All Alliances Increasing To 20 Member Slots

Unknown

thanks for the **** response today d3!

officially a F2P from here on out. not another dime towards this game.

this is not how you treat people who spent money on this game.

DD-The-Mighty

RefinedBean wrote:

This kind of decision needed at least a month-long lead-in for people to wrap their heads around it and give feedback.

It should've been approached like this:

"In a month or so, all alliances will be going to 20 slots. We're giving you this heads-up for two reasons:

1. You can stop spending HP on alliance slots now if you want, and

2. We want to hear from alliance leaders in the forum about your reactions to this news - obviously you'll have questions about whether there will be compensation, how we came to this decision, and how it will affect all of you going forward."

There. That's it. You don't leave any doubt that the change ISN'T happening, but you get the community involved. That's the whole point of Will's position, right?

It's not rocket science to realize that if people perceive they have more of a say in how things are going forward (re: compensation for HP spent on alliance slots, if any), they're much more likely to be invested in the outcome, WHATEVER IT IS.

(this same post was in a different thread but I'm posting it here, also, because I'm...like...WAY lazy, y'all)

...they didnt geive you a month long lead in because the minute they announce the change, everyone on the forums would (and did) stop buying alliance slots.
and when have demi/d3 ever sincerely asked for anyone's feedback on revenue generating game functions? Sure, they like feedback for things like "whats your fav character? and what event do you like?" Heck, the only reason you even got a lead in on "true healing" is because there was no income to lose by telling you sooner. Just like the early game roster slot change they gave a you a few days notice and then implement.

Just saiyin.

Unknown

Can you please give everyone 100 free roster spots as well...I mean its only fair, I dont really feel like buying any more roster spots seeing as you will probably find some way to make me feel like I wasted my money...again.

Pwuz_

Thanks D3. (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being serious.)

You guys could have chosen to just be jerks, but you refunded me 1900 HP. Sure it was only my most recent slot, and it's been months since another Alliance member has made the difference to push us further than the top 250 we have been pretty solidly in since we were at 15 members. Sorry, rambling.

Considering I've been growing my Alliance at the expense of personal roster atrophy, this refund (and the 2000 HP I finally saved for the 20th slot I didn't need to buy), I've finally got some extra slots for 1* & 2* characters.

Teddybabes

I lost 20.000 hp in just two month and did not get anything than a standart message with a slap in my face!

absolut821

I got refunded 2300 pts. Yippee! I'm sure that this will not be the end of it. I'm debating weather or not to proceed further with my correspondence with them. I do appreciate the refund and that they didn't tell me to go pound sand. However i like many of us only had an alliance of 12 and the only "Benefit" as the devs call is the HP that i earned myself and maybe a little extra for finishing in the top 500 somewhere. But i ask any of you and maybe you will be able to answer what is the benefit for creating an alliance and trying to grow it to 20? If not the devs should answer that. Why did i even bother creating an alliance if i could have latched on to a top 100 and got better rewards?

Unknown

absolut821 wrote:

I got refunded 2300 pts. Yippee! I'm sure that this will not be the end of it. I'm debating weather or not to proceed further with my correspondence with them. I do appreciate the refund and that they didn't tell me to go pound sand. However i like many of us only had an alliance of 12 and the only "Benefit" as the devs call is the HP that i earned myself and maybe a little extra for finishing in the top 500 somewhere. But i ask any of you and maybe you will be able to answer what is the benefit for creating an alliance and trying to grow it to 20? If not the devs should answer that. Why did i even bother creating an alliance if i could have latched on to a top 100 and got better rewards?

I can answer for the devs on this one. They wanted you to create an alliance so you would 1) interact with others, possibly increasing one another's fun; 2) have a way to reel your friends in and start playing the game with you; 3) generate more competition and possibly diversity in an otherwise bland, repetitive game mode. 4) Also: money.

Unknown

So, it seems they copying and pasting the same response to all of us asking for a refund.
D3 cant even take the time to write something of substance to tell us why they won't refund.
Way to go for PR and customer confidence. I am over and done with this theft modelled game system.
I played many games and devs always refunded me when they made changes or the game had issues. Not here, here they dont care, they think they have become Gods of gaming and treat their customers like !&@/.

Good bye people. Its been fun while it lasted. I am too gutted by this theft that i feel angry just seeing the mpq icon on my phone.

THIEVES!!!!

Unknown

Just got my reply form the ticket I started:

D3PA Customer Support (D3Publisher)
Nov 04 16:29

Greetings D3P Customer,

Thank you for your email in regards to Alliance slots.

For those that opened Alliance slots and have participated in them for an extended amount of time, the rewards have outweighed the cost. The team is very excited to offer this new feature to the game, for all players to enjoy and to reap the rewards of what the Alliances are meant to provide in the game. In the meantime, the team will be reviewing feedback and sharing any updates on the forums.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us again.

Best Regards,
D3Publisher Customer Support Team (LJR)

Here is the response I am sending:

So that is it, just a good old thank you for supporting us, we feel that the funds you spent provided us some satisfaction so we no longer need to charge for those slots so that every one else has a chance to enjoy what you paid for but at no cost for them selves?

Great, so now every one is on the same playing field, oh wait no they are not, those of us that chose to spend the HP to expand our alliance are out the same HP, while there are those that just join without spending one HP just to reap the benefits. Sure I could have done the same thing but I chose to use my HP to expand my alliance to help others.

In this decision you are essentially punishing those of us that decided to put funds into the alliance system for your beta test. Well I hope you realize that the next feature that you roll out will be left untested because people will be waiting for the free version.

All in all, I do hope for a change of heart, not all alliance slots have been paid for 1 slot to one player. and for those the rewards have not outweighed the costs.

I hope they sleep well at night.

Pwuz_

dragma wrote:

I hope they sleep well at night.

I'm sure they sleep better than anyone who works on Wall Street. Honestly, how many lives has this game destroyed? It's a game for fun.

I agree that there are probably better ways they could have dealt with this situation, but I doubt anyone is losing sleep over this. I think the punk kid at McDonald's who only put one strip of bacon on a breakfast biscuit this morning should have a harder time sleeping than the guys at D3. Did he eat it? Did he just throw it out? Is it on someone else's sandwich?

Unknown

Pwuz_ wrote:

dragma wrote:

I hope they sleep well at night.

I'm sure they sleep better than anyone who works on Wall Street. Honestly, how many lives has this game destroyed? It's a game for fun.

I agree that there are probably better ways they could have dealt with this situation, but I doubt anyone is losing sleep over this. I think the punk kid at McDonald's who only put one strip of bacon on a breakfast biscuit this morning should have a harder time sleeping than the guys at D3. Did he eat it? Did he just throw it out? Is it on someone else's sandwich?

The difference there is you can ask for a new sandwich at McD.

Unknown

dragma wrote:

Pwuz_ wrote:

dragma wrote:

I hope they sleep well at night.

I'm sure they sleep better than anyone who works on Wall Street. Honestly, how many lives has this game destroyed? It's a game for fun.

I agree that there are probably better ways they could have dealt with this situation, but I doubt anyone is losing sleep over this. I think the punk kid at McDonald's who only put one strip of bacon on a breakfast biscuit this morning should have a harder time sleeping than the guys at D3. Did he eat it? Did he just throw it out? Is it on someone else's sandwich?

The difference there is you can ask for a new sandwich at McD.

And THEY would do what they can to make the customer happy.

Unknown

I got my alliance slot purchases for the month of October refunded, but my wife has yet to receive hers, even though we both submitted our CS ticket at about the same time. So she's a little worried and despondent as to whether she'll be getting her refund.

I do realize of course that there's probably over 30,000 alliances in the game, and such things may take time. I do wonder if everyone will get refunded or just those who submitted CS tickets.

Time will tell. Hopefully she'll get hers tomorrow or so. Same goes to all the alliance leaders who submitted a ticket and are still waiting for a response.

HailMary

RefinedBean wrote:

This kind of decision needed at least a month-long lead-in for people to wrap their heads around it and give feedback.
It should've been approached like this:

"In a month or so, all alliances will be going to 20 slots. We're giving you this heads-up for two reasons: 1. ... 2. ... "

There. That's it. You don't leave any doubt that the change ISN'T happening, but you get the community involved. That's the whole point of Will's position, right?

I have a serious question, since I have barely any experience with other games of this kind: have other vaguely similar games done precisely what you've described? Do you have examples of other games that have provided a full month of lead time and always actively obeyed player-forum demands sufficiently to stave off raging?

RefinedBean wrote:

It's not rocket science to realize that if people perceive they have more of a say in how things are going forward (re: compensation for HP spent on alliance slots, if any), they're much more likely to be invested in the outcome, WHATEVER IT IS.

"More invested", sure, but that doesn't equate to "less ragey." They tried the "pre-announce and let people voice their feedback" thing with recent character nerfs, and many forumites still went nuclear because the tweaks weren't precisely in line with what some forumites wanted (e.g. Spidey/CMags received more than simple numerical adjustments), even if the actual tweak was quite good (e.g. New CMags is still high/top-tier).

While D3's messaging could use some improvement, forumites will rage not only regardless of lead time, but based upon expectations that range from the pretty understandable ("I plunked down $100-200 for alliance slots a month ago, and I feel like I should get some some sort of compensation") to the unabashedly absurd ("Your dev Q&A didn't give us your internal development timeline in detail, so it's all bullkitty!").

absolut821 wrote:

But i ask any of you and maybe you will be able to answer what is the benefit for creating an alliance and trying to grow it to 20? If not the devs should answer that. Why did i even bother creating an alliance if i could have latched on to a top 100 and got better rewards?

Why are you asking other people why you yourself decided not to join a T100 alliance? Joining a T100 alliance is clearly the easier route to getting T100 alliance rewards for yourself if that's all you care about. There's really no comparison. Filling and maintaining a competitive 20-man alliance from scratch ain't a walk in the park. High-performing alliances that create junior alliances from scratch know this very well, and definitely aren't doing it merely for the tangible in-game rewards.

So far, I've seen more than one person claim that s/he actively decided against joining an existing alliance, instead maxing out his own brand-spanking-new alliance for the sake of fun/selflessness/personal generosity. Just for the sake of basic self-consistency, people thinking along similar lines should change their story ASAP if they're now going to complain about feeling slighted because you suddenly view your alliance as nothing more than a calculated investment towards getting better in-game rewards.

I think people who plunked down HP for more than a handful of slots should be compensated in some way, but if you're trying to claim "I'm outraged because my strategic investment didn't generate adequate quantifiable returns," it's best not to follow that up with "By the way, I initially paid in just for funsies, with zero regard for quantifiable returns." Just an observation.

scottee

I paid $20 for Team Fortress 2 back in the day. Soon afterward, they changed it to free-2-play. All I got for it was a worthless hat.

turul

dragma wrote:

Great, so now every one is on the same playing field, oh wait no they are not, those of us that chose to spend the HP to expand our alliance are out the same HP, while there are those that just join without spending one HP just to reap the benefits. Sure I could have done the same thing but I chose to use my HP to expand my alliance to help others.

In this decision you are essentially punishing those of us that decided to put funds into the alliance system for your beta test. Well I hope you realize that the next feature that you roll out will be left untested because people will be waiting for the free version.

This is so true. We should put this on their facebook & play store rating with a bit of rewording.

Unknown

Still no response from d3? That's incredibly poor customer relations. I also noticed the Google play store average score is now 4.3 stars down from 4.5 as an average since the update. Doesn't sound like much, but with 120k votes that's a fair few upset people.

GothicKratos

stray wrote:

Still no response from d3? That's incredibly poor customer relations. I also noticed the Google play store average score is now 4.3 stars down from 4.5 as an average since the update. Doesn't sound like much, but with 120k votes that's a fair few upset people.

If you really read through the thread, they are corresponding with people individually, through tickets and support e-mails. People have even reported partial refunds.

It would be far worse posture for them to try and fight their way through these (and similar) thread(s). It would be mindless bickering that would solve nothing.

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

stray wrote:

Still no response from d3? That's incredibly poor customer relations. I also noticed the Google play store average score is now 4.3 stars down from 4.5 as an average since the update. Doesn't sound like much, but with 120k votes that's a fair few upset people.

If you really read through the thread, they are corresponding with people individually, through tickets and support e-mails. People have even reported partial refunds.

It would be far worse posture for them to try and fight their way through these (and similar) thread(s). It would be mindless bickering that would solve nothing.

I've read the entire thread, and the only response from staff is that those who bought slots in the last week can submit a ticket, and anyone outside that timeframe is SOL. So reading people's successful requests for refund one can only assume they are within the week, and those who were unsuccessful are outside that time. If I'm misreading that, then it's only because there has been nothing official saying there is any point submitting a ticket if you're out of the week, and if that's the case it comes right back to my initial point about poor communication and customer relations.

SandsTheMan

FYI, no lone commander of a 15 member alliance where there was a new slot every month or so reaped the benefits with their many 250 iso prizes.

What a load of twaddle. As said earlier much better than I'm putting it, I can't say I'll invest in any new feature until it becomes free for all. No loyalty to their player base who've been playing a year.