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Ex-BioWare Producer Says Players Are Good at “Identifying Problems” But Not Providing Solutions Because “They're Not Developers” (mp1st.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/pcmasterrace@lemmy.world
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[–] 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

Loads of good ideas posted in forums about games would say otherwise. Unless they specifically want the actual code to said solution and not just a guy saying "the bad guys are too dark and blend in with the background, they should make them lighter or glow or something."

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  • [–] 23 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    That's identifying a problem. Then various solutions need to be proposed and their interactions with other parts of the system considered. If it's as trivial as "make them lighter" then perhaps that's it. But very often there is a lot more to implementing the chosen solution.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Are modders considered players or devs? Lot of mods have fixed the problems I had with games. So modders at least are not only identifying the problem but providing the solution themselves.

    But, they are kind hybrid of being a player first but also taking on the role of devs due to having the technical skills to make solutions a reality.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    They're both. This is about the "idea guy" issue. The ones who see an issue and make up a solution, and think it's easy to implement. They have no idea what they're talking about. It's, as an example, the people who say Bethesda should just switch to Unreal Engine, because The Creation Engine is based on an old engine (as if UE isn't also).

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    I think proposing a completely different engine is different from gameplay balancing suggestions.

    Which that article doesn't even seem to be fixating on, but discussing the creative side.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    It was an example of probably the most common recommendation from stupid players. It's also one of the most ridiculous. The point was to show that their opinions are based on nothing but vibes. This isn't to say they're always wrong, but it is saying listening to their solutions is usually fruitless. Their complaints are often valid though.

    Mod creators, on the other hand, usually have enough technical knowledge that they often get things correct. I would listen to their solutions. The average player can, at best, reliably point to frustrations. Beyond that, even in regard to the frustration being bad, it isn't worth much. It's worth looking at and then considering what can/should be done, if anything.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Maybe it is because of the online spaces I visited like nexusmods or skyrimmods, but switching to unreal isn't a common request I've seen.

    I remember there being more disappointment when hearing that CDPR would be moving to unreal for their future games.

    Of course, different online spaces dictate the reality people are most exposed to and Im going to guess devs might be more active on places like Twitter and Tiktok with it having more reach? Which is going to lean towards more dumb and toxic takes with shortened character limits and opportunity to directly harass people.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    I think you see it less often now, after almost every game in UE5 running like shit. It used to be a really common take, even here on Lemmy, a few years ago. I also saw many YouTube videos from these armchair designers with long videos that say this, so it's not short-form content that's the issue.

    Regardless, the point is that many people will call for changes like this. They have no idea how complicated it'd be to get a new engine to work the way they want, let alone getting everyone adjusted to it, compared to the engine they've used for decades and have custom-built to do what they want from it.

    Again, this is just a single example. There are millions of smaller changes people ask for that are similarly out of touch with what it'd take to do, and how that'd affect the games.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    People doing long youtube videos were calling for unreal engine often?

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