State of the Game - It is on us Summoners

In the recent past we have seen a significant increase in the amount of issues in the game and with the interaction between Kabam and Summoners and I wanted to take the eve of the July 4th deals to summarize as best I can some thoughts.

I have been playing this game for years (don't recall exactly how many) and have progressed my way to an officer of LOVE, a top 5/6 AQ alliance. During that time, I would say I have a good feel for the game and for the players. That said, let me be the first to admit that I do not see the entire board. I have no idea what goes on at Kabam headquarters, no idea how other players who I do not know approach the game, etc... I encourage others to chime in and let me know where I am wrong or incomplete.

The real genesis for these issues (for me at least) seems to be around the time of the parry bug appeared. I assumed it would be quickly fixed with the next patch, fix or update. As it festered the community became increasingly frustrated with the state of the game and the lack of communication from Kabam. The manner in which Kabam handled this made me wonder exactly what they thought of their customer base, aka us.

Fast forward to my own experience. One week in AQ I set Mr. F. PF's They did not stick. I got crushed. I finished the path but it cost me units and resources. Since this was a bug, I submitted a ticket. Kabam replied, in essence, saying thanks for telling us; the issue is resolved. But the issue was not resolved, I was out resources because of their mistake. I suffered because of their mistake. I was not asking for additional compensation. I simply wanted to put in the place I would have been had Kabam's mistake not occurred. After a series of emails they closed my ticket and there was nothing I could do about it. I am quite sure I am not the only one over whom Kabam has run rough shot.

This past war season the game crashed two hours before attack started. We were in the middle of setting our defense when it crashed, and could not get back in to finish before attack started. Only one defender was on the boss table. You can imagine how well we did. I posted on forum. I drew the analogy of a teacher telling you a paper was due at noon Wednesday but when you went to turn the paper in two hours before noon, the teacher decided without notice the paper was late and gave you a failing grade. I specifically tagged the discussion moderator who never replied. Our alliance did nothing wrong. It was Kabam's mistake. Did Kabam try to correct, or even acknowledge, its mistake and those players negatively impacted by its bug? You already know the answer.

Yesterday, our alliance could not get into day 5 of AQ. Several other alliances had the same issue on different days. Despite numerous forum posts all heard was, "Thanks. We are aware the gerbil died." Twelve hours of radio silence. We spent resources days 1 through 4 in an effort to achieve high results; but we went from top 6 AQ to 183. Now while this issue is still under consideration, I am not hopefully.

These are just my stories. I am sure there are others and some are likely much worse.

Good businesses, when they make a mistake, take immediate action to correct it. That correction can take many forms such as an apology or restitution or compensation. Sweeping it under the rug is rarely the best approach. Why does Kabam seem to think the broom is the proper response? Simple. We let them. Each of us have almost certainly allowed Kabam to treat us like we do not matter. The really twisted part of this is we are paying them to treat us this way. We are paying with our time and our money.

The fact that so many people still play this game is a testament to our enjoyment of what the product is, was or could be. We want the game to succeed. I, for one, am happy to pay for a good product which entertains me. But before you spend on unit deals or accept whether to believe Kabam when they promise things (i.e. rebalancing a champ will never...) ask yourself if Kabam has treated you in the manner which makes you feel appreciated for buying their product. Maybe I am alone in feeling like they do not. If I am not alone, until we demand better we can expect the same.

Comments

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MiniDoom

Since my main is seemingly silenced.. let's try again

As the leader of the same alliance, I can second these inconsistencies.

We've also had multiple issues with tiering, we show tier two support confirm we're tier two - points come in, tier 3. Lots of back and forth, generally ends in a unresolved closed ticket. This, however is an improvement, in the past I've had Spanish responses and immediately closed tickets with copy paste responses, completely unrelated to the ticket (thankfully not recently).

Vast amount of complaints I've seen from players I've played with over the years, from uncollected newer players, to veteran top 1%, and everything between. It's related to input issues currently, when historically it was more the customer service relations (which has improved somewhat).

The communications have improved, as seen with the road maps; however, when there's a serious bug, and we get complete radio silence from mods and the PR team, its far from ideal - then you wonder why players are frustrated.

Yes, we understand most these things aren't an easy fix. You've essentially built a game off a 7 year old framework, which was probably never intended to be this large. I'm also an entire rebuild isn't viable, nor likely possible whilst retaining players data. I could be wrong on this point.

Android tends to bare the grunt of most the bugs, which again, I know its something that's been addressed in the past, but no other game struggles with ensuring stable gaming experiences as much as MCOC does from what I've seen. I can play xbox games smoother on my mobile than MCOC does at times.

One serious thing that can be addressed, is the needless, unintentional prodes at players which, although innocent, does not help the relationship. There's an issue, try make sure you have a member of the team giving semi regular updates, say every hour or two. Not just pure silence.
You release or adjust champs, then decide miles down the line that they need 'adjusting' - and players just need to accept that. There's no dialogue, unless it's with the CCP of "hey guys, we're not liking this aspect, we're thinking of adjusting this, but adding this" and gauging a response; instead its hey, we don't think that's right, let's change it despite everyone investing, spending and, in many cases, ranking that specific champion to fill a specific gap in their roster.
Please.. please get your support team some customer service training, or if their outsourced, re-assess them, because some of the responses and contradictions are just beyond a joke.

The game is improving, but honestly, something needs to change in the speed and quality of the responses. **** happens, we get it. But remember, every sale is $700, we now have what? 3 sales per year plus gifting. Thats $2100 per year + gifting, unit cards, sigil and other offers - when players are that invested into a game, at least ensure the communication is there.

It's been raised by the CCP too. You have real estate in game, why are issues not broadcast, instead players are directed to the forums. Youve done banners in game before to notify players to maintenance or serious issues, why not expand on that?

MiniDoom

In short, communications and customer service can go a long way in trying to keep the player base subdued. I'm not saying compensation, today's hurt cannot be compensated with the headache and loss of sleep.

When the game is in a terrible state, and there's minimal communications, and then decisions are made, seemingly out of no where, with no prior warnings, or communications - then those minor things, will be compounded by the state of the game.

Krishna24

This is no doubt the worst state of the game, parry dex issues everywhere and AI reocvering quick after spamming specials

GOTG

Yeah defenders can recover suprisingly fast. I got parried several times when I tried to punish them. I can swear it never happened before.
And the lag. What can I say, lag is everywhere everytime. Hardly play Arena a few rounds before the game start to run extremely slow and lagging and you have to restart the phone.
Its annoying.

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DrewDoggyDogg

I would prefer they fix the issues rather then shoving new champs in our face each month. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy new content but rather a bug free game.

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