TFD Discord's feedback channel is terrible

[WTF]

It's no secret that TFD's developers rely on Discord and Reddit for feedback. In particular, it seems to rely more on discord.

TFD's discord has a channel called [Community Support], which is where most of the feedback comes from. The problem is that the opinions of five or six loud fanboys dominate the discussion. And even if it's just a handful of five or six people commenting on the same post or trolling with emojis, it makes it seem like it's a consensus, because if you take them out of the equation, there's very little feedback on that post. They seem to have been coalescing around the same opinions for a long time, and at the slightest bit of negative feedback about the game, they swarm in and start mocking people. I wrote feedback a few months ago expressing concern about the AOE spam meta, and they mocked me for it, and in the process they were chatting to each other, and already seemed to be friendly with each other.

I got tired of these fraternity-like white knights and stopped going to TFD's discord, but after a long time, I went to TFD's discord and to my surprise, they were still there every day, mocking and harassing people who leave critical feedback about the game.

Having watched them for a while, here are their characteristics.
1. anyone who screams nerf for balance is an idiot.
2. if you don't like Freyna or Ines, go solo.
3. anyone who mentions improvements to female skins is a gooner.
4. the game is balanced, if you have a problem with it, it's your skill.
5. it is unacceptable to mention improvements to the game and if you do you are a crybaby.
6. complaining about repetitive play and drop rates is unacceptable (because I've already done it!)
7. The console has 10 times more players than PC, so the number of users has not decreased at all. (Nexon's official announcement actually accounts for 50-60% of the total)

People who have been attacked by these people don't leave feedback anymore.
Eventually, only these people are left there to give feedback.
Devs are struggling in this echo chamber, but they don't know it.
We are seeing the results of this small group of loud fanboys in our games.
It's no wonder the game has bad level design, severe unbalance, and insane power creep.
Of course, the devs are probably the most to blame, because they make the final choices.
I really wanted to see this game succeed, that's why I spent a lot of money on it.
But now that I see the reality, I'm depressed.
I doubt the devs will ever see this thread, but if they do, get out of that well.
It's nothing more than a place to worship you, the devs.

English is my third language, so please forgive me if there are some oddities.

[Jade Succubus]

The Steam forums are exactly the same.

The major issue is they're nearsighted and enjoy the absolute power-trip without any consideration for the long-term health of the game. The players mostly. To some extent the devs as well.

Nobody is allowed to criticize the game without an absolute legion of "Skill issue" people showing up or people telling us to gimp our playstyle to artificially increase the difficulty. It's a real shame.

My only hope is that the devs do see the feedback on the issues this game has (It's at MIXED in reviews) and they are working on long-term changes that simply take a long time to implement.

Judging from what little crumbs I've collected through dev commentaries & the few times they don't discuss cosmetics in livestreams they are reworking the Reactor systems which is a major grief for a lot of people, but beyond that...?

It's so easy to respond to people and say "We're making new cosmetics and they're cool." Like yeah, no crap. The character art team probably has the easiest jobs of the entire staff but even they are getting it wrong. Look at Ajax's body for the swimsuit model. People with prosthetic limbs or body don't even have them respected.

My faith has dwindled though. I would not be surprised if the "important meeting about TFD's future" after the latest livestream was Nexon informing sunsetting or funding cuts due to underperformance.

Anybody that would say "They just said they were expanding their team" as an argument isn't familiar with Nexon's history or how the publishers don't communicate with developers (xDefiant is a great example.)

[Harris]

The name "Discord" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have never encountered a server that would ultimately go in a different direction from what OP describes, and so I stopped using it. It seems to me Discord tends to attract certain audiences to it, and I'll just stop here.

I'm not sure why devs do it - maybe they look for a medium where they have full moderating powers, or where they'll be kept in a warm bath. I would say it would be optimal for feedback to be provided in a medium devs cannot abuse - but the recent case with Marek Tyminski suggests otherwise. Anyway, ideally devs should collect feedback from every medium where such feedback may be voiced. Whether they'll be actually doing it is another story.

Originally posted by WTF:

if you don't like Freyna or Ines, go solo.

I started playing about a week ago, and I was under impression TFD is some kind of Remnant-meets-Lineage II kind of game. Tanks, healers, supports, the whole thing. For example, I've been having lots of fun with Viessa and the game calls her a "debuffer". Rumor has it there are even male characters in this game...

My problem, however, is all of it only exists on paper. There is nothing in the game to "debuff" because by the time I aim my Blizzard Ines already wiped the whole screen. Slowing down enemies while Freyna applies dot with poison would be amazing - but the game seems to be designed the way a damage dealer is a complete unit with no drawbacks to speak of. Heck, imagine my surprise when I discovered the "best" module for Viessa revolves around ditching her debuff identity in favor of bigger damage numbers...

Which leads to a reality where the game nominally has a lot of stuff, but in reality it's Freyna, Ines and Bunny in every public. Worst thing is I can't even blame 'em - in the game which revolves around grinding, willing to optimize the grind through picking the best character for the job is only natural.

So TL;DR the game has some glaring issues at core design level, but everyone's too busy staring at the cake to notice.

[Jade Succubus]

Originally posted by Harris:

Which leads to a reality where the game nominally has a lot of stuff, but in reality it's Freyna, Ines and Bunny in every public. Worst thing is I can't even blame 'em - in the game which revolves around grinding, willing to optimize the grind through picking the best character for the job is only natural.

So TL;DR the game has some glaring issues at core design level, but everyone's too busy staring at the cake to notice.

The general masses treat it like free-to-play throwaway slop that doesn't matter. The minority of people that see the potential are treated like second-class citizens for daring to even go against the grain by asking for the game to be better.

I'm sure most of them are actual children so I can't really blame them for focusing on the T&A but I really wish they'd stick to playing and stay away from the socials.

[WTF]

Originally posted by Jade Succubus:

The Steam forums are exactly the same.

I've been looking at all the Discord reddit steam for a while now, and Discord seems to have the most extreme fanboyism. You'll never find opinions like yours there, because people like you and me have all left. The next worst is probably reddit, where the mods are mostly white knighte.

Originally posted by Jade Succubus:

they are reworking the Reactor systems which is a major grief for a lot of people, but beyond that...?

The update on the reactor is scheduled for April, but I think it's too late. Complaints about the reactor have been made since Open Beta, but it's been almost 8 months now. I hope it gets fixed soon before more people leave, newbies will probably have a hard time organising their stacked reactors.

[Valtaya]

Originally posted by Harris:

The name "Discord" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have never encountered a server that would ultimately go in a different direction from what OP describes, and so I stopped using it. It seems to me Discord tends to attract certain audiences to it, and I'll just stop here.

I'm not sure why devs do it - maybe they look for a medium where they have full moderating powers, or where they'll be kept in a warm bath. I would say it would be optimal for feedback to be provided in a medium devs cannot abuse - but the recent case with Marek Tyminski suggests otherwise. Anyway, ideally devs should collect feedback from every medium where such feedback may be voiced. Whether they'll be actually doing it is another story.

Originally posted by WTF:

if you don't like Freyna or Ines, go solo.

I started playing about a week ago, and I was under impression TFD is some kind of Remnant-meets-Lineage II kind of game. Tanks, healers, supports, the whole thing. For example, I've been having lots of fun with Viessa and the game calls her a "debuffer". Rumor has it there are even male characters in this game...

My problem, however, is all of it only exists on paper. There is nothing in the game to "debuff" because by the time I aim my Blizzard Ines already wiped the whole screen. Slowing down enemies while Freyna applies dot with poison would be amazing - but the game seems to be designed the way a damage dealer is a complete unit with no drawbacks to speak of. Heck, imagine my surprise when I discovered the "best" module for Viessa revolves around ditching her debuff identity in favor of bigger damage numbers...

Which leads to a reality where the game nominally has a lot of stuff, but in reality it's Freyna, Ines and Bunny in every public. Worst thing is I can't even blame 'em - in the game which revolves around grinding, willing to optimize the grind through picking the best character for the job is only natural.

So TL;DR the game has some glaring issues at core design level, but everyone's too busy staring at the cake to notice.

Well said... discord is... have no idea either.

If the devs realy cared about genuine feedback from ALL their audience, they would implement ingame polls, something I haven't seen in 20 years. Discord, forums, emails... nothing realy works, heck even when there is a feedback button in the game that leads to some questionary it is not going to work, the average player who play like 30min per day does not have the time to spend 10 min on some questionary to write some coherent words. Todays devs are complete morons, as all feedback forms they offer are designed for the top 10-20% of the playerbase and then the results end in desaster.

Btw good and short analysis of TFD "balance" problem.

[WTF]

Originally posted by Harris:

I started playing about a week ago, and I was under impression TFD is some kind of Remnant-meets-Lineage II kind of game.

It started out as a [root shooter] that had a flavour of gunplay, albeit clunky, but now it's just an idle mobile RPG with AOE spamming. They tried to forcefully bring back gunplay with the recent Void Erosion Purge update, but it seems to have failed with stupid balance and level design. Only a limited handful of weapons and decendants work, and that's from the NO NERFism-[balance through content] illusion. They were actually going to make the weapons more powerful than the 10-tier core, but VEP was so poorly received by users due to its clunky combat design and bullet sponge that they stopped there, and apparently switched back to buffing the skills up to tier 50 of VEP. In the end, we'll see AOE spamming again, and the only thing that's changed is more numbers covering the screen and massive power creep.

This means you'll be speedrunning mobs that disappear before they can spawn again.
As you say, there is no more division of roles in this game. It was a concept that existed in the closed beta, and according to the Q&A transcript on the official website, the devs said there will be no more roleplaying. Presumably all decendants will be AOE dealers. Even YUJIN and LUNA.

I prefer weapons that target weaknesses, like hand cannons and sniper rifles, and now they're all becoming AOE. They're gaslighting this as ‘POWER FANTASY’, which just seems like a lack of vision to me.

[Echo2Omega]

Originally posted by WTF:

Complaints about the reactor have been made since Open Beta, but it's been almost 8 months now. I hope it gets fixed soon before more people leave, newbies will probably have a hard time organising their stacked reactors.

Several adjustments to reactors have been made.
Stop acting like nothing has been done.

[WTF]

Originally posted by Echo2Omega:

Originally posted by WTF:

Complaints about the reactor have been made since Open Beta, but it's been almost 8 months now. I hope it gets fixed soon before more people leave, newbies will probably have a hard time organising their stacked reactors.

Several adjustments to reactors have been made.
Stop acting like nothing has been done.

I never said they haven't fixed it to anything.
It's just that it's not good enough and the devs know it, so they're making it a priority to fix it.
Don't act like that small fix solved everything.

[WTF]

Originally posted by Jade Succubus:

Originally posted by WTF:

I don't think we need to make lists. They self-report. Lists like that will just get moderators to nuke things.

If I had known that list in advance, and knew that their trolling accounted for most of the channel, I wouldn't have wasted any time trying to convince them.

This is not Discord, and even if that list is an issue here, only that comment will be an issue.

[Delphinus]

I dont even used TFD discord since it requires you given them your phone number too use text channels so no thanks >.>

[WTF]

Originally posted by Delphinus:

I dont even TFD discord since it requirse you given them your phone number too use text channels so no thanks >.>

Yeah. These days, really everywhere they want my information. Especially in Korea, it doesn't end up like a phone number. My phone is full of spam lol

[STORMY WEATHER]

Originally posted by WTF:

It's no secret that TFD's developers rely on Discord and Reddit for feedback. In particular, it seems to rely more on discord.

TFD's discord has a channel called [Community Support], which is where most of the feedback comes from. The problem is that the opinions of five or six loud fanboys dominate the discussion. And even if it's just a handful of five or six people commenting on the same post or trolling with emojis, it makes it seem like it's a consensus, because if you take them out of the equation, there's very little feedback on that post. They seem to have been coalescing around the same opinions for a long time, and at the slightest bit of negative feedback about the game, they swarm in and start mocking people. I wrote feedback a few months ago expressing concern about the AOE spam meta, and they mocked me for it, and in the process they were chatting to each other, and already seemed to be friendly with each other.

I got tired of these fraternity-like white knights and stopped going to TFD's discord, but after a long time, I went to TFD's discord and to my surprise, they were still there every day, mocking and harassing people who leave critical feedback about the game.

Having watched them for a while, here are their characteristics.
1. anyone who screams nerf for balance is an idiot.
2. if you don't like Freyna or Ines, go solo.
3. anyone who mentions improvements to female skins is a gooner.
4. the game is balanced, if you have a problem with it, it's your skill.
5. it is unacceptable to mention improvements to the game and if you do you are a crybaby.
6. complaining about repetitive play and drop rates is unacceptable (because I've already done it!)

People who have been attacked by these people don't leave feedback anymore.
Eventually, only these people are left there to give feedback.
Devs are struggling in this echo chamber, but they don't know it.
We are seeing the results of this small group of loud fanboys in our games.
It's no wonder the game has bad level design, severe unbalance, and insane power creep.
Of course, the devs are probably the most to blame, because they make the final choices.
I really wanted to see this game succeed, that's why I spent a lot of money on it.
But now that I see the reality, I'm depressed.
I doubt the devs will ever see this thread, but if they do, get out of that well.
It's nothing more than a place to worship you, the devs.

English is my third language, so please forgive me if there are some oddities.

im sorry but the game balance is the main problem some stuff needs to get nerf and re balance its killing tfd because this toxic positive and there very bad balance with the bosses def and hp being scaled very bad or all over the place and the same with the trash adds and the artificial difficulty bs hard is hurting the heath of tfd and killing it.

i understand you and some others hate nerfs because it sucks the fun out of the game but the devs are massive hypocrites they nerfed valby with that so called rework they did not to long ago for 0 reason so those valby mains are very pisses off rightfully so rn and my main ajak has bin worthless because of how bad the balance is and there are so many other descendants i built just to find out they are worthless all so really pisses me off to know just now oh i wasted my time building a descendant i found the word fun with.

balancing the content around only one descendant or only one gun or even worse balancing the new content around power creep is very bad if tfd loses all of its chill/casual players tfd dies like i love this game i played the hell out of it but this needs to get fixed its boring af playing only meta because thats how they balance it around and many others have echo the same thing it sucks and the people bring this up or non stop complaining about it want it fixed because they love tfd and dont want to see it die in only 6 months after it came out like for f sake it looks like tfd is about to get axed like alot of the other live service games have bin getting recently like how do you not understand that stop looking at all the people complaining about stuff and label them as a brain dead hater.

tfd is bleeding badly rn because of the stuff they are refusing to fixed and every dam korean game as all ways done this with doing good at first then die out in only 3 months after launch like look at thorn and liberty or lost art or black desert online that all did the same thing i really feel like all of these korean game company's just try to cash in on the hype then just let the game die out after only 3 months are all ready start making a new game immediately lim getting real sick of this crap with every korean company doing this non stop and crossplay is the only thing keep tfd live rn if crossplay was not a thing this game would be a ghost town all ready and we are not even on season 3 yet witch is a very bad thing tfd should only be this dead when we are on like season 10 or 13 when the game has bin out for like lets say 3 or 4 years.

[fx!]

The "echo chamber like" situation is fairly common everywhere, ultimately it is developer's responsibility to manage these communities and decide what feedback is valuable. Surely they are smart enough to figure it out.

It still baffles my mind they had/have to use AI to translate director's statements (and who knows what else) to English and there have been plenty of misunderstandings because of it. One may wonder how much feedback got lost/changed during eng -> kr translation.

[[SLS]Wyvern Warrior]

Never been on the Discord, but considering I thought the jiggly physics thing was just a meme, but the gooners spammed it into reality, none of that is surprising.

[Geardo]

1 - Try the official Support page for TFD, I did once
Reported 9 issues, some were ignored, others got told they needed video proof
At least you get a response and no trolls

https://global.support.tfd.nexon.com/hc/en-001

2 - Echo chamber of a small group, happened in other games before TFD was launched or announced
Not all games on Discord have it but some do
Same problem was and to an extent still is on reddit, these forums, even on old game company forums

It is like Foamy the Squirrel says

https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/480353043_1171535334333611_309328962233927472_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=crf6nVDKx6AQ7kNvgHB6OPR&_nc_oc=Adj68aF1AcdCSAht_hgCknSdg7db3ZxPnfS3s5kKjxH7bWaDH6kCeMZZ2PtpjshfqNY&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&_nc_gid=AAAcKKNu5w7d99uCwypcd3h&oh=00_AYCJYu1URHUum6jto4lx9DaMuH4Icxf-LWdqTAVhzaZtlQ&oe=67BC7AA0