With the recent Moves current UPP/CLF combat synths into a support role merging, because of the Nerf combat synths idea topic, that 90% of the people disagreed with the post creator, i have came to question if what the community discuss actually has any importance for these mainteners, on the same basis that the Bone gel PR got merged i have came across another topic that the community disagrees with it but the mainteners agree with it, and the mainteners team word is more important than what the community thinks, this one did not even went into testing as a PR, so it is even worse, on a game that is built by the community and made for the community, are we really a wheel in the decision making or are we just something that is sometimes taken into consideration?
Because even if the community agrees with something and it donât gets aproved such as : Should Research return to being Civilians/Employed by W-Y and contracted by the USCM? and if the community disagrees with something and it gets aproved and if only coincidentally both the community and the mainteners agree something gets added, do we really any power?
âthe communityâ is usually a vocal minority, if you are effected negatively by it you are alot more likely to make a thread whining, and complaining in others. Maintaners generally look at the balance overall, if you were to cater to the community on every descision there would be no progress made anywhere.
And other things you like to convince yourself with.
Biggest example of fuck what the community thinks: Techwebs. Thatâs all I need to say.
CM isnât a democracy, so no. The community does not affect anything developing wise.
I mean, to be fair, techwebs were removed after all. So backlash kinda works? Also my Alternative IFF PR got forgotten in PR Hell due to discontent.
Thing to consider is that devs often dismiss backlash as âhatewagonâ and sometimes it is a hatewagon. Plus often people have no idea what they are talking about (like in the case with my alternative IFF PR), so their opinion can be ignored. I donât honestly know whatâs a good solution here, if development was done by democratic choices of community, the game would of been way worse I believe.
TBF when a communitys complaints are more nuanced than simply âi dont like itâ the value of their arguments are typically weighed.
What im more concerned about is that this isnt done with any sort of reliability, and that we probably need some place for exclusively feature and balance discussion that isnt just a blackbox.
That gets toxic rather quick though due to the aforementioned âi dont like itâ crowd.
Techwebs did not get removed due to the backlash it had throughout its entire lifespan. If I remember correctly it got removed because
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It ended up taking FAR longer to fully develop and flesh out than previously imagined (I still remember the talk about a control points mode or something? Which was meant to actually balance the tech points)
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Melon, the main dev behind all of it, dropped out of development and then CM entirely in the middle of techweb development, and all of development suddenly shifted into âohfuck what do we do now?â mode seemingly.
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Techwebs simply did not result in what the maintainers/architects wanted to achieve in practice, so it was dropped.
I very rarely have seen community feedback being cited as something meaningful when it came to techwebs development and eventual cancellation. Techwebs was quite literally such a ginormous undertaking (or advertised as suchâŚ) that there were active plans to nuke the CO Whitelist for it because Melon claimed techwebs would make the CO Whitelist redundant and dysfunctional with new CIC. CO Council fought back obviously, but ultimately if push had come to shove I doubt there would have been much to say against maintainers and staff pushing against the Whitelist.
So yeah. No, I donât think Techwebs is a good example of player feedback at all.
The direction of the server is ultimately at the mercy of the maintainers and the host/s. We can argue semantics about which group holds more power but I think the Morrow versus Forrest incident has given us a clear insight into where the buck stops.
A majority of minor development changes are really down to the people who code/sprite/map them, and those changes being accepted, and in this regard the average player holds much sway on those kind of additions assuming they have the skills, time and energy to propose them.
But major changes are ultimately going to be held at the discretion of the powerâs that be, and their willingness to adopt to community pressure is entirely debatable.
Community pressure undoubtedly will inform the decision making of the powerâs that be, but ultimately this remains just one of many facets influencing decision making.
I sure remember the xenos being happy during the techwebs.
The best techweb unlock they had: Acidic blood. They dealt more damage around them when they are hit!
Meanwhile marines⌠Stims⌠Nuke⌠And tank(?)âŚ
Along with other lower tier examples. Upgraded defibs and kits, sentry upgradesâŚ
At least the hive got hive building and queen beacon! HahaâŚ
To be fair Queen beacon was busted for a while until they added the Queen footstep sound so that she couldnt Ninja the FOB via tunnel with literally the entire Hive.
the best techweb unlock was every caste being able to build because it gave an excuse for queens to bully the 10 warriors AFKing in hive to go build up beach and hive.
was this actually real? are you yanking my chain?
I honestly think it hardly matters. While yes, itâs built by community members for community members, the direction of the game has to be uniform as to not lose the spirit or enjoyability of the game. Thatâs why the maintainer team takes head and takes final decision.
Majority rule has a lot of problems, and not a lot of benefits for the gameâs health. Thereâs a lot of people to take into consideration, who all play in their own way, own skill levels, own knowledge of the game, and enjoy the game for vastly different reasons.
Just because they take final decision does not mean feedback is not good contribution. Itâs just they chose not to listen to your feedback for one reason or another. Usually a good reason.
So yes - the overall community is taken into consideration when making decisions.
Very real. And Queens buying it and telling combat castes to build pre-drop was also very real.
Fortified weeds were insanely strong. But yeah techwebs era was so bad I still have nightmares.
Looking into balance overall is great, they donât need to cater to the community on every decision made , we got test merge for that , many PRs got tested merged and had feedback befeore being merged or not, like the bone gel PR, the issue is when something such as removing the combat synths totally from game is not even tested.
Such feature is exactly to see the reaction of the other part of the community that does not frequent the forum and is likely to be less vocal, i agree that the community that is in the forum is one part of it, still a important part, but i can assure you that bone merging had backlash from both forum and game chat, possibility more people in the game itself not liking the bone gel merge.
As such you said they should look at the balance overall, but can they really balance stuff when i barely see any maintaner online, everytime i join a round i check the staff, and i usually see one maintaner , none and very rarely on very high pop on like friday night i would see two or three, i am not questioning their ability to program or design, but could they not get feedback from mods or admins that play and see way more rounds than them before implementing stuff , even if they donât want to teste merge to see the public reacion, but what we had was the totally opposite, there was no teste merge, there was no feedback from any place, how can we that trully balanced? they discussed the nerf in their small circle that can ofcourse be biased, when exactly you barely play the game in the first place, donât want to talk with players, fine, talk with the admins, mods, i will guarantee they will have good feedback.
Couldnât have said it better myself.
I believe the direction of the game as you said has to be uniform, that is great, but the issue is when can this small group of people decide the fate of important PRs alone?
They do not take feedback from admins or mods since you questioned the majority rule but again how can 13 people as the forum number says, manage to see the hundreds types and ways to play the game and take into account these people playstyles before making a decision, especifcally when the same group has no feedback from nobody, the synth council or synths did not got their own vote or dicussed about the PR, the marines and xenos did not experienced how would be to not have combat synth before it even got merged, they literally ignored people not liking the idea, ofcourse these people were just a part of the community and merged without testing on the other side of the community.
I canât understand how the community is taken into consideration when a important thing from the game is removed without any feedback besides people talking about an idea that was not confirmed .
My issue here is a team of people that must have played the game alot, have alot of knowledge on it but does not ask for feedback outside of their circle even if you argue that the majority has alot of problems, they have multiple ways to get feedback from specific groups that get affected by such changes, but their decision is to merge and that is it, and even with a huge community backlash in forum or ingame, they still decides to merge something such as the bone gel, can you really say that the community is taken into consideration when making decisions?
The short answer to âdoes community feedback actually have an impact on developmentâ is âyes, but maintainers do not need to bend to the communityâs will.â
Maintainers definitely do listen to (constructive) feedback about their changes, but do not always make changes because of feedback. There can be many reasons for doing so, but it generally boils down to âchanging this is antithetical to the goal of the PR itself.â Additionally, some PRs are ultimately necessary for the gameâs health (e.g. removing double chunging) but are unpopular. In such a case, taking community feedback into more account than that of the maintainer team would lead to such things still existing despite being detriments to the game.
Such feature [Test Merges] is exactly to see the reaction of the other part of the community
This is not necessarily correct. Test merges can be used for seeing community reactions, but are far more commonly done to test the balance/effects of a change or to ensure nothing breaks when it is fully merged. The PR youâre speaking of (removing combat synths) is one that didnât need to be test merged because its changes were very clear-cut, unlikely to break, and the balance ramifications were already approved by the head maintainer.
but can they really balance stuff when i barely see any maintaner online
Maintainers, by their nature, do not actively answer tickets or etc. on the main server. As such, they often de-admin while playing so as to not get meta-info or be bothered by ahelp messages they arenât related to. Consequently, they do not appear on the maintainer list in staffwho.
but could they not get feedback from mods or admins that play
We are in fact always taking feedback here. Many maintainers additionally ask for feedback on their changes from people they trust to be unbiased and constructive.
but the issue is when can this small group of people decide the fate of important PRs alone?
This is⌠sort of how it works everywhere? On most SS13 repos, a PR that the maintainer team deems necessary will be merged regardless of how many people love it or hate it. Outside the sphere of SS13, very few games weigh community feedback over that of the people who are paid to design the game.
to be real that was a cope thread on my part. I was literally just mowed down by an M2C handling CLF synth in the dark. So yeah I was pretty mad