off-topic Notes on the forums: How to give feedback and language barriers

[CremeLover]

 Hello, this is a response I made in this topic , but as of @Fitzee suggestion, I decided to turn it into a separated thread for extra visibility.

This post is mostly to address some of the aggressiveness that has been given on this forum, in particular but not exclusively from the Chinese community, I wanted to clarify some things as a forum user and a player that has been a part of the community for quite a few years.

First, for the Chinese newcomers:
As you all know, Klei is not a Chinese company, they do not manage any Chinese forums that I'm aware of, and while they do have translators, I don't think most of their staff knows how to speak Chinese.

For reference, I want to point out something that happened during the Wigfrid's skill tree beta if I remember correctly, some issue regarding a mistranslation in I believe was Bilibili from JoeW.
I link here a comment he made regarding said issue in the eternally glorious meme thread:

But TL;DR, his response caused some controversy in a portion of the Chinese playerbase from what I understood, and many felt offended by it. I'm not Chinese so I cannot really verify it, apologies.
What I'm trying to say is, there is a barrier between the Chinese community and this small Canadian company, and is not an easily surmountable one, unless they were to hire community managers for both Russian and Chinese community in their own platforms, which are the largest playerbase of this game.
Also, do not take my words as facts or assume this is what the devs think. This is but my educated guess.

If as a Chinese person, you feel your voice is not heard, and there is something you want to change about the game or are dissatisfied with, what you can do is simply come to these forums, and politely and respectfully express your opinion, preferably in a language the developers can understand you, and in a clear and concise way, as this method has the better chances of your voice as a player and a member of the DST community of being heard. The devs are hardworking to a fault, and the best we can do is make their work easier, else if they become overstressed it might reflect on the final product in a negative way, and we don't want that

 

Second, for everyone who do not frequent these forums, Klei rarely responds to feedback directly. Most of their responses are in regards to technical issues, or why there's some problem with a particular build of the game. They keep it mostly professional. Also there are very few devs that show up in these forums, and many of them also manage other game forums, AND are also developers for Don't Starve and other Klei games, and the forums are something that does not have dedicated staff, please be patient and don't expect a developer response unless there's a discrepancy with the patch notes and the actual released build, or some other developer related issue.

 

In regards to game feedback... I want to tell a story that happened in this very forum a few years ago.

It was the first quarter of 2020, the Wendy rework just came out, and it was a bit controversial as well, just like this one.
They changed the gameplay of Wendy and Abigail entirely, and the damage of Abigail was changed to scale with the health Wendy had. The closer to death Wendy was, the more damage Abigail inflicted.

Quickly the forums were flooded with people calling it overpowered, some people appreciating the change, some other people disliking it.
Many people posted videos of Abigail doing a large amount of damage to mobs while Wendy stood far away and watched.

Klei read the feedback, but what they took from this was not to tweak the damage, or the scaling, but to rework the mechanic entirely, since it promoted a playstyle where you tried to buff Abigail as much as possible while focus on surviving and having Abigail do all the damage for you. Instead, they added a vex to Abigail, that increased other player's damage, and specially Wendy, to promote teamwork between Wendy and Abigail.

 

Klei does read and listen to feedback, but is unlikely they're going to implement your exact idea.
In my humble opinion, is better to write about the main point of what you think is wrong, why, and to give a direction in which you can nudge them towards or you think can be healthy for the game, without getting too deep into specifics.

[Well-met]

5 minutes ago, CremeLover said:

 Klei read the feedback, but what they took from this was not to tweak the damage, or the scaling, but to rework the mechanic entirely, since it promoted a playstyle where you tried to buff Abigail as much as possible while focus on surviving and having Abigail do all the damage for you. Instead, they added a vex to Abigail, that increased other player's damage, and specially Wendy, to promote teamwork between Wendy and Abigail.

in other words they backpedalled so hard they turned that mechanic into its own new character.

[CremeLover]

3 minutes ago, Well-met said:

in other words they backpedalled so hard they turned that mechanic into its own new character.

More like, Klei wanted to introduce a glass cannon mechanic into don't starve, and completely changed Wendy on her rework to do a first implementation of that idea. But after the feedback they said that Wendy was not the right way, changed her rework to focus on teamwork, and they explicitely said they would save the mechanic for another character in the future. And thus Wanda was born! And they didn't had to completely remove Wendy's playstyle for it. Is a win win in my book.

[Lee Sy]

Only if the polite way didn't work, you know most of Chinese are pragmatists, we will try for other methods to fix it.Nobody hates friendly communications, unless it helps little.

[Yifei_]

There are indeed some language barriers here; I've seen many different translations for 'beefalo' (though this seems to have little impact), like cow, ox, bull, and cattle. While some misunderstandings are actually caused by language barriers.

[Lee Sy]

4 minutes ago, Yifei_ said:

I've seen many different translations for 'beefalo' 

To terminologies, language barrier could be easily erased by finding out their original name.

只是术语的话，语言障碍还是很容易消除的，只要找到它们的英文原名就好了。

The problem is that some friendly expressions may have opposite meanings in another language environment. Some detailed issues cannot be accurately conveyed through translation.

问题是一些友善的表述在另一种语言环境中可能正相反。某些细节问题无法通过翻译准确传达。

[Yifei_]

1 minute ago, Lee Sy said:

The problem is that some friendly expressions may have opposite meanings in another language environment. Some detailed issues cannot be accurately conveyed through translation.

问题是一些友善的表述在另一种语言环境中可能正相反。某些细节问题无法通过翻译准确传达。

Yeah, someone said "patriotism" towards Wendy yesterday, and it confused me a lot. I truly can't understand the usage of this word here.

[Lee Sy]

7 minutes ago, Yifei_ said:

Yeah, someone said "patriotism" towards Wendy yesterday, and it confused me a lot. I truly can't understand the usage of this word here.

而且我的行文逻辑会受到影响，我会同时考虑一句话的中文语法和英文语法，以确保它在被译为另一种语言时更容易理解。就像现在，这段话简直不像出自汉语母语者之口。

Moreover, my writing style will be affected, as I will consider both Chinese and English grammar for a sentence to ensure it is easier to understand when translated into another language. Like now, this paragraph doesn't sound like it's written by a native Chinese speaker at all.

[Yifei_]

3 minutes ago, Lee Sy said:

而且我的行文逻辑会受到影响，我会同时考虑一句话的中文语法和英文语法，以确保它在被译为另一种语言时更容易理解。就像现在，这段话简直不像出自汉语母语者之口。

Moreover, my writing style will be affected, as I will consider both Chinese and English grammar for a sentence to ensure it is easier to understand when translated into another language. Like now, this paragraph doesn't sound like it's written by a native Chinese speaker at all.

I think using AI for translation is more effective than relying directly on translation software. You can tell the AI some of the specialized terms in DST, and it will accurately help you with the translations. Moreover, AI does a pretty good job with adjusting the grammatical logic of different languages. Both ChatGPT and Kimi are quite good at this, and Kimi is readily available for Chinese players.

我觉得用AI来翻译比直接靠翻译软件更有效。可以把DST中的一些专业名词的英文告诉AI，它会准确地帮你翻译。并且在调整不同语言的语法逻辑这个方面AI做的还不错。ChatGPT和kimi都还不错，并且kimi在中国很容易访问。

[gaymime]

1 hour ago, CremeLover said:

Second, for everyone who do not frequent these forums, Klei rarely responds to feedback directly. Most of their responses are in regards to technical issues, or why there's some problem with a particular build of the game. They keep it mostly professional. Also there are very few devs that show up in these forums, and many of them also manage other game forums, AND are also developers for Don't Starve and other Klei games, and the forums are something that does not have dedicated staff, please be patient and don't expect a developer response unless there's a discrepancy with the patch notes and the actual released build, or some other developer related issue.

thankyou. this is one of the most frustrating things to see. people come into the forum thinking that this is the way to get klei to speak to them without knowing klei rarely speaks to anyone. someone on staff will comment maybe 1 time for every 70 threads people make that is outside of the bugs section. the amount of communication with the wendy upset is so unusual it has actually been startling and confusing to see. i have never seen so many members of the staff actively participate in communicating with regular members

[NINA1917]

Basically agree, especially don't offer specific advice. Such suggestions can make workers feel like they are serving another person's will rather than creating, and they may avoid such suggestions and, because of this avoidance, have limited imagination.

[Wendigail]

32 minutes ago, NINA1917 said:

Basically agree, especially don't offer specific advice. Such suggestions can make workers feel like they are serving another person's will rather than creating, and they may avoid such suggestions and, because of this avoidance, have limited imagination.

I think it is necessary to provide specific suggestions because only expressing feedback may lead devs to misjudge players' needs and be criticized by other players for not providing constructive suggestions

[CremeLover]

My point about the language barrier wasn't about small mistranslations that could have big consequences.
Is more about, if a large number of people post multiple ideas and feedback about your game, in a language you don't understand in a separated website, is a big difficult to take all of it in. Specially if you are a team of 3 or 4 people who none understand the language, and the feedback could be more than 1000 post. Not only is extra work translating everything, but something might be lost in translation, leading to Klei taking the wrong feedback for a few of the posts, causing even more confusion.
So if the Chinese players of Don't Starve feel like they are not listened to in their own platforms, I believe it has to do with mainly the language barrier.

Which is why I suggested that coming here, and posting the feedback in understandable english, in a respectful manner, is the best way to reach the devs, rather than posting it in Chinese on Chinese platforms, because all the devs speak English, and not sure if any member at Klei speaks Chinese or the translation is fully outsourced, but you're reaching less people this way regardless.
It might not be a perfect solution for the Chinese playerbase, but it is what it is.

Klei doesn't really need to run these forums, but they take extra time and money to maintain, read, and develop them. Which is why I wouldn't like if they started to find the value they get out them has decreased, and that is not worth to keep them, or to significantly alter the way they work due to recent changes. So I do suggest to follow the guidelines and provide feedback respectfully, so that the devs keep seeing the value of these forums and that the way they are is still a good choice moving forward.

 

59 minutes ago, NINA1917 said:

Basically agree, especially don't offer specific advice. Such suggestions can make workers feel like they are serving another person's will rather than creating, and they may avoid such suggestions and, because of this avoidance, have limited imagination.

Yes, but not necessarily. You can provide feedback however you want or you think is best. After being in and reading (mostly reading) the forums for a while, I reached the conclusion that something that sparks the imagination is better for big changes, whereas if you are happy with the ideas themselves, and just want small adjustments, you would go with specifics. With reasoning of course.
I used the Wendy example precisely because when there was an issue with the overall direction, the devs read all the feedback, but did their own thing.

 

 

[Lee lol]

44 minutes ago, Yifei_ said:

Yeah, someone said "patriotism" towards Wendy yesterday, and it confused me a lot. I truly can't understand the usage of this word here.

我想她大概是说你很狂热，甚至进入了一种不理智的地步，有点像民粹

[layangan putus]

3 hours ago, CremeLover said:

Klei does read and listen to feedback, but is unlikely they're going to implement your exact idea.
In my humble opinion, is better to write about the main point of what you think is wrong, why, and to give a direction in which you can nudge them towards or you think can be healthy for the game, without getting too deep into specifics.

I'll just need to write better, as dense as neutron star.

[Yaorin yon]

On 12/10/2024 at 7:13 AM, CremeLover said:

More like, Klei wanted to introduce a glass cannon mechanic into don't starve, and completely changed Wendy on her rework to do a first implementation of that idea. But after the feedback they said that Wendy was not the right way, changed her rework to focus on teamwork, and they explicitely said they would save the mechanic for another character in the future. And thus Wanda was born! And they didn't had to completely remove Wendy's playstyle for it. Is a win win in my book.

I also miss the work attitude of KLei at that time. The quality and methods of updates were significantly better than they are now. I don't understand why they are so indifferent to DST now, which makes me feel that DST is on the decline.