How to Give Quality Feedback to Suggestions & Roasted Flax Marshmallows

[Rudometkin]

Understanding Suggestions:

Every suggestion contains a desired outcome. The suggester wants something added to Vintage Story. Whether it be a more difficult, complex, immersive experience, or a more casual, simple, forgiving experience, or even if it is simply about wanting to add the ability to roast flax marshmallows around a campfire, the suggester wants to make some adjustment to the game in the name of improvement.

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High Quality Feedback:

High quality feedback considers the desired outcome of the suggestion, and collaborates to help find a way to get there without compromising positive traits of the game. It filters through the practicality of the suggestion, and voices potential roadblocks and offers new paths to reach the desired outcome. With encouraging and supportive language, it is willing to say, "this is why your suggestion is not the best idea for Vintage Story, but maybe here is how it could be".

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Resolving Fundamental Disagreements:

Sometimes, there is a disagreement whether something is an 'improvement', or 'appropriate' for the game. This is considered a fundamental disagreement, and it is fair play. This is where healthy and informative discussions can take place to find common ground. For example, critics and supporters of the suggestion can articulate and justify their viewpoint by way of politely appealing to the game description, existing game mechanics, popular opinion, and many other valuable sources, in an effort to find common ground. Healthy arguments can further develop the relevant discussion from there.

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Addressing Underdeveloped Suggestions:

When a suggestion is not thoroughly articulated, quality feedback asks relevant questions to reveal and encourage the development of crucial points in the suggestion. It does not ridicule the suggester for not fleshing out the suggestion, it simply encourages or helps them to flesh it out.

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Carefully Handling Lore:

When a suggestion contradicts what the lore has already established, great effort should be taken to avoid revealing spoilers. This implies the suggester has not yet finished the story, and is unaware of the contradiction.

In this case, a suitable answer would be as follows:

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"Unfortunately, this suggestion contradicts something the lore has already established, so it is not suitable for the game. I encourage you to revisit this idea when you have completed the story."

To make it constructive, a solution that does not contradict what the lore has established may be offered (without allowing the unknowing suggester to easily deduct what the spoiler is), while still aiming to satisfy at least some part of the original desired outcome of the suggestion. If this is not doable by any reasonable means, then it is better to be short and play the trump card than to risk spoiling lore.

The suggester should respect the lore, and the critic has the responsibility to be accurate about when an idea contradicts the lore. If another critic disagrees that the suggestion is incompatible with the lore, then that conversation is encouraged to happen elsewhere in private, lest any unwanted spoilers get revealed.

It is important to note that even if the suggester pushes for details about what exactly contradicts the lore, there are still countless other viewers reading who do not deserve to have the lore spoiled for them. It is better to remember the trump card than to play the explanation.

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Example of High Quality Feedback:

Here is a very neat, dynamic example of borderline high quality feedback stretched to its extreme limits, to simulate a realistic application of this lesson:

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Suggester: I want to add the ability to roast flax marshmallows around a campfire. This would enrich the atmosphere of Vintage Story.

Critic: This is not an appropriate feature for VS, because VS is meant to be an uncompromising survival game. Where is the "uncompromising survival" in roasting flax marshmallows? We already have food that simulates uncompromising survival.

However, I agree with you that it would be great to enrich the atmosphere of VS. since that is what you seem to want, then how about we accomplish that by adding highly atmospheric superstorms where the ole' lightning bolts o' doom mechanic is ramped up 20x? This will add to the atmosphere as you suggested to want, and it is more fitting for VS.

Plus, how do you propose flax marshmallows even be crafted?

Suggester: While it is clearly a major focus of Vintage Story, the uncompromising survival aspect is not the only aspect of Vintage Story. In fact, wilderness is also a focus of Vintage Story, and roasting flax marshmallows over a campfire fits perfectly into the wilderness aspect. Also, Vintage Story offers beautiful and peaceful experiences, such as capturing butterflies and watching harmless sunsets. Therefore, my peaceful flax marshmallow suggestion is still fitting for Vintage Story.

As for how they should be crafted, I would like for us to flesh out those ideas as a community.

 

Studying the High Quality Feedback Example:

Note how in our high quality feedback example, even though the critic had a fundamental disagreement with the suggester that made them borderline dismissive, they were still able to provide high quality feedback by addressing the suggester's points, attempting to find common ground via reinforcing the game description and showing a point of agreement, and trying to reach at least a part of the desired outcome. Now remember, while it may look like poor feedback on the surface, the critic strongly believed this was totally an unfitting suggestion, and they still checked those boxes to collaborate. Do you think you would perhaps reply just as well, if you saw someone suggest that bears should be able to fly? If so, then amazing!

Also, note how the suggester showed the critic to be wrong. The flax marshmallow indeed is an appropriate suggestion on the basis that it enriches the atmosphere of Vintage Story similar to how other existing features in the game already do. The critic being wrong did not necessarily render their feedback as being 'low quality', since it would not necessarily be fair to evaluate the quality of feedback on soundness, but instead should be evaluated by its reasoning, thoroughness, and collaboration.

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Example of Low Quality Feedback:

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Suggester: I want to add the ability to roast flax marshmallows around a campfire. This would enrich the atmosphere of Vintage Story.

Critic: No, that is ridiculous. This should be a mod.

 

Studying the Low Quality Feedback Example:

Notice how this example of low quality feedback is missing the healthy, collaborative, thoughtful traits of high quality feedback. It dismisses the suggester's idea without providing an adequate explanation of why (if it is ridiculous, what makes it ridiculous?), and does not try to explain why it offers no solutions to making any of the suggested tenets fit the game. It is simply an answer with ridiculing verbiage that is being pushed forth with no basis. This establishes disagreement, yet offers no points for common ground. This all works together to create discord, which is the opposite of this community's vision.

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Summary:

High quality feedback considers the desired outcome of the suggestion, and collaborates to help find a way to get there without compromising positive traits of the game. It promotes going above-and-beyond to help each other, which leads to a stronger community and better suggestions; and better suggestions are more inclined to be added to Vintage Story.

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With this being anchored into the forums, we are able to refer to it at any time out in the 'suggestion forum' battlefield to encourage high quality feedback.

I hope everyone who critiques suggestions gets a chance to reflect on this. I think we all inherently agree with at least a majority of this article, but it is not always organized so coherently in our minds, so the principles often get confused in the battlefield. Perhaps this confusion is what often leads to false accusations and misunderstandings. When I study and communicate, my personal philosophy is to 'read' and 'write' 'one word at a time'. I have found that this technical precision is a crucial part of collaboration.

I was inspired to write this after I saw @Enjen encouraging us to discuss how we could make ideas work, instead of just discussing why they don't work. I spent around four hours writing the skeleton of it using my cellphone notepad, my dictionary, and my thesaurus out of love for the betterment of this community, and I myself learned more just by articulating it all in this lesson format. Now, we are all beginning to work together to help build this post up to cover even more areas than I initially considered.

With what I am going to risk doing next, I only do it out of confidence that Anego Studios is approachable, and that given the nature of this carefully crafted love letter to the VS forums, that this post is deserving of making at least just one ping to the man who brought Vintage Story to life, with a cool little idea of my own:

Hey, @Tyron What better way for a team of Vintarians to celebrate victory together, than to make some roasted flax marshmallows out of those pesky drifters? I am beginning to sense a new nightly Vintage Story ritual coming in the next update  

Edited July 6, 2025 by Rudometkin
Added a section about addressing lore

[Facethief]

32 minutes ago, Rudometkin said:

make some roasted flax marshmallows out of those pesky drifters?

“Dude, what is this? It smells like a moldy shirt!”

[Facethief]

There should totally be a variant made with the grain soaked in a barrel that gives a nice amount of satiation and a variant made with linen pulp that makes you hungrier and deals a small amount of damage.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

this is probably better suited to a mod idea due to the fact that marshmallows aren't typically made out of grain

You also have to consider this:

If the suggestion doesn't fit in the lore or simply isn't realistic, then there is no other feedback to be had other than to dump it on the "mod suggestion" pile. If the person suggesting the idea has barely played the game, then it can be almost guaranteed that 1) their suggestion has already been made into a mod 2) their suggestion doesn't quite fit in the game world as-is and would need significant rework to make it compatible with the current state of the game and into a workable suggestion for the devs to consider. Unfortunately that rework is not the duty of the other forum visitors, especially if the person suggesting makes or has made a name for themselves as the type of person who doesn't accept negative feedback very well. If the first comment, is "This doesn't fit with the lore of the game. This should be a mod", then how are we supposed to offer constructive feedback without spoiling the story for the OP or even other forum visitors who might not know the lore??

Also the majority of this post doesn't fit in the Suggestion forum... it would have been better suited for the Discussion forum and the Flax Marshmallows (which are better suited for a mod idea) left as a separate suggestion post. Just my $0.02.  

[Facethief]

24 minutes ago, traugdor said:

this is probably better suited to a mod idea due to the fact that marshmallows aren't typically made out of grain

Somewhat like chia, flax seeds produce a gelatinous coating when in water, which is sometimes used as a gelatin substitute. You could also make a Flaxpet. The more you know.

[Rudometkin]

30 minutes ago, traugdor said:

If the first comment, is "This doesn't fit with the lore of the game. This should be a mod", then how are we supposed to offer constructive feedback without spoiling the story for the OP or even other forum visitors who might not know the lore??

Great question, traugdor!

If a suggestion contradicts what the lore has already established, then that is a suitable answer as feedback. To make it constructive, an ideal response would be to carefully offer a solution that does not contradict what the lore has established (without allowing the unknowing suggester to easily deduct what the spoiler is), while still aiming to satisfy at least some part of the original desired outcome of the suggestion. If this is not doable by any reasonable means, then perhaps the best thing you can do is not spoil the lore and encourage the suggester to revisit the idea once they have completed the story.

A totally reasonable answer would be:

- "Unfortunately, this suggestion contradicts something the lore has already established, so it is not suitable for the game."

The suggester should respect the lore, and the critic has the responsibility to be accurate about it. If another critic disagrees that the suggestion is incompatible with the lore, then that conversation is encouraged to happen elsewhere in private, lest any unwanted spoilers get revealed.

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You are totally right in that the duty to fix a suggestion is not on the critic. However, high quality feedback as I have proposed it aims to go above and beyond to help each other.

Edited July 6, 2025 by Rudometkin
Refinement

[Teh Pizza Lady]

5 minutes ago, Facethief said:

flax seeds produce a gelatinous coating when in water

TIL

[Rudometkin]

On 7/5/2025 at 6:19 PM, Facethief said:

There should totally be a variant made with the grain soaked in a barrel that gives a nice amount of satiation and a variant made with linen pulp that makes you hungrier and deals a small amount of damage.

These sound like they could be excellent ideas!

I don't know much about those later game contents yet, but I like the sound of it.