Community Manager Q&A

@phong said in Community Manager Q&A:

I'd like to hear each candidate's opinions and suggestions, if they have any, on new player experience, retention and training. Is FaF doing better now than it was before on this front?

Yes, FAF has made many changes that have helped to improve the new player experience, such as adding TMM, adding and improving mapgen, making significant performance improvements (and consequently decreasing lag), adding cool new maps to play on, adding UI improvements, adding in-lobby autobalancing and team rating display, etc.

Is there something that you think could be improved further? If there are issues, who is in a position to address them?

There are many things that could further improve the new player experience. To give some examples:

• Experienced/skilled players could create additional guides that make it easier for new players to learn how to play FAF well

• People who know how to make scripted maps could help create more FAF-mission type tutorial content

• The promo team could add something to the news page as an obvious 'New Player's Guide' and or a 'Learn How To Play Better' link that links to something like this that provides helpful resources for learning how to play and improve at FAF

• The matchmaker team could add a mapgen-only TMM queue/option - (not knowing BO's and not knowing the details of individual maps is a large perceived negative hurdle for many new players)

• Developers can continue to make performance improvements, add desirable new features, and add UI improvements

• Someone with the relevant permissions on the FAF Discord could create 'Looking For Games' voice and text channels, and an 'All Welcome Games' role/channel

• FAF players can make an effort to be more welcoming/helpful to noobs - (I believe phong has personally gotten many more new players to keep playing FAF by hosting actual 'all welcome' games and being friendly and helpful to new players )

There are often discussions on the balance section of the forum where there's no visibility on what the balance team's conclusion is on the topic (although there might be a hint if one of the team posts on the topic). Meanwhile, balance patch notes mostly seem to feature changes that have had no discussion on the forums (i.e. no indication they're being considered). Would you improve communication/visibility of balance decisions for the wider community, and if so how?

I would talk with the balance team about what could be done that they'd be okay with. Some potential improvements might be things like creating more explanatory resources (such as balancing explanations that could be linked to/cited when relevant), creating a public balance discussion channel on the FAF Discord, and adding brief explanations for why particular balance changes are being made.

I know voting has already begun, but @FtXCommando requested to hear what ideas I'd like to look into if elected:

• Collect data on matchmaking queue times
  • Investigate what improvements can be made for the highest and lowest rating pools, which tend to experience the longest queue times
• Create a document outlining the current members of the FAF organization and their self-described responsibilities
  • There are a ton of different roles and it can be difficult to determine who to talk to about what, especially given the recent reorganization
• Monthly/quarterly check-ins with each team
  • Let the community know what each team has been up to
• Weekly/Monthly discussion topics on the forum
  • Encourage discussion and gather feedback on topics varying from balance to client features to whatever else might be fun
• Suggestions topics
• FAF Data posts
  • Various stats like account creations, faction popularity, and anything else that suits my fancy