I’m sure she’s not the one making these decisions, but you’re right some people may think she is. My outrage, and I’m sure many others, like @AMT stated is how the messages are delivered. If someone is telling these community managers to behave this way then there really is no hope or reason to voice opinions here.
4 Likes
Just a quick update on the wrong mythic being pulled situation…
I mentioned this on Stream, and said I’d reiterate on the forums. We sent out 2 VIP keys per incorrect pull. On top of this, the handful of players that did get the new mythic incorrectly will have a random mythic sent to them. We sent the 2 keys out ASAP, then waited until more people were online today to continue discussing the compensation. That means these players get the keys already mailed, and a new random mythic troop to replace the one that was removed.
11 Likes
Thank you, sincerely. I can only speak for myself, but this completely resolves the issue in my mind, and in as fair a manner as possible.
7 Likes
This puts the Mythic issue at rest.
What happened must however not be forgotten by any of the parties.
Some of the blame for this is now put back on the players, who (from what I’ve seen) are tripping over themselves to buy $10 battlepasses.
The company is to blame for the excessive psychological manipulation, but the players are the ones rewarding the behavior.
A new era of GoW is dawning with this action. Two monetization patches in a row, rewarded by a LOT of money from players, is sending the message that players are willing to overlook a lot of really bad behavior if the perceived value of a purchase is significant enough.
5 Likes
I fully agree that the playerbase is allowing (and some apologist behaviours are even enabling it) this evolution: regrettably, new players will continue to inflow to keep the wind on this ship’s sails, who will never know what this game’s philosophy used to be which made it stand out from other ‘pay to reduce grind’ match-3 games.
3 Likes
Thank you for doing the right thing. I hope you can understand and see the frustration from the community. The initial response lead us to believe that the two VIP keys were the only compensation, and that was being “generous”.
I also hope that this issue as well as others in the future can be handled and addressed more professionally. This “we’re right and you guys are always wrong” mentality is not how the community should be addressed from professionals, and is not how game development should always function.
There should always be a mutual understanding and effort to make sure that concerns from the community are not only being understood, but handled compassionately. Unfortunately you and your team doesn’t always get that level of respect from everyone, but as community managers and game Devs this should always be unwavered.
4 Likes
I do remember Wardengate, and that was also the first thing I thought of when I read about the handling of this situation.
1 Like
Thank you for fixing the situation with campaign troops.
I agree, BUT… This issue shouldn’t need to be dragged THIS long. I can accept that, to some extent, communication and decision making among the team is handicaped due the pandemic and all.
Still I would honestly like to see the players keeping their new mythics and legendaries JUST LIKE it happened before with the new guardians pulled from gold chests.
The devs screw the players once, twice, thrice and so on and we are always playing the clows in this slapstick circus…
“Oh you didn’t cheated with gold keys to get the new guardians? Here is a 
for you! We will let everyone keep theirs.”
“Oh you pulled the new troops that weren’t supposed to be in the chests? Here is two vip keys and a for you!”
"Hey guys/girls/non-binary people, we will now properly address the issue and that has NOTHING TO DO with all the pressure and complaints. 
"
2 Likes
In our defense, I do think fixing the issue and coming to a reasonable conclusion within 24 hours is a decent time frame.
However, I do apologise to you all that I didn’t let you know prior to our decision that we were still discussing what we wanted to do. I did this because I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, and I wasn’t sure what form the compensation would take.
2 Likes
It is better late than never. I think perhaps moving forward, there should either be more QA testing, or a standard backup plan for compensation.
It probably should be standard to either:
A) Give a random or even unowned troop (if possible) of the same rarity.
B) Give an equal amount of soulforge crafting materials.
It has to be understood the communication error of not only making it seem the 2 VIP keys were the only compensation, but generous was a snafu.
If QA can’t improve to catch these constant, reoccurring bugs and issues, then the customer support could use better bedside manner and timing.
“We had an error in the weekly reset where X was available to pull in chests and was not supposed to be available yet. As a result, we have removed it from the given player collections, gave out a small reward apology, and are working on a replacement for the mishap of the affected players. Please contact us if you were an affected player.”
Compared to:
One edit for saying that the missing mythic pull would be replaced properly goes a long way. As it was worded, the keys were the compensation or at least the only significant compensation.
2 Likes
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.
11 Likes
This. Very much this.
For a company that is so focused on monetisation, it is amazing that they still do not realize how much money they are losing when staff, who may excel in certain duties but who do not necessarily have the required soft skills to interact with customers (as abundantly documented), are allowed to taint the company’s image through recurrent faux-pas.
Before the Dev Tracker tab mysteriously disappeared from my tabs yesterday, it showed that Sirrian hasn’t logged on in a couple of months, so some additional supervision may be advisable, moving forward.
3 Likes
@AMT I’ve spoken to Sirrian, who is checking the forums from home, but not posting. As he isn’t posting he hasn’t been logging into his account, as it isn’t necessary. So yes, Sirrian has been frequenting the forums, but won’t have popped up in the Dev Tracker because he isn’t logging in.
For posterity, I have asked him to log in now, and he has done so. <3
3 Likes
One more update and one more time The deep king wrong spell description in the french version have not been corrected! (and Mershark troop as well btw…both with same mistake)
I stopped writing that in the Translation error masterthread as I already did that a few times since June 2019. I was expecting to deal with people able to think, tragic mistake from me.
The deep king (and Mershark troop too) deal TRUE splash damage and not normal splash damage.
Every troop that deal true damage in the english version have the word “true” written.
Guess what? its exactly the same in french! But the word is called “purs”…so Tina, khorvash, Euralyie,…etc…have all the word “purs” written in their spell description. Now go check Deep king and Mershark in french version, and you won’t see “purs” written in their spell description!
As I was fully aware that to correct this mistake was required 10 years of University, I also mentionned another mistake in the french translation: The 3 weapons of Xathenos have all 3 the name Xathenos written with a different spelling. I thought this mistake would be more accessible for the devs and french translator to understand…again big mistake from me!
Correct french name is Xathénos…one weapon have name Xathénos written correctly, the 2 other have written Xathenos (no accent on the “e”) and Xanéthos (“n” and “t” inverted).
Please, never ever fix that! Now after 14 months, its kinda entertaining to witness.
But I will repeat it again: all you gained with your incompetence is that now all mistakes in the french version that I find, I keep them for me. And be assured that they keep coming with regularity.
3 Likes
An interesting coincidence happened last week, during the 24 hours of the Mythic fiasco whose handling by a company’s representative has been well-documented across the forum (and hopefully duly reviewed by the company’s leadership, to adopt any necessary measures to ensure they are represented by individuals with the required soft-skills in the future, thus avoiding any future lo$$es arising from the treatment of customers that we all witnessed): the Dev Tracker tab was there on Monday, but had gone missing by Tuesday (As Requested by a Dev: A Thread about Devs' Actions/Inactions - #136 by AMT).
A company representative has claimed that they “haven’t made any changes to the forum super recently, so I’m not sure when it was removed or if it was something Discourse changed at some point”
And also claimed that, in the past week, two particular devs have been “at least one of us have been reading the forum each day and making note of anything that needs to be passed onto the team”
And here we have a screenshot taken on Tuesday 27/JUL from Gems of war developer - Gems of War | Forums :
Conjectures such as ‘how many of us log off our accounts to check the forums?’ aside, these facts/claims have become increasingly valuable to be duly documented after last week’s fiasco, since it would appear that the status quo is to remain, based on recent activity.
Coincidences are Improbable.
I do login everyday, and you can even see that there. 
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with that point, as I am here as often as I can be. (Sickness aside.)
Goldpheonix can also be seen logging in two hours prior, and he quietly reads the forums very frequently. That is already two regular visitors, outside of Kafka. I don’t see any contradiction in what she has said, as yes, we have been sick, and yes, a dev will regularly frequent this forum.
Not all of our developers are on the forums regularly, and nor should they be. They have other responsibilities, which is why we have a few people that gather data and feedback for them to save time and free up their mental load. It isn’t just the time spent on the forums that needs to be considered, there are also emotional side effects too. At times the forums can be very heated and taxing, and extra load on certain developers who need to focus their attentions at a higher level is never a good idea. That’s why we have a community and support team. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that expecting all of our developers to log in frequently is reasonable. It is fine if you feel otherwise, everyone has different opinions and expectations.
In regards to the dev tracker, this has not been purposefully removed. If we get some extra time I’ll see if one of our team can have a quick look into it.
4 Likes
Same issue in the italian version. The word “true” (“vero” in italian) is missing.
Same error in two different translations lead me to think that the error was in the file given to translators at some point…
Why hasn’t been addressed (as many other) is beyond me anyway.
2 Likes
ahhh thats insane! and you would think that this Saltypatra would come here to answer to that! But no…absolutely not! Probably too busy she is for sulking like a 12 yo girl. Unable to answer me since 2 years, would you believe that! Thats with such kind of “person” I have to deal here despite me taking on my time to spot and report translation mistakes.
When a video game company enter the F2P, its safe to say that they reached the bottom. No way to go lower. For sure this person is making honour to that affirmation. They all are lucky at 505 and IP2 that F2P concept with lootbox is something still relatively new that allow them to navigate in a grey area. But you will see…soon the law will regulate all this circus much more severly and hopefully forbide it. Meanwhile they are lucky to not all be in jail.