As a Customer, should you care about BHVR's problems? Just a thought.
A wild question that just came out of nowhere, pretty much.... I don't know, what do you think?
BHVR has a problem when it comes to saying they'll do x thing & then not accomplish it.
- When u buy a product, do you care about the process behind it, the difficulties, the problems or you're only interested in the finished version?
We first are customers, before we are part of a community.
There's a difference between understanding the process of making said product AND caring for the process of making said product.
Let's talk about this from a customer point of view.
Comments
It depends. If they atleast were trying and were honest, i would care.
But BHVR keeps breaking promises, never listening and and and.. So i dont really care anymore. And i uses to defend everything they did not even a year ago.
Because it's a video game, it's a unique perspective on that. Of course you'd be disturbed to know that your favorite ketchup says it has an ingredient in it on the label, and then it actually doesn't have it, kind of like the devs saying that they'll introduce this new feature of be transparent about x stats, and then they don't do it. But would we notice that 1 ingredient is missing from the ketchup? Maybe. Would we dig deeper into it and bash the company that makes it? Probably not.
Games are made up of code and polygon work and other things, and those are becoming less and less mysterious as more amateur/up and coming game developers enter the market. So they're the ones telling us "this thing that the devs are having such a hard time doing, is not that hard" and so their knowledge validates us thinking that the devs are just lazy or inexperienced. Maybe that's not true, but we heard it from someone who knows what they're talking about.
For one reason or another I do care BHVR's problems, especially because I want them to succeed because I want this game that I love to succeed, and them making so many mistakes so consistently disheartens me. I've bought the game, I've payed for the licensed chapters since I couldn't get them with shards, and I'm not really gonna spend more on the game than that. And that's not coming from a "I don't want to give them my money" type of mindset, I would have done that anyway because I buy the bare necessities and use my money wisely/sparingly. I just want to be able to play what I payed for without freezes and bugs and all this stuff that is consistently featured in this game. So although I can empathize with the devs, I expect better of them.
A problem ? Lol. They dont have a problem.
It's called marketting. And they are genius at it. Look at all the fools that bought RE chapter and thought it would run perfectly.
They're honest with us?
I have an issue with BHVR's problems when they make them my problems.
And considering their problems are usually something along the lines of poor balancing, poor programming, or poor map design, that's often the case.
Yes. They're still people, too. They could just end this game and make another and lose everything on this one, if they wanted. I think that since they're trying to fix everything, they care enough to keep this game running on 8 year hardware is pretty significant.
I know a lot about coding but not necessarily game code and it's not easy. One wrong string and you're looking through millions of lines of mostly duplicy code, trying to solve it. You change one thing and it might break other sequences that relied on that string.
Forgot to add a ,,if"
Yes.
Without mentioning the fact that every developer, moderator, etc., is a human being and therefore deserving of empathy, from a purely selfish perspective, you want people who are enthusiastic about making games to be developers, because they are the ones who make the best games. If you're a toxic/hostile customer who does nothing but make their lives miserable, they'll quit and get replaced with people who don't give a ######### about the product.
So if you want people who don't care about games to be developers because the others became disillusioned by your attitude, you should definitely be a toxic/hostile customer.
If, on the other hand, you want games with a certain level of quality, behaving like a normal human being (with empathy) and showing them a minimum of respect goes a long way.
BHVR tried that, once upon a time. The deluge of misinformation (WIP stuff being shown, then, when it didn't come out exactly as shown, claims that BHVR "lied"), toxicity, and so on, made them stop.
No, I don't think BHVR should be more open, not until they can excise the part of the player base that's like this.
As a customer, I think they deserve to be grilled for a lot of things. Why should we spend more on each chapter and cosmetic when we get content that's broken? I've been asking them to fix the Ashy Slashy puppet for months, which they've finally acknowledged but when are they actually gonna do it? Tomorrow is the 2 week mark from when the RE chapter released and the RPD map exclusive to the chapter is still off-limits too. They still sell things like this knowing these issues without doing their best to inform the consumer.
As far as the game itself goes, every update comes with the most bizarre bugs that make trials insufferable at times (like survivors screaming at full blast from across the map, palettes not stunning or going invisible, hud elements disappearing, etc.) and they're usually such obvious things that it makes you wonder how they could've missed them at all. You can always assume that something is going to be weird or straight up busted every time they update the game.
I believe you should always do your best to be polite. But when someone sells you something making claims that are untrue or withholding important information, they're taking advantage of your trust to turn a profit. Thankfully this is just a video game and not something vital to anyone's well-being, but it's really ridiculous to see people say "well they tried" at times when they're being incompetent at best and manipulative at worst.
Tomorrow is the 2 week mark from when the RE chapter released and the RPD map exclusive to the chapter is still off-limits too. They still sell things like this knowing these issues without doing their best to inform the consumer.
The map is not exclusive to the DLC. No map is, in fact. This has been the case since DbD was released.
I believe you should always do your best to be polite. But when someone sells you something making claims that are untrue or withholding important information, they're taking advantage of your trust to turn a profit.
Politeness and trust are not synonyms. You can be polite when pointing out problems, just like you can be impolite while agreeing.
Nope, I stopped caring. It's obvious that the company only cares about profits. I'm not going to hate the devs though, I know they're just employees and are doing what they're instructed to do, but I probably spent a total of 50 bucks for close to two years of fun. I haven't spent a dime since I brought Freddy (regret) back when Oni came out.
I know what to expect, and they haven't wowed me since Oni-chans chapter. The last good chapter was Silent Hill, and I was close to spending money for Pyramid head, but my gut told me to wait, because I knew nerfs were incoming. Not only did they nerf his power, they nerfed his butt.
Now I look at is as a free to play phone game, but on my PC, where I can play to earn mediocre cosmetics.
Aight' I see your point. Strong arguments. Not saying I am that kind of customer since I'm already invested in this game & the community.
I would be unhappy too if they showed one thing & delivered another. One could release the thing they mentioned & showed and then tweak it at a later date based on feedback & data... It also depends on HOW MUCH they tweak a thing after showing it. Do you have any meaningful examples of this? Like 2 or 3 perhaps?
No, I don't think BHVR should be more open, not until they can excise the part of the player base that's like this.
The part of the player base u mention is a problem they also created.
I don't quite remember... When they showed OoO change, how did the community perceive it?
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Empathy... The more years go by, the less you see it nowadays & the more we'll be led by anger with barely any meaningful emotions left. What would the DBD community look like in 2005-2010, I wonder... I'm turning into the Joker now...
I come from Overwatch, so ANY communication is a huge plus for me. They could have 99 excuses and I would rather hear them than be left in the dark.
It was released exclusively alongside this chapter is what I meant. People will buy the chapter along with DBD thinking they'll be able to play the RPD map and they can't, while Behavior still advertises it like you can.
That was my point. But there's a fine line between being polite and being inappropriately empathetic with a team putting out a product. You don't have to point out problems with unfair demands or by shouting and cursing, but you also shouldn't fool yourself into worrying about how much they care when you're still being had.
Yeah I agree with most of people that said that behavior just doesn’t really care about us the fans and customers. I mean they basically ruined their 5th anniversary by disabling a new map that we have waited a year for to get. So right now I don’t really care about their problems since they failed to deliver a proper working product.
It was released exclusively alongside this chapter is what I meant. People will buy the chapter along with DBD thinking they'll be able to play the RPD map and they can't, while Behavior still advertises it like you can.
BHVR has never advertised a DLC as being necessary to play the new map. This is what it says on the Steam store page:
NEW MAP: RACCOON CITY POLICE STATION*
Once home to the RPD’s elite S.T.A.R.S. unit, the labyrinthine hallways of this converted art museum are now overrun by the undead and host to a relentless evil.
*This map is free for all players.
There's plenty to complain about BHVR. This is not one of those things.
That was my point. But there's a fine line between being polite and being inappropriately empathetic with a team putting out a product. You don't have to point out problems with unfair demands or by shouting and cursing, but you also shouldn't fool yourself into worrying about how much they care when you're still being had.
The problem is that you immediately assume the worst possible intention, so you feel justified in saying you've "been had" and not caring about them as people.
As a customer you should care about everything. It's one of my favourite parts as a Gamer, knowing how and understanding why it was made this way, it's why i don't buy into fake hype. It's why i don't like BHVR. I legit disagreee with how and why they do what they do in 90% of the cases. Example, beating a dead horse here but whatever, Breakable Walls: Stupid Mechanic that didn't solve any of the Map issues, still gives Survivors extreme safety, forces killer to stop a chase to break the walls or stops killer from patrolling cause it's a blocked passage way. You're forced to deal with them instead of making Map Design better. It's a band aid "fix" that nobody asked for and that didn't really fix anything. Some Breakable Walls MUST be broken while others are benefitial to not break, the Mechanic isn't consistant and never will be. Thank god the RCPD Map is disabled, i played it on PTB and it was Hell, NEVER AGAIN THANK YOU.
I know this is off topic, but has Blizzard really fallen so low? I quit supporting them after they released the money grab known as D3. Sad to hear them get worse.
I'm a pretty understanding person, I think. I try to be reasonable and admit when I'm being biased. However, I have developed a very negative attitude towards a lot about this game. The lack of care expressed towards the console experience, especially when it's such a large market, has eaten through my patience. Optimization is a huge undertaking, yes, but the performance only ever gets worse. Their fog effects tax the system more and more. They have not implemented easier things than outright optimization to at least show console is important to them: we need more options for controllers (like dead zone) and the ability to choose a lower graphics setting (DOA6 gives the choice of graphics vs performance).
Techland kept pushing back the release of Dying Light 2, and some people had a fit over it, but the team continued to give love to Dying Light with events, DLC, and improvements to performance, so it was obvious they cared. I happily buy their DLC, and I play Dying Light much less than DbD. Meanwhile, I put little to no money into DbD anymore because why should I, they want me to pay for stuff that they won't even make sure plays well on the PS4, it's disrespectful towards their customers. They ask for money from console players as the performance gets worse.
I try to be polite, I don't attack people, but I will be bluntly honest about the state of the game and how I feel about it.
On one hand I have paid fairly little money for this product yet have gotten a lot of engaging entertainment out of it through the years, and so I think it would be... entitled for me as a "customer" to act as if that would be a bad relationship for me with the company from a "market" perspective. On another, the game is more like a service, and so that continual development as well as my experience of it is intrinsically part of that relationship. And I mean, they ship DLC every 3 months, which I buy, which basically makes it a paid service. That nature of the game does entitle me to be dissatisfied with what I'm getting. Plus, as a "member" of the community and player of the game I contribute to the game's longevity and succes to some extent, for free, so it's only fair that I also get to use that to point to those dissatisfactory things.
For me personally it's not even so much the optimization and programming issues in terms of performance and bugs and whatnot that cause me dissatisfaction (though they are totally still issues, and there are some of them that are very important to me too, most of all the fact that they still haven't implemented a fair hit reg system that does not reward killers for latency), it's the fact that they almost never deliver exciting and engaging new gameplay. The core gameplay concept and design is great, always has been. But throughout the years, actual "conceptual" improvements and compelling new additions to that gameplay have been painfully sparse. They are also painfully slow on top of being painfully conservative with their gameplay design, and sometimes make painfully questionable decisions.
That said, while I'm really rather curious why it is that these things are like they are, why they are so slow and change so little, why they make so many mistakes, why they decide the things they decide, why they often don't manage to do the things they say they want to do, and so on, it's mostly that, curiosity. I don't feel any real animosity towards any BHVR employee or even the company at large, it's just a game and they are just people. If anything I actually find it somewhat endearing how peculiar this company seems to function and how silly DbD in many respects is (and a fair few of their other games are). They are "amateurish" in some ways that can definitely affect the game negatively, but also in ways that make them more human and gives them (and the game) personality. It's not this polished great thing with huge, world-stage levels of exciting developments, it's more personal and quirky and familiar and has remained true to itself in many respects (for better and worse).
There is even a certain excitement to the very fact that they are not very competent at and familiar with high-level gameplay of their own game. That makes it so one never quite knows whether they will change some of the things that are relevant to higher-level DbD, whether they will add new things that can be come relevant for it. Most of the time this does not happen, which is lame, but still, there is a certain sense of excitement that basically anything could happen because they don't seem to actually know what they're doing all the time, with regards to that higher-level gameplay certainly. Though I do suspect that part of why they are so reluctant to make any more fundamental changes to the game is that they are simply scared to mess with its core formula that has been so much more successful than they ever anticipated, and than most of their other projects (beating out all other asymmetrical games of this kind, even their very own attempt at another one). That core formula is a bit magical in that sense, I can kind of understand not wanting to make any too significant changes to the gameplay for that reason, even if that's lame.
I wouldn't think less of them if they actually came out and admitted to any internal issues that may be causing these things. If they said something along the lines of "we have a problem managing internal structures and timelines and this can lead to bottleneck-like limitations on the quantity and quality of our development and content output", or "we have the same limited amount of programmers we have always had and they are struggling to deliver more things or things of higher quality on this schedule", or whatever, I would if anything think higher of them. Whether it is a sort of arrogance or pride that leads them to not talk about any of the internal issues that must be at fault for the issues with the product's development and content or whether it is ignorance in that they never internally criticize each other and don't want to even acknowledge the severity of such issues or whether it is simply all marketing because they figure staying silent on these things is still better for their public image with regards to securing corporate partnerships (for licensed IP content and otherwise) and such I don't know; there's probably a few reasons why they don't come out and say such things, and I don't even necessarily want them to do so or think that that would be a good or reasonable thing to do. I'm just saying if they did show that such problems like a lack of programming power and expertise exist in their team, I would not think less of them.
Around the time when they ambitiously said they want to tackle performance and one core goal of that undertaking would be to rewrite the base game code into C++, I saw McLean show off a C++ book on stream saying he's improving his skills in his off time. That was pretty cute, not acting like they know it all but literally showing "weakness" as a programmer, a lack of expertise in that coding language. Of course, that base code rewrite never happened from what we know, so that's not so cute, but the point is I don't dislike these people, I'm sure they have competent and smart individuals working there (such as McLean), and just because they make (a lot of) mistakes and don't develop the game in ways that are very exciting doesn't mean they are all stupid and lazy and bad at their jobs. And to any extent that they are stupid and lazy and bad at their jobs, well, we all are to an extent or another - I don't expect too much from DbD, it's a game and if they are fine with making the money that they do this way and the employees have a more relaxing working schedule and environment than may be typical for the industry that allows them to think and work less hard and long, I say good for them.
To be fair, Bhvr made a lot of promises not too far back, I imagine they were trying to keep their promise, then some outside sources kicked in and made so many things spiral out of control.
You're not getting what I'm saying. I know the map is free, but it's a Resident Evil map introduced alongside the Resident Evil DLC chapter. People who like Resident Evil are more likely to buy the game with the chapter to get the DLC content, as well as to play the new map that's shown in the trailer and mentioned on the store page. They should make sure that it's accessible to people who pay for the chapter it was released with or make it known outside of a news tab in-game that it doesn't work along with an ETA.
They're still telling people who bought the game for the chapter that they can do something, only for them to get into the game and realize they can't. That's very much something worth complaining about, especially after 2 weeks.
They're a business. If they promise something and don't deliver while still accepting your money, I would call that being had. They have no problem selling cosmetics that don't work without any notice. What about their consumers? Do they not count as people too? I get having an open mind with things, but you can't let your brains fall out. If you spend too much time worrying about hurting their feelings and not bringing these things to their attention, then nothing will ever get done. And if they're competent business people, they should know that.
Again, you don't have to be nasty, but it's not about serving them or getting on their good side when they provide content and ask for feedback.