There's appears to be few frustrated testers that feel like their feedback is going unheard and are becoming more and more assertive with their opinions and combative with contrary opinions. All you can do is provide your perspective and objectively observable feedback and critique, then its up to SV to decide what feedback aligns with their vision and which does not.
The tricky thing for external testers is we don't necessarily have a view of what SV considers a successful combat system. Without this there could be hundreds of different ideas about what the ideal combat system looks like, and how to quantify whether the system is getting closer or further from this ideal.
Determining how successful melee combat implementation is ultimately comes down to purpose, and the success measures defined to measure progress toward fulfilling this purpose. Without knowing the specifics of this used internally, all players can do is provide their own purpose and measures to evaluate melee combat against and measure how well the system currently performs against these.
In absence of an objectively stated purpose and measures we can only speculate on this, so don't expect every piece of criticism leveled to be responded to or addressed.
For example, I might view the purpose of melee combat as: "A system which allows for a series of attacks and counters that can be anticipated by opponents while rewarding positioning, use of environment, fast reaction time and appropriate selection & timing of attack/counter"
The measures I would put in place to measure the success of meeting the objective might be:
As an engineer, it's exceedingly rare that a user informs me of something I was not already aware of and had usually considered and dismissed because it did not work within the product due to various reasons. When developing a product it's not uncommon to go through dozens of ideas before ever seeking user testing because all or part of the ideas didn't turn out to be a good fit for the product as a whole. I am sure the developers of SV go through much the same process.
There's only so many ways you can give the same message, and giving feedback and ideas with progressively negative/demanding undertones does not give them any more credence than the first they they were offered up. I don't change my products as a result of peer pressure if I don't think it's in the products best interest, and nor should any developer.
If at the end of the day they have fulfilled their vision and it's not retaining or attracting players then the vision itself was flawed then that is on them. If they constantly oil the squeaky combat speed wheel and that ends up driving players away, that is also on them. If they provide a forum for feedback and suggestions and do not heed it that is ALSO on them. Using speculative forecasts on game success as an argument to back up your feedback on combat is not measurable, however.
Say you piece, say it clearly and constructively. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
The tricky thing for external testers is we don't necessarily have a view of what SV considers a successful combat system. Without this there could be hundreds of different ideas about what the ideal combat system looks like, and how to quantify whether the system is getting closer or further from this ideal.
Determining how successful melee combat implementation is ultimately comes down to purpose, and the success measures defined to measure progress toward fulfilling this purpose. Without knowing the specifics of this used internally, all players can do is provide their own purpose and measures to evaluate melee combat against and measure how well the system currently performs against these.
In absence of an objectively stated purpose and measures we can only speculate on this, so don't expect every piece of criticism leveled to be responded to or addressed.
For example, I might view the purpose of melee combat as: "A system which allows for a series of attacks and counters that can be anticipated by opponents while rewarding positioning, use of environment, fast reaction time and appropriate selection & timing of attack/counter"
The measures I would put in place to measure the success of meeting the objective might be:
- Number of offensive options/moves to bypass each defense strategy
- Number of defensive counters for each offensive move
- Number of players that are able to anticipate each offensive or defensive maneuver
- Impact of player position in environment
- Impact of reaction time to combat success
- Impact of appropriate move selection to combat success
- Correlation of high reaction time and appropriate move selection with time to kill
- Correlation of high reaction time and appropriate move selection with player survival time
As an engineer, it's exceedingly rare that a user informs me of something I was not already aware of and had usually considered and dismissed because it did not work within the product due to various reasons. When developing a product it's not uncommon to go through dozens of ideas before ever seeking user testing because all or part of the ideas didn't turn out to be a good fit for the product as a whole. I am sure the developers of SV go through much the same process.
There's only so many ways you can give the same message, and giving feedback and ideas with progressively negative/demanding undertones does not give them any more credence than the first they they were offered up. I don't change my products as a result of peer pressure if I don't think it's in the products best interest, and nor should any developer.
If at the end of the day they have fulfilled their vision and it's not retaining or attracting players then the vision itself was flawed then that is on them. If they constantly oil the squeaky combat speed wheel and that ends up driving players away, that is also on them. If they provide a forum for feedback and suggestions and do not heed it that is ALSO on them. Using speculative forecasts on game success as an argument to back up your feedback on combat is not measurable, however.
Say you piece, say it clearly and constructively. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.