Simulator bug

@Chrynos1989 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Blackstone said:
My first thought was that they had reworked the event somehow... I'm trying to be optimistic but they must be losing players in droves.

It doesn't seem like it. The volume of complaints here hasn't decreased at all. If players were quitting, they wouldn't be here complaining about new bugs.

This is actually the most logic comment I read here in like 8 years

It's odd, isn't it?

If the game was "unplayable" for them, you'd think they'd...stop playing it.

@entrailbucket said:

@Chrynos1989 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Blackstone said:
My first thought was that they had reworked the event somehow... I'm trying to be optimistic but they must be losing players in droves.

It doesn't seem like it. The volume of complaints here hasn't decreased at all. If players were quitting, they wouldn't be here complaining about new bugs.

This is actually the most logic comment I read here in like 8 years

It's odd, isn't it?

If the game was "unplayable" for them, you'd think they'd...stop playing it.

I disagree with the sentiment that this comment had logic to it. On the surface the correlation may make sense, but a seemingly similar number of people coming here to complain, does not necessitate a sustained number of players.

Most players never come here at all for any reason. So it doesn't follow that the traffic here reflects in game traffic.

Yes, my assumption that they must be losing players is just an assumption. I have no data to back the assumption. I simply can't imagine new players staying at the same rate as they have in the past with the current state of the game. Nor can I imagine the same number of ultra casual players continuing at the same rate.

It just makes sense they would be losing players. If their is data to support the opposite, I'd love to see it... In fact, large numbers of players continuing to pick up the have despite the current issues, giving the devs the chance to overcome said issues, would be awesome... And I'd welcome having my assumption proven wrong.

Complaints made here is not a viable metric anyone should call a logical means of determining the number of players being lost though.

Again: I welcome the differing opinion (and I hope you're right) I just can't see your reasoning as logical.

@Blackstone said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Chrynos1989 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Blackstone said:
My first thought was that they had reworked the event somehow... I'm trying to be optimistic but they must be losing players in droves.

It doesn't seem like it. The volume of complaints here hasn't decreased at all. If players were quitting, they wouldn't be here complaining about new bugs.

This is actually the most logic comment I read here in like 8 years

It's odd, isn't it?

If the game was "unplayable" for them, you'd think they'd...stop playing it.

I disagree with the sentiment that this comment had logic to it. On the surface the correlation may make sense, but a seemingly similar number of people coming here to complain, does not necessitate a sustained number of players.

Most players never come here at all for any reason. So it doesn't follow that the traffic here reflects in game traffic.

Yes, my assumption that they must be losing players is just an assumption. I have no data to back the assumption. I simply can't imagine new players staying at the same rate as they have in the past with the current state of the game. Nor can I imagine the same number of ultra casual players continuing at the same rate.

It just makes sense they would be losing players. If their is data to support the opposite, I'd love to see it... In fact, large numbers of players continuing to pick up the have despite the current issues, giving the devs the chance to overcome said issues, would be awesome... And I'd welcome having my assumption proven wrong.

Complaints made here is not a viable metric anyone should call a logical means of determining the number of players being lost though.

Again: I welcome the differing opinion (and I hope you're right) I just can't see your reasoning as logical.

I don't think any of us know, or CAN know. You'll hear one side talking anecdotally about a handful of their Line friends quitting, and then you've got my similar anecdotal evidence (all the same complainers are still here!).

I don't know why it matters to any of us one way or the other, though. I have no financial stake in the devs' company. If the game goes under, I'll find some other game. It's not that deep.

What would you do differently if they were gaining or losing players? Why?

@Blackstone said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Blackstone said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Chrynos1989 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Blackstone said:
My first thought was that they had reworked the event somehow... I'm trying to be optimistic but they must be losing players in droves.

It doesn't seem like it. The volume of complaints here hasn't decreased at all. If players were quitting, they wouldn't be here complaining about new bugs.

This is actually the most logic comment I read here in like 8 years

It's odd, isn't it?

If the game was "unplayable" for them, you'd think they'd...stop playing it.

I disagree with the sentiment that this comment had logic to it. On the surface the correlation may make sense, but a seemingly similar number of people coming here to complain, does not necessitate a sustained number of players.

Most players never come here at all for any reason. So it doesn't follow that the traffic here reflects in game traffic.

Yes, my assumption that they must be losing players is just an assumption. I have no data to back the assumption. I simply can't imagine new players staying at the same rate as they have in the past with the current state of the game. Nor can I imagine the same number of ultra casual players continuing at the same rate.

It just makes sense they would be losing players. If their is data to support the opposite, I'd love to see it... In fact, large numbers of players continuing to pick up the have despite the current issues, giving the devs the chance to overcome said issues, would be awesome... And I'd welcome having my assumption proven wrong.

Complaints made here is not a viable metric anyone should call a logical means of determining the number of players being lost though.

Again: I welcome the differing opinion (and I hope you're right) I just can't see your reasoning as logical.

I don't think any of us know, or CAN know. You'll hear one side talking anecdotally about a handful of their Line friends quitting, and then you've got my similar anecdotal evidence (all the same complainers are still here!).

I don't know why it matters to any of us one way or the other, though. I have no financial stake in the devs' company. If the game goes under, I'll find some other game. It's not that deep.

What would you do differently if they were gaining or losing players? Why?

I agree with not being able to really know. It's just hard to imagine they're not losing players.

I don't have a financial stake, but picking up a new game isn't so easy for me.

It's not that deep, but it would be a huge disappointment and an inconvenience. My stake is in my saved game. I've invested time (and occasionally money) to having a full roster, collecting everything offered, creating teams, and being a part of this community even if we don't always agree. I'm in a small percentage of this game players and I like being there. I don't want to start all over with another game. I'm not even active on social media. If MPQ goes away, I may as well trade in my iphone for a flip phone, or a blackberry.

What would I do differently? The first thing that comes to mind is transparency. Where we are, how we got there, and where we plan to go would be required communication topics at all stages. I don't think I would have released the new engine at all in this state. I get they made a choice to go forward instead of keeping up with two engines, and I understand the reasoning there, I just disagree with the decision. With the lack of communication and the possibility of new players not looking beyond a bad first impression... And a mountain of known issues... I just don't think it was worth it.

With the current state though...I don't know. I think they have too many issues all at once and attempted fixes are causing more issues. They probably just need to slow down, restructure who is doing what and place better checks and measures on progress/changes.

I am not assuming the game is at it's end, but I wouldn't spend money on the game until drastic improvements are made... If enough people feel that way, it becomes more difficult for those changes to be made.

I don't know what else to add to this, I won't pretend I know the extent of what's needed, I just know I'd be embarrassed if I made the product. And that's not meant to be an insult. It just... Is.

Oh no, not what would/should the devs do differently...we can go round and round about that all day, but ultimately we can't make them listen to us.

What would YOU, Blackstone, do differently if you knew the game was gaining or losing players?

I thought some variation of "spend money" might be on your (or others') list, and that is thinking about this entirely incorrectly. MPQ is not an investment. You will never get any money back. Nothing you buy in MPQ is worth anything -- the game could close down, for any reason, tomorrow, and whatever you spent is just gone forever.

If you haven't experienced a game shutting down...it happens. It happens to games with big communities. It happens to games that are popular, and to games that make money, and it often happens immediately, with no warning. It happens to games that are fun, that don't have tons of bugs, that seem healthy.

Money I spend on MPQ is "fun" money. It's money that might be spent on movies, dinners out, sports or concert tickets, or other sorts of ephemeral experiences that just go away when they're over. I won't regret spending anything on this game when it disappears, because I never expected to get anything back besides momentary fun.

@helix72 said:
There's actually a concrete sign of player loss: people have tracked how long PvP and PvE brackets take to flip and how many flips there are, both of which are in direct relation to how many people are playing the game. Many slices are reporting longer flip times and, in some cases, fewer total flips.

You could try to make an argument that it could just be people joining later or moving slices, because we don't have perfect evidence of every slice, but I think the burden of proof here is a preponderance of evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt.

Ok. Let's assume this is true. What should we, the players, DO about this information?

Concrete actions, please.

@JoeHandle said:
Is quitting a popularity contest? A popular movement? Is sticking around "too long" a social faux pas to be avoided at all costs? Don't want to be stuck with turning out the lights?

People come and go all the time. Rev up and down all the time.

This is a solo game and none of you are real

This is what I don't get. Ok, the player base is withering away, or rapidly vanishing. What do we do about it?

Maybe some people are trying to point that out to the devs, I guess? They know. In fact, they're the ONLY ones who actually know. You don't need to tell them.

Is this just another way of saying "you guys better hurry up and do x, or you'll lose everyone?" Again, they know. And if they didn't know before, I'm sure they've seen a few thousand of the hundreds of thousands of words you guys have written here and on discord or wherever else.

Are you going to quit before the exodus happens? Ok, so what are you all still doing here?

If the point of all this is to say "don't spend money because the game might go away soon," then...again, I've got some really terrible news for you: MPQ is not an investment. These kinds of games disappear every single day, for good reasons or bad reasons or no reasons at all. If you are waiting to spend money until the game is guaranteed to be around forever, you will be waiting...forever.

So what are we supposed to be doing?

I think some players here want the game to die, just so they can say "I told you so."

And that's totally fine! I'm a HUGE fan of spite. If you think these guys deserve to fail because they took your cover swaps away, or they nerfed Chasm, or didn't give us Toad, or whatever other petty grievances you have, I am fully on board. But be honest about it. Don't pretend you're rooting for them to succeed.

@Zarqa said:
So typical EB. Multiple posts in a row, asking ‘what should we do?’. Bluewolf then actually gives a well thought out answer. But instead of responding or, shocking, admitting that Blue makes some good points about what actually could be done, we just get a new EB volley of the next sweeping question we can all debate around. Forget about what can be done! Let’s all now discuss whether we’re spiteful or not towards the Devs and whether we can admit that or not!

EB. If MPQ does die, I truly hope you find some debate-focused mobile game as your new daily fix instead, where you can just endlessly debate with like-minded people. And I am not even trying to be rude. I honestly wish that for you.

Yeah, sorry, I wrote that before I saw his answer, which was indeed a good one, but sure, go off.

There's no shortage of places to argue on the internet (that's literally the only thing it's good for). I think I'll be ok.

@bluewolf said:
Each player would have to assess their interest in seeing the game continue before deciding what to do about a loss of players, but likely there is nothing much anyone could do on their own.

First do you want the game to continue? assume yes; because if not, then the best thing you could do would be to quit yourself because the outcome you really want is to not play the game, so do that. (Ignore the feeling you may have that you don't want to quit because then you'll fall behind and then came back later, because if you want the game to end, then end your engagement with it. "You can't fire me, cause I quit!")

If you wanted to try to keep the game going, then spending money would help obviously, whatever you feel like is worth spending (assuming they offer things you want to buy). Second could be to put up reviews that are not exceedingly negative because a lot of the reviews lately are from people extremely angry because they can't play the game on their devices anymore, or feeling it's unplayable etc. Third might be to try to convince people you know to play if that makes any sense/if you think they should. I don't know about a 4th thing unless you feel like other social media space posting would be helpful.

Honestly it feels like a bit of a losing battle as we are halfway into the 4th week of Unity for everyone and while things have improved its definitely continuing to show lots of cracks, but maybe the update this week will improve things in a way we aren't anticipating.

Here's what I/my Alliance have been doing.

1.) The game was literally unplayable on my old tablet, as I have complained about too much. So I made a decision partly (maybe 75%) guided by MPQ - I bought a new tablet. How does this benefit MPQ? Well I stay as a player and that means two other players stay too and we all are willing to spend if there is anything worth buying. So I've taken a not small financial hit to try and keep on supporting the game. I'm not saying this is an option for everybody but it could be an option.

2.) Despite the problems, we have tried to help our Alliance in managing them. Some have had absolutely no problems at all, others some problems. Keep on playing, the Devs will get it fixed is the message we are pushing. Don't worry if you can't play as much as you did.

3.) In the middle of this a high ranking former Alliance mate who had quit has come back and re-joined us! So we have actually recruited a returning player and will help bring him up to speed!

Another thing to try and push - hang in there, see what R237 brings, don't forget we have a Boss Event upcoming for the utterly shiny Nova, you wouldn't wanna miss that, right? Also I heard the Devs are giving out Twinkies as compensation...oh did I just type that here...uh...yeah just ignore that bit...

@entrailbucket said:

@helix72 said:
There's actually a concrete sign of player loss: people have tracked how long PvP and PvE brackets take to flip and how many flips there are, both of which are in direct relation to how many people are playing the game. Many slices are reporting longer flip times and, in some cases, fewer total flips.

You could try to make an argument that it could just be people joining later or moving slices, because we don't have perfect evidence of every slice, but I think the burden of proof here is a preponderance of evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt.

Ok. Let's assume this is true. What should we, the players, DO about this information?

Concrete actions, please.

We can continue to voice our grievances in hopes it will influence the developer's behavior. I truly believe no one goes to work (other than really disgruntled or disengaged employees) thinking, "how can I screw up my job today?". But, especially in corporate America, it can be easy to lose perspective on the customer and think you're doing a good job because the information you're being given is limited or curated. Just because your boss thinks you're doing great doesn't mean your customers do. I found it interesting that the devs gave themselves a C+ on the conversion, because a C is average so they actually think this was a slightly-above average rollout. If that doesn't speak to a disconnect, I don't know what does.

We can also vote with our dollars, as some have started doing. And as you've pointed out, this is a slippery slope as at a certain point if the bleeding is too intense, the decision will be to terminate vs fix and hope for a recovery.

An outside the box idea would be contingent spending--let me invest in the game now and IF they hit certain metrics, they get to keep the funds. I have no idea if/how this would work and it is probably unrealistic, but I work in an industry that uses contingent compensation a lot, and it has a tremendously positive impact on performance.