Let's discuss Learn By Doing for hopefully the last time.

[Charger265]

I would say I still agree with Soulmonster. Your data is suspect and leaning on it doesn't support your observations when applied to all players.

Now what you have there is an opinion. Which is exactly what i said when i started this discussion. Quote: "its only my opinion."
It carries the exact same weight to the opposing argument you are taking. With even less investigation or insight. So are there double standards here? It would appear so.

Your source is AI. What is AI's source?

Or, more to the point, AI cannot instantly run a reliable survey of the all players. It can only work with what is available. In this case...

The source is not AI i outlined the source location used to derive the data set. Not sure how that conclusion was derived?
Yes correct. In an attempt to address that by applying known models taking into account negative vs positive (with negative in a 3:1 ratio) I also removed date ranges to remove the negative hype bomb. Looked at active player count vs unique posts. applied a 500-4000 play hour to remove the top and bottom of the steam reviews. Again if you read what i have posed i have addressed those issues.

... the "community." It isn't clear if that is Steam, Reddit, the Forums, and/or anything else. If it were all of those, that's still not a sample that allows for an accurate determination of everyone. It only describes those who have participated.

That is Soulmonster's point and they're right.

That said, your observations could be accurate when it comes to describing what AI did sample. We don't know. AI isn't great about showing its work, and...

The community is a descriptive word used in the context of anyone who engages with 7DTD in any format I would have thought you could easily conclude that with your profession.
The one thing you are right on is its only who has participated yes we agree did i try to reasonably account for the number of participates vs active players. Yes. Again applying a multiplier to the positive player stats

But crowdsourcing LLMs doesn't add quality. The real data for all players doesn't exist. No LLM can change that.

Soulmonster isn't proposing an alternative interpretation. They're just pointing out the flaw in your statement.

If I were to characterize your results, based on what I think I understand, I would say "Asking multiple AIs to interpret the mood of an unspecified community of 7D2D players on various forums, the AI's interpreted the mood to be..."

And, I would site that the specific messages on those forums and the words chosen to characterize those moods were selected by the algorithms of those AIs and are not available for review.

Correct LLM's dont add quality.
And this is where all have clearly misunderstood the data presented.
The parameters i used was to look specifically for negative connotation related to subjects for the development of the game and its features. Which i did say....
Let me put this in real simply terms.
If you asked a set of students if any one disliked any aspect of school. what percentage would that likely be?
Now i will ask you. Have you ever taken a dis favorable view of any aspect of the game 7DTD?
What would be the logical conclusion?

 

[HammerDano]

It isn't often that you'll find devs responding every time you ask a dev to respond to you in any game. Sometimes they will, but they aren't going to take time to respond every time someone says "I want a dev response." Especially when others have already provided the answers. The moderators generally know the right answers to a lot of topics that people cry for a dev to respond to. It isn't always the case, and they are human just like everyone else (even devs) and can make a mistake or remember something incorrectly. Even a dev could remember the original reasons incorrectly and give a wrong answer. It happens. But in general, you can get valid answers from moderators and others who have been around a long time.

As far as trying to keep track of every post about every change so you can point people to it... who would ever want to do that? You are talking about LBD, but that isn't the only change made to this game. A *lot* of things have changed during development that people complain about. Should someone try to keep track of links to a hundred different topics just to point someone to them if they want to know why something happened? That's kind of crazy. You might only care about LBD, but others care about other things. In order to point people to the topic they care about like you suggest, they'd have to keep track of all potential topics. Before you say just to keep track of certain topics, that helps you but doesn't help people with questions about other topics. Since no one is likely to want to track all topics, there's little reason to track any topics. It's easier to just give the reason and let someone who wants proof to find it themselves.

And as I said, I have no problem with them adding a Community Manager. But if they just give you the same answers that the moderators or other users (or faatal) have given, will you be any more happy? Answers don't change just because a more official person gives the answer. If I ask what kind of fuel is used in a space shuttle and a random person who knows the answer tells it to me, it doesn't change the answer just because the lead person designing the shuttle tells me the same answer even if they are a far more official person. A community manager will also only provide information that the devs choose to make public. You aren't necessarily going to get better communication even with one. You might see the posts that appear on certain social media sites start getting posted everywhere, including here, which would be nice. But you might not get any additional information just because there is a community manager.

wow...I think you are frustrated and missing the overall point.
A community manager is not some super computer. when they see the conversation is getting bogged down, they provide clarity to get traffic moving again.
they can do that by collating the data or getting the source experts to explain it to them, so THEY can put it in a palatable form. HOW it gets said is often a problem. whether it was said with snark or just poorly worded.
maybe the best way I can explain it is: a community manager is also a filter and a problem solver. the problem they care about most? how to smooth things over. (i can hear people bristling over the way I worded that)

yes...they will use the same information...probably reworded
yes, there is a danger that if they are kept in the dark by management they will be not useful. (awful lot of what if's in there and I acknowledge that)

I disagree that the moderators are up to that task. they are not impartial. they are not referees...they are players...and that often leads to stifled conversation. In my opinion, they represent an example where the accumulated years of experience are nullified by personal prejudices.
the same can be said of some of the long time forum posters.

 

[Riamus]

I did state twice that I have no problem with them hiring a community manager. I only pointed out that having one isn't necessarily going to fix the problems you have with communication.

 

[HammerDano]

I did state twice that I have no problem with them hiring a community manager. I only pointed out that having one isn't necessarily going to fix the problems you have with communication.

that was not all that you said, but, that's communication.

 

[Riamus]

that was not all that you said, but, that's communication.

What else did I say about the community manager that wasn't related to having one not necessarily fixing the problems with communication? Maybe you're right, but I think what I said regarding one was specific to reasons why they aren't going to necessarily fix communication.

I did say other things unrelated to the community manager, but what you quoted was about what I said regarding the community manager.

 

[HammerDano]

I understand what it is like to be that hyper vigilant. You're defending on a lot of fronts. I apologize. I wasn't attacking, just pointing out that you've said you have nothing against hiring a community manager then given a laundry list of why you think it isn't necessary or wouldn't work. I should have said it differently...it was meant to be a light hearted jab...not a shot across the bow of your ship.

 

[Charger265]

Regarding the AI discussion, I already posted a LOT of stuff about its flaws and limitations in the other thread, so I won't get into that again. But I'll just remind people that, with enough data points, you can make what is considered a statistically accurate interpretation without interviewing every person. However, we don't have anywhere near enough data for that to be possible in this instance.

After our interaction its clear you are reasonable and take the time to understand the information being posted.
Could you humor me for bit.

Have you ever taken a dis favorable view of any aspect of the game 7DTD?

I already know the answer through our discussions but please humor me.
Based on that answer would it be an accurate conclusion that the majority of the community are dissatisfied about some aspect of the game? Without requiring every player to be polled


I will understand if you dont want to get involved. But...
I think from that point the thread can get back on topic.
It may even be worth putting the other thread to bed too for the sake of the forum. Its getting pretty toxic.

 

[zztong]

Now what you have there is an opinion. Which is exactly what i said when i started this discussion. Quote: "its only my opinion."
It carries the exact same weight to the opposing argument you are taking. With even less investigation or insight. So are there double standards here? It would appear so.

If you're dealing in the realm of opinion, then I have no objection. My perception of the discussion (perhaps a tempest in a tea cup) was the perception that you were applying it as fact across the entire base of players. If I've belabored that too much, I apologize and the rest of the conversation is moot as you are certainly entitled to your opinion no matter what the method you chose.

The source is not AI i outlined the source location used to derive the data set. Not sure how that conclusion was derived?
Yes correct. In an attempt to address that by applying known models taking into account negative vs positive (with negative in a 3:1 ratio) I also removed date ranges to remove the negative hype bomb. Looked at active player count vs unique posts. applied a 500-4000 play hour to remove the top and bottom of the steam reviews. Again if you read what i have posed i have addressed those issues.

What is unclear to me is did you harvest the posts using your criteria to give to AI, or did you have AI harvest the discussions based on the criteria you are describing?

I ask because, as I am not a sociologist, I cannot evaluate the various filters for hype bombs or play hours as to if that makes the sample better. But I can see the AI is a black box doing some unknown processing. If you ask it to gather the data and process it then there are two potential points of failure that cannot be evaluated.

Thus, like my own attempt to look at review data, there are unknowns.

Again, in both your analysis and my analysis, neither can draw a conclusion about the entire population of players because there's no information to let us ensure the sample is representative of the entire population of players.

I don't see a double standard. I see two different black boxes, each with their own potential unknown quirks.

The community is a descriptive word used in the context of anyone who engages with 7DTD in any format I would have thought you could easily conclude that with your profession.

I recognize the term "community" is trying to be descriptive, but its vague definition doesn't give me confidence that any results attributed to it can be applied across all players. In fact, my opinion is that "the community" defined as being those who frequent Reddit, Steam, and these Boards are not representative of all players.

Please enumerate that which represents the community. If you harvested the data, you would know, right? If you had AI harvest the data, then it was part of your instructions, right?

And this is where all have clearly misunderstood the data presented.
The parameters i used was to look specifically for negative connotation related to subjects for the development of the game and its features. Which i did say....

I think your opinion is presented clearly. Again, if there was any disagreement, at least from me, it would be trying to conclude that the opinion you formed using your methods should be applied to all players. It becomes more believable if presented as your informal AI-assisted study of 7D2D forums.

Under that distinction, I have no objections.

If you asked a set of students if any one disliked any aspect of school. what percentage would that likely be?
Now i will ask you. Have you ever taken a dis favorable view of any aspect of the game 7DTD?
What would be the logical conclusion?

100% of the students would have something that they disliked about school. (How does this connect to the conversation?)

Yes, I have died on "I want to carry water away from a water source" hill. I have regretted the change to farming that makes us replant the seeds as being tedious without adding entertainment. I commented that I did not care for suffering from the cold while standing next to a fire under 2.0. But why must I establish a capability for having a view that differs from what the Devs have delivered? It doesn't mean anything towards your claims versus your methods?

I'm lost. I don't understand the "logical conclusion" to be made here.

 

[zztong]

Based on that answer would it be an accurate conclusion that the majority of the community are dissatisfied about some aspect of the game? Without requiring every player to be polled

I know that was asked of Raimus, but it rings similar to what you're asking me.

Correct, you would not necessarily have to poll everyone on these boards to make that conclusion, though Raimus (and I) may not be representative of that sample, so if you wanted it to stand up to any rigor, you would use a larger sample and probably ask more questions so that you could evaluate that sample. (We don't use studies like that in the research that goes on around me, so I'm falling back to my research methods class of many years ago.)

What you couldn't do without a significant chance of error is project the results of a poll of this forum onto every player of 7D2D because it is clear this forum is not representative of the entire population of those who play 7D2D.

 

[zztong]

I've run out of time for today. I'm serious about beers though. If anyone ends up near Athens OH USA, lets get together and talk 7D2D.

 

[theFlu]

Have you ever taken a dis favorable view of any aspect of the game 7DTD?

I already know the answer through our discussions but please humor me.
Based on that answer would it be an accurate conclusion that the majority of the community are dissatisfied about some aspect of the game? Without requiring every player to be polled

As long as the community size is <2, a single answer will represent the majority. So based on that setup, I assume you're looking for a solid "no"?

 

[Riamus]

After our interaction its clear you are reasonable and take the time to understand the information being posted.
Could you humor me for bit.

Have you ever taken a dis favorable view of any aspect of the game 7DTD?

I already know the answer through our discussions but please humor me.
Based on that answer would it be an accurate conclusion that the majority of the community are dissatisfied about some aspect of the game? Without requiring every player to be polled


I will understand if you dont want to get involved. But...
I think from that point the thread can get back on topic.
It may even be worth putting the other thread to bed too for the sake of the forum. Its getting pretty toxic.

This is not really an argument unless you want to make your statement that people don't like the game to become meaningless. But I'll answer anyways....

Yes, there are things I don't like about the game. Does that mean I don't like the game's direction (what I believe was your original wording from the AI)? No. Does that mean I'm dissatisfied with the game? No. It only means that there are things that I don't personally like about it. But as an overall view of the game, I like it.

If you use that as a proof that people are dissatisfied with some aspect of the game, you are correct. But your results become meaningless because that's going to be the case with every single game out there. That's an assumption and there may be some game out there that the majority of people don't have even one problem with, but it's a good assumption, I think. It's hardly an indication that the game should change in any way or that the game isn't good or anything at all, really. If someone thinks the UI is poor and needs to be improved, does that alone mean they are dissatisfied with the game? Or just that they would prefer a better UI? I won't get into a lot of examples, but I think you see what I'm saying. There is a difference between having things you don't like and not being happy with the game.

 

[Charger265]

If you're dealing in the realm of opinion, then I have no objection. My perception of the discussion (perhaps a tempest in a tea cup) was the perception that you were applying it as fact across the entire base of players. If I've belabored that too much, I apologize and the rest of the conversation is moot as you are certainly entitled to your opinion no matter what the method you chose.

At no point did i ever say that. It just happened to be a select few (1 or 2 mods also) who took a dislike to my first post claiming i was excluding excluding them for using the words "Core community" Which i did clarify later that is specifically include them as they are apart of the community.
From that point it was hijacked because i called them out on their poor behavior and was swamped by the mob.
No its all good we got there in the end...

What is unclear to me is did you harvest the posts using your criteria to give to AI, or did you have AI harvest the discussions based on the criteria you are describing?

Used multiple angles. But yes i provided the instruction set to harvest the data then used it again to process the statics. Yup multiple points of failure. Just running it through one model is just asking for trouble running it through all 4 then getting all 4 to review each models data adding the consensus to the databse does a reasonable job eliminating all the major errors. But its never prefect. The key is actually in the instruction sets.

Please enumerate that which represents the community. If you harvested the data, you would know, right? If you had AI harvest the data, then it was part of your instructions, right?

Anyone who interacts with 7DTD

100% of the students would have something that they disliked about school. (How does this connect to the conversation?)

Yes, I have died on "I want to carry water away from a water source" hill. I have regretted the change to farming that makes us replant the seeds as being tedious without adding entertainment. I commented that I did not care for suffering from the cold while standing next to a fire under 2.0. But why must I establish a capability for having a view that differs from what the Devs have delivered? It doesn't mean anything towards your claims versus your methods?

I'm lost. I don't understand the "logical conclusion" to be made here.

So the point of the question was to show that in my statement that the majority are dissatisfied is true and accurate without the need of having every user to vote.
Yes included context to the key topics of discussion eg/ books, RWG, Zombie pathing ect So to be included in the data set it needed to meet multiple criteria. This also shows in the derived conclusions as it references specific topics

In short i was put on trial as the general sentiment was that the vase majority of the player base was happy with the game and i was just another one of those who came here to cry about it and was here to exclude the members who didnt think there was a glaring issue unfolding thats likely going to impact the game moving forward. Its such sheepish mentality unfortunately started by one of the moderators.

I know that was asked of Raimus, but it rings similar to what you're asking me.

Correct, you would not necessarily have to poll everyone on these boards to make that conclusion, though Raimus (and I) may not be representative of that sample, so if you wanted it to stand up to any rigor, you would use a larger sample and probably ask more questions so that you could evaluate that sample. (We don't use studies like that in the research that goes on around me, so I'm falling back to my research methods class of many years ago.)

I see how you have been diplomatic about your answer.. rightfully so.
That is all i was trying to express... And yes a larger sample size was used some 200,000+

I hope you can see now why the argument was invalid as i was clear in the data. Some just refused to read what i wrote. And made assumptions that that i was inferring that majority dislike the game as a whole. not just cretin aspects.

Maybe some will understand others wont...

What you couldn't do without a significant chance of error is project the results of a poll of this forum onto every player of 7D2D because it is clear this forum is not representative of the entire population of those who play 7D2D.

That pretty evident on both fronts... And at no point did i try... It was a general question related to a general answer which a lot of information because i could...

I know this forum was critical of the mob mentality when it came to the backlash but unfortunately they have showed the same behavior.

 

[theFlu]

However statically the majority are unhappy with the game direction.

And made assumptions that that i was inferring that majority dislike the game

 

[Charger265]

This is not really an argument unless you want to make your statement that people don't like the game to become meaningless. But I'll answer anyways....

Yes, there are things I don't like about the game. Does that mean I don't like the game's direction (what I believe was your original wording from the AI)? No. Does that mean I'm dissatisfied with the game? No. It only means that there are things that I don't personally like about it. But as an overall view of the game, I like it.

If you use that as a proof that people are dissatisfied with some aspect of the game, you are correct. But your results become meaningless because that's going to be the case with every single game out there. That's an assumption and there may be some game out there that the majority of people don't have even one problem with, but it's a good assumption, I think. It's hardly an indication that the game should change in any way or that the game isn't good or anything at all, really. If someone thinks the UI is poor and needs to be improved, does that alone mean they are dissatisfied with the game? Or just that they would prefer a better UI? I won't get into a lot of examples, but I think you see what I'm saying. There is a difference between having things you don't like and not being happy with the game.

There are Three things going on here...
1/ My original post - About game direction "Core community" Issue
2/ The AI model that was looking to gauge what aspects of the game people were unhappy about the time line and would it recover. (guessing something has happened before as i have had references to others using AI before me which was frowned upon)

The original post was in the one i started "Time to reflect" and the AI post was to the sentiment that there were no issues with the game everything is just fine and dandy and my view was only of a small minority who was here to whine.

3/The post you are referring to is from this: "However statically the majority are unhappy with the game direction"

C

Post in thread 'Let's discuss Learn By Doing for hopefully the last time.'

Saturday at 12:14 AM

I can respect that view and still have a differing option. TBO it would be awesome if we all felt that way about the current play style then we would not be having this discussion about game direction. However statically the majority are unhappy with the game direction.
A lot of people talk about just mod it out or play a overhaul mod. Thats great we have the option and modders to make that happen. However at this time its only for PC.

Personally im tired of having to mod my group servers all the time to address the current outstanding issues most of the players have. Its time consuming...

• Charger265

On the basis of the simple question to you if asking the community that specific question "Are you unhappy with the game " I believe with the data base set collected i could make a fairly certain assumption with AI its accurate saying the majority are unhappy.

By looking at your answer at some point you were unhappy with the game. Yes very small sample size. But... These are very general questions that relate to some dislike about the game as a whole. If modifying that to a slightly less general question like game direction statically based on the wording of the question its accurate to a lesser degree. Maybe "marginal majority" as pointed out by your answer of no.

At this point i just played along.

 

[Riamus]

On the basis of the simple question to you if asking the community that specific question "Are you unhappy with the game "

But that wasn't what you asked me. You asked me if I ever have taken a disfavorable [sic] view of any aspect of the game 7DTD. That's a different thing than asking if I was unhappy with the game.

To be clear, I am not unhappy with the game and have never been unhappy with the game. And I am certain a lot of people would agree with me about that. They may have things they don't like about the game (your original question, which also asked if it's ever been the case, which includes things that were already resolved), but they are not unhappy with the game.

You seem to have an understanding of AI, but some of the way you word and reword things in your posts makes me question if you really understand the right way to ask a question (form a prompt). Your prompt to me there wasn't the same as your reworded prompt, for example. I don't say that to criticize you, but to help you see that maybe there's an issue with how you're wording things or how you are interpreting the answers to your questions (prompts). If not in AI, then at least in your posts.

 

[Charger265]

But that wasn't what you asked me. You asked me if I ever have taken a disfavorable [sic] view of any aspect of the game 7DTD. That's a different thing than asking if I was unhappy with the game.

Yes. What i was doing was drawing a distinction between two differently worded questions that are very similar but have the same broad connotation. This would yield a similar majority but closer to a 50/50 split. vs the vastly broad wording any "any aspect" which would be a much higher percentage agreeing.
This is showing an example to the reasonable conclusion for the opinion "However statically the majority are unhappy with the game direction" is factually correct.
Granted the members on this forum do have polarizing views and are surprisingly combative when presented with any opposing stance. So in the limited aspect from within this forum the opinion "However statically the majority are unhappy with the game direction" would be incorrect.
But as you pointed out its a very small subset. And with the limited external knowledge of broader opinions (or dismissing those opinions) a conclusion was made without understanding the question and its wording or the statistical probability.

You seem to have an understanding of AI, but some of the way you word and reword things in your posts makes me question if you really understand the right way to ask a question (form a prompt). Your prompt to me there wasn't the same as your reworded prompt, for example. I don't say that to criticize you, but to help you see that maybe there's an issue with how you're wording things or how you are interpreting the answers to your questions (prompts). If not in AI, then at least in your posts.

Thats done strategically. It requires thought and subject knowledge. Its a very good way to gauge intelligence. Which is why i have been able to find common ground with you.
I believe you do deserve an explanation when it comes to why i would be so vague with the AI prompts. Im funding a project with a small team which provides a service for an integrated AI driven SEO and Adwords manager. Which is why it was so easy to just spin up another instance and spit out the report. The task agents actually do most of the work. When your selling a service into that competitive market it needs to be accurate.

 

[Archael]

To Clarify and I apologize for this but I feel the Learn by Doing is the chore list type progression. I have played many games like this and they always end in a terrible meta. No, you have to smelt 13k silver ingots because you get 32.73478 exp per ingot instead of silver bars which gives you 31.2732 exp per bar. It turns harvesting into a chore.

It is the Runescape method where you hear about people spending whole days just chopping wood to get their levels up. Logging into go what chore do I need to level up today.

What if You don't?
Why you (not specifically you, but all who dislike LBD) cannot see bigger picture? You sticked to one specific implementation of this system and claim it's only one existing, and this is bad.
I agree that LBD was implemented into the game poorly (to say the least), tho I still think it's better than magazines, but it doesn't mean it can't be good.
What if you don't need to do chore, but just play the game the way you want?
You want to use rifles then go, and use rifles, nothing simpler than that. Action skills, but it can also be not the case, instead of exp in proficiency you get more general exp and lvl up skill you want (rifles in this regard... So nothing change, except that in action skill wersion you can lvl up skills faster, if done right).
What about crafting. The same thing. You just use items and learn how to craft new ones.
Action skills could be tied only to battle items - weapons, living armors and tools somewhere else.
This would allow for all gameplay styles, not only questing, at the same time do not cripple questing, you would still be able to find items you want to use, without need for crafting them, and your weapon skills would lvl up either way.

How this is worse than magazines? How action skills for weapons are worse than using skill points from lvling up?

You guys always use chore argument, from the worst possible implementation of LBD without even considering the topic. Shame you don't want to find good solution, you want to stick to poor one that feels better (for you) than other poor one, with no consideration what that even mean from gameplay perspective.

 

[Riamus]

You want to use rifles then go, and use rifles, nothing simpler than that. Action skills, but it can also be not the case, instead of exp in proficiency you get more general exp and lvl up skill you want (rifles in this regard... So nothing change, except that in action skill wersion you can lvl up skills faster, if done right).

I'm not sure that I'm understanding you correctly because it sounds like no change from what we already have now with perks. You get general experience and level up the skill you want. How is what you're saying different?

Or are you saying that weapon skills should not change and crafting skills should be tied to doing the same thing over and over (crafting 100 stone axes)? That is what people don't like. Using items to learn to make new ones means you are crafting a ton of something to learn to make something else. That's what a lot of us hate about LBD. For those of us who are open to a possible hybrid option, it is the opposite... NO LBD for crafting at all. LBD only for weapon skills. Then you don't have to craft a lot of something to get better. As far as weapons, I've mentioned in the past that LBD for them would be okay only if you had to kill things to improve them and you can't just swing a weapon to improve it. That way you can't really cheese it. And other skills like parkour should NOT be tied to LBD. You shouldn't have to jump a hundred times to improve parkour.

Btw, questing has nothing to do with the discussion. You might get magazine bundles from questing, but with the time required to complete quests, that's a very inefficient way to get magazines. If you're trying to get magazines and aren't willing to find them as you go, you should just go around looting mailboxes and newsstands and book stores. Quests are mostly irrelevant to the discussion of LBD.

 

[Old Crow]

I've been thinking about this since I saw someone else elsewhere mention it - what about Learn by Using? Maybe combined with a magazine system, it could potentially be fun? Learn By Doing (aka crafting tons of stone axes) doesn't sound all that fun, and for me personally, relying solely on looting magazines isn't fun, either. I don't know anyone who does like hunting magazines, and I'm not sure why the Pimps thought it'd be fun either.