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Gouda_boy

First Lieutenant
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May 30, 2017
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Hello Paradoxians,

This issue I would like to bring up is not really about EU4 itself, but rather, this forum for suggestions. I mean this in a positive and constructive way!

Now, I am not one who exactly scours the entire forum for everything, but I got to thinking about how so many people put in hours or even days of research (as I did for Nubia) for certain areas like adding Slovenian/Fixing Carniola, or separating Turkish into a separate group, or India, or Egypt, or the new world, or simple changes, who then place their ideas and all their knowledge/research they have gained onto a thread like this one to perhaps inspire the Devs to add the proposed content to this great game. Whether to increase overall historical accuracy, or better the Gameplay, there is a lot of motivation for someone in this community to help better the game, which is such an amazing thing that you Devs work with the community. But there are two major flaws in this that I ask you to consider improving upon!

1. Lack of Communication between Suggestions and Devs. (I also mean this politely)
One major flaw that I discovered is your lack of communication to those that have made very plausible and understandable suggestions onto the forum. Maybe a few to tens of ideas flood through on the day to day, and get some responses and agreement from other viewers. Maybe the suggestion gets 50 agrees and a thousand views! However, even with all that, there is no telling if you Devs have even looked at or seen the post. Seldom do I see you Devs respond to any suggestions whatsoever. Some responses are mere "corrections" of a suggestion. Does this mean that there is no compromise on the idea? Is that entire suggestion on adding flavor to Hindu nations kaput because something was wrong? Or perhaps the ideas that many agree with to fix a few things in the 1.23 Persia update is out of the question? We don't know.

I was never told if my suggestion for Nubia was good or bad (except by other players). I was not told if it might be considered. I was not told it would or would not be added. I was not told anything, I was simply left with a few fellow players liking my suggestion or disapproving. I need to know if my suggestion, where i spent 5 days researching, could make it into the game or not. I am simply asking for an Answer. I understand as developers of multiple games, you don't always have the time to look through the forum to answer questions and whatnot, which is what brings me to Issue #2 (Which will also talk about adding a weekly, or every other weekly polling system in the suggestions forum).

2. Are you actually using anybody's suggestions? If so, Credit Where Credit Is Due!
A smaller issue, and please, please correct me if I am wrong, but looking through the Dev Diaries, I have not seen any recognition for ANY users. Whether crediting a single user, or you would like to be generic (saying "thanks to the community") if any ideas, whether small or large, have been used or incorporated into the game, I think Users should be recognized for the aid provided (Perhaps the small ideas can be credited to the Community, but bigger changes should be more personal). Let us know if the community actually contributed or at least inspired something for the patch, it makes us feel like we are able to accomplish what we set our mind to (at least for the forum ^^). Lastly, let us know if you tried to incorporate a suggestion into the game (say, separating the Turkish culture), but it just didn't work out, so we know you tried for us, and did what you could :).

Another way is to add in a polling system into the suggestion forums. If you see suggestions you personally see enhancing EU4, find out if the community thinks that too! If you have little time to look closer at a suggestion, or can't respond, compile a list of ones that seem interesting and ask the community for help to see if they want it in the game. An example:

"Hey, @Trin Tragula here (How does Trin talk usually?), today we have some great ideas from you guys that we Devs would like to consider. What do you guys think?"

(In real poll form)

"Add Greek cores once Byzanitum Cores Expire:
yes: 37
no: 23

Add provinces and flavour to the Balkans:
yes: 15
no: 40

Remove French core on Labourd and Bordeaux: :rolleyes:
yes: 2
no: 89

Add Slovenian Culture and new provinces/countries in Austria:
yes: 63
no: 60"

I hope this is seriously thought over and sincerely considered by the Developers, to bring better communication between you and the community.
Thank you.
 
Upvote 0
I don't really understand what you mean. It seems only the last sentence of your post applies to this thread..

As I said a while ago, a lot of the new players get turned off without a lack of tutorials for instance. A feature that 99% of forum goers have zero interest in.

"Hey guys its Paradox, let's have a forum poll for our next DLC"

Improved tutorial for new players - 4 votes

New missions for Prussia and Granada - 286 votes
 
I don't really understand what you mean. It seems only the last sentence of your post applies to this thread..

I meant to say that when it comes to suggestions that are non-gameplay I believe expertise should trump popular demand. I am not worried if developers do not communicate with their fanbase on every single item. surely that cannot be their job.

When it comes to purely gameplay related issues then, again, I thorough analysis of modifiers coupled with empirical evidence is best. Devs shouldn't be concerned with what people want just because htey managed to form a big group.

And, I reiterate, polls are a bad idea because for me it is impossible to check the quality of the people participating in that poll: how much experience do they have with the game? what is their playing style? How knowledgeable are they about history etc. etc.
 
Following up what @Trin Tragula said, we do read suggestions, I myself check the suggestions forums every day, weekends included. Many ideas from these forums have been implemented and we appreciate what are brought up here.

With that said, it is unfeasible to reply to all these threads. As you can see, the suggestions forum gets a whole tonne of posts each day and we don't have the time to give feedback to them all. Further to that, it would add to the feeling of "My post was ignored" if we reply to many but not all of them.

Of course, I understand the frustration of feeling that your posts do not get seen, and while I can't make a promise on its implementation, a way of seeing that a dev has read your post would be neat for the forum.

To address the point of a "polling" system, I can confidently say I look at all the suggestions made and have no interest in what drums up the most agrees or likes or thumbs up as suggestions are here to improve the game as best as we can, rather than have a popularity contest for what people want to see. Some great suggestions I've seen have been single post no-reply threads while very busy threads can contain things that we are not going to introduce to the game for whatever reason.

So yes, we do read the suggestions and we do act on them and in an ideal world I would love to spend much more time here discussing them with all of you, but the reality of the matter is that it's an unrealistic desire.

Cornering me in a pub is a completely different matter, as I always promise to hear out either 2 suggestions or 5 seconds of an idea pitch from an EU4 player at the bar
 
If I may be so bold, how about bringing back the ancient tradition of marking a post as helpful if the devs have read it? Or maybe even a separate rating "acknowledged" that only the devs could add and only on the suggestion, bugreport and tech suppor forums. Just a way for the community to know we are being read.
I really like this idea as the posters in the forums dont really have a way to know if the devs think there idea is bad or not, 3 special dev buttons would be my way to go about. A dev helpful, agree and disagree would really give the devs a chance to tell a user what they think while only spending a sec or two to give that feedback. (instead of say a minute or two to give feedback)
 
Yes, but you can't see the ratings of others (who gave them, that is), so you can't know if other people's suggestions have been read.
You can actually see what ratings a person gives.

mmDhLwJ.jpg


I must confess to viewing DDRJake's and particularly Trin Tragula's recent activity to see their ratings given and get an idea of what they're viewing, especially after posting a suggestion thread of my own.

You'll see for example that Trin marked your Jainism thread as helpful. This of course means that patch 1.24 will undoubtedly be the India patch and your suggestion will be implemented verbatim.
 
You can actually see what ratings a person gives.

mmDhLwJ.jpg


I must confess to viewing DDRJake's and particularly Trin Tragula's recent activity to see their ratings given and get an idea of what they're viewing, especially after posting a suggestion thread of my own.

You'll see for example that Trin marked your Jainism thread as helpful. This of course means that patch 1.24 will undoubtedly be the India patch and your suggestion will be implemented verbatim.
You are a very helpful person. I was not aware of this.
 
I sometimes still mark as helpful but it’s from what I understand not very easy for posters without moderation privileges to see who marked something as helpful which when pointed out to me has made me use it less.
The special “read by dev” mark is an interesting suggestion and I will forward it. For now though it is safe to assume anything in the suggestions forum for eu4 will be read.


You should reply to suggestion threads with this image:

vader_didnt_read.gif
 
Well, thank you for answering the thread @Trin Tragula, it certainly helped me understand the workings of the forum a bit better! I know that it would be very difficult to respond to everything, so the idea to have a thread marked as read by a dev could definitely come in handy as a tool for acknowledgement of a post. I guess I can drop my concerns now :).

Having polls decide what should change sounds like the worst idea to me.

It's just a suggestion. I'll admit, seeing it now, it isn't the greatest idea, but every great idea starts as a bad one ;).
 
Ugh. The devs keep stating that every post gets read and poster's still keep insisting on a "read by dev" checkmark as a morale boost.

I'm not usually this cynical, but just make a algorithm that automaticaly puts a "marked helpful by Paradox" on every new topic after a few hours.
 
Ugh. The devs keep stating that every post gets read and poster's still keep insisting on a "read by dev" checkmark as a morale boost.

I'm not usually this cynical, but just make a algorithm that automaticaly puts a "marked helpful by Paradox" on every new topic after a few hours.

But doesn't that just become dishonest?
 
But doesn't that just become dishonest?

The first words of a dev posting here are "All threads in the forum are read". But I guess there is something in human psychology that would prefer a formal checkmark "read by a dev". So if they are all read anyway, just make a algorithm to give all of them that checkmark.

Yes, its a bit silly. No, im not sure if im even joking or not.
 
The first words of a dev posting here are "All threads in the forum are read". But I guess there is something in human psychology that would prefer a formal checkmark "read by a dev". So if they are all read anyway, just make a algorithm to give all of them that checkmark.

Yes, its a bit silly. No, im not sure if im even joking or not.
I believe you are merely being sarcastic. I like it. :)