Having a game team that actually listens to us is amazing. It makes me wanna play this game so much more. I know as the game progresses there will be more and more suggestions flooding this game and I dunno if the team reads through all the "support" Messages and feedback or not but that seems exhausting.

I suggest that when making a thread in the Suggestions area of the forums players would be able to add polls to their threads. That way staff can see whether or not an idea is liked by the player base or not and if it has sufficient support they can have a bigger browse through the suggestion.

The polls could be with pre determined answers or they could be 100% customised by players, that's for staff to decide.

If we can help them to decide what features to work on through polls, why can't suggestions be as helpful as well?

I want it to be a mere summary of all those one word support or no support comments on the forums. As a thread ideas still will be open to discussion.

Examples of Poll answers

Support

No Support

Needs Work But Support - If the idea is somewhat lacking.

Suggestion by @Ember that this feature results should be anonymous and only seen by staff. - I personally don't mind either or but this is out there. I just realized that the benefit of having the poll results hidden is that staff has no pressure put over them on popular but hard to execute ideas.

Support! love the idea easier than coming up with a comment evertime for users too

Support! People are often also a lil afraid to full on type 'no support' because they feel it might be rude, so a little yes/no button, especially if anonymous could make sure the community's opinion is displayed accurately, not just the vocal minority's

I'm going to have to say no support. I think the most important part of the suggestions forum is to open up the discussion and have a conversation about wants and needs, and the pros and cons of of suggested ideas. Much like my reply now. By adding a poll, it opens up a path for a very superficial voting tally, rather than an in-depth discussion that casts light on different points of view. Additionally, having nearly a decade of experience in the IT world, it is well-known that 'customers' (which in this case would be the players) don't always have the means to properly express their needs. Similarly, IT folk can't always correctly interpret expressed needs. There's a pretty funny meme floating around about 'what the client said he wanted, how the project lead understood it, how he explained it to the IT guys, what the IT guys built, what the salesmen is trying to sell, and what the client actually wanted.'

In short, I think the discussion, the laying out of ideas and pros and cons, is crucial for a correct working of the suggestion forum. A poll is most likely to stiffle this discussion, ánd may give a skewed idea to the staff if they use it as any kind of measurement, overlooking smaller or less popular suggestions that might actually add to the health and longevity of the game.

@Gaia This feature would not take away the discussion though, it would still be a forum thread open to discussion but it will be a means to staff to see whether an idea is supported or not and for them to have an easier way to see what they could put their attention towards.

@Soro I know that. I mean that the option to vote will most likely stifle discussion. When people are not supporting something, it is very important to know why. What is it about the intended feature that might either not work as intended, or have an unintended but very indesirable side-effect? If someone supports an idea, what is the desire that they feel this suggestion might fulfil? If it need works, what is it exactly that need to be changed in order for it to achieve the desired effect? I fear that a voting poll will completely stiffle such discussion, and I think it is very dangerous to use it as any kind of measure as staff, as it is abount the contents, not the votes, it's about the up- and downsides, the actual needs and the effects of the change suggested that should determine whether something is implemented.

Additionally, some suggestions that are very small and don't get much traction, might still be very important changes to implement. Generally suggestions regarding confusing wording for example don't attract much attention, but may improve the gameplay experience especially for newer players, making the game easier to understand. On the other hand, it is usually rather controversial topics that attract a lot of attention. Using the voting system as a way to decide what to focus on, might lead to small but actual improvements to be overlooked.

Support for a support/no-support button on threads in the suggestions forum, but only if the result is hidden from players and can only be seen by admin.

@Gaia I must disagree that it will withhold discussion. I used to play this game called Smoki Nightwood. A Polish dragon game before flight rising even existed. That game used polls in its suggestion forums, this suggestion came from the memory of that game, anyway, people always asked that if u do not support tell us why if u want! Or if it's lacking, how would u improve it, and people did, because it was a thread discussions never subsided.

If u look at any thread right now there are many comments just saying support or I don't like this, without much context, my idea is putting a mere summary of these one word replies at the top of the forum thread.

Some people want to voice their opinion anonymously too and that's fine. You can't force an opinion out of everyone.

Finally as I said it should be a means for the staff to quickly see if this idea is liked or not and whether they should pay more attention to it, and by attention I mean reading the actual thread and discussion.

@Soro Let's agree to disagree. In the end, it is not me you must convince, but the staff. :)

This started as a trend on flight rising when staff had to actively discourage people solely saying they like or dislike a change because the popularity was never an equation on an implementation of a change. Yet people would always try to mingle in 'support/no-support' as their post lead and some filler text when it was always meant for people to toss back and forth improvements, their own little suggestions, their experiences with the system debated, and weights on why yes or why not or how to go about fixing an issue. Which are far more important for game devs than just 'I like this, pls' times 100.
Just look at how often people lead their posts with 'no/support' when it's a word that can really easily be cut out of the vocabulary. Does it change your post's content, quality, substance or tone if it's removed? Not at all if it actually has some substance.

A like/dislike counter for such would just be a shallow illusion for the people who think that them liking or disliking something has any bearing on something being implemented at all. And when the popularity of something is what staff is looking for, it's actually put into a poll lol.

I feel like just a poll may discourage people from commenting why or why not they may like an idea, and those comments are going to be whether or not an admin / dev wants to add such an idea into the game. The point of chiming in your support is to incite a response from someone in more than just "I support" and I just think a poll will decrease that interaction