How to deal with (bad?) player suggestions

Question

Every game which builds a community while still being in active development will soon be confronted with players who post suggestions for new features on its forum. Most of these suggestions, however:

• Go into a completely different direction than where you want your game to go
• Would require far too much effort for the benefit they could have
• Are just plain awful

What's a good way to deal with such suggestions?

Should you tell the players honestly what you think about their suggestions so that they learn to make more constructive ones?

Should you always try to maintain a positive and encouraging attitude towards player ideas, even when you secretly think that there is not a chance in hell you are following them?

Should you just ignore any suggestions which you don't like?

Answer 1

People who make suggestions are often fans or critics, who are invaluable as they help you know how well you are doing. Therefore you should treat these people with respect. Be gentle, firm, and most importantly, honest. This means you tell them exactly why you think their idea is bad, whilst being as understanding as possible.

• If the idea is technically difficult, tell them so, and explain how it is technically difficult. Stick to the facts, stick to established wisdom. Address the difficulty as a shortcoming of the current system, rather than the impracticality of the suggestion, and never suggest that the player lacks technical know-how (even though that is often true).

  Good: To support 100 billion players, we'll have to move to some server cluster solution, and we just don't have the resources to do that in a reasonable time.

  Bad: That's not even physically possible; the algorithms involved have not even been discovered.

• If the idea has merit but goes in a different direction, tell them so, and explain how the idea goes against your direction. Try to be diplomatic, and keep in mind that design is subjective, but at the same time be firm in stating that you have control over the artistic/design direction of the game.

  Good: I believe lasers will look out-of-place with the medieval theme of this game, and we want to be faithful in our rendition of a medieval society.

• If the idea has flaws or lacks merit, tell them so, and explain its shortcomings. Keep in mind that for whatever reason (limitations of the medium, difficulty in expression, lack of forethought), the player may not be aware of the flaws, so kindly but clearly point them out. You'll find that players often come back with refinements, clarifications or just drop the idea, which are all much better outcomes. Remember that with a lot of ideas, players are dying to get a whiteboard and explain their idea face-to-face, but instead have to resort to a crappy text-only medium, so do not assume that just because the idea comes off as flawed that it is actually so. Also consider that a lot of great games started from ideas that don't seem brilliant at all, and it was execution that made them great.

  Good: Dishing out a 1-hit-KO spell may be fun, but I think it would be very annoying to be on the receiving side.

• If you just don't find the idea good, tell them so, but be careful how you tell them, and always suggest alternatives. This type of response is the hardest to give, so see if you can treat it as one of the previous cases instead - eliminate the technical and obvious flaws first. In forming your response, assume that the idea is actually good, and ask why did the idea come off as bad? Does the player need to sell it a bit more? Would examples, sketches, or demos help? Would getting more community support help? Always give them a realistic out - what would convince you, and how could they go about it? Try to see the idea in the best possible light, don't be defensive, and look for that hidden kernel of wisdom that is often there.

  Good: I don't think a half-elf-dragon-devil-samurai-ninja would look good and be balanced, could you please show me what it might look like, what its stats and abilities might be?

Another way of looking at the problem is: these people may not be game development experts, but they could very well be experts in other areas that you are not - they could be doctors or lawyers. I'm sure you've said things that your doctor/lawyer would consider hare-brained, so ask yourself how you would like them to respond in that situation.

Answer 2

Tell people things like, "Hey that's an interesting idea. Thanks for the feedback!" That is making no promises nor making any direct feedback on the quality (or lack of) for the suggestion. Of course if you really really think it's a good suggestion, do say so. The catch is, don't clearly gush over the good ones and say, "yea thanks for that (NOT!)" for the ones you don't like. People can subtly sense your mood there whether you think so or not.

Don't say "I'll look into it" (unless you really are going to), nor say things like "What a dumb idea!"

The key here is to acknowledge to the person posting that you saw their feedback, and that you appreciate their involvement in the community. That's what they really want to hear and see.

Think about how it is on this site. Suppose you post a question or an answer. It's very human to be curious how the community will respond to it. Get an upvote? That's great! Get NO votes? That's kind of a bummer because maybe nobody read it, maybe nobody cared. Get a down vote, and it's hard not to feel a bit rejected.

Also, be open minded. Good suggestions will come up in your forums. And with every suggestion, try to look beyond the specific idea and see if you can identify the root motivation to the suggestion. Maybe the aiming system in your shooter is actually not easy to use, and someone makes a suggestion about a change. It may be their idea really stinks, but their root issue with the aiming system is legitimate - and that's what you need to know. So you could turn that into a, "Hey thanks for your idea for a change to the aiming system" type response.

Lastly, this is why you need a person familiar with community management to handle such things. If you don't have such a person or aren't the person to do this, consider just not having an online forum. They can be more work than you think.

Answer 3

Telling your community that their ideas are bad is a sure way to make your community hate you. The most important point here is to make your community feel like they are contributing something to the game even if their ideas are not remotely feasible. Good responses would most certainly be "Thanks for the feedback!" or "We'll take it on board!". However I feel that those response are just standard responses that make you think "blah, blah, blah".

The best kind of response to this is something that...

1. Encourages further input
2. Ensures player that their suggestion will be considered
3. Provides a positive human response

All of these points will go far in building your community. Best example I can think of would be "That's a really interesting idea - jetpacks could add a whole new mechanic to the game! We'll present it to the rest of the team."

That being said, you should jump on good suggestions, and use them as examples. That way, you can turn it to your advantage and report back to the community - saying "PlayerX suggested this improvement - and we thought it was such a great idea that we'd add it in! Take a look at this screenshot/video etc!" That kind of feedback will do wonders for your popularity.

Answer 4

Actual real world community management:

1. Idea is economically useless - serious investment vs low return. Or a direct subversion of revenue:

You can never tell the user that their obvious improvement is totally correct but your design demand inconvenience so relief can be monetized.

For any other tech heavy stuff - employing a two step approach is preferable. At step one you let them know you are going to pass it on (flag your milestone, and keep track to come back later). At point two you say you've checked with dev team and they say it takes too much time for too little benefit. If you are well embedded in the work-flow you can often make these decisions yourself without asking coders or designers. If your dev team actually wants solid feedback - you put these in to well comprised lists so devs can actually take a look at them in an organized fashion.

The only thing you have to do is make sure your assessment is solid. If you ever reject a SIMPLE fix with this statement for any reason, there is going to be a massive surge in credibility, as someone technical can say something like "Get serious, fixing a minor html bug on that page takes 5 minutes of a 10 year old - here - I'll give you the code for free".

2. Post is in unintelligible: "Can you please describe what is it that you suggest EXACTLY and more clearly, because I'm confused."

3. The idea is outside the goal: "We have have considered this option, but for now it is now what we are looking to do" often its enough, if the honest reason why is acceptable give it. Otherwise you may better lie and say its possible to happen in long term future, but its very low on the priorities list.

4. Idea is a luxury: Something kind of cool, but is really an EXTRA BONUS not a NEED.

I usually maintain a list of these, where devs can handpick them when they want to. Again i say to users this is added to a list of low priority possible improvements.

General:

What you can and cannot say is heavily based on your general disposition and behavior.

The user-base I work with trusts me because I have indeed officially credited people for suggestions that were implemented. I also have taken to account circumstances and I have given very detailed explanations where they weren't necessary.

If the general perception of a/the community manager is that he is paying attention. It is very bankable in the long run. You can close cases/threads/posts/tweets with a set of 10 template answers - and even if you get questioned - the regulars in the user-base are going to verify your credibility and that what you are saying holds weight.

I view it more or less like a currency, you earn some when possible (by going out of your way to give more than the average support hypocritical bland answer) - and then you spend some when brushing off people you don't want to deal with without having to explain yourself.

If you've always copy pasted templates people view you more or less as a drone trying to get rid of as many requests as possible - without ever trying to communicate with them on a person to person basis. You are never going to have a positive environment where people feel their expression is just wasted in a forum/whatever platform. And they don't need to know you. They can just list a few threads and see the proof that you indeed have taken another-random someone (just like them) and have bothered to engage with them thoroughly. Why didn't you enter extensive dialog with me? - Maybe you were busy or indeed my post has lees merit than I think. Its obvious though that you CAN engage and that you HAVE done so in the environment.

Following the all famous corporate official like behavior pattern is a slap in the face of anyone who is emotional or passionate about a thing. And its usually these people that bother diverting time from their lives to explain to you why and how you have to improve your product that you are profiting from.

And despite what many people think, being human even miss-spelled and with grammar errors HELPS. Better have a genuine communication with a few misspells, than a packet of honed in "perfect" cold-read copy-pastes. If your support environment is limited and you re-use templates, it comes a time people assume an AI is handling basic communication. And whats the point if having people to handle people if they are going to be perceived as machines.

Obviously none of this is possible if management never allows you to be a person on-line.

This mistake is made very often with games. Players come to have fun in games. When your rep handles them like a pro lawyer explains the 367 excerpt of a company merger contract to a committee. You instantly trigger the thought "Oh damn it, again its another suit that wants to drain my money and only has a forum/etc because - everybody else has or its traditional - they don't care"...

It is regular to run a company on that old tradition. But this is the lowest benefit factor you gain from a community.

There is no conclusive study on the greater benefit of community management. However a successfully positive community is easily felt anywhere it exists. And any fool in business can tell you a satisfied customer hold great referral value that is often immeasurable. Thats why some smarter companies out there handle support publicly. They want to world to know how their employees handle their other customers - because they've made an effort in there.

P.S. Here is a recent support that was done on me. The guy said "We are just not able to do as you ask." and finished. Maybe a little bit of polite cold read closure was inserted afterwords.

I vote this the top support person for 2015. For the year I've written many support tickets to many companies about many products. This was the first person for an entire year to resolve my case in 1 short answer, without stonewalling me, letting me expire or slapping me with 15 lines of cold read text that has almost zero relevance to what my request is about, and adds and absolute zero of value to the matter at hand.

For you see even being turned down becomes a joy in today's bland community management world. Because being told you are not going to have something right then and there is much better than waiting for it two months as some _INSERT_CURSE_WORD_ person said they are going to get back to you but they never intended to, much less did. So not only you didn't receive what you asked for - you were also hung out to dry, because some _INSERT_CURSE_WORD_ person in the company thinks community management has to be so polite at all times that they even have to change the topic instead of the apocalypse which would ensue if you they ever even slightly said anything that might disagree with the user.

Answer 5

You shouldn't be handling feedback by yourself. Eventually, you'll spend all your time responding to it, and nobody wants that.

Direct feedback to forums, a trustworthy assistant-designer, or a ticketing system. Aside from the assistant option, this allows you to ignore ideas outright and comes across as impersonal.

I'm still a fan of the forums system because it allows your fan base to discuss the idea. The first few times, tell them why it doesn't fit in with the system. Once your fans understand the direction of the game, they'll repeat your answer to future similar suggestions.

If it is a good idea, then simply acknowledge and respond to it.

Answer 6

I like the idea of having a list of suggestions from the users but first the other users of the forum had to approve it by voting. Then, since the list would be small because a fairly large (your choice) amount of users would have to like it, you could read the suggestions yourself or have someone you trust do it easily.

These suggestions would be good or at least not crazy so you wouldn't have to say to anybody that their ideas suck. From here, you can just tell them if it's hard to do, if it isn't fit for the game or ask for more details.

Answer 7

In forums where I participate developers rarely address fan suggestions. You are amazing to even consider addressing them. If they are completely flawed then it is probably best to let other fans engage with them (somebody is bound to have a different opinion). Unless you are in the unlikely situation where everybody agrees with an idea except you (in which case perhaps you should give it a second thought), it's probably safe to just ignore it.