[Exploration] Firefall Feedback System

Sir ArmaMalum·Aug 17, 2014·6 votes·1,865 views

I'm a gamer. And as a gamer I play many more games than just League, as well as many more forums than just League's. So I'm going to highlight some features of other gaming forums that I thought were brilliant. Naturally I'm not saying "Put this in, Rito Plz!", but exploring how different developers handled the problems presented in a forum platform can not only be a good exercise, but can be excellent springboards to other ideas.

So without further ado, here is Firefall's User Feedback system: http://feedback.firefallthegame.com/forums/115461-firefall-feedback

To summarize, here's how it works:

To submit an idea you finish the sentence "I think you should....", this acts as your idea's title. Now, the brilliant part is that as you type in your idea, it automatically searches for similar ideas. Meaning that it if someone suggested a close idea before you it allows a user to instead support that idea instead of starting from scratch.
You explain your idea as you would a normal post. Add attachments possibly, mostly normal.
Once done, you choose how many votes you want to push behind it, 1 2 or 3 votes. Here's the thing though you have a limited number of votes. 10 to be exact. Votes define the order of visibility in the main feedback page (think "best" in the Boards). Your votes can also be used on other people's ideas, but once you're out you can no longer vote.
The top few ideas will be looked over by Red5 Designers and closed. This doesn't mean they're going to do it or that they're not going to do it, just that it's been seen and considered. The thread is still visible as you enter a new idea, so you can know you're potential idea has indeed been looked at. Once a thread that you have voted on has been closed, you get the voted you spent on it back.

What do you guys think about this system?

Edit: Red5 Devs do also comment on some ideas and these comments are shown within the idea listings. Comments like "We want to do this." and "Good idea, but here are the current problems..." have come up.

Edit2: There are also tags that can be attached to closed threads. I have seen "Planned" and "Under review" so far.

19 Comments

Hyrum GraffAug 17, 20141 votes

What happens if a thread is never closed? Do you just run out of votes? Or do you have to withdraw them from one thread to get them for another? Do you get new votes every day? If a thread is closed, does that mean it increases your max number of votes?

Sir ArmaMalumAug 17, 20141 votes

Good questions.

What happens if a thread is never closed? Do you just run out of votes? Or do you have to withdraw them from one thread to get them for another?

You have the option to remove your votes at any time, so if a thread isn't going anywhere you can get your votes back. It's largely to make the weight of a decision to support an idea larger I imagine, as well as allowing the vote stacking mechanic they have. (up to 3)

Do you get new votes every day?

Nope, only way to get them back is to remove them or have an thread closed.

If a thread is closed, does that mean it increases your max number of votes?

You get the votes back but the vote count of the closed thread stays the same as well. So, technically your max vote does increase, but the votes you out into a closed thread cannot be reassigned.

Hyrum GraffAug 17, 20142 votes

Seems like it would be annoying to have to manually remove your votes if you find a thread you support but all your votes are spent already.

Also, a little frustrating that I can only support 10 threads, but I guess that can be addressed with a different max # of votes.

Sir ArmaMalumAug 17, 20141 votes

Their's also a profile widget very similar to the Boards so tracking your own votes isn't all that difficult. And I think the whole only being able to support a certain number of polls is intentional, makes individual priorities more visible. FireFall itself is a game that is very much in flux, but has a lot of stuff already made, so I can imagine knowing what area they should be focusing on on is a much higher priority for Red5 than most devs.

Hyrum GraffAug 17, 20141 votes

In general, I like the principle of having a limited number of upvotes to give out. I just don't like the implementation.

What if, if a thread goes X amount of time without getting any comments or upvotes, it gets "semi-locked"?

Semi-Locked: This thread can no longer be voted on, and all upvotes are returned to their respective owners. An indicator remains, showing what the vote total was before the thread was semi-locked. Comments are still allowed.

Sir ArmaMalumAug 17, 20141 votes

at that point, why not just let them time out and be removed entirely? Gives the votes back as well as the option of showing the idea again.

EMOFRATPARTYAug 17, 20141 votes

Why not just allow the community to earn votes? Why stymie something that's important to promoting ideas if you have people doing a great job of contributing?

I feel like additional votes should have the ability to be earned...would you agree with that?

Sir ArmaMalumAug 18, 20141 votes

As long as it's not too easy yeah, that would be a good idea. The key though is to make sure that single votes don't become insignificant. The more precious a vote is, the more significant an idea that attracts votes is as well.

Hyrum GraffAug 18, 20141 votes

What if you only get another vote if one of your suggestions gets closed? (it's so weird to use this word in the different context)

Hyrum GraffAug 18, 20141 votes

My thought was that if the idea doesn't make it, then:

At that time, it's clearly not the community's top priority
It will likely be buried amongst other posts very quickly, and isn't going to get any more traction, so what's the point in keeping it open?
It might still be useful to see how many people were interested in it, later.

That being said, I don't have strong feelings about votes timing out and being removed entirely.

Sir ArmaMalumAug 18, 20141 votes

oh no no no, I meant the threads that were voted timing out, sorry for the mix-up. Once those posts were deleted, the votes spent would be returned. My main concern with closing the buried ideas instead of deleting them is that the idea might be a good one later on and deserves a second chance later.

Hyrum GraffAug 18, 20141 votes

If a thread is 'semi-closed' it would most likely be archived; if the issue becomes pressing again, someone can create a new thread. My concern with deleting threads is that I feel there should be a record of what's already been discussed and how much support it got.

Another pro and con of threads timing out, regarding abuse cases:

If a thread times out but OP think the content is still relevant, it encourages OP recreating the same thread over and over, hoping it'll get support this time.
On the other hand, it also discourages OP from spamming many of the same thread at the same time.

PhoneixflareAug 18, 20141 votes

I approve. +1

Hyrum GraffAug 18, 20141 votes

In general, I think this works well for a feedback system, but less well for a community.

DaenAug 18, 20141 votes

I'm on the fence with this suggestion. I think it's really really cool to have an officialized (makin' up words) system like this, but I don't know if it's something that would really gel with Riot and with the League community. This sort of system seems like something that would need to be present from the outset, and fitting it into League's community would be tough.

One of the big reasons I feel that way is Riot is really reluctant to discuss things they are working on or even plan to work on until those things are well under construction. It might be bittersweet to see that Riot has taken in this really popular suggestion and doesn't act on it for another year or more.

That being said, I think the idea of completing people's thoughts in suggestions would be really useful. I'm not sure how they would do it without requiring players to follow a specific format for submitting ideas, however.

Sir ArmaMalumAug 18, 20141 votes

I'm not actually meaning for this to be a suggestion. Not directly at least, i'm simply highlighting some cool features others devs have implemented to tackle specific problems they'be had. I completely agree with you that this specific system wont mesh well with League, but Firefall use it to great effect as it's still expanding with a small but relatively dedicated community.

DaenAug 18, 20141 votes

Gotcha. I can definitely see the system working amazingly well, that's a really streamlined approach to player suggestions!

DaenAug 18, 20141 votes

So this just fleetingly occurred to me.

What if starting a thread title with a bracketed category (e.g. [Suggestion], [Bug], etc.) brought up a real-time list of frequently discussed topics in that particular board with that particular category?

Sir ArmaMalumAug 18, 20141 votes

So something like..........this? lol

Firefall also has a tag system for specific high traffic tags like frames (the 'class' of the game) and different stages of bugs (under review, verified, fixed, etc).