[META] Mods - start cleaning up this forum. seriously.

[bloodfrost27]

Still here. Looking at reports all the time. I can't be on here all the time, so I do what I can in my free time. Unfortunately, the report system doesn't have the cleanest UI so even a simple report can take a minute or two each, and when I'm seeing 50, sometimes over 80 reports a week, it can take up quite a bit of time.

Do you have the ability to edit the forum in any way? If you could rename "community hero ideas" to "ideas for new heroes" that would save a lot of confusion i think. Community hero ideas just means hero ideas (doesnt specify which) by the community so if you come here as an outsider of course you're going to post there.

Also the private forums saying (private) next to them puts people off from even engaging with them. Idk if thats a part of the name of those forums or of its just a limitation of the website but if you could remove that it'd be a huge boon to understanding.

 

[ReportingBugs]

Do you have the ability to edit the forum in any way? If you could rename "community hero ideas" to "ideas for new heroes" that would save a lot of confusion i think. Community hero ideas just means hero ideas (doesnt specify which) by the community so if you come here as an outsider of course you're going to post there.

Also the private forums saying (private) next to them puts people off from even engaging with them. Idk if thats a part of the name of those forums or of its just a limitation of the website but if you could remove that it'd be a huge boon to understanding.

Especially how it's empty (0 threads) and darker colours. Is spooky.

 

[Miunnak]

Sincerely, It felt like my concepts were drowned under ai slop and bunch of noise (I remember some people kept posting ai generated stuff at the time) and I felt deeply saddened about it, all I hoped was to converse on my character creations but nobody engaged with the posts. I would've been happy even if I heard negative criticism but to no avail, nobody responded and it got lost in the forum.

 

[ReportingBugs]

Sincerely, It felt like my concepts were drowned under ai slop and bunch of noise (I remember some people kept posting ai generated stuff at the time) and I felt deeply saddened about it, all I hoped was to converse on my character creations but nobody engaged with the posts. I would've been happy even if I heard negative criticism but to no avail, nobody responded and it got lost in the forum.

I mean, to be fair, this is about suggesting ideas for the developers. But yeah, that does suck man. I notice artists tend to be a bit defensive.

So there's probably a reason why people are hesistant.

 

[Playeroth]

Do you have the ability to edit the forum in any way? If you could rename "community hero ideas" to "ideas for new heroes" that would save a lot of confusion i think. Community hero ideas just means hero ideas (doesnt specify which) by the community so if you come here as an outsider of course you're going to post there.

Also the private forums saying (private) next to them puts people off from even engaging with them. Idk if thats a part of the name of those forums or of its just a limitation of the website but if you could remove that it'd be a huge boon to understanding.

usually these things i believe that they need to request Yoshi for that but Yoshi seems to not respond their messages because sometimes they mention about that. So this makes things not quick as we think.

 

[umikmail]

I think part of the issue is that a lot of the feedback pages are private, and it isn't entirely clear whether the feedback page is open to suggestions, or just a place for you to tell the devs how you feel about an existing mechanic.

Adding some additional context to the feedback sections would help a lot with this, and giving players the option to make their suggestions public might help satisfy the social aspect of forum usage.

 

[ReportingBugs]

I think part of the issue is that a lot of the feedback pages are private, and it isn't entirely clear whether the feedback page is open to suggestions, or just a place for you to tell the devs how you feel about an existing mechanic.

Adding some additional context to the feedback sections would help a lot with this, and giving players the option to make their suggestions public might help satisfy the social aspect of forum usage.

Agreed! Bump!

 

[ziz4030]

i think valve should make a 'public gameplay feedback' forum in addition to the private one

 

[BoopTheClown]

Probably couldn't hurt to source some extra volunteer mods from the Discord, or at least try looking for some. Usually with a community this large, there are bound to be a few who would chip in to make sure the forums are cleaned up. Might also be a good idea to add a "Forum Feedback" section.

 

[Tailskill]

Agree on the take but there's no other place in the forum to discuss lore or theory for my only post that i had to place here

 

[volkgang]

I want the forum to be overhauled and improved because I prefer the forum format over something like Discord. Discord has a stream of information that requires you to dig into it to find stuff you want. It is better for immediate conversation but things rarely do not last like a forum does. And if Discord goes down, that information is unlikely to be found again. It's harder to save.

With a forum, information is stored neater, conversations are strictly within threads, and you don't have to use Discord. You get more information at once and it's easy to interact with things that happened beyond a day ago.

So while Reddit (it's slightly better since at least you can look up old posts easier) and Discord are more popular, the forum should be the center of suggestions and ideas due to the format and storage.

I hope we get a larger mod team (There's a lot of people here even who could probably do it) and a redesign to end up in the state it should be as the central Deadlock hub of ideas. I agree with a lot said here and hope we get some changes.

Side note: I don't want to be too mean and if it's too much work but I wonder if we should have a no AI rule (or you must explicitly specify its AI) because it sucks seeing some people who just slap some AI art that doesn't even fit the game, garbled text, and that somehow gets more attention than people with cool art and great ideas.

 

[photon]

I want the forum to be overhauled and improved because I prefer the forum format over something like Discord. Discord has a stream of information that requires you to dig into it to find stuff you want. It is better for immediate conversation but things rarely do not last like a forum does. And if Discord goes down, that information is unlikely to be found again. It's harder to save.

With a forum, information is stored neater, conversations are strictly within threads, and you don't have to use Discord. You get more information at once and it's easy to interact with things that happened beyond a day ago.

So while Reddit (it's slightly better since at least you can look up old posts easier) and Discord are more popular, the forum should be the center of suggestions and ideas due to the format and storage.

I hope we get a larger mod team (There's a lot of people here even who could probably do it) and a redesign to end up in the state it should be as the central Deadlock hub of ideas. I agree with a lot said here and hope we get some changes.

Side note: I don't want to be too mean and if it's too much work but I wonder if we should have a no AI rule (or you must explicitly specify its AI) because it sucks seeing some people who just slap some AI art that doesn't even fit the game, garbled text, and that somehow gets more attention than people with cool art and great ideas.

I agreed with everything you said here until the "No AI" rule. If something is a slop, its easy to tell and trust the devs and the community to be the judge. No need to enforce some "Scorched Earth" rule about AI.

IMO, if someone wants to use AI to better communicate their idea, they should. AI is used best in early concepting creative works (to a certain degree**) to save time iterating and figure out the best direction to go which is EXACTLY what this forum is all about. This is how it is across the industry rn.

 

[volkgang]

I agreed with everything you said here until the "No AI" rule. If something is a slop, its easy to tell and trust the devs and the community to be the judge. No need to enforce some "Scorched Earth" rule about AI.

IMO, if someone wants to use AI to better communicate their idea, they should. AI is used best in early concepting creative works (to a certain degree**) to save time iterating and figure out the best direction to go which is EXACTLY what this forum is all about. This is how it is across the industry rn.

Fair position position. You make a good point

 

[LashIsHot]

+1

 

[void404]

I really like that the game has a forum, since I’m not a fan of Discord or modern social media. For example, giving feedback on Twitter would be awful.

I think the solution here is pretty simple: there should be a separate (non-private) section for existing characters, where people can discuss balance, reworks, etc. I’ve noticed a lot of posts after updates are specifically about balance, and there’s always a surge right after a character gets buffed or nerfed.

I also think people don’t really understand how the private section works or what it even is, since they can’t see posts. When I first saw it, I thought it was just closed archives.

 

[Firebeard]

This thread will probably will be deleted (would probably show that mods still enter this forum) but I think I can speak to many people who are passionate about just creating community heroes, some of which go as far as to create or even commission art just to get their idea out there, only for it to be lost on page 3 with no views after a few hours due to spam and/or irrelevant shit (e.g, feedback being posted here for gameplay or art for existing heroes) with 0 moderation. Seriously mods, start moderating this forum.

You're driving creative people out of here, who try to help out the devs implicitly by giving them ideas for new abilities or heroes.

I doubt very much that the devs read anything posted here anymore. I suspect they must have a separate secret forum for their cool kids only playtest club. Once I learned of its existence I vowed not to make one single additional bug report. Because either we are playtesters or we aren't, and Valve answered that question for me.

 

[volkgang]

I really like that the game has a forum, since I’m not a fan of Discord or modern social media. For example, giving feedback on Twitter would be awful.

I think the solution here is pretty simple: there should be a separate (non-private) section for existing characters, where people can discuss balance, reworks, etc. I’ve noticed a lot of posts after updates are specifically about balance, and there’s always a surge right after a character gets buffed or nerfed.

I also think people don’t really understand how the private section works or what it even is, since they can’t see posts. When I first saw it, I thought it was just closed archives.

When I first felt like I was exploring a tomb where all the coffins where empty when I opened up the private section, that isn't good.

The forum needs an overhaul so it isn't a barebones template. It needs to be treated as having an actual user experience (I read from a mod in this thread that doing reports with the UI is tedious. That needs to be addressed). By making the forum make more sense in layout, label things better, and direct people to the appropriate places without making them feel like they are giving a report to the CIA then it would be better.

 

[necogutz]

The forum needs an overhaul so it isn't a barebones template.

It wouldn't hurt to have a little UI update, as some features as the "Members" can be easily removed, and Media can go under Resources tab, I'd design something similar to the tfw2005 forums:


or the otakuforums layout which while similar to this one, the front page feels more dynamic and less intimidating to navigate:

 

[adeptusforgeceo]

This likewise applies to the item suggestion forum section. SOOO many people want minor balance changes to items instead of proposing new concepts and its really boring/annoying.

 

[ReportingBugs]

I agreed with everything you said here until the "No AI" rule. If something is a slop, its easy to tell and trust the devs and the community to be the judge. No need to enforce some "Scorched Earth" rule about AI.

IMO, if someone wants to use AI to better communicate their idea, they should. AI is used best in early concepting creative works (to a certain degree**) to save time iterating and figure out the best direction to go which is EXACTLY what this forum is all about. This is how it is across the industry rn.

I used AI once to try to communicate what sort of direction I was heading out, not as a substitute on "Yeah, I want exactly this". And I had people ass blasting me for it. Literal animals.

To be honest, if they feel threatened about AI artwork, that means what they make is crap lol

Most of the artists who are skilled take constructive feedback and don't feel threatened by it. I mean, that is about aspiring, no?