Why does the developer team make the choices that they make?

Sometimes I like to imagine people speaking like this to a dungeon master during a D&D session lol.

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Where else can the devs gauge how the playerbase feels about changes made to the game, if not the forums? Especially if they want feedback on those changes before they go live?

Ignoring the forums because “it’s not representative of the majority of players” is not the solution, because what other outlets for feedback do they have that are better? If you were a WoW dev, where would you look for feedback if not these forums?

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Hiring practices in the game industry has gone to crap. HR heads need to be rolled before you can see a real improvement. Getting rid of a dev team wont fix anything as long as Julie Farbaniec and like minded individuals are in charge of HR, imo.

They have their vision for the game and how it should play. Feedback is taken under consideration, but not the deciding factor on what things get done.

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Silence is the loudest positive feedback.

I say Black Mold is in the air conditioning vents and is hindering their ability to think.

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It’s important to recognize that not all sources of feedback are equal. Blizz has (in general) said they don’t read GD. So if people are expecting responses to threads here… they are expecting wrong. I suspect they focus on higher quality sources like their personal friends, the discords, and Reddit. All of which give them much better prioritized data than the forums do.

That lens will give them a view that may not correlate to how people actually feel. In particular, if they favor friends and discords they will get a very skewed vision that favors very specific viewpoints. To me many of the systems currently in use feel like “Well There, I did something” development versus deeply considered and thought out.

Just my two cents.

Maybe if Blizzard had the talents of a 13 year old dungeon master, these story complaints wouldnt exist. They would complain at Gygax over stupid rules (gameplay stuff) or simply eliminate it if the players hated it. I know I tossed rules I didnt like when I was DM. Fun comes first. Rules come second.

DMs may lock doors, but they dont force you to swim every 10 feet.

DMs also create wide open worlds where players can go anyway they want. Well the good ones do anyway.

WoW has not related to D&D in a LONG time

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If this was the case, they wouldn’t have such impopular decisions… :thinking:

I really think the only time they’ll really care to align themselves with some semblance of playerbase desires is when WoW gets to a clear decline.

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That is very much not true. A former CM said that Ion reads these forums and would send him threads that even he hadn’t seen.

Yes, but that wasn’t the point of the OP. I agree there have been major issues. I don’t agree with “…the majority of the player base is against.” line. Because we cannot prove that, and also because a lot of players simply don’t mind all the things the OP mentioned.

I have yet to find another source that hasnt, for the most part, mirrored the opinions found in the forums. Yes the forums have more small and whine ridden posts but thats because they are the official forums and where those things are meant to be. But the overarching views on topics have seemed to be pretty consistent despite the source.

What sources are you, and arguably the devs, looking at that would put the forums in the minority?

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Not sure I would put this in the same sentence…

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Well considering not everyone agrees on all those topics.
It was very clear certain Legion classes were way OP.
The playerbase is split on flying.
Blizzard has clearly stated they don’t want gear vendors.
Portals are confusing for new and returning players.

I am not saying the forums should be ignored.

All I said is that forum complaints aren’t a direct representation of the playerbase.

Example. Lets say there are 20 threads created today by people saying " island expeditions are boring and not worth doing. they are worthless and useless. i have no reason to ever do them. delete them" But for the sake of argument, the devs have information showing nearly everyone participates in island expeditions.

Disclaimer, I am not saying this is factual, only using IEs as an example for the sake of argument. This could apply to any in game action. M+, Raiding, WQs, whatever.

So on one hand you have a bunch of people complaining they are worthless. On the other you have evidence showing a lot of people participate, regularly in this activity. Obviously the forum feedback is not a direct representation of the playerbase.

This does not mean something might not be wrong with the issue being complained about. Only that the complaint is not fully accurate.

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I never said the issues weren’t real, valid. I am saying that the majority (by description more than 50% of anything) is not being represented at any given moment on any opinion. It never has. Yes, all outlets express somewhat the same issues, which is why very often the game takes that direction or correction path. I am simply saying this may not be how the majority feel and we currently have no way to make a statement like: Blizz ignores the majority of its playerbase! etc etc etc.

Compared to the noise that is GD… it’s a ‘higher quality’ source. Compost is a higher quality soil than manure… that doesn’t mean they don’t both help plants grow, one just smells a lot less.

We are both trying to prove the exact point. I feel people don’t understand the misuse of “representation”.

These forums may not be the “majority of the playerbase”, but they are definitely the majority of the feedback that they get. So they definitely seem to be ignoring the majority of the feedback they get, which isn’t any better.

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But feedback is almost always slanted negatively, as people are more likely to complain than give positive feedback.