Great and important topic to discuss! There have been instances where people giving feedback have apologized for writing too much, and I'm always like, "No no, please write as much as you want! I WANT feedback this detailed!" The more thoughts you give, the more I can hone in on what the root problem truly is and how I can go about fixing it. Another small point I might add is that while the feelings, thoughts, and reactions of a player may be perfectly accurate, their proposed solution might not be the ideal. For example, a player might give feedback on a chapter and say, "This map was a huge difficulty spike. My team was completely overwhelmed by enemies. I think you should reduce the enemy density." That player is likely correct in their assertion that the chapter feels overwhelming, but maybe a better solution would be to give the player more deployment slots rather than reduce the number of enemies. It all depends on the situation of course, and this doesn't mean you should completely discredit player-proposed solutions! It's important as a hack creator to understand a player's feedback and ask themselves, "What about the game could have caused them to feel this way?"
Well said. Yeah, the solutions proposed by the player may not always be the best, but it gives you an idea of how you could approach something. Tough as it may be, knowing the biases of the person giving the feedback is important to. For example, I know I skew towards "Give the player more units" as a solution to difficulty a lot because that's what I prefer, even if it may not necessarily be 1) what the creator wants to do or 2) the best solution for my specific issue. Sometimes too the player will just have a rough army and their experience will be skewed. Mitigating this is important, but it's good to gather more data before immediately jumping to a change.
I've taken a couple of writing workshops in college. One of the things I learned quickly is how to give descriptive criticism not prescriptive. You should point what did and did not work for you. You should not try to fix that work. For one, there is sort of an implication there. "What you wrote is bad, I am better. Let me show you how to fix your writing." It also can be problematic because you may not know the full intent of the writer. Maybe your fix sounds great in your head but does not work at all with what the writer wants. The issues go on and on. Therefore it is always safest, and typically best to identify issues not try to solve them. If the creator asks for your help, sure give your ideas, but only after they ask.
On writing, I generally agree. Gameplay is a bit different because of the mechanical implications of it (I couldn't beat this chapter, but if you did this, I may be able to, etc). I like being offered suggestions since I can build off their idea, and also get an idea of what the person giving feedback values. For me the biggest thing is ensuring it is constructive. I don't think the implication of "This is bad, I am better" comes through if you can explain yourself and don't take a condescending tone with the recipient IMO.
"Gary Stu" is the brother term to "Mary Sue" and is a similar sort of demi-nonsense term that ostensibly means that the character being referred to is disproportionately favored by the writing even when it's unearned. Like, a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character might inexplicably be way better at something, with no training, than the people who've devoted their lives to it, or they might be loved and venerated by everyone around them despite the absence of any compelling reason for those people to hold such strong positive feelings towards them. Basically a character who everyone in-universe and also the writer thinks is extremely cool and sexy but without really... characterizing them such that it makes sense for people to feel that way about them, or that it makes sense that they're able to do the cool things they do. This is what the terms are ostensibly SUPPOSED to mean. In practice, people tend to just throw them at any character they don't like who has a prominent role in their home story, so they've become pretty meaningless. They're also inherently kind of derisive terms that are vague at best regarding the actual issue supposedly being referred to, so they'd be suboptimal ways to describe issues with characters even had their meanings not been compromised by so much misuse. That out of the way, this is a good video on a very important topic! Exchange of feedback (both giving and receiving) is something that, infamously, has... a bit of a tendency to not go so well on the internet! So this video in itself is, dare I say, very good feedback for many internet communities, including but not limited to those at which it was primarily directed.
Sure - lately focused on corporate learning & development, but also recruitment and HR in my past roles. Spend a lot of time reviewing documents and giving feedback before it goes out to broader groups, mentoring new hires, etc.
@@nadnap Ah that makes sense. It's interesting to me how much our views on feedback align despite the general receiving audience of our feedback being so different (I worked on the playtest team at riot games for a couple years so I generally was giving feedback to designers and less so to new hires or managers). Just really drives home that giving feedback is a learned skill (and a really difficult one too!) that's helpful for almost everyone to learn. I haven't been exposed to too many different communities outside of gaming ones, but boy oh boy do gaming communities generally have some terrible feedback etiquette x) I think the part that interested me the most is the emotional response part. Because of the nature of my job, there were actually many times where I was challenged to put part of my emotional response into the feedback because that initial feel is actually sometimes very important knowledge for designers to receive during feedback, (mainly to get an idea of how players will naturally respond on first exposure to new things) but I had to make sure I didn't go over the top and turn the entire piece of feedback into an emotional rant because it can so easily become unhelpful when you're overly emotional too. Feedback is some fascinating stuff haha.
@@H4xDefender Yeah I'd imagine the "emotional response" piece varies considerably. Generally one of the reasons i like watching videos of people playing my work is that I can see how they actually react beyond just what they tell me in a summary later, where they will likely try to soften their feelings. That initial emotional burst can be really helpful for knowing where to adjust an experience. It is a fascinating space! Definitely a balance and a skill to learn and improve on.
![MISSING: SLIM SHADY [Expanded Mourner’s Edition Trailer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xh8qgHrOO1g/mqdefault.jpg)
Great and important topic to discuss!
There have been instances where people giving feedback have apologized for writing too much, and I'm always like, "No no, please write as much as you want! I WANT feedback this detailed!" The more thoughts you give, the more I can hone in on what the root problem truly is and how I can go about fixing it.
Another small point I might add is that while the feelings, thoughts, and reactions of a player may be perfectly accurate, their proposed solution might not be the ideal. For example, a player might give feedback on a chapter and say, "This map was a huge difficulty spike. My team was completely overwhelmed by enemies. I think you should reduce the enemy density." That player is likely correct in their assertion that the chapter feels overwhelming, but maybe a better solution would be to give the player more deployment slots rather than reduce the number of enemies. It all depends on the situation of course, and this doesn't mean you should completely discredit player-proposed solutions! It's important as a hack creator to understand a player's feedback and ask themselves, "What about the game could have caused them to feel this way?"
Well said. Yeah, the solutions proposed by the player may not always be the best, but it gives you an idea of how you could approach something. Tough as it may be, knowing the biases of the person giving the feedback is important to. For example, I know I skew towards "Give the player more units" as a solution to difficulty a lot because that's what I prefer, even if it may not necessarily be 1) what the creator wants to do or 2) the best solution for my specific issue. Sometimes too the player will just have a rough army and their experience will be skewed. Mitigating this is important, but it's good to gather more data before immediately jumping to a change.
I've taken a couple of writing workshops in college. One of the things I learned quickly is how to give descriptive criticism not prescriptive. You should point what did and did not work for you. You should not try to fix that work. For one, there is sort of an implication there. "What you wrote is bad, I am better. Let me show you how to fix your writing." It also can be problematic because you may not know the full intent of the writer. Maybe your fix sounds great in your head but does not work at all with what the writer wants. The issues go on and on.
Therefore it is always safest, and typically best to identify issues not try to solve them. If the creator asks for your help, sure give your ideas, but only after they ask.
On writing, I generally agree. Gameplay is a bit different because of the mechanical implications of it (I couldn't beat this chapter, but if you did this, I may be able to, etc). I like being offered suggestions since I can build off their idea, and also get an idea of what the person giving feedback values. For me the biggest thing is ensuring it is constructive. I don't think the implication of "This is bad, I am better" comes through if you can explain yourself and don't take a condescending tone with the recipient IMO.
I'm not sure Wolt even 4HKOs enemies in chapter 1, 3 hits is generous, haha.
"Gary Stu" is the brother term to "Mary Sue" and is a similar sort of demi-nonsense term that ostensibly means that the character being referred to is disproportionately favored by the writing even when it's unearned. Like, a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character might inexplicably be way better at something, with no training, than the people who've devoted their lives to it, or they might be loved and venerated by everyone around them despite the absence of any compelling reason for those people to hold such strong positive feelings towards them. Basically a character who everyone in-universe and also the writer thinks is extremely cool and sexy but without really... characterizing them such that it makes sense for people to feel that way about them, or that it makes sense that they're able to do the cool things they do.
This is what the terms are ostensibly SUPPOSED to mean.
In practice, people tend to just throw them at any character they don't like who has a prominent role in their home story, so they've become pretty meaningless. They're also inherently kind of derisive terms that are vague at best regarding the actual issue supposedly being referred to, so they'd be suboptimal ways to describe issues with characters even had their meanings not been compromised by so much misuse.
That out of the way, this is a good video on a very important topic! Exchange of feedback (both giving and receiving) is something that, infamously, has... a bit of a tendency to not go so well on the internet! So this video in itself is, dare I say, very good feedback for many internet communities, including but not limited to those at which it was primarily directed.
If you don't mind me asking, what's your main job? You saying you give feedback for a living piqued my interest
Sure - lately focused on corporate learning & development, but also recruitment and HR in my past roles. Spend a lot of time reviewing documents and giving feedback before it goes out to broader groups, mentoring new hires, etc.
@@nadnap Ah that makes sense. It's interesting to me how much our views on feedback align despite the general receiving audience of our feedback being so different (I worked on the playtest team at riot games for a couple years so I generally was giving feedback to designers and less so to new hires or managers). Just really drives home that giving feedback is a learned skill (and a really difficult one too!) that's helpful for almost everyone to learn. I haven't been exposed to too many different communities outside of gaming ones, but boy oh boy do gaming communities generally have some terrible feedback etiquette x)
I think the part that interested me the most is the emotional response part. Because of the nature of my job, there were actually many times where I was challenged to put part of my emotional response into the feedback because that initial feel is actually sometimes very important knowledge for designers to receive during feedback, (mainly to get an idea of how players will naturally respond on first exposure to new things) but I had to make sure I didn't go over the top and turn the entire piece of feedback into an emotional rant because it can so easily become unhelpful when you're overly emotional too. Feedback is some fascinating stuff haha.
@@H4xDefender Yeah I'd imagine the "emotional response" piece varies considerably. Generally one of the reasons i like watching videos of people playing my work is that I can see how they actually react beyond just what they tell me in a summary later, where they will likely try to soften their feelings. That initial emotional burst can be really helpful for knowing where to adjust an experience.
It is a fascinating space! Definitely a balance and a skill to learn and improve on.
This video is a Gary Stu