About feedback and attitude towards designers

[Vanitas]

A frequent user posted this on the Paizo forums regarding the Advanced Classes Guide playtest, I think it raises some interesting questions.

Positive feedback is immensely preferred to negative feedback. See Sean’s post here for a bit on that. But suffice to say, positive feedback is more helpful because it fosters a helpful environment. It’s the difference between working together and stand-offishly stating your “factpinions” as gosepl. If you ever start a sentence that follows this form, you’re doing it wrong: “<feature X> is the worst thing I’ve ever seen and here’s how I would change it to make it <(balanced, useful, cool, english)>.”

Notice that in context what he means is actually "constructive criticism", not positive feedback.

This kind of negative attitude is one I've seen plenty of in these forums. Mind you, it even happened in the Path of War playtest, to the point where one of the authors (who was being questioned for engaging on this kind of behaviour in his own book, for starters) had to call down the poster on it.

I think my question here is... why? Why so much hate, why so much elitism, why so much acting like your opinion is fact? Why is that somehow connected to RPGs and ingrained in the D&D/Pathfinder community?

EDIT: Btw, Paizo is officially going to change several stuff in their playtest.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Wait wait wait, Paizo doesn't want you to suggest changes to the playtest classes?

[avr]

First off, there's a selection effect where mostly the people who feel strongly respond. If you feel strongly about something, it's natural to express yourself strongly. If you feel you know a lot about something, a brushoff can spark an angry response. Note that people often can't identify their own brushoffs or strong expressions.

In the case of SKR in particular his attitude breeds conflict very easily.

I didn't read whatever happened in the Path of War playtest and I doubt whoever was involved handled it as badly as Sean, but it's certainly possible the problem was at both ends.

[eggynack]

Well, to put it quite simply, I disagree with the idea that positive feedback is somehow better than negative feedback. Perhaps constructive criticism is better than criticism that is only made to attack, but it looks like Paizo's designers are opposed to even that, judging by the example comment at the end. If I see something that I disagree with, I'm going to say that I disagree with it a good amount of the time. For example, right now. I try to be as polite as possible in my criticism, at least at first, but it will be criticism nonetheless. It will also generally be criticism that is substantiated with supporting points, but still, criticism.

I don't even think that Paizo should particularly seek out positive feedback, even if they prefer it. Negative feedback is what tells you what you could improve on, and it helps guide you to a better end result. Sure, not all negative feedback should be followed, and I don't even necessarily think that most of it should be followed, but saying that it just shouldn't exist is highly problematic. If there's anything that is full of elitism, it is the implicit claim that the product that Paizo has designed is somehow faultless or infallible. I seek to make the things I criticize better, possibly by offering alternatives, and possibly by suggesting that the idea be scrapped altogether. Moreover, when I do so, I won't be "doing it wrong." I will be doing it right, in the best way I know how.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The behavior isn't all that surprising, really.

If you have a group of intelligent, opinionated people in an anonymous setting and ask them for their honest opinions on a matter, you can't really be all that surprised when they're somewhat less than tactful in expressing those opinions.

Seriously, highly intelligent people tend to have trouble with tact in person, you really expect that to get better with anonymity? Then there's the fact that the folks at paizo claimed they were going to fix 3.5 and did nothing to the core of the game's balance issues and precious little on most of the minor points.

Their lead designer, SKR, still wouldn't know good game design if it bit him and many of the others still haven't got a full grasp on the game as a whole, which results in myriad bad options just like the WotC designers before them. The 3.5 design team can be given some leeway since they were starting over from scratch and they did get a lot better toward the end. Paizo had more than a decade of player feedback that they virtually ignored altogether and that tends to rub players the wrong way.

[Zanos]

Wait wait wait, Paizo doesn't want you to suggest changes to the playtest classes?

Not unless your suggested changes serve to massage their delicate egos, apparently.

People presenting their opinions with negative tones or with virulent criticism doesn't make their input less valid.

[avr]

& while ignoring angry criticism is understandable, if Paizo wouldn't accept any response of the form "There's a problem with X, here's how I'd fix it" that's a problem with Paizo.

How many responses of the form "X is cool!" do you need, anyway? They're good for the ego but lead to little improvement in the finished product.

[Vanitas]

Well, talk about missing the point. Yeah, I should have known this would not go well.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Well, talk about missing the point. Yeah, I should have known this would not go well.

It's obviously because you don't have the amazing powers of precognizance we so clearly possess!

[avr]

I don't agree the problem is as you have stated it, no.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well, talk about missing the point. Yeah, I should have known this would not go well.

Well if we missed your point, would you care to clarify?

I mean, seriously, the quote you've posted from a paizo rep is, itself, standoffish. Factpinions, really?

Positive feedback doesn't accomplish any notable change in a product. Negative feedback that is well put and based in concrete analysis, as opposed to opinions about what is or is not "cool," helps far, far more than positive feedback ever will.

[LordBlades]

Positive feedback is immensely preferred to negative feedback. See Sean’s post here for a bit on that. But suffice to say, positive feedback is more helpful because it fosters a helpful environment. It’s the difference between working together and stand-offishly stating your “factpinions” as gosepl. If you ever start a sentence that follows this form, you’re doing it wrong: “<feature X> is the worst thing I’ve ever seen and here’s how I would change it to make it <(balanced, useful, cool, english)>.”

What if a poster truly believes <feature X> is the worst feature he has ever seen and offers reasons ofr his opinion (see the Caustic Slur thread a while ago)? Should you say that something you believe sucks doesn't just to pat the designer's ego?

Honestly, I don't see a problem with negative feedback as long as it's constructive. '<feature x> sucks, here's how I'd change it' is useful input and therefore ok in my book. Simple '<feature x> sucks' is not.

What I read from that quote is 'we don't want criticism, not even constructive, we want praise'.

[olentu]

Well, talk about missing the point. Yeah, I should have known this would not go well.

Now now, that feedback on how people have responded in the thread is much too negative. Normally I would ask you to clarify how you think the question could be better answered but that would put things in the "I think X is bad and here is how I would change it to make it better," formula that is to be avoided.

[eggynack]

Well, talk about missing the point. Yeah, I should have known this would not go well.

What is it about the point that you think I have missed? You asked why negative feedback pops up so often hereabouts, and I said that negative feedback is a good thing, so there isn't a problem with it happening with some frequency. An attitude where you think that any negative feedback of your work is an intrinsically bad thing is a poor attitude to have.

[Tvtyrant]

Well, talk about missing the point. Yeah, I should have known this would not go well.

The funny part is that the line they are specifically quoting actually offers how the user would modify the system to make it better, which is perhaps the most constructive approach you can have. The designers are free to ignore the advice given to them, but being insulted when people try to help them?

I think it is safe to say people don't miss the point so much as disagree with it.

[Der_DWSage]

Well...the problem, such as it is, stems from many sources. It's not one of those things that just has a single answer, but instead many different ones that are bundling up together.

1)Many people dislike SKR on a personal level, and he tends to be the most visible developer.

It's that simple. Many people dislike SKR, because he handles things in an offhanded, occasionally immature way himself. Some people can handle that and power through it with maturity and grace regardless. Most people just boggle at what he says and post reactionary comments because what he says is just. So. Wrong. Add into the mix that he tends to be the most visible of developers on the Paizo forums, and you have a lot of bad blood.



2)Many of the things wrong with D&D that have been debated for years were not actually changed. And they don't like it when you bring this up.

Which things? Take your pick! Everyone has their own selection of things that weren't fixed in Pathfinder, and while there were still a lot of boneheaded moves, there was also a lot of change. Caster superiority was not challenged except for the Druid and Divine Metamagic, and that is commonly tossed about as the biggest annoyance. And when well-reasoned, intelligent thoughts are tossed out about how to fix this? It gets banned. Which brings me to...


3)The banhammer flies tonight!

...Yeah, a selection of people got banned from the Paizo forums for stating that there were still issues with the system. And rather than ignore these statements, or address them, those that spoke out were banned. Bad blood, once more.


4)Psychological reasons

Go back and read Avr's, Kelb's, and Eggy's posts. I'll wait.



5)Posts like that one only get people thinking they're insecure children.

I've got to be honest there-what they said was 'We want positive feedback!' What I saw was 'We can't handle internet people telling us we're wrong! Tell us we're doing a good job!' Because honestly? There are still problems with what they're doing. The Arcanist is doing a wonderful job of replacing both the Wizard and Sorcerer by being better than both, which is not in line with balance. I would change it by messing with spell progression, or spell slots, or both.

It just further establishes that they can't take criticism, not even from the internet. And if they ever showed signs of working with the criticism instead of ignoring it or flaring up about it, the backlash probably wouldn't be as vitriolic. But they ignore us, so we grumble while trying to get the gems out of the system they set. SKR flails about, while others work in spite of him. Paizo forums are only allowed to say how glorious the emperor's clothes are, and no one is allowed to point out that he's got a rather massive hole over his backside.

That, at least, is why I think it is. I've only gone over to those forums a few times myself.

(Also, factpinions? Are we back in the 90's now?)

[OldTrees1]

Why elitism?

Because a culture bred from incentivising system mastery will result in a culture that rewards the accumulation of knowledge. In a system that rewards the accumulation of knowledge, one should expect individual to accumulate and find self worth in knowledge. What we find valuable in ourselves is partially how we judge others. This results in people being judged based on how much knowledge they have.

Why opinions stated as facts?

Now if the system being mastered is a subjective one like D&D, you can expect some of the "knowledge" being rewarded by the culture to be reasonable opinions rather than pure facts. Combined with the natural elitism you get passionate, yet reasoned, opinion based debates.

Why the hate?

I do not know. However a component of it would be how new ideas can propagate through the collective consciousness. New Opinions and Facts would be adopted based upon the merit of the reasoning and the listener's opinion of the speaker. Well reasoned opinions and facts and the opinions of people with a reputation for being trustworthy would spread quickly. (Modeled like the rate a rumor would propagate)

[Spore]

Guys, while I understand strong opinions and can empathize with them (heck, I was banned from forums for having a strong opinion and in others I moderated), I can still see the problem with watering down objective and reasonable reviews with "Oh god you idiots, what are you doing to the game"-type of "criticism".

Not all those reactions are that kind of black and white but try and keep your calm. The playtests would work better if everyone just sat back and TESTED it instead of reading a few tables of the book and then go on a forum spree.

Banning people for having an opinion is just plain stupid. I am sorry. I have been on both ends of the ban hammer and it is just very very simple for the moderator and leaves a feeling of powerlessness and anger with the banned. It is stupid and should never be used without warning.

[tiercel]

Can we get a copy-paste of that Paizo paragraph for the dictionary illustration for the word "hypocrisy"?

First, the paragraph is really all about being negative itself, concentrating on what you should NOT do to Paizo.

Second, the paragraph helps to foster an UNhelpful environment, since it actively discourages people from making suggestions for improvement.

Thirdly, it is standoffish by telling people that they are "doing it wrong" and takes it as gospel that anyone who disagrees with Paizo and offers an alternative is not only wrong, they are dangerously unhelpful. (Bonus points for using the abomination "factpinion," which is standoffish all on its own.)

About the only way this paragraph could violate its own tenets any more thoroughly is to have a literal concluding sentence: "Negative feedback is the worst thing we at Paizo have ever seen, and we would change it to be positively phrased because it generates a kinder, gentler environment that focuses more on the importance of making us developers feel good about ourselves rather than actually improving product."

Admittedly, at that point the paragraph would cross the line from hypocrisy to The Onion levels of self-satire, but hey.

[Waker]

I just have to say, that factpinion is probably the dumbest portmanteau that I've ever heard.

Whenever I work on Homebrew, while getting people to tell me what a handsome homebrewer I am is nice, it ultimately does very little for me. I wanna know what I did wrong so I can fix it. Saying that you can't post any negative criticism, even constructive, just blinds you to your faults. How can you fix something if you don't even know it's broken?

[Spuddles]

The behavior isn't all that surprising, really.

If you have a group of intelligent, opinionated people in an anonymous setting and ask them for their honest opinions on a matter, you can't really be all that surprised when they're somewhat less than tactful in expressing those opinions.

Seriously, highly intelligent people tend to have trouble with tact in person, you really expect that to get better with anonymity? Then there's the fact that the folks at paizo claimed they were going to fix 3.5 and did nothing to the core of the game's balance issues and precious little on most of the minor points.

Their lead designer, SKR, still wouldn't know good game design if it bit him and many of the others still haven't got a full grasp on the game as a whole, which results in myriad bad options just like the WotC designers before them. The 3.5 design team can be given some leeway since they were starting over from scratch and they did get a lot better toward the end. Paizo had more than a decade of player feedback that they virtually ignored altogether and that tends to rub players the wrong way.

No, low charisma people have trouble with tact. Has nothing to do with int.

[jedipotter]

I think my question here is... why? Why so much hate, why so much elitism, why so much acting like your opinion is fact? Why is that somehow connected to RPGs and ingrained in the D&D/Pathfinder community?

Well this is really just part of the bigger problem with society. The whole last generation or two has been badly lied to and brainwashed. This like ''everything must be fair'' and ''everyone is right'', for example have been taken too far. It is the reason schools don't allow kids to play games where only one kid can win, give any points scored in a game to both teams(so the game is always a tie), and everyone gets awards, even if they just stand there.

And gamers, like any sub culture, have clicks. And most people stay in the comfort zone of their click. So if you think monks suck, then it is very likely that everyone you know thinks the same. And even worse when you come to a place on line and low and behold everyone that posts agrees with you too. This can quickly go to peoples heads as ''everyone'' agrees with them, so they must always be right, and even as far as what they think is a fact.

Though too, most people have a hard time formatting letters too. They don't mean to say ''your thing sucks and don't work'', butthat is how it will come across.

And you can see the Pathfinder folks as being part of ''them'', as they don't want negative feedback? What? If I don't like the Sword Class I should just be quiet? I should never say why I don't like it? And then just not buy that book?

[Vanitas]

Well this is really just part of the bigger problem with society. The whole last generation or two has been badly lied to and brainwashed. This like ''everything must be fair'' and ''everyone is right'', for example have been taken too far. It is the reason schools don't allow kids to play games where only one kid can win, give any points scored in a game to both teams(so the game is always a tie), and everyone gets awards, even if they just stand there.

And gamers, like any sub culture, have clicks. And most people stay in the comfort zone of their click. So if you think monks suck, then it is very likely that everyone you know thinks the same. And even worse when you come to a place on line and low and behold everyone that posts agrees with you too. This can quickly go to peoples heads as ''everyone'' agrees with them, so they must always be right, and even as far as what they think is a fact.

Though too, most people have a hard time formatting letters too. They don't mean to say ''your thing sucks and don't work'', butthat is how it will come across.

And you can see the Pathfinder folks as being part of ''them'', as they don't want negative feedback? What? If I don't like the Sword Class I should just be quiet? I should never say why I don't like it? And then just not buy that book?

For starters, congratulations on a well written and well thought out post.

Now, about Paizo, I failed to include a link which was in the original statement. It's basically badly written - it's not that they don't want negative feedback, they want constructive criticism. This is 100% my fault, though - context is everything and I failed to give full context here. I deeply apologize.

[Kelb_Panthera]

No, low charisma people have trouble with tact. Has nothing to do with int.

That's true but life has shown me that there tends to be an unfortunate confluence of high int, low cha, and strong opinions in people, especially in internet forums.

[LordBlades]

Now, about Paizo, I failed to include a link which was in the original statement. It's basically badly written - it's not that they don't want negative feedback, they want constructive criticism. This is 100% my fault, though - context is everything and I failed to give full context here. I deeply apologize.

Actually I think you failed to provide a bit more than context.

I googled the exact quote, and I got the link it's from:

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo...aytest-is-Live

The exact quoted text is from the first reply, which is made by the user 'Cheapy' with the title 'Pathfinder Companion, Roleplaying Game Subscriber'. Now I'm not an expert in Paizo forum titles, but this guy doesn't seem to be associated with Paizo in any official capacity.

So it's just a guy stating his (greatly exaggerated and wrong on multiple accounts IMO) opinions in a blog comment. Jason Buhlmann's actual blog entry and, surprisingly, SKR's post he links to have a much more reasonable stance.

[Vanitas]

Actually I think you failed to provide a bit more than context.

I googled the exact quote, and I got the link it's from:

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo...aytest-is-Live

The exact quoted text is from the first reply, which is made by the user 'Cheapy' with the title 'Pathfinder Companion, Roleplaying Game Subscriber'. Now I'm not an expert in Paizo forum titles, but this guy doesn't seem to be associated with Paizo in any official capacity.

So it's just a guy stating his (greatly exaggerated and wrong on multiple accounts IMO) opinions in a blog comment. Jason Buhlmann's actual blog entry and, surprisingly, SKR's post he links to have a much more reasonable stance.

I thought he was forum staff, he is basically running the discussion on the playtest.
If that is not the case, I apologize for my mistake.

[LordBlades]

I thought he was forum staff, he is basically running the discussion on the playtest.
If that is not the case, I apologize for my mistake.

Well, if he is Paizo staff, his forum title makes a lousy job to communicate it :P

[Cog]

His userpage also gives no indication of being staff.

Given that both the context and source have been accidentally misrepresented, perhaps putting an edit disclaimer in the first post would be appropriate?

[Big Fau]

For starters, congratulations on a well written and well thought out post.

Now, about Paizo, I failed to include a link which was in the original statement. It's basically badly written - it's not that they don't want negative feedback, they want constructive criticism. This is 100% my fault, though - context is everything and I failed to give full context here. I deeply apologize.

No, they truly don't.

[Vanitas]

No, they truly don't.

There is a world of difference between constructive criticism and attacking designers.
Again, I mention the Path of War playtest, in which one of the people in the whole paizo forums fiasco, banned for attacking designers was attacked by another poster and noticed just how awful to be in the receiving end. His response? Your criticism may be valid, but you would get more mileage out of it if you didn't phrase it as an attack. That is constructive criticism, that is what any developer (heck, any person) wants.