Story Railroading.

[Lemon]

The issue I have is the total randomness and disconnect to what happens in-game.
For example it's been said that it wouldn't matter if insurgency was the most played faction in the game - they'd remove it anyways. And on the other hand there's been time wasted on Royalists - a very similar faction, one that harmed Gallic story, was wanted by just a few buddies and the form in which it was applied was changed from what the initiators, MdG, wanted. And it's dead now with no progress done to it since it was plastered into the game.

One faction added to the game while other one removed, both decisions harming activity ultimately.

If story worked well we wouldn't complain, they aren't however, they have made it clear they don't care what people actually playing the game want.

It's not rocket science to bother replying to dev plans sooner than months down the line, or make a communication channel, official one where they listen to feedback and explain things. What ends up happening is that story devs are making drastic changes in areas they have no clue about how people actually play in-game, based on their own random whims - this is definitely NOT the norm for other games where the player base is considered and devs try to make the game active as much as possible.

I mean naturally - commercial game companies' bottom line depends on that - Markam, Reeves and Co do this as a hobby, they don't have to care as it's just a nuisance for them, they probably see it as "I do the work, I get to decide on what makes sense to me", which is why DWGs were cut, they ignore dev plans and discuss what to do with their friends. Any change will need to come from them, for that they'd need to care about the community and active players, and also make their life harder/more complicated in the process.