Staff Feedback Thread

[Devil's Weapon]

I have no real opinion of lemon or the 1st. I'm only writing here to note that his post from 17 hours ago is buried two forum pages ago, and all these negative comments about one side or another from everyone else jumping onto one of two bandwagons doesn't look good (this IS a staff feedback thread right?). Isn't this where we have some green or orange words saying "let's all take a break"?

[Nodoka Hanamura]

We've probably invested more time into new players over our existence than anyone else besides DTR - I hope you realize that you represent the mod publicly, to go insulting factions comprised of fun players and beginners like that is just not right.

If you're going to recruit towards newcomers, you *have* to teach them the ropes, make them familiar with the inRP laws, the standards of the faction, what they are expected to do and not to do.

All of my engagements with 1st, and this is not an attack on the individual players, make no mistake about it, have been very poor RP wise, and their combat isn't much better, though one or two (like Warhog) have been showing some improvement. That being said, like Haste said, as a faction leader, official or otherwise, you are supposed to set an example. It's just that as an OF, your benefits of such are reliant on maintaining that example. Auxesia, TFP, IMG, all of these factions I have been in, set a decent standard for roleplay. Basic grammar, a decent understanding of the lore (You don't need to know *everything*, but at least being familiar with the vanilla game, completing the campaign usually, is best, and is what I'd recommend any newcomer do if they haven't done so already.) is essential.

And as for the people saying this is why people are leaving Disco - I have no problem with 1st as a faction - and for once, I am being considerate by not using the moniker Onest in this matter. I have a problem with its' operation. I have a problem with its' leader and how he behaves both within 1st and outside of it, especially given the controversial matters relating to Gallia. *

You want people to stop ridiculing 1st? Nut up and fly right. Buckle down, teach your members, and exercise some goddamn standards. Nothing is stopping you from having fun by doing so. I wouldn't tolerate people ganking pilots while flying for MIRAI Group in our Elite Dangerous days - and I wouldn't tolerate Ouroboros (Hypothetically) pilots here in Disco breaking NLR or not issuing proper attack declarations - and I'm certain every OF and most UFs, even some that I greatly dislike OORPly, would concur. And no - giving your members a cruiser, patting them on the back, giving them the bare minimum training, and what not, is not it. There is a very good reason why Auxesia and other factions restrict new members to lower ranks that only allow at best, Gunboats.

* Addendum: I left Discovery 6 years ago, originally because of ooRP toxicity, stemming from people and factions that are now either dormant, have changed their ways, or are banned. You want to see why people are leaving disco and why newbies don't come here? Shit like that is why. Not this. This is setting a low bar to aim for, and as expected, being treated as is deserved for such lackluster effort.

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[vladimir26]

I don't know what makes y'all think that every new player out there is up to learn and aims high. While Lemon isn't flawless by any means, just be aware that at the end of the day it's not the faction's leader fault that new guys won't evolve. I'm certain that in almost each faction out there any newcomer has plenty of tools to develop himself, but at the end of the day it's up to him. You can give him as much info and help as possible, but you can't give him the willingness.

If some of you are really that upset on Lemon's methods, why don't you start and invest time and effort in newcomers? Show them the proper way. Until that happens, Lemon, in his imperfect approach, does something, while you only complain without doing much. And if you are actually doing something in this regard, the results ain't that visible. Give it a try, and you'll see it's not as easy as bashing and blaming Lemon.

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[Lord Caedus]

If some of you are really that upset on Lemon's methods, why don't you start and invest time and effort in newcomers? Show them the proper way. Until that happens, Lemon, in his imperfect approach, does something, while you only complain without doing much. And if you are actually doing something in this regard, the results ain't that visible. Give it a try, and you'll see it's not as easy as bashing and blaming Lemon.

It's a lot more difficult to notice when new players are actually guided and helped to play better, because when they do improve it becomes less obvious because peopel don't really notice someone when they roleplay well or don't break the rules.

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[Czechmate]

I have no real opinion of lemon or the 1st. I'm only writing here to note that his post from 17 hours ago is buried two forum pages ago, and all these negative comments about one side or another from everyone else jumping onto one of two bandwagons doesn't look good (this IS a staff feedback thread right?). Isn't this where we have some green or orange words saying "let's all take a break"?

Yeah this should be about staff changing their approach towards communicating, not just the one example. Especially when "don't be a dick" is the new go to when it comes to sanctions etc.

[firesilver]

Might be my first time posting here, not sure. Something has been bothering me and I wanted to share it here.

Firstly, I do want to send my thanks and appreciation to the current Administration team. They have their hands full handling a lot of our bullshit (excuse my french). As a former Admin myself, I realize it does take time and effort, especially so when it's a volunteer job.

The part that bothers me a bit, is that there seems to be less communication regarding the outcomes of player requests. Providing outcomes is something I made an explicit mention of in my own Admin application, and I prided myself in sending those out when I wrapped up a request.

Recently, I have send in a handful of requests, ranging from cargo loss recovery to Official Faction Perks. I can recall only one of those getting a reply recently. (Thanks @Tunicle). With the rest of them having to ping after the fact and getting a reply saying it was done like 2 weeks prior. Getting no reply when it was processed is frustrating to say the least.

Please do send a basic PM to the user stating what the outcome is. I even setup a template on the Administrator's subforum for this exact reason. Didn't broadcast it at the time because I didn't want to change how the other Admins communicated with the playerbase. Same with the Guides I published there, meant to help but not necessarily mandatory to have.

Starting to think that getting the Admin team familiar with the template I made is a good idea. Perhaps not that far, but as least communicate to us when there's been a significant development or outcome to any requests sent in.

That's it. Mostly on the communication side. The work itself I have no issue with, to be clear. I would, as many others would, like a reply or confirmation that X, Y, Z has been acknowledged and processed.

Hey Kusari, I wanted to address this as this feedback certainly didn't go unnoticed.

We discussed this internally and agreed that requests should always result in a notification to the person requesting it, whether it was a successful request or not. This is our usual policy and everyone was under the impression we were already doing this for all requests, but there may have been a few over the summer period that were actioned but not followed up with the end user.

This is not the norm and I can only really apologize for the lack of follow up you and some others may not have had, I expect that after our discussion and it's back at the forefront of people's minds that it will be less likely to happen again in future. I appreciate you taking the time to write this up and raise it as it was important for us to address this.

As always, if you ever feel like you have not heard any updates on a request for a while, please do feel free to reach out to a member of the staff team either by forum PM or Discord and we'll go look up the status of it there and then and give you an update so you know how things are progressing.

[firesilver]

I have no real opinion of lemon or the 1st. I'm only writing here to note that his post from 17 hours ago is buried two forum pages ago, and all these negative comments about one side or another from everyone else jumping onto one of two bandwagons doesn't look good (this IS a staff feedback thread right?). Isn't this where we have some green or orange words saying "let's all take a break"?

Yeah this should be about staff changing their approach towards communicating, not just the one example. Especially when "don't be a dick" is the new go to when it comes to sanctions etc.

To begin with, I am always open to improving the staff team however possible, so any suggestions are always welcome. "Communication" is quite a broad word and covers a lot so any specifics would be helpful. In general, I do think Staff/Player communication has room for improvement, however I also understand that in some cases it can be a double edged sword where our input (or restricting other's input) can lead to more problems. As a team our words can be taken as gospel and this can lead to misunderstandings or players feeling like one member's opinion reflects the entire team's perspective when that is not the case.

Speaking specifically to the "Don't be a dick" rule - I'll be the first to admit that I questioned this rule several times as I was not personally a fan of it, and feel like it is too broad of a rule to have which can lead to the sentiment you are feeling now, as in it becoming a "catch all rule" that people may feel is just used as an excuse to punish those who haven't broke a more specific rule that might be more understandable.

In general, after discussing it with various people on the team, it is somewhat of a neccessary evil to have due to the reduced ruleset that was part of the rule changes quite a while ago now. There are instances where players might be causing harm to the server or playerbase (in various ways) that might not fit under a specific ingame rule, and occasionally these might get so egregious that we are forced to take action. These are more rare than usual sanctions given out for ingame rule violations (as they should be) and normally any player sanctioned under this rule means that it has been discussed at length by staff and that it was deemed the most appropriate solution based on the evidence that we reviewed.

The last part of this I want to raise is that the sanctions process is one that I have vehemently tried to review and improve to ensure that we have a streamlined process that treats all players fairly and equally. Every VR that is raised is reviewed on a case by case basis, and goes through a discussion phase all members of the Moderator/Staff team to review the situation and evidence presented, then a vote is held which ultimately decides how the team as a whole feels is best to proceed.

[sindroms]

Go ingame and interact with one another.

Giving discovery members a place to communicate outside the RP environment and sacrificing the fourth wall and the anonymity of RP characters as buffer between the player, is a mistake not only Disco has made, but a mistake all the same. Discovery due to its long standing existence and hardcore playerbase suffers from OORP interaction in general.

Your Disco experience will improve a decent amount the moment you remove the forums, discord and skype from the formula. Try it. I can personally attest that it is working very well.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Chuba]

Your Disco experience will improve a decent amount the moment you remove the forums, discord and skype from the formula. Try it. I can personally attest that it is working very well.

this is the only post in this thread worth anything at all

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[Czechmate]

I have no real opinion of lemon or the 1st. I'm only writing here to note that his post from 17 hours ago is buried two forum pages ago, and all these negative comments about one side or another from everyone else jumping onto one of two bandwagons doesn't look good (this IS a staff feedback thread right?). Isn't this where we have some green or orange words saying "let's all take a break"?

Yeah this should be about staff changing their approach towards communicating, not just the one example. Especially when "don't be a dick" is the new go to when it comes to sanctions etc.

To begin with, I am always open to improving the staff team however possible, so any suggestions are always welcome. "Communication" is quite a broad word and covers a lot so any specifics would be helpful. In general, I do think Staff/Player communication has room for improvement, however I also understand that in some cases it can be a double edged sword where our input (or restricting other's input) can lead to more problems. As a team our words can be taken as gospel and this can lead to misunderstandings or players feeling like one member's opinion reflects the entire team's perspective when that is not the case.

Speaking specifically to the "Don't be a dick" rule - I'll be the first to admit that I questioned this rule several times as I was not personally a fan of it, and feel like it is too broad of a rule to have which can lead to the sentiment you are feeling now, as in it becoming a "catch all rule" that people may feel is just used as an excuse to punish those who haven't broke a more specific rule that might be more understandable.

In general, after discussing it with various people on the team, it is somewhat of a neccessary evil to have due to the reduced ruleset that was part of the rule changes quite a while ago now. There are instances where players might be causing harm to the server or playerbase (in various ways) that might not fit under a specific ingame rule, and occasionally these might get so egregious that we are forced to take action. These are more rare than usual sanctions given out for ingame rule violations (as they should be) and normally any player sanctioned under this rule means that it has been discussed at length by staff and that it was deemed the most appropriate solution based on the evidence that we reviewed.

The last part of this I want to raise is that the sanctions process is one that I have vehemently tried to review and improve to ensure that we have a streamlined process that treats all players fairly and equally. Every VR that is raised is reviewed on a case by case basis, and goes through a discussion phase all members of the Moderator/Staff team to review the situation and evidence presented, then a vote is held which ultimately decides how the team as a whole feels is best to proceed.

Yeah the system is subject to error if you have enough staff members that can't keep their distance. But I think especially when you have this more subjective system in when sanctioning people then people like Devs, Admins and Mods should try to "not be a dick" themselves, stay neutral when they are acting on official discord etc. That's what I mean by communicating better - hope that makes sense