3 hours before the Lycanthropy-Based Campaign is due to start, they released their umpteenth patch to mixed initial reports of still-existing problems.
Even more noteworthy: Lycanthropy is still considered a ‘Debuff’ and does not halve the opponent’s level when it triggers, as would be the expected transform behaviour…
…once again illustrating this company’s ability to understand their own game and to listen to their playerbase.
Alas, it would appear that the new Mods have also embraced the well-documented company policy of selectively ignoring certain reports, sometimes despite multiple bumps:
…while casually interacting in others:
Customers can decide for themselves whether this is due to the topic of the report(s) or its poster(s).
To be fair, I really do appreciate the more casual tone of the new mods. It’s really nice to have even a little slice of community interaction that goes beyond bug report responses.
Just gonna leave this here for posterity: company misleads customers into believing a particular item is ALSO in the chests ( Spin Me Right ‘Round - #83 by ekkusu ) while that item is actually THE ONLY ONE OF ITS KIND in the chests, then claims things are working as intended without admitting to the misleading, and now offers a discount coupon for the item…
“Oh you paid for Steak but received only Chicken? That’s how it’s supposed to be this week! Have a Steak at 50% discount as a compromise!”
Option 1: Sirrian actually posted and ignored Weavergate, thus confirming that he’s on board with the status quo.
Option 2: Sirrian actually posted, and is so out of touch with the game that he doesn’t even know about Weavergate.
Option 3: Somebody posted using Sirrian’s account to distract from Weavergate.
Option 4: ???
Either way, noteworthy how within minutes of his post 3 IP2 accounts liked the post, thus showcasing how they prioritize their forum interactions/dedication.
I agree with the overall sentiment, but I feel this is a bit unfair.
A community member asked Sirrian to reply to prove that he was still in charge of the company. He did so. He did not mention the Weavergate situation (and was not asked to do so in the OP). The situation is likely not something he can just make an executive decision on, anyway, as his role has changed over the years and this game isn’t a dictatorship.
We can’t ask for the creator of the game to post, see him do so, and then blast the company for giving us exactly what was asked for. Again, I agree with the overall sentiment of the need for better communication and the need for a positive outcome in the Weavergate issue. But blasting the company regardless of whether they do something we don’t want or give us exactly what we asked for is part of the reason the communication on these forums is so poor - no staff member wants to deal with us blasting them left and right no matter what they do, so they just vanish.
Conjectures aside, there is however a documented history of exactly this pattern: playerbase asking for something important, and some tangential borderline inconsequential matters arising… only to have the company representatives promptly and eagerly tackling the tangential, while continuing to wait out the main situation to die out over time.
It’s not the first time that the playerbase has sought Sirrian’s presence when the company acted in a certain way (usually before a compromise resolution was found to whatever situation), but this ‘appearance’ (inverted commas in case of Option 3) finally happening on the instance when the company has seemingly crossed a legal line is rather telling, even if we wish to look at it with the least accusatory of lenses.
Blasting looks different, this is more like the community wondering what is going on. If I had to guess I’d go with option 2, it’s really Sirrian, and he’s so out of touch with the game that he hasn’t heard anything about Weavergate yet. Which is kind of disconcerting, because it feels like he definitely should have heard about Weavergate in his position, considering how phenomenal IP2 messed up here.
Have you considered the communication might be so poor because the staff members haven’t learned to communicate in any reasonable way yet? Let’s take a look at this, a very prominent bug report of interest to many players:
Status investigating, for two months now. No response at all, even after several prompts to provide an update in regards to the investigation that is supposedly happening. The company isn’t getting blasted based on what they do, the company is getting blasted because they fail to do anything. The vanishing part isn’t a reaction, it’s the very root cause.
Historically, this has primarily meant “any player feedback obtained will selectively be used out of context in the future to justify some unpopular changes to the game”, so instead of focusing on the obvious fact that 5 tarot cards is a nightmare crafting requirement for anyone who missed Halloween week, let’s move on to the most noteworthy aspect of this week’s fiascos (of course it’s not the poor QA & undercompensation surrounding Tuesday’s Devilgate, since that’s business as usual by now with this company)
After a week of attempts by the playerbase, both documented and anecdotal, there is absolutely no credible report of a 3rd Devil being found within the same day ( Data Gathering: The Flesh Horror Battlecrasher ), and despite multiple chances to acknowledge this cap (it is a demonstrated cap, for all practical purposes), the mods insist in avoiding transparency while phrasing the ‘odds’ in a way that may keep uninformed players chasing for that reward, that has not been found by any player within earshot of forum members.
This matters, because hereinafter every time this company claims there is a ‘chance’ of getting something, but refuses to disclose what the chance is, we can now refer to Devilgate and go into it with our eyes open that ‘a chance’ may mean ‘no chance’ for all practical purposes…
…and of course the devs’ reluctance to even look into whether the drop rates were broken after the 2nd drop (much like things were broken on Tuesday) suggests that it is not surprising to them that the playerbase hasn’t found that 3rd daily Devil.
With the above facts, time for Caveat Emptor once again.
This coming from a company that has openly embraced Monetisation as virtually its sole priority (and encourages you to spend more money, because who cares about Weavergate): have fun scrolling and clicking on 50 tiny icons individually to figure out what are the ‘extra rewards’ that they are trying to sell you this time.
Just gonna leave these here, as another cycle of ‘this company spends more time on reasons/excuses than on actually avoiding most customer anger by communicating consistently and professionally’ inches closer to its predictable conclusion, and if history is any indicator, it shall be forgotten by most until the next time this company does it again…
…all the while ensuring that monetization bugs are resolved immediately, and flirting with legal lines #Weavergate
There we have it: once again, the obscure and virtually nonexistent appearance rate is ‘working as intended’ (the report was even marked as ‘Not A Bug’).
In line with this company’s consistent professionalism, this was informed on day 6 of the alleged 7-day-boosted-rate.