Why does everything suck so much right now?

@zhanghm18 said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

Banning people who make personal attacks doesn't make community discussion worse, it just makes community communication more effective.

While the tone of some of these comments has been a point of continued irritation and disappointment for us, we are hesitant to police these threads too strongly.

Even when moderated with the best intentions, any action will inevitably result in accusations of censorship, despotism, and preferential treatment. Add to that the difficulty of determining when something has crossed the line—which we've seen before differs greatly between players—and we're back to mods getting called nazis or worse and a second batch of threads clamoring for our heads.

That's not to say that we're not keeping an active eye on this thread however, and we continue to internally discuss comments where necessary. If this thread further devolves into mudslinging, we'll reach a point where we will have to clear comments or lock the thread altogether.

This would be the worst outcome, because BlackYps has asked important questions that warrant discussions. I believe that such a discussion is not beyond what we may expect from our community.

@jip It's fine, I rattled his cage, I'm no better. What's actually funny is I was asking @FtXCommando how exactly a thousand new pros might improve his or my faf experience more than the features I like and he hits me with "we could have been real tryhards and prevented you from playing TMM alongside your friends, but relented". Insert tyrant extolling his benevolence to his subjects meme.

My dude, you're not even an actual pro, you're a 1900. "We"? Pffff

No wonder the lobby server dev quit after TMM was up and running. Imagine working to help players more conveniently find games and having to deal with some endless-essay pretend-pro busy-body actively trying to sabotage your main goal, because, you see, the trueskill data (a mere means to an end) would otherwise be a bit noisier than it already is. Then, to top it off, they go and take partial credit for the work, calling themselves Collaborator, since starting, then losing futile arguments about dumb shit technically counts as labor, right? Also, they get indignant should their effort not be valued over yours, the actual dev.

Regardless other contributions I have you to thak for, this one's not helping change my mind about whose activity benefits me more. The boastful claim this was actually within your power and we were spared such an outcome only by your willingness to compromise would be worrying if I actually took it seriously. I'd I'd rather hope someone reasonable will always be here, willing and able to step in whenever your lot fails to be brought to your senses, which is why I'm speaking up before you drive them away.

@indexlibrorum said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

While the tone of some of these comments has been a point of continued irritation and disappointment for us, we are hesitant to police these threads too strongly.

The solution is not in more extensive moderation. All it requires is this:

@dorset said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

@ftxcommando nobody is shooting anyone in the head here so don't be so dramatic.

We just need everyone to speak up and point out the unnecessary drama, just like one would do to people around you in real life. And I appreciate that Dorset did that here.

@indexlibrorum I think the problem is that we can't let a few people have an impact on the community that hurts the majority. Some players like to express their opinions in bad language, maybe. But a small minority of people who like to say nasty things should not be allowed to do so on a continuous and frequent basis. Polite comments are then drowned out in a flood of impolite comments. Thus, the minority who take no responsibility for what they say actually represents the consequences of the majority's opinion.

@zhanghm18 within the organization I work for we have something in our employee code of conduct called incivility. I'm sure everyone knows what that is but essentially it allows the company to dismiss an individual for disrupting the workforce and bringing down morale. They don't have to actually specifically attack character or be abusive or harassing. Essentially if they are inciting others to have a negative view of the company or are being disruptive in similar fashion then we are allowed to dismiss them for incivility.

I've never been a moderator in any type of online forum but I think a similar clause in the code of conduct should be considered.

In my opinion if certain people only seem to want to be part of this community to tear it down in some way then we don't need them. This would tie back into the topic at hand and would be one less way why certain things suck right now.

I think people should be allowed to be negative just there should be consequences if they're abusive. It's perfectly OK to say a change is bad because of x, y an z. Of course it's better if you have a solution or can point out why a perceived problem isn't one but that's not always easy. A lot of this comes down to idealogy and tribalism: to me Jip is trying to improve the game for everyone and ftx wants to improve things primarily for high level players (who are probably a bit cliquey) . The two approaches don't always result in agreement. Please correct me if I am wrong about these assumptions. The trick is disagreeing so everyone can live with it and not taking things personally (or being personal about it).

As someone who has been around in the FAF Community for a While I was to become the team lead for the balance team but with just how the atmosphere is towards development and contributors who want to work on improving the game has gotten to the point where it stale and is just a vicious cycle. I've now started to move my contributions over the the BAR community as my work is at least more appreciated over thier.

@reckless_charger The key is to be able to disagree and express a differing opinion while remaining civil. To not like something at all one bit to the core of your being but yet remaining civil....

I pretty much agree with you @Jip, ive just mostly given up arguing for this kind of attitude, because it seems to indeed be pointless on FAF. But i will add some points now in a harsher tone than previously because you are right and you deserve the support, and it fits in.

Oh boy here we come.

The primary interest of the average high level player is to protect their skill-investement against any real or perceived threat.

Grubby on the other hand is a pro player (that is an entirly different player category). He earns money by keeping up with changes, which is pretty much the opposite attitude to the majortiy of top rated players on FAF.

Blackheart and most other top FAF players are not pro players. In fact there have never been any respectable number of "pro players" in FAF. A pro player gets payed to keep up with changes to the game and to re-invest time to re-learn every change that happens.

If you do not have the mental energy for that, or your ego is not able to survive temprary drops in rating (which can of course even happen entirely without balance changes when new metas are discovered), you won't stay at the top for long anyway, in a real e-sport at least. Real e-sport players require (and some receive) high mental and physical well-being (psychologists etc.).

For an example of extreme changes look at Dota and the insane changes in the last year or two (complete character base stat mechanic changes, complete map changes, insane hero skill changes). Didn't hurt their competitive scene like at all.

Blackheart is probably a good example of the quintessentiel non-pro player, and his balance mod is probably on of the most conservative (conservative here meaning "if we just turn back time enough everything will be awesome") mod in the FAF vault. Or maybe its more nostalgia than conservatism, or maybe both, not sure. From a pro-player perspective (which i do not share), this would probably be seen as mostly a self-serving "i want to stay in my comfort zone" attitude.

On the other hand this is mostly just human nature. The average human is not mentally healthy enough to be a pro player.

What is also seemingly human nature sadly is the accompanying tone. And yes it seems that often the better the player in question is, the more "deranged" their elitism gets. Like imagine thinking that only >2300 rating players (probably the top 0.1%) should be allowed to propose game design changes. Like literally no game in the world is being desgined or balanced by the 0.1% top players of that game because that is a deranged idea.

The problem is also not just about games. The "status quo bias" exists, which is normal human bias against any changes.

Whenever any big software anywhere on the world changes almost anything, like it might be the position of a single button, people flip the fuck out. They create discussions so unrespectful and unconstructive that you would think somebody was murdered.

This is sadly, what anybody that actually is trying to improve anything is constantly fighting against, and it is of course tiring. Take a rest @Jip if you need it.

I can only say that i would (and have) stopped engaging entirely with people that I know are not interested in actually at least sometimes changing their own opinion or at the very least trying out changes before complaining about them. I consistently just ignore their posts in this forum, and i have no advice other than that strategy.

Such people just suck your energy it into a black hole. @zhanghm18 banning that behaviour is imo both pointless and ethically questionable, poeple have enough ways to suck up your energy that does not require bannable offenses anyway.

So for anybody that does not want to constantly fight resistance, the "do things for yourself" is in some ways "giving up", but in other ways it might just be the wiser thing to do in terms of personal happiness.

Last but not least, let me say that this video "Dear Developers, Stop Listening to Pros" is not a good video. It does not seem to produce any actual argument as to WHY this should be the correct thing to do for devs. Which is sad because its not that hard to formulate actual potential reasons/arguments (like preservation of skill investment).

@Dorset I would say disagreeing to the 'core of your being' might be over stating things a bit in the context of a computer game (or you might want to think about your priorities).

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

The primary interest of the average high level player is to protect their skill-investement against any real or perceived threat.

I think this completely misses the mark. While I often don't agree, there's been solid arguments for or against recent changes by these players. To basically invalidate all the arguments from this group by claiming all their concerns are self-servicing and/or are rooted in insecurity is ridiculous.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

What is also seemingly human nature sadly is the accompanying tone. And yes it seems that often the better the player in question is, the more "deranged" their elitism gets. Like imagine thinking that only >2300 rating players (probably the top 0.1%) should be allowed to propose game design changes. Like literally no game in the world is being desgined or balanced by the 0.1% top players of that game because that is a deranged idea.

This is fairly on point though. The idea that only the highest rated players have enough understanding to make changes to the game should be buried in a shallow grave, along with the accompanying elitism. But that too is limited to specific players, not the group as a whole. I've never seen ZLO been anything but polite, to name one specific player.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

Take a rest @Jip if you need it.

I agree. Jip is one of the best things that has happened to FAF with all the improvements (other contributors not withstanding). One of the benefits of @Jip is that he is very approachable and listens without constantly making snarky, hostile and dismissive comments like others here do. I don't always have to agree with him to see value in that. It's probably really best not to feed the haters and trolls too much. @Jip, if you decide to leave at some point because your sanity is more important to you than arguing with immature people here, then that's the right decision. I hope you can still get something positive out of FAF for the time being. Thanks for your efforts and contributions, they have made a big difference for the better and did not go unnoticed.

@indexlibrorum said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

I think this completely misses the mark. While I often don't agree, there's been solid arguments for or against recent changes by these players. To basically invalidate all the arguments from this group by claiming all their concerns are self-servicing and/or are rooted in insecurity is ridiculous.

Well if somebody puts fortward an actually decently made argument in a respectful way, this does not apply to them. Im talking about the baseline behaviour. Here is what i would like baseline feedback or arguments to look like:

"I dont't like that a new type of control is introduced into a game with already complex controls, because it might be too much."

That is an example for an argument. Now, unless you also try the change to validate that this is actually the case, its not a very convincing argument. So if im feeling even more constructive i might add

"But im willing to at least try it, how can i play with this change?"

That would be the level of respect towards all the work going into these changes i would expect from high level players especially. This is often not what is happing on FAF though. What is happening on FAF often is this:

• "Lol devs ruining the game once again"
• "Lol devs not knowing how the game works once again"
• "Im not gonna explain what i dont like because its useless anyway, <insert untrue sarcastic argument that their opinion is being oppressed/ignored anyway>"
• "Why are you even here typing as though you even matter with your stupid contributive mentality lol, go away."
• "you are deliberatley mutilating the game"
• "this is absolutely terrible, no wonder FAF is dying"
• "i haven't tried it but i already know without a doubt its gonna be absolutely aweful"
• <insert dismissive "funny" comment here>

That is bitching, bickering und bashing, not arguing. People talking like this have no desire to actually discuss anything, this tone is just used to shoot down something or somebody, usually in the hope that some buddies will come along and also bitch and bash it strongly enough for it to go away. Of course there are people that don't do this. And of course there are also players that are not high level that do this.

But if you are a high level player and long time FAF community member and you do this, than i have to assume that the reason you talk like this is because you just bash against changes out of reflex which is where my skill-investment argument comes from (or alternatively that you just like to not behave like a decent human being, which is actually worse).

Changes to the game are reasonably well communicated, and the reasonably presented arguments get heard. Sometimes you get the feeling that some people think they are "victim" to all the oppresive changes "imposed" on them.

And i don't doubt that some people have managed to warp their own sense of reality so much that they actually think they are being mistreated somehow. Sadly, self-victimization is en-vouge everywhere today, but it still an incredibly shitty attitude and it deserves to get called out whenever it is seen.

It is quite rare to see someone have so much arguments and opinions that are wrong. Fascinating.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

The primary interest of the average high level player is to protect their skill-investement against any real or perceived threat.

The primary interest of any non-pro (the game is NOT their dayjob) player is to get enjoyment/satisfaction out of the game they play. The three main ways of getting the enjoyment are:

1. Having fun and engaging social interactions (competition/coop)
2. Enjoying the game (graphics, story, gameplay)
3. Getting a sense of progress and accomplishment (better gear, higher rating)
4. Gambling

There is no such thing as protecting a "skill investment", or even a "skill investment" itself, since your skill isnt really an investable resource, unlike time or money. You cant magically lose your skill to a few in-game changes either.

Your argument about protecting X thing only applies to in-game items like skins/weapons/armor, since having them lose their value means that you ruin player's sense of progress/accomplishment, effectively burning the hours they spent on achieving the said in-game item.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

Grubby on the other hand is a pro player (that is an entirly different player category). He earns money by keeping up with changes, which is pretty much the opposite attitude to the majortiy of top rated players on FAF.
Blackheart and most other top FAF players are not pro players. In fact there have never been any respectable number of "pro players" in FAF. A pro player gets payed to keep up with changes to the game and to re-invest time to re-learn every change that happens.

And thats the crucial difference between pro players and normal players.
Pros essentially have to treat the game as a normal office job that allows them to put food on the table. This means that they are forced to side with the game devs (their employer) on pretty much everything, including stuff unrelated to the game, or else they risk losing their job.

You can find quite a bit of news articles describing yet another pro football/basketball/rocket league player losing his contract or getting fined over something like this:

On the other hand, we got normal players that play the game for the sake of enjoying it, and they can and will (and should) complain about anything that lessens their enjoyment.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

Blackheart is probably a good example of the quintessentiel non-pro player, and his balance mod is probably on of the most conservative (conservative here meaning "if we just turn back time enough everything will be awesome") mod in the FAF vault. Or maybe its more nostalgia than conservatism, or maybe both, not sure. From a pro-player perspective (which i do not share), this would probably be seen as mostly a self-serving "i want to stay in my comfort zone" attitude.

You may call the "lets not mess with the core gameplay mechanics changing which will affect a trillion different sides of the game" argument a "comfort zone cope", but i prefer calling it a Valid Argument. You do you.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

On the other hand this is mostly just human nature. The average human is not mentally healthy enough to be a pro player.

Average human is, in fact, not mentally or physically healthy enough to be anything that is above average, hence the name average. Dont know why you even put this in here.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

What is also seemingly human nature sadly is the accompanying tone. And yes it seems that often the better the player in question is, the more "deranged" their elitism gets. Like imagine thinking that only >2300 rating players (probably the top 0.1%) should be allowed to propose game design changes. Like literally no game in the world is being desgined or balanced by the 0.1% top players of that game because that is a deranged idea.

And yet thats the norm for every single other area of human life.
We would rather have the top 0,1% surgeon to operate on our heart than an average surgeon.
We would rather have the top 0,1% pilot fly our plane than an average one.
We would rather have the top 0,1% designer make our new phone than an average one.
We would rather have the top 0,1% coder write our apps than an average one.

The question is, why is it videogames where you draw the line? The best players are always the ones who see the game situation the clearest, know what units are the strongest and what are the weakest, and what change would improve the game or make it genuinly worse.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

The problem is also not just about games. The "status quo bias" exists, which is normal human bias against any changes.
Whenever any big software anywhere on the world changes almost anything, like it might be the position of a single button, people flip the fuck out. They create discussions so unrespectful and unconstructive that you would think somebody was murdered.
This is sadly, what anybody that actually is trying to improve anything is constantly fighting against, and it is of course tiring.

The change in a design of a big tech software and the change of something in faf arent exactly equal.
One is made by a whole team of experienced designers and managers after lots and lots of meetings and tests.
The other is made by a few amateurs saying "Wouldnt it be cool if we had this feature"? And trying to shoehorn their idea upon a bunch of people that dont want it.

The people critiquing the changes arent the same either.
The haters of the design change on a random big software are usually a vocal minority, only a few people of which are actually educated on the subject of software design and can give a valid critique.
In faf, however, the said vocal minority has thousands of hours in the game, and if they are not eligible to express their opinion on the subject, i dont know who is.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

I can only say that i would (and have) stopped engaging entirely with people that I know are not interested in actually at least sometimes changing their own opinion or at the very least trying out changes before complaining about them. I consistently just ignore their posts in this forum, and i have no advice other than that strategy.

A bunch worthless yapping. There has been more than enough posts with actual arguments against the changes.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

Last but not least, let me say that this video "Dear Developers, Stop Listening to Pros" is not a good video. It does not seem to produce any actual argument as to WHY this should be the correct thing to do for devs.

i Wholehearedly agree with you on the fact that this video is Not Good. It looks like that the man that made it has only a vague understanding of the industry and why games are how they are.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

That would be the level of respect towards all the work going into these changes i would expect from high level players especially. This is often not what is happing on FAF though. What is happening on FAF often is this:

"Lol devs ruining the game once again"
"Lol devs not knowing how the game works once again"
"Im not gonna explain what i dont like because its useless anyway, <insert untrue sarcastic argument that their opinion is being oppressed/ignored anyway>"
"Why are you even here typing as though you even matter with your stupid contributive mentality lol, go away."
"you are deliberatley mutilating the game"
"this is absolutely terrible, no wonder FAF is dying"
"i haven't tried it but i already know without a doubt its gonna be absolutely aweful"
<insert dismissive "funny" comment here>

That is bitching, bickering und bashing, not arguing. People talking like this have no desire to actually discuss anything, this tone is just used to shoot down something or somebody, usually in the hope that some buddies will come along and also bitch and bash it strongly enough for it to go away. Of course there are people that don't do this. And of course there are also players that are not high level that do this.

Once again, a whole nothingburger of worthless yapping and strawmanning. There has been more than enough posts with actual arguments against the changes.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

And i don't doubt that some people have managed to warp their own sense of reality so much that they actually think they are being mistreated somehow. Sadly, self-victimization is en-vouge everywhere today, but it still an incredibly shitty attitude and it deserves to get called out whenever it is seen.

Yes, we ARE being mistreated, especially when an unnecessary naming change is being forced onto everyone even after all the backlash it got. There is no self-victimization here, only an objective observation of reality.

@thewheeler said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

And yet thats the norm for every single other area of human life.
We would rather have the top 0,1% surgeon to operate on our heart than an average surgeon.
We would rather have the top 0,1% pilot fly our plane than an average one.
We would rather have the top 0,1% designer make our new phone than an average one.
We would rather have the top 0,1% coder write our apps than an average one.
The question is, why is it videogames where you draw the line? The best players are always the ones who see the game situation the clearest, know what units are the strongest and what are the weakest, and what change would improve the game or make it genuinly worse.

Top players in video games excel in playing the game, which doesn't necessarily translate to skills in game design and balance. Additionally, game design requires different perspectives, including casual players, developers, and designers, not just top players. This is because the best players will tend to balance the game to fit their playstyle, which is very different from what the average/majority wants and needs.

@thewheeler said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

Yes, we ARE being mistreated, especially when an unnecessary naming change is being forced onto everyone even after all the backlash it got.

These changes have not been finalized and are still under discussion, as we've mentioned in the respective thread.

@thewheeler said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

It is quite rare to see someone have so much arguments and opinions that are wrong. Fascinating.

You start your post by sarcasticly lashing out against me, which is exactly the problem we are talking about. Not a single agument found in your first sentence.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

The primary interest of the average high level player is to protect their skill-investement against any real or perceived threat.

The primary interest of any non-pro (the game is NOT their dayjob) player is to get enjoyment/satisfaction out of the game they play. The three main ways of getting the enjoyment are:

1. Having fun and engaging social interactions (competition/coop)
2. Enjoying the game (graphics, story, gameplay)
3. Getting a sense of progress and accomplishment (better gear, higher rating)
4. Gambling

There is no such thing as protecting a "skill investment", or even a "skill investment" itself, since your skill isnt really an investable resource, unlike time or money. You cant magically lose your skill to a few in-game changes either.

Your argument about protecting X thing only applies to in-game items like skins/weapons/armor, since having them lose their value means that you ruin player's sense of progress/accomplishment, effectively burning the hours they spent on achieving the said in-game item.

Im glad you didn't continue like that.

Why does it only apply to ingame items? There are plenty of things that a FAF player might want to protect:

• The respect they earn among their buddies / the community for being a good player
• The rating
• The authority related to any game changes that they believe their rating gives them
• The self-worth that they extract from being good at the game

And of course, protecting your skill-investment is also about the time you put in not becoming a waste of time. And its not just a thing in games, it applies to pretty much any skill that anybody invested into in life.

Anyway, if you think that it is not the skill investment bias, then why do people not argue constructively / in good faith so often?

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

Grubby on the other hand is a pro player (that is an entirly different player category). He earns money by keeping up with changes, which is pretty much the opposite attitude to the majortiy of top rated players on FAF.
Blackheart and most other top FAF players are not pro players. In fact there have never been any respectable number of "pro players" in FAF. A pro player gets payed to keep up with changes to the game and to re-invest time to re-learn every change that happens.

And thats the crucial difference between pro players and normal players.
Pros essentially have to treat the game as a normal office job that allows them to put food on the table. This means that they are forced to side with the game devs (their employer) on pretty much everything, including stuff unrelated to the game, or else they risk losing their job.

You can find quite a bit of news articles describing yet another pro football/basketball/rocket league player losing his contract or getting fined over something like this:
b8135198-8f5c-44f3-a5fe-771a71b30252-image.png

On the other hand, we got normal players that play the game for the sake of enjoying it, and they can and will (and should) complain about anything that lessens their enjoyment.

No they should not. If they have an issue with something, they should respectfully and empathically discuss it with the contributors, which are other human beings that just want the best future for FAF. The tone is extremely important here.

I can forgive a new player somewhat for not displaying human decency and basic manners, because they might think that FAF is a company or something, but the longer a player is here, the more they should know that this community is created and kept for them by volunteers that invest way more time, care and heart into FAF than they can imagine.

Like i don't need you or anybody else to worship any contributor. Just treat them with basic human decency when you talk. That is all that is needed.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

Blackheart is probably a good example of the quintessentiel non-pro player, and his balance mod is probably on of the most conservative (conservative here meaning "if we just turn back time enough everything will be awesome") mod in the FAF vault. Or maybe its more nostalgia than conservatism, or maybe both, not sure. From a pro-player perspective (which i do not share), this would probably be seen as mostly a self-serving "i want to stay in my comfort zone" attitude.

You may call the "lets not mess with the core gameplay mechanics changing which will affect a trillion different sides of the game" argument a "comfort zone cope", but i prefer calling it a Valid Argument. You do you.

I'm not saying it is wrong to be conservative about game changes. If you are, just be honest about it and respect the opinion of others that are not your own.

This is really important because game design is an exploration process. Game design is always more like "two steps forward, one step back". Support the steps you like and critize the steps you don't but stay friendly while doing it.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

On the other hand this is mostly just human nature. The average human is not mentally healthy enough to be a pro player.

Average human is, in fact, not mentally or physically healthy enough to be anything that is above average, hence the name average. Dont know why you even put this in here.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

What is also seemingly human nature sadly is the accompanying tone. And yes it seems that often the better the player in question is, the more "deranged" their elitism gets. Like imagine thinking that only >2300 rating players (probably the top 0.1%) should be allowed to propose game design changes. Like literally no game in the world is being desgined or balanced by the 0.1% top players of that game because that is a deranged idea.

And yet thats the norm for every single other area of human life.
We would rather have the top 0,1% surgeon to operate on our heart than an average surgeon.
We would rather have the top 0,1% pilot fly our plane than an average one.
We would rather have the top 0,1% designer make our new phone than an average one.
We would rather have the top 0,1% coder write our apps than an average one.

The question is, why is it videogames where you draw the line? The best players are always the ones who see the game situation the clearest, know what units are the strongest and what are the weakest, and what change would improve the game or make it genuinly worse.

No, they are absolutely not the ones who always see what change would improve the game or make it genuinly worse.

Game design skill is not gaming skill! Those are separate skill sets! Sometimes, a person is good a both, but that is rather unlikely.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

The problem is also not just about games. The "status quo bias" exists, which is normal human bias against any changes.
Whenever any big software anywhere on the world changes almost anything, like it might be the position of a single button, people flip the fuck out. They create discussions so unrespectful and unconstructive that you would think somebody was murdered.
This is sadly, what anybody that actually is trying to improve anything is constantly fighting against, and it is of course tiring.

The change in a design of a big tech software and the change of something in faf arent exactly equal.
One is made by a whole team of experienced designers and managers after lots and lots of meetings and tests.
The other is made by a few amateurs saying "Wouldnt it be cool if we had this feature"? And trying to shoehorn their idea upon a bunch of people that dont want it.

Nobody is "shoehorning their idea upon a bunch of people that dont want it". This has not happened regarding FAF gameplay changes for at least the past 3 years, and probably not before.

What has happened, is that changes were proposed (which is a totally normal and expected thing to happen), and some people responded rudely to it (like they often do).

The people critiquing the changes arent the same either.
The haters of the design change on a random big software are usually a vocal minority, only a few people of which are actually educated on the subject of software design and can give a valid critique.
In faf, however, the said vocal minority has thousands of hours in the game, and if they are not eligible to express their opinion on the subject, i dont know who is.

No, the majority of haters on any software project change don't critique, they hate. And hating is not critiquing. Big difference.

If long time FAF players are consistently unable to express their opinion on a topic in a respectful way, then in my opinion they do more damage to this community than they bring benefits. Im not gonna ban or report them but im also not gonna shed a tear if they get lost for good.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

I can only say that i would (and have) stopped engaging entirely with people that I know are not interested in actually at least sometimes changing their own opinion or at the very least trying out changes before complaining about them. I consistently just ignore their posts in this forum, and i have no advice other than that strategy.

A bunch worthless yapping. There has been more than enough posts with actual arguments against the changes.

And if the actual respectful arguments where the only thing that was said by people, this thread would not exist and Jip would not be on the brink of stopping his contributions.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

Last but not least, let me say that this video "Dear Developers, Stop Listening to Pros" is not a good video. It does not seem to produce any actual argument as to WHY this should be the correct thing to do for devs.

i Wholehearedly agree with you on the fact that this video is Not Good. It looks like that the man that made it has only a vague understanding of the industry and why games are how they are.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

That would be the level of respect towards all the work going into these changes i would expect from high level players especially. This is often not what is happing on FAF though. What is happening on FAF often is this:

"Lol devs ruining the game once again"
"Lol devs not knowing how the game works once again"
"Im not gonna explain what i dont like because its useless anyway, <insert untrue sarcastic argument that their opinion is being oppressed/ignored anyway>"
"Why are you even here typing as though you even matter with your stupid contributive mentality lol, go away."
"you are deliberatley mutilating the game"
"this is absolutely terrible, no wonder FAF is dying"
"i haven't tried it but i already know without a doubt its gonna be absolutely aweful"
<insert dismissive "funny" comment here>

That is bitching, bickering und bashing, not arguing. People talking like this have no desire to actually discuss anything, this tone is just used to shoot down something or somebody, usually in the hope that some buddies will come along and also bitch and bash it strongly enough for it to go away. Of course there are people that don't do this. And of course there are also players that are not high level that do this.

Once again, a whole nothingburger of worthless yapping and strawmanning. There has been more than enough posts with actual arguments against the changes.

Same answer as before. Im not claiming that there were no proper arguments.

@katharsas said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

And i don't doubt that some people have managed to warp their own sense of reality so much that they actually think they are being mistreated somehow. Sadly, self-victimization is en-vouge everywhere today, but it still an incredibly shitty attitude and it deserves to get called out whenever it is seen.

Yes, we ARE being mistreated, especially when an unnecessary naming change is being forced onto everyone even after all the backlash it got. There is no self-victimization here, only an objective observation of reality.

No you are not. The naming change is in consideration and will probably not go through as it was proposed (and it would not have taken any bitching, bickering or bashing to stop it, just friendly arguments).

FAF players that actually think they are being mistreated somehow are like kids that didn't get their second ice cream this day. Entitlement beyond my comprehension.

@thewheeler said in Why does everything suck so much right now?:

We would rather have the top 0,1% surgeon to operate on our heart than an average surgeon.
We would rather have the top 0,1% pilot fly our plane than an average one.
We would rather have the top 0,1% designer make our new phone than an average one.
We would rather have the top 0,1% coder write our apps than an average one.

Sure, I don't mind if the balance team is comprised mostly of top players. That can't be their only qualification, though, right? At the very least, they should be able to communicate without provoking undue friction with their peers, and work together with other teams, and not be afk for years.

Since there are not thousands of potential coders available to faf, we can't pick. We have a few, and they picked us.

Whereas players potentially balancing the game? There are quite a lot of players. How about top 10% skill wise (they could still consult with champions whenever they needed to), but they are the best at working with these devs without causing them to burn out - that includes explaining what proposals are unfeasible efficiently and gracefully, after making an honest attempt at making them feasible.

Given the circumstances - the extreme disparity in the scarcity of potential candidates for the two roles, that would be my preference.

I do find it funny that I just had to read like half a dozen points specifically pointing me out as a problematic attitude. Coincidentally all from the people that disagree with my principles on general FAF direction. Coincidentally said people also elected to ignore and discount said problematic attitudes that were in line with their principles.

This does not surprise me. If there is one thing that I actually have noticed in my years of FAF contribution where I had to argue against top players, contributors of all types, and casual players across a variety of circumstances is that nobody that agreed with me at the specific moment takes issue with the way I operate so long as it’s pushing their direction. I do not have the patience nor the inclination for the general FAF passive aggression that attempts to toe the lines of civility by implicitly accusing me or others of things. Say what you want to say, because I don’t intend to continue the passive aggressive dance.

I’ve worked with plenty of contributors through the years that didn’t go into the passive aggression, that did engage honestly, and I had no problems with coordinating with them and fighting for the things that would make FAF better. I met plenty that didn’t do one or both of these just the same.

I don’t intend to apologize for anything written here. Or really the more honest statement is that I don’t intend to apologize without genuine reciprocity. I’ll just utilize the same line Jip used when referring to his attack on Tagada’s ability to be a contributor and tell people to read and get a conclusion for themselves. Inevitability, as always, people will see the harm of their opponent and not the harm of their supporters.

For the record, the “shoot the dev” line is a common turn of phrase and was used for the context of stopping people from creating a false combative dichotomy. I genuinely have zero clue how this specific line got picked for the pointless drama when it’s dramatic because it’s supposed to show how silly the conversation had gotten from being any actual productive discourse on the roll between “traditionalists” and “progressives” in the game design process of a community.