Alice_Bluu
Active Member
Giving good feedback is vital to the growth and success of the game. Constructive feedback helps the devs improve their skills, fosters trust, and enhances communication. It creates more positive and productive relationships all around. Many people struggle with this in their day to day lives, receiving or giving feedback, let alone being able to do it in a public manner or with people you may not be very familiar with. So, I thought it might be helpful if I make this post giving some tips on how to go about it, after all I have been doing it for quite some time now and it took me a long time to figure it out.
Giving good feedback requires some level of self-reflection.
Tip #1 - Choose the right time. Don't give knee jerk reactive feedback, avoid doing it in rushed or stressful situations. Let it sink in a little bit and ask yourself some questions. How am I feeling about this? Why do I feel this way? Then take it a little deeper, try to pinpoint exactly what aspect of something is making you feel a certain way. From there you will be able to give more valuable feedback about how and why you liked or didn't like something.
Tip #2 - Be clear and specific. "I don't like this, it feels shitty" or even "this is awesome" is not very helpful in terms of helping the devs to understand why something does or doesn't work.
Tip #3 - Balance positive and constructive comments. Give feedback on things you love about the game, no matter how small. Not only does this help boost dev morale (which is vital) but it helps the devs understand what IS working. Acknowledge strengths as well as areas for improvement.
Tip #4 - Read your own feedback before you post it. Do you sound like a whiny 5-year-old? If the shoe was on the other foot, would you honestly take what that person said to you in? Maybe rewrite it, it's hard to take a grown adult seriously when they are acting like a child wouldn't you agree?
Tip #5 - TEST things on the qa server with honest intent, spend more than 5 minutes there, I know I know it's taking away precious time from your actual progress but feedback given BEFORE things get to live can be majorly impactful, even if its small.
Tip #6 - Small things matter too. Give feedback on seemingly small things, like the ui or some random npc dialogue for example.
Tip #7 - Use the /report function in game if you are feeling discord/forums shy.
Tip #8 - Read the patch notes, maybe even twice, get a better understanding of what a change is doing and why. Understanding what is happening and what the purpose of it is can only serve to help you help the devs.
Tip #9 - Try to think about the game as a whole and what something may mean to a low level vs a high level or a new player vs one that's been around for a while. This can help you expand upon your feedback.
Tip #10 - Come to the community meetings once in a while. This is a direct avenue to have discussions with other players as well as Elloa and Adric and can help you to gain some insight that will improve your feedback.
At the end of the day if you enjoy the game and want it to succeed and continue to grow, your feedback is important and when done in a respectful and constructive manner can be very impactful.
In an effort to avoid writing an extremely long post, if you want some more in-depth advice this article is also very helpful and applicable to giving feedback in a game development environment.
Disclaimer - this is based on my personal opinions and experience over the years of testing and is intended to help people who WANT to be better at giving feedback that helps improve the game.
Giving good feedback requires some level of self-reflection.
Tip #1 - Choose the right time. Don't give knee jerk reactive feedback, avoid doing it in rushed or stressful situations. Let it sink in a little bit and ask yourself some questions. How am I feeling about this? Why do I feel this way? Then take it a little deeper, try to pinpoint exactly what aspect of something is making you feel a certain way. From there you will be able to give more valuable feedback about how and why you liked or didn't like something.
Tip #2 - Be clear and specific. "I don't like this, it feels shitty" or even "this is awesome" is not very helpful in terms of helping the devs to understand why something does or doesn't work.
Tip #3 - Balance positive and constructive comments. Give feedback on things you love about the game, no matter how small. Not only does this help boost dev morale (which is vital) but it helps the devs understand what IS working. Acknowledge strengths as well as areas for improvement.
Tip #4 - Read your own feedback before you post it. Do you sound like a whiny 5-year-old? If the shoe was on the other foot, would you honestly take what that person said to you in? Maybe rewrite it, it's hard to take a grown adult seriously when they are acting like a child wouldn't you agree?
Tip #5 - TEST things on the qa server with honest intent, spend more than 5 minutes there, I know I know it's taking away precious time from your actual progress but feedback given BEFORE things get to live can be majorly impactful, even if its small.
Tip #6 - Small things matter too. Give feedback on seemingly small things, like the ui or some random npc dialogue for example.
Tip #7 - Use the /report function in game if you are feeling discord/forums shy.
Tip #8 - Read the patch notes, maybe even twice, get a better understanding of what a change is doing and why. Understanding what is happening and what the purpose of it is can only serve to help you help the devs.
Tip #9 - Try to think about the game as a whole and what something may mean to a low level vs a high level or a new player vs one that's been around for a while. This can help you expand upon your feedback.
Tip #10 - Come to the community meetings once in a while. This is a direct avenue to have discussions with other players as well as Elloa and Adric and can help you to gain some insight that will improve your feedback.
At the end of the day if you enjoy the game and want it to succeed and continue to grow, your feedback is important and when done in a respectful and constructive manner can be very impactful.
In an effort to avoid writing an extremely long post, if you want some more in-depth advice this article is also very helpful and applicable to giving feedback in a game development environment.
Disclaimer - this is based on my personal opinions and experience over the years of testing and is intended to help people who WANT to be better at giving feedback that helps improve the game.
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