A lot of players give feedback about Destiny 2 online.  Much of that feedback is awful and not constructive.  Constructive feedback has to start with a recognition of some basic truths:  

  1. Bungie knows a lot more about what is going on in the game than any individual player, no matter how much that player plays.  
  2. Bungie also knows how the game is constructed and how its various parts fit together, and the technological and practical limitations on changes far better than any player.
  3. Bungie’s incentives are to make as much money as possible consistent with its ethical vision (e.g., even if it would be more lucrative — which it wouldn’t — Bungie isn’t going to promote racism or sexism in Destiny).
  4. What an individual player can offer that is new is their experience and feelings about features in the game.

When I am giving feedback, I try to focus on communicating information that Bungie could not get by simply analyzing my game play.  The folks at Bungie know how much time I’ve spent in any activity, for all time.  They know how many times I’ve abandoned an activity.  They know what weapons I use and how often I change them.  And much more.  They know these things about all of us.

What Bungie does not know is *why* I make the choices I do — in other words, how I feel when playing and how those feelings drive the actions they know I’ve taken.

When I’m giving feedback, I try to keep that in mind and be focused on what Bungie doesn’t know rather than my own (relatively uninformed) opinions about things they do know.

How does this affect what I say?  One example is my views on PvP matchmaking.  I believe that matchmaking affects the PvP population, and in general I prefer skill-based matchmaking.  But you will not see me tell Bungie:  “Put in SBMM because SBMM will increase population,”  even though I personally believe that all things being equal SBMM is better for a playerbase than random matchmaking.  Why?  Because it is quite obvious to me that all things are not equal.  Bungie has chosen to have connection-based matchmaking in its casual playlists and so Bungie has obviously concluded that for Destiny 2, at this point in time, CBMM is better for population (see truth 3, above).  And Bungie has far, far more information than I do about that.

A related but separate issue is how to get feedback heard by Bungie.  Bungie very publicly listens to and takes feedback from content creators, and gives very little indication that they take feedback from ordinary players.  But people who know the company better than I do assure me that they do, through various mechanisms.  Part of the reason I started this blog is to scratch my itch to give feedback and have it heard, and while I can’t control the latter at least now I have an outlet for the former.  Expect a feedback post on Crucible soon.