@Riot: Why do you ignore so much of the community?

Píllow·Mar 16, 2014·3 votes·740 views

The title might be a bit harsh (and untrue to some degree), but it's there to just grab attention, really.

But. Yeah. It's starting to feel like a lot of community feedback, ideas, reports, complaints and concerns go totally unnoticed, on the forums and even here on the community beta. I read a lot of threads daily, both with actual discussion value and a few spam/joke threads, and it saddens me to see how much more Red replies there are on the spam/joke threads compared to threads with actual discussion value. Now, I'm not saying you never post and discuss legitimate topics and concerns with the community, but it feels like it's slowly getting to that point.

Then there's the case of doing something, leaving it half-done, and moving on to someone else, leaving the people of the first topic/discussion completely ignored for the longest time. That should not be happening. My biggest frustration relating to this is the Skarner thread, which is being ignored, but at the same time we see Reds (same reds responsible for the Skarner rework...) actively posting in the Rengar thread. But, the Skarner thread is not my main point.

I really want to like you as a company, and I have loved you and your game before, but the radio silence we're getting in so many things is really starting to frustrate the community.

4 Comments

MackleDogeMar 16, 20143 votes

Apart from the community fracturing like ArmaMalum mentioned, we also have to keep in mind that there is significantly more people in the community then there are Riot employees. It's a lot like the university system at large colleges and schools where because of the number of students to professors, students don't always get the one on one or individual assistance they need. Riot has to continue doing their jobs to keep the game running, keep the game growing, and ensure that they keep creating a positive experience in their game. Part of that is communicating with the community, I'll definitely agree with you on that, and I love how much Riot tries to interact with their community.

By the way, I don't think a lot of threads you mentioned are being ignored. I'm sorry but the fact is that at some points conversations stop, you can't hold a Red hostage on a topic if they no longer want to talk about it or they don't have anything to say about it, just like I can't force you to sit here and talk to me about pugs and my waifu. Some threads stop getting updates because there are no updates. When it comes to champion balance especially (Skarner/Rengar/MF/etc) they need time to make changes on PBE and see how things are working. They have to gather data before they can comment on the effect off changes and get collective feedback to make more changes if they feel its necessary.

Sir ArmaMalumMar 16, 20141 votes

Right now I'll largely attribute that to the fracturing of mediums. Reds are split (by individual choice) between Reddit, CB and old forums. This makes it very hard to find relevant red posts and they don't repeat themselves often. Is that the best way of handling it? No. But my point is it's particularly bad right now with the CB as it is and a lot of resources being put into the e-sports scene. Growing pains(tm)

PíllowMar 16, 20142 votes

I remember Parrot derailing a thread just to advertize the Community Beta, telling us how they'll gladly respond to conversations and questions here to "test out the community beta" or something.

And it's almost dead silent here too.

Sir ArmaMalumMar 16, 20142 votes

Not gonna touch that infamous argument, too many times it devolves to assumptions and mis-interpretations.

As for the CB silence I will agree it's been more silent than usual but it's only really IS and the Beta team popping in often. Riot Gradius and sometimes BaconHawk have been here as well, but that's a very very small fraction of who could be. Honestly I see most of the new stuff coming up in Reddit and ongoing stuff (Re-works, VU updates etc.) happening in vBulletin forums. Riot has stated before they are not enforcing an employee to choose a medium and let's face it, they're not forcing employees to post at all about what they're doing and how they're doing it. It's just what we've come to expect now, even though it's far from standard in the gaming industry today. My stance is to stay patient but never expect a red response, get the community's view on a topic and when a red replies it's a pleasant surprise.