Forum: empire-en

Board: [818] General Discussion

Topic: [300029] All the Problems and a List of Demands for GGS

[4296603] UltraFlavoured (GB1) [GB1] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 2:19 p.m.

Once again another valid argument has been brought up.

When I was a lot younger than I am now I used to work in customer service. At no point did we pass blame nor make up very vague reasons to end the inquiry. If I did not know the answer I found out.  

Communication is key - Clearly its an issue the company need to resolve.

I am still shocked that even though CM Arcanine was off sick. No one else took the time to keep us updated and a matter pretty much the whole on EN1 server has issues with. Speak volumes.
Anger from the alliance I am part of is the main reason I am here and not in game.

~Ultra

[4296614] CM Arcanine [None] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 2:32 p.m.

ang1243 (GB1) said:

Right, let's get this condensed down to one thread shall we?

Firstly, let's start with the problems we as players have with GGS, either highlighted over the past few days, or have been caused by GGS over the last few days:

1) Nomads not giving rewards meant that the bulk of players did not feel motivated enough to hit the nomads  as prizes weren't being given, the fact that the nomads lasted for only 24 hours was terrible as well, as it meant those that were looting couldn't get enough tablets to buy the stuff they needed for the following FI event. The main problem however is the lack of skips given to the players, which meant that they were not able to hit nomads as hard, and now can barely hit samurais too, meaning the snowball of problems grows ever larger.

2)The Construction Yard:
a)It has been released way too early, and has taken over prizes for way too many events, making them all less playable: The nomads top 25, the FI 3rd stage reward, the wheel of fortune first place. These Prizes are terrible, especially in comparison to what the prizes were beforehand.
b)It does not have a PO value, and therefore makes it useless to have at the moment, and is just a waste of space
c)You cannot demolish it! This is arguably the most frustrating part of the whole debarkle with the construction yard.
d) the fact that the prizes are wildly overpriced in all that we have seen so far, the armourer military hospital boosters are quite simply terrible for the price that they cost.

3)I think that the main problem that has been highlighted throughout this however is the lack of testing and researching that GGS do when they release an update, as far as we can tell, each time you release an update, it is not tested whatsoever, and you just hit a button and hope it works, frankly this is a terrible ethos to have, you should be meticulously testing these updates beforehand, eradicating any bugs, the game is just riddled with glitches and bugs now, and it is making it very hard for us as players.

4) Although you think there may be enough communication with players, frankly, at every point of contact, there is a huge lack of communication, and an immense amount of room to improve, I am talking about;

• Customer Service-Big one there, that a lot of people complain about
• Community Managers- Steve, tbh, you do a very good job, but it always seems like you could be communicating our views to people above you much more efficiently.
• Update warning- really this should be in the game, it would mean that everybody knows it will happen between Xx:Xx CET and Xx:Xx GMT, this would also save you guys a lot as it would mean people can't claim they didn't see that there was going to be an update, and so lost loads of troops.

5)The Continued shortening of Nomads and Samurais, this is unacceptable, and needs to be sorted out, the FI needs to be shortened, and the nomads and samurais extended, simples.

Now for a list of solutions:

1) Give every player on the affected server the activity rewards they earned the last time the nomads were glitch free, I don't think anybody could argue that this is an unfair way of doing it, and you definitely have the statistics to do it, as you have shown rankings weeks after the event finishes before. - I would also suggest that you replace the FI after Samurais with a nomad event (glitch-free)

2)Construction yard:
-Make it demolishable
-Make the Prizes purchasable in the nomad and samurai shops instead of as prizes for X amount of points or top X
-Increase the effect the prizes have
-Give the Building a PO of 65 (half a castle garden)
-Get rid of this thingy (Very annoying): http://prntscr.com/a3y7ws want to be able to just click on construction and it take me to the buildings

3)Create a group of reasonable players, from a cross-section of ruby spend, preferably some of the most active players, both on the forum and the game. This will allow you to have a focus group effectively, I'm sure that players will be willing to give up some of their time each week to communicate with you, calmly and effectively, allowing you to find out how the update idea would affect the players who pay for your game!

4) Test your updates rigorously, once again, I'm sure some players would be happy to be on a duplicate server and find out what problems the update would cause, however really this is something you should be able to do in-house. Testing cannot be done too many times, you should be doing it anyway, and it shouldn't come down to your players to point out you're not.

5)Fix the problems stated above, you need people who are available over the weekend to communicate with the players, this is the time the most players are online, so there should be at least somebody at your end to communicate. Customer service needs to be a lot more efficient, you need more people in customer service, and they need to know to resolve problems quickly and effectively, making both the player and GGS happy.

6)Extend the nomads and samurais to the same length as the FIs, whatever you choose that to be, the events should be equal length, personally I think it should be 4 day long for all 3, and they should be in the same order all the time: Nomads, FI, Samurai, Nomads, FI, Samurai......

End of Essay, any suggestions for more things, post below or drop me a PM.

I'll try and go through each of your points one by one

1) We're aware that the Nomads problems caused a lot of issues as a whole, and are trying our best to figure out a way to resolve these for the players involved. I've forwarded the information regarding the Time Skips on to the team, as this seems to be a focal point of the issues.

2) a) The Construction Yard was intended to have a 'slow' adoption. The Build Items feature as a whole is quite a large addition to the game for our mid to high level players. It adds a whole new element to the game, and we wanted players to be able to slowly learn what the building does, and the capabilities of the items, slowly introducing parts here and there.

In terms of prizes, we wanted to introduce them to the current events so that players would be able to get to grips with the feature without having to actually purchase them. In hindsight however, we realize that they may have replaced some community favourites, which we'll look into.

b) Noted and suggested to the development team. I've not had a response yet, but we'll let you know when we have some more information.

c) This problem could be resolved by adding PO, as you mentioned. The reason that the Construction Yard can't be destroyed is because we intend on this feature becoming a large part of the game. Although it's in its first stages right now, there's a lot to come, and it's going to be super valuable to keep the building.

d) That comes down to limitation. There aren't so many in the game right now, so the ones available in the armorer are intended to be a bit more valuable (since they cost Rubies), and aesthetic items are a bit more expensive to keep them fresh and rare. That being said, we're analyzing the current prices and some changes could definitely come in the future.

3) We actually have a full QA team dedicated to testing updates before they go live. The problem is that we can't test the update on a live server environment until it's actually on our servers, so there may be some issues that appear here and there with the transfer. We're trying to get this improved for the future, and taking more time to resolve existing bugs.

4) No doubt, there's room for improvement, and we'll do our best to make sure this happens. Let me cover the 3 topics you noted briefly:

Customer Service: If there are specific complaints, you're always welcome to contact me about them. In terms of time constraints, that's something out of our control, unfortunately. With lots of different games and players to respond to, it can be the case that there are sometimes delays. Again, something we're working at improving.

CM's: Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it, and it's nice to know my work doesn't go unnoticed. Efficiency is something that I'm personally working on, finding better ways to get your feedback to the team. At the moment however, everything you say is being forwarded, so don't worry about that. All I'd ask from you guys in this respect though, is to ensure that ideas/criticism come in a constructive and concise manner. It makes all our lives easier

Update Warnings: In general, the times given on the forums are pretty accurate. The team are also currently looking into a way of announcing downtimes as early as possible, through the in-game service. We don't want to make this too flexible however, so that players can't organize attacks that land during the downtime.

5) Another thing that's been noted and forwarded. The events are only really shorter this time around so that we can keep the Ice Championship fresh. In the long term, they shouldn't be this short. The feedback is valid though, and will be forwarded on.

Aaaaand on to the solutions:

1) We're looking into dishing out a compensation package as soon as we can, that should hopefully get you guys up to date with any progress missed in the Ice Championship. I'm not sure that we can edit the event schedule, but it's something I've suggested.

2) Forwarded all of your suggestions! It's unlikely that we'll add the option to demolish the Construction Yard, but as time goes on you'll definitely see the benefit of having it.

3) This is one that's been suggested many times, but something that will most likely not happen. I get that the intention is good, but we really don't want to narrow down feedback like that. For one, it'd cause huge delays, having to contact an outside group every time a decision has to be made. Secondly, it'd remove a lot of the responsibility of our Game Designers, which is pretty unfair since they're professionals who do the best they can in their job. Thirdly, and most importantly, we use the feedback from the forums because of how varied it is. Any player can pop on here and forward their feedback, we don't want to be biased to any single player or group (since players mostly talk on their alliances behalf), but want to collect a range of feedback from all players that post here/submit a ticket to our team. It's also worth mentioning that we're also a data driven company, so we work off of in-game interactions and perceptions of features as well as verbal feedback across all the different languages.

4) Definitely noted. We're always trying to improve our processes, and hopefully we can iron out some larger issues in the future. As mentioned earlier though, it's sometimes difficult to perceive issues that would only occur in the live environment.

5) As with the other points, it's something that we'd like to improve on, but having weekend staff isn't planned right now. At the end of the day, we're only human, and we need our time off as much as the next person. Definitely something I'll pass on though, and something we may consider doing in the future (alternate shift plans etc)

6) The event durations are only this short right now because of the Ice Championship, to add some variety to the event. The same goes for the order of events too, if we had them in the exact same order every time, the Championship would be way too easy, and the element of surprise/fun would be removed.

I hope this answers a lot of your concerns, and as always, if there's anything you can think of that I've missed, or that you'd like expanded, please do let me know.

Have a great day, and sorry for the wall of text!

Best regards,

Steve.

[4296627] UltraFlavoured (GB1) [GB1] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 2:50 p.m.

ang1243 (GB1) said:

3)Create a group of reasonable players, from a cross-section of ruby spend, preferably some of the most active players, both on the forum and the game. This will allow you to have a focus group effectively, I'm sure that players will be willing to give up some of their time each week to communicate with you, calmly and effectively, allowing you to find out how the update idea would affect the players who pay for your game!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Its also worth mentioning. There are multiply gaming companies that successfully use the process of what Ang has mentioned. So I can not accept this point as valid.
Your now defending the so called professionals.. That frequently fill the game with bugs. Dont even think the urban dictionary would define that as 'Professional'. 
Are these not the people who have put us in the position we are now?

Its very simple to open a test server . Open access at a certain time for players to actually go on the the server and see it. We can find the bugs and work with the developers. I don't understand how this could be a bad thing. Working together to achieve the same goal .

~Ultra

[4296645] John OGroat (GB1) [GB1] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 3:08 p.m.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for that information above, that at least shows that someone in GGS is actually aware of how feelings are running on this server. However, I note that the compensation promised by yourself three times now, is still not finalised or even has a date on it. I suspect that the majority of players on this server will be quite happy to continue with our PvP and Ruby Boycott, with a promise to end it 'as soon as we can'.

[4296646] Sir Unknown (GB1) [None] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 3:08 p.m.

Agreed with ang on the info especially the bit about swapping nomads for foreigns on the last 5 days. Also very well put Phil this issue seriously needs sorting.
I'm glad that the problems are being tackled head on, Steve, but 'were working on improving' is used far too much and the we're all given an impression that everything is getting better only it's not. The packages given is never sufficient to compensate for the losses and even though all your suggestions are 'forwarded', nothing seems to ever happen. I understand that you work hard at your job and that and there's not much more you can do but there are a lot of unhappy customers and they need to know that things are happening. 
Also completely agreed with the point ultra mentioned, we are all on the same side after all.

[4296784] DolphZiggler (INT1) [None] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 4:40 p.m.

Thanks for the information about how stuff is being forwarded Steve

A note about support (for those angry at support times), or even at the company for "we're working on things":
The company has more games than just Empire, so I imagine the team that deals with Empire is doing what it can. Adding to this point, due to the company having more than Empire to deal with, the support staff have more than just our Empire tickets complaining about things, which is why it can take a while for a response, so its not just a weekend problem.

[4296794] Xanthos (GB1) [None] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 4:43 p.m.

CM Arcanine said:

ang1243 (GB1) said:

Right, let's get this condensed down to one thread shall we?

Firstly, let's start with the problems we as players have with GGS, either highlighted over the past few days, or have been caused by GGS over the last few days:

1) Nomads not giving rewards meant that the bulk of players did not feel motivated enough to hit the nomads  as prizes weren't being given, the fact that the nomads lasted for only 24 hours was terrible as well, as it meant those that were looting couldn't get enough tablets to buy the stuff they needed for the following FI event. The main problem however is the lack of skips given to the players, which meant that they were not able to hit nomads as hard, and now can barely hit samurais too, meaning the snowball of problems grows ever larger.

2)The Construction Yard:
a)It has been released way too early, and has taken over prizes for way too many events, making them all less playable: The nomads top 25, the FI 3rd stage reward, the wheel of fortune first place. These Prizes are terrible, especially in comparison to what the prizes were beforehand.
b)It does not have a PO value, and therefore makes it useless to have at the moment, and is just a waste of space
c)You cannot demolish it! This is arguably the most frustrating part of the whole debarkle with the construction yard.
d) the fact that the prizes are wildly overpriced in all that we have seen so far, the armourer military hospital boosters are quite simply terrible for the price that they cost.

3)I think that the main problem that has been highlighted throughout this however is the lack of testing and researching that GGS do when they release an update, as far as we can tell, each time you release an update, it is not tested whatsoever, and you just hit a button and hope it works, frankly this is a terrible ethos to have, you should be meticulously testing these updates beforehand, eradicating any bugs, the game is just riddled with glitches and bugs now, and it is making it very hard for us as players.

4) Although you think there may be enough communication with players, frankly, at every point of contact, there is a huge lack of communication, and an immense amount of room to improve, I am talking about;

• Customer Service-Big one there, that a lot of people complain about
• Community Managers- Steve, tbh, you do a very good job, but it always seems like you could be communicating our views to people above you much more efficiently.
• Update warning- really this should be in the game, it would mean that everybody knows it will happen between Xx:Xx CET and Xx:Xx GMT, this would also save you guys a lot as it would mean people can't claim they didn't see that there was going to be an update, and so lost loads of troops.

5)The Continued shortening of Nomads and Samurais, this is unacceptable, and needs to be sorted out, the FI needs to be shortened, and the nomads and samurais extended, simples.

Now for a list of solutions:

1) Give every player on the affected server the activity rewards they earned the last time the nomads were glitch free, I don't think anybody could argue that this is an unfair way of doing it, and you definitely have the statistics to do it, as you have shown rankings weeks after the event finishes before. - I would also suggest that you replace the FI after Samurais with a nomad event (glitch-free)

2)Construction yard:
-Make it demolishable
-Make the Prizes purchasable in the nomad and samurai shops instead of as prizes for X amount of points or top X
-Increase the effect the prizes have
-Give the Building a PO of 65 (half a castle garden)
-Get rid of this thingy (Very annoying): http://prntscr.com/a3y7ws want to be able to just click on construction and it take me to the buildings

3)Create a group of reasonable players, from a cross-section of ruby spend, preferably some of the most active players, both on the forum and the game. This will allow you to have a focus group effectively, I'm sure that players will be willing to give up some of their time each week to communicate with you, calmly and effectively, allowing you to find out how the update idea would affect the players who pay for your game!

4) Test your updates rigorously, once again, I'm sure some players would be happy to be on a duplicate server and find out what problems the update would cause, however really this is something you should be able to do in-house. Testing cannot be done too many times, you should be doing it anyway, and it shouldn't come down to your players to point out you're not.

5)Fix the problems stated above, you need people who are available over the weekend to communicate with the players, this is the time the most players are online, so there should be at least somebody at your end to communicate. Customer service needs to be a lot more efficient, you need more people in customer service, and they need to know to resolve problems quickly and effectively, making both the player and GGS happy.

6)Extend the nomads and samurais to the same length as the FIs, whatever you choose that to be, the events should be equal length, personally I think it should be 4 day long for all 3, and they should be in the same order all the time: Nomads, FI, Samurai, Nomads, FI, Samurai......

End of Essay, any suggestions for more things, post below or drop me a PM.

I'll try and go through each of your points one by one

1) We're aware that the Nomads problems caused a lot of issues as a whole, and are trying our best to figure out a way to resolve these for the players involved. I've forwarded the information regarding the Time Skips on to the team, as this seems to be a focal point of the issues.

2) a) The Construction Yard was intended to have a 'slow' adoption. The Build Items feature as a whole is quite a large addition to the game for our mid to high level players. It adds a whole new element to the game, and we wanted players to be able to slowly learn what the building does, and the capabilities of the items, slowly introducing parts here and there.

In terms of prizes, we wanted to introduce them to the current events so that players would be able to get to grips with the feature without having to actually purchase them. In hindsight however, we realize that they may have replaced some community favourites, which we'll look into.

b) Noted and suggested to the development team. I've not had a response yet, but we'll let you know when we have some more information.

c) This problem could be resolved by adding PO, as you mentioned. The reason that the Construction Yard can't be destroyed is because we intend on this feature becoming a large part of the game. Although it's in its first stages right now, there's a lot to come, and it's going to be super valuable to keep the building.

d) That comes down to limitation. There aren't so many in the game right now, so the ones available in the armorer are intended to be a bit more valuable (since they cost Rubies), and aesthetic items are a bit more expensive to keep them fresh and rare. That being said, we're analyzing the current prices and some changes could definitely come in the future.

3) We actually have a full QA team dedicated to testing updates before they go live. The problem is that we can't test the update on a live server environment until it's actually on our servers, so there may be some issues that appear here and there with the transfer. We're trying to get this improved for the future, and taking more time to resolve existing bugs.

4) No doubt, there's room for improvement, and we'll do our best to make sure this happens. Let me cover the 3 topics you noted briefly:

Customer Service: If there are specific complaints, you're always welcome to contact me about them. In terms of time constraints, that's something out of our control, unfortunately. With lots of different games and players to respond to, it can be the case that there are sometimes delays. Again, something we're working at improving.

CM's: Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it, and it's nice to know my work doesn't go unnoticed. Efficiency is something that I'm personally working on, finding better ways to get your feedback to the team. At the moment however, everything you say is being forwarded, so don't worry about that. All I'd ask from you guys in this respect though, is to ensure that ideas/criticism come in a constructive and concise manner. It makes all our lives easier

Update Warnings: In general, the times given on the forums are pretty accurate. The team are also currently looking into a way of announcing downtimes as early as possible, through the in-game service. We don't want to make this too flexible however, so that players can't organize attacks that land during the downtime.

5) Another thing that's been noted and forwarded. The events are only really shorter this time around so that we can keep the Ice Championship fresh. In the long term, they shouldn't be this short. The feedback is valid though, and will be forwarded on.

Aaaaand on to the solutions:

1) We're looking into dishing out a compensation package as soon as we can, that should hopefully get you guys up to date with any progress missed in the Ice Championship. I'm not sure that we can edit the event schedule, but it's something I've suggested.

2) Forwarded all of your suggestions! It's unlikely that we'll add the option to demolish the Construction Yard, but as time goes on you'll definitely see the benefit of having it.

3) This is one that's been suggested many times, but something that will most likely not happen. I get that the intention is good, but we really don't want to narrow down feedback like that. For one, it'd cause huge delays, having to contact an outside group every time a decision has to be made. Secondly, it'd remove a lot of the responsibility of our Game Designers, which is pretty unfair since they're professionals who do the best they can in their job. Thirdly, and most importantly, we use the feedback from the forums because of how varied it is. Any player can pop on here and forward their feedback, we don't want to be biased to any single player or group (since players mostly talk on their alliances behalf), but want to collect a range of feedback from all players that post here/submit a ticket to our team. It's also worth mentioning that we're also a data driven company, so we work off of in-game interactions and perceptions of features as well as verbal feedback across all the different languages.

4) Definitely noted. We're always trying to improve our processes, and hopefully we can iron out some larger issues in the future. As mentioned earlier though, it's sometimes difficult to perceive issues that would only occur in the live environment.

5) As with the other points, it's something that we'd like to improve on, but having weekend staff isn't planned right now. At the end of the day, we're only human, and we need our time off as much as the next person. Definitely something I'll pass on though, and something we may consider doing in the future (alternate shift plans etc)

6) The event durations are only this short right now because of the Ice Championship, to add some variety to the event. The same goes for the order of events too, if we had them in the exact same order every time, the Championship would be way too easy, and the element of surprise/fun would be removed.

I hope this answers a lot of your concerns, and as always, if there's anything you can think of that I've missed, or that you'd like expanded, please do let me know.

Have a great day, and sorry for the wall of text!

Best regards,

Steve.

Before anything I'd like to apologize for a massive massive wall of text coming up and the quoting of two messages already substantially long, but here goes.

Thoughts so far (Point by point, each one addressing both problems and solutions)

1) Nomads. Generally no debate here, as I agree with both Ang and Steve on both the problem and the solution.

2) Construction Yard. Few things to address here.
First, there is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be able to destroy it. Sure, you guys say that you have some pretty big changes involving it, and seeing the food storage increase item, I remain optimistic of its future. HOWEVER. In it's early stages, as it is in now, where there is no or little value to this building, it should be made demolishable. There is simply no reason to add this as of now because it's just a massive waste of space and PO. To balance this out and make sure no one loses on the bonuses, you can add another tab to the gems in EQ, as this is essentially gems for buildings anyway.
Second, please keep the prizes as they were. You've messed up enough in this aspect, for example replacing the 600-horror reward with a crappy "+6 troop cap on the wall" item, which tbh is not even relevant as most battles are won on the CY anyway. You want to add this in addition to my horrors, like you did for the WoF, go right ahead. But replacing the rewards wholesale is not a good idea.
Third, please work on the prices. Nothing much to say here - "They're bs as it is, please fix it"

3) Fixing bugs & testing updates. Solid point here, at this stage it seems that updates are not or barely tested, especially with the recent uproar over the nomads and construction yard and what not. I appreciate GGS's efforts with the QA team and trying to fix the bugs, but it is simply not cutting it at this point. I'm still looking forward to when the magical hotfix comes and fixes all the issues related to the game people have been complaining about here, including the decimal places, bla bla bla

4) Another fairly open-and-shut case. Hope to see improvements in all of the 3 sub-topics mentioned here

5) Weekend service. Now this is something that if it's achievable, that's great, but if not, I understand, but I think players would really appreciate some sort of shift mechanism within GGS to cater to players on weekends, where most players log on and need quick responses from CM's support teams etc. However I do understand the need for people to have free time over their weekends, frankly I wouldn't survive myself if it weren't for them. 

6) Event times. I think the Ice Championship should not be an excuse for the ridiculous ratio of FL event time to nomad + sam event time. Fine, if you want to make it balanced and what not why not reduce the time for the FLs instead of the community favorites of sams and nomads? I've also got no issue with a uniform order of events. The "element of surprise" is irrelevant the Ice Champ, when 1) You see the exact order of events in the camp screen and 2) People are just looking out for the sams and nomads where you get the most points anyway.

Ok, so that's about 30 minutes of my life I've wasted, and again apologies for the huge amount of words and sections, but this is a forum to express opinions, so deal with it

[4296807] Chris2307 (GB1) [None] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 4:47 p.m.

DolphZiggler (INT1) said:

Thanks for the information about how stuff is being forwarded Steve

A note about support (for those angry at support times), or even at the company for "we're working on things":
The company has more games than just Empire, so I imagine the team that deals with Empire is doing what it can. Adding to this point, due to the company having more than Empire to deal with, the support staff have more than just our Empire tickets complaining about things, which is why it can take a while for a response, so its not just a weekend problem.

Even so, a company should not put itself in a position where it cannot satisfactorily respond to the concerns of their customers. It's GoodGame Studios' choice to run multiple games and it is their responsibility to ensure they can deal with complaints for all of them. If they can't, then they should hire more staff to cope with the demand they have created.

In a situation where a game has been designed to be constantly played (i.e. actively rewarding activity and punishing inactivity), I think it is wrong that they do not provide (if only a skeleton service) some weekend support. It's a modern society where the traditional view of a working week is being eroded. GoodGame Studios need to be aware of the demand  they have created (and subsequent success that has come of it) and modernise to cope with it. 

Their support needs an overhaul. I don't think many people disagree with that. And with regards to our CM being ill yesterday. Of course he is entitled to time off, as we all are, but where was Goodgame Studios' contingency for this? It's severely amateur of an international company to not have back up plans in place!

[4296812] Queen Oestrogen (GB1) [None] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 4:50 p.m.

CM Arcanine said:

Hey Ang,

Cheers for condensing the feedback! It's much appreciated, and I'll take my time to go through it all and try to get responses to you on each of your points. 

Regards,

Steve.

Dear Steve

With regards to this:  http://prntscr.com/a42arb

It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to compensate us: Give us the Nomads instant alliance rewards we WOULD HAVE EARNED if the event hadn't been messed up, including all the time skips. (We already got the top 20. top 5 and Winners' rewards, so giving us those won't be necessary)

Extend the Ice Championship event and place the Nomad event BEFORE the final Foreign Invader event, so we get another chance at collecting tablets to purchase Horsetails Standards. (And, no, we don't want a measly, worthless, pathetic 2 days either. We want a decent 4 days of Nomads)

That is all! How is it taking the GGE management 5 days to think this up?! I suspect it is yet another delay tactics implemented to waste time until the end of the Ice Championship event.

Please pass this on to GGE management.

Thanks

[4296823] Chris2307 (GB1) [None] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 4:53 p.m.

Queen Oestrogen (GB1) said:

  I suspect it is yet another delay tactics implemented to waste time until the end of the Ice Championship event.

Wouldn't be the first time. I remember when the Berimond event was reset a couple of months ago. I was fobbed off and delayed by support (who were asking for proof) until the Berimond event was over. At which point I was told that there was nothing they could do about the lost gallantry points because the event had ended! 

I call it the bury-the-head-in-the-sand tactic and the support department seem to love it!

[4296854] overlord90098 (GB1) [GB1] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 5:04 p.m.

Steve you moaned at me for mentioning these people as your competitors so please look at your competitors and look at what there doing I play 2 of their games and only had 2 problems which were sorted that day and they have less of a player base then you guys and make far less money yet able to understand when people want updates or not new age wait until most people have got closer to it and its released with an video explaining it all also the events are timed and based around events in real life ( currently Valentine event ) and the rewards are great and you feel rewarded when you beat them not a sign of relief that another event's done and you can move on to the next 20. So before you steve let the dev team ignore you and the support hate us please just put up that GGE people messed up and instead of letting this happen again lets improve the game before you can't stop the people leaving 

[4296953] hamsters1 (GB1) [GB1] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 5:43 p.m.

CM Arcanine said:

ang1243 (GB1) said:

Right, let's get this condensed down to one thread shall we?

6) The event durations are only this short right now because of the Ice Championship, to add some variety to the event. The same goes for the order of events too, if we had them in the exact same order every time, the Championship would be way too easy, and the element of surprise/fun would be removed.

The running order and timings of the events that make up the ice championship are not that much of a surprise, its tiresomely easy to guess that the best event nomads is going to be far too short while the rather tedious foreign invasion is going to have at least 5 days per outing. Its about as much fun as getting a cold and there is no element of surprise.

[4296954] Conan (GB1) [None] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 5:44 p.m.

I  you angus xx

On a less serious note, I agree with everything you said.

[4296977] UltraFlavoured (GB1) [GB1] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 5:57 p.m.

I am surprised with the shear number of negative feedback directed to customer support .- Here was me thinking I was the only one.

Clearly needs a overhaul - Can cope with the demand they have created over a measly 12 games. 

Seems like the business plan for this game was skipped and it was just winged that or the recruitment team doesn't have a clue about its customers even with this statement being produced  
 'It's also worth mentioning that we're also a data driven company, so we work off of in-game interactions and perceptions of features as well as verbal feedback across all the different languages.'

What data they are looking at though certainty needs looking into.

Would love a face to face with whom ever is there spokesman. 

~Ultra

[4296978] Queen Oestrogen (GB1) [None] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 5:58 p.m.

 hamsters1 (GB1) said:  

Its about as much fun as getting a cold and there is no element of surprise.

I'm currently fending off a cold, and I can assure you it's less painful than dealing with GGE.

[4297047] ang1243 (GB1) [GB1] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 6:32 p.m.

Right, let's condense it even more into things that need to be sorted tomorrow:

Rewards given to us, all the awards we would have earned from the nomads, not just the time skips, and they need to go beyond the storage limits we have at the moment, as we would have used them if given the chance!

The last events in the Ice Championship need to be rearranged to include nomads.

@CM Arcanine I will be PMing you with a reply to your post to save space on here.

[4297170] ang1243 (GB1) [GB1] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 7:45 p.m.

My Message to Steve:
Hi Steve, 

Firstly, thank you very much for the response, I'm going to go through all the things again, I'll try not to repeat myself except on the very important parts that you've missed.

Problems:

1. Personally I see absolutely no reason why you guys shouldn’t just give us the rewards we would have received from the nomads, these should also go beyond the limit for skips mainly, as we would have used them in time if given them! I imagine the easiest way to determine how many points people got is to look at the results from the event before it glitched up, and take it from those.

a)I think that the places you have put the tokens as prizes are ok, except for the nomads and the FI, I would be happy to come up with some ideas for where to put the prizes from a player’s point of view if that helps. I would suggest extending the activity rewards in events and have them as prizes there, and slot some into the activity rewards lower down so everybody has an opportunity to get them. If the Wheel of fortune is going to continue offering the mighty crystal palace, and this is offered as a top 10 prize like the hero was last time, I can see this as nothing but a bonus for both of us by having the 1st place prize being the build tokens, as I know the ticket spending for 1st place this time was much higher than usual, so it is good for you, but it also makes it a little easier to get the hero and the decoration if you want to go for it.

b)Thank you for passing this on.

c)There is absolutely no reason why the Construction yard shouldn’t be demolishable, even if it is going to be a big part of the game later on, it should still be demolishable, doesn’t cost rubies, isn’t 100% Vital to the game mechanics, and won’t cause complaints for accidentally demolishing them any more than demolishing a granary by mistake.

d)The Point is they’re not worth the rubies they cost, simple. Has anyone bought them yet? I doubt it that’s all I’m saying  If they did it is likely they didn’t read what they do, as they are simply terrible value.

3)The system you have at the moment, quite simply doesn’t work, and now more than ever it needs reviewing, If you can’t see that then you need to look at it again, and all the problems you have had to deal with over the last 12 months, I would wager more than 80% of the big ones are down to bugs in the coding which could have been eradicated while testing. I understand the problem with live testing cannot be resolved easily, but I think you should look at finding ways to release it to a small scale amount of players or to one server before potentially unleashing bug ridden code that has many knock on effects.

4) Customer Service- I think the amount of specific complaints about this shows the extent of the problem here, It is something you guys really need to work on, and if you really are working on it then that can only be a good thing, just hope you are 

Community Management- Now, your last comment about the feedback I think has a simple solution, get some active, eager Moderators, they can convert raw feedback into concise, constructive feedback, which we all enjoy and it makes everything a whole lot easier. It seems at the moment you are running this forum by yourself, which I understand can’t be all that easy 

Update timings: I don’t see why you guys can’t announce it in game like you do on the forums, just means everybody gets it rather than just people who log into the forum, I’m not asking you to say, an update will commence in 29 minutes and 49 Seconds, it would just be helpful to have a rough idea without having to login to the forum.

5) The events aren’t just shorter because of the Ice championship, I’m talking about the difference in length between the Foreign Invasion and the nomads and samurais, they should be equal length, not constantly 5 day Foreign Invasion followed by 2 days of Samurais or nomads.

The Solutions:

1. Thanks for forwarding, could you please forward the above solution too, as it seems like the best way of doing it for both parties, and no reason why it shouldn’t be done that way.

2. Please just add the option to demolish it, no reason why you shouldn’t as stated above

3. Many many game companies have focus groups who actually play the game, personally I’d much prefer to have an update that works and is useful over having an update immediately, it should be something you seriously consider and preferably put into place.

4. Thanks for taking note

5. Weekend Staff really should be something you look into, even if it’s just to reduce the amount of hate you guys get, I imagine Support were pretty bombarded by messages over the weekend, and the Monday morning staff would have had a lot to get through, therefore causing ever lengthening delays.

6. I understand you don’t want them all to be the same order, but they kind of are at the moment anyway, we should have an equal number of each event each month, no reason why we shouldn’t the Foreign invasion comes far too often, every other event, except for that one moment of exuberation when the alliance tournament came and Foreign invasion wasn’t on for a week.

[4297202] hornby19 (GB1) [GB1] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 8:05 p.m.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=SVbaNJ11Ekw

you better listen GGE

[4297217] ang1243 (GB1) [GB1] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 8:19 p.m.

hornby19 (GB1) said:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=SVbaNJ11Ekw

you better listen GGE

http://prntscr.com/a45lgu

[4297267] Fire Devil (GB1) [None] :: Feb. 16, 2016, 8:57 p.m.

Hornby is just giving an example of what gge do to us. it will frustrate them helping them understand how we feel ang.