How to give useful suggestions

[SphaZ]

Hi,

Because I had some questions about how suggestions are most useful for us. I figured I should clear it up a little.

Obviously, first try the search box on the top right. A lot of things have been suggested already, in one form or another. If your idea is dramatically new or different, feel free to post about it. If it only differs on details, please trust us to make it work in game the way we think it should, you can post it still, but try keep it brief (like "xxx has been suggested and I think its a great idea! ").

About posting itself, to give you an idea, a small paragraph like this:

-Hi I really always seem to have trouble with finding iron for making a stove, limiting my food so much I always hungerlock once I reach 15+ citizens. Can we have a fire or something to at least replace a stove while we look for iron? It can be temporary or need lots of materials that are in game but easy to find, or make it very slow to prepare food, or something.

Gives me a good idea, without me having to analyze how to implement this in the current game mechanics that would require a full rewrite of how some things are done. Not to mention all of us are crazy busy and don't really always have the time to read a wall of text with well thought out ideas into incredible detail.

They are both (short and well-thought-out) appreciated, I am just saying that a small paragraph has a higher chance of being taken along due to that you give us an idea without us having to spend 10 minutes reading about the details that generally might not be possible due to how the game mechanics/engine works now.

I hope that clears it up a little.

[alexpoysky]

Having said this, we also must state that we aren't mean people, we are all quite affable.. when we take our medication!

[Risible]

Having said this, we also must state that we aren't mean people, we are all quite affable.. when we take our medication!

Pill Poppin' Poysky, that's what I'm going to call you from now on.

[Kleko]

You should add a line or two on how to reply to suggestions. I'm sick and tired of people saying just no instead of explaining why a suggestion would not work. Learning the basic forum-user about "no, but" and about "yes and" could increase the ideaflow.

[OsculatePlunger]

When giving suggestions the more detailed the better, you would not want to be asked 20 question in real life.

[tom k.]

When giving suggestions the more detailed the better, you would not want to be asked 20 question in real life.

Yes and no. Sometimes it's good to get detail, but sometimes people just write TOO much

Some things can be explained in a short paragraph and people write 10, without necessarily adding to their initial suggestion.

[sheldonh]

The advice on giving suggestions requests that we try to avoid requesting features someone else has already asked for. Unfortunately, the suggestions forum contains over a thousand posts, and some searches can yield a lot of false positives.

My suggestion is to set up a bug tracker and allow feature requests to be tracked in it. As a bonus, some bug trackers allow voting. This would give you a very clear view into the most popular feature requests.

[Champloo13]

Why not organize all these suggestions into one sticky, I don't mean all of it, but a short description and a link to the appropriate topic for more in-detail discussion, while grouping/arranging suggestions into a separate topics.

Furthermore, if ofc. devs wish so they can come on that topic and request brainstorming of a certain game mechanic/idea or what not.

This way I think suggestion forum in a more organized manner might even proof useful, especially if bulk of this work can be delegated to trusted forum admins or be handled by a say dedicated group of "forumians" who might produce a better already discussed and thought out ideas/game mechanichs, etc, presented to devs, rather than having devs go through all of it raw.

[gendalf]

i hate when people write huge wall of text when it could be shortened into ~4 lines, it can always be seen in movie/game reviews