Hum.
In my experience it has not been every poster, but I do agree with you in that I also feel this community is more aggressively against negative feedback than it needs to be.
I’m not sure this discussion is the kind of thing that would change that behavior, though.
I’m not sure either, but it’s worth a try.
I think there’s too much frustration, but a step back and thinking about it, then calmly replying can go a long way. This includes me as well.
Because I’ve lost the will to ever post anything here that’s negative about the game. Talking about echo chambers…
There’s over 20 replies above that contribute nothing. There are mine there as well. 0. Nada.
For reference, the Pity system thread is below, look at the first reply OP received. Stuff like this is all over the place.
I think this is mostly because the community used to be very positive before launch and when launch came the forums were flooded with people that didn’t have any constructive criticism to add, they just made needlessly insulting posts. Usually in an entitled/demanding way.
So that originated a sort of intolerance to aggressive posts which sometimes bleeds into just critical posts.
Likewise, having the same issues being constantly discussed again with nothing new to add leads to certain irritation from some, which can lead to them reacting in an agressive way.
I try to avoid this when I can, but we all fall victim to this sometimes. Especially when you keep seeing the same people making the same insulting posts over and over again (not talking about Taff).
It was what I was trying to bring attention to. I’m no saint with how I talk, and I’m also against just pure bs threads that serve no purpose than to just bash on the game. if I didn’t like the game I wouldn’t buy it again. I did stuff in frustration.
I’m sorry about how I acted. It’s just extremely frustrating.
Players need to be heard, and not be drowned out with tons of replies that really just don’t contribute anything. I’ve probably gone a bit too far with my examples.
I think we can both share the blame. I noticed you were escalating and kept doing the same.
But in regards to this topic (getting back to the OP), I believe the mods were justified in locking the thread. And would be justified in deleting many of both of our interactions.
Much like what happened in this one. Things got heated and no one bothered to de-escalate things until Erasculio.
But how often does that happen, that people say that your subjective opinion is wrong?
I know it does happen sometimes, usually by or against people wrongly claiming objectivity.
Not everyone has visitied a seminar in non-aggressive communication. I didn’t, but I heard of the concept and occasionally I try to remember it. And as you said:
You seem to expect anyone else to tiptoe carefully around their words when stating their opinion that might differ from the OPs.
To many people, it is not clear that the op is just stating it as their opinion/experience. I would go so far to say that many threads go this way:
OP: “The grind is to hard. If you don’t change it, the game will be dead. Look at the steam charts, OMG.”
Now, this might be just my perception, because this is what sticks out to me and probably many others.
The basic semantic in your example is: “The grind is too hard.”
There are no symbols like “for me” or “in my opinion” included that make it unmistakingly a subjective opinion.
People have to interpret it in a favourable way as being meant as an subjective opinion, which is not exactly the most common way for people to interpret such a sentence, from my experience.
And if we are interpreting favourably, this could go the other way around in many instances, where statements aren’t as strong as outright saying “you are wrong”. Even then, it could be interpreted as “in my opinion, you are wrong”.
On the other hand, it should be pretty obvious to everyone – IMHO – that it is clear that such a statement can always only be a subjective opinion, even though more than enough people treat their opinion as a fact.
I tried, but my wife seduced me to share a bottle of wine for dinner, so I’m not at my best 
I think this ties with what DJSamhein said:
Some people have been here for years, have seen a lot of things being discussed, and when there was a very large influx of new players (release), got frustrated by seeing things that had been discussed over and over being said again.
At the same time, I think we have a tendency to remember more those comments that annoy us. I have made a suggestion and received, say, ten replies, but the one I remember the most was the rude one.
This brings a lot of frustration to both sides - people who have been here a long time and perceive a dozen of “OMG game is ded dumb devs!!!1111”, and people who have come here to share their feelings in a more constructive way, often negative feelings, but perceive a dozen of “lol no u dumb” replies.
It’s not about aggressive language, or non-aggressive communication, as long as it’s true, it doesn’t bother me. Now whether this is something because I myself talk like this, or something else I never gave it much thought. But as this can be something that can make others write stuff they don’t mean I should probably reel it in.
In my case in most threads I’ve been to. Granted, I usually visit the negatively titled ones to see why they’re saying that.
Something is objective if it can be confirmed independently of a mind, or if it’s not dependent on the mind for existence. Not if it makes sense or anything else.
Saying the grind is hard, if you don’t change it the game will die look at steam charts OMG. Is in every way a subjective opinion.
Everyone that simply says that is subjectively stating an opinion. Because for it to become objective statement, we need to do test and verify that’s what’s going to happen, and this is the reason why it’s happening.
If we had to use “I think” “I feel like” “In my opinion” all the time, every single sentence would’ve started like that.
Now the above type of thread doesn’t leave much room for discussion. It’s on OP to prove it. They’re making a positive claim. Not just an opinion.
Hitchens’s razor is my favorite.
“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence”
I will start by saying that I don’t want to escalate again. 
However, I disagree with this. There are many subjective things that are presented as objective facts. In the case mentioned, people are saying the game is dead because of the steam charts. To them, that’s the data that proves their objective point.
This sometimes stems from a failure to separate causation from correlation. Sometimes it’s because they don’t understand statistics, or any other reason.
The fact is that many people present subjective opinions as though they are facts. And simply asking someone that they have to provide evidence of that isn’t helpful for the discussion, since in their minds they did (or in the case of one (in)famous topic, they assert that they know it to be a fact and if someone doesn’t believe it it’s on them to disprove it 
).
So the solution lies more in engaging with the person, presenting other view points. Though that often doesn’t work either because many people will only listen to viewpoints that confirm what they want to hear.
Long story short, objectivity itself is also subjective. As Extreme once said: “3 sides to every story: yours, mine and the truth”
You’re not escalating xD
Okay, yeah. You CAN present subjective things as objective facts. That makes sense. But then you’re just wrong from the get go making your post completely useless. Is this how people operate typically? I feel like an alien.
Now more things are starting to make sense.
It makes sense in an opening thread for OP… but replies as well? I feel like I missed a crucial part of the entire discussion.
Yup, apparently I just needed a good example.
Yes, sadly that is how people operate normally, especially in media like a forum, reddit, etc.
Though this is hardly a phenomenon that is limited to the online world. It’s always been around, especially in politics. It’s just exacerbated by the anonymity the internet provides.
And there have been lots of opinions presented that way over the last few months. To be fair, it occurred on both sides, though it does tend to be mostly detractors that do that.
Ultimately, almost everything about a video game is subjective. But people always talk in an objective way: This game is crap. Mechanic FOO is terrible. Game X is better than game Y. Etc.
In fact, if you search you’ll even see posts like:
“Resistances is a fucking bad idea”
“Trash boss system”
Or even, quite frequently, comments like “If you are going to put 1,000 hours in why have a bulk of those hours wasted? It’s objectively bad design.”
This happens very very often since launch (when it barely happened before) so some members are a bit touchy about it. I admit I myself am sometimes as well.
There is certainly truth to it. But typically, the rudeness of a reply correlates with the tone of the initial post. Not always, and being rude is usually never a good answer, as a rude reply doesn’t help to achieve anything constructive. Being rude just flatters our own ego.
Yes, exactly. E.g. one can objectively determine whether a geometric figure is a triangle or not, but never if a movie is good or not. Except one uses criteria like “the movie earned a big profit” equals “good”, because that is something that can be measured and proven.
Not every sentence. Once or twice throughout a conversation, usually in the beginning, should be enough to establish some modus operandi. First impressions are important, after all.
All people who take part in a conversation are responsible for how it goes. Setting up a tone goes a long way.
To come back to this topic: that is what many people complaining about moderation don’t understand. They call the devs clowns, for example, and say in the next sentence that they weren’t offensive. There is a clear lack of self-reflection.
I haven’t heard this one yet, but I like it 
Unfortunately, that happens quite often in my experience. And then it is correct to call people out for being wrong.
Especially “experts” are prone to it. “I have studied literature. There are objectively good and bad books.” That was one conversation I had, for example. Or “I’m a game designer, so I know this is a bad game/aspects of the game”. You would find some of those posts in this forum, if you sift through the topics.
Just want to add that you should look at this post, for example:
It’s a good example why some community members reply the way they do.
I know which thread you’re talking about. But I think it must have been flagged and cleaned since, so I can’t find it anymore 
I’m probably reformatting automatically when I read.
I try to get the point they’re trying to make instead of take everything literally. The way I see the linked post is OP has issues with the flashing, and whenever they mention “people” they mean “I”.
But too much was said, clearly written in frustration, and it’s up to the replies to defuse or not. They can meet it with the same tone, or differently.
I just don’t take posts like that seriously in all honesty. I wouldn’t even reply. But I can see how this type of posts can spawn the same behavior directed at OP.
So I guess, let’s take every thread as it’s own thing without carrying all the baggage with us that could influence what we say or how we say it
I can only speak from my own experience but I was never met with hostility when I often voiced my displeasure with a lot of game systems, how the devs approach different stuff like nerfs or game blancing or when I call the game bland and unfinished like a bone without meat when you payed for a steak. People anwered to the points i made and quoted parts of what i said to tell their point of view.
Sure I could now start to do mental gymnastics and think about if someone thinks I’m stupid and is only there to belittle me or insult me but I just imagine the other party of the conversation is happiely smiling and want to be productive while they tell their oppinion on what I wrote. All of the sudden everything is fine an debateable.
On top of it the victim mentality some people have isn’t helping in discussions when facts meet an oppinion based on feelings things can get out of hand pretty quick these days.
As I wrote above it wasn’t all flowers and sunshine and the game got a fair share of critique back then. The difference was people didn’t care that much back then because it was mostly objective and on matters that were discussable and worth their time. Sure “LE shit can’t log in!” kind of things have been said but mostly on the discord. Ther forum was/is a nice place after all sure.
On the other hand you keep on discussing and beating the dead horse again as well . It’s a hard thing to say “I said my part that’s it.” when you have no feedback your oppinion was heared and noted. Think back to the trade post oh my ^^.
Were you actually around during launch?
Sure, Discord was literally flooded with it, but there were lots and lots of posts like that in the first week.
The main difference is that before launch the forum was composed mostly of supporters of the game and even when they disagreed they did it in a constructive way. And that often led to change. Whereas the flood of posts post-launch was, in a very significant part (I won’t say most part because that wouldn’t be true) needlessly insulting and not at all constructive.
I have no issues with constructive criticism. We’ve had our share of arguments on things we don’t agree. And while we still don’t agree on those, I’d like to believe that they were constructive. For both sides of the discussion.
I assume you’re talking about the really lengthy argument I had with Kulze? Honestly, that was mostly because we were misunderstanding each other and not getting our point across or actually understanding the other’s. It’s frustrating when that happens, because no one likes to be misunderstood. And it kept escalating (though that was in an argumentative way and not in an aggressive or insulting way).
But we’ve since come to terms with it.
It also happened with the campaign story discussion, but we’ve since come to terms with that as well. In both cases, just the fact that our points of view are irreconcilable and neither will change our mind.
Bottom line is, when the other person is disagreeing with you for what you see as a perception or miscommunication issue, the tendency is to try to clear it up. Even if at times you just muddy things up even more.
To be fair during launch, even if in the background actually handled well, it was a bit of a disaster.
No surprise people were disgruntled and voiced that. Why in the feedback forum rather then bugs? I have no friggin clue, but that’s people
Yep, albeit I’m still somewhat beating the dead horse there trying to make clear where I’m coming from as I feel unhappy with my own explanations of the underlying problem. But it’s been more then fine along the whole way. Got the points across, heard interesting takes, adjusted my thoughts accordingly.
Which is all I can ever expect from a in-depth discussion or even debate about a topic. If I go out with even a single thought process more then I thought about I deem it as a success, makes my arguments stronger and more comprehensive in the future and adjust any ideas I might get to take those into account.
Oh, definitely. No one argues that. The launch was a disaster. It was even worse than I was expecting. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that for several days you had a bunch of posts that just boiled down to “You suck”.
I do understand your point, though. I just don’t agree with it. I mean, I don’t disagree that you think it’s a problem. Not even on the importance you attribute it. It’s just that it’s a type of player thing, rather than something more objective.
But let’s not derail this topic going into that
It’s more of a generalisation. I use the trade discussion before release as an example. If I only said “I like to be able to trade with my friends without that much restrictions.” and nothing else, I think the game might ended up without trade. Some topics are simply hard to let go if the opposing side of a discussion is going on and on. How many times in said discussion did I need to repeat myself because others repeated themselfs 
.
A lot of misunderstandings happen over time that’s why I never edit the original post even when I was completely wrong so people get what happened.
I think this forum is pretty healthy even when I can understand why people feel verbaly strangled by the pro LE forum userbase.
Disagreing is a good thing. People with different oppinions are a good thing. You need this kind of differences to have progress. I think only younger generations sometimes have problem with this or activists of some sort or whatnot ^^.
Uh that is something I can understand very well .
That’s the Vorlons in Babylon 5.
If that’s the case, how can anybody experience anything objective? A human mind is involved in everything we experience.
The background didn’t handle it well which is why it was a disaster (until they fixed it).