#[Should the developers of Enlisted take a long-term game health first approach instead of an appeasement approach?]
- Yes
- No
First things first, this poll means nothing. I only created it to adhere to community guidelines. It is meant to be ignored.
I want to speak about an issue that I see a little bit of with this forum and want to state something important about game development.
A developer’s true responsibility is to realize the absolute best, most cohesive version of their artistic and mechanical vision—not to manage the emotional states of a divided player base. When a studio falls into the appeasement trap, constantly tweaking parameters and over-correcting mechanics to silence vocal forum outcries, they trade structural longevity for short-term compliance. You cannot design a balanced, sustainable piece of software by committee; the internet will always demand conflicting realities, wanting absolute historical realism on one thread and hyper-casual arcade speed on the next. True development requires looking at concepts strictly through an objective lens of engineering capability, workload management, and systemic health. Enlisted has proven its resilience by surviving massive, controversial overhauls like the faction merge because the data supported the structural vision, even when the forums erupted. Darkflow must continue to evaluate brilliant, innovative concepts—like campaign quickplays or structural queue fixes—based on the objective value of the idea itself, rather than trying to make everyone happy in a community where true consensus is a mathematical impossibility.
I hope if a dev sees this, you understand, it is impossible to make everybody happy, and your job is NOT to make the community happy or appease them. You must understand that your job is to make your game, your baby, into the best, most beautiful version it can be because that is the only way you will make Enlisted into a game that stays relevant long-term. You cannot be afraid to upset people if you use your judgement and come to the conclusion that a certain change is good for the long-term health of the game.
Slakrrrrrr proposes many good ideas but the issue is that there is always “community divide” and people getting upset. Darkflow, understand that even if you upset people but make a good change based on Slakrrrrrr’s suggestions it will be better for your game and for a developer the game is the only thing that matters, NOT community opinion.
I will end my statement with this, appeasement has never worked and has always led to long-term collapse throughout history and you are even seeing it in the current day, with certain… demographics. Darkflow, if you truly care about your baby you must take a game first approach to new features.
Thrice running back into sniper fire, no circling, no flanking… Ignoring enemies running past, only to be gunned down by them, once the reinforcements & rally points are undone… Watching the aircraft come close, but not shooting it despite the 250 to 500 score each bomber or fighter yields! 