I don’t often reply, but after trying the “new” trials that are NOT going away I just had to step in and say my peace. The game does not need yet another gating mechanism to slow players down. The reason I play is the ease with which you can play this game. Do I want more challenges, yes I do, but they need to be challenging, not punishing.
The new trials are just unbalanced. It’s a shame that someone is asking the community “Ways to address the problems!”. Any good designers worth their salt who works on games will know their audience and their community and work towards creating new mechanics that raise up the game and gameplay, however it does not appear to the community to have been done that way.
I am an avid player. I do purchase in game items/boosts/unlocks from many different events which I enjoy. I’ve spent more on this one game than I have on all my games in the past two years. That’s how much I like this game.
It just frustrates me when some of the last few “new” mechanics have come out and are just not good game play but an obvious push to get more money out of their players base. Whomever is doing the metrics for the team is not getting the right info. Make players enjoy the game and they will buy more. Make them mad and they will leave. You might see some initial bump in money but the overall lines will fall off faster.
You might be saying, well what do YOU know. Well, after making games for 30 years on every major platform I think I have some merit to add to the conversation, but hey, what do I know. It’s easier to ramp up some difficulties over time, add more challenges later then it is to stomp on the community with terribly challenging mechanics and then say “oops sorry!” and then have to back pedal as you watch you metrics and see that NO BODY is playing the new feature.
Just look to the other useless portions like; Treasure Maps, Arena and Delves.
Delves at least has a way to grind them out, but the cost to do so for ALL delves is so prohibitive that it is not even funny. Also, when the weekly event comes around having to start at 0 and work up to 500 is just boring as crap. At least keep track of our progress and let us start where we left off.
Ok, thanks for your time to anyone that read through all this. I hope something good will come from this discussion.
asking for a mil gems is just insulting! (and not having a confirmation screen at first was kinda funny … salt in the wound kinda funny.) — so glad that was in a fix why not EVERYTHING ELSE TO DO WITH THE TRIALS?
I’m sure my comment will get buried with the rest of the almost 200 comments on this topic alone. It seems each trial also has it’s own complaint thread as well. But I hope the powers that be see my burning question is:
Have the devs even acknowledged how much of a disaster the trials have been? Not counting the hot fix for a confirmation screen, but the sheer fact that they aren’t designed well, or maybe they just don’t actually play Gems of War at all. This truly made the game unenjoyable for me and I hope that comes back but I’m going to need your help to do so.
Secondly, it would have been nice to know that the challenges were going away before they did so those who wanted to finish them and avoid this could have done so. Instead, we were kept in the dark until it was too late.
I don’t post much but this really got to me. This is just one player’s view on the whole thing, one player you could lose- that’s it.
I appreciate the honesty that the Trials are not going away. It saves me from bothering with it any further. It also tells me someone with power likes the idea and approved it and is not going to take the hit for pissing many folks off. I hate it and have already decided to not try it again. But again, thank you for being honest that getting rid of the current trial system is not going to happen. Otherwise I might keep thinking that hitting my head against the wall will eventually break it down. The fact that you all didn’t identify just how hard you made it, and the total lack and absence of ANY enjoyment whatsoever says to me somebody has way to much invested in this to ever admit you all messed up, apologize, and move on. Nope, easier to simply put the full weight of the mess up on the players. But hey, you all are not the first game company to do this, nor will you be the last. I will give one suggestion to make things better…PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE ANY OTHER PARTS OF THE GAME. Maybe someone has heard the old saying that’s been around for centuries? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. (P.S. what I learned today will save me money in the future, so thanks for that as well.)
Leave reviews people.
Let any potential new players have the knowledge that the development team doesn’t take feedback.
A lot of people don’t read reviews and a lot just rate and never look back. It does matter and its probably more powerful than telling them ways to improve when they arent listening anyway.
Excellent idea and I did just that. What’s amusing to me is sometimes the 505 team will respond to certain reviews and that’s the only time I’ve ever seen them interact directly with the community.
With all due respect. While I appreciate the devs asking the community what teams we think would better take on the task of completing the new challenges, everytime I see that it triggers me for some reason. I think the community feedback should be leaned in more often. Here though to me it’s reads more like “Hey, can you do our job for us and team build it instead?”. We don’t get paid to create the new play modes. Maybe I’m just grumpy these days.
One interesting point to note is it’s basically 2 weeks since this was created but bar the initial post there is no acknowledgement of anything being passed on/ reviewed further even when things are pointed out for future kingdoms. I say future as luckily I had already done the previous challenges.
Yeah. It does seem like we are being taken for a ride. First with the ridiculous epic trials everyone hates, and which they state they refuse to get rid of irrespective of everyone’s opinion, then by asking for feedback, which is completely ignored.
It’s not the job of the player to come up with a solution to make a terrible game mode no one wants slightly more bearable. They should ask us before implementing abysmal stuff and actually listen to feedback, instead of doubly wasting everyone’s time. I’ve mentioned elsewhere (dunno if in this thread), that I came to this game through being asked to test it - so if they can ask non-players for their opinion, they can certainly ask actual players whose opinion is at least qualified.
@Kafka Did you lose interest in this topic after going rogue and creating it?
Was any progress made by “the team” so far regarding the player feedback you wanted to collect in this thread so you “could” deliver said feedback to “the team” to possibly make some changes happen?
What has been reported back to “the team” so far?
Is anyone of “the team” even aware and willing to take on said feedback and work towards playable solutions?
Please make sure to not to just report back “teams are too hard” marked as “negative feedback” as you called it. It’s factual. Anyone actually playing the game would come to that conclusion.
I’m pretty sure that I understand the timeline you and/or “the team” are working on. I’m aware “this topic” isn’t of any priority to you or “the team”, hence the absence?
In complete honesty I don’t expect anything to happen regarding all of that. Maybe you’ll find your way back into this thread once again, maybe you’ll even announce that feedback was delivered (true or not, we can’t proof anything). But surely that’s it then. I don’t have any confidence in “the team” anymore to deliver a playable gamemode that is what you often describe in a three letter word: “fun”. Further, I expect future questions or messages about it to be ignored, or let’s say they’ll be handled as “problem solved”.
We can’t know whether the feedback has been absorbed on not, but I expect Kafka was acting in good faith when the request for feedback was made. No promises for an ongoing back-and-forth discussion were provided so this thread should not expect that. Just stick to feedback.
We’ll know in good time whether it’s had any effect. Perhaps the most telling affect is on the minds of potential/new players who wander on to the forum before getting too deep into the game…
I’ve been playing GoW for about 5 years, first with XBox and then switched to mobile and without bias, I can say that this game has been on a downhill slope to misery for a while but has taken a drastic turn for the worse in the past couple years. I have zero respect for the developers of this game. I have zero confidence in them to have our best interests at heart and that they don’t care at all about what we want.
This company has just shown what not to do and shown what to do to if other game developers want to piss people off and commit game suicide. Apparently, it’s a thing. Intentionally ruining a game for whatever purpose. I could be wrong but I don’t believe execs in these positions are this stupid. Maybe they are but either way, it’ll be a slow death but a suicide death nonetheless. They had something great but ruined it.
I have made my decision to leave the game. It’s not just this game mode but a plethora of mistakes and intentional slaps to our faces over a period of years. It’s not fun anymore. It’s become more of a burdensome chore. I try to play casually and not stress about things and even for a laid back person like me, it’s just not set up to play that way anymore unless ppl really don’t care about fun game modes, troop/kingdom stats or winning battles and such… then why are you playing in the first place? LOL. I’m not one of those people.
Good riddance GoW!
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
…
More seriously? I think it’s one of three things.
The first is that the execs making the decisions are too far removed from the players and their feedback. That the corporate personnel here on the forums mean well but there is simply too much bureaucracy and too many layers between the “customers” and the Powers That Be and it’s a giant game of “telephone” where the number of intermediaries distorts the message beyond any reasonable recognition. Assuming the message gets there at all.
The second is that the forums are viewed as a small minority of players, a very loud and very angry minority blowing off steam. And that because huge chunks of the player base are your proverbial “silent majority”, the forums crowd get dismissed as a bunch of crackpots whose opinions don’t reflect the “true feeling” of the masses.
The third is that the analytic tools used by those Powers That Be to evaluate the game are returning responses to the top indicating everything is alright. That they’re judging the game based on certain criteria the rest of us don’t hold to the same value. Or data that’s even flawed in some fundamental way. For example, they might see somebody beating their head against the new Epic Trials for hours on end trying to beat them and judge that as “they’re spending lots of time and attempts there; therefore they must love it!”
None of these explanations are particularly complementary to the execs. And maybe staff like Kafka have relayed that to those execs.
But it’s also the privilege of the execs to ignore that advice and not do a course correction.
These two are related. BY DEFAULT there is ZERO collective feedback from players post-release to the decision makers at the top, the forums are LITERALLY the only means of direct end-user discussion that has any nonzero chance of being transmitted to said decision-makers.
Personally I think a general like/dislike feedback system could be useful. Similar to how after a PVP battle you can choose to give the defending player an Honor, in other game modes you can submit a like/dislike that will be recorded alongside the battle that was just logged. It would obviously take some time to statistically establish the baseline (and it’s fair to observe that players are probably less likely to “like” a fun battle than dislike a bad one), but if they want to see direct feedback from players, they have to provide a method to (ahem) directly submit it.
…which is a deceptively easy trap to fall into.
If I may compare Super Mario Maker for a moment, the (public) stats for a given course include:
The # distinct players who’ve attempted a course
Its overall clear ratio (wins/attempts)
A “heat map” of where in the course specific deaths happened
First player to clear the course
A world-record clear time for that course
A like/dislike tally (albeit only likes are shown)
But there are many metrics potentially be useful to a course creator (or even another player) which are NOT logged:
The # of incomplete attempts (i.e: quit/forfeit/skip) and thus a “quit ratio” for the course – which are NOT deaths and thus NOT already logged by the “heat map”
The % of checkpoint clears (for courses that use them)
For courses with clear conditions, the average “quota” achieved
Per-session statistics (i.e. counting all consecutive attempts up to a single win or quit/forfeit/skip), e.g. “lives per clear”
Heat map per type of death (when not readily apparent, e.g. timeout deaths)
Never say “Never” when it comes to arrogant, stubborn corp execs ensuing malice against their own when their own (player base) complain about their so called not so “brilliant” ideas.
After many years and consistent ignoring and slaps in the face with little remorse, STUPIDITY would be identified/shown A LONG TIME AGO along with a heartfelt apology from them! They would realize what “mistakes” they were doing if they actually cared. LOL. Wake up! Geez. Stop giving these people the benefit of the doubt. They have forfeited that luxury awhile ago. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me 50+ times, shame on them and me. I’m not that stupid to believe their intent is that genuine and caring after all this time.
By now, they would get a clue even if they were that stupid. Even my 10 yr old son would get a clue by now and can do a better job managing this company. Lmao. Seriously! That’s why they are prideful, greedy and stubborn mixed with malice and apathy. It’s constant… month after month, year after year. Their is no logical explanation for an extended period of time of making the same mistakes and insulting us with various forms of greedy tactics, pathetic compensation for huge errors, and mind blowing horrible game ideas except for… malice and prideful apathy.
I’m sorry but there is no way out of this for them unless they do something drastic. Stupidity isn’t the name of this game, unfortunately. I wish they were just stupid. Even super stupid people see their mistakes when pointed out to them over and over again by hundreds or thousands of people and actually do better. There’s no progress here, peeps. It’s a continued and constant downhill slide to death. A slow one.
I sooo wish I could be more optimistic but I live in reality and reality is what I base my conclusions on, not some gullible fantasy I’ve built up in my head about who these people are… like some people on here who keep giving them the benefit of the doubt a thousand times over with no ACTIONS that prove that their word means anything. They tell us what we want to hear and they move on. Empty rhetoric. The Trials is a good example of that.
Anyone else sometimes wonder if the devs secretly read the forums and laugh about our constant outrage and us trying to provide feedback to make the game better?
Not even a peep about this thread here. Not a “we heard you and are discussing options” or a “yeah, sorry, but we don’t care”.
Even the latter would be better than this silence.
