A different take on the new release

After sleeping on it, I’ve realized that as annoying the bugs are, it’s not actually what has me upset or disappointed. The lack of communication and accountability is waaaaaay more annoying than bugs.

It feels as though @KabamPinwheel drops in once a week to say something to the extent of the “the team is looking into it” but with 0 follow up, it’s up to the players to test for themselves when the fix is made- first there was 0 acknowledgment around ares final phase bug for a full day after launch, then it was 3 days without an update, he was fixed over the weekend without any form of communication until midday Monday. That is extremely poor customer communication.

For accountability, I remember @kabamcrashed coming in a couple of months ago and saying that they acknowledge the bugs at each release are unacceptable but there has been 0 communication on their current process, plan forward, timelines, etc. You have forums, discord, patch notes, and monthly livestreams to communicate with players, you know what players want to hear about and it’s not “oh we have a new daredevil deal to tie into show release” or “here’s our art approach for a character [mr. knight] that won’t be released until much later this year”. Yes these things might be important and insightful but the daredevil tie in could have been a forum / discord post (never talked about the weekly deals tied in with other shows). The art stuff is cool, maybe release a video on YouTube or twitter talking about the process. Leverage all the platforms you have, think creatively about communication channels.

Simple suggestion, take sometime during the monthly livestreams and talk to us honestly. Acknowledge the AI issues, acknowledge the bugs, acknowledge the increased monetization, etc. I can sympathize that taking accountability and acknowledging your faults in a public forum like that isn’t easy but it’s a great way to build trust with the community.

You have an extremely active and engaged community, one that other mobile games would kill for. We all WANT to love this game and will be supportive if you acknowledge your challenges and communicate what you are doing to be better.

Comments

captain_rogers

I would've agreed with you if you posted this few months ago, but atm, Kabam is doing pretty good in acknowledging bugs. They obviously can't add anything if they don't have any updates to add, but most crucial bugs are acknowledged, and followed up. They are still worse in communication compared to Mike - jax era, but they are definitely improving.

Dork though, Idk when he'll come out of his hibernation 😭😭.

YungLampshade69V2

Yeah I'm very confused by this update. They said they'd be adding something called "The Ordeal". Problem is that I can't figure out if "The Ordeal" is dealing with the bugs, trying to get Kabam to communicate with their community about bugs like a normal game dev company, or a combination of the two?

It's absolutely pitiful that a AAA game with millions of dollars of funding has to have content creators and other people update the game early every month to tell the rest of the community whether it's safe to update or not (shoutout to RichTheMan). It feels like there's very little to no QA tests being done on these updates before they release them, and yet they'd rather hide their heads in sand like ostriches rather than confront the community and own up to it.

I'd ask for compensation (which should be a given at this point), but I'd much rather them just actually fix this backwards game.

Gentsy12

I don’t think compensation is warranted nor the answer. I would love for them to fix the game but I also know that something like that doesn’t happen over night and takes time and resources.

A first step would be for Kabam to acknowledge they have issues, other than 1 post from Crashed there has been no ownership, followed up with a plan of “this is what we’re planning to do to address concerns”.

I know they stopped publishing roadmaps because they communicated things that never happened (who remembers being told wish crystals were coming?) but if they were to give us high-level view of what steps are being taken to address the key challenges players are experiencing, ideally with approximate timelines but even that may be a reach, it would be viewed as a huge win.

ahmynuts

Yeah I'm very confused by this update. They said they'd be adding something called "The Ordeal". Problem is that I can't figure out if "The Ordeal" is dealing with the bugs, trying to get Kabam to communicate with their community about bugs like a normal game dev company, or a combination of the two?

It's absolutely pitiful that a AAA game with millions of dollars of funding has to have content creators and other people update the game early every month to tell the rest of the community whether it's safe to update or not (shoutout to RichTheMan). It feels like there's very little to no QA tests being done on these updates before they release them, and yet they'd rather hide their heads in sand like ostriches rather than confront the community and own up to it.

I'd ask for compensation (which should be a given at this point), but I'd much rather them just actually fix this backwards game.

The real ordeal is finding the desire to even open this game anymore. Think I've opened it maybe a few times just to do some quick stuff and hop off

Furrymoosen

We've been talking about their communication for several months at this point and sit in an endless cycle. We talk about it enough, they acknowledge it, commit to doing better, do better for about a week, then right back where they were. And we've discussed every level of detail with it as well. They don't respond to the tougher topics, they don't follow up, Dork is literally never here, Crashed tends to do more (meaningful) work here than the community team, there's no enforcement of the rules, there's pretty much no community engagement...we can go on and on and have for quite awhile. We're back at the top of the cycle now where we are closing in on another empty commitment to do better.
At this point, I don't think it's going to change. It's been consistent since day one. The forums will delve deeper and deeper into global 3.0 until the rest of us give up and leave and then they won't even have to worry about having what little community presence is here.

I don't want to beat these guys up. They're people, and we don't know every detail of their job description. I don't want to make comparison to "the good old days" of Miike and Jax, but it's hard not to. We had engagement, we had structure and it felt like they cared.
But it's harder not to say these things because where we are now is just so incredibly disappointing when we all want to enjoy the community that's here.

PT_99

Kebem is looking into this post currently, hold on 😀

ContestOfNoobs

Kebem is looking into this post currently, hold on 😀

I’m sure they care.

Just making us wait 2 more months to finally get “valient” eq.

pseudosane

Contest and Pt, your negativity will get you nowhere.

EvilDavid666

Contest and Pt, your negativity will get you nowhere.

Fr there’s too much negativity at this point. Let’s just appreciate the hard work that goes into making this game. Thank you kabam I appreciate you

kvirr

I would've agreed with you if you posted this few months ago, but atm, Kabam is doing pretty good in acknowledging bugs. They obviously can't add anything if they don't have any updates to add, but most crucial bugs are acknowledged, and followed up. They are still worse in communication compared to Mike - jax era, but they are definitely improving.

Dork though, Idk when he'll come out of his hibernation 😭😭.

They are doing good acknowledging, but doing horrible following up.