5 ms·

Paradox Interactive: player toxicity is driving developers away from its forums

37 points by speeder 5y ago

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
The saddest part about this is it's not the devs fault, it's management. I'd be interested to see the size of paradoxes growth in terms of management compared to devs in the past 5 years. My only other speculation is that they stopped hiring people passionate about their games. Hence why much dlc that has come out has broke the game or caused it to slow down dramatically. The price is nothing to me. While high, I do like the long term support. But they seriously need to go back to square one here. Because as of late, paradox has just become the Activision of grand strategy and I just can't see myself bothering with them anymore.
- simion314 5y ago
  Nah, is always the people in comments, go to most movie.TV series reddit and see tons of comments that are like "bad writing, it should have been exactly like I want" (Because some random dude is better then actual writers with experience and awards). Though thee is hope, I know that there is a fix, from my experience good moderation where rules like "no personal attacks" , "no lazy comments" , "properly explained critics" and a community that mostly reports bad behavior resulted in a good experience for me.
  - hn8788 5y ago
    The most recent DLC they released broke a lot of stuff, and was clearly unfinished, because it still had placeholder assets in it. Sometimes the people complaining actually are right about what they're talking about.
    - simion314 5y ago
      And as I said there are ways to write a comment with valid criticism that is not toxic. Edit: what I maybe failed to communicate before is that even when there is a valid criticism to make, most of the time the people in comments address their hate to the wrong people. Maybe the developers/writers are not incompetent but someone else demanded certain things.
      - nottorp 5y ago
        As the customer, why should you care who exactly delivered a crap product that breaks existing products? Whoever from the organization is facing the customer gets the blame and the complaints. Mind, I stay away from Paradox games because they cost $500 if you include all addons, and are unplayable for the first 2 years until they release a good number of addons. So I have no idea what's going on with this particular addon. Except that several people above me posted that it completely breaks the game?
        disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        Sure, but when people pour their hearts into a product for months or years of their life, and they read about how they are lazy or incompetent (or evil), it hurts a lot. If you actually want your feedback to be listened to, you should try writing it more nicely. But then, this is the internet, so that doesn't seem likely ;)
        nottorp 5y ago
        > Sure, but when people pour their hearts into a product for months or years of their life Are you referring to the mandatory overtime and low pay across the gaming industry there? :)
        simion314 5y ago
        Sure, but you refund and complain about the companies. Gaming community is notorious for the toxicity , like sending death treats to people from the public relations for example. I disagree with the toxicity addressed at some individuals person that probably is not at fault. I was suggesting some good moderation from the community, not to censor criticism but to allow and encourage civilized comments and block lazy stuff.
- bmcahren 5y ago
  People blame management for Cyberpunk as well, but your options as a company are limited. Game development companies are expensive to operate and fail often. Franchises rise and fall. Player bases jump ship (PUBG -> Fortnite -> Apex -> CoD Warzone, etc). So your options again are limited: A. Delay the project X years with an uncertain probability of the game improving vs becoming more complex/buggy over time. B. Cancel the project entirely. C. Restart the project or replace the development leads/management if you think they are the problem again with an uncertain probability of improvement or degradation of quality. D. Delay as long as is possible/reasonable and attempt to deliver a workable game that might not please everybody <----- What most game developers choose. We can't expect companies to bankrupt themselves to deliver and we also can't guarantee any additional time would actually solve some possibly core problems to the game/engine. It does NOT come down to incompetence or malice in all cases. Very easily a transition in tooling or the underlying engine mid-development could throw off the entire project in permanent ways.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    Video games are hard. Think about it, they are essentially a fusion of software and entertainment products, both industries which are noted for unpredictable scheduling and inconsistent quality. It honestly amazes me that so many games actually work pretty well, given that I've seen how the sausage is made.
- Der_Einzige 5y ago
  Bad DLC in Paradox games is nothing new. Did you not play HOI3? The reality is that its a coinflip on if a new DLC or patch fixes more than it breaks or not with paradox...
wccrawford 5y ago
If the developers hate that toxicity, perhaps the customers do, too. Maybe they should more heavily moderate their own forums?
- speeder 5y ago
  To be honest what is going on I feel more like is devs are blaming users for their error. Their newest DLC release has 7% approval rating on Steam, it breaks savegames, crash a lot, and breaks features of past DLCs unless you purchase the new DLC, some users are livid and calling it "theft" or "extortion" because stuff they paid for was taken away unless they pay even more.
  - BurritoAlPastor 5y ago
    You’re referring to Leviathan, the newest expansion for Europa Universalis. The developer plea for less toxicity in the forums was from a Hearts Of Iron developer. Their newest DLC wasn’t exactly met with glowing reviews either, but it wasn’t apocalyptically game-breaking, so even if abuse was warranted for the quality of Leviathan (and it’s not), that still wouldn’t explain why the HoI forums should be a cesspit.
- bmcahren 5y ago
  Content moderation is incredibly complex. It's also very expensive to operate. If you're not managing it yourself, you're managing the managers and then you still have issues. When there is an onslaught like this, you have no means to moderate against the storm except to restrict posting or in this case shut down.
  - EricE 5y ago
    Here’s a wild and crazy thought - give users tools to moderate the content themselves? Just let me block folks. It’s often a very small percentage of bad actors - if you can block them easily it usually raises the level of discourse for everyone.
    - 5y ago
mensetmanusman 5y ago
They should hire deng. It’s amazing how much moderators can help guide the dialogue culture.
JohnDeHope 5y ago
I want to ask an honest question. Why can't they just let associates put people in time out? If you're put in time out once, it lasts for a few days, and the time doubles on each subsequent ejection. That'd solve the problem in a few days. Why can't this be done? Or why wouldn't it solve the problem? I must be wrong about how simple this would be.
- Buttons840 5y ago
  The most successful approach I've experienced to moderation is similar. Give timeout liberally. Emphasize that it is temporary and not a big deal. Give forgiveness to those who are well behaved and make sure they know that forgiveness is possible (eg, after 2 years without timeouts, the timeout counter resets).
- EricE 5y ago
  The real issue is Paradox released an unfinished product. Apparently people calling you out for delivering crap are “toxic” :p
  - cuddlybacon 5y ago
    People are sending the devs death threats. No matter how bad it is, that's not acceptable. I've been playing the game for 5+ years, and the player base has been noticeable toxic to the devs for most of the time. Probably the worst of any games I've played in that time.
    - jjk166 5y ago
      Nowhere in TFA is there any mention of death threats. They devs are taking issue with users complaining. Of course no one enjoys dealing with pissed off customers, but that's par for the course when you sell people things that will piss them off.
      - cuddlybacon 5y ago
        TFA may not, but the devs have been bringing it up: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/megathread-leviathan-release-problems.1468269/post-27481890 https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/megathread-levi...

37 points by speeder 5y ago

The saddest part about this is it's not the devs fault, it's management. I'd be interested to see the size of paradoxes growth in terms of management compared to devs in the past 5 years. My only other speculation is that they stopped hiring people passionate about their games. Hence why much dlc that has come out has broke the game or caused it to slow down dramatically. The price is nothing to me. While high, I do like the long term support. But they seriously need to go back to square one here. Because as of late, paradox has just become the Activision of grand strategy and I just can't see myself bothering with them anymore.

simion314 5y ago
Nah, is always the people in comments, go to most movie.TV series reddit and see tons of comments that are like "bad writing, it should have been exactly like I want" (Because some random dude is better then actual writers with experience and awards). Though thee is hope, I know that there is a fix, from my experience good moderation where rules like "no personal attacks" , "no lazy comments" , "properly explained critics" and a community that mostly reports bad behavior resulted in a good experience for me.
- hn8788 5y ago
  The most recent DLC they released broke a lot of stuff, and was clearly unfinished, because it still had placeholder assets in it. Sometimes the people complaining actually are right about what they're talking about.
  - simion314 5y ago
    And as I said there are ways to write a comment with valid criticism that is not toxic. Edit: what I maybe failed to communicate before is that even when there is a valid criticism to make, most of the time the people in comments address their hate to the wrong people. Maybe the developers/writers are not incompetent but someone else demanded certain things.
    - nottorp 5y ago
      As the customer, why should you care who exactly delivered a crap product that breaks existing products? Whoever from the organization is facing the customer gets the blame and the complaints. Mind, I stay away from Paradox games because they cost $500 if you include all addons, and are unplayable for the first 2 years until they release a good number of addons. So I have no idea what's going on with this particular addon. Except that several people above me posted that it completely breaks the game?
      - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        Sure, but when people pour their hearts into a product for months or years of their life, and they read about how they are lazy or incompetent (or evil), it hurts a lot. If you actually want your feedback to be listened to, you should try writing it more nicely. But then, this is the internet, so that doesn't seem likely ;)
      - nottorp 5y ago
        > Sure, but when people pour their hearts into a product for months or years of their life Are you referring to the mandatory overtime and low pay across the gaming industry there? :)
      - simion314 5y ago
        Sure, but you refund and complain about the companies. Gaming community is notorious for the toxicity , like sending death treats to people from the public relations for example. I disagree with the toxicity addressed at some individuals person that probably is not at fault. I was suggesting some good moderation from the community, not to censor criticism but to allow and encourage civilized comments and block lazy stuff.
bmcahren 5y ago
People blame management for Cyberpunk as well, but your options as a company are limited. Game development companies are expensive to operate and fail often. Franchises rise and fall. Player bases jump ship (PUBG -> Fortnite -> Apex -> CoD Warzone, etc). So your options again are limited: A. Delay the project X years with an uncertain probability of the game improving vs becoming more complex/buggy over time. B. Cancel the project entirely. C. Restart the project or replace the development leads/management if you think they are the problem again with an uncertain probability of improvement or degradation of quality. D. Delay as long as is possible/reasonable and attempt to deliver a workable game that might not please everybody <----- What most game developers choose. We can't expect companies to bankrupt themselves to deliver and we also can't guarantee any additional time would actually solve some possibly core problems to the game/engine. It does NOT come down to incompetence or malice in all cases. Very easily a transition in tooling or the underlying engine mid-development could throw off the entire project in permanent ways.
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  Video games are hard. Think about it, they are essentially a fusion of software and entertainment products, both industries which are noted for unpredictable scheduling and inconsistent quality. It honestly amazes me that so many games actually work pretty well, given that I've seen how the sausage is made.
Der_Einzige 5y ago
Bad DLC in Paradox games is nothing new. Did you not play HOI3? The reality is that its a coinflip on if a new DLC or patch fixes more than it breaks or not with paradox...

wccrawford 5y ago

If the developers hate that toxicity, perhaps the customers do, too. Maybe they should more heavily moderate their own forums?

speeder 5y ago
To be honest what is going on I feel more like is devs are blaming users for their error. Their newest DLC release has 7% approval rating on Steam, it breaks savegames, crash a lot, and breaks features of past DLCs unless you purchase the new DLC, some users are livid and calling it "theft" or "extortion" because stuff they paid for was taken away unless they pay even more.
- BurritoAlPastor 5y ago
  You’re referring to Leviathan, the newest expansion for Europa Universalis. The developer plea for less toxicity in the forums was from a Hearts Of Iron developer. Their newest DLC wasn’t exactly met with glowing reviews either, but it wasn’t apocalyptically game-breaking, so even if abuse was warranted for the quality of Leviathan (and it’s not), that still wouldn’t explain why the HoI forums should be a cesspit.
bmcahren 5y ago
Content moderation is incredibly complex. It's also very expensive to operate. If you're not managing it yourself, you're managing the managers and then you still have issues. When there is an onslaught like this, you have no means to moderate against the storm except to restrict posting or in this case shut down.
- EricE 5y ago
  Here’s a wild and crazy thought - give users tools to moderate the content themselves? Just let me block folks. It’s often a very small percentage of bad actors - if you can block them easily it usually raises the level of discourse for everyone.
  - 5y ago

mensetmanusman 5y ago

They should hire deng. It’s amazing how much moderators can help guide the dialogue culture.

JohnDeHope 5y ago

I want to ask an honest question. Why can't they just let associates put people in time out? If you're put in time out once, it lasts for a few days, and the time doubles on each subsequent ejection. That'd solve the problem in a few days. Why can't this be done? Or why wouldn't it solve the problem? I must be wrong about how simple this would be.

Buttons840 5y ago
The most successful approach I've experienced to moderation is similar. Give timeout liberally. Emphasize that it is temporary and not a big deal. Give forgiveness to those who are well behaved and make sure they know that forgiveness is possible (eg, after 2 years without timeouts, the timeout counter resets).
EricE 5y ago
The real issue is Paradox released an unfinished product. Apparently people calling you out for delivering crap are “toxic” :p
- cuddlybacon 5y ago
  People are sending the devs death threats. No matter how bad it is, that's not acceptable. I've been playing the game for 5+ years, and the player base has been noticeable toxic to the devs for most of the time. Probably the worst of any games I've played in that time.
  - jjk166 5y ago
    Nowhere in TFA is there any mention of death threats. They devs are taking issue with users complaining. Of course no one enjoys dealing with pissed off customers, but that's par for the course when you sell people things that will piss them off.
    - cuddlybacon 5y ago
      TFA may not, but the devs have been bringing it up: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/megathread-leviathan-release-problems.1468269/post-27481890 https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/megathread-levi...