Checks and balances

[Socket]

I've been trying to be semi-active on the forums as I start to get into CM as my main SS13 server after a hiatus of playing on others as my main servers.

Now that it's been a couple of weeks... One thing I am struggling to get my head around is the censorship of balance discussion or changelog critique. Spookydobut evidently works hard and has reasons for doing what they do but in my opinion someone with executive control on updates should not have the power to lock threads in a very dismissive manner.

Yes on one hand a dev has a vision for something and doesn't owe it to the community to reveal it; in fact that's part of the beauty of video games in active development - the sense of hype and mystery. But on the other free discussion about them is critically important in terms of making things amicable in the community. Is there anything that means that committed players who painstakingly experiment and think through forum posts about something they are passionate about actually get the time of day for their commitment?

I legitimately look forward to clocking out so I can play a couple of rounds of CM at the moment, and if I had the door slammed in my face when just trying to incite discussion as to what could be fun, neat or fair like I've seen a few people had I would be pretty upset, and I'm sure that given that I have only recently rediscovered this server that there are those in positions where they are community lynch pins who are not staff that do have insight into what should be discussed, or those who lurk but have logged days playing on the server.

I am not trying to be entitled, nor is this a cry for some sort of revolution... But when the head dev has bad bedside manner shouldn't the rest of the staff be able to handle the administration of the forums?

[spookydonut]

It's not censoring, I am just trying to keep discussions in one place, as previously there would be 3-4 threads about the same thing each with a slightly different take on the same topic.

[Socket]

Yeah that's fair. The update discussion thread is very important and I'm not super familiar with the nature of it, but as a prime example relevant to my initial post, the recent thread sw4gbag made about buckshot attempted to say, "I've noticed how severe the nerf is, but it's downplayed a lot in the changelog - what's with that?". Looking at the update discussion thread they do talk about the shotgun, but not about what qualifies as "slightly". Doesn't such a caliber of topic deserve it's own thread?

Edit: Ultimately I feel like moderators should be able to call if something is worth being in the update thread or not better than the head dev.

[NethIafins]

I proposed at some point a separate forum for balance discussions, but it might get pretty flooded

Solves issue of people creating hundreds and hundreds of separate balance topics tho

Will see how it goes

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

I proposed at some point a separate forum for balance discussions, but it might get pretty flooded

Solves issue of people creating hundreds and hundreds of separate balance topics tho

Will see how it goes

I suggested something similar myself not long ago and think it could still be a good thing.

Having a very specific place that people can go and talk about balance and changes etc would be fantastic it, and IF the coders want to look inside and see the opinions then they can, or make a post asking for feedback on a certain issue.They can whenever they wish.

There also would be no need to wait for a "Update discussion thread" to express your opinions(kind of gives you the impression your opinions only matter then the coders tell you it matters kind of approach personally, hence the creation of a "Update discussion thread") and if there was one and people were using it, there would be no excuse really for the coders to not always have relevant and current information about the changes they are making or future ideas players have without having to make a offical Gitlab, without the ironed out finished product of the concept .Their own little Feedback centre.

It should be a go, its easy to do, a simple concept and i cant see how it wouldnt be beneficial to everyone, especially the ones working on the changes.

Someone could argue, "Wont it just turn into a "toxic" cesspool?" No, you just simply apply the same forum etiquette and rules you already apply to every other section of the forum and also in-game, not a problem.

Not to mention the way the word "toxic" is thrown around here the word has almost lost all meaning.