In preparation for the post-Ultron v2 backlash, a suggestion

El Satanno

In less than 48 hours we're going to see the end of the Ultron event. Judging from the conversation going on around here, it seems like a very real possibility that not a single person will be getting the final Hulkbuster cover from progression in the Ultron Prime sub. With the litany of problems faced by the playerbase, emotions are running pretty hot and the tone around here has become more than a little acidic. I wholly anticipate that when the first alliance finally cracks Ultron 8 open and reveals what will very likely be a pile of health points on an epic scale, this place will create a singularity of negativity and disdain which could warp the fabric of reality itself.

I'd like to implore the collective population here to try to curtail your vilest impulses. Honestly. I get that we're all tired of feeling like we're not valued as customers, or that design decisions made in this event (and many others) can be identified somewhere on a line beginning at "bumbling incompetence" and ending at "mustache-twirling insidiousness." I really do. And I get that you want to vocalize your displeasure. I think a lot of us really like the idea of making this forum a place where we can provide constructive feedback, and piling on the insults, baseless accusations, and wild leaps in logic aren't particularly helpful. Are you really thinking somewhere that "Hey, maybe if I call these guys a bunch of inbred, mouth-breathing, waterheads, they'll take me seriously!"

Now if you just want to vent, then I suppose that's your prerogative. It's pretty tired, though. If I had a nickel for every post that contains some variation of the phrases "incompetent development," "only want your money," and/or "don't give a **** about the players," I'd be able to build my own colony on Mars. I feel like any given thread around here has 40% of its posts that either contain those concepts, or worse still, consist solely of them. You know, I don't even necessarily disagree with those sentiments, but I sure as hell don't need to read about it in every thread.

How about if instead, we try to focus on the positive and then move into let's-make-it-better territory? Yeah, it takes a little more effort. Yeah, it's not quite as viscerally satisfying. But maybe, just maybe, we'd be a little more likely to get some more posts from those names in red that we seem to collectively crave. I don't know about you, but I'd surely be a lot more prone to engaging with my customers if I wasn't certain to be inundated with the same tired accusations for page after page after page. Hell, look at it from another angle: Would you rather have this place full of NorthernPolarity/Nonce Equitaur/Clintman/Phantron/etc, or...well, you can surely pick some of the same names I'm thinking of...

Unknown

While I can very much empathize with your point, I don't think it's necessary as productive as you might think it is.

For starters you petition that positive and informative feedback is going to be much more heard than negative feedback. On top of being debatable in the first place, let's say that the past has painted us a pretty mixed picture about that.

Secondly, you're almost playing with fire as the only thing worse than a dissatisfied customer is a customer that was led to believe his opinion could matter when actually nobody cared. In other words, even if tomorrow this place magically transforms into a paradise of fertile ideas, it will quickly revert to its dark side if the said ideas are not heard. Actually this very place has often gone through the ideas -> ignored -> anger -> ideas cycle (like most games forums maybe).

I'd rather (for once) adopt the exact same philosophy than the devs on this one: this too shall pass. In other terms, let everyone vent as much as they see fit and the moderation will have to take care of all the excessive banter. We're pretty much following a 5 stages of grief pattern here (and some people seem to be stuck in denial phase ) so I'd recommend to let everyone follow all the steps up to their completion.

Unknown

I agree On the fact that insults and rants are next to useless and in many cases are counter productive, however I disagree that people should not express their displeasure, I think it just should be done with a certain level of respect as agree or not your talking to a human being.

Now all that being said I think people should start expressing their displeasure to marvel directly. As a marvel licensee the developers will certainly have to some level cater to Marvel's policy's and since Marvel's own image is indirectly affected they have a vested interest in resolving the issues as well. If Demiurge does not want to listen to our feedback, they will have very little choice but to listen to Marvels if they want to keep the license. I would also reccomend you reflect your opinion of the changes in your review of the app in both the App Store and the Play store.

I'm normally very pro developer (being a developer) and have never hesitated to spend money in support of other developers, but honestly Demiurge is one of the most obtuse developers I've ever encountered when it comes to dealing with customer feedback. Now there may other mitigating factors, but the next to complete developer silence or lack of explanations for the series of questionable decisions over the last few months means they will end up shouldering the brunt of the customers Ill-will.

The bottom line is in my opinion they have already lost a lot of customers confidence, I hope they honestly consider this going forward and take steps to try and get some of that confidence back. They can certainly hope the influx of new customers will make up for the loss of existing customers but at a certain point that pool starts to run dry.

simonsez

If anyone is disturbed by the impending negativity, a good idea would be to put your fingers in your ears and go, "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA... ", you know, just like the official response we get to many of the issues we raise around here.

Mawtful

Grosnours wrote:

Secondly, you're almost playing with fire as the only thing worse than a dissatisfied customer is a customer that was led to believe his opinion could matter when actually nobody cared.

This is more or less what happened to the monthly Q&A.

Square

There are adult and petulant ways to communicate dissatisfaction. But for the entire month of April, they have earned backlash. Maybe six months from now, the mass of players will be happy with the game, but at the moment, they have deeply alienated long term players, and I think a lot of new ones as well.

I got most of the Ultron progressions, but that was expressly an event to pull in new players, wasn't it? (movie tie-in, heavy promotion) And new players could hardly participate. And ultimately, even the strongest vets couldn't finish it. It's just a screw up pure and simple.

So, the devs don't deserve to be belittled and insulted, but they're going to feel the brunt of a lot of failed strategies. Valid complaints are not a backlash.

fmftint

Didn't matter, when it happens and it will, Demiurge won't be around to see it. Just after noon tomorrow, when everyone is trying to hit the penultimate rest, the servers are gong to explode, again. If you've been playing long enough you know, if it happens on the weekend it doesn't get fixed

Unknown

I pretty much disagree with the sentiments of the OP. The Ultron event is a new event so bugs and maths errors are bound to happen, they will probably run it again in some form or other and these will eventually be ironed out. But, how they've behaved with the nerfs, health boosts and imo giving a range of boosted covers in PVP all smack of greed to the detriment of the players. Reiterating this so that new players and people who are new to the forum don't fall for their underhand tactics is potentially saving your fellow players a lot of money and wasted time, this, and hopefully the makers will listen to the wave of unhappy players and try to balance their need to make money and the wants of their customers.

So keep spamming people.

Arondite

Square wrote:

There are adult and petulant ways to communicate dissatisfaction. But for the entire month of April, they have earned backlash. Maybe six months from now, the mass of players will be happy with the game, but at the moment, they have deeply alienated long term players, and I think a lot of new ones as well.

I got most of the Ultron progressions, but that was expressly an event to pull in new players, wasn't it? (movie tie-in, heavy promotion) And new players could hardly participate. And ultimately, even the strongest vets couldn't finish it. It's just a screw up pure and simple.

So, the devs don't deserve to be belittled and insulted, but they're going to feel the brunt of a lot of failed strategies. Valid complaints are not a backlash.

Through and through.

Unknown

Square wrote:

There are adult and petulant ways to communicate dissatisfaction. But for the entire month of April, they have earned backlash. Maybe six months from now, the mass of players will be happy with the game, but at the moment, they have deeply alienated long term players, and I think a lot of new ones as well.

I got most of the Ultron progressions, but that was expressly an event to pull in new players, wasn't it? (movie tie-in, heavy promotion) And new players could hardly participate. And ultimately, even the strongest vets couldn't finish it. It's just a screw up pure and simple.

So, the devs don't deserve to be belittled and insulted, but they're going to feel the brunt of a lot of failed strategies. Valid complaints are not a backlash.

I don't know that I concur with the overall strength of some of the language in this thread, but the sentiment is one I wholeheartedly support.

Prior to Ultron, I was pretty excited to have found a good alliance. I'm on approximately Day 550 (just got Thoress ), but my roster is relatively underdeveloped (building a solid 2* group, no 3*s above 4 covers). That said, in the past few weeks I had my first ever top 5 PVP placement, I was doing well in PVE (a few top 5/10 chapter finishes, top 150 overall, maxing out progression rewards), and I felt like I could contribute to my alliance earning placement rewards. In other words, I felt like I was pulling my weight.

Understand I'm only speaking for myself, but if Ultron was supposed to promote inter-alliance solidarity, it didn't work in my case. I went from feeling valuable to feeling embarrassed and stressed out, all inside of a week. I'm seemingly not able to cause enough damage to matter, I don't heal fast enough after blowing through health packs, and overall, I don't see any appreciable benefit to my involvement, aside from "taking one for the team," over and over again.

In other words, I feel like virtual dead weight with regard to Ultron. It isn't an awesome feeling. I guess I would close by saying, I'm not whining, but merely describing my experience, contrasted by what D3 was apparently thinking vets, noobs, and transitioners were supposed to experience.

DBC

Heartburn

For ultron, just keep trying you may have maxed out. the scaling and difficulty of the sentries seems way off. don't get too down your time shine seems to be up to round 3 or 4. if your still feeling down i might have a solution:

Clintman

I would argue that what you post, or how you post it has about the same chances of being listened to/considered as you have of pulling a specific color of a 4* from a standard token cover pack. Spending effort to either rage or offer well thought out constructive advice will yield the same results. The forums are a method of disseminating information, not receiving suggestions for D3, they cannot come out and say they aren't really interested in your point of view because it would be a true PR nightmare.

Whub Whubz

HEY D3 HERE WAS AN EASIER FIX .... TONE DOWN THE PROGRESSION POINTS NEEDED AND NOT TOUCH ULTRON.
But you went the other way and made it impossible to shut up the "not everyone can get to 1 million points and there are obviously disappointed people."
Well played D3... NOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

TLCstormz

Like someone already said VALID COMPLAINTS are not backlash, or even raging.

How long are people going to continue to coddle and White Knight a business run by adults, who has CONSISTENTLY failed to hit the mark of customer appreciation and respect (minus a few highs like DDQ, some of the mechanics from this new PvE, and.......yeah, that's about it lol)?

It's all so very bizarre.

Dninot

I love this game, and have less problems with it than many do (im ok with nerfs, and generally like the game design choices theyve made.) I've put money into this game, which I never ever do for other free2plays. It was my vote of confidence in what they are delivering.

The general handling of the Ultron event has me questioning if I ever want to put more money into this game. If they value the time and money I want to put into the game, they should respect my time they wasted when I wanted to play this game, but couldn't. Heck, even if I only get 1000 iso as a "sorry about that," I'll be happy. But if this gets swept under the rug because I just wasn't close enough to win a Scarlet Witch, I'll be sad.

They still don't deserve me cursing at them, but if they want to continue building this community, they should at the very minimum consider it's a two way conversation.

Vohnkar

The main problem I see with Ultron Event is the amount of time it requires to even get progression rewards. Sentries are hard to beat and destroy a lot of characters if you don't handle them carefully. On the first run my alliance managed to get the first scarlet witch. We are pretty casual, only 5-10 of us play hard on some events, and on this one I have to say that 3-4 of our members just did awesome and carry the rest to SW. I got around 400k points, couldn't commit myself to do more points.

For the second round I decided to push harder to try and get the second cover of hulk, but after sitting there clearing ultron a ton of times I'm totally burned out. I'm at 600k points, for some of you this might be low points, but for me required a lot of time invested.

D3 were exacted cause they were promoting cooperation in the alliances, I was exited too. But after this event we will se how many alliance are destroyed. So far everyone can get rewards by playing individually, but in this event you NEED your teammates to commit hard to get the best rewards, and this is hard to obtain.

I'm a bit disapointed with the event, so much grinding, like any other PvE, and the feeling of being forced to do it (for not disapointing your alliance) is not good.

I hope fo the next time they tweak a litle bit the progression rewards, instead of getting us more grind, they could just low the progression to 800k or even less. Come on, this was supposed to be something exiting and fun, and so far all my alliance is burned out and disapointed with this. My father just stopped playing mostly becasue every change made recently seems to encourage us to just stop playing.

Vankysher

Ultron v1 was ok as I managed to at least unlock the Ultron Prime node for 1 SW cover as everyone except a few were playing sub-optimally.
Ultron v2 I decided to try and play a bit more optimally and the longer slog due to the significant HP boost is not fun even though I am currently a top 3 scorer in the alliance.
I doubt that we will even unlock the Ultron Prime node for a single IMHB cover which would've been nice but the grind has gotten to me.
Once Ultron is over I'm definitely going to just focus on DDQ and not bother with sinking anymore significant time into this game.
Movie was very enjoyable and way more entertaining than MPQ on any scale.

MarvelDestiny

I agree that the Ultron events caused rifts rather than solid teamwork. I watched the membership in my Alliance shuffle during the first run; that is, when I could get on. My account was severely affected by all the server outages during both runs. In fact, I was temporarily kicked to make room for a merc during Ultron HB because of my inability to participate. THAT was a wonderful experience.

I'm just glad it's almost over. I'd rather do my taxes than face another Ultron event...

To address the OP, I sympathize with you. Reading all the bile and vitriol can get old and depressing. But I'd rather we voice our true opinions and be honest. D3 may not care but at least they will hear us. More and more I feel like Oliver asking for more--I know it won't do any good but can't help asking.

Hmmm, who's up for 'upgrading' the red names to red shirts?

Edited for grammar.

GothicKratos

MarvelDestiny wrote:

To address the OP, I sympathize with you. Reading all the bile and vitriol can get old and depressing. But I'd rather we voice our true opinions and be honest. D3 may not care but at least they will hear us. More and more I feel like Oliver asking for more--I know it won't do any good but can't help asking.

I agree with this sentiment, but I absolutely don't think that dehumanizing attacks are synonymous with honesty (and I'm not trying to imply that's what you're saying - I know it's not).

Lots of people were frustrated with the server downtime for example, myself included; a lot of us were really looking forward to this new event - for me, this literally was the thing that made me come out of my hiatus...then I was locked out of it for almost an entire day while most of the people in my Alliance was able to play it mostly fine. That was a really **** feeling. I was frustrated. I was a little disappointed. I vented a little on Line even. However, you didn't see me on the forums belittling the developers about it. I've made my criticisms where they needed to be made (and I made them constructively), and I made valid statements in defense of the developers, as well.

Here's the overarching thing that is killing me though. A little while back, I made a post about support giving Tokens for compensation. I made the post because I felt like it was literally the "slap in the face" the community loves to complain about. I wasn't rude about it. I didn't make any assertions about their character. I explained why it was not acceptable and how they could change it going forward (as well as giving a few examples where giving Tokens would be acceptable). I was humane about it. To be honest, I expected it to fall on deaf ears - by the forums, not the developers - and much to my surprise, I got a lot of support in it, and I proceeded to message HiFi about it. He replied to me saying they already sent a message to support about it. Less than 24 hours time. You know what I haven't heard about since? Token compensation.

Now, you're probably thinking I'm rambling, but here's what I'm getting at; I think there was plenty of inefficiency in the handling of the last two weeks. I want to make another post like that in hopes of garnering some positive results. I can't bring myself to do it though. I genuinely have come to the conclusion that the developers cannot win - that nobody would be happy, even content, with any positive outcome. It feels like it would be an utter waste of time, because no matter what would come of it, it would just be met with vitriol and criticism.

Something happens that people don't like and it's practically a riot. Then two weeks later, people are either like "oh, so-and-so is probably why they did that" or "you know, this isn't as bad as I thought it would be", but instantly, on the drop of a dime, when the next change comes around, it's thrown in their faces. Fifty people make separate threads to complain about the same things.

When they scale something back for us, it's "about time". When they make changes that strictly benefit us, it's "about time". Maybe it's "about time" instead of demanding developer interaction, maybe, we can create an environment that feels worth interacting with.

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

MarvelDestiny wrote:

To address the OP, I sympathize with you. Reading all the bile and vitriol can get old and depressing. But I'd rather we voice our true opinions and be honest. D3 may not care but at least they will hear us. More and more I feel like Oliver asking for more--I know it won't do any good but can't help asking.

I agree with this sentiment, but I absolutely don't think that dehumanizing attacks are synonymous with honesty (and I'm not trying to imply that's what you're saying - I know it's not).

Lots of people were frustrated with the server downtime for example, myself included; a lot of us were really looking forward to this new event - for me, this literally was the thing that made me come out of my hiatus...then I was locked out of it for almost an entire day while most of the people in my Alliance was able to play it mostly fine. That was a really tinykitty feeling. I was frustrated. I was a little disappointed. I vented a little on Line even. However, you didn't see me on the forums belittling the developers about it. I've made my criticisms where they needed to be made (and I made them constructively), and I made valid statements in defense of the developers, as well.

Here's the overarching thing that is killing me though. A little while back, I made a post about support giving Tokens for compensation. I made the post because I felt like it was literally the "slap in the face" the community loves to complain about. I wasn't rude about it. I didn't make any assertions about their character. I explained why it was not acceptable and how they could change it going forward (as well as giving a few examples where giving Tokens would be acceptable). I was humane about it. To be honest, I expected it to fall on deaf ears - by the forums, not the developers - and much to my surprise, I got a lot of support in it, and I proceeded to message HiFi about it. He replied to me saying they already sent a message to support about it. Less than 24 hours time. You know what I haven't heard about since? Token compensation.

Now, you're probably thinking I'm rambling, but here's what I'm getting at; I think there was plenty of inefficiency in the handling of the last two weeks. I want to make another post like that in hopes of garnering some positive results. I can't bring myself to do it though. I genuinely have come to the conclusion that the developers cannot win - that nobody would be happy, even content, with any positive outcome. It feels like it would be an utter waste of time, because no matter what would come of it, it would just be met with vitriol and criticism.

Something happens that people don't like and it's practically a riot. Then two weeks later, people are either like "oh, so-and-so is probably why they did that" or "you know, this isn't as bad as I thought it would be", but instantly, on the drop of a dime, when the next change comes around, it's thrown in their faces. Fifty people make separate threads to complain about the same things.

When they scale something back for us, it's "about time". When they make changes that strictly benefit us, it's "about time". Maybe it's "about time" instead of demanding developer interaction, maybe, we can create an environment that feels worth interacting with.

Was going to edit for length, but it was hard to decide what to cut while still retaining your points and overall tone, so I left it as is.

As for the environment, full agreement. It's hard to even say something positive without inadvertently starting yet another sarcastic gripe thread, and it's a bummer.

I would love to have the devs come in and hang out, but it's not always easy even as a player, so I get it.

Edit: Forgot to mention, bolded sections [emphasis mine]...

DBC

MarvelDestiny

GothicKratos wrote:

MarvelDestiny wrote:

To address the OP, I sympathize with you. Reading all the bile and vitriol can get old and depressing. But I'd rather we voice our true opinions and be honest. D3 may not care but at least they will hear us. More and more I feel like Oliver asking for more--I know it won't do any good but can't help asking.

I agree with this sentiment, but I absolutely don't think that dehumanizing attacks are synonymous with honesty (and I'm not trying to imply that's what you're saying - I know it's not).

I absolutely agree:
--Dehumanizing, no. Tearing down a person is always uncalled for and is the last thing any of us should do. This reminds me of Will's response a couple months ago to attacks on either CS or coders (can't remember, I've the memory of a goldfish...) in which he bluntly told the community to knock it off and direct our anger at him. That.was.awesome. I'm kinda surprised neither he nor David have popped up in the Kabir-bash thread yet.

--Attacks...well, I try not to. I strive to post in a constructive way, adding to the conversation that either highlights deficiencies or praises positive change. Unfortunately, I usually do it in that order. I try to direct my frustration at the situation. I may hypothesize on how we got to 'x' point and throw out some suggestions but I always try to avoid a ballistic salvo. (See what I did there? IM40 is useful for something.)

All that said, things get through sometimes. I've deleted more than a few posts before posting because I let myself pour too much venom into it. So, yes, express yourself. Give the devs an opportunity for improvement without blasting that chance to hell with napalm.