More dialogue with YOUR PLAYERBASE !!!

[robertthebard.8150]

12 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

All of them.

 

I never said Anet should do all the things all customers ask for. I said Anet should understand their customers better. What they like about the product, about the vison of the product in the first place. How they think the company stays true to that vision, or not. To use this knowledge to make a good product and to continue to develop a product that (a lot of) customers are willing to spend money on.
 

Sure, why not. And some customers will be unhappy and maybe will be lost. But if Anet would explain and reason, why they do thing different, or why they could not do some things, more  players/customers could understand that and would stay and buy the next update instead of leaving. Also, explaining why changes fit to Anets vision for the game creates trust. And: trust helps that more customers give a company another chance (e.g. in the event of mistakes).

When Anet did the balance previews the general reaction was that as such communication it was good. Sure, there was a lot of criticism (mostly very factual and justified) about the actual balance changes. If Anet had collected this criticism and then explained why it still fits the vision (or admits where something doesn't fit or mistakes were made), or explained how the vision has changed, it would not automatically have made all players happy. But the reactions would have been less angry and in the end more players would have been understanding than now and more confident that Anet is doing 'the right thing' and knowing about it.
 

When Anet stopped working on WvW-Alliances years ago, they could have told players. Sure, players would not have been happy and communication cannot turn bad decisions into good ones.  But Anet's years of deliberately leaving players in the dark has destroyed the trust of many WvW players, and when Anet spoke not too long ago about WvW being a "cornerstone" of the game, players gave it more sarcasm than approval . It takes a lot more effort to rebuild a broken trust than it does to maintain an existing trust. In the end, Anet and the game mode WvW was harmed by it.

Customer loyalty is one of many factors that affect sales.

Not being open and honest when a company change things because they're trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of players (who wouldn't have spent any more money otherwise) would not be pragmatic, it would be dishonest.

 

Sadly, ANet can get a good reading of the community's reactions w/out posting a thing.  All they have to do is read the forums.  They all don't even have to do it, a couple of people here and there will give them all the background they need about how things are being received.  You see, everyone that posts an idea about how the game should work believes that that idea is the best thing since sliced bread, even when it's objectively the worst idea ever.  But if it's not implemented, or acknowledged as such by a dev, they'll be raving about how the devs never listen.  Then, no matter how much communication we're getting, it's going to be "We're not getting any communication" again.

We've got people here that are upset that they don't get a detailed breakdown of what happens when they submit a bot report, for example.  Why would they get that?

[Nash.2681]

On 7/21/2023 at 10:27 PM, Null Hypothesis.5374 said:

You're aware that I was specifically commenting on Obtena's post on the the disposition of some to take things not being done their way personally, and to devolve into doomsaying, do you?

Yepp. And you both missed the point this thread is about.