Silence and crickets

Theros

Brigby wrote:

Houdin wrote:

Hi Brigby,
First let me say thank you for responding. We really do all appreciate you.
If you could, could you give us some idea of a timeline on an official response?
Many of us are walking a knifes edge with the game right now
We won't be spending any more money until our concerns are addressed, however we won't start a mass exodus until we find out if they will be.
For some though the waiting without any clear idea of a timeline will become too much and they will start looking for a new game to spend on.
This hurts all of us. We want the game to be profitable as much as you do.
An unprofitable game will not survive. However the current update completely sacrificed every aspect of this game to keep players interested in playing and paying.
All cost with no reward.

I hope this finds you well and you may have some timeline idea for us.

We are all in this together

Houdin

I'll do my best, but it's very hard for me to determine an official timeline, considering we're addressing a lot of feedback from a lot of changes. I would imagine that it would take a week or two just to even compile all the feedback, present it to the developers, and then get their feedback on it. If there are any disagreements, then you have to add on time to account for a lot of back and forth discussion.

Once a specific plan is agreed upon, the time it takes to implement that plan also depends on the complexity of the changes. Even simple number changes would need to be evaluated and balanced, let alone completely new features being developed. (This is just coming from an outsider to the development cycle too, so I bet it's way more complex coming from a developer's perspective)

Sorry if this doesn't seem like a concrete answer, but hopefully it explains a little bit as to why it's rare for us to announce specific deadlines or arrival times.

You just confirmed there is a disconnect between the development and the management team. They have no ideas on how their decisions affect their shareholders. Someone have to compile feedback and make a report to them.
Which mean they are not even aware of our outcry or what's going on. This is not a good business practice
I had doubts that the dev even understand/play the game as we do, which is apparent with cards and mechanics they release

Brigby

MADAFAKA wrote:

You just confirmed there is a disconnect between the development and the management team. They have no ideas on how their decisions affect their shareholders. Someone have to compile feedback and make a report to them.
Which mean they are not even aware of our outcry or what's going on. This is not a good business practice
I had doubts that the dev even understand/play the game as we do, which is apparent with cards and mechanics they release

The reason that I, as part of the communication team, create sentiment reports for them is so they have an official document that they can review whenever they want to. While the developers do review player feedback actively on their own, a lot of the times they don't get the luxury of going through the forum as often as I do, because they are also the ones that need to develop content and fix bugs.

I wouldn't necessarily call it a disconnect, but rather a symbiotic relationship. I'm inspired to help the communications team be that bridge between the community and the developers.

Houdin

Brigby,
Thank you. That is something at least.
I will await those responses before making any final decision.
As always I really appreciate all you do.

Houdin

Yawgmoths_Left_Ilium

Brigby wrote:

Houdin wrote:

Hi Brigby,
First let me say thank you for responding. We really do all appreciate you.
If you could, could you give us some idea of a timeline on an official response?
Many of us are walking a knifes edge with the game right now
We won't be spending any more money until our concerns are addressed, however we won't start a mass exodus until we find out if they will be.
For some though the waiting without any clear idea of a timeline will become too much and they will start looking for a new game to spend on.
This hurts all of us. We want the game to be profitable as much as you do.
An unprofitable game will not survive. However the current update completely sacrificed every aspect of this game to keep players interested in playing and paying.
All cost with no reward.

I hope this finds you well and you may have some timeline idea for us.

We are all in this together

Houdin

I'll do my best, but it's very hard for me to determine an official timeline, considering we're addressing a lot of feedback from a lot of changes. I would imagine that it would take a week or two just to even compile all the feedback, present it to the developers, and then get their feedback on it. If there are any disagreements, then you have to add on time to account for a lot of back and forth discussion.

Once a specific plan is agreed upon, the time it takes to implement that plan also depends on the complexity of the changes. Even simple number changes would need to be evaluated and balanced, let alone completely new features being developed. (This is just coming from an outsider to the development cycle too, so I bet it's way more complex coming from a developer's perspective)

Sorry if this doesn't seem like a concrete answer, but hopefully it explains a little bit as to why it's rare for us to announce specific deadlines or arrival times.

Hi Brigby,

First off, I wanted to say thank you for everything that you're doing. I'm pretty new to the forums, but I've been browsing for a while before I joined and have seen the way you're communicating with everyone. Kudos to you and I echo everyone's sentiments regarding your stellar performance (and patience).

I do want to add my two cents to this. I don't think anyone on here really expected a fixed to happen overnight, or even this week (as much as we were all hoping for one). However, one of the biggest gripes is the abysmal communication between the developers and the community. When you give the compilation of our feedback to the developers, please, please, please either have them post, or give you the authority and information, to post status updates regarding the situation. Even if it's so much as "I'm still working on collating everybody's feedback" or "the developers are set to meet sometime next week regarding the situation," or "we've heard your feedback and are still in discussions with how to remedy the issues."

Obviously it would be even better if the Devs can let us in on the exact changes beforehand, and best yet, for the Devs to actually include us in trying to solve the issues. But at the very least, please relay to them the importance of giving us constant updates on what's being done to fix this rift. Because without it, I'm not sure too many people are going to stay for very long.

Steeme

There should have been a statement from the director or producer of the game, given what has happened over the past several days. Would have been quite diplomatic. Silence just makes things worse.

wink

If a fix is going to be weeks or even a month from now from being implemented, then there needs to be frequent (i.e. daily) communication up till then.

Right now I have no motivation to play--the potential rewards are so low that it just don't seem worth the spending the time to get them. I will not play for weeks or a month on the blind faith that the devs will make it better sometime in the future.

But I will play if I think that the devs are making a good faith effort to fix things. The difference between blind faith and good faith? Communication.

Explain to us why things are being changed, why those changes are necessary. Ask us if we think proposed changes are good ideas. We are more than willing to tell you what would make us happy and what would make us open our wallets.

I can be patient for weeks if I know good things are coming. I won't be patient for weeks if there is no communication.

ridfrenzy

I think the lack of gap between reward brackets, both personal and coalition is a big mistake. I have 0 incentive to try and get maximum points now for anything but coalition events. The only reason I want to still do well in Coalition events is purely for pride of my coalition and has nothing to do with the rewards anymore.

I am running personal events with decks I like and I am ignoring the objectives as I don't care about coming top. I get progression regardless so I may as well have fun and ignore your sub par rewards.

I have lost two members from this patch so far and I am sure other coalitions are in the same boat to some extent. For the coalitions to be successful at all a much bigger carrot is needed otherwise people are just not going to bother and we will be back where we were before coalitions were introduced just grinding QB and Story mode which both have rewards equal to or better than the current story mode and in QB I can play fun decks instead of ones that are required to meet the ridiculous objective that D3 are pulling out of their nether regions.

ridfrenzy

Brigby wrote:

Houdin wrote:

Hi Brigby,
First let me say thank you for responding. We really do all appreciate you.
If you could, could you give us some idea of a timeline on an official response?
Many of us are walking a knifes edge with the game right now
We won't be spending any more money until our concerns are addressed, however we won't start a mass exodus until we find out if they will be.
For some though the waiting without any clear idea of a timeline will become too much and they will start looking for a new game to spend on.
This hurts all of us. We want the game to be profitable as much as you do.
An unprofitable game will not survive. However the current update completely sacrificed every aspect of this game to keep players interested in playing and paying.
All cost with no reward.

I hope this finds you well and you may have some timeline idea for us.

We are all in this together

Houdin

I'll do my best, but it's very hard for me to determine an official timeline, considering we're addressing a lot of feedback from a lot of changes. I would imagine that it would take a week or two just to even compile all the feedback, present it to the developers, and then get their feedback on it. If there are any disagreements, then you have to add on time to account for a lot of back and forth discussion.

Once a specific plan is agreed upon, the time it takes to implement that plan also depends on the complexity of the changes. Even simple number changes would need to be evaluated and balanced, let alone completely new features being developed. (This is just coming from an outsider to the development cycle too, so I bet it's way more complex coming from a developer's perspective)

Sorry if this doesn't seem like a concrete answer, but hopefully it explains a little bit as to why it's rare for us to announce specific deadlines or arrival times.

Can I just say that I think the community would much rather you just address one issue at a time. The Agile way is better, if you wait until you have a response for every single issue we are going to be waiting a month before we get any decent feedback.

Iterate the issues and pick one at a time and get the feedback to us for each issue individually. I think the community would be far more appreciative of any response at this point rather than a fix all solution which I can't see happening regardless.

Stick a poll up of the issues you know about from this patch and start with the ones with the most votes. Better for you to post it than the community as I am sure you will get more votes.

losdamianos

lack of meaningful top 5 rewards is so D3moralizing if you stack the sheer number of concurrent events on top of it without being able to save multiple decks there really is not much that can keep good players in the game...

Sorin81

Since the update I have had almost no motivation to play. The way this was implemented and the way the communities reaction to it was subsequently handled has been disheartening.
I have spent more time in the forums than playing the game, banding together with my fellow players and just hoping that someone at Hibernum and/or D3 would address our concerns.

Brigby wrote:

While the developers do review player feedback actively on their own, a lot of the times they don't get the luxury of going through the forum as often as I do, because they are also the ones that need to develop content and fix bugs.

While I appreciate that they have other aspects of the job to do the developers need to understand that one of the biggest "bugs" in the game is their lack of communication with the community.
I'm not advocating that each person on the dev team spend the amount of time in the forums as you do Brigby however it would be immensely beneficial to everyone if there were a set time each day for a member of the team to come to the forums and engage us in an open dialog. We could ask questions and give suggestions and perhaps be given some insight into what is going on and what may be coming and when.

In the past I have truly enjoyed this game, to the point that I have uninstalled almost every other game. If it weren't for the fact that I still have a bit of story mode to finish I would not be playing at all right now. Please. Please give me a reason to play again. Give me a reason to enjoy this game again.

Astralwind

While I agree that a response should not take too long, I think it's also difficult to be always communicating updates on a daily basis.
It would feel like the community is trying to micro-manage the developers. So what happens if the daily update doesn't fit into part of the community's interest?
There can be so many different opinions and wishes, it's hard to satisfy everyone.
I think updates on a weekly basis is good enough so long as it can adequately address the burning issues raised by many of the players here.
We don't expect everything to be resolved in just a week or two time but key things like the direction of the game and steps towards it would be of interest to most of us.

Ampmp11

Brigby wrote:

Houdin wrote:

Hi Brigby,
First let me say thank you for responding. We really do all appreciate you.
If you could, could you give us some idea of a timeline on an official response?
Many of us are walking a knifes edge with the game right now
We won't be spending any more money until our concerns are addressed, however we won't start a mass exodus until we find out if they will be.
For some though the waiting without any clear idea of a timeline will become too much and they will start looking for a new game to spend on.
This hurts all of us. We want the game to be profitable as much as you do.
An unprofitable game will not survive. However the current update completely sacrificed every aspect of this game to keep players interested in playing and paying.
All cost with no reward.

I hope this finds you well and you may have some timeline idea for us.

We are all in this together

Houdin

I'll do my best, but it's very hard for me to determine an official timeline, considering we're addressing a lot of feedback from a lot of changes. I would imagine that it would take a week or two just to even compile all the feedback, present it to the developers, and then get their feedback on it. If there are any disagreements, then you have to add on time to account for a lot of back and forth discussion.

Once a specific plan is agreed upon, the time it takes to implement that plan also depends on the complexity of the changes. Even simple number changes would need to be evaluated and balanced, let alone completely new features being developed. (This is just coming from an outsider to the development cycle too, so I bet it's way more complex coming from a developer's perspective)

Sorry if this doesn't seem like a concrete answer, but hopefully it explains a little bit as to why it's rare for us to announce specific deadlines or arrival times.

By this timeline it would take about a month to see any changes. I'm not sure how many people will be able to take a month of this ...

babar3355

D3 clearly doesn't think this is a big problem. If it was a big problem, they would come on here and communicate with us and try to ask for patience as they work on fixes. Brigby's comments mentioned awareness but no concern.

Have you not seen the RaTC leaderboard? Does that not tell you this is something serious? Do you think whales just grow on trees?

Guess I will take a break from spending and playing until the developers are willing to respond.

DumasAG

MADAFAKA wrote:

Brigby wrote:

Houdin wrote:

Hi Brigby,
First let me say thank you for responding. We really do all appreciate you.
If you could, could you give us some idea of a timeline on an official response?
Many of us are walking a knifes edge with the game right now
We won't be spending any more money until our concerns are addressed, however we won't start a mass exodus until we find out if they will be.
For some though the waiting without any clear idea of a timeline will become too much and they will start looking for a new game to spend on.
This hurts all of us. We want the game to be profitable as much as you do.
An unprofitable game will not survive. However the current update completely sacrificed every aspect of this game to keep players interested in playing and paying.
All cost with no reward.

I hope this finds you well and you may have some timeline idea for us.

We are all in this together

Houdin

I'll do my best, but it's very hard for me to determine an official timeline, considering we're addressing a lot of feedback from a lot of changes. I would imagine that it would take a week or two just to even compile all the feedback, present it to the developers, and then get their feedback on it. If there are any disagreements, then you have to add on time to account for a lot of back and forth discussion.

Once a specific plan is agreed upon, the time it takes to implement that plan also depends on the complexity of the changes. Even simple number changes would need to be evaluated and balanced, let alone completely new features being developed. (This is just coming from an outsider to the development cycle too, so I bet it's way more complex coming from a developer's perspective)

Sorry if this doesn't seem like a concrete answer, but hopefully it explains a little bit as to why it's rare for us to announce specific deadlines or arrival times.

You just confirmed there is a disconnect between the development and the management team. They have no ideas on how their decisions affect their shareholders. Someone have to compile feedback and make a report to them.
Which mean they are not even aware of our outcry or what's going on. This is not a good business practice
I had doubts that the dev even understand/play the game as we do, which is apparent with cards and mechanics they release

This is not a weird thing. Development and Management are not the same people, and they have very full jobs with very different responsibilities. Management can't (and shouldn't) be involved in every part of development. They need to worry about marketing, branding, copyright, HR, and all of the other aspects of running a profitable business. And that's just for ONE of their projects/games. Meanwhile, development slows down if there's management trying to micromanage every step of the way.

If anybody seriously didn't realize there would be several weeks of time before a real conversation happens, then you're out of touch with how business works in the real world. Assuming an update only takes a week and a half to work on and get sent through (HIGHLY unlikely), that's not even going to happen until the report is given to management, they take a week to brainstorm, they ask if their ideas will work and get feedback on that (another week), and they argue and hammer out the final decision (another week). This is a 5-7 week turnaround at least.

I'm as mad as everyone else about what they chose to do to the game. But you have to be realistic with how a real business runs.

Monkeynutts

Im sorry but in a real world industry you can brainstorm and get people together in days and fix issues.

Christ if i get a phone call that McLaren have stopped their road car producion line....do i do omg let's wait a week and we'll have a meeting.. No people get in cars and on planes...meet and find solutions.
thats extreme example...but things arw getting worse with this game.... and lot of things are "easy" fixes before they get worse.

Its down to the "want" to fix it.

trust me if they "wanted" to fix it, it would be addressed in a statement and actions pending

Massive Dragon

With all due respect to the forum moderators who do a great job in **** circumstances, but there is a very simple explanation for the silence.

Engaging fules the fire, it keeps the grievances fresh. If they stay silent then they are hoping that eventually the fire will die down and people will resume business as usual... time will lessen the blow and people will slowly think oh go on one game won't hurt, after all I have spent so much time and some cases money.

For my sins I have worked QA at an online gambling site and if there was a mess up or we did something people didnt like then outside of a generic statement, it was absolute radio silence and let people burn themselves out...

The fact you can now buy (with real money) passes to the full colour spectrum of the new events show that this course is locked in...

I'd say it shows contempt but think they have already done that by starting this trash can fire in the first place...