Having an opinion and giving criticism Thread

Hi dear community,

isn't it only right to post your opinion towards a game/mod if it's meant to be constructive criticism, especially on a site like this? Which is all about getting feedback to help improve your project? Well sadly, there still are people who take negative criticism as a personal insult. It might sound harsh to them but you got to understand, I'm not helping by only praising the hell out of your project. No game or mod is ever perfect. There is always room for improvement.

So I've been trying to tell these people from Narodnaya Solyanka: DMX DKZ - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl mod that it is a very bad design choice to think it's okay for players to fall out of the playable space, into a void that breaks the illusion and immersion of any player watching this happen.

Basically, I started by writing a comment on how I thought I installed the game wrong or if there was a patch to fix it. I was heading (in-game) north after completing a few quests, when suddenly I notice there is no load screen to progress to the next area. I literally was able to walk up to the end of the world and look at how it was just cut off. Nothing but graphical errors to be seen from that point. If you kept on walking you would just fall into the void seeing the map from underneath. I was trying to explain, that there needs to be a trigger to stop players from even getting that close, or a blockade, a teleporter, anything at all to prevent this from happening.

The response was, that I was playing the game wrong. I would have to download a guide and play the game by following that guide. "You need to earn the transition to get access to the next area" was the answer. And this is where I was misunderstood. I am fine with the fact that a player has to complete certain objectives to advance to newer areas but it didn't answer my question on how you should never be able to just noclip out of the playable area and let the player see behind the curtains of the game engine. That just breaks the illusion and feels broken overall. I tryed to explain this for an entire page of comments, which then got deleted by the creator.

I gave it a review after that :

There is a flaw the creators don't seem to address. You fall out of the map and it is considered normal. You can literally walk to the edge of the map and fall out of it into a void. The feedback was : "You have to read your pda and earn the access to a new area". Which is okay in my book but for the love of god, never ever break the players immersion with the map just being cut off and allowing players to fall outside the playable geometry.

So I came back with the comment in the picture below, with more passion to express my freedom of giving valid criticism, also enjoying the drama it has created and being a little upset about them just deleting an entire page of comments I specifically directed towards the mod. I was bashed on pretty aggressively. Calling me mental, dickhead, mother f++er and even threatened. Even though I explained, that I appreciate the effort that went into the project but it felt like they didn't even care about it at that point anymore.

I managed to save the second page, where most of the insult took place, if anybody is interested in the read.

I can understand what's going on here. My comment is you should've backed off when they denied your opinion/criticism. You have right to tell your opinion about this mod but you can't force them to accept it

So judging from their response, it's best to leave them be. Their ignorance to other's opinion and criticism will eventually backfire

I don't have a problem with my suggestions getting rejected at all. And 99% of the time I will accept the creators choice. Just trying to help after all. But this particular case just blew my mind, how someone can be so far in denial to not even see that something is clearly broken about players falling off the map. In a game where realism is encouraged and you are suppose to get immersed into the world. I just couldn't let go But I'm over it now. Just thought it would be a entertaining read for people on the forum.

I agree with DarkBloodbane, the moment they started name calling and you realised you weren't welcome you should've just left them too it.

Just out of interest, apart from the flaw you mentioned did you actually like the mod? If this flaw was fixed would you have given it a 10? Did you give any positive feedback? There must have been something you liked otherwise you wouldn't have downloaded it. Whilst negative feedback is helpful, even essential, if you said nothing positive then I would have ignored you comments. Not because what you're saying is invalid but because you're clearly not the target audience. I wouldn't have called you names, though, and I wouldn't have deleted your comments.

I agree with him too. There is no point arguing with people who don't want to listen. I knew exactly where this was going but like I said :" I just couldn't let go ". Their misbehavior being exposed here might give them something to think about before calling other people names, next time someone starts talking about their broken feature. I PM'd them this thread so they could defend themselves. I want to keep it fair after all.

My initial comment was about asking, if there was a fix or patch to prevent players from falling out of the map. That Refragger guy responded by telling me about how it was a feature. I kept it neutral and polite, saying how that's an interesting idea but needs to be implemented differently. I understood the logic in the progression but not in how it was implemented. I was told that I didn't understand anything. He didn't seem to understand my argumentation. Interesting observation how misconceptions can evolve to such a clash. At that point the argumentation was narrowed down to the misunderstanding and there was no more room for any other pros or cons.

By saying "There must have been something you liked otherwise you wouldn't have downloaded it" is a bit controversy, don't you think? I mean, I bought Duke Nukem Forever in the hopes of liking it too, but we all know how that turned out. Sure it had some cool stuff in it but seriously, something that broken doesn't justify for someone to say "Well therefor we have some cool guns or a nice damage system in the game".

Many parts of the game felt enforced. You could tell that it was a mash-up of multiple mods and a few other bugs occurred rendering the game unplayable. But I wasn't even given the chance to mention pros or cons. So all in all, I had a pretty bad game experience and no support from the "on going devs".

If you ignore peoples comments, just because they didn't say anything positive and kept it neutral, then that's your choice. Clearly you can't ignore them to begin with, since you will first know what they are about, once you've read them. You'll just choose to not respond to them. I don't think that's a good idea though. It will only show other people that the developer (You) aren't active with the community (Users), which can be understood as "you don't care". A simple "Thank you for your concerns, we'll consider your suggestion for further development" is probably a better way to deal with it. Since you are not committing to it directly.

If you ignore peoples comments, just because they didn't say anything positive and kept it neutral, then that's your choice. Clearly you can't ignore them to begin with, since you will first know what they are about, once you've read them. You'll just choose to not respond to them. I don't think that's a good idea though. It will only show other people that the developer (You) aren't active with the community (Users), which can be understood as "you don't care". A simple "Thank you for your concerns, we'll consider your suggestion for further development" is probably a better way to deal with it. Since you are not committing to it directly

Yes, I agree with this. I'm pretty bad at social media but, in my defence, I've never out and out ignored negative criticism. However, I think people aren't stupid and would probably see through any attempt to just brush them off.

By saying "There must have been something you liked otherwise you wouldn't have downloaded it" is a bit controversy, don't you think?

No, I don't think this is controversial. By giving something positive you're encouraging the developer to continue with the project, that it'll actually be worth their time to fix the problems. Even if the only positive was that you liked the screen shots, a game play video or just the general idea, these are all still positives which I think should be mentioned along with anything negative. This is probably more important when you know you're dealing with a small or lone developer who are working in their spare time. Chances are their project is a labour of love and I think it's insensitive and unhelpful to give nothing but negative feedback.

No, I don't think this is controversial. By giving something positive you're encouraging the developer to continue with the project, that it'll actually be worth their time to fix the problems. Even if the only positive was that you liked the screen shots, a game play video or just the general idea, these are all still positives which I think should be mentioned along with anything negative. This is probably more important when you know you're dealing with a small or lone developer who are working in their spare time. Chances are their project is a labour of love and I think it's insensitive and unhelpful to give nothing but negative feedback.

I disagree and I am talking about the way I responded. Just to keep it clear. As long as it's constructive criticism, there is nothing wrong with pointing out the negatives. Personally I find constructive criticism encouraging too. Just as much as people praising stuff I already think is good to begin with. That just feeds the ego imo. I deliberately call it constructive criticism and would never think of it as "insensitive or unhelpful" as long as you are talking about the project itself. Everybody puts love into their projects, I know, otherwise you probably wouldn't even bother to invest time in it (unless you're getting payed maybe).

I believe everybody has a little bit of narcissism going on, when he creates something from scratch and believes it's good. So good in fact, that you find it necessary to share it with other people. I understand the motivation aspect of getting praised for your work, but constructive criticism can be motivating as-well. A fault confessed is half redressed is a nice saying that can be very helpful.

Also, I think most people in the comment section were giving positive feedback anyways, aside from the the crash reports.