Liar, liar, pants on fire

Houdin

Lets go back in time a bit shall we.
After an extremely unpopular update that removed individual rewards, coalition rewards and quick battle from this game we so love. Coupled with a completely overt move towards pay to play with some of the most ridiculous devaluation of game currency at the same time, the player base went bananas.
Participation was at an all time low. Many top players in the game simply packed their bags and uninstalled. Many more moved to the Not.Another.Dime movement.
Protests and complaints abounded. Even including direct complaints to wizards of the coast themselves. Who actually got involved because of the horrendous policy changes that had been brought in.
Then wait... Amidst the chaos of a game teetering on the edge of insolvency came the holy grail!
Booster crafting!
Something every single person on the forums had been begging for since its inception.
Its initial portrayal was all we had hoped for.
The ability to trade in the duplicates earned feom the terrible drop ratws in the game that many of bus had spent real world currency to obtain.
Rejoice!!!
Ohh wait....
Slowly statements were retracted or changed to cast ambiguity on how exactly this would work.
The initial promise that this new feature would guarantee new cards instead of just milling duplicates to create more duplicates on a decreasing return just seemed to disappear.

Questions regarding this ambiquity were just outright ignored.
Still we hoped...

The day of reckoning slowly approached...
With baited breath we readied ourselves to either renew our love affair with this game or to see its final nail hammered into the coffin.

One week before its release....
Delay!!!!
What? What do you mean delay? How could you possibly not know this wouldn't happen on time until just a week prior to its release.
What do you mean its not a delay of just a few days due to some technical issues, its a delay of a few months if we are lucky.
What kind of staff do you have working for you that are this incompetent?

Oh wait. We just arenr going to release it yet becuase of the myriad of bugs in the game we haven't bothered to fix, the terrible loss of rewards we took from you and the upcoming release of the HOU booster set that we need to be prepared to drop right after its paper release.

We need all hands on deck for these items.
Really we are doing it for you the players to make sure everything is good. Stay tuned. We are going to make you all happy again.

Ok, we said, we can accept that. We can hold back our mass exodus. You must be listening to us and really want to fix things. Really want to make this game fun again and worthwhile to compete in and spend our money on.

Now it is today.
HOU dropped a week and a half ago in paper magic.
Do we even have prerelease notes yet?
No!!!
The game is still filled with the same bugs as months ago. Have any of them been fixed?
No!!!
Are we still competing for tinykitty rewards in every event that are actually getting worse not better?
Yes!!!
Does D3/Hibernum still ignore every request of its player base even including ones it solicits answers to itself?
Yes!!!
It is time to let the higher ups know.
No more lies.
No more evasions.
No more ignoring us.

These questions need to be answered.

When will booster crafting be implemented. An actual firm date.

Will it guarantee no duplicates to cards we already own.

When will HOU drop.

When will the bugs be fixed.

When will the rewards be returned to some semblance of value for our time.

No.More.Lies


@Brigby@Brigby

Steeme

I tend to take what they say at face value, and as such, live a happier life.

Also, I don't recall D3H actually lying about anything in particular.  Can you provide quotes from the official posts?

TheDragonHermit

Less ambiguous language would be nice, but I wouldn't say they are lying, at least no more than any advertiser or press statement author is. And with the complexity of bug hunting, working out all the interactions that cause the bugs and deciding how to handle them without effecting gameplay while trolling through the relevant code, I am willing to give them a pass on that. The reward nerf on the other hand, speaking as someone who has never even gotten into the top 50 let alone the top 5, was disheartening, now I don't even really care about what rank I am.

babar3355

Steeme said:

I tend to take what they say at face value, and as such, live a happier life.

Also, I don't recall D3H actually lying about anything in particular.  Can you provide quotes from the official posts?

Chuthulu said Masterpeices would be event rewards.. not true, but maybe they changed there mind.

The rest is just total double-speak, like saying "we wanted to give players more rare cards" meaning they get less rare and mythic cards combined, but more cards that have the rarity of rare.

Not going to bother linking again unless its important to you.

But, I think the core thesis is they suck at communicating with us and when they do they use very deceitful language.  They stopped even doing that though... now they just ignore us completely.

IM_CARLOS

Not lying or more simple: don't tell anything?

Communication could be better. At least in the Forum I get some clues, but not in Game. 

And the bugs are really a problem. I have a support ticket every week, because there is an issue with multiple Packs in the vault and every week they sell a multi-pack. So every week a ticket and the communication is always the same:

I write UID and problem
The support ask in form like this: 'are you sure bought this and this? Did you check this and this. And your UID please ...'
I answer
And then after days a refund.

It's simply annoying that D3 can't handle this bug or simple cut the multi pack-offers.

Steeme

babar3355 said:

Steeme said:

I tend to take what they say at face value, and as such, live a happier life.

Also, I don't recall D3H actually lying about anything in particular.  Can you provide quotes from the official posts?

Chuthulu said Masterpeices would be event rewards.. not true, but maybe they changed there mind.

The rest is just total double-speak, like saying "we wanted to give players more rare cards" meaning they get less rare and mythic cards combined, but more cards that have the rarity of rare.

Not going to bother linking again unless its important to you.

But, I think the core thesis is they suck at communicating with us and when they do they use very deceitful language.  They stopped even doing that though... now they just ignore us completely.

This is the thread you're looking for:

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/60451/1-10-2-release-notes-updated-3-9-17/p1

I've re-read all of Chuthulu's posts.  Can't find a single lie in there.

The masterpieces as event rewards looks like a forward-reaching statement, ie. we are planning on doing this, and that, and this, and that.

There is also very little double-speak regarding the new premium packs.  This was the quote:

"Third the card packs we have done some balance tweaking to help reduce the amount of duplicates and give the player a higher chance at obtaining rare cards."

I get it.  You guys took this statement and thought you won the lottery.  The way I read it is that I expect no more rares / mythics than I was obtaining before, just a lot less clutter.  In fact, I might get the Rare cards more quickly, because I'm guaranteed a Rare in each premium pack instead of each Big box.  That is, my expectations match their intent, which ends up matching reality.

The problem is that people are misinterpreting things and letting their imaginations run wild, only to get disappointed when reality sets in.  Can't really fault D3H for that in the end.

I 100% agree with you, though, that their communication is terrible.

Houdin

Here is the thread on booster crafting.
If you read Hibernum wills statement. He specifically says "Importantly, Booster Crafting will provide a way to guarantee getting new cards!"

Now in any normal situation that statement could be taken at face value. We complained about the drop rates and the duplicates.

New cards mean new cards not a possible ambiguous statement that might mean new dupes.

It is only because of the numerous times D3 has made outright statements and then used loopholes in grammar to give things alternative meanings beyond there face value in context that even raised the question of "do you reqlly mean what that should mean?"

Even though that specific request for clarification was asked over a dozen times in that post and D3 continued to respond to questions in that post. That one question. The most important was just flat out ignored.

Lying by omission is still lying.

Steeme

Houdin said:

Here is the thread on booster crafting.
If you read Hibernum wills statement. He specifically says "Importantly, Booster Crafting will provide a way to guarantee getting new cards!"

Now in any normal situation that statement could be taken at face value. We complained about the drop rates and the duplicates.

New cards mean new cards not a possible ambiguous statement that might mean new dupes.

It is only because of the numerous times D3 has made outright statements and then used loopholes in grammar to give things alternative meanings beyond there face value in context that even raised the question of "do you reqlly mean what that should mean?"

Even though that specific request for clarification was asked over a dozen times in that post and D3 continued to respond to questions in that post. That one question. The most important was just flat out ignored.

Lying by omission is still lying.

They also stated numerous times that they don't like to divulge much information before it's complete, because then their hands are tied if they have to redesign something.

Case in point, this thread.  You'll never let them get away with diverging from anything that's stated in an official post.

babar3355

@steeme Perhaps you are the exception, but when they say they are going to "give the player a higher chance at obtaining rare cards" I very strongly doubt that most people interpreted that to mean the chance of rare or better cards unchanged and the chance of mythics were dramatically reduced..  I can do the math for you again if you like. 

Mythic drop rates = 1%

Rare drop rates = 4%

Old big box = 14 * 5 = 70  (4% * 70 = 2.8 rares + 1% * 70 = 0.7 mythics = 3.5 Rare or better cards) +  1 rare or better = 4.5 Rare or better cards.

New premium pack * 2 = 50 cards  = (4% * 50 = 2 rares + 1% * 50 = 0.5 mythics) = 2.5 Rares or better)  + 2 guaranteed rares = 4.5 Rare or better cards.

So you get the exact same number of rare or better but much lower chances of getting a mythic and a lot less commons and uncommons.

Then they pair it with nothing but rares for rewards at every level of the game and you see why I call it austerity. 

You say I thought I won the lottery, I simply thought they wouldn't introduce a massive nerf to rewards in booster packs and tell us they were "giving the players a higher chance at obtaining rare cards".

Ohboy

Ah redefining rares to include mythics. 

Why not divide by zero? 

babar3355

Ohboy said:

Ah redefining rares to include mythics. 

Why not divide by zero? 

Lol.. reminds me of asking Siri what 0/0 equals.

But I will bite.  Are mythics rare?  Of course they are.  They are even more rare than rares.  And in fact, they ARE CALLED MYTHIC RARES BY WIZARDS OF THE COAST.  I think this goes down as one of your least well thought out or researched posts ever.  Congrats!

Now if he had used the capitalization of "Rares" rather than just the phrase "rare cards" I think the point would be more easily defended. But he didn't.  And I don't think you should waste more brain power trying to defend the idea that mythic cards are not "rare cards".

Ohboy

Ah I stand corrected. 

Uncommons are commons too because they are so common. 

I get it. I'm in bizarro world right now aren't I? 

babar3355

Mythic rares are not rare.  That's bizarro world my friend.

bk1234

I am without words. 

Can we just have fun for ONE DAY?

Brigby

*Please keep all conversations civil and on-topic. Thank you!

When it comes to the aforementioned list of questions, I don't currently possess all the communicable information necessary to answer them all. Having said that though, there are a few things I can definitively say:

- The 2.2 Pre-Release Notes are available HERE
- The upcoming 2.2 update will contain the HOU card set.
- There are a LOT of bug fixes, but some notable ones are:

• Purchasing an Amonkhet set can result in soft lock and the user not receiving the cards.
• The game occasionally freezes when the opponent destroys multiple support gems at once.
• Red dots continue to display when viewing the navigational options after collecting the available Booster Pack.
• The game freezes when the user destroys an enemy support tile during the Story Mode: Heroic Jace mission.
• And much more!

shteev

One might ask why there were a LOT of bugs in the first place?

TheDragonHermit

Maybe because there are a lot of moving pieces interacting in different ways, and sometimes the interactions have unintended results, like improper execution of cards or crashes. The development cycle on releases for this game is fairly ambitious, so I am not too upset about delays and bugs, though perhaps a bit more delaying for QA purposes would be advisable.
TLDR: Coding is tough and I would rather have a polished but excruciating waiting period than a rushed release and buggy mess.

Thuran

They have Q&A?! When did that happen?!

damonsteine

Dont worry guys,  booster crafting is coming soon... when Dominaria set gets released. 

shteev

TheDragonHermit said:

Maybe because there are a lot of moving pieces interacting in different ways, and sometimes the interactions have unintended results, like improper execution of cards or crashes. The development cycle on releases for this game is fairly ambitious, so I am not too upset about delays and bugs, though perhaps a bit more delaying for QA purposes would be advisable.
TLDR: Coding is tough and I would rather have a polished but excruciating waiting period than a rushed release and buggy mess.

By 'a buggy mess', presumably you're talking about the last release, which contained all the bugs that they're fixing for this release?

While we're here, I'll bet you a goat that however many bug fixes they perform in the next release, it'll still be a buggy mess.

Slypenslyde

There is a spectrum of dev communication and neither end is good. Some devs don't talk with the community at all, that's very bad. Others start talking too soon, and discuss features that haven't really solidified yet. That leads to threads like this.

I think what I see in this thread is D3 had some conversations with players where they were speculating and should've thrown in a few more words like "maybe" or phrases like, "We're experimenting with balancing...". Most software people understand those are implied, and are good at remembering to twist arms and getting REAL promises when we need them. Hell, when I read the D3 posts I didn't even notice I was mentally interpreting it as "This is how we WANT it, final implementation might vary". Software dev warps your mind a little.

I don't want to see them clam up about upcoming features, but I do think they'd have a little less trouble if they made it more clear when they're talking "maybes". 

And, personally, I think "new cards" are higher priority than "help me finish my collection of the old cards". I'm not upset HOU bumped booster crafting off the schedule.