Hello,
Starbase is a game where your actions matter; for example, every projectile shot from every weapon represents material mined from the asteroid belts by players. When developers get involved and either help players (with good intentions) or even favor certain players, this can disrupt the balance and enjoyment of the game at large. Usually a request for help from a player comes in the mode of an in-game report or other communication where the player reports they have experienced some loss and would like help by receiving compensation for their loss from the game devs. Support devs may then issue either material and/or credit refunds to the player.
There are many issues to this if the game is to be taken seriously as a living universe. First, not all players who encounter a loss due to bugs or some unknown situation will think to ask for compensation. Sometimes the loss could have been from genuine gameplay, but the outcome was unexpected and the player is disgruntled. This ends up favoring the loudest and most communicative players over those who don’t know about the system or who otherwise don’t feel it appropriate to ask for developer intervention. Secondly, this behavior doesn’t scale well with many players, as the more players you have encountering issues and expecting refunds of materials and credits, the more work a developer has to do responding to tickets. As the number of tickets increases, the developer is incentivized to do less investigation into each individual report, and will end up approving nearly any complaint, leaving room for abuse in the game world. Next, the situation ends up souring players’ trust in the developers as it can be seen that some people are favored when they request help with a situation and receive that help. As each material and credit in the game is (or should/is intended to be) generated by player activity, when you issue any amount of free resources to a player with no effort cost, it dilutes the value of the otherwise player-generated economy.
I have personally received help along these lines from devs, although I wasn't happy in asking. My reasoning ended up being that if everyone else was getting free stuff when they encountered a problem, I'd be at a disadvantage not to. One time my ship bugged out and simply disappeared (I later found that this bug places your ship 5000m away from you on a certain axis). To me it seemed like my ship disappeared completely. I asked for help and I think I received some kind of credit for the ship. A second time, my moon base became bugged and completely unusable, and I received a refund for a bunch of materials I used in its creation. I encountered many other situations where I could have asked for a refund or compensation, but it diminishes gameplay too much where I opted not to.
Compounding the issue, refunds seem to be sent through in-game mail, which allows the instant transfer of those resources anywhere you wish.
I know it seems harsh at first to consider implementing a "no-refunds" policy, but rather than giving compensation to players for bugs, the ideal thing would be to prioritize bugs which cause loss of resources/ships/etc. By acknowledging and tacking these issues as a priority, the economy of the game can be kept in order as no one will be favored for their loss just for speaking up. Players can be told about the bug and given updates regarding it being fixed. In the meantime, they should be told to endure the loss. Yes, as a developer you can give free resources to anyone, which is precisely why there should be strict policy of not doing so. It can harm the game in severe ways by causing players to lose faith in the dev team if the perception is that some players are favored over others. Outside of removing or dealing with cheaters, devs and admins of game servers should be hands-off regarding what happens in game.
Edit: 1/15/2024
The best policy is to be hands-off the game world. Give players the tools to figure everything else out on their own, and don't intervene.
Problem: Devs issuing resources and/or credits to players who experience issues due to bugs.
Solution: Adopt a policy which asks players to report situations so bugs can be fixed, but informs them that no compensation will be provided, so that all players are on the same page regarding what to do when they encounter issues and that no player is being favored by the developers due to their frequent or direct communication.
Starbase is a game where your actions matter; for example, every projectile shot from every weapon represents material mined from the asteroid belts by players. When developers get involved and either help players (with good intentions) or even favor certain players, this can disrupt the balance and enjoyment of the game at large. Usually a request for help from a player comes in the mode of an in-game report or other communication where the player reports they have experienced some loss and would like help by receiving compensation for their loss from the game devs. Support devs may then issue either material and/or credit refunds to the player.
There are many issues to this if the game is to be taken seriously as a living universe. First, not all players who encounter a loss due to bugs or some unknown situation will think to ask for compensation. Sometimes the loss could have been from genuine gameplay, but the outcome was unexpected and the player is disgruntled. This ends up favoring the loudest and most communicative players over those who don’t know about the system or who otherwise don’t feel it appropriate to ask for developer intervention. Secondly, this behavior doesn’t scale well with many players, as the more players you have encountering issues and expecting refunds of materials and credits, the more work a developer has to do responding to tickets. As the number of tickets increases, the developer is incentivized to do less investigation into each individual report, and will end up approving nearly any complaint, leaving room for abuse in the game world. Next, the situation ends up souring players’ trust in the developers as it can be seen that some people are favored when they request help with a situation and receive that help. As each material and credit in the game is (or should/is intended to be) generated by player activity, when you issue any amount of free resources to a player with no effort cost, it dilutes the value of the otherwise player-generated economy.
I have personally received help along these lines from devs, although I wasn't happy in asking. My reasoning ended up being that if everyone else was getting free stuff when they encountered a problem, I'd be at a disadvantage not to. One time my ship bugged out and simply disappeared (I later found that this bug places your ship 5000m away from you on a certain axis). To me it seemed like my ship disappeared completely. I asked for help and I think I received some kind of credit for the ship. A second time, my moon base became bugged and completely unusable, and I received a refund for a bunch of materials I used in its creation. I encountered many other situations where I could have asked for a refund or compensation, but it diminishes gameplay too much where I opted not to.
Compounding the issue, refunds seem to be sent through in-game mail, which allows the instant transfer of those resources anywhere you wish.
I know it seems harsh at first to consider implementing a "no-refunds" policy, but rather than giving compensation to players for bugs, the ideal thing would be to prioritize bugs which cause loss of resources/ships/etc. By acknowledging and tacking these issues as a priority, the economy of the game can be kept in order as no one will be favored for their loss just for speaking up. Players can be told about the bug and given updates regarding it being fixed. In the meantime, they should be told to endure the loss. Yes, as a developer you can give free resources to anyone, which is precisely why there should be strict policy of not doing so. It can harm the game in severe ways by causing players to lose faith in the dev team if the perception is that some players are favored over others. Outside of removing or dealing with cheaters, devs and admins of game servers should be hands-off regarding what happens in game.
Edit: 1/15/2024
The best policy is to be hands-off the game world. Give players the tools to figure everything else out on their own, and don't intervene.
Problem: Devs issuing resources and/or credits to players who experience issues due to bugs.
Solution: Adopt a policy which asks players to report situations so bugs can be fixed, but informs them that no compensation will be provided, so that all players are on the same page regarding what to do when they encounter issues and that no player is being favored by the developers due to their frequent or direct communication.
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