Honestly though, the way Fatshark has been going about dealing with their player community is a feeding ground for cynicism. They’ve cultivated it.
It seems that leaving a negative review is the only way to actually get their attention.
Jesus… A mod closed your previous topic, and this will be closed too. Also you straight up lied there and said that you do not want the game review bombed…
Because perception is reality for consumers. And a lot of steam players read reviews. This is why they push to console, because players cannot be heard as easily as PC.
Well, if that were the case, the helldivers 2 review bomb campaign would never succeed. Mind you, it was much bigger than whathever Darktide’s playerbase could ever achieve and yet Steam didn’t (or couldn’t) delete well enough of these reviews. Who knows, maybe they haven’t even deleted much if any?
In other words, we won’t know until we won’t try.
Opinions change overtime. It’s as simple as that.
Correct, but then again, we won’t know what will really happen until we won’t try it for real.
definitely this. i said several times how i prefer a game with fewer, but more dangerous enemies over one with a mass of enemies stuck in each other because they’re easy to kill.
the former is clear, simple and has memorable fights. the latter is cluttered, confusing, and nothing but the sheer mass stands out.
one single person is mentioned as designer of no man’s land.
What’s that?
Haven’t read through the whole thread so it’s possible I’ll just be repeating someone else’s points.
Review bombing is fundamentally an organised protest of sorts, which in itself would be fine. What’s not fine is that it’s abusive of a system created for a different purpose and it’s coercive in nature. Review bombing is about as legitimate a method to voice displeasure as issuing unfounded copyright claims to force the takedown or demonetisation of a YouTube video is. As in not legitimate at all. The purpose of a review is to leave feedback on what you’ve played. In the example of the Chinese review bombing to stop nerfs to Plasma Gun and Duelling Sword, it’s a reaction to something that hasn’t even happened yet. Instead of letting the devs do their thing and seeing how it pans out, some crybabies stopped the thing that could have opened the door to exactly what many people want. Reducing the clowncar effect. If the devs had free hand to nerf Plasma Gun and Duelling Sword and Inferno Staff and Rumbler and whatever else, we wouldn’t be in the current situation. In another case, as in the past butthurt review bombing as a response to the nerf of a single weapon (Power Sword), review bombing is again not a legitimate reaction, and it’s not just cause it is in no way commensurate to the “offense” (nerfing one weapon doesn’t make the game 0/10 garbage). Above all those people are just abusing a system to get their way. The purpose of a review is to inform future buyers whether a product is worth their money. Its purpose is not to force the creator to cave to your demands. That is not up for debate.
Since time immemorial, products have been put on the market, and people either bought it if there was demand, or they didn’t. If you’ve paid 60 bucks for a game and got 500 hours of fun out of it, and grew bored of it or don’t like the way it’s headed, you are not in any way entitled to anything else. If you went to watch movies for 500 hours, you’d be out way more than 60 bucks. You got more than your money’s worth with Darktide. You can voice your displeasure on forums or you can leave a bad review of your own. You don’t get take your displeasure and mobilise a base of likeminded people to leave bad reviews on your behalf. If someone is going to leave a bad review, they MUST do it of their own free will, otherwise that review is not legitimate. It’s an abuse of a system, weaponised to threaten the devs’ livelihoods by endangering future sales. Plain and simple.
The developers are an artist working their craft. Let them work their craft, let them do the job they’re paid and trained to do (which the playerbase isn’t) and see what magic they can make. Don’t twist their arms to do things your way. If you don’t like what they’re doing, that’s what the forums are for. Review bombing is the tactic of a raging cretin. Don’t stoop there. I have plenty of opinions on game design. I leave suggestions, I don’t make demands or threaten the creator to get my way. It’s sad if that needs explaining.
My 2 cents would be that these 2 quotes conflict with each other and therein is the problem:
Even if it works, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to achieve the things you or we want specifically, it may even actively make the game worse
Shorthand for whatever the (hypothetical as of now) Chaos Wastes equivalent will be in DT.
We already know what happened, the game got review bombed for the DS and it wasnt nerfed. So Leopards ate our faces. Yay.
They are the person who did the main layout, maybe also placement of some assets:
I assume after this process a few others come in and do other things like pathing for players and enemies, spawns, cover and invisible walls etc, there will be lighting, sound, bug testing and probably other stuff that I cant think of.
So, taking that to an extreme, is assassination.
Arguing from principle can be dangerous. But how “extreme” is review bombing?
I’d argue that review bombing is a group publically smearing a product … or we could say, threatening someone’s livelihood … to get their own way.
Authentic, “organic” bad reviews are genuine expressions of customer dissatisfaction - even so, a changed-to-negative review is often more akin to a temper tantrum than anything else.
Like most things, this exists on a spectrum: The more organized and focused a review bombing, the less it is genuine customer dissatisfaction, and the more it is a particularly immature poison pen campaign from a bunch of chronically-online trolls.
In case you’re wondering, a petition, a letter writing campaign, complaining in the forums (my personal favorite, if pretty futile), or something like the Book of Grudges are appropriate methods of persuasion. And persuasion is the goal, right?
Threats and/or abuse are indeed popular methods of persuasion, but from the powerful they are tyranny, and from the weak they are pathetic.
Speaking of the Book of Grudges:
If more developers listened to community feedback that wasn’t review bombing,
“Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.”
I know that it creates a disingenuous image of the game, but that’s actually the entire point. As I described to other people before, I see review bombing as a kind of “hostage” situation. That either the devs will shift their attention to unaddressed issues in the game, or they have to see the game’s opinion drop on Steam.
The thing is that the devs do as the higher-ups instruct them to do so. And currently it is clear that the higher-ups want more money from the DLC classes and that is what they will make the devs focus on. The review bombing is more so directed at the higher-ups so they notice the drop in game’s reviews, have people investigate, find out the negative reviews talk about bad balance and instruct the devs to focus on that first before making new DLC classes.
You didn’t read my wntire post so you don’t know I already explained why that isn’t a good argument.
But the thing is, this wasn’t an organized action that intended to force FatShark to fix the balance. It was people stopping FS from doing so. Your argument was: “What if you try to have people review bomb DT to make FS fix the balance but people review bomb and do not talk about balance in their reviews” but as an example you show a situation where people review bomb the game for one, clear reason which is: “FS wants to nerf DS and PG so let’s stop them from doing it”.
It just a bit confusing. Why did you used this situation as an argument to a completely contradictory point you were making?
But then you push the mentality of: “Let’s not do anything new. Let’s do the same thing which is either try to appeal to FS in the forums, which they ignore almost every time, or stay silent and put our trust in FS’s hands that they will actually acknowledge things like bad balance or broken promises”. You may believe they will.
But I don’t.
I think the latest change helps with that (setting the change in talent point by talent point) but I’m still having issues there and it doesn’t apply to cosmetics yet
As I said before:
You acknowledge that complaining on the Forums is “pretty futile”. This just cements my point that review bombing is the only thing that will make FS listen.
It may be pathetic, but as long as it gets the job done, I am content with that. It’s a bit like doing a revolution in a country that was neglected by it’s government for way too long. You may call it pathetic, but for the people who want those changes, it doesn’t matter at all. As long as there will be a change, they are ready to do it.
And that also just cements my point. FS did this to themselves through years of neglect and refusing to communicate. Now, the only way the community can make a point is to hurt them through things like boycotting or review bombing.
I get it. FS has wronged you, you’ll do what’s necessary to hurt them. I’m glad you admit it, and that you’re not - yet, at least - contemplating doing worse. There is indeed a difference between the unethical and the criminal. Legally, at least.
I’m curious: Do you think FS is tyring to hurt you? Via, say, the FOMO store?
I think there’s something to be said for the idea that capitalism tends toward oppositional relationships, but also that “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Unless this is war? Is it war?
I’d just as soon move on to other games than start fighting a developer who’s disappointed me. I think I have the maturity to accept that my personal preferences aren’t of over-riding importance, and I have better things to do with my time. Telling strangers they’re wrong, for example.