Thoughts on community polarization
TL;DR
The polarization right now is just a consequence of where the game is in its tuning cycle and we need to be nice to each other during this particularly polarizing bit in order to get through it effectively.
NTL;R
I have been thinking about the polarization of the Rivals 2 community (to the extent this community is polarized, that is. I find it to be, but others may differ) and I wanted to share my thoughts.
This game is excellent, but sloppy. Unfortunately, that is notorious for causing polarization.
It's like when you have a B+ Student who did a pretty good job, but still not worthy of an A. It can be hard to criticize them because many people go "B+ whoopee! that's amazing! A lot of people got C's!" while others go "B+? Damn, gotta study harder for an A next time." It's very much a personal mentality kind of thing. I wouldn't even say one is more correct than the other (other than the literal, sense that is), but just different expressions of risk tolerance and other underlying personality traits. When you break that argument down to what's really being discussed, it usually gets quite complicated and context dependent.
I think Rivals is firmly in that B+ territory. Extremely creative, well thought out, mostly great ideas, but lacking in refinement and execution. If you disagree I will point to game performance optimization and rest my case before bringing up any gameplay design choices. The community then polarizes in its reactions the same way people polarize in their reactions to a B+, and so we get two fighting halves. The first half thinks the second half is a bunch of whiners who refuse to practice the game they love. The second half thinks the first half is unable to accept legitimate criticism and are stuck in groupthink. They are polarized into viewing each other as toxically negative and toxically positive respectively.
I don't believe this problem is unique to this game. Its a specific thing that happens around this "good, but could be better" level. The classic "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" vs "it could be improved, though" fight.
So with the knowledge that this problem is common, what can we, the community, do about it? Honestly, graciousness is the answer I have. Behave graciously and assume gracious behavior by others until proven otherwise.
Some truths:
A. The Dev team is stubborn, but flexible, and meaningfully reliant on community feedback.
B. There are a lot of whiny posts on the subreddit and the nolt forum of people who are literally just complaining.
C. There are a lot of legitimate complaints/criticisms that get unfairly and inaccurately lumped in with those whiny posts.
D. There are a lot of people who react strongly (and often OVER react) to criticisms about the game because they have a deep emotional connection to it and the community.
E. The game is a bit toxic by design... I think cuz Dan likes it that way.
"A" means that there NEEDS to be a certain amount of complaining/criticism that happens so the devs can tune their gameplay experience. Moreover, it often has to be repeated at least a little before the Dev team will respond as they must filter out noise (and are stubborn). This means that when we give that criticism, we need to be gracious toward the dev team and other players so that we avoid "B". If we avoid "B" then "C" will happen less, as there's less noise to crowd out legitimate complaints. And if we are gracious toward each other, that makes "D" less likely to happen from both sides as one group is less likely to say something offensive, and the other group is less likely to take offense. Lastly, "E" can be handled if we once again remember to blame Dan for the toxicity instead of each other (just kidding).
I think that if we can somehow remember to be gracious in our behavior and assumptions we can greatly improve the discourse in this community.