Forum Vitriol

Meander

Seriously, the level of negative responses on this forum is unreal. I'm not against constructive criticism, or trying to get something to change, but the way people respond to everything in this forum is so negative, you'd think this is the worst run game in the app store (In Before someone says, "IT IS"). I fully get it, some aspects are frustrating, but its a freaking game. Do you find anything enjoyable? What would be the perfect game in your eyes? No cost, everyone gets every cover to begin with and everyone takes the #1 slot in their 1 person brackets? Seriously, I want to know. What would make this game so no one **** on the forums every 2 seconds about something that the devs did that was clearly a personal attack on their person-hood.

mpqr7

It's because many of us have played this game for well over a year, two years or even almost 3 years, and it's getting very repetitive and boring.

Other new games seem to come out with new content regularly, as well as exciting prizes. This game tends to recycle content and be exceedingly stingy with prizes.

Crit boost? Really?

Meander

mpqr7 wrote:

It's because many of us have played this game for well over a year, two years or even almost 3 years, and it's getting very repetitive and boring.

Other new games seem to come out with new content regularly, as well as exciting prizes. This game tends to recycle content and be exceedingly stingy with prizes.

Crit boost? Really?

I think that the game is what you make it, which is true for any game. I'm around 670 daily resupply, yet am enjoying the game plenty because of what I've set forth as goals. While some newish content would be nice, players seem to love falling back on symbiotes as evidence that new content will just get worse.

Also, on the subject of other games, I think some of that view may be true, and some of it may be a grass is greener type scenario. I also casually play other games, and one (based on a popular AMC show) is so stagnant and full of recycled events and character releases it makes MPQ look cutting edge. But I also suspect that has to do with my engagement. I'm not in a competitive alliance, I don't always play regularly, and I am stuck in a low level transitioning hell. Some of that is the game's fault, and some of it is my fault for my play style.

GrumpySmurf1002

There was a time, way back in the olden days, where the developers were here semi-regularly. They'd even give us <gasp> data on the what and why of their 'testing.' They'd answer questions, give and receive feedback. It was serene. There were complaints, easily as many as today, but they were generally answered.

Then they hired a community manager, which silly us thought would help streamline that communication through a single channel. That position instead was created to be a human press release. This is no offense to David the person, who has been very helpful and responsive (at least to me) when messaged directly. He definitely reads most of what is written. He's certainly sending that feedback to Demiurge. It's my personal opinion that's where the flow of information is dying.

Then they were acquired by Sega. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's about the point where things like "hey we tinykitty'd up, have some compensation" went the way of tokens containing BagMan.

Then IceIX left. Then the Q&A videos dried up. What's left is updating the sneak peek thread (one of the few really good changes that's happened), and getting sneak peeks of new releases. Woo!

So yeah...basically you're left with a forum filled with sarcasm, cynicism, and people screaming into the ether hoping someone can acknowledge they're still around. Cause some of us have been for 2.5+ years, even though that number gets fewer by the day.

mohio

I think a lot of it has to do with how the forum is set up and how the player base has evolved in its communications. Much of the forum population also is on LINE and has their alliance chats and maybe even a bigger MPQ general chat. I imagine they use these for the more mundane stuff like "holy s*** I just beat this guy on turn 1 with the mother of all cascades" or "look at this screenshot I just took of the AI having 15+ of every color ap after 3 turns, ****". We rejoice in triumphs together and commiserate in failures, etc. etc. So, LINE now is used as the majority of our player to player interactions, which leaves the forum more as a way to attempt to communicate with the developers/publishers. Sadly that tends to be more about how things are bad or can be improved instead of praise for a job well done.

It's become a bit of a cliche at this point, but all I can really suggest is "be the change you wish to see." Create more positive posts and maybe the collective mood/tenor of posts on the forum will be a little brighter and less complain-y. I know personally I'm guilty of harping on the bad stuff first and then acknowledging the positives at the end. It would come across much more positively to switch those around, so I'm going to try to do that from now on.

JVReal

Being an OFFICIAL FORUM of the game, this place contains the LEAST amount of information from the developers. Anything beneficial here has come from the members. The only thing I can give credit to a redname for is the Character Sneak Peek stats.

Other than that, everyone everywhere else gets information first.

I believe the fan base here love the game, want to keep loving it, and want to see it succeed so we can continue to play it and love it. We've invested in it in various ways, some financially, others timely (with their time?), others emotionally, others have sacrificed their wives and children to it, and they long to be heard about the things they love and the things they want to be improved.

When communication dries up and the comments are not heard, and changes are made that are completely in conflict with the repeated criticisms of the game ... then touted as if they are answering some long wanted request... it's the same thing as saying "Yes I know you hate pizza, I care about you and want to make you happy, so here, sit down and have some pizza and we can talk about it."

I don't think it was vitriol at the start. I believe it was passion, a desire to make it better. But after banging your head against the wall, it starts to hurt, and you get a headache, and when you have a headache, everything pisses you off.

The forums are a symptom of a bigger disease. Lack of Developer communication and care for their consumers. You want to eliminate the symptom, but you can't because the disease hasn't been addressed. That disease is a killer. It will kill this community and will eventually kill this game.

The worst part is that the developers have the cure too, but don't care to use it. It reminds me of third world countries where people still die of diarrhea.

Calnexin

JVReal wrote:

others have sacrificed their wives and children to it,

I pray to every pantheon that this is not true.

carrion_pigeons

It can't possibly be very surprising that most posts on the forums are negative. This isn't a fan site. It's the official forum. It exists to give people a way to provide feedback to the developer.

Aside from the fact that there are always naturally going to be more critical posts than positive ones in that situation, the forums do an objectively bad job of fulfilling their role because essentially 100 percent of the feedback is one-way. It shouldn't be even slightly surprising that the negative is going untempered under those circumstances.

It isn't like we don't have examples of well-managed forums on the Internet to compare with this one. You can't really say "well they're really doing their best; I don't see how you can blame them for what the forums have become". The devs dug this hole themselves.

MPQ could be the most fun game in the world and the forums as they are currently managed would still be a mire of negativity. (That said, MPQ is not the funnest game in the world and has definite room for improvement, so the devs being unwilling to deal with the messes they've made is pretty disheartening, and a completely reasonable topic of complaint).

scottee

The funny thing is:

The devs used to be more active here. But implemented less forum requests.

The devs are less active here now. But implement more forum requests.



I've been here more than 2 years. I don't understand complaining either. If you don't like the game, or it's boring, no one forces you to play. Find a better use of your time. I play a lot less hours in MPQ than I used to, and have found a rhythm I still find fun.

OneLastGambit

I dunno about anyone else but the quality of a devs engagement on a forum does not dictate my enjoyment of a game, other wise I would never play any games.


I think people expect too much, how many other games have a forum where devs give info ? Do any of the big gun?

Ludaa

OneLastGambit wrote:

I dunno about anyone else but the quality of a devs engagement on a forum does not dictate my enjoyment of a game, other wise I would never play any games.


I think people expect too much, how many other games have a forum where devs give info ? Do any of the big gun?

Slightly related...

I've been periodically reading the official forums (reddit as well) for Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes and It's like watching the history of MPQ forums in fast forward! They're at 9 months I think and are dealing with their own "bait and switch" XF/Thor nerf. Developers seem to be slowing communication with every community uproar.

Vhailorx

OneLastGambit wrote:

I dunno about anyone else but the quality of a devs engagement on a forum does not dictate my enjoyment of a game, other wise I would never play any games.


I think people expect too much, how many other games have a forum where devs give info ? Do any of the big gun?

Wait, people sometimes expect too much? Both in real life and on the internet?! Next you will say that people hate paying taxes but like free public services.

Honestly, OP, I think the level of vitriol on these forums is itself overhyped. Sure, there are lots of snarky posts; it's the internet, that's normal. And sure, there are some truly spiteful posts; it's still the internet!

But there are also a ton of posts from players who know a lot aboit and/or enjoy playing the game. Newbies can still get useful advice on the forums. Devs could (if they wished) still get useful and detailed feedback from veteran players on the forums.

I don't really know what people expect when they complain about the 'terrible' state of the forums. There will never be 100% agreement or politeness in a board like this. It seems to me that the metric should be 'can I find useful information here?' and i think the answer is pretty clearly 'yes.'

Vhailorx

Calnexin wrote:

JVReal wrote:

others have sacrificed their wives and children to it,

I pray to every pantheon that this is not true.

So many wives, so many children. . . all lost to RNGesus. And all we have received for our many offerings is a plethora of CHulk and SS covers. Maybe we need to stop being so sexist about things and start sacrificing men too?

Skygazing

OneLastGambit wrote:

I dunno about anyone else but the quality of a devs engagement on a forum does not dictate my enjoyment of a game, other wise I would never play any games.


I think people expect too much, how many other games have a forum where devs give info ? Do any of the big gun?

I've been playing a lot of Kingdom Hearts Unchained X recently, which is part of the reason I'm not really playing MPQ anymore. I don't know of any official forum they have, but at the very least the NA version has a twitter account that posts pretty regularly to let people know about upcoming events, maintenance, etc.

On top of that they regularly hand out in-game currency for things like surveys and maintenance. They recently gave everyone in the game 3000 jewels (hard to convey what that amounts to, but you could've used it to buy roughly the equivalent of a 10-pack with two legendary tokens) for almost hitting a follower goal on twitter.

Meanwhile in MPQ news: problematic new PvE format is made permanent and Ulton returns but is stronger and gives fewer/worse rewards.

Dev engagement isn't directly linked to game enjoyment, but when unpopular changes continue to be made without any communication (and amidst repeatedly negative feedback) it results in frustration with an already frustrating situation.

jobob

I haven't played a lot of mobile games, but I have played a lot of online games, and every one I've gotten into I've been involved on the forums.

The developer relationship with the player base- and especially the paying player base- is the worst I've ever seen. I'm not saying it's the developers fault or the players fault... It may be no one's fault... I'm just making an observation.

mpqr7

Skygazing wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

I dunno about anyone else but the quality of a devs engagement on a forum does not dictate my enjoyment of a game, other wise I would never play any games.


I think people expect too much, how many other games have a forum where devs give info ? Do any of the big gun?

I've been playing a lot of Kingdom Hearts Unchained X recently

I have also taken to playing a lot of khux recently as well! I love the way that there are so many different rewards that you get on different days, so it encourages you to play each day in order to get the powers to level up different characters. There are hundreds of non-timed levels that you can play at your own pace, and each level has special achievements that give you the items required to level up.

Basically there are tons of different ways to power up your character and items, so you always feel like you're making lots of progress, even if it's slow and you need to beat the same level a few times to get enough items.

I wish that mpq followed many of the things that khux does... it would make it a greatly improved gaming experience...

Ruinate

OneLastGambit wrote:

I dunno about anyone else but the quality of a devs engagement on a forum does not dictate my enjoyment of a game, other wise I would never play any games.


I think people expect too much, how many other games have a forum where devs give info ? Do any of the big gun?

Please see Riot or Blizzard forums. Also see their presence on Reddit. It's a beautiful thing.

When I first joined this forum I wondered why we don't have a button that shows all the recent Dev posts. Why do I have to go into a Red's profile to find their posting history? Then I quickly realized lol what Dev posts.

Colognoisseur

I have always seen this situation as analogous to a professional athlete.
They get paid (a lot) to play a game as their job.
Part of that job is answering questions about their performance through the media. Even when they are going through a bad streak they stand up and answer the questions because they are getting paid (a lot) to play a game.

The developers are getting paid (somewhat less) to spend their days designing a game and playing the game they design as their job.
It should be part of that job to interact more often through their official forum. Even when they are making decisions which outrage those who are on the forum (<1% of the player base) they should stand up and answer questions because they are getting paid (somewhat less) to spend their days designing a game and playing a game as their job.

Moon Roach

Ludaa wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

I dunno about anyone else but the quality of a devs engagement on a forum does not dictate my enjoyment of a game, other wise I would never play any games.


I think people expect too much, how many other games have a forum where devs give info ? Do any of the big gun?

Slightly related...

I've been periodically reading the official forums (reddit as well) for Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes and It's like watching the history of MPQ forums in fast forward! They're at 9 months I think and are dealing with their own "bait and switch" XF/Thor nerf. Developers seem to be slowing communication with every community uproar.

Yeah, ctrl-alt-del mentioned that in today's offering.

OneLastGambit

Ruinate wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

I dunno about anyone else but the quality of a devs engagement on a forum does not dictate my enjoyment of a game, other wise I would never play any games.


I think people expect too much, how many other games have a forum where devs give info ? Do any of the big gun?

Please see Riot or Blizzard forums. Also see their presence on Reddit. It's a beautiful thing.

When I first joined this forum I wondered why we don't have a button that shows all the recent Dev posts. Why do I have to go into a Red's profile to find their posting history? Then I quickly realized lol what Dev posts.

I stand corrected. I come from a time when the best you got from a dev was a catridge and an instruction book (and sometimes even that didn't work) so I guess I'm accustomed to far less communication.

Ruinate

OneLastGambit wrote:

Ruinate wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

I dunno about anyone else but the quality of a devs engagement on a forum does not dictate my enjoyment of a game, other wise I would never play any games.


I think people expect too much, how many other games have a forum where devs give info ? Do any of the big gun?

Please see Riot or Blizzard forums. Also see their presence on Reddit. It's a beautiful thing.

When I first joined this forum I wondered why we don't have a button that shows all the recent Dev posts. Why do I have to go into a Red's profile to find their posting history? Then I quickly realized lol what Dev posts.

I stand corrected. I come from a time when the best you got from a dev was a catridge and an instruction book (and sometimes even that didn't work) so I guess I'm accustomed to far less communication.

True. Me too. But MPQ isn't like a console game that you beat and never play again. It's a game without an ending and you're supposed to continually play it. Maintenance and changes are involved and so communication is important.