Worth posting suggestions?

[Camshaft91]

I genuinely ask, is it even worth anyone posting suggestions?

I ask because every suggestion i've seen suggested, its seems a dev or moderator has had some way to knock the ideas back. I understand some are unrealistic that don't suit the "theme" of the game but some that seem that should be a key componet of the game get knocked back as "that's too hard" or "that will take too long" or "That would only give a small benifit so not really worth the time"

So honestly what is the point of this section?

Just my 2 cents

[Killrob]

That's a fair question.

99.99% of the engine designer suggestions will be shot down because we don't need them anymore (unlike 3-4 years ago) and have clearly stated it as such.

99% of the car designer suggestions will be shot down because we don't need them anymore and/or they are not feasible at this point of development. Small suggestions for improvements, if possible, will be looked at and considered if they further gameplay and flow without meaning too much extra work.

0% of the tycoon suggestions will be shot down, apart form obviously flawed ones of course. That is a part of the game that still is up for discussion and well-thought-out input is very much appreciated.

I (speaking for myself here) find it rather ignorant and borderline insulting of people suggesting stuff in here that is so obvious, that no sane being could think that we as developers working on the game every day haven't thought about and considered them yet. So it is not so much that suggestions are shot down by default, but rather poor suggestions and no longer appropriate suggestions are. That should be no reason for shutting down the suggestions forum, there are plenty of bright, helpful people in the community that have come forth with excellent suggestions over the years.

[utopian201]

What people need to realise is that each suggestion that is accepted pushes the game back. Do people want the game completed sooner or later but with more features?

Me personally as a software developer, my perferred option (and for project managers and people with cash invested) is to get something completed (and working bug free!) out the door first assuming features and things can be added later. Otherwise you get a Duke Nukem Forever situation, where things keep on being added and the game never gets completed, or they change the engine and need to redo all the art assets from scratch.

The corollary to that if things are released too soon (that is, they have many many features, but they aren't all working or bug free), you get day one patches like Ubisoft does and annoys everyone.

I personally find the features in the pre release pretty good and still haven't 'finished' playing with it yet.

[Daffyflyer]

A reasonable amount of suggestions for how nuances of the tycoon game could work have actually been really good, and if they've not been totally included, they've at least influenced our thought process about how we should handle things. A lot of engine designer suggestions from early on influenced our design process too, but now both the engine and car designer are far enough along that it's too late to do major things, minor tweaks to how things are done are sometimes possible, if they're very good and fit with the core purpose of the game.


If you're referring to the thread you made suggesting we have a dyno mode. There are a few reasons why we would have said no to that. It's something that we've already thought about, and have decided that it doesn't add much interesting gameplay and our development time would be better spent elsewhere. And also that you already suggested this in June, and we already said that it didn't really have a useful place in Automation.


We really do value suggestions of how certain gameplay aspects should be handled, small features that will provide big improvements to the enjoyment of the game, changes that would make things easier to understand, the game to flow better or the game balance to work better etc. But most of the suggestions we knock back are either things that won't work for techincal reasons, are features we've already considered and decided against, or are good features but would take months or years extra to do (and we've already got a huge project ahead of us)



So yes, there is a point to this section. And while 90% of what suggested isn't going to work well, for reasons that may or may not be obvious from a non-developers point of view, that remaining 10% helps make Automation a much better game.


Hope this answers your question.

[HighOctaneLove]

I genuinely ask, is it even worth anyone posting suggestions?

I ask because every suggestion i've seen suggested, its seems a dev or moderator has had some way to knock the ideas back. I understand some are unrealistic that don't suit the "theme" of the game but some that seem that should be a key componet of the game get knocked back as "that's too hard" or "that will take too long" or "That would only give a small benifit so not really worth the time"

So honestly what is the point of this section?

Just my 2 cents

Better to ask and be knocked back 99 times out of 100 because when you suggest that 100th item and the devs say "that's a great idea, we're going to do that" you'll feel like the king of the world! (plus you may be the only one to think of the idea!)

Just make sure the idea hasn't been thought of and mentioned before, as the re-run of old ideas is up there with kids spamming "are we there yet?" every 5 minutes on the annoyance scale