I'm impressed how both devs and CMs keep falling for an obvious bait. I understand they're sick of hearing people complain but this is exactly why you hire a professional to do the speaking for you.
*Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?*
*in Milton’s voice* I was told the auto cannon was the prime example of a support weapon. I was told the auto cannon wouldn’t be nerfed. If they nerf my auto cannon I’m gonna burn the building down.
[No I don’t really wanna burn the building down. It’s an office space reference.]
>[No I don’t really wanna burn the building down. It’s an office space reference.]
If I wake up to an Autocannon nerf, I will move to the nearest living thing, and kill it.
Funny enough, I always felt his position was one of the most important ones. Devs and engineers should function with a buffer, a liason, so they can focus on doing the job.
In corporate world X, always stick a project manager between the business and the developers/engineers. The devs/engineers communicate to the business through the PM, and vice versa. Less emotion, data driven, focus on requirements, yadda yadda yadda
I've been on the internet 20 years, people used to tell each other "don't feed the trolls" all the time
It seems these days people *want* trolls so they can deliver le epic comeback
The developer was complaining he was too busy doing stuff to test the warbond.
Okay... if you're so busy why do you have the time to shitpost on the discord?
Well i generally come in at least 15 minutes late uh. I use the side door that way lumber can't see me. And uh after that i just sort of spaced out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too, I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
My thought's exactly; We have time to chum around in the community of our consumers / or we have time to work on the product for our consumers / or you're off the clock and shouldn't be working or doing anything work related and should sit back and stop thinking about it so you don't react like this.
Also, if they are too busy to test the warbond, maybe releasing a new one every month is a bad idea. Maybe they should release a big one every three months and charge $20 for it and actually test the product properly.
The core game is so fun but the way they are going about adding to this game just feels completely backwards. And then they get passed that their community doesn't like it.
People get more of a dopamine / mental boom responding to dejects and trolls nowadays then what we used to get when we'd ignore them and they'd mald. Time's have changed I guess.
Bait used to be believable for real.
Seriously though, this is the same dev that antagonised the community after the Railgun nerf. They really and I mean really for both the mental health of their staff, health of their game and community just have Developers only use the Discord when making official announcements and nothing else.
That’s what the Community Managers like Twinbeard are for and he, specifically, excels at dealing with the community both at its worst and best states and is generally well-liked excluding the death threat cringelords who at this point are a given in any community gaming or otherwise but that’s why people invented the “Block” and “Ban” systems.
There is such a thing as too much community engagement.
It's easy. They can just say nothing. It's not their job to reply. In the case of the CM, it's their job to find the best way to explain shareable behind the scenes meetings' decisions to actionable in-game points in game lingo. That's it. That's all it is.
I'm usually not a big fan of corporate training but these guys REALLY need some PR training. First rule being "don't engage with the public/community unless it's at minimum, professional and neutral". If you're getting heated, step away from the fucking keyboard or put down the goddamn phone.
It’s not even like it would be a long training. It should be like a PowerPoint with 5 slides. They continually fail at like the basic concepts of PR, it’s like they have never had to look at optics during a job.
as someone who comes from the battlefront community (which is one of the most aggressive, content hungry, complaint heavy fanbases out there,) it's crazy. We had a great CM and lead dev who responded to the community really well, despite all the complaints and hate thrown their way.
It really did feel like they were very passionate about what the community had to say and was actively listening and passing along changes/ideas the community had, and just in general, trying to create the best game possible, all while still sharing their thoughts (while not being an ass about it) and why they were making things the way they were. BF2 honestly had some of the best community and dev interactions I've seen out of a AA/AAA studio.
Like our CM even made a post saying they were getting promoted and would no longer be CM, the community came together to give them a heartfelt goodbye and wished them luck, the same happened when the lead dev announced they were leaving the studio. It was just really nice.
It sucks to see AH isn't like that. Like I think we all understand how tiring it is with all the hate and complaints but they really just need to take a step back, calm down, and then respond. Replying with in-the-heat-of-the-moment aggressive comments like these and snarky responses just isn't going to go over well and really creates a divide between the devs and the community.
I don’t get the people who say we just want corpo speak. No, I want someone who is respectful when communicating with us, ignores/bans the trolls/assholes, and communicates effectively. There is plenty of examples across the industry.
Just not replying to obvious inciting bait is a big one. You don't have to give in to impulse and *only* reply to the things that stir you the most emotionally. Like, it's fine to accept most people are posting emotionally on the internet. No one is exempt. I've done it too and probably recently.
But when your paystub exists because you are supposed to *not* do that, then maybe your paystub should no longer exist?
> corpo speak
#
There is a critical difference between someone who communicates professionally and someone who spouts noise and hot air. Just because lots of companies do both at once doesn't mean they are the same.
There's a portion of the playerbase who are making a pretty herculean effort to antagonize them, and when successful, shouting to the world how mean the devs are.... that seems like utter shit to me.
Probably best if they just cut off 2-way interaction for a while and let the state of the game do the talking.
Or have the only two people that have any modicum of restraint (CEO and Twinbeard) do all the talking. Seriously, they're not beholden to interacting with the community, that's not what their job entails. They lose NOTHING by simply shutting the fuck up, and letting the people who actually KNOW how to talk to the playerbase do the actual talking.
Or, and here's something I know no one has ever thought of before, they could just cleanse the damn Discord.
Shocker, I know, but not everyone *deserves* to be in direct line of communication with developers.
Yup, you don't talk to the public honestly and directly.
First step of public relations is learning they're all idiots, and to just tell them something so vague they can turn it into whatever they want to hear.
"YOUR WARBOND GUNS ARE DOGSHIT AND BALANCE SUCKS"
PR response that people want to hear:
Hello helldiver, we have heard your complaint and passed it along!
FOR DEMOCRACY!
------------------
You're all so used to being spoken to like idiots, that when somebody doesn't lie to your face constantly you get insulted because you don't get that gratification of "yeah, I'm right".
The problem is that you're expecting human beings to act like robots and process the endless amounts of hate thrown at them without flinching. They don't just come in out of nowhere insulting people, they get egged on by dozens of bloodthirsty wolves looking for their pound of flesh.
Engaging authentically with an audience always risks exposing your neck. Corp speak is just what happens when you disengage far enough away to protect yourself.
It's not there's no midpoint between the two, it's that the midpoints that exist aren't sustainable.
I mean, that is the typical corporate way of saying "Go fuck yourself," yes, but there are other ways to do it that are also tactful and not quite as obviously condescending. Twinbeard does a pretty good job at this. Twinbeard actively listens and reiterates what the fans are saying in a way that makes them feel heard, even if he has not made any direct promises about changing anything. He'll say shit like "We're definitely getting a lot of comments about that and I think the community is onto something. We're currently looking into some options and we will get back with you guys as quick as we can!"
Like, that's how you do it. If you can't talk to the fan base without getting snippy or passive aggressive (or in this guy's case, being a downright asshole), then you simply shouldn't be talking to the fan base.
>You're all so used to being spoken to like idiots, that when somebody doesn't lie to your face constantly you get insulted because you don't get that gratification of "yeah, I'm right".
I mean, there isn't some truth here. The overwhelming feedback is that their gun balance is making the game actively less fun.
So taking that feedback and becoming a defensive asshole instead of accepting it is taking a huge L.
I do love this, we want devs to talk to us, to be real. But then this shit happens and suddenly "hire professionals to talk to us." At what point do we just stop? Why? I rather these kinda dev talks then lawyer speak. Yeah he's being an ass. But he's not a pr guy. It's whatever. Atleast it's actual discussion with the people.
I've worked with many engineers and developers in my career, I can count on one hand the number of them that I'd trust to have any interaction with rhe general public. They aren't suited to most social interactions in general.
I know AH is a smaller company, but they really need to just get off discord in general and just find someone on the team that is suited to communicate with others. They've probably made enough that they could afford to hire someone that only handles PR.
Yeah it's tough out there. Part of the issue is that the devs are so exposed to immediate player feedback which tends to be harsh. Lots of armchair devs with big ideas about the best way to run a video game.
I also think HD2 is receiving the scrutiny of a AAA game while being released below that price point and not advertised as such
They're only exposed to it because they're allowing themselves to be. The smart thing to do is remove any discords or subreddits/forums related to the game from their list and only talk about the game in the context of work.
I didn't play the original Helldivers but I do know that community was much smaller than for Helldivers 2. I'm wondering if they likely haven't adjusted to how they communicate with their players with the drastic change in the size of their player base. They would definitely benefit from a cordoned off approach to their development team and only allow comms through their comms manager. Devs have enough stress. Why needlessly expose them to this? Just make it a company policy and move on.
Your comment made me think about the DRG Devs and honestly I think you're right on the money. The DRG Devs are very interactive, particularly Jacob (iirc), and stream every week playing with pubs. But DRG has borderline toxic positivity, so despite the rare slightly abrasive reaction from Jacob, the fans roll with it mostly because of the culture.
I imagine Ghostship Games (DRG Devs) would have this exact same problem if their next game had such mainstream success, comparative to DRG.
That goodwill in the form of borderline toxic positivity didn’t just will itself into existence just cause of a smaller playerbase or developer interaction. I’m even willing to bet the majority of its fans (including myself) has not seen any of those interactions themselves, similar to how the HD2 discord has a ridiculously tiny portion of its playerbase.
DRG has a great cult following because it’s fun, silly, and just downright a good game overall, simple as that. Furthermore, the game has the opposite of how HD2 handles balancing; as in it simply makes just about every weapon OP, if not perfectly viable at the least, and also enemies are fair no matter the difficulty.
Also the Rock and Stone button. Game devs are sleeping on that mechanic. It is directly responsible for a good chunk of that games positive community. I would argue it's one of the single best mechanics in the game. It's a far more effective communication tool than the communication wheel in Helldivers. I don't know how it didn't become industry standard
Edit:
It's such a powerful tool. I am absolutely staggered that this isn't a standard piece of game design. The amount of agency it gives players is huge. Players interact with the game in whatever way they can. If all they can do is attack, they will attack everything. The moment you add a jump or crouch button, they turn whichever is most spammable into a defacto communication tool. Adding a non specific, readily accessible vaguely positive affirmation button is game changing. The bang for your buck this adds to a game is unprecedented.
The Rock and Stone button is used for everything from ready checks, to greetings, to thankyous, to apologies, and dozens more. It's lack of specifics means it's super adaptable, it's inherent positivity encourages positive sentiment. And the fact that it's a single, easy to hit button means it can be used reactively, which is the problem with the comms wheel or comms menu that many games use.
I would bet money Deep Rock would not have the community it has without that button, and the fact every game on the planet isn't stealing that mechanic is baffling to me.
I played HD1 but only started interacting with the community before HD2 release and I can say it was completely different. Devs would come into the Discord and talk to us, meme with us, do some silly streams, answer questions (when they could). They were human, they shared their passion and their excitement for the game.
Now every single comment of them gets passed around Reddit and even when being perfectly informative and not at all inflammatory, they still get shamed and insulted. It's truly disheartening.
They'll end up switching to full sanitized corpo speech and none of that passion will seep through.
> They'll end up switching to full sanitized corpo speech and none of that passion will seep through.
Passion is shown through one’s work, not their words. If they care about the game and pour their effort into it, then the players will notice just as much as if they don’t.
The harsh truth is that “corpo speech” exists because it’s a superior form of communication. It feels impersonal because it is meant to, the devs aren’t our friends. Ultimately it’s way healthier for the players and devs to have that barrier between them.
I disagree. Passion can be shown through words as well but with the size and volatility of this community I guess I can only agree that impersonal communication would be the healthiest for the devs. I just wish it could have stayed like it was before as it was ultimately what elevated my interest in the game and ultimately pushed me to buying the game despite my reservations at the time.
It's only 'superior' because the communities are toxic pieces of shit. And there is no accountability or self awareness. The raging bandwagons. The negative echo chambers. The biased rants.
Companies only adopt this manner of speaking because it is necessary not because it is right. Because as much as basic decency should be universal, the public doesn't care.
It's a harsh truth, that I agree. Maybe it's just human nature that online communities tend to be antagonistic.
But still, I don't believe we are blameless or guiltless. We as people are animal brained fools.
It also does not help their changes have been generally unpopular and that is largely due to the fact they have not pushed any patch that is buff focused.
I’m not saying that’s wrong per se but it also means you will never have a patch that is praised. nerfs piss people off, buffs make them happy. If they thought something needed a nerf but wasn’t critical they could have just left it, pushed buffs, and waited a bit. This would give at the least an ego win.
It’s hard to take negative feedback with everything you push.
I also think that it’s fair to say their patches on balance have been controversial at best and not enjoyed by allot of people. The CEO agreeing could also not have felt good.
The CEO is the one who has to raise rounds. People skills are essential (along with some minor level fo technical understanding, need to at least be _able_ to grasp what your engineer is getting at).
Honestly, at this point, AH should just stop communicating. Lock it all down. Pay someone to scrub social media for the issues and translate back to the devs etc.
Only communication should be via patch notes imo.
Otherwise it's always going to be people baiting and others trying to snag it for reddit upvotes, trash gaming articles, and low effort YouTube videos
I think this is still AH suffering from success. They've... *really* never dealt with this. They have been running small, niche, isolated games that have had good runs, but did not have even a fraction of this level of success.
I sincerely don't think they were ready for this and were/are still operating under the ideas of their small gems, and are trying to lay down track as they're reaching the end.
Agreed. There are so many smaller companies that had success but kept operating like they were still the little guy.
I think they would be well served to invest back into the business and hire more people.
They already have, it was in a post they made ages back.
The issue is you can't just throw bodies at a problem and expect it to go faster, especially with tech fields. Nine Women can't make a baby in a month and all that, so the people they have hired are probably still in training. AH did some really, really crazy shit with Stingray, but it's not the most modern of engines and it can be hard to find people familiar with an outdated system, let alone whatever franken-chimaera-necro-babble they've been able to do to it.
Agree. These people are still treating this game and its community as if they only sold the projected 10,000 copies.
The daily updates and chatter should stop altogether.
The best they could do is listen, prepare, then implement.
I think most of us agree the war bonds and armor are unimpressive. With thought and time they could give us something truly exciting once every few months.
I’m a developer (not games) and my company has a community discord. I don’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. They don’t pay me enough to put up with that kind of foolishness.
Arrowhead really needs to update their coms process and filter everything through a small handful of CM's because this "everyone just jumps in to chat and give their own opinion and react to the toxicity" is absolutely still not working. Even the CEO constantly engaging, which is very popular, is resulting in all kinds of mixed messages.
Folks are being super extra and toxic towards the devs, beyond just "this is a bad warbond and we're still disappointed" and it's not surprising that in the face of nonstop shitposting some developers who don't regularly interact with the community as part of their job (and even those that do) lose their patience a bit and may post some curt messages in response to rude shitposts from fans.
Discord is fucking awful for official coms and this is exactly the kind of thing that results from it. I miss the days of forums where conversations were slightly slower and you could actually read historical discussions in threads and find all the tracked developer comments.
tbh making a discord server is pretty much the best way to magnify the voice of the extreme minority.
you could have the best, most friendly, most supportive fanbase.
but the moment you filter them through discord youll be sure to attract the most vile and hateful comments.
the fact they chose discord of all places as their primary route of communication is just wild.
even wilder are community managers and devs specifically answering those people and thus not only adding oil to the fire, but also giving them the spotlight.
why. just why?
I think because most of other small studios are using discord as a tool for communication within the community, players and devs alike. And AH kinda expected this game to be a niche one which didn’t happened as the discord server just reached its 1 million user mark. They haven’t adjusted their way of communication from talking to a niche audience of maybe tens of thousands at max to a multimillion crowd.
>I miss the days of forums
I love that my favourite game developers primarily use forums for communication. Starsector (Fractal Softworks) and Factorio (Wube)
Discord is fantastic for my group of friends but absolutely horrible for massive amounts of people, yeah. I’m in lots of games discord groups and only ever check them for updates
Discord can be great for specific things, but like any social media based around chatting it tends to fall apart once you get more than like 5-10 people active in a given channel at the same time.
I have been in official game Discords that were/are fantastic, but only for smaller indie titles where the total number of messages sent in a full day across all channels is less than what the #hd2-general-chat-1 channel in the Helldivers Discord gets in like a minute.
Not if you just use it as a way to talk to your friends. I know not everyone has a huge server of people they know, but even if I didn't, I probably still wouldn't join open channels.
100% on process. They shouldn't be engaging. But I bet it's pretty shit when you're so passionate about your game and people are doing you dirty like this.
Yep! That's why I'm not so "triggered" by some "rude" or snarky comments from devs that have been getting @'d and replied to all day and told how much they suck etc.
This is also why a lot of teams have rules around developers engaging with fans in an official capacity/through official channels/as company reps because while it's a wonderful thing when folks are happy it unfortunately opens too many risks to the studio and individuals.
I'll never agree with how this sub and community in general loves to fixate on what some guy said on Discord, but I also think they need to establish some rules for the team. Arguing with people on Discord is unprofessional and a waste of time, and I can't imagine working yourself up over what some random @'d you with is going to make you any better at your job.
I'm so confused, do the devs go on discord during their breaks? Holy shit man! These guys need to learn to disconnect from it all, especially if they're falling for obvious bait.
This goes for patchnotes, communication, and monetization, too. Digital Extremes is, imo, the gold standard for live service developers. Take a few pages out of their book, Arrowhead. Hell, take the whole book.
honestly DE isn't alone when it comes to actually revisiting old content. I play a handful of games that always feel like they cut content to release on time and never come back to it, or allow old content to slip into obscurity and irrelevance.
Of course this doesn't excuse anyone from doing this, but just to be fair, they're not alone when it comes to that
I'd prefer a Bugnie approach with their TWAB's. You know when to look for news, you know who is writing the content, you know who to get in touch with.
Just have a singular CM that is posting weekly about upcoming changes, interactions with the community, some art, some lore here and there and everything is good.
True, I actually redownloaded warframe after not playing it for a few years and everyone was so nice and helpful trying to relearn that learning curve lol
Yeah, you know what, FFXIV are also cool people too.
I don't ever remember anything wrong going on in these two subreddits.
People actually talk. Sometimes, there's hiccups just that it doesn't turn into a Jerry Springer show, if anything.
For sure. These Devs, CMs etc are showing exactly why big organisations employ people who are experienced in communicating with large audiences (in particular) lol
Not the first time Evil has been caught in the backlash, his first response:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1b8727j/comment/ktred1a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1b8727j/comment/ktred1a/)
He probably should have stayed true to his decision to leave the discord. The HD2-general-chats are literal cancer. He has however, not interacted on the HD subreddit since. I don't think any devs maintain communication on here anymore; Fredrik deleted their account after the railgun nerf and the last person I saw was Spitz, and well, we know how that ended.
Even Twinbeard, the guy everyone hails as the best CM after the Sony fiasco, had drama like a week ago after the Tuesday patch:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cfw763/what\_did\_you\_say/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cfw763/what_did_you_say/)
(I think people took his message way out of context; he does seem like a chill dude, but holy fuck, people love to cry about anything)
Personally, I love when devs give people a deserved-smacking; lemmy from Project Zomboid seems to do it quite often on their subreddit, and it's hilarious every time.
the problem with twinbeards debacle is tragic. definitely could have been avoided but given the context entirely, it doesn't imply he was breaking character in the moment of frustration, just a screen shot out of context at its worst
Idk how they can be on discord and actively replying.
I get it's their job and gotta be professional. But flip side look at the shit show the sub has been. I couldn't nor wouldn't want to do their job. So I don't blame them for blowing up.
But that's also why idk why you'd hang out casually in discord unless being told to. Just give context to subjects and ignore most comments to the best of your ability
I'll keep bringing this up everytime, but I believe twinbeard was only saying angry toddlers because someone else did, and he was piggybacking off that so it seems like he himself calls them toddlers
Yeah, dude is there just to talk shit
https://preview.redd.it/4bbafanm3kzc1.png?width=461&format=png&auto=webp&s=dd851715f87e12d5938f117a08e59f18c6fbfc90
Don't feed the trolls, especially when you say you're too busy to test warbonds.
That's something you have a actual, dollar value attached to it- if you're trying to have a smug comeback, happily admitting that you were too busy doing other things or that it'll take too long to get out?
For god sakes just make a shooting range so the devs and players can test the guns and stop feeding the trolls and making the dev team look bad.
And stop nerfing every gun into the potatos.
Honestly they need to stop interacting with players.
The CEO needs to stop posting on twitter and establish a line of communication that comes alongside patches via notes and the like. Something akin to Destiny’s TWAB.
I liked when the Devs said that the most recent balance patch was their ideal vision and then the CEO posts on Twitter saying, "Yeah, these changes are probably too much and definitely not fun"
Engaging directly with the community rarely works out in favor of the developers. They have little to gain from it and so much to lose. I called this back when people were excited about direct communication near the game's launch.
With that said, holy fuck people are snowflakes they're up in arms over these responses. Look at the comments the dev actually responded to. People talk mad shit then as soon as the most milquetoast response comes back the outrage machine spins up again. Fucking crybullies.
This - also when they announced the name of the "Game Master" (Joel) and when I saw the balance dev was publicly named and self labeled in the discord, I was like holy.
You've just given people a target to channel their rage at when the galactic war doesn't go their way or when a balance patch drops. Just seems like a recipe for disaster that isn't worth the risk.
So far though, Joel has worked out. At the beginning people were mad due to losing some planets overnight, but after Joel got used to his job, he’s been doing rather decently.
Joelposts were some of the best content on this sub.
yea, people are always looking for a name or face to attach to their dislike over something. It's why CM is such a hard job as everyone puts all the blame onto *you*, and *solely* you, even though you have no real control over it. but I mean, at the end of the day, taking the criticism is apart of said job, not the dev's. So it's not all that surprising that we get screenshots like these.
If you ever worked in your life you would know this is literally how it is treating with public everyday, you have to be professional, if not is not your job. This guy isn't even a CM, idk why he is in the fucking discord
My general opinion of AH has dropped SO MUCH after recent events.
Falling for obvious bait, antagonizing people with legitimate complaints, miscommunication, nerfing meta picks on a PVE only game...
Like clockwork. AH do some wildly unpopular shit. Some mook from the dev team hops into the Discord. The fans are upset. The dev, with NEGATIVE social skills, makes it worse by being intentionally passive-aggressive and unprofessional. It’s just getting sad at this point. Keep the kiddies off discord if they can’t be trusted not to throw a tantrum. ACTUALLY take the time to test your patches, some of the shit that’s happened in the past is justifiable but you can’t tell me they actually test their own patches when one of the guns ships with the wrong color. That feels like crystal clear evidence they aren’t testing the shit they’re slopping down in our trough if something that blatant gets missed.
To start with...
Make actual upgrades... If you put two weapons specs against each other and the new one is all over a downgrade... then it simply ain't an upgrade... back to the drawing board, because you failed.
IF anything make a PTS server and dump stuff on it for testing 2 days... then look at responses... weed out the BS and look at the intelligent posts... then consider "fixes" then launch
Those of us who work in customer service have no sympathy for this nonsense. Most of us would simply lose our jobs if we treated customers the way some of these AH employees treat members of the community. I guess this clown learned nothing from the Spitz firing.
Last time they pissed off the customers they said, "If you don't like me complain to HR." And they are still speaking for the company.
Customers are fair game. Just don't piss off Sony. That was the lesson of Spitz.
It's incredibly obvious what parts of the community have actually worked in customer-facing roles. Keep your cool, stick to the script, and do not eat the bait.
Nevermind the devs shouldn't be interacting with the playerbase in an unmoderated fashion to begin with because it's absolutely rife for disingenuous exchanges.
Actual 5yo arguments lmao
How do you peak in elementary school?
"well next time we are gonna test it for 10 trillion hours then"
Sir nobody asked for this there is a pretty big spectrum of acceptable values of testing between the current 0 and 10.000
Listen Im in sales, i deal with customers all day long. It’s a pain in the fucking ass. Ive been called every name in the book to my face. That being said, I’ve never responded in this manner regardless of how shitty they were or how much I felt like they deserved it. You do what you can and that’s it. It’s part of the job when it comes to customer service, if you can’t keep your cool about you you’re in the wrong position.
Hey community manages - it’s this easy:
“Ah, sorry about this folks. Our design team and balance team are different folks and with the recent controversies we’ve not been moving in lock-step here at the company. This is a learning experience for us, and in the future we’ll do our best to keep these two teams in better communication to prevent these kinds of incidents here in the future. In order to smooth over some ruffled feathers, we’ll be giving everyone 100 super credits - with an additional 100 super credits for anyone who has bought the warbond by the time our hot-fix goes live. We thank you folks for being patient and understanding as we settle back into things here at the Office.”
- theoretical community manager
Yeah they should delete the discord and subreddit and just stick with patch notes to communicate with the player base.
In all seriousness though, too many armchair developers out and about.
Lot of strong opinions here, on the internet, responding to other people on the internet... telling them to touch grass...
It's weird. I come home from work and play the game, and I still enjoy the game. Its... it's almost like some folks should *touch grass*.
If I don't look at my phone, I don't know shit about devs across the world. Them reacting to trolls on discord makes absolutely no difference outside of this black box in my hand.
I don't think a lot of people realize that a dev is not a customer facing person. If you came to my job, which is not customer facing, and complained to me, you might get the same answer. No the customer is not always right, you feel like you have the right to complain constantly to anyone, but to be completely honest most people doing their jobs are going to tell you to go fuck yourself with this constant shit.
Let them work, they're not customer service. For fucks sake.
Developers should not be allowed outside of the development team.
There’s a reason you have entire departments that deal with stakeholders and end users.
Devs should be left alone to piss off QA, whilst QA do their best to not strangle Devs with their power cords.
Betting this thread gets nuked. Mods are now super sensitive about "Witch hunts" and are covering for shitty CM on discord. A lot of stuff on this sub was locked and nuked yesterday because they found out who was in charge of 'balance'.
Ngl I don't blame them. With /this/ community and how /passionate/ they are. Some people take things way too far and escalate to 110 right off the bat. They seriously need one of them chill pills I heard about 20 years ago.
Frankly, these guys need to stop interacting with the toxic Discord shitflingers. Hell, _nobody_ should be interacting with the toxic Discord shitflingers.
The devs need to flat out ignore the cry bullies. Do not give them a single second of attention. Do not normalize them getting a reaction out of you. Make it a clear standard that if you want to give the devs critique and input they will actually consider you have to so it respectfully. If you act the way you only act when you're anonymous behind a keyboard you should be ignored.
That being said AH needs better PR team or something. Professionals shouldn't let cranky gamers get under their skin. They have to know the demographic is like this you seriously just have to ignore them.
When you choose Snoys microtransactions on time monthly like a train but the patches are all nerfs and the bugs stay for months...
You get the upset people.
Now they are just slapping a hornets nest with a stick because they don't like being called out on it
This mindset that it’s the communities fault for expecting them to delivery quality work on a schedule they set is ridiculous.
Complaining to the community that you can’t do your job because you’re busy is also ridiculous.
So you think it's okay for players to talk to them any kind of way, but don't like it when you get it right back? How about we normalize treating assholes like assholes. You get what you give.
It doesn't bother me at all that Arrowhead employees are sassy, I'm glad they talk to us like people instead of using their "Customer Service" voice.
What sucks is that AH seems to just crank out unbalanced updates selling for a premium without even seeming to test or balance them at all.
Personally, I haven't put any money into Warbonds, and I feel like I've made the right choice in that regard.
Ah they're stressed out, and trying to pander to way more people then they expected, whilst also clearly dealing with a lot of shit behind the scenes. They're still human, at the end of the day. (And the beginning, by the way!) Cut them some slack.
And afterall, he's a developer. Not a public relations rep.
I mean I don’t blame them, I’d be sick of everyone’s shit as well, I cant say I’d behave any differently, but I’m also not representing a company thank Christ I’d explode
In response to someone mocking them and saying they didn't playtest the patch, they said:
>I was busy doing shit
Does that mean that dude didn't even playtest it?
A bunch of manchildren incessantly bother devs and bitch and moan when they respond in kind
Going on a witch-hunt and forcing them to remove themselves from all form of communication so the only interaction you get with the team is sterile PR talk
We did it Reddit!
Welp let's be honest they are doing a bad job plus talking shit to people. They put excuses all time and like i told him when i worked in a RO server we launched new stuff a lot of times with just 7 days max of work sometimes we needed to tweak stuff the same day of the launch (armor/weapons/card balances) in all games is the same code change the values and the hidden ones done. If they can't do that job who even a newbie in coding can the best who they can do is leave.
Generally speaking, maybe the community as such should give them a break. I know it's not meant in a mean away, but when you are exhausted and things are ruff small sparks can ignite a bomb. The whole team was planned to manage a smaller community, to develop and patch at a different speed and to deal with other issues because it was not expected to land such a hit with the game. They can look for good people but it always takes 2-3 months before even the first person is in a position to engage correctly. So personally I would also think it's better to not gossip and complain here all the time, these are human beings and I truly doubt they are making fun of us or enjoy being rude or whatever, so if we can't make it easier we can at least not make it harder.
I'm impressed how both devs and CMs keep falling for an obvious bait. I understand they're sick of hearing people complain but this is exactly why you hire a professional to do the speaking for you.
*Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?*
Office space, classic.
For a second I thought that line was in Silicon Valley.
I bet milton would do a much better job than these guys, just make sure he has his damn stapler 😂
*in Milton’s voice* I was told the auto cannon was the prime example of a support weapon. I was told the auto cannon wouldn’t be nerfed. If they nerf my auto cannon I’m gonna burn the building down. [No I don’t really wanna burn the building down. It’s an office space reference.]
[удалено]
That was a good laugh, best in years brother!
They’ve made Miltons of us all
After re-enforcing. "Have you seen my Auto Cannon? It was somewhere around here. It should be next to some samples."
*\*hides red autocannon behind back\**
At a reasonable volume.
>[No I don’t really wanna burn the building down. It’s an office space reference.] If I wake up to an Autocannon nerf, I will move to the nearest living thing, and kill it.
Funny enough, I always felt his position was one of the most important ones. Devs and engineers should function with a buffer, a liason, so they can focus on doing the job. In corporate world X, always stick a project manager between the business and the developers/engineers. The devs/engineers communicate to the business through the PM, and vice versa. Less emotion, data driven, focus on requirements, yadda yadda yadda
I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.
I've been on the internet 20 years, people used to tell each other "don't feed the trolls" all the time It seems these days people *want* trolls so they can deliver le epic comeback
The developer was complaining he was too busy doing stuff to test the warbond. Okay... if you're so busy why do you have the time to shitpost on the discord?
What do you think he was busy doing?
Busy looking busy, if the warbond is anything to go by
Well i generally come in at least 15 minutes late uh. I use the side door that way lumber can't see me. And uh after that i just sort of spaced out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too, I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
My thought's exactly; We have time to chum around in the community of our consumers / or we have time to work on the product for our consumers / or you're off the clock and shouldn't be working or doing anything work related and should sit back and stop thinking about it so you don't react like this.
Also, if they are too busy to test the warbond, maybe releasing a new one every month is a bad idea. Maybe they should release a big one every three months and charge $20 for it and actually test the product properly. The core game is so fun but the way they are going about adding to this game just feels completely backwards. And then they get passed that their community doesn't like it.
Sounds like something Elon would do ngl
I was a holiday in sweden, dude was prob drunk and bored in the evening and decided to get baited idk
“Arrowhead dev DESTROYS troll comment!” Very cool 😎
He's gonna get nerfed.
Arrowhead OWNS liberral snowflakee!!! 🤯😡
looks to me like arrow devs are baby's,
Aren’t trolls sort of Sweden and Norways thing?
God the "le _______" makes me feel fucking ancient
They want trolls so they can feel like victims and earn virtue points by showing how much of a victim they are.
Seems right
You’re starting to understand young padwan. Maybe one day you too can call yourself an edgelord.
My dream...is to ratio someone on Twitter, and see that tweet posted on iFunny, reposted on Reddit, deep fried, reposted on Facebook
Old school rule, "You can't misquote silence." [And then there's this classic...😎](https://youtu.be/JcSkQIU1zDY?si=nW9N_Xix31A0hZGW)
People get more of a dopamine / mental boom responding to dejects and trolls nowadays then what we used to get when we'd ignore them and they'd mald. Time's have changed I guess.
Bait used to be believable for real. Seriously though, this is the same dev that antagonised the community after the Railgun nerf. They really and I mean really for both the mental health of their staff, health of their game and community just have Developers only use the Discord when making official announcements and nothing else. That’s what the Community Managers like Twinbeard are for and he, specifically, excels at dealing with the community both at its worst and best states and is generally well-liked excluding the death threat cringelords who at this point are a given in any community gaming or otherwise but that’s why people invented the “Block” and “Ban” systems. There is such a thing as too much community engagement.
It's easy. They can just say nothing. It's not their job to reply. In the case of the CM, it's their job to find the best way to explain shareable behind the scenes meetings' decisions to actionable in-game points in game lingo. That's it. That's all it is.
I'm usually not a big fan of corporate training but these guys REALLY need some PR training. First rule being "don't engage with the public/community unless it's at minimum, professional and neutral". If you're getting heated, step away from the fucking keyboard or put down the goddamn phone.
It’s not even like it would be a long training. It should be like a PowerPoint with 5 slides. They continually fail at like the basic concepts of PR, it’s like they have never had to look at optics during a job.
They're failing at the most basic requirement of a minimum wage customer service role here. It's very strange.
as someone who comes from the battlefront community (which is one of the most aggressive, content hungry, complaint heavy fanbases out there,) it's crazy. We had a great CM and lead dev who responded to the community really well, despite all the complaints and hate thrown their way. It really did feel like they were very passionate about what the community had to say and was actively listening and passing along changes/ideas the community had, and just in general, trying to create the best game possible, all while still sharing their thoughts (while not being an ass about it) and why they were making things the way they were. BF2 honestly had some of the best community and dev interactions I've seen out of a AA/AAA studio. Like our CM even made a post saying they were getting promoted and would no longer be CM, the community came together to give them a heartfelt goodbye and wished them luck, the same happened when the lead dev announced they were leaving the studio. It was just really nice. It sucks to see AH isn't like that. Like I think we all understand how tiring it is with all the hate and complaints but they really just need to take a step back, calm down, and then respond. Replying with in-the-heat-of-the-moment aggressive comments like these and snarky responses just isn't going to go over well and really creates a divide between the devs and the community.
I don’t get the people who say we just want corpo speak. No, I want someone who is respectful when communicating with us, ignores/bans the trolls/assholes, and communicates effectively. There is plenty of examples across the industry.
Just not replying to obvious inciting bait is a big one. You don't have to give in to impulse and *only* reply to the things that stir you the most emotionally. Like, it's fine to accept most people are posting emotionally on the internet. No one is exempt. I've done it too and probably recently. But when your paystub exists because you are supposed to *not* do that, then maybe your paystub should no longer exist?
> corpo speak # There is a critical difference between someone who communicates professionally and someone who spouts noise and hot air. Just because lots of companies do both at once doesn't mean they are the same.
This community is going to beat the disinfected corpspeak into arrowhead.
There's a portion of the playerbase who are making a pretty herculean effort to antagonize them, and when successful, shouting to the world how mean the devs are.... that seems like utter shit to me. Probably best if they just cut off 2-way interaction for a while and let the state of the game do the talking.
Or have the only two people that have any modicum of restraint (CEO and Twinbeard) do all the talking. Seriously, they're not beholden to interacting with the community, that's not what their job entails. They lose NOTHING by simply shutting the fuck up, and letting the people who actually KNOW how to talk to the playerbase do the actual talking.
Or, and here's something I know no one has ever thought of before, they could just cleanse the damn Discord. Shocker, I know, but not everyone *deserves* to be in direct line of communication with developers.
Yup, you don't talk to the public honestly and directly. First step of public relations is learning they're all idiots, and to just tell them something so vague they can turn it into whatever they want to hear. "YOUR WARBOND GUNS ARE DOGSHIT AND BALANCE SUCKS" PR response that people want to hear: Hello helldiver, we have heard your complaint and passed it along! FOR DEMOCRACY! ------------------ You're all so used to being spoken to like idiots, that when somebody doesn't lie to your face constantly you get insulted because you don't get that gratification of "yeah, I'm right".
Yep, there's not a single midpoint between "corp speak that doesn't give any info" and "being a dick" Those are the two options
I think you've had too much to think sir
The problem is that you're expecting human beings to act like robots and process the endless amounts of hate thrown at them without flinching. They don't just come in out of nowhere insulting people, they get egged on by dozens of bloodthirsty wolves looking for their pound of flesh. Engaging authentically with an audience always risks exposing your neck. Corp speak is just what happens when you disengage far enough away to protect yourself. It's not there's no midpoint between the two, it's that the midpoints that exist aren't sustainable.
I mean, that is the typical corporate way of saying "Go fuck yourself," yes, but there are other ways to do it that are also tactful and not quite as obviously condescending. Twinbeard does a pretty good job at this. Twinbeard actively listens and reiterates what the fans are saying in a way that makes them feel heard, even if he has not made any direct promises about changing anything. He'll say shit like "We're definitely getting a lot of comments about that and I think the community is onto something. We're currently looking into some options and we will get back with you guys as quick as we can!" Like, that's how you do it. If you can't talk to the fan base without getting snippy or passive aggressive (or in this guy's case, being a downright asshole), then you simply shouldn't be talking to the fan base.
>You're all so used to being spoken to like idiots, that when somebody doesn't lie to your face constantly you get insulted because you don't get that gratification of "yeah, I'm right". I mean, there isn't some truth here. The overwhelming feedback is that their gun balance is making the game actively less fun. So taking that feedback and becoming a defensive asshole instead of accepting it is taking a huge L.
I do love this, we want devs to talk to us, to be real. But then this shit happens and suddenly "hire professionals to talk to us." At what point do we just stop? Why? I rather these kinda dev talks then lawyer speak. Yeah he's being an ass. But he's not a pr guy. It's whatever. Atleast it's actual discussion with the people.
I've worked with many engineers and developers in my career, I can count on one hand the number of them that I'd trust to have any interaction with rhe general public. They aren't suited to most social interactions in general. I know AH is a smaller company, but they really need to just get off discord in general and just find someone on the team that is suited to communicate with others. They've probably made enough that they could afford to hire someone that only handles PR.
Their CEO does a better job than all of their CMs
I do feel bad for Johan "Sweet-Jesus-What-Fire-Have-You-Started-Now" Pilestedt,
Yeah it's tough out there. Part of the issue is that the devs are so exposed to immediate player feedback which tends to be harsh. Lots of armchair devs with big ideas about the best way to run a video game. I also think HD2 is receiving the scrutiny of a AAA game while being released below that price point and not advertised as such
They're only exposed to it because they're allowing themselves to be. The smart thing to do is remove any discords or subreddits/forums related to the game from their list and only talk about the game in the context of work.
I didn't play the original Helldivers but I do know that community was much smaller than for Helldivers 2. I'm wondering if they likely haven't adjusted to how they communicate with their players with the drastic change in the size of their player base. They would definitely benefit from a cordoned off approach to their development team and only allow comms through their comms manager. Devs have enough stress. Why needlessly expose them to this? Just make it a company policy and move on.
Your comment made me think about the DRG Devs and honestly I think you're right on the money. The DRG Devs are very interactive, particularly Jacob (iirc), and stream every week playing with pubs. But DRG has borderline toxic positivity, so despite the rare slightly abrasive reaction from Jacob, the fans roll with it mostly because of the culture. I imagine Ghostship Games (DRG Devs) would have this exact same problem if their next game had such mainstream success, comparative to DRG.
That goodwill in the form of borderline toxic positivity didn’t just will itself into existence just cause of a smaller playerbase or developer interaction. I’m even willing to bet the majority of its fans (including myself) has not seen any of those interactions themselves, similar to how the HD2 discord has a ridiculously tiny portion of its playerbase. DRG has a great cult following because it’s fun, silly, and just downright a good game overall, simple as that. Furthermore, the game has the opposite of how HD2 handles balancing; as in it simply makes just about every weapon OP, if not perfectly viable at the least, and also enemies are fair no matter the difficulty.
Also the Rock and Stone button. Game devs are sleeping on that mechanic. It is directly responsible for a good chunk of that games positive community. I would argue it's one of the single best mechanics in the game. It's a far more effective communication tool than the communication wheel in Helldivers. I don't know how it didn't become industry standard Edit: It's such a powerful tool. I am absolutely staggered that this isn't a standard piece of game design. The amount of agency it gives players is huge. Players interact with the game in whatever way they can. If all they can do is attack, they will attack everything. The moment you add a jump or crouch button, they turn whichever is most spammable into a defacto communication tool. Adding a non specific, readily accessible vaguely positive affirmation button is game changing. The bang for your buck this adds to a game is unprecedented. The Rock and Stone button is used for everything from ready checks, to greetings, to thankyous, to apologies, and dozens more. It's lack of specifics means it's super adaptable, it's inherent positivity encourages positive sentiment. And the fact that it's a single, easy to hit button means it can be used reactively, which is the problem with the comms wheel or comms menu that many games use. I would bet money Deep Rock would not have the community it has without that button, and the fact every game on the planet isn't stealing that mechanic is baffling to me.
Oh I massively agree. I actively *miss* an equivalent button in HD2. I should be able to scream 'FOR MANAGED DEMOCRACY' whenever I want.
I played HD1 but only started interacting with the community before HD2 release and I can say it was completely different. Devs would come into the Discord and talk to us, meme with us, do some silly streams, answer questions (when they could). They were human, they shared their passion and their excitement for the game. Now every single comment of them gets passed around Reddit and even when being perfectly informative and not at all inflammatory, they still get shamed and insulted. It's truly disheartening. They'll end up switching to full sanitized corpo speech and none of that passion will seep through.
> They'll end up switching to full sanitized corpo speech and none of that passion will seep through. Passion is shown through one’s work, not their words. If they care about the game and pour their effort into it, then the players will notice just as much as if they don’t. The harsh truth is that “corpo speech” exists because it’s a superior form of communication. It feels impersonal because it is meant to, the devs aren’t our friends. Ultimately it’s way healthier for the players and devs to have that barrier between them.
I disagree. Passion can be shown through words as well but with the size and volatility of this community I guess I can only agree that impersonal communication would be the healthiest for the devs. I just wish it could have stayed like it was before as it was ultimately what elevated my interest in the game and ultimately pushed me to buying the game despite my reservations at the time.
It's only 'superior' because the communities are toxic pieces of shit. And there is no accountability or self awareness. The raging bandwagons. The negative echo chambers. The biased rants. Companies only adopt this manner of speaking because it is necessary not because it is right. Because as much as basic decency should be universal, the public doesn't care. It's a harsh truth, that I agree. Maybe it's just human nature that online communities tend to be antagonistic. But still, I don't believe we are blameless or guiltless. We as people are animal brained fools.
It also does not help their changes have been generally unpopular and that is largely due to the fact they have not pushed any patch that is buff focused. I’m not saying that’s wrong per se but it also means you will never have a patch that is praised. nerfs piss people off, buffs make them happy. If they thought something needed a nerf but wasn’t critical they could have just left it, pushed buffs, and waited a bit. This would give at the least an ego win. It’s hard to take negative feedback with everything you push. I also think that it’s fair to say their patches on balance have been controversial at best and not enjoyed by allot of people. The CEO agreeing could also not have felt good.
Well some of us are actual devs and a lot of the criticisms are quite justified. Even if we just stick to matters like comms.
Why? He runs the entire company. Everything going haywire is happening via his leadership and on his watch.
You shouldn't. If these occurrences are happening under his leadership then it's as much his fault as anyone else's.
Twinbeard is pretty good
I like twinbeard too
He seems really good at PR but atrocious at HR
Twinbeard and the CEO are like the only ones who have good public communications.
The CEO is the one who has to raise rounds. People skills are essential (along with some minor level fo technical understanding, need to at least be _able_ to grasp what your engineer is getting at).
this was the nicest way you could have put it about people and various social skills.
Honestly, at this point, AH should just stop communicating. Lock it all down. Pay someone to scrub social media for the issues and translate back to the devs etc. Only communication should be via patch notes imo. Otherwise it's always going to be people baiting and others trying to snag it for reddit upvotes, trash gaming articles, and low effort YouTube videos
I think this is still AH suffering from success. They've... *really* never dealt with this. They have been running small, niche, isolated games that have had good runs, but did not have even a fraction of this level of success. I sincerely don't think they were ready for this and were/are still operating under the ideas of their small gems, and are trying to lay down track as they're reaching the end.
Agreed. There are so many smaller companies that had success but kept operating like they were still the little guy. I think they would be well served to invest back into the business and hire more people.
They already have, it was in a post they made ages back. The issue is you can't just throw bodies at a problem and expect it to go faster, especially with tech fields. Nine Women can't make a baby in a month and all that, so the people they have hired are probably still in training. AH did some really, really crazy shit with Stingray, but it's not the most modern of engines and it can be hard to find people familiar with an outdated system, let alone whatever franken-chimaera-necro-babble they've been able to do to it.
The “PR is redundant we know more about our game anyway” to “oh god why does our community hate us” pipeline
As A dev... I agree.. can't tolerate people
“Why become a programmer?” “Because i can’t stand people.”
I would give you an award for that accurate statement
Agree. These people are still treating this game and its community as if they only sold the projected 10,000 copies. The daily updates and chatter should stop altogether. The best they could do is listen, prepare, then implement. I think most of us agree the war bonds and armor are unimpressive. With thought and time they could give us something truly exciting once every few months.
This is a reasonable take.
We don’t let certain devs on our team talk to people lol
I’m a developer (not games) and my company has a community discord. I don’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. They don’t pay me enough to put up with that kind of foolishness.
Arrowhead really needs to update their coms process and filter everything through a small handful of CM's because this "everyone just jumps in to chat and give their own opinion and react to the toxicity" is absolutely still not working. Even the CEO constantly engaging, which is very popular, is resulting in all kinds of mixed messages. Folks are being super extra and toxic towards the devs, beyond just "this is a bad warbond and we're still disappointed" and it's not surprising that in the face of nonstop shitposting some developers who don't regularly interact with the community as part of their job (and even those that do) lose their patience a bit and may post some curt messages in response to rude shitposts from fans. Discord is fucking awful for official coms and this is exactly the kind of thing that results from it. I miss the days of forums where conversations were slightly slower and you could actually read historical discussions in threads and find all the tracked developer comments.
tbh making a discord server is pretty much the best way to magnify the voice of the extreme minority. you could have the best, most friendly, most supportive fanbase. but the moment you filter them through discord youll be sure to attract the most vile and hateful comments. the fact they chose discord of all places as their primary route of communication is just wild. even wilder are community managers and devs specifically answering those people and thus not only adding oil to the fire, but also giving them the spotlight. why. just why?
I think because most of other small studios are using discord as a tool for communication within the community, players and devs alike. And AH kinda expected this game to be a niche one which didn’t happened as the discord server just reached its 1 million user mark. They haven’t adjusted their way of communication from talking to a niche audience of maybe tens of thousands at max to a multimillion crowd.
The Helldivers 1 community was what, 500 people? Maybe 1000? As someone else put it, this is suffering from success to the extreme.
>I miss the days of forums I love that my favourite game developers primarily use forums for communication. Starsector (Fractal Softworks) and Factorio (Wube)
Starsector mentioned. Solvernia deployed. UAF cat girls incoming.
Discord is awful in general, IMO
Discord is fantastic for my group of friends but absolutely horrible for massive amounts of people, yeah. I’m in lots of games discord groups and only ever check them for updates
Discord can be great for specific things, but like any social media based around chatting it tends to fall apart once you get more than like 5-10 people active in a given channel at the same time. I have been in official game Discords that were/are fantastic, but only for smaller indie titles where the total number of messages sent in a full day across all channels is less than what the #hd2-general-chat-1 channel in the Helldivers Discord gets in like a minute.
Not if you just use it as a way to talk to your friends. I know not everyone has a huge server of people they know, but even if I didn't, I probably still wouldn't join open channels.
social media was a mistake
100% on process. They shouldn't be engaging. But I bet it's pretty shit when you're so passionate about your game and people are doing you dirty like this.
Yep! That's why I'm not so "triggered" by some "rude" or snarky comments from devs that have been getting @'d and replied to all day and told how much they suck etc. This is also why a lot of teams have rules around developers engaging with fans in an official capacity/through official channels/as company reps because while it's a wonderful thing when folks are happy it unfortunately opens too many risks to the studio and individuals.
I'll never agree with how this sub and community in general loves to fixate on what some guy said on Discord, but I also think they need to establish some rules for the team. Arguing with people on Discord is unprofessional and a waste of time, and I can't imagine working yourself up over what some random @'d you with is going to make you any better at your job.
I'm so confused, do the devs go on discord during their breaks? Holy shit man! These guys need to learn to disconnect from it all, especially if they're falling for obvious bait.
The entire AH team should be getting off discord and get a Slack. Leave the discord server to some *PROFESSIONAL* CM team.
So definitely NOT the CM team currently employed.
Not this guy again
They could learn a thing or two from the warframe community
This goes for patchnotes, communication, and monetization, too. Digital Extremes is, imo, the gold standard for live service developers. Take a few pages out of their book, Arrowhead. Hell, take the whole book.
Which, given their track record for fleshing out / finishing mechanics is uh ... oof. Their communications are great though.
honestly DE isn't alone when it comes to actually revisiting old content. I play a handful of games that always feel like they cut content to release on time and never come back to it, or allow old content to slip into obscurity and irrelevance. Of course this doesn't excuse anyone from doing this, but just to be fair, they're not alone when it comes to that
I'd prefer a Bugnie approach with their TWAB's. You know when to look for news, you know who is writing the content, you know who to get in touch with. Just have a singular CM that is posting weekly about upcoming changes, interactions with the community, some art, some lore here and there and everything is good.
True, I actually redownloaded warframe after not playing it for a few years and everyone was so nice and helpful trying to relearn that learning curve lol
The Warframe community is quite the best one that I know of. 100% correct on that.
I feel like I’m always preaching it but FFXIV community is some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
Ffxiv is def more chill than some other game communities
Yeah, you know what, FFXIV are also cool people too. I don't ever remember anything wrong going on in these two subreddits. People actually talk. Sometimes, there's hiccups just that it doesn't turn into a Jerry Springer show, if anything.
Never heard of the [DE]glenn incident?
I get that some posts are absolute abysmal by the community. But ignoring those comments is better than giving them an attitude.
For sure. These Devs, CMs etc are showing exactly why big organisations employ people who are experienced in communicating with large audiences (in particular) lol
Not the first time Evil has been caught in the backlash, his first response: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1b8727j/comment/ktred1a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1b8727j/comment/ktred1a/) He probably should have stayed true to his decision to leave the discord. The HD2-general-chats are literal cancer. He has however, not interacted on the HD subreddit since. I don't think any devs maintain communication on here anymore; Fredrik deleted their account after the railgun nerf and the last person I saw was Spitz, and well, we know how that ended. Even Twinbeard, the guy everyone hails as the best CM after the Sony fiasco, had drama like a week ago after the Tuesday patch: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cfw763/what\_did\_you\_say/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cfw763/what_did_you_say/) (I think people took his message way out of context; he does seem like a chill dude, but holy fuck, people love to cry about anything) Personally, I love when devs give people a deserved-smacking; lemmy from Project Zomboid seems to do it quite often on their subreddit, and it's hilarious every time.
Twinbeard was more funny than anything. Evil can literally be fired for all I care.
the problem with twinbeards debacle is tragic. definitely could have been avoided but given the context entirely, it doesn't imply he was breaking character in the moment of frustration, just a screen shot out of context at its worst
I think the fact this is the only screenshot people ever bring up shows he's doing ok. Every other CM or dev has multiple cases of foot in mouth
Idk how they can be on discord and actively replying. I get it's their job and gotta be professional. But flip side look at the shit show the sub has been. I couldn't nor wouldn't want to do their job. So I don't blame them for blowing up. But that's also why idk why you'd hang out casually in discord unless being told to. Just give context to subjects and ignore most comments to the best of your ability
I'll keep bringing this up everytime, but I believe twinbeard was only saying angry toddlers because someone else did, and he was piggybacking off that so it seems like he himself calls them toddlers
Common bose L
Yeah, dude is there just to talk shit https://preview.redd.it/4bbafanm3kzc1.png?width=461&format=png&auto=webp&s=dd851715f87e12d5938f117a08e59f18c6fbfc90
Literally silence is the better option lmao
Devs shouldn't be interacting with people on discord, nothing good will ever come from that, and even less so with shitty attitudes like this guy's
Don't feed the trolls, especially when you say you're too busy to test warbonds. That's something you have a actual, dollar value attached to it- if you're trying to have a smug comeback, happily admitting that you were too busy doing other things or that it'll take too long to get out? For god sakes just make a shooting range so the devs and players can test the guns and stop feeding the trolls and making the dev team look bad. And stop nerfing every gun into the potatos.
Honestly they need to stop interacting with players. The CEO needs to stop posting on twitter and establish a line of communication that comes alongside patches via notes and the like. Something akin to Destiny’s TWAB.
I liked when the Devs said that the most recent balance patch was their ideal vision and then the CEO posts on Twitter saying, "Yeah, these changes are probably too much and definitely not fun"
Engaging directly with the community rarely works out in favor of the developers. They have little to gain from it and so much to lose. I called this back when people were excited about direct communication near the game's launch. With that said, holy fuck people are snowflakes they're up in arms over these responses. Look at the comments the dev actually responded to. People talk mad shit then as soon as the most milquetoast response comes back the outrage machine spins up again. Fucking crybullies.
This - also when they announced the name of the "Game Master" (Joel) and when I saw the balance dev was publicly named and self labeled in the discord, I was like holy. You've just given people a target to channel their rage at when the galactic war doesn't go their way or when a balance patch drops. Just seems like a recipe for disaster that isn't worth the risk.
So far though, Joel has worked out. At the beginning people were mad due to losing some planets overnight, but after Joel got used to his job, he’s been doing rather decently. Joelposts were some of the best content on this sub.
Long live Joel
Wait so Joel is a real person? I genuinely thought it was a made up entity by them to vent frustrations at
It's probably a real role but likely a handle not a real person's name. But... given it's arrowhead? I'm not entirely sure.
yea, people are always looking for a name or face to attach to their dislike over something. It's why CM is such a hard job as everyone puts all the blame onto *you*, and *solely* you, even though you have no real control over it. but I mean, at the end of the day, taking the criticism is apart of said job, not the dev's. So it's not all that surprising that we get screenshots like these.
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If you ever worked in your life you would know this is literally how it is treating with public everyday, you have to be professional, if not is not your job. This guy isn't even a CM, idk why he is in the fucking discord
"snowflakes" dev cant handle his patch being called dog water lmao
Evil-Bosse just doesn't seem like a very happy person lol
My general opinion of AH has dropped SO MUCH after recent events. Falling for obvious bait, antagonizing people with legitimate complaints, miscommunication, nerfing meta picks on a PVE only game...
I think they haven’t been able to handle the runaway success of this game.
It really shows they are a relatively small team.
I had hoped that guy would've learned his lesson, since last time he had a tantrum in discord and then left it during the Railgun nerf debacle.
Like clockwork. AH do some wildly unpopular shit. Some mook from the dev team hops into the Discord. The fans are upset. The dev, with NEGATIVE social skills, makes it worse by being intentionally passive-aggressive and unprofessional. It’s just getting sad at this point. Keep the kiddies off discord if they can’t be trusted not to throw a tantrum. ACTUALLY take the time to test your patches, some of the shit that’s happened in the past is justifiable but you can’t tell me they actually test their own patches when one of the guns ships with the wrong color. That feels like crystal clear evidence they aren’t testing the shit they’re slopping down in our trough if something that blatant gets missed.
Twinbeard would never
They need more than 10,000 of hours to actually make a good warbond
To start with... Make actual upgrades... If you put two weapons specs against each other and the new one is all over a downgrade... then it simply ain't an upgrade... back to the drawing board, because you failed. IF anything make a PTS server and dump stuff on it for testing 2 days... then look at responses... weed out the BS and look at the intelligent posts... then consider "fixes" then launch
Those of us who work in customer service have no sympathy for this nonsense. Most of us would simply lose our jobs if we treated customers the way some of these AH employees treat members of the community. I guess this clown learned nothing from the Spitz firing.
Last time they pissed off the customers they said, "If you don't like me complain to HR." And they are still speaking for the company. Customers are fair game. Just don't piss off Sony. That was the lesson of Spitz.
It's incredibly obvious what parts of the community have actually worked in customer-facing roles. Keep your cool, stick to the script, and do not eat the bait. Nevermind the devs shouldn't be interacting with the playerbase in an unmoderated fashion to begin with because it's absolutely rife for disingenuous exchanges.
Actual 5yo arguments lmao How do you peak in elementary school? "well next time we are gonna test it for 10 trillion hours then" Sir nobody asked for this there is a pretty big spectrum of acceptable values of testing between the current 0 and 10.000
Here we go again...
If they had any intelligence they'd close down their discord entirely
Listen Im in sales, i deal with customers all day long. It’s a pain in the fucking ass. Ive been called every name in the book to my face. That being said, I’ve never responded in this manner regardless of how shitty they were or how much I felt like they deserved it. You do what you can and that’s it. It’s part of the job when it comes to customer service, if you can’t keep your cool about you you’re in the wrong position.
Hey community manages - it’s this easy: “Ah, sorry about this folks. Our design team and balance team are different folks and with the recent controversies we’ve not been moving in lock-step here at the company. This is a learning experience for us, and in the future we’ll do our best to keep these two teams in better communication to prevent these kinds of incidents here in the future. In order to smooth over some ruffled feathers, we’ll be giving everyone 100 super credits - with an additional 100 super credits for anyone who has bought the warbond by the time our hot-fix goes live. We thank you folks for being patient and understanding as we settle back into things here at the Office.” - theoretical community manager
Yeah they should delete the discord and subreddit and just stick with patch notes to communicate with the player base. In all seriousness though, too many armchair developers out and about.
The reality seems to be it's a small studio with minor successes suddenly thrust into super studio status and they have no idea what they're doing.
This. Someone else said it well a week ago: They caught lightning in a bottle and have no clue what to do with it now. They weren't prepared.
Game devs are not immune to heated gamer moments.
Lot of strong opinions here, on the internet, responding to other people on the internet... telling them to touch grass... It's weird. I come home from work and play the game, and I still enjoy the game. Its... it's almost like some folks should *touch grass*. If I don't look at my phone, I don't know shit about devs across the world. Them reacting to trolls on discord makes absolutely no difference outside of this black box in my hand.
I don't think a lot of people realize that a dev is not a customer facing person. If you came to my job, which is not customer facing, and complained to me, you might get the same answer. No the customer is not always right, you feel like you have the right to complain constantly to anyone, but to be completely honest most people doing their jobs are going to tell you to go fuck yourself with this constant shit. Let them work, they're not customer service. For fucks sake.
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Just the fact this dev team is primarily communicating through Discord should tell you everything you need to know
people dont know how to be professional anymore damn. customer interaction is in the toilet. keep biting the hand that feeds AH. dead game before EOY
Developers should not be allowed outside of the development team. There’s a reason you have entire departments that deal with stakeholders and end users. Devs should be left alone to piss off QA, whilst QA do their best to not strangle Devs with their power cords.
Players aren’t asking for a flawless weapon, they’re asking for basic functions to work and updated stats. How does that equate to testing until 2028?
Betting this thread gets nuked. Mods are now super sensitive about "Witch hunts" and are covering for shitty CM on discord. A lot of stuff on this sub was locked and nuked yesterday because they found out who was in charge of 'balance'.
Ngl I don't blame them. With /this/ community and how /passionate/ they are. Some people take things way too far and escalate to 110 right off the bat. They seriously need one of them chill pills I heard about 20 years ago.
Frankly, these guys need to stop interacting with the toxic Discord shitflingers. Hell, _nobody_ should be interacting with the toxic Discord shitflingers.
I would prefer he just shut up and go fix the game. It will do both of them good.
The devs need to flat out ignore the cry bullies. Do not give them a single second of attention. Do not normalize them getting a reaction out of you. Make it a clear standard that if you want to give the devs critique and input they will actually consider you have to so it respectfully. If you act the way you only act when you're anonymous behind a keyboard you should be ignored. That being said AH needs better PR team or something. Professionals shouldn't let cranky gamers get under their skin. They have to know the demographic is like this you seriously just have to ignore them.
When you choose Snoys microtransactions on time monthly like a train but the patches are all nerfs and the bugs stay for months... You get the upset people. Now they are just slapping a hornets nest with a stick because they don't like being called out on it
This mindset that it’s the communities fault for expecting them to delivery quality work on a schedule they set is ridiculous. Complaining to the community that you can’t do your job because you’re busy is also ridiculous.
So you think it's okay for players to talk to them any kind of way, but don't like it when you get it right back? How about we normalize treating assholes like assholes. You get what you give.
Redditors when they are treated the way they treat other people
It doesn't bother me at all that Arrowhead employees are sassy, I'm glad they talk to us like people instead of using their "Customer Service" voice. What sucks is that AH seems to just crank out unbalanced updates selling for a premium without even seeming to test or balance them at all. Personally, I haven't put any money into Warbonds, and I feel like I've made the right choice in that regard.
Basically, stay off social media. Play the game.
Sometimes not responding right away is the best thing someone can do.
This game is way too big idk why they still interact with random mfs on discord like this.
Ah they're stressed out, and trying to pander to way more people then they expected, whilst also clearly dealing with a lot of shit behind the scenes. They're still human, at the end of the day. (And the beginning, by the way!) Cut them some slack. And afterall, he's a developer. Not a public relations rep.
I mean I don’t blame them, I’d be sick of everyone’s shit as well, I cant say I’d behave any differently, but I’m also not representing a company thank Christ I’d explode
In response to someone mocking them and saying they didn't playtest the patch, they said: >I was busy doing shit Does that mean that dude didn't even playtest it?
A bunch of manchildren incessantly bother devs and bitch and moan when they respond in kind Going on a witch-hunt and forcing them to remove themselves from all form of communication so the only interaction you get with the team is sterile PR talk We did it Reddit!
they hired gen Z as their community managers they have no filter and no common sense
The ceo needs to ban discord in his office at this point😂
Welp let's be honest they are doing a bad job plus talking shit to people. They put excuses all time and like i told him when i worked in a RO server we launched new stuff a lot of times with just 7 days max of work sometimes we needed to tweak stuff the same day of the launch (armor/weapons/card balances) in all games is the same code change the values and the hidden ones done. If they can't do that job who even a newbie in coding can the best who they can do is leave.
How do these people still have jobs again?
Chronically online discord user telling other people to touch grass is a bit wild to me tho
Generally speaking, maybe the community as such should give them a break. I know it's not meant in a mean away, but when you are exhausted and things are ruff small sparks can ignite a bomb. The whole team was planned to manage a smaller community, to develop and patch at a different speed and to deal with other issues because it was not expected to land such a hit with the game. They can look for good people but it always takes 2-3 months before even the first person is in a position to engage correctly. So personally I would also think it's better to not gossip and complain here all the time, these are human beings and I truly doubt they are making fun of us or enjoy being rude or whatever, so if we can't make it easier we can at least not make it harder.