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An Open Letter to Oasis

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  • Registered: 2017-07-24
  • Topics: 55
  • Posts: 1213
On 2019-07-13 15:42:28Show All Posts
8#
  • Jiburiru On 2019-07-13 10:10:59
  • Hi! Thanks so much for your feedback. I will forward this thread to the team. I will also include feedback and suggestions you have pointed out in my report.


    I do get that sometimes it feels like feedback does not make a difference, but feedback does and has helped in making changes and advocating for certain features to be released or postponed. I understand that it is hard to tell at times, but your feedback and suggestions are very important. If you ever feel the need to talk about it, you can definitely talk to us directly as well; the forum moderators are also available through private message. Of course, constructive criticism always helps more than being non constructive, so the more detail and explanation, the better you guys can help us.


    We realize that it does sometimes take time for feedback to potentially push for change and that is something the team is working to improve. I do recommend you guys to take the time to utilize some of the places that are created specifically for feedback as it really helps us in getting feedback and conveying it to the team. Example: "Event Feedback Survey" found in News section.


    I also want to thank you for your support of the game. You have been an active part of the community and we really do have one of the best communities out there. One that helps one another.

>I understand that it is hard to tell at times, but your feedback and suggestions are very important.

>Of course, constructive criticism always helps more than being non constructive, so the more detail and explanation, the better you guys can help us.


Jib, I really truly want to believe you on this. But I'm gong to use my own case as an example as to why I have my doubts.


In one month, it will be 3 years since Dosu was originally suggested to be added as a playable character. Within that time, I have written five – count 'em, five – explanations as to why Dosu should be in the game, along with various other quality of life fixes. I have done my absolute best to be as thorough and detailed as possible, to point out every instance where I spotted a flaw and provide a levelheaded argument as to why it should be fixed and what could possibly be done. An example would be in my Second Case, where I dug through the Plot script and pointed out all the flaws and errors in the translation. I wrote that with the intention of being helpful and clear, and communicating the issues that I saw with the plot so that it would be easy and quick for Oasis to fix them.


My efforts have brought very few changes, with the only remarkable one being (potentially) adding Zaku as a sign in ninja earlier than expected. And that's still iffy as to whether that was actually CAUSED by me or not.


I don't mean to specifically blame anyone here, though, but rather attempt to provide a general constructive criticism using one example to try and help Oasis as a whole improve. I understand that there's a lot that goes on under the hood that I may or may not be aware of. Perhaps you, Tobei or one of the other mods has pushed for my suggestion to the devs and received limited or no responses yourselves. Perhaps there's something else going on. I don't know.


This is only one data point on a graph of historical player feedbacks that were ignored. I may not know all of what is going on behind the scenes, and I probably never will. But judging by my current understanding of the situation, I find it hard to believe that Oasis's higher ups, or at least the ones who make the decisions, truly care about player feedback. Maybe that's not true. I don't know. But it certainly looks likely to be true.


Renji, you're a great member of the community. I haven't interacted with you much admittedly but it makes me glad that there are still people who care enough to try and push for change. Keep up the good work.


EDIT: To clarify. From my perspective you seem like you really do want to improve the game and make things better, but unfortunately Oasis's actions speak louder than your words. The guy above me said it pretty well: maybe you really do, but from the players' POV at least, the company doesn't.




This post was last edited by Dosu on 2019-07-13 15:53:38.
  • Registered: 2017-07-24
  • Topics: 55
  • Posts: 1213
On 2019-07-25 12:25:02Show All Posts
81#
  • Jiburiru On 2019-07-13 19:52:29
  • Hi! I definitely know about your suggestion in regards to Dosu and putting it in the game. I was also one of the moderators who have talked and forwarded the suggestion to the team.


    The thing is, feedback and suggestion does not always mean change. It is based on many factors. Some factors may include if the feedback/suggestion is reasonable. For example: there are feedback where players would like to see everyone have a certain ninja for free like 80x Naruto [Sage of Six Path] fragments. It is not reasonable to have the game send 80x fragments of Naruto [Sage of Six Path] for many reasons that may include to be fair to players who have already recruited him or even things like balancing in the game.


    Of course, the team wants to make changes that make the majority of the players happy, as we do strive for a healthy community. However, as you guys know; what makes some people happy does not always make others happy. For example, ninjas in Lucky Sn@tch; some people who got the rare ninja (80x fragments) here by chance are happy, while others who already got it would feel it is unfair because they had to use coupons/ingots to obtain the same ninja. In this example, it outlines how some player's feedback actually are different from one another.

    Another factor in regards to feedback is the amount of players giving the feedback. The more players that feels the same way about something, the more urgency there is in regards to the feedback. This does not mean a single feedback is not important; it just means that when a multitude of single feedback (that are important) in regards to the same topic are sent in, it becomes a big urgent feedback. This is why constructive criticism from you guys is so important because we reference your feedback whenever we push for changes as well as the reasons behind it.


    Feedback does go through many stages; from your voices to the team members in charge of feedback, to the administration, which then gets forwarded to the developers. The final decision is still up to the developers as they will take the feedback and weigh in the pros and cons in regards to it.


    Dosu is definitely a nice ninja that could be added to the roster. However, I hope this can help shed some light in regards to how feedback/suggestion works. Giving feedback/suggestion does not mean it has to happen, it means that the opinions, feedback, and suggestions of the players would be taken into consideration for future events or features. Which helps push for changes.

    I do definitely remember your posts in regards to Dosu and you have asked us to convey your idea in regards to Dosu to the development team, which we did. There is always a chance that the developers may choose to add Dosu as an obtainable ninja in the future.

Thank you for the detailed response. First of all, I want to preface that I'm honestly not trying to further my agenda regarding Dosu through this discussion, as it is more about feedback in general, but rather use it as a prime example of feedback since it's the one I know the best. Apologies if I sound like I'm repeating the same stuff overandover.


I get that feedback doesn't automatically always translate to change. That's obviously not how game companies work – they have many other factors they need to clock in that the average player most likely does not see, and one rando screaming "do this for me lol" isn't going to bring much change. Yeah, bringing 6Path Naruto for free to everyone is ridiculous and oddball and will never happen because it'll absolutely tear the game apart. Yeah, you guys have to cater to a wide playerbase and ideally, you'd try to balance the needs of the f2p and the p2w. It's a tough job and I get that sometimes you gotta make real difficult decisions when it comes to feedback.


But there's a lot of feedback that seems sensible and logical enough that pretty much just slides under the barrel as well. As far as I can tell, much of this kind of feedback has literally none of the aforementioned problems. Most of which are just adding new ninja who could be fun to use. My favorite example that I like to quote a lot is Swimsuit Chikushodo, but there are many others, like Mood Scrolls in the group wheel waaaaaay back when, that I've undoubtedly forgotten about. Even the notorious Swimsuit Chiyo, while a meme, still garnered lots of popularity. Some of the things I've vouched for within my Dosu cases count as well. I've already outlined how easy it would theoretically be for them to add Dosu. But another point that comes to mind is something much more universal than Dosu, something that affects the entire playerbase: the proofreading and/or smoothing out of the game's story and translation. People have insisted time and time again that it is being worked on but I have seen absolutely no progress there either.


I've helped develop games before. And I know for a fact that it's very embarrassing, to me at least, if the script is mediocre and janky. Having such a shoddy script makes the game feel much less professional and more like a low-effort mediocre fanmade product. Even if the gameplay is good.


I don't see why the writers would be busy doing other things since it's literally their job to do this. I'd estimate they have to write like, 4 lines of dialogue per new character plus maybe 1 or 2 lines for each new event. And those show up only occasionally, so I'd assume that the writers have a lot of spare time on their hands.


Hell, I've even offered to help as a proofreader for you guys in the past. And that offer still stands, I'd still be happy to try and smoothen out the translation for you.


To clarify, this is a feedback that would greatly increase the quality of the game and make it feel more like the "OFFICIAL" game that it showcases itself as. It would increase player experience as well, helping them get a smidge more immersed into the storyline. There is nothing to lose here and everything to gain and yet the feedback goes nowhere. Because of what? Because of the possibility that the "silent majority" of the players supposedly don't care about the writing, perhaps?


Again, going back to the point of "players disagreeing about feedback" and having to cater to many audiences: none of that is applicable in the feedback of improving the script. The players who want to make the script better will push for it. The players who don't care about the writing say "whatever, who cares?". I think there's nobody out there who's blatantly going around saying "No, I disagree that the script should be better. I enjoy the grammar errors and weird punctuation just how it is. It's perfect, I love it, and editing it will only ruin a beautiful final product". And I don't think that apathy is enough to make a feedback controversial enough for the dev team to not want to implement it.


Besides, I don't think that matters when the writers barely have any work to do in the first place. Might as well make use of them, I think. Sure, it's more work, but isn't it their job in the first place?


Anyways. Even after outlining all the possible benefits and costs in a method as clear as possible, and highlighting all the things that a feedback could benefit the game with, it still goes pretty much ignored and that's why I bring it up once more.




This post was last edited by Dosu on 2019-07-28 07:31:19.
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