Communications Impasse

dsds

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Linkster79 wrote:

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.

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. You've tried it once, why not try a different way?
It's short term pain for long term gain.

GurlBYE

Fightmastermpq wrote:

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.

Unfortunately, they've made it clear that feedback isn't a conversation, nor will it be acknowledged if it's used. (see- the entire suggestion forum)
Expectations have not and will not be managed. (see- why the boss rush thread was 40 pages after it launched instead of being a small discussion before hand)

(the pay being tied to enjoyment is also an issue in itself but that i won't breech here but says a lot on its' own)

Omega Red

I don't need a response from the devs. The silence and that last post were both very telling by themselves. Having said that, I totally understand why many players want feedback and I think the way this has been handled by D3 has been poor.

I don't see what's the point of having red names representing D3 in this forum when they don't engage in honest dialogue with the players. It's convenient for them only when making new announcements redacted at the marketing department but not when there's a customer service crisis.

If you ask me, all red names should disappear from this forum. Their sole existence creates the false expectation that this game has a dialogue with its players. It has never been like that, not even when IceIX was here, mostly doing damage control duties.

The game has an agenda and it doesn't include its players, so why bother keeping a line open with them? You never use it for anything but game promotion, and you only create the expectation in naive players that you actually want to have a conversation with them. You don't.

Fightmastermpq

dsds wrote:

Fightmastermpq wrote:

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.

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. You've tried it once, why not try a different way?
It's short term pain for long term gain.

You assume I haven't stopped or slowed my spending. I have. I've spent an embarrassingly large amount of money on this game, and while I do still spend more than most I've cut my spending to probably 25% of what it was. The problem is that I'm nobody special - I've communicated to both CS and red names my intention to spend much less on this game and outlined the reasoning to them, and what was their response? Dismissal. They don't care. Not only do they not care enough to change their behavior, they didn't even care enough to acknowledge my disappointment as being reasonable. So IME closing my wallet has been tried and failed. Forum threads are mostly failures too, but at least there is discussion from the community and not just a single player.

I think my next step will be emails directly to d3 and demi. Maybe even a petition for more engaging community management. I don't know what must be said, or where, or by who or how many, but this is as good a place to start as any.

Dragon_Nexus

The saddest thing in my opinion was communication was actually improving.
We were getting a few quality of life changes and some spiffy new features. Hell, when they announced they were planning to do a bunch of changes to existing characters, the forum reacted hard and fast "Buffs, not nerfs" and within days we got a message "We hear you loud and clear. Buffs not nerfs. Gotcha!" and they have so far stuck to it.

I postulated there's a member of the dev team who hates fun. Every now and then he goes off on holiday or takes a business trip away and the devs make cool stuff for us. But then this fun hating guy comes back and breaks it. "Fun? FUN!? We're not here for FUN!" he would be heard to say.
Champion levels! Never throw away a 2* or 3* cover again and get prizes while you do it! Awesome new feature! But then the holiday's over and the 3* and 2* power gets nerfed across the board. Community manager is told to keep schtum so we wait over a week for an official response...which was "working as intended".
We get a pretty great new anniversary setup, sure the PvP BFF was a little slow and grindy, but overall things were great. Bos rush felt like a single player boss challenge, almost like a boss version of gauntlet. Tokens aplenty, double ISO in everything, all is well! And then we get hit by personal scaling added to bosses for some unknown reason, killing the event in its infancy along with other problems. Again, community manager told to keep schtum.

It pains me to see the devs who once ran from this forum because of bitterness slowly come back, start communicating, building bridges and actually engaging with us again then suddenly running back for cover when they screw something up and erecting their wall of silence once again. I don't want to wait 6 months before they find the courage to talk to us again, it shouldn't be this way!

If you make a mistake, you should own it, then it becomes your thing. Like I said before, own the narrative to a mistake, don't let it gain a life of its own. You can't just stick your fingers in your ears and wait for it to all blow over. Yes people would be annoyed if they said "We screwed up." but they're more annoyed by silence because that feels far more contemptuous to the forumites.

While it's true the forum dwellers make up a small percentage of the game's population, I reckon you can take this percentage as the core fans of your game. The people who are truely dedicated to something will want to join up with a community, usually. They want to find out what's up, they want to voice their opinions and they want to discuss the game and its features. And yes some people will armchair program and think they have all the answers, but there are also plenty of people here who can point to the design philosophy behind an event and say "I can see what you were doing, but it doesn't work because...". An outside observer can often see things you miss, it's very easy when working in the design environment to gain tunnel vision, to get blinkers that prevent you seeing things from all angles. Listening to the forums can give a fresh perspective on the work. Neglecting it is at a developer's peril. Sure you don't have to do every last thing we suggest, but there's some useful stuff in here, surely?

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

I'd like to wade in here with a few points.

The publishers and developers of this game find the forums very helpful. We get a ton of great feedback from you (very engaged players) that has often helped guide our decisions and led to many improvements in the game. If we don't have community forums, allowing you to comment on what is currently on your mind, then we lose that valuable feedback. We don't want to lose that. That's why we've had forums for the past three years and plan on continuing to provide them.

A couple of folks have mentioned Blizzard as an example for providing an ideal forum environment. Activision Blizzard is a multi-billion dollar company with a staff of employees who do nothing else but maintain the forums. Neither D3 Go! or Demiurge can compete at that level. We are small companies with limited staff doing the best we can within our means. We always have to prioritize when and where we can focus our attention at any given time.

We try to communicate as much as we can and we know it isn't often enough for many. We're always striving to improve on that front. Even if we aren't actively commenting, both D3 Go! and Demiurge team members are reading your comments on a daily basis. In addition to daily emails and numerous conference calls with the teams, part of my job is to gather up important forum user comments into a weekly community sentiment report which gets sent around. If there's a hot topic in the community chances are good it is being discussed among the devs and pubs.

That said, D3 Go! also strives to make the forums a friendly place to hang out where anyone can feel welcome. Insults and trolling and hostile negativity offered in a nonconstructive manner are not welcome. We reserve the right to remove posts or lock threads where we feel it is needed.

Thanks everyone, as always, for providing your thoughts.

TLCstormz

It's all about EGO.

No one wants to admit when they are wrong. That's all ANY of this boils down to.

Being children, basically.

bluewolf

Thank you, David. This small pullback of the curtain is, for me (and, I hope, other serious and civil forum users), valuable for both information and explanation. I also thank you for ongoing efforts which I truly believe are done as best you can to foster the communication that occurs.

fnedude

What I think is frustrating many people is that there is very limited communication back to the community, so little that probably many people are feeling like they are "shouting at the moon" about problems. Especially when there are responses like (paraphrased):

We've received your responses and are compiling our data.

So I've been a playtester for a boardgame for 15+yrs, for a game company that's been around for 25+ yrs (you might be able to figure it out if you are an old grognard like me)

What I'd like to point out, that as a playtester (there was probably about 20+ max at one point for a new expansion to the boardgame), we used a message board like this, and the designer took our comments seriously as we playtested and made comments as a group. It then made a very successful product when it was released.

Things like "Boss Rush" demonstrate to me (and probably others), that Playtesting/QC and a feedback mechanisim from your playtesters regarding their work seem to be missing. It seems that are just to validate that there are no serious crashes of the software on various devices (phones/tablets/PC/Mac/etc). If there was a feedback mechanism by your playtesters wouldn't SOMEONE have raised the Red Flag about the difficulty?

I'd hope that Playtester realized before Boss Rush that, "Oh, this difficulty is hard in Rnd 5+, maybe we need to explain to our PLAYERS/CUSTOMERS/INVESTORS what's different between Boss Rush and Ultron/Civil War/Galactus events." But by all evidence, there was no warning to the Customers.

Now, that all being said, maybe D3 should considering widening their Playtesting staff, because they seem to be either not assertive enough to provide outside feedback (sorry to be blunt, but possibly just "Yes Man/Women") or maybe they haven't been given direction to provide comments like that (D3 just going, "Report any problems with your hardware, we know what we are doing with scaling/MMR/events"). Or somewhere in between, I have no idea, I can only go on antidotal observations by what transpires.

So this is where communication (this board) is important, and the lack of responses (or timely responses) drives everyone bonkers, because everyone that posts on this board a lot should be considered the "elite" of the game, because they probably devote a lot of time/energy to the game. The players who number-crush new releases are a perfect example.

Oh, I understand the concept that if there are most playtesters there is a larger potential for "leakage" of what's coming up. But over the last 3 yrs, who many of any of the leaks came from playtesters instead of people data-mining files on the various phones/PC/Mac/etc. Maybe D3 should reconsider the position on that, because it seems to me (IMO) the playtesting/QC pool should be expanded some (how much, I'd let the powers that be determine that).

El Satanno

"David wrote:

Moore"]I'd like to wade in here with a few points.

The publishers and developers of this game find the forums very helpful. We get a ton of great feedback from you (very engaged players) that has often helped guide our decisions and led to many improvements in the game. If we don't have community forums, allowing you to comment on what is currently on your mind, then we lose that valuable feedback. We don't want to lose that. That's why we've had forums for the past three years and plan on continuing to provide them.

A couple of folks have mentioned Blizzard as an example for providing an ideal forum environment. Activision Blizzard is a multi-billion dollar company with a staff of employees who do nothing else but maintain the forums. Neither D3 Go! or Demiurge can compete at that level. We are small companies with limited staff doing the best we can within our means. We always have to prioritize when and where we can focus our attention at any given time.

We try to communicate as much as we can and we know it isn't often enough for many. We're always striving to improve on that front. Even if we aren't actively commenting, both D3 Go! and Demiurge team members are reading your comments on a daily basis. In addition to daily emails and numerous conference calls with the teams, part of my job is to gather up important forum user comments into a weekly community sentiment report which gets sent around. If there's a hot topic in the community chances are good it is being discussed among the devs and pubs.

That said, D3 Go! also strives to make the forums a friendly place to hang out where anyone can feel welcome. Insults and trolling and hostile negativity offered in a nonconstructive manner are not welcome. We reserve the right to remove posts or lock threads where we feel it is needed.

Thanks everyone, as always, for providing your thoughts.

Thank you for taking the time to reply, David. I think a simple(?) takeaway from this is that frequency of posting could do a lot to pacify many of us, even if there's less content to it. We just want to be reminded that you all are listening!

Pylgrim

Thanks, David. Such candidcy and human-to-human talk is what most of us claim for. I understand that there are priorities and that you are a comparatively small outfit in the industry. However, speaking of priorities, I think when there's a 42-page thread full of discontent, demands and reports of actual progression impending bugs, such topic must become a number 1 priority. That amount of dissatisfaction /needs/ to be adressed or it's just going to engender more, and more caustic unhappiness. Confusion, disappointment and bafflement are emotions that turn sour (sourer) very quickly. Continuous silence only fans the flames as what could initially be accepted as an honest mistake starts looking like the result of a careless or cynical attitude.

You say that Demi and D3 actually care for what we have to say but it doesn't feel that way on our side of the divide. You need to let us know that you are listening. Note that actual listening involves corresponding action, not the mere "m'h-hmm dear" that's what the one message we got regarding the Boss Rush boiled down to. If there are errors (like the missing points bug) own them. If for whatever reason you are not willing or capable to give compensation for it, say so and help us understand why. And so on.

As I said in a previous comment, I appreciate the devs trying to do something different with the boss rush and I'm forgiving of issues arising from a first run. But it's the ensuing silence and apathy what really have soured the community on the event, which saddens me, as undoubtedly the devs worked hard on it and had good intentions when making it. Don't let that happen again.

ClydeFrog76

Pylgrim wrote:

candidcy

*psst* That's not a word.

Pylgrim wrote:

claim for

*clamour for

Pylgrim

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

candidcy

*psst* That's not a word.

Pylgrim wrote:

claim for

*clamour for

Ah, from times to times, the ugly truth that I'm not a native speaker rears its misshapen head. Thanks for the corrections.

ClydeFrog76

Pylgrim wrote:

Ah, from times to times, the ugly truth that I'm not a native speaker rears its misshapen head. Thanks for the corrections.

Every now and then the ugly truth that I'm a grammar Nazi rears its ugly head, too

I never would've guessed you weren't a native speaker, they're only little mistakes.

Alsmir

Steellatch wrote:

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.

Not a great example. I've been lied to by Blizzard's community managers on two separate occasions. They regularly sweep under the rug different issues, focus their work on making more money, rather than improving their games and always go for most lazy way of fixing things. They are just one step behind mods/devs of early access titles who just delete every single bit of negative feedback.

Compared to Blizzard, Demiurge is doing a good job.

Linkster79

"David wrote:

Moore"]

A couple of folks have mentioned Blizzard as an example for providing an ideal forum environment. Activision Blizzard is a multi-billion dollar company with a staff of employees who do nothing else but maintain the forums. Neither D3 Go! or Demiurge can compete at that level. We are small companies with limited staff doing the best we can within our means.

Activision Blizzard also has a much bigger community and many more IP's to manage, it's all relative to scale. I appreciate that D3 Go! is doing their best within their means but sometimes, especially in business the best needs to be better. Has your organisation considered some sort of continuous improvement program or 5S?

"David wrote:

Moore"]
We always have to prioritize when and where we can focus our attention at any given time.

Does this mean that interacting with the forum is usually low down on the priority list?

"David wrote:

Moore"]
We try to communicate as much as we can and we know it isn't often enough for many. We're always striving to improve on that front.

If possible may you please expand on what strategies for improvement are in place?

"David wrote:

Moore"]
That said, D3 Go! also strives to make the forums a friendly place to hang out where anyone can feel welcome. Insults and trolling and hostile negativity offered in a nonconstructive manner are not welcome. We reserve the right to remove posts or lock threads where we feel it is needed.

Thanks everyone, as always, for providing your thoughts.

Personally I don't think this last part was really necessary. I read this as being passive aggressive, if that was nit the intention then I apologise, tone of words are hard to gauge when written down.

Gari

Well, filter through the 40 pages of garbage yourselves, and see how many are just venting. Most are just wasting everybody's time. Even those who have never even completed round 8 before are jumping on the rabbletrain. At what point should a thread be terminated? Page 100? Would anyone even bother to read anything at that point?

pheregas

I, like many others, submitted a ticket to CS regarding my opinion of boss rush and the way it all played out. I, of course, got the form letter about "trying new things."

However, I'd like to point out a specific line in said CS form letter:

"If you would like to submit further feedback on the subject, as well as stay up to date on current and future information, please visit the forums:

http://d3go.com/forums/"

I would urge the CS department and the devs to be on the same page. If your CS department is going to recommend to me to go to the forums to discuss my dissatisfaction, we need to actually be allowed to do that without having threads locked.

Locking threads and giving no feedback is yet another version of "I'm taking my ball and going home."

I love this game. I want to see it get better and give constructive feedback. I want my voice to be heard. Neither the devs nor the players are doing this alone. It is not one versus the other. We should be a team.

jobob

kidicarus wrote:

A few thoughts:...

Don't know why you'd want to respond to my post in a PM.

Did you just post his PM? I don't think that's cool to post PMs from other people.

jobob

"David wrote:

Moore"]I'd like to wade in here with a few points.

....

David,

Thanks very much for posting that... I don't know how long it took you to write it, but I assure you it was time well spent.

I think that most of us realize that you are not going to be able to give us answers most of the time. But a simple, sincere message like that goes a long way toward establishing the type of atmosphere on the forum that you guys are trying to cultivate.

Responses like that last one go a long way toward telling the player base "We are doing our best, just bear with us" in a way that will help keep feedback positive. Conversely... we all know a formatted copy & paste "We the company would like to thank you for your feedback. It has been received. If you have any further questions, please check the in-game FAQ" when we see one, whether it's from the cable company, our bank, or from you. And that type of response, or a locked thread, or a ban... that goes the other way. It fans the flames, it doesn't put them out.

I know it has to get tedious commenting on posts when you don't have any new information from the people actually implementing the changes in the game. I'm sorry for that, and I really think that D3/Demi are doing YOU a disservice by not directing more feedback through you to the player base.