Lost opportunity for quality customer service

El Satanno

Recently I was prevented from playing the game for a period of about 6 days due to some manner of bug with my save game. After having my problem resolved I inquired about compensation for my lost playing time. Between missing almost the entirety of the Enemy of the State PvE, six days of DDQ (including the super taco match versus Doctor Doom), and two full PvP events, I ended up losing out on a significant amount of progress and resources. After all, I generally max PvE progression and grind out at least 80% of the node rewards, complete DDQ every day, and haven't failed to score at least 1300 in every PvP for at least 6 months.Scoring a big zero in those PvP events did no favors to my alliance and surely isn't going to help my season score any, either.

Now I'm not one of those entitled individuals who believes I should get everything that I would have otherwise earned. I thought it not unreasonable to ask for the sum total of the two PvP progression ladders I would have easily cleared. That's a little over 5k Iso, 200 HP, a bunch of boosts and other junk, and most importantly two 3-star covers, two 4-star covers, and 50 Command Points. The lattermost items were easily the only thing I care much about, and I even made it clear that I'd be happy to walk away from this with nothing more than the 4-stars and CoPs.

What I got back was paltry, to put it mildly. You've heard of the standardized 10k Iso and 2500 HP response before, and that's exactly what I received. I tried to negotiate and got "take it or leave it" in reply. Honestly, I'm not even convinced anyone in CS even read any of my mail, so dry were the responses. As you can see if you care enough to read below, I was reasonable, courteous, and patient. Rather than feeling like I was taken care of, my overall impression of the situation is rather sour; lackluster communication and boilerplate responses.

My point is not to drum up sympathy, nor to cry out for better comp, nor even to give the serial complainers on this forum another vector to beat the dead horse some more. No, I really just want to express the deep feeling of disappointment I have in the whole affair. I've been playing this game just a few days shy of two years now, and that only because there have certainly been the odd days when I haven't logged in. I've recommended it to friends (gasp!) and I've spent some money. Now I've found myself victim of bad circumstances, which is a shining opportunity to allow them to show a little care for their loyal fans. Ball = dropped. It's more than a little sad.

Here, in case you want to see, is the entire exchange I had with CS for this: http://imgur.com/a/Hk2LW

FaustianDeal

The complaint I have with this policy is that this policy wasn't changed when the purchasing power of HP was revised. When this policy was first created 2500 HP was enough to outright by 2x 3* covers or 1x 4* cover. This wasn't a perfect system as it might not fully restore everything that had been missed, but you could at least decide to "buy yourself something nice". 2500 HP doesn't accomplish this any longer.

I humbly suggest that this policy be revised to compensate players in a currency that could restore some of what had been lost.

But it can't be 240 CP (the cost of 2x 3* covers) or 720 CP (the cost of 1x 4* cover) - because I would just pull 12 or 36 classic legends rather than direct buying covers. An option would be to create new tokens that only had 1 star level of character in them. If you had a token pool that only had 3* characters in it you could award players 2x of these tokens. Or a token that only had 4* characters in it (to differentiate it from Legendary tokens) and you could award them one of these.

Punisher5784

The problem I have had with their customer service is that for one issue there will be 3-4 different customer service agents reading and responding to your requests. I doubt the agents talk to each other about the specific issues. Looking at the screen shots you provided, you spoke to 3 different people. You would think that one customer service agent would take care of you through the entire resolution process but you get bounced around. Customer Service was one of the biggest reasons I left MPQ. There is a huge disconnection between the devs, customer service and the players.

Anyways, hope everyone is doing well.

-Punisher out

wamanazai

you lost 6 days of gameplay. i got sandboxed for something i did not do nor know how to do.

Druss

I had similar issue twice in a 3 week period about a year ago, however CS were very supportive - I cant remember specifics but received all the covers I requested & about 250,000 iso.

At that time I was in a top 10 Alliance & playing a stupid amount of time though. I did however lose my alliance spot as top 10 Alliances are fairly cutthroat.

I know this doesn't help the OP but just demonstrates the lack of coherent policy.

RWTDBurn

I don't think they realize just how much their stingy compensation policies damages their relationship with their customer base and impacts their bottom line. We had an alliance member last season that climbed just under 1300 and shielded. He did the usual checking of his ranking to make sure there was a client/server sync as most people do. He then proceeded to get hit over and over again for the next 20 - 30 minutes, falling to the 800s. He sent in a ticket about the issue with 3-4 screenshots showing a mixture of hits bouncing off his shields and damage taken all on the same shots. Eventually the customer support got back to him saying that it was an issue with server lag, there is nothing they can do, and their won't be any compensation.

There are so many things wrong with the way this was handled. For starters, he never even asked for compensation yet they were quick to tell him he wouldn't get any. This was a player that has put well over $1000 into the game and has never once submitted a ticket or asked for compensation for anything. The reply from customer support said that it was server lag, which is something that they are 100% responsible for, yet feel that no compensation was deserved. Sorry, their issue was his loss. Hands washed; nothing to see here; move along please.

Seriously, how can you treat a paying customer like that? We are talking about virtual goods here and compensating someone costs them nothing. They could have easily seen that his season average at the time was around 1600 per event and that this was his first ticket claiming issues and given him the equivalent of the 1300+ progression reward and kept a paying customer happy. He would have easily continued to drop Starks every few weeks. Instead, he's near quitting the game. He won't give them another dime after that experience and honestly, I can't blame him.

LXSandman

It's simple..

THEY DON"T CARE

HossDrone

You're not alone. I've had nothing but bad cs experiences. I've done cs work and there was no excuse for the complete lack of care I received. The latest incident involved my whole alliance getting screwed.....and all we got was a proverbial middle finger.

Deeznutz1234

I had the exact same experience last week and couldn't be more disappointed with their response (or lack of one). And now I'm faced with dilemma about whether or not to spend on the spring sale which I normally do but feel like this would be along the lines of tipping well for bad service. It just encourages the offender to continue in its ways. I honestly feel like I haves duty to resist the urge to support this **** customer service bc spending after being treated like this, is tantamount to saying that it's ok. And it's not.

MarvelMan

I reported a bug/flaw a month or so ago that caused me to lose a couple 3* covers....I did say it would have been nice to have them back, but didnt outright ask as I was more interested in the issue being addressed. The response I got was that things were working as intended and I wouldnt be getting compensation. Yeah, i shouldnt have mentioned it being nice to have the lost covers back, but it so wasnt the point.

slidecage

so you got 10,000 ISO and 2500 HP for not playing and complaining about it

I lost out on Covers and HP and never got a single thing they said too bad. I be more then happy to take what you got over the YOU GET NOTHING responce i always get.

OneLastGambit

Just because you could hit two progression ladders doesn't mean You would though.

Any number of life situations might have prevented you from doing so, so there's no guarantee that you would. I think expecting all rewards up to the 3* cover would be reasonable since even when I was 2* I could make that every time. So really I think you've probably got a better deal than I would've expected.

Jarvind

I have a hard time sympathizing with this one. 10k ISO and 2500 HP isn't a bad chunk, and you weren't out of commission for a huge amount of time.

Saying you should get X because you "would have cleared the progression ladder" sets a terrible precedent - it opens them up to people demanding basically anything because they "would have it" if Thing X had happened.

Yeah, you missed out on a few covers, which sucks. Would it have been amazing if they had fulfilled your request? Yeah, definitely, but I think what you got is pretty reasonable. I do give you kudos for being polite and reasonable in your emails though. I'm sure they get a ton along the lines of U GUISE R TEH SUX & I H8 U GIVE MEH TEH LOOTZ who then wonder why they don't get anything.

Smudge

Jarvind wrote:

I have a hard time sympathizing with this one. 10k ISO and 2500 HP isn't a bad chunk, and you weren't out of commission for a huge amount of time.

Saying you should get X because you "would have cleared the progression ladder" sets a terrible precedent - it opens them up to people demanding basically anything because they "would have it" if Thing X had happened.

Yeah, you missed out on a few covers, which sucks. Would it have been amazing if they had fulfilled your request? Yeah, definitely, but I think what you got is pretty reasonable. I do give you kudos for being polite and reasonable in your emails though. I'm sure they get a ton along the lines of U GUISE R TEH SUX & I H8 U GIVE MEH TEH LOOTZ who then wonder why they don't get anything.

This is a great point. While I can sympathize with loss of benefits from hard work you would normally have put in and achieved, the fact that they are compensating for loss of any kind is pretty well reward enough in my eyes.

Think about it this way: If you are working an hourly commission-based job without any kind of sick pay or anything, you get sick for a week, and come back, do you demand they compensate you for lost wages plus commission you "know" you would have made?

I work on a college campus to ensure video conferencing connections between the main campus and secondary campus in two different cities are up and running. The professor for one of the courses I facilitate (and am paid to do so) is going to be on the other campus next week and will not need my assistance. Will I be demanding pay when I have knowledge of this a week in advance? Nope. I understand your plight since the circumstances were completely out of your control, and the lack of support during the whole process is appalling. What I think the compensation should be geared towards is this lack of support, not missing the rewards you may have obtained. More of a "sorry we suck" than anything else, like a management-comped meal if your waiter/waitress completely botches a meal at a restaurant.

madsalad

I recently had a good, but long, encounter with CS where I couldn't get in for 2.5 days and once they fixed it and I inquired about compensation (giving them everything I believed due) they gave me almost everything I listed. There only thing they didn't give me was the 3 Ghost Riders covers I said I would have won if I was in the game.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=41318&start

Linkster79

I lost out on weeks worth of rewards when they stopped supporting 1st gen iPads, oddly I didn't even think of contacting customer support asking for stuff I knew I could have won.

If the OP could not by a lottery ticket because the machine at their local shop was not functioning and their numbers rolled in would they have been right in demanding the winnings? After all they may have proof that they have used the same numbers every week for years.

madsalad

Linkster79 wrote:

I lost out on weeks worth of rewards when they stopped supporting 1st gen iPads, oddly I didn't even think of contacting customer support asking for stuff I knew I could have won.

If the OP could not by a lottery ticket because the machine at their local shop was not functioning and their numbers rolled in would they have been right in demanding the winnings? After all they may have proof that they have used the same numbers every week for years.

These are different circumstances. Not being able to access their game due to a bug they introduced is different than your obsolete device or weird lottery comparisons.

When I requested compensation I provided a list of what I would have won with my request, as well as a small explanation as to why I thought it was a legit list, and also suggested that they look at my account history to corroborate my theories.

Linkster79

Would've, should've, could've but didn't. Player didn't win any rewards player doesn't get any rewards, that is why they are called rewards and not gifts.

wirius

Your entitlement is way out there. There is no way any customer service should reward you completion on an event you may not have even done. To expect that is a misunderstanding of your reality versus the customer service reality. They gave you a nice compensation package. It IS nice. Downtimes and glitches will happen, you need to accept that. The world and customer service does not revolve around you. Perhaps you should take a break from the game and examine your attitude from someone who deals with quality service complaints every day. If you truly cannot understand why what they did for you was completely fair and good, you need to go work at customer service somewhere.

Uber303

Smudge wrote:

Jarvind wrote:

I have a hard time sympathizing with this one. 10k ISO and 2500 HP isn't a bad chunk, and you weren't out of commission for a huge amount of time.

Saying you should get X because you "would have cleared the progression ladder" sets a terrible precedent - it opens them up to people demanding basically anything because they "would have it" if Thing X had happened.

Yeah, you missed out on a few covers, which sucks. Would it have been amazing if they had fulfilled your request? Yeah, definitely, but I think what you got is pretty reasonable. I do give you kudos for being polite and reasonable in your emails though. I'm sure they get a ton along the lines of U GUISE R TEH SUX & I H8 U GIVE MEH TEH LOOTZ who then wonder why they don't get anything.

This is a great point. While I can sympathize with loss of benefits from hard work you would normally have put in and achieved, the fact that they are compensating for loss of any kind is pretty well reward enough in my eyes.

Think about it this way: If you are working an hourly commission-based job without any kind of sick pay or anything, you get sick for a week, and come back, do you demand they compensate you for lost wages plus commission you "know" you would have made?

I work on a college campus to ensure video conferencing connections between the main campus and secondary campus in two different cities are up and running. The professor for one of the courses I facilitate (and am paid to do so) is going to be on the other campus next week and will not need my assistance. Will I be demanding pay when I have knowledge of this a week in advance? Nope. I understand your plight since the circumstances were completely out of your control, and the lack of support during the whole process is appalling. What I think the compensation should be geared towards is this lack of support, not missing the rewards you may have obtained. More of a "sorry we suck" than anything else, like a management-comped meal if your waiter/waitress completely botches a meal at a restaurant.

there are many variables to taking time off sick at work..
if, for example 1, the company served staff food and gave you food poisoning, then the company would actually be liable for your loss of earnings and probably more.
If however, for example 2, you caught measles from your kid brother, or was hungover or whatever, then yeah, you're right, you just gotta take it on the chin and lose the dollar you would have earned.
In this case, the developer comes under example 1, the issues with the app have caused the "sickness", therefore the developer is, or at least should be, liable to compensate for the loss of earnings.

wirius

Uber303 wrote:

there are many variables to taking time off sick at work..
if, for example 1, the company served staff food and gave you food poisoning, then the company would actually be liable for your loss of earnings and probably more.
If however, for example 2, you caught measles from your kid brother, or was hungover or whatever, then yeah, you're right, you just gotta take it on the chin and lose the dollar you would have earned.
In this case, the developer comes under example 1, the issues with the app have caused the "sickness", therefore the developer is, or at least should be, liable to compensate for the loss of earnings.

But Uber, this is a GAME. There is absolutely nothing even comparable to real life money, wages, or livelihood. Tomorrow if you uninstalled the game, you would forget about it in a few weeks. A game is not life, its just an illusion of power to pass the time.