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[cormack12]

I bet you thought this was going to be a TLOU thread didn't you?

Well it's not. The example I'm going to use is Diablo IV and there's an indepth discussion on the sub. But after a fairly decent season 2, after the 'o rly' season 1. I don't understand how anyone thought this was a good idea for a dungeon crawler. To put it into a brief description, the idea of Diablo is to repeatedly grind dungeons, to get higher level loot to become more powerful to grind more powerful dungeons where the rewards are better.

This season, as part of the mechanics they have introduced vaults. In order to engage with the season mechanics, you need to grind vaults. Sounds fine right, vaults replace dungeons. Except they've laced vaults with traps. So right away your efficiency is completely trashed. To make it worse, you have to carry 'pearls' through the dungeon - every time a trap hits you, you lose a pearl. The amount of pearls at the end determines the quality of the rewards. It is fucking gash. Luckily you can ignore a lot of it to some extent - you can level using normal methods and only touch the season mode to grind the seasonal rewards track.

But it got me thinking, why do so many devs miss the mark on what players actually want? Like I genuinely don't get the disconnect when everyone can universally see this was a bad, unfun idea. Even if you have no interest in playing your own game, you surely understand the core mechanics or the genre or how it will affect the core players?

 

[MonkD]

I'd honestly say that it depends. It's impossible to pander to everyone's needs, but there is no use creating hurdles for your playerbase unless it's something that will make it a better product(or make the players pend more money).


If you're an indie dev I probably respect your vision more. But if you're a GAAS created by a AAA studio you should just do whatever makes your players stick around. Diablo clearly has a problem with their game direction. Do we know if they have separate teams developing every other season? In that case it would explain why some feedback is lagging, but a majority of the team must have thought this was a good idea in order to get it greenlit in the first place. Unfocused games with subpar developers will sometimes throw shit at the wall in order to see what sticks, but its a risky(less so in this case since the IP is massive).

 

[Clear]

Its all subjective.

The bigger the audience gets the more people you can afford to displease whilst doing the right thing by the silent majority.

Also, judging decisions after the fact, is way easier than making decisions or taking part in the thought process that leads to them in the first place.

 

[T4keD0wN]

Data analyst presents his findings from telemetry data that they have to the leadership/management/developers, they have a short brainstorming session during a weekly/monthly meeting or a review (it can be done during the standup depending on importance or scope) to decide what to do, so if they want to slow down process A they will do what they believe will slow down process A, if they want to achieve result B they will prioritize whatever they think will help achieve result B in the optimal way, this process is about prioritizing certain user stories and product features, there can be compromises, risks and possibly even detrimental changes for some users, there is a small unpredictability factor on how each user will respond, one will appreciate a change or a new feature, others might not care and in some cases they might not like it. Then the developers implement whichever idea wins the plurality/popularity/majority/power vote or whatever the management/leadership chooses. And then the cycle will repeat.

Point it someone though it would be a net positive at some point.

 

[ButchCat]

Data analyst presents his findings from telemetry data that they have to the leadership/management/developers, they have a short brainstorming session during a weekly/monthly meeting or a review (it can be done during the standup depending on importance or scope) to decide what to do, so if they want to slow down process A they will do what they believe will slow down process A, if they want to achieve result B they will prioritize whatever they think will help achieve result B in the optimal way, this process is about prioritizing certain user stories and product features, there can be compromises, risks and possibly even detrimental changes for some users, there is a small unpredictability factor on how each user will respond, one will appreciate a change or a new feature, others might not care and in some cases they might not like it. Then the developers implement whichever idea wins the plurality/popularity/majority/power vote or whatever the management/leadership chooses. And then the cycle will repeat.

Point it someone though it would be a net positive at some point.

This. Was just about to post something quite similar, but virtually every AAA studio will have an analytics department or work with an agency in an effort to optimize engagement.

 

[Wildebeest]

Frustration drives engagement. This is skinner box design. People think the skinner box is about the rat learning to hit a button to get a food pellet, but the real lesson is that if a rat hits a button and sometimes gets a reward but is mostly frustrated and doesn't get a reward, it will hit the button even after getting more food pellets than it can use.

 

[killatopak]

I bet you most of them that have issues didn’t even play what they designed. Yes a lot of devs test their games but only what they are paid to specifically do and not experience the game as a whole. What may be a good mechanic in isolation falls apart when it tries to mesh with the complete game.

Also, a lot of the frustrating mechanics exclusive to live service games tend to push you towards monetization. There are incentives in making you mad.

 

[Esppiral]

Because clueless publishers?

 

[th4tguy]

I’ve been in meetings where the viewpoint is that the gamers don’t know what they want and are dumb. Sometimes this is true.

A lot of really bad decisions have been made with the idea that it would drive engagement and continuous revenue through further micro transactions or battle passes.

Always look at these bad moves and ask yourself, “how does this benefit the publisher?” And that is usually the answer.

 

[tr1p1ex]

this is what people get for buying homework assignments season passes.

 

[Dorfdad]

Because game developers / publishers want the masses and not a niche group of players. They will make changes to adhere to those players and not the core audience. This is a business to them not a love affair. They have share holders to answer to, not gamers. Sadly that's what is happening in the AAA space. Indies are better for this, but they dont always have the same reach and budgets as this bigger AAA developers.

 

[Dacvak]

I ask myself every damn day why Team Cherry decided to lock a QOL FEATURE behind a coveted gear slot otherwise used to enhance gameplay in Hollow Knight. I swear to god if Silksong makes me equip a badge just to see where I am on the map, I’m gonna lose my mind. Dumbest thing about that game.

 

[DaciaJC]

A lot of times they're beholden to the almighty telemetry.

 

[Doomtrain]

Professional game dev here. There are a lot of reasons, honestly. Here are just a few:

• Sometimes design ideas sound better on paper than they actually work out in execution. And depending on factors like publishing deadlines, budgetary restraints, etc., it's not always feasible to rip up months of work and start over on an idea that failed.
• Disagreements about what ideas are good. Disagreements can arise between people on the same team -- say, multiple programmers/designers disagreeing with each other -- or between the dev team itself and either management or the publisher. I've worked on projects where the entire dev team is aligned a certain way, and the publisher comes in at the last minute and wants something that the dev disagrees with. Since the publisher is usually footing the bill, they get their way.

One thing that surprised me a lot when I first started in the industry is that in my experience, a developer is often fully aware of the things that aren't good in their own game. And they often really want to fix or change those things, but they're not able to because of bureaucracy, budget, time, or other things out of their control.

 

[SHA]

Idk, tough relationship maybe, in complex closed relationship like love, like animals, people behave the opposite of what the partner wanted them to behave, go watch Naruto and you'll get what I mean, and it's not simping, simping is one sided love, cause when you start not giving a shit it becomes irrelevant, that's the whole point.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Professional game dev here. There are a lot of reasons, honestly. Here are just a few:

• Sometimes design ideas sound better on paper than they actually work out in execution. And depending on factors like publishing deadlines, budgetary restraints, etc., it's not always feasible to rip up months of work and start over on an idea that failed.
• Disagreements about what ideas are good. Disagreements can arise between people on the same team -- say, multiple programmers/designers disagreeing with each other -- or between the dev team itself and either management or the publisher. I've worked on projects where the entire dev team is aligned a certain way, and the publisher comes in at the last minute and wants something that the dev disagrees with. Since the publisher is usually footing the bill, they get their way.

One thing that surprised me a lot when I first started in the industry is that in my experience, a developer is often fully aware of the things that aren't good in their own game. And they often really want to fix or change those things, but they're not able to because of bureaucracy, budget, time, or other things out of their control.

Couldn't agree more with these.

On a previous live service title I worked on, there were always a number of issues that the community wasn't pleased with. QA would also agree on the same issues. However some of them were simply out of scope for the project, meaning, there was no real way they could be implemented with the way the game was developed. This was after a gigantic overhaul was done that the QA team (and other departments) preached against for weeks and months. But higher positions strong armed the overhaul even after "digesting" the feedback. When it went public the majority of the community hated it, and understandably so. But at that point we were so deeply involved that there was no possible way to revert (or at least so we were told). Even though so many of us wanted to, hell, so many didn't want those changes to happen period.

There were also a number of QoL features and other issues that sounded great on paper, but just didn't work well for the game's flow and balance. It happened way too often.