"Do gamers know what they like?" ponders Fallout co-creator Tim Cain, before arguing in favour of people not providing totally crap feedback to devs
I'm not sure I'd agree with his stance on cosmetic microtransactions, but he's right about trying to articulate what actually could be fixed.
Do you know what you want? In life? More importantly, in video games? It's a question Fallout co-creator, noe famous for his YouTube videos looking back at his career and opining on different topics related to game development has clearly been thinking about. His view? Basically, make sure you try and give developers feedback they can actually use.
In his latest video, Cain chats about the nature of having to deal with players telling about things they do and don't like about a game you've been working on, and how different ways of articulating that can be more helpful than others. As you'd expect, just saying an aspect is a bit s**t, and then not elaborating as to why you think it's s**t tends to land on the less helful side.
"I would way prefer, on this channel or any forum where you're talking to game developers, say what it is you like, especially why you like doing that feature," Cain said, "It's way easier to respond to constructive feedback than it is non-constructive feedback, so what I don't understand is, if you really want to get what you want, say what it is you want."
While the developer did gop on to say that just saying that you dislike something in a game can help developrs "if it's specific", he's referring to people "jamming up the channel of communication" by saying things like "enemies are dumb, stop giving us dumb enemies", when they really mean something like "these enemies never take cover - there's cover all over the place that I use, but they never take it", which is obviously much more easy for developers to home in on and adjust.
Cain gives another example earlier on in the video about fast travel, and how implementing or not implementing it can be difficult if players or fans aren't clear in telling you the kind of things they might want added in as a sort of alternative or ways of putting it in that might not be construed as excessively handholdy/akin to forcing it on playthroughs.
As ever, it's all a matter of personal taste as to where different people land on certain thihs, with that being part of the challenge that's made harder if feedback isn't specific. I'd agree with Cain on that, even if I'm not sure I would with his views on sharing negative views on things like "100% cosmetic-only microtransactions", which he cites as an example of features don't need to complain about since you can arguably play the game just fine while ignoring them.
Like everything else, this is an issue that 100 people will give you 100 different opinions on, but players calling studios or companies out on things like the pricing of this stuff - even if it just outfits - can be useful to developers, even if that's just in terms of making a studio aware it might want to consider whether it's keeping as far in its players' good graces and means when it comes to monetisation as it wants to.
Do you think you do a good job of conveying what you want when you give feedback on games? Let us know below!