Proper idea submission formatting? @Ghostcrawler @Fearless

GanksLikeGast0n·Sep 3, 2014·7 votes·2,972 views

So I have been tracking the boards for a while, and like many other members of the community I have many questions or ideas I would like to send in Riot's direction. I have seen riot employees in the past request posts without number crunching, (which makes sense considering it's your job to crunch the numbers) and it caused me to think on the way posts are written. My question to the Rioters is this: What is the preferred format you would like to see us use to communicate our questions and ideas to you?

In other words, what information, and how detailed, would you like to see in our questions? And what information do you find most useful when reading over suggestions?

13 Comments

RiotGhostcrawlerSep 3, 20149 votes

I think this is one of those deals where everyone has different preferences, but since you called me out, I'll state that I am more likely to read something short and sweet than long and rambly. (Very long posts also seems to go along with the expectation that we'll address every single point when responding.)

To set expectations, we're also really unlikely to just grab someone's idea for a new champ or skin right off the forums. There are legal considerations, and the truth is that most developers usually have far more ideas than they have bandwidth to execute on them all. We are more likely to use a clever solution to a problem or a suggestion to improve something. Questions are always awesome, though it's still unfortunately unlikely that we will be able to answer them all.

In general, you'll probably be happier if you consider the boards primarily a vehicle for players to communicate with other players. We will join in the conversation when we can, but there are far more of you than there are of us. :)

DaenSep 3, 20146 votes

we're also really unlikely to just grab someone's idea for a new champ or skin right off the forums.

To clarify, for anyone else that reads this: Grabbing ideas off the forums does happen occasionally, he's not saying they don't do it. Surprise Party Fiddlesticks is a perfect example.

you'll probably be happier if you consider the boards primarily a vehicle for players to communicate with other players.

This is true, but realistically speaking there is a significant portion of the community that uses the forums mainly as a way to interact with the developers. It's kind of part of League of Legends culture at this point to aim threads at Riot or at least hope for feedback in that regard.

This is totally unrelated, Ghostcrawler, but from what I've seen you have been one of the most interactive and straight up Rioters to chat on the forums in quite a while. Love having you around, it's really great to have this back-and-forth and it's very clear that you are being thoughtful and direct.

Thanks!

RiotGhostcrawlerSep 3, 20143 votes

This is true, but realistically speaking there is a significant portion of the community that uses the forums mainly as a way to interact with the developers. It's kind of part of League of Legends culture at this point to aim threads at Riot or at least hope for feedback in that regard.

For sure. It's also worth pointing out that we do read a lot more than we post, so just because you don't see a red name doesn't mean your thought vanished into the void.

Riot does place huge value on talking to players on forums. That was one of the reasons I was so excited to join the company. We will participate as much as we can, but if any of us do it too much then we don't have much time left to actually make a game. :)

DaenSep 3, 20142 votes

if any of us do it too much then we don't have much time left to actually make a game.

Unless there were people whose job was "make the community awesome and create efficient communication pathways", e.g. Community Managers. :P

Not to say that the interaction isn't awesome of course, but it is odd that there don't seem to be any CMs at Riot (on the forums, at least). There is a lot of interaction, but it's usually for the purpose of discussing a given topic rather than the intent being "here is a community, it is the majority of my job to spend my time helping this community do awesome things".

Sorry, got a little off topic!

RiotGhostcrawlerSep 3, 20142 votes

Unless there were people whose job was "make the community awesome and create efficient communication pathways", e.g. Community Managers. :P

Riot doesn't use CMs in the traditional sense. We try to empower all Rioters to talk to players and we also try to empower players themselves. We talked about this in one of our PAX panels if you managed to catch it. :)

DaenSep 3, 20142 votes

We talked about this in one of our PAX panels if you managed to catch it.

I'll have to check it out, sounds interesting!

I presume the Central Player Relations Training Specialist position is part of what you're going for by "not in the traditional sense"?

We try to empower all Rioters to talk to players and we also try to empower players themselves.

I'm sure you know this, but talking to players is only the tip of the iceberg for what a CM does. What about the engagement part of a CM's role that isn't necessarily possible while doing another job (e.g. Lead Game Designer)?

Helping streamline the process of addressing and receiving feedback
Friendly competitions
Tournaments
Organizing and supporting custom community game modes
Forum events
Reaching out to communities within the playerbase that do awesome things

The list goes on and on, and a lot of these things aren't really possible to apply yourself to unless it's your primary focus.

CuixSep 4, 20142 votes

We try to empower all Rioters to talk to players and we also try to empower players themselves.

That sounds lovely, but it's clearly not enough. You come and chat a bunch, which is really awesome, but a bunch of other Rioters have gone completely silent. Hell, we never hear anything about IP/RP, lore is briefly poked maybe once every few months, and most skins/splashes/remakes just spring up from out of nowhere in their finalized states.

Players can't be empowered if they feel ignored or dismissed, and that's pretty much what happens most of the time. There's just not enough dialogue, and too many departments are absolutely lacking in communication of any sort. CMs might just be necessary, 'cause y'all seem to have some pretty shy folk.

GanksLikeGast0nSep 3, 20141 votes

Thank you for the reply and intell Ghostcrawler! I actually tagged you specifically because I have noticed that you tend to post much more frequently than the other rioters, so I saw this as the best chance of a reply. Success! :D

It is also completely understandable that you do not reply to everything, I would never expect otherwise. To be honest I didn't expect a reply to this, so doubly thank you!

mi ramfanSep 3, 20143 votes

I'm glad you guys come on the forums as much as you do.

That being said, there are a lot of issues, both in real life and in League of Legends, that can't be appropriately summed up with a few pithy sentences. How do you guys tend to like discussions openers on bigger issues like the rune system (and its numerous traps) or forgotten champions in need of reworks to look?

RiotGhostcrawlerSep 3, 20143 votes

I'm glad you guys come on the forums as much as you do.

That being said, there are a lot of issues, both in real life and in League of Legends, that can't be appropriately summed up with a few pithy sentences. How do you guys tend to like discussions openers on bigger issues like the rune system (and its numerous traps) or forgotten champions in need of reworks to look?

It's not a trivial issue to solve. If I have been seriously thinking about a particular problem, I will deep dive into a thread on the appropriate discussion. The challenge is that I can't personally do that for every good topic that comes up. We can also communicate more indirectly. For example, at a panel discussion or dev blog or even random tweet, we might acknowledge that there has been a lot of discussion on a particular topic and we're thinking of how to handle it.

TortferngatrSep 3, 20143 votes

Hmm. Like this? Two gameplay clarity suggestions related to resource management:

When you mouse over an ability icon, visually highlight how much mana you would burn on your mana bar (or health on the health bar, or energy on the energy bar, etc.) to cast that ability.
Add tick marks on the mana bar like the ticks on the health bar to help players visually map their mana costs to how much mana they should actually be using.

GanksLikeGast0nSep 3, 20141 votes

I actually really like both of these.

OmnipheriousSep 3, 20141 votes

Ghostcrawler makes a point that is easy to gloss over/forget, just because a red doesn't comment doesn't mean no red has seen it.

There have been previous discussions about how our inability to know if something has been seen by Riot has led to many believing Riot simply doesn't read forum/board posts. That in turn gave way to some other discussions requesting a "seen by Red" feature.

I think that as long as a post has good intent and is well presented, it will get attention regardless of length.