It's kind of a tricky business, as constructive criticism is considerably more effectual when well placed, and persuasive to the person who can action it (i.e the game developer, in the case of a criticism of a game). To be persuasive to the person who can action it, it does need to at least consider their own position in some respect and acknowledge that or frame the criticism within that, otherwise it remains rife to being dismissed through learned defeatism, or just out and out aggressive response, both of which rend the criticism ineffectual in terms of provoking a constructive response, regardless of how valid or fundamental the criticisms are.
That seems to be the issue people have had with your criticisms, and why they would see them as ineffectual. In many respects if your aim is to provide a constructive criticism that provokes a constructive, actioned response by the other party, their feelings or attitude in receiving criticism on that topic do become your problem at least in-so-far as how you frame your criticism. Without that consideration, you just have a wailing and ineffectual criticism, which you can expect to probably be dismissed.
tl;dr Lugia is sometimes right, Lugia is always a jerk.
Stop being a jerk, people will listen to you. | |
When I first started playing MOBAs back in 2011, obviously I had no idea what I was doing. 9 times out of 10, when you're running around aimlessly not contributing anything to your team, your teammates will get mad. The never-ending cycle, however, is what keeps the community in the shape that it's in. Basically, the people who know how to play the game better than others are right, but they are toxic and so their advice is disregarded, and on the flip side, the noobs who don't have the slightest clue as to what's going on don't improve either because they have an inability to listen to critique when it isn't delivered in the most cheerful, sugar-coated manner possible.
Essentially both sides are wrong. It's stupid to assume everyone who's being an ass is automatically incorrect and everyone who's polite knows what they're talking about. It's also stupid to expect someone to listen to what you're saying when you inject a bunch of needless insults in along with whatever point you're trying to get across because that's not how people operate. The question is, which side will give in first to break the cycle? Will the toxic people start being super nice to appease the incompetent, or will the inexperienced begin disregarding the tone in which criticism is given so that they can learn from it? The answer is neither side. People will always feel they have a right to say whatever they want to say, however they want to say it, and people will also always feel the need to only hear what they want to hear and shut off anything too difficult for them to swallow. And to be fair to Lugia, the people on this site have always been bad at taking criticism regardless of how anything was said. Even if he were to start being polite, the majority of "developers" on BYOND are just here to read complements. The moment you suggest they should practice more, or that they made errors here and there, they go on the defensive, call you a "hater" or "troll" and then block you. Some people just can't cope with the fact that they suck at something and refuse to listen to any remark other than "AWESOME JOB, DUDE! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!" | |
Amad2 wrote:
tl;dr Lugia is always right Fixed it for you. I'm not a jerk, I'm a critic. Don't feel bad, I've done this for several books and movies (The Hunger Games books, The Hobbit Trilogy movies, the Harry Potter movies/books). I do it for anime (Kill la Kill, Sword Art Online, Attack on Titan). It is my interest to ensure that everything gets its just credit. If feelings get hurt, it is because the recipient is too fragile for this business. EmpirezTeam said: stuff  | |
that image is irrelevant because there's no such thing as Yorick losing top lane
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EmpirezTeam wrote:
that image is irrelevant because there's no such thing as Yorick losing top lane Yorick won lane, opponent left lane and ganked mid after farming wraiths because what else were they going to do. | |
Can I just point out something I think may be insightful to the issue at hand? No? Okay well I'm going to.
Have you ever noticed Lugia that shortly after you've mentioned an opinion that you counter arguments against it mainly with the reason 'facts are facts'. Do you think possibly, just maybe... That people might find it somewhat offensive or in poor taste to declare your own opinion(s) as fact? AKA: 'But it's the truth.' and 'I'm only telling you what you need to hear.' | |
Not at all. I always back up what I say with evidence. For some reason people seem to think that if their feelings get hurt that evidence no longer means anything. After all, vaccines contain formaldehyde, the bible says the earth is 6000 years old, and this winter was the coldest we've had in some time. So vaccines are bad, the big bang never happened, and climate change isn't happening, right?
If people would address post content and not their hurt feelings I could take them more seriously. | |
Big Bang isn't really a good example. I can probably find more naturalists that'll denounce the Big Bang than creationists.
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EmpirezTeam wrote:
Big Bang isn't really a good example. I can probably find more naturalists that'll denounce the Big Bang than creationists. I still get stuck on people that suggest we use light to communicate with aliens instead of radio waves because light moves faster than sound. | |
I hate to sound presumptuous but well honestly I think you can boil down the entire existence of this thread to a lot of what you just said. I don't want to point out the obvious but I'm going to put something in really simple terms.
It's possible that despite having provided some evidence that you're still wrong. Oh it helps your case, it really does and sometimes with overwhelming evidence it makes any attempt at refute absurd like you mentioned. When we're dealing with a lot of subjective matter like Art, Gameplay and Programming Style then all of this is highly opinion based and there's often not one true answer given. We can all read the same book and give two totally different opinions right? Now even if I evidenced my opinion I can only back it up so far right? The very subject matter is fictional, it isn't based in reality. Like all our thoughts and feelings. They're fictional and there aren't any proofs you can write out to prove that 'x sprite looks better than y sprite' but you can give a dam fine argument as to 'why you think it is'. Perhaps even just prefacing your criticism with "My opinion" or "My thoughts" without sounding too pretentious right? Would be a great start. | |
There's a difference between opinions which are rooted in feelings and opinions which also reference other examples of mistakes made in industry.
For example, in LoG the snake way was probably one of the most annoying parts for several reasons. In Dying Light, first person platforming is seriously annoying. The DBZ movie itself got trashed because it was just bad as a movie and it didn't even bother to stick to the source material. The Last Airbender movie was just... bad. Now I'm a fairly intelligent person, I wear glasses, and I have the power to see why these things fall through and the generosity to remind other people why they fall through. I'm probably the nicest person on these boards, come to think of it. So when I tell you X, Y, and Z, and then provide examples of why what you're doing is wrong (from an industry standpoint, where success is rated on sales/reviews), then it's not just an opinion anymore. If you told your wife, "we never go out to eat dinner anymore" that would just be a statement, right? But if you kept a log (evidence) of every time you went out to eat dinner, then your argument carries a little more weight. | |
Exactly I couldn't agree more. Sticking with that exact example I want to propose 1 simple addition to what you said.
"We never go out for dinner anymore." As a simple logical statement you can back that up to the point you make it completely irrefutable at which point it becomes a well established fact. Undoubtedly. BUT... Lets imagine you're in an argument at which point it's quite possible that very truthful statement MAY... come out like.. "We don't even go out for dinner anymore." OR... If you're trying to impress her it might come out like.. "We should go out more often, what do you think about doing something this Saturday?" Put simply. The way a fact is worded and how a person feels can DRASTICALLY change the outcome of stating it. And if you know women even slightly you know she may never forget what you said. It might just swirl around in her mind for months before BOOM she explodes at you about it out of nowhere. Artists of any nature are a lot like women. You can start off on the right foot and have a nice conversation about factual information and how you're going to improve it (really easing them gently into the idea) or... You can slam it in their face. To be more particular we already know that people on these forums are easily defensive so if you really actually want to help then you need to change your approach to them or otherwise their thread will just deteriorate into "***** YOU AND YOUR ******** ACCOUNT" | |
EmpirezTeam wrote:
Even if he were to start being polite, the majority of "developers" on BYOND are just here to read complements. Hey moron, the correct spelling in this context is "compliments". Yes, I'm such a spelling Nazi that I even spelling Nazi myself. | |
How you take what I say is not factual. I could take what you say as being racist, are you a racist?
You've called me a jerk several times now, so tell me. Who is the real jerk? :^)
Apparently several users do not care if facts are facts at the end of the day because they'd rather stay wrong than accept the truth.
Actually, I would bet that many users here have played Unity games, like them, but are afraid to switch languages. That's cool, I'll just keep putting the word out in case you ever decide the change your mind.
I don't have to prove anything. BYOND has proven itself to be inferior. I'm just shining a light on Unity when I get a chance if it's relevant. There are a lot of things Unity handles better, if you would be so kind as to step out of your comfort zone.
Oddly enough, if you ask for criticism, you should not tell people to fuck off for giving it. Are you going to pull a Konami and ban journalists for saying bad stuff about your products?
The internet is part of real life. I wonder why you think it isn't? If the NSA aren't reading this you know Google sure as hell is. Both parties aren't guilty. And even if they were, you'd get banned for your post because you're clearly rife with the hypocrisy here. Calling me out for being a jerk when clearly you are trying to be a jerk here :^)
I actually have plenty of people that like me and watch me stream League of Legends, Smite, and Poly Bridge. And that's just my internet crowd. Hell, the TPP community has several of my friends. I also have friends in my area, friends out of state, and friends overseas. I've made it quite clear that I don't want the friendship of most users here, and the ones whose friendships I do have are the ones I myself chose.
For someone that has said NOBODY CARES several times, you sure spent a lot of time typing up a response post. I think you care quite a bit m80 :^)
Consideration for feelings will not make people improve. Telling them the facts and setting them straight will. My criticism is constructive, your attitude in taking it is not.
My feelings are hurt man. That ain't constructive criticism :^)