Okay, so… just reread both statements about a dozen times:
Now, I could sit here and write a literal essay picking these apart line by line to back up why the initial statement was reacted to as it was, but I think I’ll save everyone the trouble. There were multiple opportunities given to clarify or add to the initial statement (see the post immediately following the first one, for example, and the response to that one), which were just to dig in to the initial position and post information about troop drops.
There are basically only two logical ways to reconcile both these statements. Lets not make this personal, since I’ve seen this situation crop up more than once with different actors in different parts, so to speak, so lets just say:
- The initial statement was made in error and was a misunderstanding on the part of the person that communicated it, with the actual “official stance” being different than what was communicated and the second statement was a clarification of such
- The initial statement was intended to be the official position and the second statement marked a change in position, while brushing it off as a misunderstanding, effectively throwing the person who made the first statement under the bus while deflecting some blame onto the readers of the statement for not understanding it.
(To be clear, this was not the case of us misunderstanding what was to happen and overreacting. There is very clear language to why it was interpreted the way it was.)
So, lets briefly go over why each of these is bad.
The first scenario is bad because the statement was communicated by dev while using “certain” language. Devs communicating information on the forums speak from, by default unless otherwise proven wrong (and the burden of proof is very high here) with absolute authority on a subject. There was nothing to contradict said authority in this situation. It is understandable to want to get a statement out there, but if a situation is uncertain to the dev communicating it, you need to use uncertain language. “I think”, “I believe”, “we are discussing it”, “I will check with the team” (but actually do and actually follow up) are good ones here. If you are speaking from a position of absolute authority with no way to contradict what you are saying and you also speak with absolute certainty, what you are communicating is going to be taken as fact and reacted to as such. If you are then later contradicted, this erodes player trust.
The second scenario is bad for a number of reasons. In this scenario, remember, it wasn’t the course of action that we were already on, it was damage control, which makes the second statement disingenuous. While landing on the “correct” solution is nice, as has been stated, this should have been the default. It also means to deflect blame on this “misunderstanding” by implying that we should have somehow taken the meaning that the stated compensation was not meant to be final from the initial statement which overtly stating “once the compensation finishes rolling out the matter will be considered closed” and “this is the final compensation for the issue”. The second statement also directly contradicts the first one by stating “We sent the 2 keys out ASAP, then waited until more people were online today to continue discussing the compensation” which is the opposite of “this is the final compensation for the issue”. Even though we landed where we were supposed to, it still feels like we are not getting told the truth. This erodes player trust.
Hindsight really is 20/20 here, but even if this followed the same progression with different things communicated we should have had:
- Troops are removed and compensation discussion begins internally. It is posted on the forums compensation is being discussed at the time this happens, no compensation is sent out yet since apparently you need a day to discuss what it should be and you don’t want to give anybody the wrong impression
- After discussion (and maybe feedback on the forums), and we land on the correct solution of just replacing the removed troops with random troops in the same rarity (the same thing that happened with similar errors in the past)
- Since this was a hot-button issue and an example of the same error being made countless times and the fact that it took a day to receive any compensation, send out the 2 VIP keys per incorrect pull to smooth things over.
(Had we somehow ended on 2 VIP keys per incorrect pull as the final compensation, we’d be back in the same situation we find ourselves in now, so this assumes the decision to do the right thing was not just outrage based but rather “needed time to discuss” per the second statement)
We’d have ended in the exact same place, same “cost” to you, with a much higher satisfaction ratio. Right now I still feel icky over the whole situation and likely will for a while, just like every other time something similar had happened, even though we got an objectively favorable outcome. It makes it feel not good to engage with positive discussions on the forums, to even slightly annoyed I am reminded of this whole debacle (and by proxy, all the past ones) when I get a notification. And I can’t be the only one here.
This article isn’t completely applicable here because of the nature of the service being provided, but it still provides some salient points to the matter at hand:
Please do better.