Major Update Speculation V35 - A Distinctive Lack of Communication - Games

[QUOTE=geel9;51252064] Yeah, things tend to work that way for businesses. It was also a great idea for modders. Things can be mutually beneficial.[/QUOTE] Not when an average Joe could upload any mod, claim as their own, and monetize it. Valve wasn't going to waste time to verify creators.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51252070]Are you seriously comparing my frustration with the way TF2 and other valve IPs have been handled to a tweet about gay ponies? I'm not attacking them personally, I'm attacking their actions, the things they do. And the things they do are very questionable. Every time someone says "give valve more time" "they'll be better next time" "getting mad never solved anything (except literally every major faux pas has been fixed by a riotous frenzy" I am reminded of that little cartoon of that dog sitting in a burning house and while every thing goes to cinders he convinces himself that everything is fine.[/QUOTE] I'm not even telling you that Valve will improve or that you need to give them more time. Hell, maybe they won't improve at all to your standards. It's entirely possible. My entire issue is simply the fact that everyone would rather just scream "IT'S BROKEN IT'S FUCKED" over and over as opposed to... I don't know, enjoying your damn lives? Adding another voice to the pile of people screaming the same thing doesn't really do anything. This entire community is just so incredibly, frustratingly negative that I'm surprised the few people working on TF2 are still fucking willing to work on it. [editline]24th October 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=vevota;51252076]Not when an average Joe could upload any mod, claim as their own, and monetize it. Valve wasn't going to waste time to verify creators.[/QUOTE] That's an issue with the implementation, not the actual concept of paid mods themselves.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51252070]Are you seriously comparing my frustration with the way TF2 and other valve IPs have been handled to a tweet about gay ponies? I'm not attacking them personally, I'm attacking their actions, the things they do. And the things they do are very questionable. Every time someone says "give valve more time" "they'll be better next time" "getting mad never solved anything (except literally every major faux pas has been fixed by a riotous frenzy" I am reminded of that little cartoon of that dog sitting in a burning house and while every thing goes to cinders he convinces himself that everything is fine.[/QUOTE] I don't mean for this to sound condescending or anything of the sort, but have you ever expressed your views and thoughts for potential changes in an email to Valve? Have you ever gone the route of getting in touch with them and addressing issues that way rather than taking the public outrage route? Have you ever tried things other than the way you are now?

[QUOTE=geel9;51252081]I don't know, enjoying your damn lives? [/QUOTE] Because video games aren't a way to enjoy one's life I suppose. [QUOTE=Void Skull;51252089]I don't mean for this to sound condescending or anything of the sort, but have you ever expressed your views and thoughts for potential changes in an email to Valve? Have you ever gone the route of getting in touch with them and addressing issues that way rather than taking the public outrage route? Have you ever tried things other than the way you are now?[/QUOTE] I indeed have sent countless emails, bug reports, links to discussions on balancing, forum posts on how to improve optimization, actual paper letters written in pen, all with the best intentions. I never attacked, insulted, maligned, cursed, or in any other way wrote to them in a malevolent form, always courteous and constructive. And yet, nothing.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51252090]Because video games aren't a way to enjoy one's life I suppose.[/QUOTE] You're not playing video games, you're getting angry and worked up over them. Even if the update is shit and the game is unplayable (it's not; you can still play the game as it was before the Halloween event even started), getting angry does nothing for you but cause you misery. It's not a very wise move.

[QUOTE=Contra132;51252069]The issue with paid mods wasn't so much the idea of paying mod creators, it was introducing a paid mod ecosystem to a pre-existing, thriving, free mod community. Additionally, the revenue shares gave Valve and Bethesda far too much, leaving the creators with a miniscule percentage of their sales.[/QUOTE] Not disagreeing on the paid mods being a bad idea (dont know enough either way to have a strong opinion) but the 30% cut to mod creators thing was if anything generous.

[QUOTE=Void Skull;51252032]But you must take a step back and see things from other perspectives. While Valve hasn't redeemed themselves entirely, they have redeemed themselves in part, over time. TF2 has always been Valve's testbed, and while having a beta branch kept up to date would be better, it's going to stay the testbed it is unless changes are made to its structure. Don't like how something is handled? Make it known, contact them, and construct your thoughts in a constructive manner. Bring up discussions on how to fix those things rather than dwelling on since-fixed mistakes of the past. A mistake doesn't set one's future in stone, and things can be changed for the better, but you must make an active effort to change it for the better yourself in a patient, constructive manner. Valve has seen some pretty bad shit over time simply because of the nature of the internet. It's full of terrible people and they can all readily send hate and outrage to Valve and the TF2 Team at any given chance. Despite maintaining a calm chain of tweets on Twitter earlier today, someone responded to another community contributor by saying Valve "deserved the hate they get" because "the main developer of TF2 is a tr*nny ponyf*g." Choosing to censor just because I don't feel like typing those hateful words out in full. And that's just one example of the kind of stuff that can be sent to Valve at any point and seen by real people that work on this game. Take a step back and realize that while they're a dominant developer in the industry, they are still people. As said earlier, you can attract more flies with honey. Take it all into consideration, understand what must go into all that needs implementation, and work on it constructively to see positive changes to the game and the community.[/QUOTE] You can attract flies with shit too mate. I personally like no flies around my game. Anyway, the whole "VALVE ARE THE PERSON RESPECT THE VALVE" type of argument is actually getting annoying. It's like the go-to argument for people who defend this lazy behavior from the devs. -Bad update? [B]VALVE IS LEARNING GUYS [/B] -Bad rebalances? [B]WE JUST NEED TO BE PATIENT GUYS[/B] -(lack of) Changes? [B]VALVE STILL LOVES US GUYS [/B] The only way the 5 people + plant on the tf2 team seem to actually learn anything is by basically yelling into the darkness, and even that is seeming to be failing. I mean look at the competitive changes for fucks sake. Who at Valve thought that ctf needed ANOTHER chance? No one liked it when it was in the beta! But because "tf2 is valve's testbed", we have to stand by and see the reaction to this (AGAIN). It's like we're stuck with the guy from momento, except instead of a dead wife, it's another survey or map test. We've heard it all before. I am sick and tired of taking steps back because Valve wants to be like that. I want to take steps forward.

[QUOTE=Ona;51251746]I honestly don't know what it would take to make Valve start giving half a shit about TF2 again, short of physically shaking them by the shoulders and screaming [B][I]"You are letting one of the most popular and lucrative game titles rot!!!"[/I][/B] at them point blank through five stacked megaphones.[/QUOTE] my problem with valve is that i feel like this wouldn't even work

HEY GUYS WHAT KIND OF STUFF DO YOU THINK WILL BE IN THE PYRO UPDATE MAYBE THERE'LL BE A NEW SHOTGUN THAT COULD BE COOL

[QUOTE=geel9;51252093] It's not a very wise move.[/QUOTE] You'd be upset too if someone shit on your favorite thing at every opportunity.

[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;51252108]HEY GUYS WHAT KIND OF STUFF DO YOU THINK WILL BE IN THE PYRO UPDATE MAYBE THERE'LL BE A NEW SHOTGUN THAT COULD BE COOL[/QUOTE] 10 keys says it's gonna be another Flaregun.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51252111]You'd be upset too if someone shit on your favorite thing at every opportunity.[/QUOTE] TF2 is one of my favorite things in the world. Maybe I just don't view valve not giving me exactly what I want as "shitting all over it"

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51252090]Because video games aren't a way to enjoy one's life I suppose. I indeed have sent countless emails, bug reports, links to discussions on balancing, forum posts on how to improve optimization, actual paper letters written in pen, all with the best intentions. I never attacked, insulted, maligned, cursed, or in any other way wrote to them in a malevolent form, always courteous and constructive. And yet, nothing.[/QUOTE] If your emails are so contrasting from what you've been posting here, perhaps if you'd change your public attitude towards them to better reflect the one you've sent them in emails, you can have more of a positive impact on the community and its voice to Valve. If you're going to be two-faced about how you handle your criticisms of Valve, it'll come through no matter what. Essentially, rather than expressing such outrage in public like you have tonight, express the side you've used to talk to Valve about these issues, and things can be handled in a much better way. Rather than invoking more outrage, invoke a wave of constructive criticism in a positive manner. Criticism can be harsh, Valve can take it, but it must be constructive. I haven't seen any constructive criticism from you yet tonight, or at least, not much of it, but I'd like to.

[QUOTE=geel9;51252122]TF2 is one of my favorite things in the world. Maybe I just don't view valve not giving me exactly what I want as "shitting all over it"[/QUOTE] Sorry for expecting that heavy wouldn't get nerfed every update, I guess that expectation is just way too high for Valve. Daily reminder: they nerf the [B][I]BUFFALO STEAK SANDVICH[/I][/B] Explain to me how anyone can look at that and think "there are rational people balancing this game" Go ahead, explain, I triple dog dare you, you mop headed merchant [QUOTE=Void Skull;51252130]If your emails are so contrasting from what you've been posting here, perhaps if you'd change your public attitude towards them to better reflect the one you've sent them in emails, you can have more of a positive impact on the community and its voice to Valve. If you're going to be two-faced about how you handle your criticisms of Valve, it'll come through no matter what. Essentially, rather than expressing such outrage in public like you have tonight, express the side you've used to talk to Valve about these issues, and things can be handled in a much better way. Rather than invoking more outrage, invoke a wave of constructive criticism in a positive manner. Criticism can be harsh, Valve can take it, but it must be constructive. I haven't seen any constructive criticism from you yet tonight, or at least, not much of it, but I'd like to.[/QUOTE] I'm getting rather tired of your "one kind voice in the darkness will fix everything" nonsense. I have provided you accounts of times where loud backlash solved a major issue or mistake. Can you provide instances where this speak softly approach has affected major change within valve and caused them to revert a large mistake or other faux pas quickly?

[QUOTE=sky_216;51252095]Not disagreeing on the paid mods being a bad idea (dont know enough either way to have a strong opinion) but the 30% cut to mod creators thing was if anything generous.[/QUOTE] Not really? They were doing most of the work and adding value to the game. As creators of that value, they deserved the largest cut. Bethesda did all of jack shit, but Valve at least provided hosting.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51252137]Sorry for expecting that heavy wouldn't get nerfed every update, I guess that expectation is just way too high for Valve. Daily reminder: they nerf the [B][I]BUFFALO STEAK SANDVICH[/I][/B] Explain to me how anyone can look at that and think "there are rational people balancing this game" Go ahead, explain, I triple dog dare you, you mop headed merchant[/QUOTE] Man, you are not a very inviting person in the slightest. You're an incredibly toxic person to talk to. [editline]24th October 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Contra132;51252138]Not really? They were doing most of the work and adding value to the game. As creators of that value, they deserved the largest cut. Bethesda did all of jack shit, but Valve at least provided hosting.[/QUOTE] Bethesda made the game to which the modders can add value. They're absolutely entitled to a cut of the profit.

[QUOTE=Void Skull;51252130]If your emails are so contrasting from what you've been posting here, perhaps if you'd change your public attitude towards them to better reflect the one you've sent them in emails, you can have more of a positive impact on the community and its voice to Valve. If you're going to be two-faced about how you handle your criticisms of Valve, it'll come through no matter what. Essentially, rather than expressing such outrage in public like you have tonight, express the side you've used to talk to Valve about these issues, and things can be handled in a much better way. Rather than invoking more outrage, invoke a wave of constructive criticism in a positive manner. Criticism can be harsh, Valve can take it, but it must be constructive. I haven't seen any constructive criticism from you yet tonight, or at least, not much of it, but I'd like to.[/QUOTE] How the fuck do you constructively criticize a plant with the communications skills of a brick

[QUOTE=Void Skull;51251665]Trust me, I do understand. The update left a lot to be desired. I haven't been defending Valve on everything they do, but I can see how one could see my position in the community and misinterpret my own thoughts on the way things are going. A lot has been left behind or set on the backburner in exchange for other implementations. I very much so acknowledge the strange "disaster" as you said of the last update, but I'd much rather focus on getting in touch with Valve to put things in place to not have it happen again. Despite making mistakes, Valve can learn from them, it just... takes some time, sometimes. Maybe a bit more time than it should, but things can be changed for the better, if taken on from a positively constructive stance. While hostility and frustration can get your points across, it can sometimes lead to expressing potential changes that would only affect things in the moment, rather than taking a step back to analyze things and see them for what they truly are and develop fixes and changes from there.[/QUOTE] Are you sure they're capable of learning from gaffes? Because from my perspective, they've been handling this game and its community in the same manner for years. They're a cabal of developers ([I]cabal[/I] is a key word, because [I]team[/I] is a misnomer) that recuse themselves from interacting with us in fear of establishing "developer verisimilitude." In other words, they've maintained a philosophy of customer management that wishes to avoid contaminating the flow of ideas with a narrative spun from the word of god. That's all well and nice, but this school of thought has been proven ineffective at managing customer expectations and delivering insight; all it does is engender feelings of abandonment, confusion, and uncertainty. This is only [I]one[/I] example of their puzzling obstinacy, with another being their approach to game and weapon balance. Despite there being a surplus of data (both hard statistics and player feedback) available to Valve, they still manage to miss the mark entirely. Why did the Righteous Bison need to be altered? Why did their nerf to the Crit-a-Cola accomplish nothing short of a slap on the wrist? Why did it take them five years to buff Natascha, only for it to be stricken with irrelevancy later? Why was the Heavy nerf during Love & War necessary? Despite admitting that the Sandman was a mistake, why did they bolster its annoying attributes with the introduction of the Flying Guillotine in 2012? I could go on and on, and part of this is tied directly to the previous paragraph over shoddy communication. Their time table is also unreasonably prolonged, as evidenced by the point over Natascha; five years to balance a weapon, one more to nerf it again. Most people don't even [I]stay[/I] with a single game over a six-seven year period! And what of the poor community servers? What has Valve done to help us out? Nothing--time and time again I see impassioned pleas in the HLDS mailing list begging for something, [I]anything[/I] that could prevent the deaths of so many servers in the wake of quickplay and matchmaking. Time and time again, Valve turns a deaf ear to our concerns, and they've done this for years. So please, enlighten me, what exactly have they learned? Because again, it doesn't seem like they've made any improvements whatsoever, consistently and infuriatingly reverting to the same old comfortable habits. I've stated this before, but in case you need a refresher, I'm not in the business of spewing vitriol and calumny merely to satisfy some sick yearning for confrontation or controversy. I love this game, and I used to adore Valve; now I've been forced to watch as my favorite diversion deteriorates under seeming incompetence, negligence, and poor direction. I certainly wouldn't characterize myself or my contributions to this thread over the years as unduly negative for the sake of negativity, even if I may come across that way. [B]I want nothing but the best for this game and I would welcome a time where I can praise Valve once again.[/B] I provide what I would deem constructive criticism rather frequently. [QUOTE]My entire issue is simply the fact that everyone would rather just scream "IT'S BROKEN IT'S FUCKED" over and over as opposed to... I don't know, enjoying your damn lives? Adding another voice to the pile of people screaming the same thing doesn't really do anything. This entire community is just so incredibly, frustratingly negative that I'm surprised the few people working on TF2 are still fucking willing to work on it.[/QUOTE] Remember, Valve spawned the negativity. It isn't undeserved.

[QUOTE=Stroheim;51252147]How the fuck do you constructively criticize a plant with the communications skills of a brick[/QUOTE] By seeing them as an actual development team rather than joking about their mere existence, for starters.

[QUOTE=Void Skull;51252153]By seeing them as an actual development team rather than joking about their mere existence, for starters.[/QUOTE] Okay, five developers who have been dropping more balls recently than the Dodgers, with the communication skills of a brick

[QUOTE=geel9;51252142]Man, you are not a very inviting person in the slightest. You're an incredibly toxic person to talk to. [/QUOTE] Fantastic reason, very well thought out, answered all of my questions about balance, not deflecting at all. Sorry for expecting a straight answer and not an insult. [QUOTE=Void Skull;51252153]By seeing them as an actual development team rather than joking about their mere existence, for starters.[/QUOTE] Their own absence and unwillingness to communicate openly created the meme. Their own reclusive nature has fostered this image. It was their lack of transparency which led to the bloody plant and janitor jokes.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51252161]Fantastic reason, very well though out, answered all of my questions. Their own absence and unwillingness to communicate openly created the meme. Their own reclusive nature has fostered this image. It was their lack of transparency which led to the bloody plant and janitor jokes.[/QUOTE] I certainly didn't intend to answer your questions. I have no interest in continuing this conversation with you if you honestly think that insulting me is acceptable behavior. Compose yourself.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51252161]Fantastic reason, very well thought out, answered all of my questions about balance, not deflecting at all. Their own absence and unwillingness to communicate openly created the meme. Their own reclusive nature has fostered this image. It was their lack of transparency which led to the bloody plant and janitor jokes.[/QUOTE] Whatever the reasons, why perpetuate a negative viewpoint on a team you'd like to help change for the better? If you can't treat someone with basic respect, why should they respect the outrage you give them?

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51252137] Can you provide instances where this speak softly approach has affected major change within valve and caused them to revert a large mistake or other faux pas quickly?[/QUOTE] I only recall that working with Valve for bugs where something was definitely not working as intended.

[QUOTE=geel9;51251990]Paid mods are a great idea though and the backlash was completely unwarranted.[/QUOTE] Its not an inherently bad idea, but you're acting like the backlash wasn't warranted. I mean its not like valve just made a paid mod system without any sort of quality checking, prevention of theft from other sites like nexus, and a complete lack of any sort of real moderation in the slightest. Wait that's exactly what they did, without even paying mind to the various issues such a system would bring up. Thank god it got taken down. -- Valve has the resources to actually fix these problems, yet they chose not to. Same could be said about all the problems TF2 currently face. This isn't some indie dev struggling to get by here. So no, I'm not going to feel bad for a multi million dollar company who refuses to make use of their resources efficiently. Theres pretty much no excusing the state they let tf2 get into.

Last year when they weren't making a Halloween update they told us, maybe a month in advance? Then they gave us radio silence this year for the exact same scenario (which I can't help but imagine somehow contributed to the update being terrible. Maybe that's just me wishing that a better deadline would've somehow lead to KOTH_Slasher and Degroot medieval). I mean, it's really fucking hard to say they're improving when they can't maintain one of the legitimate examples of improvement they've shown over the last 2 years. Part of me is afraid the blog's either gonna maintain radio silence OR devolve into "Oops we fucked up" posts like we saw with MyM. Neither is something I would enjoy.

[QUOTE=PSI Guy;51252179]Last year when they weren't making a Halloween update they told us, maybe a month in advance? Then they gave us radio silence this year for the exact same scenario (which I can't help but imagine somehow contributed to the update being terrible. Maybe that's just me wishing that a better deadline would've somehow lead to KOTH_Slasher and Degroot medieval). I mean, it's really fucking hard to say they're improving when they can't maintain one of the legitimate examples of improvement they've shown over the last 2 years. Part of me is afraid the blog's either gonna maintain radio silence OR devolve into "Oops we fucked up" posts like we saw with MyM. Neither is something I would enjoy.[/QUOTE] The difference between last year's and this year's event is that ALL THE FEATURES WORKED ON LAUNCH We didn't have to wait THREE WHOLE DAYS for contracts and cosmetics to work properly. We got all that on the first day. [editline]24th October 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Void Skull;51252173]Whatever the reasons, why perpetuate a negative viewpoint on a team you'd like to help change for the better? If you can't treat someone with basic respect, why should they respect the outrage you give them?[/QUOTE] Man can you stop with the pseudo-neutralness. Also, because when we act nice, they do fuck and all in terms of change. We have to wait months/years for changes that effect a large amount of players, like the quantum crouch spots & the god knows how many dumb weapon changes.

[QUOTE=Contra132;51252138]Not really? They were doing most of the work and adding value to the game. As creators of that value, they deserved the largest cut. Bethesda did all of jack shit, but Valve at least provided hosting.[/QUOTE] Did jack shit apart from spending years making the game most individual mods were a tiny part of? Like its the same reasoning behind valve taking the lions share of TF2 items. Valve don't exactly do a lot when accepting cosmetic items into TF2 and most items in the last few years have got a slice of between 7 and ~15% from crates and that's it. Older ones sold through the store got 25%. Lower end of that scales a bit shit even without all the problems crate-limited/tiered items make at the workshop submitter/contributor end of things but personally I'd call anything 15% or above more than fair even if it takes me 20 hours to make an item and someone on the tf2 team all of 20 minutes to find it, look over it and add it to the game. If its a big tf2 community project or a huge expansion or total conversion for skyrim then obviously that's a different situation, but if its essentially adding a few pretty models and textures to a huge game 30% going to the creator is ridiculously generous.

[QUOTE=Void Skull;51252173]Whatever the reasons, why perpetuate a negative viewpoint on a team you'd like to help change for the better? If you can't treat someone with basic respect, why should they respect the outrage you give them?[/QUOTE] Because we give them lots and lots of cash. It's also hard to respect the people who nerf the fuckin laser joke weapon bison, perhaps you can tell me why they thought that was a great idea? Nobody seems to want to answer the very simple question: can you justify or find any reason for valve's balancing of tf2? Because everyone wants to gloss over these game changes and not think "why" or "what the fuck", but we all seem rather content to just "wait for greener pastures" "smile and take it" "be nice and perhaps something good might happen"

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;51252148]Are you sure they're capable of learning from gaffes? Because from my perspective, they've been handling this game and its community in the same manner for years. They're a demure cabal of developers ([I]cabal[/I] is a key word, because [I]team[/I] is a misnomer) that recuse themselves from interacting with us in fear of establishing "developer verisimilitude." In other words, they've maintained a philosophy of customer management that wishes to avoid contaminating the flow of ideas with a narrative spun from the word of god. That's all well and nice, but this school of thought has been proven ineffective at managing customer expectations and delivering insight; all it does is engender feelings of abandonment, confusion, and uncertainty. This is only [I]one[/I] example of their puzzling obstinacy, with another being their approach to game and weapon balance. Despite there being a surplus of data (both hard statistics and player feedback) available to Valve, they still manage to miss the mark entirely. Why did the Righteous Bison need to be altered? Why did their nerf to the Crit-a-Cola accomplish nothing short of a slap on the wrist? Why did it take them five years to buff Natascha, only for it to be stricken with irrelevancy later? Why was the Heavy nerf during Love & War necessary? Despite admitting that the Sandman was a mistake, why did they bolster its annoying attributes with the introduction of the Flying Guillotine in 2012? I could go on and on, and part of this is tied directly to the previous paragraph over shoddy communication. Their time table is also unreasonably prolonged, as evidenced by the point over Natascha; five years to balance a weapon, one more to nerf it again. Most people don't even [I]stay[/I] with a single game over a six-seven year period! And what of the poor community servers? What has Valve done to help us out? Nothing--time and time again I see impassioned pleas in the HLDS mailing list begging for something, [I]anything[/I] that could prevent the deaths of so many servers in the wake of quickplay and matchmaking. Time and time again, Valve turns a deaf ear to our concerns, and they've done this for years. So please, enlighten me, what exactly have they learned? Because again, it doesn't seem like they've made any improvements whatsoever, consistently and infuriatingly reverting to the same old comfortable habits. I've stated this before, but in case you need a refresher, I'm not in the business of spewing vitriol and calumny merely to satisfy some sick yearning for confrontation and controversy. I love this game, and I used to adore Valve; now I've been forced to watch as my favorite diversion deteriorates under seeming incompetence, negligence, and poor direction. I certainly wouldn't characterize myself or my contributions to this thread over the years as unduly negative for the sake of negativity, even if I may come across that way. [B]I want nothing but the best for this game and I would welcome a time where I can praise Valve once again.[/B] I provide what I would deem constructive criticism rather frequently. Remember, Valve spawned the negativity. It isn't undeserved.[/QUOTE] Something to take into consideration with all this is also the age and development process of the game and Valve itself. There's only a few that have stuck on the TF team consistently over the years, otherwise due to Valve's structure, people come and go. Maybe someone was working on a fix but they drifted over to CS:GO and never swiveled back over. Perhaps its simply a matter of developers forgetting to implement something over time, or there being an internal error. One update for a map didn't ship properly for a short time because of a mix-up and the team confusing an internal version of a map for the one that was shipped. Despite the common viewpoint of Valve never having anything to do and just sitting around twiddling their thumbs, there's a lot more in-depth things going on we don't know about. Implementing new things or fixing minor old things can be hell with something as old as the trusty Source engine, and Valve is almost certainly playtesting new and possibly-improved things at least a few times a week. All the usual business every work day combined with the ever-changing work structure can result in things unknowingly being swept under the rug. Does any of this excuse the changes, bugs, lack of fixes, or strange standpoints? No, of course not, but its all something to take into consideration when addressing these sorts of things. Doesn't make it right, doesn't make it fair to those who feel wrongly treated [while others may feel perfectly fine about it all], but its all something to consider.