As far as new content is concerned in the last 6 months, we got a rehash of explore mode, and a new event which is pretty much a rehash of explore mode.
There are glaring UI issues we have to deal with on a daily basis which do not get fixed, but we’re told they are focusing instead on fun new content for us, and we get… a rehash of explore mode.
Gems of War is a great game and deserves polish and to be built upon and expanded to it’s full potential, and it’s disappointing when it doesn’t happen.
Ah you completely don’t understand those statements, let me explain
The first quote there is a workaround for the end user while we work to fix the bug at the root cause.
The second was in response to a request for a new feature to be developed to get around a bug instead of fixing the root cause and the bug itself.
These statements aren’t contradictory opinions.
In both I have stated the goal is to fix the root cause of the issues - not to put a bandaid on it and ignore it. In the first quote however, players need not go without, there is something they can do to avoid the bug already in the game that we didn’t spend additional development time on, so I am making them aware of that so that even though it’s inconvenient, they are aware there is a way around it while they wait for the fix.
No development time was wasted creating that workaround, it already existed.
The statements were clear, and summarized by the above sentence: the company feels like letting players endure game shortcomings for years (i.e. weapon affixes) is preferable over ‘wasting development time’ to make a quick fix while a permanent ‘proper’ fix is implemented whatever number of years down the road.
as explained in the original thread, creating a new game feature which ties into half the existing game systems, is not a quick fix, which is why it’s not on the table
Fallen Silent world event: more like Player Feedback Falling on Deaf Ears.
So here we are, done with the 4th ‘World Event’, and we get a chance to revisit the ongoing 5 corresponding main complaints from the playerbase since 16/MAR/2020, namely:
Random Scoring is unfair and makes no sense
Rewards are too hard/expensive to obtain (>Tier IV from 30 Guild Members for full rewards)
Event constraints applying to Hero are overly limiting, especially for newer players who rely on smaller weapon inventories
The ‘choice’ when selecting battles is borderline inconsequential
Players shouldn’t have to read the forum in order to find out what is the scoring method for an event
In light of the above, the Devs decided that the best course of action was to maintain random scoring (in the form of random battles presented to us), allow for a day-1 ‘new glitch, not at all the typo thing from the last time this happened’ to again make rewards unattainable unless all guild members went up to ~ Tier VI (‘fixed’ 24 hours into the event), and give even more constraints on troop/weapon selection (Leonis Empire && Yellow||Brown), thus ensuring that players could not use their previously acquired Boss Slayer (namely, ‘Wazir’) so that they were further ‘encouraged’ to spend gems.
The ‘pay to reduce grind’ philosophy continues to be allowed to grow, even when the players voted 90% that they disliked the event. (cue Devs claiming that they know secret internal figures that support that players love this design and direction, no matter what the forums/players say).
Some players claim to enjoy the challenge of having to design a team within restrictions, and the sensible alternative to this is the GW and Bounty approach: offer bonus points for those who use teams that meet restrictions, but stop ignoring players who do not have enough troops that meet the criteria, or who do not wish to grind with a clunky team because they enjoy e.g. bashing everything with Mang while helping their guild in the event.
But that would not align itself with the abovementioned philosophy.
Of course, we still had to inform our guild members of what the scoring system was, because apparently including it in-game continues to be considered an unworthy endeavor.
Half a step forward on slightly less random scoring, big step backwards with the additional team/weapon restriction.
June 2019 - June 2020 … 1 year of incompetence from Saltypatra, Kafka and the french translator!
1 year of incompetence from Saltypatra and Kafka for their incapacity of transmitting the french translation mistake of the Deep king spell description to the french translator and/or make him understand the mistake (I alerted them several times about it but never been able to contact the french translator directly…I guess it would give too good and fast results this way…) and 1 year of incompetence (well…lol more like 4 years) from this french translator for not being able to understand that the Deep king deal true splash damage and not just normal ones.
1 year I am trying to have corrected the wrong spell description of The deep king who deal TRUE splash damage and in the french description, the word TRUE is missing (in french version, TRUE is written PURS so all is needed is to add the word PURS in the spell description)
Yes, you have read that right! All is needed is to add a little word of 4 letters!!! And they are unable to do it since 1 year!! Just a bunch of clowns!
So with this 1 year demonstration that clearly show that you dont care about the french version and your french speaking customers, I dont spend money in your slot machine (to call it a video game would be an insult to all true video games) and also all new french translation mistakes that I find are not transmitted to you anymore. (well I guess this last part must be the last of your concern anyway…)
The facts speak for themselves: they claim that they ‘don’t let people work for free, for a variety of reasons. Some legal, some moral.’ ( Devs Why so Lazy? - #53 by Saltypatra ), whereas both ‘reasons’ could be easily resolved if they so wished, seeing how players who care(d) about improving the game offered to assist. No go.
They’ve also mentioned in the past how there’s a process to produce translations/localizations: as evidenced by the results of this ‘process’, it delays/prohibits prompt modifications while producing substandard translations (in the case of the French translation, that go beyond mere oversights and instead demonstrate a lack of understanding of the game and even of the language’s grammar/spelling basics) that would take seconds to rectify if the Will existed on the company’s part. Nope.
Which brings us to the statement by a dev above, suggesting that quick fixes/workarounds are seen as a ‘waste’ of development time: this is in line with the pattern of postponing/delaying indefinitely things that do not affect the bottom-line.
But it wasn’t always like that:
It is well-documented that the company’s philosophy at some point became ‘pay to reduce grind’ instead of ‘pay because you’re having fun’: maybe some of the most senior forum members can shed some light over whether the shift happened around the time Fawkner took a step back from the forums? Has any specific incident been identified as the start of the shift in philosophy?
To me, pay to play started around Raid and Invasions (and other similar events). They went radio silent way before that (outside of major outrage issues). Even before The Soulforge.
I don’t know if there is a specific line, but to me it feels when the 3 following things happened
Gems removed from Legendary Tasks.
Gems nerfed in Completing Statues rewards. (And boy, do i remember the uproar over this. They actually put some back, but not until after an outcry that probably could have been heard on Jupiter.)
Introduction of gem-wasting Events, one by one by one. (Raid, Invasion, Bounty, TOD, Delves, World Events, did I miss any? I’m not counting Guild Wars, because you don’t HAVE to spend gems on it. Class events is more of a grey area, but I have’nt spent a gem on a single class event after the first one.)
In being blindsided by the same mistake they’ve made in the past (see Guild Guardians being released in Gold Chests), this company is setting a new precedent: if they ever mess up Mythic Release week, and you pull a different mythic from a chest than the one being released, they’ll take it away and generously give you less than 1/50 of a mythic in RNG…
…and when you tell them that what they’re doing is wrong, they’ll proceed to tell you that you do not understand how generous they are being. (see above quoted comments by a dev)
People using keys pulled a mythic. They got lucky.
It’s not their fault that you gave them the wrong mythic.
By all means, take away the mythic that they shouldn’t have been able to get, but they should get a random mythic from the pool in it’s place. Not a couple of keys, and the chance to get lucky again.
Even IF somebody up the ladder is looking into sorting this, their current silence and initial knee-jerk decision, paired with the way it was conveyed by a Dev that has historically conveyed messages in a similar tone, is something that will hopefully be set in stone in our memories (some of us, at least) in every future interaction with this company.
So is any of this information checked by people in a higher ranking position at the company? Is the point here to just complain and have nothing done?
It appears to me that the level of professionalism displayed by the community managers here go completely unchecked and are apparently able to do and say whatever they want. The Dev team makes yet another mistake and the community is understandably outraged.
In the event of this mythic situation. A troop or set of troops were pulled that wasn’t supposed to be there. The solution? Take away a 0.11% (based off event keys) chance that was successfully rolled and give them two separate 1% chances to try again. Community is outraged again as to be expected from such a terribly insulting solution.
What does the community manager do? Say we are lucky to get what we did? Tell people that they don’t understand how the loot drops work completely out of context?
How about issuing a global apology for making yet another mistake and give the compensation these people deserve - another mythic roll. Seriously can you imagine how that feels for people? Do you not think about how this type of behavior makes you look? The excitement of winning a mythic roll just to get it taken away at no fault of theirs, then to have to gall to say this was a generous compensation? How disingenuous.
I wasn’t even affected by this and I am completely disgusted. I’m sure nothing will be done and they will continue carrying along as if they are right and we don’t know what we are talking about as usual.
She is the 1 passing the information on, the messenger if you will.
The decision to give 2 VIP Keys, DID come from someone higher than her. How do I know?
Having a go at her because of something she has literally 0 control over, is like going into Walmart and abusing the staff cause head office said you have to wear a mask now. Its pointless and makes you look like an idiot.
As stated above, the exacerbation of the situation caused by the poor decision comes from the way the message was delivered, which has numerous historical precedents… e.g. See a few comments above:
It is well documented throughout these forums: being a community manager requires modulating the message, and the lack thereof is what is being highlighted in the comment above.
