what is the point of these forums?

Venting

doubleome's right. A place for people to get things off their chests. It doesn't achieve anything. No one listens and no one responds. A sort of echo chamber. It's essentially pointless. Like people repeat over and over again, if you're not happy then show it with your time and your wallet. It's the ONLY thing that drives change in a society based on consumerism and capitalism. I know it grates after spending hard earned money on a product but people like us are outnumbered by 'content creators' and their drones (not the flying kind). Look at the positive video's online as opposed to the negative ones. 90% of the videos on YT would have you believe this game is the best there's ever been. Until the numbers drop off and the money stops flowing nothing will be done. Accept it and move onto something else. 

They’ll never reply. They never do.

And when it gets to the point when  you’re trying to highlight issues with the game and become impatient because they don’t reply, they’ll jump in and close threads, ban etc 

There are lots wrong with the game. Some things are game breaking.

Biggest issues at the moment are:

TTD

NETCODE

WEAPON IMBALANCES

You try to convey these things and you’re stone walled.

It’s frankly infuriating.

A simple “thanks for letting us know, we’ll look into it” would do.

But it’s always been this way.

Yet they say they value feedback and listen to the community.

Meanwhile, we have to play a £100 game that plays dreadfully.

You don't 'have' to. If people acknowledged the fact that nothing will be done and walked away then something would be done. Most of the discussions and feedback on here are negative. Thousands of them. People complaining clearly does nothing but people and their wallets walking away gets noticed.

There's a good chance that they are reading this stuff, but that the social media policy prevents them from actively participating in discussions. They do seem to favor Reddit/X when it comes to their main communication channels though.

Not to get political but those sites fall straight into the cesspool category. I don't use them personally. They don't need to reply directly on here. Just release a statement acknowledging the issues and react accordingly. They won't.

I agree, but those places are more popular than these forums.