As a Roblox developer, the current processes regarding the communication of new features and progress on bug reports do not provide enough transparency. While I am very aware that Roblox staff are actively working to implement new features and address bugs, there’s no way as an average developer browsing the forum to know that this work is taking place.
Most bug reports do get fixed, but it’s never really noticeable since the only two public places where the bug can be documented is in the original post which is usually never acknowledged publicly and on the release notes, which usually have vague or sometimes misleading titles since they’re generated from internal tickets.
Additionally, a lot of feature requests, will, over time be implemented in some form or another. However, during the period of time that a feature request is going from submitted to shipped, it’s progress is never really known. This can be incredibly deflating to the person submitting the request or those who support the feature since while that feature may be in the works right now, they would never know, lose confidence in the process, and simply stop actively trying to improve the platform
The current high-level roadmap on the DevHub is just that, high-level. It does a great job showing where Roblox wants to go within the year but does a poor job of communicating the actual progress of smaller features or bug reports (which could arguably be considered more important since they actively hinder workflows rather than just enhance them). It can be especially unhelpful to developers as it isn’t updated often enough
Roblox could better address this problem by providing developers with an actively updated roadmap of all current features/bug reports that are either in the backlog or being actively worked on. Additionally, all entries on this roadmap should connect back to the original report or feature request so that developers know that Roblox is actively working with the community to address issues.
One of the largest concerns I can see coming from this is that it may result in false expectations on what a final product will look like or when it will ship. I, however, would argue the opposite would be true. An effective roadmap will be able to communicate realistic expectations and timelines as it’s constantly updated. The current high-level roadmap however probably does result in false expectations since it’s rarely updated and shows a more general direction rather than more specific details.
By improving transparency regarding internal development, Roblox could improve developer confidence in the platform, and make developers feel more valued.
Honestly, Roblox really needs to fix their transparency. The roadmaps often only consist of a single sentence or two.
Great. What does that mean? What does the vegetation look like? A single statement does not suffice.
Can we have details? An overview is nice, sure, but what about the process? Any updates? And what about smaller things that either pop up, weren’t planned, or not “big” enough?
You never really know if the feature request you’ve posted has or has not been taken into consideration.
When I check to see if old features I’ve requested have been actually put into place, it’s either a no implied due to a lack of response, or a yes but they’ve done it silently.
Like sweeping something under a carpet. I think we’d all benefit from more details.
Don’t get me wrong, Roblox is fantastic. The staff are working very hard, I’m sure of it. All we’d need is a clearer picture.
They do provide progress on most bug reports, but there is complete radio silence for feature requests. I briefly explained this here:
Most feature requests have no replies on them, and even if they do, they’re not from the Staff. Some times, there isn’t even a like from a Staff member, so there is no way to know whether the Staff has seen it, has been rejected, approved, or what. IK that they have a lot going on, but this can’t happen with pretty much every feature request, right?
Full support on this, seeing that there might be useful features bugs that need to be viewed from an audience or staff members.
Being someone who comes up with feature requests often and then creating the topic, I expect from staff to have a response for maybe a day or two on the feature and if they have plans for it to come in the future and when I wait for a long period of time, I get no reports or any notifications on whether the feature or bug will be a thing or patched in a later update on the platform or in studio.
Old features from 2014-2016 never get noticed too much as there isn’t much of an audience back then and not too many replies get onto those topics as more and more topics pour in for bugs and features. Bugs is something staff needs to view too as it is crucial for them to point out the bug and try to fix it ASAP.
In the end, I support this as the transparency from important topics on #platform-feedback are not being viewed at.
