Calling Out the Devs

pheregas

Say what you will about changes to the game and our various opinions.  Whether your on team-wins, or team-points, one thing is consistent between both groups.

COMMUNICATION

Knowing what to expect, with details, keeps us forumites from gnawing our own (and each other’s) legs off.

If my boss came in while I was working late to drop a new project on my desk on a Friday, give absolutely no information about what the project entails, then ask me to have it done by Monday, I think we’d all agree that that is an unreasonable way to act.

This may be a game, but it’s one we take seriously. We’ve advocated better communication every step of the way.

Even a simple “we are taking everyone’s comments into consideration and forming an official response” is enough to placate most of us.

But better yet, when releasing information, don’t make announcements without details, or at least have a representative on the clock to answer questions. It’s what customer service does.

Can we all just agree on that this one thing and have some devs agree that with a little effort, this community could be a lot less toxic and potentially craft a game with different game modes for everyone?

Deadsider

Space for rent

The rockett

While I do not like the changes for removing CPs, this is truly insane.  We are 2:45 from a major change in the way PVP is and we cannot even role out to our alliances what the heck will be happening. This is a completely disgrace. No commutation and let us all argue about what will happen while they are either just waking away from the situation or they are make some frantic tweaks to the system with the major blow back they got without listening to the concerns we kept on talking about.  

TPF Alexis

Yep, communication makes so much difference. I know I keep bringing up Games Workshop when this topic comes around, but it really is amazing how much the player base's attitude and opinion of the company has changed in the last couple of years since they started being more open.

Daiches

First event of season went up with expected placement cp. BOOOOOO.
But season and Sim are missing in action... which is very weird.

Milk Jugz

Daiches said:

First event of season went up with expected placement cp. BOOOOOO.
But season and Sim are missing in action... which is very weird.

The first event of the season always shows up first. The sim and season tabs should be up in the next few hours

Vhailorx

aesthetocyst said:

[snip]
_______________

Anyway, season numbers are up now. It's 20wins/day, everyday, to win all the things [in PVP only, don't forget the 60ish wins in PVE!]. Get crackin'.

Fixed!

UNC_Samurai

TPF Alexis said:

Yep, communication makes so much difference. I know I keep bringing up Games Workshop when this topic comes around, but it really is amazing how much the player base's attitude and opinion of the company has changed in the last couple of years since they started being more open.

I can't speak for recently, but in the late 90s/early 2000s, they were an absolute nightmare to deal with as a retailer.  They were convinced their poop smelled like fresh cookies.  Their rep once told me "We're not part of the rest of the hobby, we're our own hobby."  So I'm very glad to hear they've found a modicum of sense.

Vhailorx

Pheregas:

I don't think this communications breakdown is as severe as some the past (though it still sucks).

It sucks that demi/d3 don't often release much info before new changes drop.  That is what it is.  But the worst sin here was that Brigby made an incomplete announcement late in the day, but promised to be present the next day and have more information as soon as possible.  Then the predictable outrage happened and bridgby was a no show until just a few hours before the changes went live in-game.  That's just a poor job of setting expectations.

Personally the worst was Boss Rush: Demi released a broken product, then vaguely acknowleged the mistake and solicited feed (nothing unforgiveable so far), then a day or two later announced that no changes would be made at the time and no compensation would be offered and told players to stop commenting on it.  Then just to really cement its status as the worst communications debacle in MOQ history, Cthulhu and the mods started locking down threads discussing the issue for the following week, and then suspended someone for complaining about the lockdown. 

 

Jarvind

People are frothing at the mouth so hard that if they say anything other than:

A: We're not doing win based PVP after all
B: You only need 20-25 wins and we're putting in the final progression CP

everyone will just jump on the hate bandwagon. I think we can agree that A is definitely not happening and B is extremely unlikely to the point that it's not worth considering.


So it makes more sense to just roll out whatever they're gonna roll out and wait for people to get bored with shrieking about it, per usual.

TPF Alexis

UNC_Samurai said:

TPF Alexis said:

Yep, communication makes so much difference. I know I keep bringing up Games Workshop when this topic comes around, but it really is amazing how much the player base's attitude and opinion of the company has changed in the last couple of years since they started being more open.

I can't speak for recently, but in the late 90s/early 2000s, they were an absolute nightmare to deal with as a retailer.  They were convinced their poop smelled like fresh cookies.  Their rep once told me "We're not part of the rest of the hobby, we're our own hobby."  So I'm very glad to hear they've found a modicum of sense.

They actually got a lot worse for a while. To the point of bragging that they didn't do any market research, and claiming that most people bought their kits just to collect, build, and paint them (How they knew that without doing any market research, I do not know). It was only when Kirby stepped down and the new CEO came in a couple of years ago that things started to change. But I'm really amazed at how well and quickly Rountree's changes have turned things around.

corytutor

So 20 wins a day for pvp PLUS point management for placement AND 70ish pve rounds per day AND ddp you're looking at 100 matches per day. Not to mention side events like system reboot and shield training. 

Sounds perfectly reasonable. 

Jeez

fmftint

corytutor said:

So 20 wins a day for pvp PLUS point management for placement AND 70ish pve rounds per day AND ddp you're looking at 100 matches per day. Not to mention side events like system reboot and shield training. 

Sounds perfectly reasonable. 

Jeez

That's called "player engagement"
And it will be UP!

ammenell

no, I don't take this game seriously.
some decisions forced me to see it that way.
this also means I'm done supporting the game. 

it's the only way they understand. 

animaniactoo

I made this point a couple of weeks ago - I think the devs have a good idea of what they're doing and why, but they are very bad at communicating their real goals and it hurts the game and the playerbase as a result.

I'm willing to bet that they simply don't have as much engagement as they'd really like in PVP. I'm willing to bet that a lot of brackets are filled by people who drop in to do the seed teams and not much else, and engagement through the rest of the events suffer a severe dropoff.

I'm willing to bet that they want more of the casual players to be MORE engaged, because doing so will benefit the portions of the game they want to benefit and they don't actually INTEND to produce a game that can only be (really) successfully played with out-of-game communication. But having achieved that result, they're trying to course correct it.

If they said that instead of "we think this will be more popular/desired", and engaged the community and actually listened to the feedback instead of forcing the change through and waiting to be proved wrong, particularly by the segment that IS actively playing and enjoying the system as it is now, I think they'd come up with a better balance and more willingness on the part of the current players to roll with the changes and see how to make them work for themselves going forward.

But they don't do that, and it creates more drama and bitterness rather than less. This is my main criticism of how they rollout changes, particularly ones that affect overall game strategy, not just one character or another.

alaeth

play more!!

What's that? you out of health packs?

Buy more!!!

#successnotsuccess

abmoraz

My personal opinion:

Win Based > Points based
Old reward structure > New reward structure
Progression rewards > Prostate Cancer > Getting stabbed in the eye with a rusty spoon > Placement rewards

My opinion will change if and when PvP becomes actual PvP where I get to play against another person, not against the computer using another person's roster while 10 other people beat on me during the time it takes me to beat the one battle I am actively engaged in.

Calnexin

abmoraz said:

My personal opinion:


Progression rewards > Prostate Cancer > Getting stabbed in the eye with a rusty spoon > Placement rewards

My opinion will change if and when PvP becomes actual PvP where I get to play against another person, 

Your opinion is also likely to change if you get prostate cancer.  Dude got stabbed in the eye with a spoon on "The Walking Dead".  Turned out ok.

Vhailorx

animaniactoo said:

I made this point a couple of weeks ago - I think the devs have a good idea of what they're doing and why, but they are very bad at communicating their real goals and it hurts the game and the playerbase as a result.

I'm willing to bet that they simply don't have as much engagement as they'd really like in PVP. I'm willing to bet that a lot of brackets are filled by people who drop in to do the seed teams and not much else, and engagement through the rest of the events suffer a severe dropoff.

I'm willing to bet that they want more of the casual players to be MORE engaged, because doing so will benefit the portions of the game they want to benefit and they don't actually INTEND to produce a game that can only be (really) successfully played with out-of-game communication. But having achieved that result, they're trying to course correct it.

If they said that instead of "we think this will be more popular/desired", and engaged the community and actually listened to the feedback instead of forcing the change through and waiting to be proved wrong, particularly by the segment that IS actively playing and enjoying the system as it is now, I think they'd come up with a better balance and more willingness on the part of the current players to roll with the changes and see how to make them work for themselves going forward.

But they don't do that, and it creates more drama and bitterness rather than less. This is my main criticism of how they rollout changes, particularly ones that affect overall game strategy, not just one character or another.

A good argument, and one that i agree with in oart.  But i question whether it's that demi/d3 dont know how to communicate their goals, ir are reluctant to communicate their real goals.  It's prety hard to see swapping cp from prog to placement as anything but clamping down on the cp flow for 5* transitioners.   And there is also plenty of evidence that the devs really don't have a great understanding of high level play on mpq (e.g. supposedly some demi employees had to be convinced on discord that doc oc is a weaker 5*). 

So maybe a mix of poor communication and poor use of data/poor understanding of their own creation.