Counselors - Marine/Xeno sides for the Dev Team

[ThesoldierLLJK]

or add a staff position whos sole job is reading the forums, call him community manager.

Pretty sure thats what admins/senior admins/managers/emerald blood are for.

[Simo94]

Pretty sure thats what admins/senior admins/managers/emerald blood are for.

well, they are either too busy to read the forums, or just dont.

[NethIafins]

or add a staff position whos sole job is reading the forums, call him community manager.

It's not my job, but I personally got like 20-30 more gray hairs after reading some feedback

[ThesoldierLLJK]

well, they are either too busy to read the forums, or just dont.

The problem you have is Server team and development team are separate but equal entities in a sense. Our host/vicehost/head handle more rules type of things. Game features/development/testing is for the Dev team.

The thing is people are afraid to use GitLab, I say use it. We have a coder who got tired of just spamming GitLab with suggestions, he joined the development team and put his ideas to work using his professional experience as a coder. So I'm pretty sure him and the other devs read GitLab.


You have a council for each whitelisted role, we don't need a council for the each side, we don't need 500,000 staff members for every little thing. If the community truly has issues with how things are being run, not ran by current staff. I suggest you bring it to SLC the next time he does a townhall to address the issue.

[Simo94]

I personally dont mind the current system, im just offering solutions to help prevent adding more elite groups.

also boi do we need a unified channel, because theres discord, forums, salting in Dchat and gitlab.

[Grubstank]

the forums are barely ever used to make balance changes is the thing, you can post on the forums but at the end of the day whatever you post on the forums has absolutely zero bearing on what devs do and you cannot tell me this is not the case, look at like every thread in The Hive

the purpose of the suggestion I was quoting (and in agreement with) was to have users highlight suggested balance changes and bring them to the attention of the devs -- my point was the the content/function of a counsel is already present on the forums, it just needs a mediator to bring it to the attention of the devs. The benefits to this are that it's much more equitable to the average player who doesn't join a fancy counsel, and the players chosen to curate/compile the suggestions/feedback bias the data a lot less than a counsel presenting their own perspectives.

[Dolth]

The problem you have is Server team and development team are separate but equal entities in a sense. Our host/vicehost/head handle more rules type of things. Game features/development/testing is for the Dev team.

The thing is people are afraid to use GitLab, I say use it. We have a coder who got tired of just spamming GitLab with suggestions, he joined the development team and put his ideas to work using his professional experience as a coder. So I'm pretty sure him and the other devs read GitLab.

I don't use gitbal since I reported a bug and it wasn't fixed in -litterally- half a year, and the worst in that is the lack of feedbacks. That's imo why people are chilly with using gitlab.

Also to answer above, it's not about being 'fair' with new players, they don't have the requried knowledge to give proper feedbacks, that's just why experienced players should be -heard- as counselors or something.

[CABAL]

I don't use gitbal since I reported a bug and it wasn't fixed in -litterally- half a year, and the worst in that is the lack of feedbacks. That's imo why people are chilly with using gitlab.

Also to answer above, it's not about being 'fair' with new players, they don't have the requried knowledge to give proper feedbacks, that's just why experienced players should be -heard- as counselors or something.

Yet new people have the most unbiased and "clear" opinions. Give it two steps:
- First: Anyone brings up the idea. Idea is discussed by everyone who likes.
- Second: After pages and countless "fixes" to the original idea you can show it to the devs.

We are already doing this, threads like "An idea for the xeno overhaul" and "Remove xeno age?" are just that, but without somebody who would sum that up for easy and fast "read" for devs and staff.

I don't want forum to become Xeno hivemind where those "experienced players" will evolve into T2's and will leave rest to rot. I think we don't have so much active players on forum that we need literally politicians who will represent our interests to CMteam. Why can't we leave state of "perfect democracy"? CM forum is not a country so it don't need "real life" democracy.

[xXen0zS1ay3rXx]

Are there any staff that even play, let alone play xeno? Just a quick glance at the changelog for the past month shows very little in the way of being aware of the points in the OP like potential negative outcomes, risks/counter-measures to prepare, and potential adjustments to prepare.

SADAR is still insanely OP, the carrier and hivelord are still nerfed since the failed abortion of the burrower and every other changelog has a new marine buff.

[Dolth]

-snip

Gotta agree with that, experienced players have more chances of being biased. But on another hand I doubt a new player will have all the required knowledge of CM to make a constructive and fully buit critic.

Now I know those discussions are already in place but so far the staff doesn't give feedbacks (actually they are progressively being more and more present on threads).
And I think the whole point of counselors would not be necessary if we could know whether or not a discussion is taken in account.

Anyway, toodles.

[Ketrai]

SADAR is still insanely OP, the carrier and hivelord are still nerfed since the failed abortion of the burrower and every other changelog has a new marine buff.

AP rocket gibs pred, nuf said. (on a direct hit)

I frequently post random thoughts on gitlab rather than just the forums. If I see an experimental idea that gets a lot of discussion on the forums, but doesn't make it to gitlab, I will repost it there so the other side can gaze at it? Of course giving due credit to the father of said idea. Honestly peeps, just post shit on gitlab. We might have 1200 issues but some might become "Accepted suggestions"

[CABAL]

AP rocket gibs pred, nuf said. (on a direct hit)

I frequently post random thoughts on gitlab rather than just the forums. If I see an experimental idea that gets a lot of discussion on the forums, but doesn't make it to gitlab, I will repost it there so the other side can gaze at it? Of course giving due credit to the father of said idea. Honestly peeps, just post shit on gitlab. We might have 1200 issues but some might become "Accepted suggestions"

I would, but Gitlab does not accept e-mails from polish websides so I decided that it's not worth it to create another e-mail account to post shit that will mostly be ignored.
By the way: What is the "adventage" of Gitlab over forum threads? Those "+1" that you can leave on somebody's post?

[kastion]

I would, but Gitlab does not accept e-mails from polish websides so I decided that it's not worth it to create another e-mail account to post shit that will mostly be ignored.
By the way: What is the "adventage" of Gitlab over forum threads? Those "+1" that you can leave on somebody's post?

I don't know everything about gitlab but I know its a website for coders to work on projects. They can do stuff like assign people to the project and put little tags on stuff to organize it and stuff like that. Im sure theres a whole lot more they can do with it.

[Avalanchee]

All salty young praetorians (626) saltin' bout RPG while standing still behind no cover on the other side of the LV bridge

[Simo94]

also the last time I checked balance suggestions are auto-denied on gitlab, and thats what we discuss the most in the forums right now.

[kastion]

also the last time I checked balance suggestions are auto-denied on gitlab, and thats what we discuss the most in the forums right now.

ah i didnt know that. that is disappointing. welp time to quit giving a shit.

[Garrison]

I think a council such as this is unnecessary, and only adds needless bureaucracy. If anything, there should just be a scheduled test server (which used to be a thing if I recall correctly)

We have an update discussion thread and various other discussion topics and channels to express ourselves. We don't need anymore unless absolutely necessary.

In my opinion, the devs are currently closer to the community then ever before. I've seen NethInfins and Awan in-game in the past 3 weeks then I have seen spooky or apop in the course of a year. (In fairness I was a casual player and this was back in 2017. I don't know how much had changed between then and now; but that's beside the point.)

[Dolth]

Tbh if players want their opinion accounted then they should be at least answered regardless of the answer.

[awan]

Tbh if players want their opinion accounted then they should be at least answered regardless of the answer.

https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/4937
I did reply and all I get is a very complicated system because of the issues I brought up.
Or a system where I have to pawn the issues off on the staff (or secretly be ok with them anyways.)
There is a gap between the player base and the dev team. (also the staff team.)
But doing this won't solve that.

I am already quite upset with the amount of not decisions that get made in the dev team.
Everything just moves slower then you expect because we do our best and not all of us have 80 hours per week to give.
A week between my edit and it being in the game feels long.
But everything that affects balance will be discussed among all devs.
Having players at that conversation just means less gets done.
We have limited time and resources. We do our best to work on changes we and the players want to see.

Almost all feedback is also very disproportionate from reality.
The feedback I got about whiskey outpost is some of the weirdest stuff.
We put in a break wave to help marines. The break is not vanishing yeah you have to wait 5 min yeah that is not the most of fun.
If the goal is a map where you have to throw yourself at cades and I get feedback saying healing is bugged I think people are not listening.

This is why all feedback should go to the gitlab issue list. (As it has support with the codebase.) Or the feedback topics on the forums.
I am not there to read everything on discord or the forums. If you want to give feedback do it in one of those places.

Also just for reference:
http://www.cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 72#p232035
(Done)
http://www.cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 72#p232037
(We want a marine win condition and round end. So not done.)
http://www.cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 72#p232052
(To address it 1. Already addressed. 2. They spawn with one now. 3. Even less intense. 4. Even more added.)
http://www.cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 72#p232210
(You can get boilers at 12:45 game end is random between 13:03 and 13:03 this is an endgame kinda thing if you only get boilers in the last 6 mins you delayed to much as aliens.)
http://www.cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 72#p232211
(Marine reinforcements happen on wave 7 and latejoins work until wave 1. With the current form that also causes no issues with observer numbers.)
http://www.cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 72#p232310
(1. Long-term bug fixed today. 2. Fixed 3. Lag is an issue on higher pop but getting lowered.)
http://www.cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 25#p232800
(Spawns are based upon observer amounts now.)
http://www.cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 25#p233562
(The running around helps with lag reduction making people die more and spawn quicker is more lag.)

Almost all feedback in the topic was addressed I can point out the same for the topic made by piachu or neth.

[kastion]

god i hate how yall refuse to even give usernames a shot for xeno. You bring up all these bullshit reasons that apply to marines too but only matters to xenos for some reason. oh no we are gonna get bullied so hard, oh no some people might get extra stuff cause they are well known, blah blah blah. it all happens on marines. remove marine names and mkae everyone random a name every round.

[spookydonut]

I was in favor of usernames for xenos I just never got around to doing it.

[Dolth]

-snip

Hold on buddy, I am not complaining about your work or even with the time you take to make a change. You guys are working REALLY faster than before and the changes I see are REALLY cool and intresting. Whether I like it or not you are doing amazing stuff recently (Explosive, tank, queen HUD and ovi overlay, Nightmare). And I will never complain if you take time to actually improve the game.

All I am saying is, I feel players are getting mad at some point and get to ask for a council because they DO NOT have any feedbacks on their suggestions BESIDE the 3 or 4 involved players on Gitlab. Forum is empty of any conversation with the dev team sadly.

Thanks for the links btw, and I am trying to be cool right now lol. Didn't mean to offend if I did.

[awan]

Hold on buddy, I am not complaining about your work or even with the time you take to make a change. You guys are working REALLY faster than before and the changes I see are REALLY cool and intresting. Whether I like it or not you are doing amazing stuff recently (Explosive, tank, queen HUD and ovi overlay, Nightmare). And I will never complain if you take time to actually improve the game.

All I am saying is, I feel players are getting mad at some point and get to ask for a council because they DO NOT have any feedbacks on their suggestions BESIDE the 3 or 4 involved players on Gitlab. Forum is empty of any conversation with the dev team sadly.

Thanks for the links btw, and I am trying to be cool right now lol. Didn't mean to offend if I did.

I quoted you more because we do answer it is just that people don't like being told no.
I did not take it as offence.

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

In my opinion:

Having a more funneled method of gathering feedback from each side could be nice, but it isn't something that should be classified as a typical 'council'.

If anything, something like a 'VIP list' of players that are well known by staff and developers who are active in the community and give feedback/suggestions on gitlab, and give them a 'priority' on any feedback they want to make. They aren't elected by a popularity contest, they aren't voted in by the community, they are just added by the developers & general staff after a debate on slack or something.

Councils have the joint task of writing the new rules and policing reports, you don't really need a 'council' in that sense for each of the sides.

Or if we want, we could create a 'player representative' staff role, whose job is to basically be the first in line to recieve, process, and refine feedback/survey data for the devs and staff, which can make a more streamlined feedback system that isn't just people salting endlessly. It's not perfect, but I think it might be decent.

[spookydonut]

In my opinion:

Having a more funneled method of gathering feedback from each side could be nice, but it isn't something that should be classified as a typical 'council'.

If anything, something like a 'VIP list' of players that are well known by staff and developers who are active in the community and give feedback/suggestions on gitlab, and give them a 'priority' on any feedback they want to make. They aren't elected by a popularity contest, they aren't voted in by the community, they are just added by the developers & general staff after a debate on slack or something.

Basically what I did with a bunch of people.