spending money. Not other way round. Lets look at commercials.
An Ogryn bundle is 2400 aquilas and just over 9GBP, but would we sell more if it was reduced and therefore increased purchase count actually makes more money as total?
Can we sell individual gear pieces in a way so it’s fair in what you pay for and not force people to have leftover unused aquilas? i.e. Headgear costs 700 aquilas but min aquila purchase is 1000.
Console/Crossplay.
Measure potential gain vs cost of implementation. Console and Crossplay is better, risk vs reward in terms of adding time, work and cost towards it sooner.
Can we ensure console development alongside won’t impact PC or potential console would get abandoned as result leaving PC development still moving forward. i.e. Elite Dangerous.
Get good deal with Sony/Microsoft for their digital console store on pricing margin as you can’t price as full AAA game
Get some pre-release console to testers/creators and show cross play will work with different platforms.
Can we implement mouse and keyboard support like COD Warzone for console. The game has rapid movement involved.
Crafting.
Ability to easier swap out weapon perks/blessings leads to different combinations. Content mission wise is limited, so we need to open up ability for content creators to try new things and therefore be able to produce more videos for promoting and inspire different ways to play even if the gameplay loop is the same.
Division 2 PvE Coop game, 3 years later and people are STILL coming up with new builds, because they have 6 gear pieces and 2 weapon slots that effect stats, and you can change during mission to adapt and be situational.
People want to check each class own armory, melk without having to re log into each class. Is there more effective method we can implement natively to save time QOL wise?
If a person spends 5 mins, buying weapons, crafting, use up materials. At the moment few minutes doing that is equivalent of hours of mission time in order to earn those dockets/materials. Can this be re-tweaked in terms of cost or fair that’s the way it should be.
What is grind.
Doing something you do not like for extended period in order to enjoy the other aspect of the game you do enjoy. The journey should be enjoyable as the result. How can we make the progression “fun” in itself?
Missions.
I realise that by giving match making with it’s own conditions as option splits the match making pool. i.e. Search for T5 missions without dog spam means you’re not in same pool with someone who wants that condition, therefore increase match making wait time. But are there any alternatives?
i.e. Allow match making and choose to look for say T4 and T5 at same time as checkboxes. Bigger search pool instantly.
In mission lobby can we allow players to instantly switch class in order to balance the team?
Can we have a vote button at mission end for team to stay together or ones that do want to stay together to re-match make together because you’ve come across a great random team to stick together once more.
Can we add more reward somehow for people that follow objectives, reward for team actions such as reviving, healing, giving, rewarding for positive actions. More XP, materials etc.
What mods are people using on nexusmods? Order by downloads/endorsements. What can we natively have without need for people to use mods. Can we implement mods without impacting experience i.e. scoreboard only visible once party disbanded after mission end.
Resource/Progression sharing between classes.
Can we allow same docket/materials pool across classes?
Can XP progression count towards all classes, or best have to progress individually anyway so that people learn to play their class on lower difficulties first?
With all of the above it adds time, effort and cost. Up to Fatshark to decide cost vs potential revenue gain, but it is more costly not doing enough.
Sure many will not agree on any/some/all points. But just ideas to work with. Biggest problem is not just knowing the things that need to be done, but where to actually start.
But here is the start. Filter, collect forum main points, publicly display acknowledgement, communication to live patch. Show that you see it.
I see your point. I made 15 min effort to show how easy it is to collect together points, probably in vain or maybe they’ll take notice. Who knows. I really want the game to be succesful. Both negative and positive comments from forum members want the same thing otherwise they wouldn’t be here.
Ignorance won’t help FatShark should they decide to dismiss a whole forum as moaners. I would pick out main points and really look into if it was my own business or would be learning hard way.
You’re not going to get any of this. Fatshark doesn’t communicate - it declares.
There are more hostile companies - see Gaijin and how they just straight up delete criticism - but Fatshark is in a special place for its sheer refusal to consider any changes to the vision of management.
At the moment it follows same pattern. In my I.T MSP industry we have Customer Service Managers or Service Delivery Managers, Relationship Manager etc. In this case of games PR/Community managers who act as voice of the company to communicate towards players.
We call them punchbags.
Basically using them to take the hit but have their hands tied behind their back in what they can convey back from the community, like sugar coat response and vague expectations. Someone to blame on frontline when internally others can turn a blind eye and hope the problems goes away by being in denial.
Workers blame the leadership. Leadership blame the workers. Workers and Leadership blame the end customers for being too entitled, customers blame both of them. Vicious cycle. Only few times in my life I’ve come across individuals that are given power to inspire change. Hope they got someone like that who can.
Yup. They need to empower her internally. Like an all hands open office weekly meeting half hr tops, so she can reinforce main points from community for colleagues to listen and create the need of communication of expectations to players.
How do we convey what we are working on and show it visually?
Expectations - What and when? What is priority?
What is they want to hear and we can actually deliver?
Bad news is still news. “Crafting locks will remain” Boom no further forum spam about it. Done and dusted. One thing out of the way, next.
They have done that for the bugs section, which is great. Shows that they are aware of the bug and makes sure it isn’t flooded with different threads reporting on the same bug.
I didn’t read the individual bullet points, but I’m all for more communication and acknowledging/closing/etc. suggestions and works in progress. It could ofc also be done, as some have suggested, by using another kind of roadmap that doesn’t date things but sorts topics as work in progress/under investigation/etc.
I’m pretty sure this was already (and possibly repeatedly done) by Catfish / Catshark internally.
It’s just the team very deliberately probably decided they don’t want to change X or Y or it is low priority for them.
“Next week we will start thinking about talking about how we might consider these potential points as long as no nation wide holidays cause unforseen technical difficulties.”
People want conclusion. I mean if they just say “Nope, not going to happen” fair enough. But say something. For example if they said crafting locks will remain then people can just give up false hope it will ever unlock and proceed to just spend their dockets/materials normally. I’ve saved up in hope crafting will change as I don’t want to waste dockets/materials in vain only for crafting to be later given more freedom on perks or blessings.
Or as someone else said in another thread below get conclusion and quit forum
Yup. That’s the kind of thing politicians would say.
They lack passionate leader to make real change. They got something good here, but up against the clock to deliver before player count dwindles.
Considering FS “answers” when the game reviews hit the mostly negative thousands of voices screaming in pain, they could have improved many things, but they choose to not, they just don’t want to change.
I think it’s wrong to treat Fatshark as a single entity. As in every company, there are teams/factions/departments and a hierarchy. It is my opinion that most people at Fatshark do a great job, especially the artists.
But there seems to be one person high-up in the hierarchy responsible for the most controversial aspects of the game. As they say they are having discussions, but we haven’t perceived any dissidence, that person must be silencing everyone else. I bet no-one working at Fatshark would be willing to lose their job by sharing their opinion on this forum.
So, in order for something to change, that reign of terror must stop. And for that to happen, the culprit must be denounced.
They’ve relented on the extremity when it comes to parts of their vision. Like increasing missions on the board and increasing the randomly generated store weapons count… but as a whole… Hm.
They just need someone to take charge and ownership. Maybe the internal communication between teams is the problem.
Someone to stand up and say: - What are the budgets can I work with in terms of development and server overhead - Let me get real feedback and I myself decide what is priority. I will set agreed with deadlines of implementations. - What is your expected forecast that you want in sales realistically. I’ll reach out to content creators/forum/discord etc anyone to promote the game and work with them on how to make the game better. - What can’t be done, why or I will come up with alternative.
I love what I do, I want it to be the best, I want to better than the rest, I will think outside the box.
Now imagine a person with that kind of mentality can achieve!
If crafting locks break I’ll buy the game. But it doesn’t mean the spam will end. We will find a new topic to beat to death. There are SO many other issues(design choices) the game has. Push back will always exist unless FS decides to stop making anti-player decisions. Locks are just one of the simpler ones to tackle.
@Headhunter … sh!tting hell you’re somehow expecting this company to actually effectively manage their methods and communicate with their customers properly. You’ve got more chance of Ghengis Khan’s grave being discovered only to find he’d ammassed a love of romantic fanfic Twilight poetry and flowery blankets embroidered with Live, Laugh, Lube.
Their customers are infuriated. The feedback all over the place about the anti-consumer ethics infesting the game is undeniable. Unfortunately I think the countdown to stopping support has begun, and eventually in maybe 1 or 2 years it’ll go the same way as War of the Vikings and be shut down.
Good news is, the former owners and founders of FS have made a wedge of cash from their sale of their entire share to Tencent, and can walk away laughing.
Oh and err, on behalf of Fatshark to every customer who’s spent 30 quid on the game, F*ck you too.
The funny thing is that if they just kept hold of company. Grow it properly without selling for a quick short term gain, they could of made a hell of alot more. But I guess with 50 million USD investment from Tencent you would think they can create more than 2 maps with reused graphical assets.
Give it another month or two then I think I’ll be solid they have simply put the game on life support. If we already gave up, wouldn’t still be here raising the problems.
Tencent own majority stake. But it’s still in FatShark’s interest to grow to maintain value of their share, well should they decide to off load the whole lot for more.
