Help us out Devs

bluewolf

I'll take a first stab at this.

Events:  One of the best times for basic communication is when a holiday approaches and we are told what events are coming with which essentials etc, often with a week or more of lead time.  That is always appreciated.  If that level of advance notice (a week or so of events listed out at all times) were the standard, I think many players would appreciate it.  Especially helpful is notification of boss events and Shield Training Essentials lists.  (Placeholder names/blanks can always be used for new characters that cannot be revealed yet.)

Supports:  Supports are somewhat puzzling at the moment because for a while, the Supports came with new characters every time.  Now we seem to have hit a point, at least for now, where they are fairly infrequent.  If that is the case going forward it might be nice to have a notice like "look for a Support coming soon" on the Update notes or something.

Side note: A statement about the current Support release plan would be helpful, if possible.  Like "we plan to offer Supports on a less frequent basis for the time being" or "we are working toward returning to a faster Support release schedule."

Previews/teases of characters:  I personally might like to see some broader teases about the upcoming characters each month or something.  I'm thinking there could be a blurb like "Look for Endgame tie-in characters in April" or "We have some fan favorite characters coming this month".  I tend to think the more people have to look forward to, the more interested they are in the game and engaged beyond the day-to-day play of trying to earn covers and resources.

Bigger/longer term projects:  In terms of the bigger issues, it becomes harder to set up some kind of a standard.  When the Support Circuit was being worked on, @Brigby helpfully told us that it was something the devs were going to address.  That was really nice, although then it became somewhat frustrating because the expected communication method was essentially "tell players just before something launches" - usually within a week or two - and it took significantly longer.  I'm not sure if an update might have helped or been possible, but maybe a broad update with at least an approximate timeline would have been helpful for everyone.  Like "It looks like we will launch something after the beginning of the year."

Player Concerns:  As expressed elsewhere, currently there are a number of questions and issues that players are concerned/wondering about.  There are issues that players have that the developers are less concerned/reluctant to address or fix.  Ex:  We always want more iso (well, most players, anyway.  The post-iso people are much less concerned about that.)  There are issues the developers have that most engaged players are less concerned about (ex:  Making the opening portions of the game less of an obstacle to truly playing.)  I have often wondered which issues we have that are of concern to developers and are being addressed or not.   Support acquisition was a big concern to players and eventually was addressed - whether because of player concern or developer plan or both is not all that important to know precisely.

There are polls in the game periodically and occasionally they ask for more detail like "what are you biggest concerns in the game?"  Those polls are never shared in terms of outcomes or results and they are a way, to me, to find a solution to the issue of:   Find out players' top concerns and share ways the developers are addressing them (when appropriate).  Perhaps plan to conduct a periodic survey in game (bi-monthly or quarterly), then somehow share results on the forum.  It could be "Here were the top 10 concerns" or "Here is a top concern from the recent poll that we are really looking at solutions for."  And making that issue(s) what we hear about for a period of time.  I recognize that telling players "Here are your top concerns" when the development team cannot/will not be addressing them would not always be productive in terms of growing player morale/engagement.

TLDR:  There are a lot of player concerns at the moment that we are wondering about and yet receive little to no communication about.  Any attempt to address the appropriate ones would be appreciated.  I tend to believe that there are things that we could be told, but are not, that would not negatively impact the game's economy - but would make players feel more confident about the game and its future.  Which would translate into continued engagement and spending, I presume.

JHawkInc

A lot of the communication we get at the moment is preview stuff, a lot of which appears in-game. If event previews showed up a week early, instead of a day or so before an event started, the Sneak Peek thread would be completely redundant. Days when you guys are out of the office are nice because you give us information further in advance than normal. We know you PLAN it further out in advance, but there's almost a reluctance to let the players know information at all. I get that the devs don't want to tell something in advance in case it has to change (because then some people will feel like a promise was broken), but it shouldn't feel like pulling teeth to get information out of the devs. There's got to be a middle ground. Entirely too often we find out about things in-game before they're even mentioned on the forums. Like Supports, I got in the habit of knowing when to start checking in the mornings, because it would update in the game hours before the forum thread would get posted. There's no sane reason such little things couldn't be announced 24-48 hours sooner than they currently are. 

The release threads are nice. Character stats and an overview. More in that regard would be cool, but I'm not sure what to add. Maybe teasing bits and pieces of the character (a hint of who the character is going to be? the allegiances like "Villain" or "Avenger", maybe the power colors? or telling which powers will have passives or vague things like "multiple targets" or "creates special tiles"? I vaguely remember getting partial info like this to tease new characters way back in the day, but that may have been before Brigby joined; that kind of extra communication could be fun, and shouldn't be very hard to do)

And then... there are dozens and dozens of common questions that are completely unanswered. What happened to Fight For Wakanda? The Raid events? Boss Rush? Heroics? We know 7-day events were dialed back because player engagement was apparently less during those events, but it took months before we managed to pry that info out of someone. Supports were always haphazard, no idea when new ones were coming out until they appeared in-game (hours before the forum thread announcing them...). We never did find out what the plan was for adding Supports to tokens, apparently Support Circuits completely circumvented that. We still don't know if Infinity Stones will ever be available to the normal playerbase, or if such supports will continue to be added in the future. We don't know the requirements for new characters being required in Shield Training, leading to uncertainty when the players feel there's a risk of a newer character being featured before players feel they've had time to build up that character. We never have had any communication on costumes at all, we've never seen one up to be earned as the original release implied, nor any indication if costumes would ever be offered again, or if the $75 costumes might exist at a price point determined by a sane and normal person, or... anything. Why did Lady Deadpool get a month of VIP, and then Doc Ock get... several? Why hasn't anyone replaced Doc Ock? Do we ever have hopes of the last couple of 5's getting feeders? Or reworks for some of the "dud 5's"? Will we ever see another 3-star character? (comic/movie 3/5 release of Mysterio for Far From Home would be really rad, just saying)

What kinds of hopes and dreams do the devs have for the game? Are there any things the devs would like to bring to the game in the future? Are there any hopes of fighting the growing dilution? Hell, who are the devs? The only one I can name is one I'm pretty sure doesn't work there anymore, and I've only heard of him tangentially from other people. I don't even get enough communication from the devs to be able to think of them as people. Do they have favorite characters they'd like to add? Or crazy hypothetical additions they'd add if they had an unlimited budget? Moments from Marvel history they'd like to tackle for the game? Do the devs have pets?

We felt Infinity War was a flop as far as in-game events go, and made sure to sing praises for the stuff done during Ant-Man & The Wasp and the MCU 10-Year Celebration, and we're less than a month away from Endgame and have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA if we're getting a repeat of Infinity War, or if the devs have plans to do something new and different. You could give us a vague roadmap of all sorts of non-committal things to tease and excite and give us hope, and instead we get radio silence. There was a vague comment a few months ago that implied the devs were listening, but that's a vague comment that is virtually always applicable, and there's never enough feedback to go along with it to instill any sort of hope.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being no communication at all, and 10 being "we might as well work there", with 5 being a hypothetical perfect balance, I feel like we're at a 1.2. Maybe a 1.1. There's enough evidence that we cannot claim no communication at all, but it feels like that's about it sometimes.

Colognoisseur

The amount of communication is at the bare minimum. Event notification through sneak peek thread and new character thread are the extent of it.

What is and has been asked for is development team communication on things like token dilution, supports future, how have costumes worked out, are there special events coming for Endgame, or will it be ignored again.

Every time this topic comes up you act like there was a time when there was lots of communication. In the five years plus I’ve been playing there has never been enough. It has never reached a level of even adequate. It has always been poor to fair. 

I dont expect anything thing to change because this is a dead horse beaten to dust. 

Glockoma

I have to agree with @Colognoisseur

Most of the communication has come from one side. Frequency of communication does not seem to be what the people are asking; rather the quality of communication. 

Keep your big picture stuff to yourselves until a viable comm date when it will begin to affect the game community. Otherwise, a simple quarterly newsletter will suffice. I say this because all of the feedback you need to understand and cover will be brought up in the reaction to such newsletter. We want to know that our issues with the game are being heard and taken into consideration.

 I can go on and on about particular issues, but I can’t speak for the community as a whole. Bring the QoL back to the game and start it with some solid communication.

Colognoisseur

There was one great piece of communication a little over a year ago. When some of the development team went on the Puzzle Warriors 3 podcast. It was the single most informative bit of interaction ever in this game. Maybe that could be repeated.

randomhero1090

It sounds like people want to see the longer term development plans for the game.  Usually studios release that info via vid/livestream/podcast.  A monthly podcast would be cool.  Can't really argue that.  But I also don't know how much D3 can release ahead of time due to the Marvel licensing.

The preview thread gives you want you need in terms of next events, boosted characters, essentials, etc.  Not sure how much more you need to know there.  If you want the previews sooner, I guess I can understand that.  But again, I have no idea how much "sooner" D3 can deliver it.

The only burning question I have, and I really would love to know if/when it's going to happen....  5* feeders.  I believe we are waiting on Kitty, Cable, Kingpin, Doom, CM and Hela.  And I have a hard time believing that 6 feeders are all gonna drop at the same time.

5* feeders are big.  Huge.  It's what is keeping me engaged right now.  I am chasing Shuri for Okoye, and I am sure so many others have a chase of their own going.

Punter1

So many good points here and yet all we've had in response is a fairly rote boiler plate answer, sorry @brigby, unfortunately this seems par for the course.

No-one is asking or expecting the devs to bare their soul to us, but some hint that they are listening would be nice instead of the current black-hole absence of communication.  The threads where there's been some minor discussion with input from the devs have been far too rare. 

chris0001

randomhero1090 said:

It sounds like people want to see the longer term development plans for the game.  Usually studios release that info via vid/livestream/podcast.  A monthly podcast would be cool.  Can't really argue that.  But I also don't know how much D3 can release ahead of time due to the Marvel licensing.

The preview thread gives you want you need in terms of next events, boosted characters, essentials, etc.  Not sure how much more you need to know there.  If you want the previews sooner, I guess I can understand that.  But again, I have no idea how much "sooner" D3 can deliver it.

The only burning question I have, and I really would love to know if/when it's going to happen....  5* feeders.  I believe we are waiting on Kitty, Cable, Kingpin, Doom, CM and Hela.  And I have a hard time believing that 6 feeders are all gonna drop at the same time.

5* feeders are big.  Huge.  It's what is keeping me engaged right now.  I am chasing Shuri for Okoye, and I am sure so many others have a chase of their own going.

You are also forgetting Dr. Strange, Banner and Gambit ( off the top of my head)

CT1888

chris0001 said:

randomhero1090 said:

It sounds like people want to see the longer term development plans for the game.  Usually studios release that info via vid/livestream/podcast.  A monthly podcast would be cool.  Can't really argue that.  But I also don't know how much D3 can release ahead of time due to the Marvel licensing.

The preview thread gives you want you need in terms of next events, boosted characters, essentials, etc.  Not sure how much more you need to know there.  If you want the previews sooner, I guess I can understand that.  But again, I have no idea how much "sooner" D3 can deliver it.

The only burning question I have, and I really would love to know if/when it's going to happen....  5* feeders.  I believe we are waiting on Kitty, Cable, Kingpin, Doom, CM and Hela.  And I have a hard time believing that 6 feeders are all gonna drop at the same time.

5* feeders are big.  Huge.  It's what is keeping me engaged right now.  I am chasing Shuri for Okoye, and I am sure so many others have a chase of their own going.

You are also forgetting Dr. Strange, Banner and Gambit ( off the top of my head)

Archangel as well

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/73741/5-feeders-4-champ-rewards-full-list#latest

Steve111

I think the point about giving the player base feedback from the surveys we are asked to fill in is very strong.