Communications Impasse

acescracked

I'm rambling late at night but...

This forum touches such a tiny portion of the playerbase. Even those that used to come to the forum hardly do now and interact with other players and d3 with different communication methods.

The forum has become a bastion of negativity. How can you blame any of the devs for not wanting to take time away from any task to come read threads in the General sub forum.

Vhailorx, I don't get your intense drive to get answers, feedback, connection, smoke signals, whatever from the development team. Your cable company must drive you insane! MPQ will keep running **** events, that's what they do. Even if you did get a developer to answer to one of your "I demand a response" threads, ya think their modus operandi would suddenly change?

D3 is gonna keep on D3ing. I'm just gonna keep playing it as a distraction and skipping events that stink.

It really isn't just you. This whole forum has an army of armchair game developers and producers. You guys should all band together, quit your day jobs and start a mobile gaming company. I'll free to play the **** outta it!

Steellatch

Look at game studios that have constant communication with the players. There's still heated things said but they dont last long and the game is better for it. DeeJ knows how to run a community. Blizzard knows how to be involved in the community. It's not a foreign concept.

Tromb2ch2

How many people are in the development team? If it is a small team then I totally understand them not having time to get back to us. But then I guess where is all the money going? And let us also remember that David and the green tags might not get to talk to the devs as much as we would like them too. For all we know David has sent 100's of emails being like hey where is the data and the devs have said nothing so please cut him slack. I will take this time to say thank you David and everyone else that runs this forum, sorry you have to deal with us.

Heartburn

They have always had an issue with communication, i want to say they have gotten better but i m back from a long break and sounds like they are going 2 steps forward, but taking 3 steps back.

Now for some constructive criticism, the first 3 levels were relatively fun, the 8 hour cool downs not so much, especially for a solo player run. I think this event would of been a success if they geared it more to solo play 4 hour cooldown with the option to play a 10 wave level to reduce the cooldowns depending on how much you clear so you can bypass some of the difficulty through grinding the lesser difficulty nodes. The difficult curve needed to be more linear not exponential like we saw. If they advertised the boss rush as a nightmare boss rush option i think it would of been fantastic next to the toned down vanilla mode as the main event. the nightmare mode could of been a iso waterfall (considering it was aniversary related) with some really juicy/unique prizes like colorless 4* token. Some people like the highest degree of difficulty, most can go with out it. Take it as a lesson learned. i played up to level 4 then noped on out of there as the difficult spike was not worth the health pack investment. Also, i Know it sucks to have something you made get negative reviews, but they need to man up and say:

ya that didn't get the response we hoped for (we heard you like scaling events so we put scaling in the scaling), but we heard your feed back and will strive to make a better event in the future.


now if they say that then that would be good, if they follow through with that then that would be great, and if they ask for our input on their next experimental event then that would be fantastic.

now for the not so nice. this community seems spot on on most of their feed back on general play-ability and are very insightful in problem solving, why they are not utilized is beyond me. they are the target audience and most of the top/ most dedicated player visit this forum. Many companies have to pay for less dedicated/informed groups to test their product on and gather feed back. i want to say this is some Niantic level mismanagement, but i am not sure who is worse anymore.

Pylgrim

I'm fine with the event having been insanely punishing. Well, not "fine", but more like "eh". I kind of can see all the knobs and variables and opportunities to mess up, especially when putting out to a million people what only a dozen or two of playtesters could test. There were definitely some flagrant design mistakes, some of them flabbergasting in their obviousness. But that's fine. They don't /owe/ us new game modes and it's a good thing that they are trying to create more, so I'm willing to cut them some slack in that respect and ultimately is a situation that can be easily solved on our side: If the event is too punishing, don't play. If it makes you angry, don't give them money. Their refusal to have a discussion with the fanbase about those issues, while greatly disappointing, is not unexpected nor was such feedback technically owed either.

What is definitely not alright is their silence on the matter of the randomly reduced points after a clear. Now we're dealing with something that is close to contract breach or bait and switch. Not that I actually think that it was intended, but the result is the same: players were defrauded of a potentially significant amount of points and the prizes they might have achieved with them. I myself only noticed it happening towards the end, and I finished the event over the half-point of Round 8. Who knows how many times it happened before and how many points total did I lose. Probably not enough to have finished Round 8, but who knows?

Again, I don't mind that much the bug itself. It was hard enough to spot that only a few players noticed it and only after having played most of the event. But refusing to publicly own it? Refusing to handle compensation for potentially missed rewards? Especially in an event where each victory was painstakingly hard-earned? That's simply not ok. I thought that maybe the bug was an isolated enough problem that they wouldn't want to issue a blanket compensation, but after having filed a detailed ticket, I was literally told to my face that even though they admit such bug existed, no compensation was forthcoming. That might be single most disappointing moment I have experienced in this game and I'm pretty sure most of you know that there's not a lack of competition.

Sm0keyJ0e

Not into beating a dead horse, as someone previously pointed out they KNOW there were issues with the event (it was just a buggy mess). And of course they have not said anything and likely won't. Like the extra 800k ISO so many people got, they'll just sweep it under the rug and hope we forget about it.

I'm more annoyed with things like "There is nothing wrong guys, no changes were made", proceeded by locking all of the complaint threads, and then finally saying "Oh wait, I guess all of you were right and there was something wrong, we'll fix that later today"...

It's like they just don't listen, they don't respond, they don't say much of anything except for the updates. But that's how it's been for some time now and we need to either accept it, or stop complaining about it and move on to a different game since it's unlikely to change even after 42 pages of negative feedback.

broll

First off let me state that I wasn't hear for Anniversary 2, but I have gone back and read the 'you're supposed to lose' thread. I think the most frustrating thing is that they made the same mistake again, knowing full well how people responded the first time. This is concerning and is either a sign of not learning from mistakes or a willful disregard for our concerns. However, people talk about wanting the devs to hear their feedback, there are two really good ways to do that: stop paying and/or stop playing. Without the payers and the players this game cannot exist. If they are going to treat us poorly then why support their work?

Boss Rush certainly didn't piss me off nearly enough to stop playing, however I did spend quite a bit of money on the Anniversary Vault, something I will not do next year. I'm going to continue paying for VIP but beyond that I don't plan to give the game a dime until a lot of the chronic problems are addressed: increased difficulty, way too much time investment required, lack of ISO, no 5* progression, poor communication and response to feedback.

mpqr7

Maybe what they need to do is make someone a Red who just responds to questions with positive answers, and then that will calm the seething masses.

Something to the effect of "We understand your pain, and we will do our best to make it a better experience next time."

Me personally, I don't require that type of communication. I figure it's pretty clear what people liked (ie scl, double iso, good selection of vault prizes) and didn't like (ie crushing difficulty, repetition, old content), so I'm sure that devs will keep that in mind when they run subsequent events, and provide just the right balance of the good and bad to make it rewarding but not overly easy.

Vhailorx

babinro wrote:

I hated the Boss Rush as much as anyone but the fact that they responded to concerns and told us how they were going to handle it SHOULD have been enough. Obviously we would have LIKED to have more but we aren't entitled to it. I like to think that if players remained purely constructive, patient and civil in their feedback that we would get through those situations without locked threads.

So you think that ALL player comments have to be constructive, patient and civil before the devs should give any feedback to anyone? That seems like an extremely high bar. people being people, there will always be some jerks that cannot or will not behave civilly. Can't we just ignore the trolls?

Also, I think it's possible to quibble with your characterization of the dev response to player concerns over Boss Rush. They never acknowledged any scoring bugs. They never commented on the design intent of the mode. We still don't know if Boss Rush was harder than intended. All they said was "we tried some new things, and we are reading your feedback and will consider using it in future runs." And they said that on day 2. Their only subsequent comment (via HiFi) was to say that they had nothing else to say. Reasonable people can disagree, but I read those comments as a thinly veiled "no comment."

Vhailorx

aesthetocyst wrote:

That's not an impasse. It sounds like a blockage alright, but of a completely different nature

No dev comment cookies for the forum mice. That's just terrible.

Nope. Not happening here

Put your money where your mouths are and vote with your feet. If you find this service so unacceptable, stop spending, and stop contributing to their metrics. There's a world of games out there. Write off your sunk costs and be all the happier for it.

Why is quitting the only acceptable way of registering dissatisfaction? What if i like the game but want to see it get better?

broll

Vhailorx wrote:

Why is quitting the only acceptable way of registering dissatisfaction? What if i like the game but want to see it get better?

That's exactly the outrage. Quitting shouldn't be the only way to register dissatisfaction, but when they continue to not listen here and now aren't even commenting on our concerns what other options are there?

Esheris

D3, respectfully speaking; you guys need thicker skin! You are game developers, not my little sister!

Take our feedback and use it to your advantage. We would love to pay your salaries, we just want the game to be fun and rewarding.

You guys NEED to address the boss rush event, and not just by saying you are reading feedback on it.

firethorne

broll wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Why is quitting the only acceptable way of registering dissatisfaction? What if i like the game but want to see it get better?

That's exactly the outrage. Quitting shouldn't be the only way to register dissatisfaction, but when they continue to not listen here and now aren't even commenting on our concerns what other options are there?

Quitting shouldn't be the only means to voice your opinion. I agree. But, at the same time, I've become very cynical and think, if things like this are a significant problem to you, you don't really have any other options left.

Going into this, I didn't have any expectations that the anniversary would be enjoyable. And as the disaster unfolded, I was equally skeptical that it would be addressed, even be it insincerely. And as pessimistic as that sounds, I didn't have any unfulfilled expectations.

Reactions to the event actually seem eerily similar to the stages of greif: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I'm getting the vibe people want some sort of bargaining with the devs. Maybe I've just moved on to the depression and acceptance side. I don't like to think the game is dying, but... It fits.

So, we can take the game as it is and not for any promise of what it could be. Accept that it is what it is now, and probably won't improve in any meaningful way. Or, we can leave. Because, I really don't think there's any other option. Personally, I've let my VIP expire today. I'll let my interest slowly burn out. If it holds up, great. If not, eh, it's been a run and it's what I expected.

Crnch73

the biggest problem we have, as originally stated, is that without proper communication, we just get the feeling that people are shrugging their shoulders, ignoring our words, and offering a "meh" all the way to the bank. Telling us they will fix it next time is rarely the right move on its own. In any supply and demand industry, that methodology is tough to stomach.

I know originally there was an analogy of the Samsung phones lighting on fire, and that was kinda hard to relate to because this is just a game. So I wanted to offer another analogy that is more on par: If you were playing playstation or xbox, and the game you chose to buy and spend time on, suddenly had a massive error in it. Let's say everytime you move the joystick on ANY controller, nothing happens. That is a fundamental flaw that makes the game much less enjoyable, and makes you feel like you wasted time and money. At the very least, you expect the game developer OR the console manufacturer to release a statement apologizing, explaining the issue briefly, and then moving on.

In this case, all we got was the shoulder shrug. Would we all love compensation? sure. Is it realistic, or even necessary? not really. The only thing most of us would love to hear is a mea culpa, take responsibility for the mistakes, fix it for the next run. But for the devs to stay basically silent and then HiFi had to lock the thread (understandably, with every passing silent day, we became monsters)... it only leaves more of a bad taste in our mouths. We feel burned and would love an explanation. I bet we would all settle for an explanation as to what went wrong, instead of "we did nothing wrong, sorry you didn't have fun". Hearing it now would pacify the masses and make us forget the long delay in response. "Better Late than Never" still works, but we constantly just feel like we are living in the "never"

Linkster79

The main issue is the community manager (yes there is one) works for the publisher in California. The game developers work 3,000 miles away in Massachusetts. There is most likely one daily video conference between the 2 and that is it, so any communication between them both is going to be slow. If for any reason the community manager is unable to attend the daily video conference then the information flow will be slow at best, non existent at worst. It's quite possible that for days at a time the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and the head (Sega) is wanting them both to work on other tasks. Factor in the time difference (about 3 hours at a guess) then any daily issues that occur late will go unresolved for a day at least.

Add in the fact the community manager is probably under strict orders to not engage forum users in certain matters and it just makes a whole mess and mockery of the meaning of communication.

The best thing that could happen is the forums close and replaced by a site that just handles statements, announcements and press releases.

Vhailorx

Linkster79 wrote:

The main issue is the community manager (yes there is one) works for the publisher in California. The game developers work 3,000 miles away in Massachusetts. There is most likely one daily video conference between the 2 and that is it, so any communication between them both is going to be slow. If for any reason the community manager is unable to attend the daily video conference then the information flow will be slow at best, non existent at worst. It's quite possible that for days at a time the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and the head (Sega) is wanting them both to work on other tasks. Factor in the time difference (about 3 hours at a guess) then any daily issues that occur late will go unresolved for a day at least.

Add in the fact the community manager is probably under strict orders to not engage forum users in certain matters and it just makes a whole mess and mockery of the meaning of communication.

The best thing that could happen is the forums close and replaced by a site that just handles statements, announcements and press releases.

They have a site for announcements: marvel.com.

And all the logistical challenges are why i waited a week after boss rush before pressing this issue. But by now hifi and the devs have had plenty of time to coordinate a response (as seen by the fact the hifi. Has expressly said that he communicated with the devs and they confirmed thay they have no additional comment).

BassMuffinFIve

Pylgrim wrote:

I was literally told to my face that even though they admit such bug existed, no compensation was forthcoming. That might be single most disappointing moment I have experienced in this game and I'm pretty sure most of you know that there's not a lack of competition.

I got the same response from them regarding the Devil Dinosaur event not giving out any iso at all. Especially during the double iso anniversary...

"We are aware of it and are not doing anything about it" is not an appropriate response. Sorry guys. Their CS support has been atrocious for 3 years, and I thought that after coming back to the game from being away so long, that things would have changed, but alas.

This game always has been (and apparently always will be?) 1 step forward 2 steps back. And **** communication/CS.

Bonus tip free advice level 2: if you want to see how to do things right, have a look at Blizzard. I would complain equally hard on their forums if they pulled the same shenanigans.

GurlBYE

Some of you guys are are displaying some stockholm like statements


For the rest,

Stop spending. They only listen to money.

Stop supporting them.

If you as a customer aren't "entitled to" (i hate this nonsensical argument but i'm keeping this post impartial) your feedback as a customer, then don't give them what makes you a customer.

While the forums are a small portion of the playerbase other games will go so far as to have their community managers follow posters on reddit and get feedback.

Don't settle. Just don't spend.
if you are satisfied stop going into threads complaining about how "negative" everything is.

GurlBYE

Linkster79 wrote:

The main issue is the community manager (yes there is one) works for the publisher in California. The game developers work 3,000 miles away in Massachusetts. There is most likely one daily video conference between the 2 and that is it, so any communication between them both is going to be slow. If for any reason the community manager is unable to attend the daily video conference then the information flow will be slow at best, non existent at worst. It's quite possible that for days at a time the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and the head (Sega) is wanting them both to work on other tasks. Factor in the time difference (about 3 hours at a guess) then any daily issues that occur late will go unresolved for a day at least.

Add in the fact the community manager is probably under strict orders to not engage forum users in certain matters and it just makes a whole mess and mockery of the meaning of communication.

The best thing that could happen is the forums close and replaced by a site that just handles statements, announcements and press releases.

The community manager for future fight is in the US and the developers are in china.

not a great excuse sorry, especially considering that thread is 40 pages long and has been sitting there for weeks. and with my short stay with that game, their community manager was really fast and sufficient with responses and was simply honest when he didn't know the answer or needed to ask and if you think THIS forum is negative, their site is like a post apocalyptic future

Fightmastermpq

Linkster79 wrote:

The main issue is the community manager (yes there is one) works for the publisher in California. The game developers work 3,000 miles away in Massachusetts. There is most likely one daily video conference between the 2 and that is it, so any communication between them both is going to be slow. If for any reason the community manager is unable to attend the daily video conference then the information flow will be slow at best, non existent at worst. It's quite possible that for days at a time the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and the head (Sega) is wanting them both to work on other tasks. Factor in the time difference (about 3 hours at a guess) then any daily issues that occur late will go unresolved for a day at least.

Add in the fact the community manager is probably under strict orders to not engage forum users in certain matters and it just makes a whole mess and mockery of the meaning of communication.

The best thing that could happen is the forums close and replaced by a site that just handles statements, announcements and press releases.

I'm sorry, but you can't convince me that the community management is poor because it's impossible to manage a community effectively. I've seen it done well with several other games I have played - Blizzard was used as a model example in this very thread.

GurlBYE wrote:

Some of you guys are are displaying some stockholm like statements


For the rest,

Stop spending. They only listen to money.

Stop supporting them.

If you as a customer aren't "entitled to" (i hate this nonsensical argument but i'm keeping this post impartial) your feedback as a customer, then don't give them what makes you a customer.

While the forums are a small portion of the playerbase other games will go so far as to have their community managers follow posters on reddit and get feedback.

Don't settle. Just don't spend.
if you are satisfied stop going into threads complaining about how "negative" everything is.

That's nice in theory, but at the end of the day the game itself is fun, worth my time, and worth my money. And while I don't agree with how changes are communicated, reducing my spending would also reduce my level of enjoyment which I am not prepared to do. I understand that closing my wallet makes a statement, but I ought to be able to make that same statement here on the forums and have some confidence that it will be heard.